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Biblical History and Israel’s Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History
Although scholars have for centuries primarily been interested in using the study of ancient Israel to explain, illuminate, and clarify the biblical story, Megan Bishop Moore and Brad E. Kelle describe how scholars today seek more and more to tell the story of the past on its own terms, drawing from both biblical and extrabiblical sources to illuminate ancient Israel and its neighbors without privileging the biblical perspective.
Biblical History and Israel’s Past provides a comprehensive survey of how study of the Old Testament and the history of Israel has changed since the middle of the twentieth century. Moore and Kelle discuss significant trends in scholarship, trace the development of ideas since the 1970s, and summarize major scholars, viewpoints, issues, and developments.
Biblical History and Israel’s Past provides a comprehensive survey of how study of the Old Testament and the history of Israel has changed since the middle of the twentieth century. Moore and Kelle discuss significant trends in scholarship, trace the development of ideas since the 1970s, and summarize major scholars, viewpoints, issues, and developments.
536 pages, Paperback
First published May 28, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 8, 2015
This was a beast, but worth the read. The title of this book says it all. Biblical History is something different than Israel's past. At least, that is what the general trend in OT scholarship is today. This book covers the trends in OT scholarship concerning the history of the Old Testament/Israel. It describes the different viewpoints held by scholars before the 70's and after.
One of the great things about this book is the overview of history of scholarship concerning Israel's past. Generally, this volume is descriptive in nature, and every chapter is broken up into generally the same sections covering different periods of Israel's history. For example, the reader will find a section on say, the Monarchial periods, and they will find pre-1970 scholarship and then post 1970 scholarship. Generally, this trend will be kept throughout the book.
The volume is a large volume and has a tendency to repeat itself often, sometimes at length (a paragraph or two). They probably could have made this volume shorter by cutting out the repetition. However, the intended audience for this book is the college/seminary student and the repetition could be for instructional purposes.
One of the great things about this book is the overview of history of scholarship concerning Israel's past. Generally, this volume is descriptive in nature, and every chapter is broken up into generally the same sections covering different periods of Israel's history. For example, the reader will find a section on say, the Monarchial periods, and they will find pre-1970 scholarship and then post 1970 scholarship. Generally, this trend will be kept throughout the book.
The volume is a large volume and has a tendency to repeat itself often, sometimes at length (a paragraph or two). They probably could have made this volume shorter by cutting out the repetition. However, the intended audience for this book is the college/seminary student and the repetition could be for instructional purposes.
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September 28, 2015Fantastic book. The breadth and accessibility of this overview of the current state of research is incredible. The suggested reading at the end of each chapter provides a wonderful selection of equally readable texts.
November 30, 2022
As frustrating as it is interesting. The first 200 or so pages take the OT story from Genesis through the early monarchy, noting repeatedly that (1) until the late 20th century, the biblical text was the main source for historians' study of Late Bronze and early Iron Age Palestine, with nonbiblical sources used only to try and confirm Scripture; (2) then came Van Seters, Thompson and the other minimalists starting in the '70s and '80s, claiming the text held little or no recoverable history; and (3) from the '90s on, the field has produced a middle ground with help from advances in archaeology. And yet there's almost no space devoted to specific points of contention, or the strengths and weaknesses of each side's evidence. For some reason, the chapters on the divided monarchy through the post-exilic Persian era are much richer, letting you see what the experts have been arguing about. This portion makes the book worthwhile.
The authors aren't fans of biblical maximalism, but they don't go much beyond that in taking sides. Despite the hostility between the minimalists and, say, archaeologist William Dever, himself no maximalist, who accuses Thompson et al. of "nihilism," Moore and Kelle say their disagreements are more a matter of degree than of kind. In the end, they seem to think that a solid history of the period covered by the OT can in fact be written -- but not yet.
The authors aren't fans of biblical maximalism, but they don't go much beyond that in taking sides. Despite the hostility between the minimalists and, say, archaeologist William Dever, himself no maximalist, who accuses Thompson et al. of "nihilism," Moore and Kelle say their disagreements are more a matter of degree than of kind. In the end, they seem to think that a solid history of the period covered by the OT can in fact be written -- but not yet.
July 10, 2015
Really nice overview of how thinking about The Bible as history, Biblical history and history of Israel has changed.
May 1, 2016
Really great, readable, and accessible introduction to modern scholarship's various positions on Israel's history. Lots of further reading suggestions that I will be sure to follow up on.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews