What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel

by William G. Dever

For centuries the Hebrew Bible has been the fountainhead of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Today, however, the entire biblical tradition, including its historical veracity, is being challenged. Leading this assault is a group of scholars described as the "minimalist" or "revisionist" school of biblical studies, which charges that the Hebrew Bible is largely pious fiction, that its writers and editors invented "ancient Israel" as a piece of late Jewish propaganda in the Hellenistic era.In this fascinating book noted Syro-Palestinian archaeologist William G. Dever attacks the minimalist position head-on, showing how modern archaeology brilliantly illuminates both life in ancient Palestine and the sacred scriptures as we have them today. Assembling a wealth of archaeological evidence, Dever builds the clearest, most complete picture yet of the real Israel that existed during the Iron Age of ancient Palestine (1200–600 B.C.).Dever's exceptional reconstruction of this key period points up the minimalists' abuse of archaeology and reveals the weakness of their revisionist histories. Dever shows that ancient Israel, far from being an "invention," is a reality to be discovered. Equally important, his recovery of a reliable core history of ancient Israel provides a firm foundation from which to appreciate the aesthetic value and lofty moral aspirations of the Hebrew Bible.

Genres: History, Archaeology, Religion, Biblical Studies, Nonfiction, Judaism, Christianity

327 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

William Gwinn Dever is an American archaeologist, scholar, historian, semiticist, and theologian. He is an active scholar of the Old Testament, and historian, specialized in the history of the Ancient Near East and the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah in biblical times. He was Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona in Tucson from 1975 to 2002. He is a Distinguished Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology at Lycoming College in Pennsylvania.

abridged from Wikipedia

Reviews

[A. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review: What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know it? by William G. Dever

This book is essentially a polemic against a school of thought which holds that there is nothing of historical value in the Hebrew Bible, since, according to them, these narratives date from the first couple of centuries BCE. Dever, along with most biblical scholars and Syro-Palestinian archeologists, hold the middle ground in this debate, that the Patriarchal narratives, the Exodus story, and the conquest stories in Joshua are theological constructions developed much later than the events portrayed, probably in the eighth or seventh centuries BCE. He maintains, however, there is some history in the Bible. [The third school accepts the Hebrew Bible as literally accurate.]

The excellent information here, also available elsewhere, goes into convincing detail as to why the middle—it is possible to subdivide all three schools more finely—position is logical and supported by both the Bible and archeological evidence. The reason I might caution the general reader away from this book is that the polemic , which I presume is of little interest to non-specialists, consumes about one-third of the book.

I am just starting another book by Dever, Who were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? which I expect to follow the same ground with less space spent on destroying other positions.

The book is clear and contains very valuable information.

Mr. Graziano is the author of From the Cross to the Church. The Emergence of the Church from the Chaos of the Crucifixion.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Dever, the noted archaeologist, takes on the minimalists in this slim work that takes us into the heart of the conflict between those who think that the Hebrew Bible might contain content of historical worth about Iron Age Israel, and those who loathe Western Civilization and are definitely going to hell. Just kidding. It's a good summation of the latest trends and accomplishments in the archaeology of the Southern Levant (we aren't supposed to call it 'Biblical Archaeology' any more) but I could have used a bit more of that and a little less ideology, as much as I agree with Professor Dever's opinions. On the other hand, it's always fun to watch a learned leader in his field squashing post-modernist insects.

[Ushan · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is the scholarly consensus that the first five books of the Bible are a fairy tale. There was no exodus from Egypt, no wandering through the desert, and no conquest of Canaan. What about the next five books of the Bible, Judges to 2 Kings? Dever says that there is a revisionist school of scholars who claims that they are a Hellenistic-period or even a Roman-period fabrication. Dever argues that this is impossible: there is too much archeological and linguistic evidence that these books were written during the Iron Age. 1 Samuel 13:21 mentions a "pim" as a measure of weight; archaeologists have found 42 weights from 8th-7th century Judea weighing 2/3 of a shekel; one had "pim" written on it in paleo-Hebrew characters. How would anyone several centuries later know about this obscure measure of weight? The Temple of Solomon, as described in 1 Kings, is a typical 10th-century BCE Eastern Mediterranean temple. How would someone in the Hellenistic or Roman period know about it? The later books of the Bible (Ecclesiastes, Daniel, Esther etc.) are written in a characteristic Hebrew (Daniel and Ezra also in Aramaic) with borrowings from the Persian (pitgam) and the Greek (psanterinŸ). How would a Hellenistic or Roman-era forger of the Books of Judges, Samuel and Kings manage to avoid them? The Tel Dan stele, found in Northern Israel, mentions what seems to be "The House of David"; maybe there was a united monarchy after all. Dever quotes another archaeologist to the effect that on the weight of evidence, Solomon "did not rule from the Euphrates to the Brook of Egypt, but rather from Gezer to Thamar, if not from Gibeon to Hebron. But he did exist, after all."

[EasyReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a really disappointing book. Reading this book in 2020 it comes across primarily as a polemic about schools of historical/archaeological thought at the turn of the millennium. He goes to into excruciating detail on methodology to attack the so-called "minimalists". He really has a chip on his shoulder that repeatedly intrudes on his own narrative about the promised subject of the book (and I mean to the point where I wanted to scream "I get it already!"). I pretty much agree with him that the minimalists he presents have gone too far, but I did not want to read a book about schools of thought. He also seems to think that by making tables and lists he is presenting an argument. This get really tedious, really fast.

I read this on the heels of Finkelstein and Silberman's "The Bible Unearthed" which was much more concise, focused and entertaining. It is interesting that Israel Finkelstein is one of the few "minimalists" that Devers respects even though they differ on many points. If you strip away the polemic, it is interesting to compare the two books with regard to the biggest bone of contention: the Unified Kingdom. Of course any sane person would not take a single book as, um, the Bible on this controversial topic.

[Guillermo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find some of these comments interesting like calling Dever a "minimalist" and saying that he says nothing can be known, when in fact Dever is at the other side of the argument. He agrees that a lot of the early part of the Bible comes from early Israel folklore and oral traditions, but so does every other reputable Bible scholar. But Dever does believe in some historical facts starting with the united monarchy. If you want a true minimalist argument read "The Mythic Past" by Thomas L Thompson who claims the entire thing was made up and there's no historical truths to be found in the Bible.

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN EXCELLENT SUMMATION OF CURRENT BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH

William G. Dever is an American archaeologist, specializing in the history of Israel and the Near East in Biblical times.

He wrote in the Foreword to this 2001 book, “I was reared on the Bible… where my father was a preacher in various churches… in 1960 I went to Harvard… I met Professor George Ernest Wright, who … set me on the path to a career in archaeology, starting with fieldwork under him… I served as a Congregational minister in a liberal parish… Upon graduation I went to Israel for a year… [and] fell under the spell of Rabbi-archaeologist Nelson Glueck; and stayed on for 11 years. I became director of that school, and later director of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, as well as directing excavations… I began to see how … archaeology could illuminate ancient Israel... I began to turn my attention from fieldwork to larger syntheses, especially to the possibility of a NEW style of ‘biblical archaeology.’ I also converted to Judaism during this period at least nominally---although I am not a theist, and indeed remain a secular humanist. But the Jewish TRADITION suits me in many ways… Why did I write this book? … not only to counter the ‘revisionists’ abuse of archaeology, but to show how modern archaeology brilliantly illuminates a REAL ‘Israel’ in the Iron Age, and also to help foster the dialogue between archaeology and biblical studies that I had always envisioned.”

He states in the first chapter, “the librarians in charge of the biblical corpus seem to be mostly clerics … intent upon forcing their ‘orthodox’ interpretations upon the rest of us, although no two of them agree. Or else they are academics, who seem to delight in making the Bible … accessible only through them, although I suspect that many professional biblical scholars are closet agnostics.” (Pg. 2) He warns of those he calls “revisionists” such as Philip R. Davies ['In Search of "Ancient Israel"]', saying “I wish only to acknowledge … their major questions. Is there any real ‘history’ … in the Hebrew Bible? And if not, how can we any longer write a history of ancient Israel or its religion(s) at all?... not even the most extreme ‘modernists’ in critical biblical scholarship … ever went so far as to deny any historicity to the Hebrew Bible… it reveals a disturbing trend toward what I would call nihilism… to mean ‘the denial of the existence of any basis for knowledge or truth.’ … I wish only to sound a preliminary alarm, while at the same time taking the revisionist challenge seriously.” (Pg. 4-5)

Much later, he contends, “the revisionists are nihilist not only in the historical sense, but also in the philosophical and moral sense. Hence their basic approach to the texts of the Hebrew Bible gives them away as all-too-typical postmodernists.” (Pg. 296) He admits, however, that “mainstream European biblical scholarship… has virtually given up on writing a satisfactory history of ancient Israel.” (Pg. 7)

He argues, “I would point out that nowhere that I can see does Davies document the basic premise on which his basic statement rests---that all the literature of the Hebrew Bible in its present form was composed long after the fact, and thus yields no real ‘history.’ … Davies simply asserted this, not informing his readers that his is a decidedly minority view, one that goes against a long tradition of mainstream biblical historical-critical scholarship, as well as many studies in oral transmissions and literary production… An… egregious example is Davies’ … notorious attempt … to discredit the recently discovered 9th century inscription from Tel Dan in northern Israel, mentioning the ‘house of David’ and a ‘king of Israel,’ a king we can now identify as Jehoram, ca. 840. Davies simply refuses to take the Dan inscription seriously as a historical datum for the United Monarchy… one that would effectively contradict his assertion that there were no early Iron Age Israelite and Judean ‘states.’” (Pg. 29)

He observes, “American-style ‘biblical archaeology’ reached its zenith soon after the postwar resumption of fieldwork in Palestine in the early 1950s… a series of publications by [William Foxwell] Albright, [G. Ernest] Wright, and others attracted international attention to American biblical archaeology and provoked heated controversy in Europe… Neither Albright nor Wright was a Fundamentalist (although certainly conservative by more recent standards), yet outside of America suspicions prevailed. Indeed, the misgivings were prescient; by the early 1970s biblical archaeology … was moribund, if not dead.” (Pg. 57-58)

After citing some Assyrian texts and battle-reliefs, he comments, “If we turn to the unusually long and detailed accounts of the same events in the Hebrew Bible, we are struck by how obviously they are propaganda as well. The entire account in both Kings and Chronicles is obviously shaped by the Deuteronomistic historians’ overriding ‘Jerusalem temple theology.’ … I can think of no more telling demonstration of the biblical writers’ and editors’ single-minded preoccupation with theocratic history than their rendering of the campaign of Sennacherib… It is interesting to see that these ‘bare facts’ gleaned from the biblical accounts do not necessarily contradict the version of Sennacherib’s campaign of 701 in Assyrian records.” (Pg. 169-171)

He summarizes, “It has been my contention thus far that there is a crisis in the current study of the history of ancient Israel. The implication is that this crisis should be of concern not only to theologians and clerics, but also to intelligent lay folk, and indeed to all who cherish the Western cultural tradition, which in large part derives from values enshrined in the Bible. Yet the gravity of this particular crisis can be appreciated only by seeing it as part of a larger dilemma that characterizes modern intellectual and social life in every area, particularly in the Western world.” (Pg. 245)

He states, “There WAS an ‘early Israel’; and we now know that the Hebrew Bible’s basic historical framework of an age-old cultural struggle as ‘Israelites’ sought to distinguish themselves from the Canaanites is authentic. Whatever late, tendentious, or miraculous elements there may be in the stories of Israel’s origins and emergence in Canaan, the actual multi-ethnic and socio-cultural situation of Iron 1 Palestine… is faithfully reflected in the Hebrew Bible’s overall account… Of the reigns of Saul and David… we can still say little archaeologically... Yet the revisionists’ cavalier dismissal of such early statehood is based either on arguments from silence, which further excavations will likely demolish, or on ignoring what evidence we do have.” (Pg. 267)

Dever is argumentative, to be sure; but classing him as a “fundamentalist” (as his critics sometimes do) is obviously far from the mark; whether one always agrees with him, this is an important work that will be of great interest to anyone studying biblical archaeology or the early history of Israel.

[Fred Kohn · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Sept 8, 2025] Just over a year ago I read Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? by the same author and I remember it as being excellent. In a commentary I read on Joshua recently, the commentator called Dever the dean of American biblical archaeology, although Dever makes it plain in this book that he prefers the term Syro-Palestinian archaeology. Both in the quote of Dever in the Joshua commentary and in Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? Dever makes it plain that archaeology contradicts the conquest narrative in the book of Joshua. Dever's goal in this book, is different. Here he seeks to find points of convergence between the Hebrew Bible and archaeology, rather than points of divergence (although there is some of that as well).

Really, the book reads as though it was two books rolled up into one. The central chapters focus on the archaeological finds. The early chapters and later chapters focus on the challenge that revisionists pose to what Dever sees as the proper method of doing biblical exegesis. Dever speaks of the revisionist in caustic terms, in one place calling their methods "New Age pap" and "postmodern piffle". Of the revisionists he mentions, I have only read Niels Peter Lemche. Of the three books I read, Dever himself admits that two were excellent: Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Israelite Society Before the Monarchy, and Ancient Israel: A New History of Israel. However, Dever says Lemche later repudiated the material in these two books, saying it was based too much on the Bible. The third book I read by Lemche: The Canaanites and Their Land: The Tradition of the Canaanites was written around the same time as Early Israel and Ancient Israel, so I doubt it contains material Dever would find objectionable.

In his conclusion, Dever concurs with my two books hypothesis. His first task, he says, was to focus on *methodology*, primarily to expose the poverty of the methods of the revisionists. His second task was to focus on how archaeology provides a *context* for the narratives in the Hebrew Bible (emphasis Dever's). I felt that the last chapter was an excellent summing up of both these goals.

I have to say I enjoyed the chapters about archaeological details more than I enjoyed the sometimes overbearing rants against the revisionists, postmodernists, and minimalists. I especially enjoyed the observations of what Israelite religion looks like (warts and all) from an archaeological perspective rather than a purely biblical one. Particularly fascinating was the role Asherah played in early Israelite religion. Dever quotes an 8th-century tomb inscription at Khirbet el-Qôm that he discovered:

‘Uriyahu, the Prince, this is his inscription.
May ‘Uriyahu be blessed by Yahweh,
For from his enemies he has saved him by his Asherah

[edit: Oct 2, 2025] After I read The Bible Unearthed, coauthored by Israel Finkelstein, I realized I needed to reread Dever's book. According to Finkelstein, there never was a united kingdom, and that is not how I remembered Dever saying it. When I reread this book, I discovered that my memory was correct on this point. In fact, Dever mentions his disagreement with Finkelstein at least a couple of times in his book. The main sticking point is the dating of remains at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer, which Dever dates to the late 10th century and Finkelstein dates to the early 9th century. However, I am unclear exactly what the balance of opinion is here. In one place Dever says some archaeologists say one and other archaeologists say the other. But in another place Dever says that *most* archaeologists date the remains at Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer to the 10th century and that Finkelstein is the *only* "revisionist archaeologist" that dates these remains to the 9th century. I found this last statement confusing because elsewhere Dever says that Finkelstein is not a revisionist.

In rereading the last chapter I was more disturbed by the attacks on postmodernism. Dever entitles the first subsection of the last chapter The Western Tradition and the Enlightenment Under Attack. It was not so much that I have any love for the postmodernists, but rather Dever's tendency to lump critical theory (including, I imagine, critical race theory) and gender studies in with postmodernism. They are not the same things. While I have the impression that postmodernism is on the decline, critical theory and gender studies are alive and well and, I think, have a continued role in contributing positively to the social sciences.

While Dever accuses the revisionists of being postmodernists and nihilists, I’m not sure I should trust him on this. I think I will read some of them and judge for myself. I have my eye especially on Philip R. Davies.

[Rodney Harvill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A devout Christian with a high view of scripture, I disagree with Dr. Dever’s stance on the scriptures yet respect some of the positions he takes in this book. Although he was raised in a conservative Christian household, his university education turned him into an agnostic, and this has shaped his view of the scriptures. That said, he acknowledges a kernel of truth in the Old Testament. It has become fashionable for scholars to deny the existence of ancient Israel prior to the 7th or 8th century or to deny that the ancient inhabitants of Israel/Palestine were even Israelites. In contrast, although Dr. Dever doesn’t consider the Old Testament as the inspired word of God, he argues quite convincingly that the accounts of the Davidic and northern kingdom dynasties were based on underlying historical reality. Among the points he makes are:

• Excavations at Tel Dan located an inscription mentioning a king of Israel and the House of David. Based on additional fragments, it has been dated to the reign of Joram of Judah, who reigned ca. 847-842 BC.
• Study of Iron Age pottery has identified differences in pottery between the north and the south with a demarcation line running along the Gezer-Bethel line just north of Jerusalem, consistent with the Bible’s description of the border between Judah and Israel.
• Biblical scholars have recognized differences in dialect, orthography and personal name between Judah and Israel, implying a difference in culture consistent with a political division. Because the book is focused on archaeology, Dr. Dever doesn’t make this a major part of his argument, but he does bring it up.
• 19th Dynasty pharaoh Merneptah erected a victory stele at Thebes ca. 1210 BC. Among the list of defeated peoples is “Israel,” who “is laid waste; its seed is not.” In other words, there was a people in Canaan who referred to themselves as “Israel.” While ancient kings sometimes tended to exaggerate their victories, why would they make up the existence of a people? Where is the glory in claiming to defeat an imaginary enemy?
• The design features of Solomon’s temple were very consistent with early Iron Age temples found the north of Israel. Consider the Bible’s claims that Solomon contracted with Hiram of Tyre to design and build the temple. Would the Phoenicians not use a design with which they were familiar? Even conservative biblical scholars concede that the books of the Kings and Chronicles were compiled during and/or after the Babylonian captivity, centuries after Solomon’s reign and after that temple design was no longer in use in Phoenicia and Aram. If the writers of this history were just making it up, how would they know to document a temple design from an earlier time unless they had written records and/or familiarity with Solomon’s temple.
• The city gates of Gezer, Hazor, Ashdod, Lachish and Megiddo, probably all 10th century, the time of Solomon, have very similar design. 1 Kings 9:15-17 mentions some of Solomon’s building projects, which include Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, three of these cities whose gates designs are almost identical. Dr. Dever suggests that this is evidence of a “Royal Corps of Engineers under Solomon’s highly centralized administration,” which is consistent with the biblical descriptions of Solomon’s reign.

The points listed above constitute a small sample of Dr. Dever’s arguments in support of the historical basis of the Old Testament record of Israel, exclusive of the Pentateuch and the narrative of the conquest in Joshua. While I disagree with him on the Pentateuch and Joshua, I am willing to listen to his arguments and respect his intellectual honesty in refusing to follow the crowd of scholars denying the historical Israel.

[Daniel Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Dever is a top-tier authority on the archaeology of the Ancient Near East. He is also basically an agnostic secularist who doesn't believe the Bible to be "the word of God" in any meaningful sense. But he writes this book to argue against a class of radical postmodern skeptics that "While the Hebrew Bible in its present, heavily edited form cannot be taken at face value as history in the modern sense, it nevertheless contains much history."

He makes the case that "ancient Israel" was a real geo-political entity (not a later romanticized construct of later Hellenistic Jews), and tons of archaeological work over the last century shows that its real history is reflected in many texts of the Old Testament which, even if simply religious propaganda, bear every sign of iron-age (not later Persian or Hellenistic-age) origins that witness to the plausibility of the basic Old Testament narrative in broad strokes and in many details. So as one example, he shows how archaeology testifies a degree of centralization and sophistication in Israel in the 10th-9th centuries B.C. that would demand the kind of united monarchy under David and Solomon that the Bible depicts, even if specific stories told about these characters in the Bible are ideologically embellished.

The bulk of the middle sections of this book go through the archaeology itself, but the beginning and end deal more with questions of epistemology: What archaeology can and can't tell us, what use the Bible does or does not have in historical reconstruction, and why, and how the postmodern revisionists who reject the Old Testament as having any real historical value are ideologically-driven and baseless in their radical skepticism.

As I noted, Dever is not a Christian, and not even a theist. I would have plenty to differ with him on when it comes to what the Bible is and how it's to be understood, and the presuppositions we bring to it. But this was still a fascinating dip into ancient Israelite archaeology and a helpful springboard for thinking through many of the hermeneutical issues raised by it. As an example, Dever shows that religious syncretism appears to have been even more pervasive in ancient Israel at a popular level (at least pre-600s B.C.) than the impression we might get from a surface reading of the Old Testament. Obviously, worship of other gods is something the prophets rail against and the OT doesn't try to hide, and boy does archaeology confirm that the prophets weren't just imagining things. But Dever's discussion helps illuminate the perspective from which the Biblical authors are writing and how steeped in casual paganism the normal person and wider society may actually have been.

[Anita · Rating 2 out of 5]

This looked promising, but even for a reader who likes this topic I thought it was a dusty tome.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. Less a book about archeology and more an argument against postmodern historians.

[Bob Price · Rating 3 out of 5]

William Denver is angry…and he wants you to know it. Theoretically a book about Israelite archeology and history, this volume is actually about Dever’s dislike of postmodernism and the archeological ‘minimalists’ working in the field. What the Biblical Writers Knew and When did they know it is mis titled and should be called something like Why Biblical Minimalists are Big Dumb Poopyheads .

We begin innocently enough with a survey chapter about why Dever disagrees with these scholars and what he attempts to do with his present volume. But his criticism of the other scholars never stops and as the book progresses, he becomes more petty by attacking them personally instead of engaging with their theory.

This is not to say that his volume is not without merit. He does a great job at discussing the archeological situation as it relates to the Divided Monarchy and provides keen insights into the historical record of the day. But this is one chapter… in which he continues to attack the other scholars for their postmodernism.

At one point I felt like I was reading a book that would have been written by Ron DeSantis if he was an archeologist.

I recommend this book if you would like some insight into the the current debate about Israelite history. For this, all you need to do is read the first chapter. If you want some information on Biblical archeology, just read chapter 4.

Grade: C+

[Pak455 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Około połowy tej książki jest bardzo OK -- z pozycji maksymalistycznych (minus za stronniczość), ale bardzo fachowych (plus) przedstawienie relacji między Biblią a archeologią.
Problem polega na tym, że drugą połowę książki zajmuje (i w zasadzie przesłania temat) polemika z przeciwnikami, głównie minimalistami biblijnymi, ale fachowa polemika to dla Devera o wiele za mało. Jest więc o postmodernizmie, genderyzmie, relatywistycznym zwątpieniu prowadzącym do faszyzmu -- cały ten zestaw jaki oferuje intellectual dark web -- aż do poziomu wyrzucania fizyce, że ulega zasadzie nieoznaczoności...

PS.
Z polskiej perspektywy -- Dever broni przed postmodernizmem Oświecenia. Czyli dokładnie odwrotnie, niż rodzimi konserwatyści.

[Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

a good polemic against the revisionists and their nihilistic attitude towards the biblical history

[Joshua Stager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great archaeological interpretation for a popular audience, interspersed with at least 100 pages of attacks on Revisionist scholarship.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excellent source of information about the "convergences" archaeologists have found between material remains and the OT text, which -- despite being substantially Exilic and post-Exilic, and despite its frothing bias when it comes to Hebrew and Israelite history -- has, in Dever's view, authentic Iron Age underpinnings. Feel free to skip Chapters 1-2, where Dever denounces revisionists and deconstructivists, leaning heavily on terms like "nihilsm" and "political correctness" when he should have left the job to someone more gifted in polemics. Chapter 7, where he reassures the religious that their view of the Bible can co-exist with reality-based scholarship, is a similar waste of effort. The meat is in the middle of the book, and it's well worth a nonspecialist's time.

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

A high flyover of archeology in biblical times surrounded by a critique of postmodern social science. Dever shows that postmodern archeology bankrupts itself by coming to the conclusion that, since nothing can be known, nothing of historical interest must have happened in biblical times. In contrast, he describes some of the more interesting archeological finds and how they can inform us of life in ancient Israel.

[james spellman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Iron age israel

Interesting review of some aspects of archeological data for an ancient Israel. However, much of the authors time is spent refuting the position of his academic adversaries, the revisionists who claim that the Hebrew bible and ancient Israel are contrived. He demonstrates through the use of archeological evidence, the ideology that distorts a more clear picture of iron age Israel.

[Greg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is an extended philippic on the revisionist minimalist interpretation of ancient Israelite history. Chapter 3-5 have a good summary of the state of Syro-Palestinian archaeology, circa 2000, but not what you could get elsewhere in a standard text on the archaeology of the Holy Land such as Mazar's.

[Jean-michel Pigeon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livre écrit pour Monsieur et Madame tout le monde concernant l'archéologie d'Israël antique.

[Michele · Rating 3 out of 5]

Balanced - recommend reading

[Lew]

Great book. Read backwards. Chapter 6, then 4-5, then the windy polemical first chapters.