The Quest for the Historical Israel

Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel: Invited Lectures Delivered at the Sixth Biennial Colloquium of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, Detroit, October 2005
Erscheinungsjahr 2007
ISBN: 978-90-04-15738-5
Verlag: Brill Academic Publishers

Buch, Englisch, Band 17, 222 Seiten, Format (B × H): 170 mm x 246 mm, Gewicht: 572 g

Reihe: SBL - Archaeology and Biblical Studies

Three decades of dialogue, discussion, and debate within the interrelated disciplines of Syro-Palestinian archaeology, Israelite history, and Hebrew Bible on the question of the reliability of the biblical account of Israel’s history have made a balanced articulation of the issues and their resolution a desideratum. This book brings together for the first time under one cover the currently emerging “centrist” paradigms articulated by Finkelstein and Mazar, two leading figures in the field of early Israelite history and archaeology. Articulating distinct views of Israelite history, the two perspectives presented here nevertheless share the position that the material cultural data, the biblical traditions, and ancient Near Eastern written sources are all significantly relevant to the historical quest for ancient Israel of the Iron Age. The results of their research are featured in an accessible dual-authored synthesis of the historical reconstruction of ancient Israel. The parallel histories readily facilitate comparison and contrast of the interpretations proposed by the authors.

These lectures were delivered at The Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism’s Annual Colloquium. Detroit, October 2005.

Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)

Autoren/Hrsg.

Finkelstein, Israel

Mazar, Amihai

Schmidt, Brian

Schmidt, Brian B

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Biblische Geschichte & Archäologie

Über Autor(innen)

Israel Finkelstein is Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. He is Co-director of the Megiddo Excavations and the co-author of David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible’s Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition and The Bible Unearthed, Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origins of Its Sacred Texts (both from Free Press).

Amihai Mazar is Professor of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Eleazar Sukenik Chair in the Archaeology of Israel). His ongoing projects include a series of publications in the Qedem series on the Tel Batash (Timnah) excavations and the Beth Shean Valley Archaeological Project. He is the author of Archaeology of the Land of the Bible (Anchor Bible Reference).

Brian B. Schmidt is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient West Asia at the University of Michigan. He is the author of Israel’s Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition (Eisenbrauns).