CX

ON the recommendation of some helpful IIer I have purchased and begun reading Israel Finkelstein's "The Bible Unearthed". I wanted to solicit the opinion of those here who have read it. Critics claim that Finkelstein is a "minimalist" but that doesn't appear to be strictly the case from what I've read so far. In fact in the book the authors make a point of differentiating their position from that of the genuine "minimalists" who posit that the entire biblical corpus was written in post-exilic times as fanciful priestly literature that is entirely fictional. What are the primary objections of critics here to Finkelstein's thesis?

Kosh

I'm on page 200 right now myself. YOu can't beat
the price on that book, huh?

I find his arguments very convincing. He carefully leads you through the reasoning and explains the findings in layman terms. As always, as observers on the sidelines, we are forced to accept the archeological assertions at face value. Ie, we must believe them when they say what the discoveries mean. This however, is the same thing required for any reading on a topic... you have to accept the expert because you can't do the research yourself.

I had planned on starting a topic about this somewhere along the lines of "King Josiah: biggest con man in history?". If Finkelstein is correct, and I do find his arguments compelling, then K. Josiah has had a hand the biggest social and political scam in history. Heck, it IS history.


The accusations of him being a "minimalist" seem to be more an attack than anything else. He's presenting what the science reveals. That it contradicts what the Fundies want does not change the fact. If the evidence shows that "minimalism" is true, then I fail to see how labeling someone a "minimalist" is a refutation of the findings. From what I can tell, the term "minimalist" simply means that you don't believe the myths and fabrications of the OT.

BTW, I had grown rather fond lately of the term "Ignorant Bronze Age Goat Herders" to refer to the ancient israelites who started the myth. However, even if the events (the patriarchal stories adn the exodus) were claimed to happened during the bronze age, but were actually written during the reign of King Josiah (7th century BCE) in the iron age, should I modify the term?

[ June 12, 2002: Message edited by: Kosh ]</p>

Kosh

Here's an <a href="http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2001/02/07/solomon/index.html" target="_blank">online review</a>

David Bowden

I read TBU last year after finding it recommended in an Archaeology magazine, and was impressed. I agree with Kosh's review above. Critics who call the book's content "minimalist" are just poisoning the well. The science is apparently as airtight as archaeology can get, and the presentation of his findings is very clear.

TBU does not engage in anti-religious vitriol or "debunking" so much as the presentation of facts in context which make necessary a re-evaluation of the historical claims of the OT. I think it fits in very well with Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? btw.

I'm not up to speed on what the critical professional response has been to TBU, but since Friedman is an established and respected leader in his field, with personal experience at several of the sites he refers to, I can't imagine that there'd be much to fault him on, unless it he's been selective with his data - something I'm unable to determine as a layman.

For what it's worth, this came from an Amazon.com review:

"Should the reader not find full agreement with the authors' final conclusions, he or she will have the data available to express this disagreement, especially since the authors place their arguments in the context of what is believed by both majority and minority scholarly opinions. They provide an excellent summary of the opposing arguments; summaries that are fair and complete. Too often people are quick to dismiss Finkelstein as a "biblical minimalist" because these readers are often misinformed or have misread Finkelstein's work. In "The Bible Unearthed," Finkelstein and Silberman are clear to disassociate themselves from the biblical "minimalists" while affiming the questions that they raise, questions that even the most "maximalist" scholar must honestly deal with in light of the paucity of archaeological evidence associated with the time of the ancestors through the rise of the Omride dynasty in 9th century Israel."

Nah. Those myths probably existed in some form way back before they were recorded and adapted for Josiah's use.

-Wanderer

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butswana

I am almost done reading it(currently digging through a the appendixes). It's pretty balanced. They don't totally discount the OT. I found it highly informative and enjoyable.
A couple of people that I've used the book as a reference on claimed the authors were just God-hating atheists. I then dropped the bomb that they are Jews. Shut the ignorant bastards right up.

godfry n. glad

I'm not exactly sure who has labelled Finklestein a "minimalist", or even what the term actually means or how it is accurately applied, but Finkelstein and Silberman did go out of their way to disassociate themselves with those scholars who have been so labelled.

Yet, one of the leading lights of those dubbed "minimalist" has included Finklestein's work in the corpus which supports the contentions of the Copenhagen School of "minimalists" with regards to the bulk of the Tanakh being mythic in nature, rather than an historic chronicle. For more information on this and what looks to be a brewing brouhaha over name-calling in the scholarly professions, see: <a href="http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/copenhagen.htm" target="_blank">www.bibleinterp.com/articles/copenhagen.htm</a>

(That Hershel Shanks...what a kidder, eh? Calling anyone who disagrees with his favored interpretation an anti-Semite, even if they happen to be Jewish, as well as the chairman of the Archeology Department at Tel Aviv University.)

So, though not a self-described "minimalist", Finklestein's work seems to support earlier contentions made by the "minimalists".

So, where do these labels come from and what do they mean?

godfry n. glad

CX

As far as I know the so-called "minimalist school" is the group of scholars that assert that the entire Tanakh is a fiction composed by priests in post-exilic times (after 583 BCE). As to where the term comes from it's an epithet coined by opponents of that school of thought as far as I know.

Radcliffe Emerson

I have the book, but haven't started reading it yet. Right now I'm still finishing a book about Jesus by the Jesus Seminar, plus reading a book called Defending Secular Humanism. When I get those done, I may start the Unearthed book.

RyanS2

I read Israel Finkelstein's book, and was highly impressed. While I tend to think that most of the Bible is written after the time period it is talking about, I have a hard time thinking the whole thing is happening roughly 500 to 700 years later than the events it purports to find.

The book confirms what most of us would consider common sense. The more extravagant parts of the Bible are false, the simple and more elementary parts of it are true. Minimalists is just a general name applied to anyone who questions the historical validity of the Bible. The far-side states that everything in the Bible is post-exelic, maintained through oral memory, and from there it varies in how far it goes. Some state that certain simple Bible stories were written and from an older age, while others are extremely late. (E.g. Esther is dated to the first and second century BCE). Finkelstein would have to be a new camp called the "moderatist" in comparison with the two other spectrums.

Vorkosigan

A work widely considered minimalist is T. Thompson's:
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465006493/internetinfidelsA/" target="_blank">The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel</a>. I enjoyed it very much. He's also been labeled an anti-Semite in the Jewish press, along with the whole Copenhagen school. Sad.

Read him after you read Finkelstein and you can get a sense of how normal, how measured, how conservative in its methodology TBU really is.

Vorkosigan

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