ceinwyn

I'm almost finished with this book and I'm simply amazed. I've learned so much from it, I'm seriously stunned. The Exodus never occurred. Abraham and Moses probably didn't exist. David and Solomon were petty kings amongst sheepherders.

Reading about how Judah denigrated much of Israel's history and then co-opted it...fascinating.

Oh, and the Omrides? All I can say is, poor Jezebel.

Ok anyways, it's a great book and I'm learning a lot from it. Yay archaeology!

Doctor X

It is a great book. I question their justification for historical David and Solomon . . . but everyone is a critic!

--J.D.

gregor

I assume you mean:

Finkelstein & N.A. Silberman, 2001, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts?

Or is there a new one out with a similar name

Toto

Bible Unearthed

Randy X

Stupid question time: did anyone in the bible actually live on this earth?

Sincerely,

Christ

ceinwyn

Yes, the title is actually "The Bible Unearthed". Sorry, must've had a brainfart there. Happens a bit too often these days, in my old age.

Re Christ's question: the book seems to think that quite a few characters from the bible lived, just not in the situations that are commonly accepted.

Then again, check Doctor X's response...so who knows, really!

Jabu Khan

Maybe but I wouldn't trust the dates or anything else for that matter.

Randy X

Sorry for going off-topic. I just had to ask that question.

Sincerely,

Christ

Nom

I polished The Bible Unearthed off last week; a good read, IMHO, but a bit inaccessable. It could have used some more background on archeology -- some explanation of things like dating by stratification -- not to mention a few more maps. You tend to get lost fairly quickly among the many towns and cities of Israel and Judah. But the basic message (that the OT is pretty much all fiction) is clear. It's also kind of depressing, in that it makes clear that people are endlessly willing to rewrite history when their vision of the end of the world/God's kingdom fails to arrive, versus admitting they're full of ca-ca.

The one thing the book mentions that piqued my interest but that it didn't go into was the big dollop of social justice built into the OT (pp. 285-87). F&S present this as something new and different; has anyone ever written anything examining whether it really was, and if so, where it came from?

Godless Wonder

It happens that I just got this book last week, and I'm still reading it. One thing that bugs me about it is that there are some pictures in there that are supposed to be artifacts depicting for example Egyptians fighting the "Sea People" etc, and they aren't photos of those artifacts, or 19th century style etchings, they're fairly crude line drawings. That bugs me.

Another bit that bugs me . . . there's a bit about a scrap of some artifact which is supposed to show that so-and-so killed thus-and-such, a "stele" and there's so
much in brackets, and this is hardly mentioned. (I'm making this example below up, I don't have the book in front of me)
It's something like:

[and then King Rehoab]ram killed [kin]g so-an[d-so and turned their city to du]st forever and ever.

And you're sitting there thinking, "What the --- what do the brackets mean? Is that the part they filled in?

I think it's a good book but, I think it could have been a lot better, with more photos, and more explanation of the archaeology.

Also, at times, it appears to get a bit repetitious and tedious. It's tough to keep the narratives which are archaeologically supported separated in your mind from those which are summaries of what's in the Bible. And it's tough to evaluate the strength of the archaeological support fo many of the claims as well. The case appears to my untrained mind to be rather well made that the Pentateuch we have today has it's written origins in the 7th century BCE, and that the Exodus never actually happened.