In the March/April 2001 volume of Biblical Archaeology Review (BAR), William G. Dever (a well-known archaeologist) reviewed The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil A. Silberman. The review was rather less than glowing with good reason.

Richard Carrier apparently took offense at Dever's review and sent a nasty letter (below the review) to BAR which he also posted to the SecWeb a while back.

I, personally, never thought his letter would get published. However, I received the newest issue of BAR today in the mail. Lo and behold, there was his letter along with a response from Dever. You can find them both on BAR's Website (other letters to Dever w/his responses can also be found there), but for convenience I will provide Dever's response here:

William Dever responds:

"I count 30 scholars mentioned in the text of The Bible Unearthed (not the appendices), and there is not a single footnote providing the title of a published work, much less a page reference. I congratulate Mr. Carrier on tracking down the authors' sources; few of the non-academic readers for whom the book is intended will be so persistent or so lucky. And if he does not perceive the authors' ideological agenda, that is only because he does not know the larger archaeological discussion in Israel today."

Dever's response was much more cordial than Carrier's, but he made no bones about Carrier's apparent lack of knowledge in current archaeological affairs.

Ish


[This message has been edited by Ish (edited June 27, 2001).]

Toto

Dever's response was cordial but non-responsive to most of Carrier's points, as well as to the criticisms of two other letters. He only alludes to the "larger archaeological discussion in Israel today", implying that archeology is (or should be) a mere tool of politics.

But thanks for posting this update.

Vorkosigan

Ish, have you read it yet? It's really quite good. Accessible, well-written, and devastating to the OT.

Michael

Bede

The maze of archaeology in Israel is certainly impossible to understand without tying in modern politics. Basically it works like this:

Conservative archaeology is intended to provide a historical basis for the state of Israel occupying the area that it does. Hence the aim is to find evidence of Jewish occupation and rule over a long period of time to legitimise the present Jewish occupation and rule.

Liberal archaeology is intended to undermine the historical claims of the legitamacy of Israel by showing that no such long term Jewish rule or even occupation actually took place. By showing other peoples have as much or more historic right to the land as the Jews it hopes to foster co operation rather than domination.

These two groups find allies with Christian and secular thought respectively in the US. As Carrier is both a liberal and a secularist his firm affirmation for one side should surprise no one. For the outsider the combination of religion and politics makes clear information almost impossible to come by. As I'm a liberal and a Christian it makes my head hurt.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Toto

Bede - my head is starting to hurt too. The "liberals" are not denying that Israel has been around for a long time. (Longer than Greece or Bulgaria, much longer than Turkey or any Arabic state, I would think.) They are only undermining the possibility of the Bible being even a vaguely accurate chronicle of early events.

And why should Christians who claim not to be fundamentalists (so their faith should not be shaken if the OT turns out not to be literally true) want to support an interpretation of history that leads to conflict and possibly WWIII?

Are you saying that the truth is not out there? That no one just wants to find out what happened?

Tercel

Toto, non-fundamentalist does not necessarily equal mythist. I am not a fundamentalist, yet I would be extremely worried if the majority of events in the OT could be shown to be historically false.

Um... because we want to know the truth. Believing something to be true simply because the consequences are better, with no regard for actual truth is simply pathetic. A thing is true (or false) whether or not we would like it to be.

Toto

Tercel, meet Bede.

Bede claimed that people were lining up behind different archeological theories based on their ideology, and noted that Christians were behind the conservative archeologists. I asked why Christians would then follow a theory that seemed designed to lead to conflict, and Tercel edited out half of my statement and claimed that Christians were only interested in the "truth", although if the Bible turned out not to be mostly historically true, he would be "worried."

So which is it? And who is pathetic?

Koyaanisqatsi

You mean, like, oh...I don't know...Jesus is God just because a handful of anonymous, biased authors from two thousand years ago claim he was God based on events they did not witness and could not attest to, but do so anyway as if they were actually there and actually heard what was said, at least forty to fifty years after his alleged death?

Or, like, believing the Bible is true because the Bible says the Bible is true?

Are those the kinds of things you're referring to?