Understanding the History of Ancient Israel by Williamson, H. G. M.;

Short description:

In popular presentation, some treat the Bible as a reliable source for the history of Israel, while others suggest that archaeology has shown that it cannot be trusted at all. This volume debates the issue of how such widely divergent views have arisen and will become an essential source of reference for the future.

Long description:

In recent years the study of the history of Ancient Israel has become very heated. On the one hand there are those who continue to use the Bible as a primary source, modified and illustrated by the findings of archaeology, and on the other there are some who believe that primacy should be given to archaeology and that the Biblical account is then seen to be for the most part completely unreliable in historical terms.

This volume makes a fresh contribution to this debate by inquiring into the appropriate methods for combining different sorts of evidence-archaeological, epigraphical, iconographical, as well as Biblical. It also seeks to learn from related historical disciplines such as classical antiquity and early Islamic history, where similar problems are faced. The volume features contribution from a strong team of internationally distinguished scholars, frequently in debate with each other, in order to ensure that there is a balance of opinion. Chapters focus on the ninth century BCE (the period of the Omri dynasty) as a test case, but the proposals are of far wider application. The result is a work which brings together in mutually respectful dialogue the representatives of positions which are otherwise in danger of talking across one another.

This volume will be essential reading for students and scholars of the Bible, as well as being of great interest to all for whom the Bible is a work of fundamental importance for religion and culture.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction


• Setting the Scene: A Brief Outline of Histories of Israel


• Setting the Scene: A Response to John Rogerson


• The History of Ancient Israel: What Directions Should We Take?


• Biblical Israel in the Ninth Century?


• Some Recent Issues in the Study of the History of Israel


• Classical History: A Sketch, with Three Artefacts


• Early Islamic History: Parallels and Problems


• Ancient Near Eastern History: The Case of Cyrus the Great of Persia


• Archaeology of the Biblical Period: On Some Questions of Methodology and Chronology of the Iron Age


• The Spade and the Text: The Interaction between Archaeology and Israelite History Relating to the 10th-9th centuries BCE


• Neither Eyewitnesses, nor Windows to the Past, but Valuable Testimony in its own Right


• Akkadian Sources of the Ninth Century


• Neo-Assyrian and Israelite History in the Ninth Century: The Role of Shalmaneser III


• West Semitic Inscriptions and 9th Century BCE Ancient Israel


• Method in the Application of Biblical Source Material to Historical Writing (With Particular Reference to the Ninth Century BCE)


• Reading Kings on the Divided Monarchy: What Sort of Narrative?


• Social History of Ancient Israel


• Law in the 9th Century: Jehoshaphat's 'Judicial Reform'


• The Northern Kingdom in the Late Tenth-Ninth Centuries BCE