The Bible Unearthed

 

If you want to know what a leading Israeli archaeologist has to say about the stories told in the Hebrew Bible, you can make a good start by listing to a 26-part conversation with Israel Finkelstein, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. These half-hour conversations, conducted by Matthew J. Adams of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, are directed at interested laymen, and I highly recommend them. Finkelstein's book, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, written with Neil Asher Silberman, is a thoroughly enjoyable read.

You already realize that the biblical stories are fiction (with a smattering of historical references), but these conversations will fill out your understanding in eye-opening ways. The important matters -- such as the patriarchs, the Exodus from Egypt, the conquest of Canaan, the fate of the united kingdom, and the separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah -- are all covered. The upshot is that, in light of the fact that the Bible was a product of human beings, these stories were formulated and redacted over many years with a particular purpose in mind, a purpose that related to the power of monarchs, kingdoms, and empires. In carrying out that purpose, the biblical storytellers taught that the many catastrophes that befell the Children of Israel -- the military defeats and the conquests of the kingdom of Israel to the Assyrians and the kingdom of Judah to the Babylonians -- were purely the results of the Israelites' own willful defiance of Yahweh's laws. The prophets' repeated dire warnings that these disasters would happen were never heeded for long -- if they were heeded at all. 

The fundamental lesson: to keep their tribal god on their side, the Children of Israel, including their kings, must faithfully obey all the laws set out and reiterated in the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible. In sum, Yahweh, the self-described "jealous god," will not tolerate an unfaithful flock.

Enthusiastically recommended!

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