Abstract
I received this book with great expectations as I regularly teach a course on the history of Ancient Israel and often look for new material to assign as secondary reading.
This anthology falls into four main sections and a concluding article written by the editor. Section 1 deals with issues of methodology, and the ten chosen articles are of a consistently high quality. Many of them debate the correct use of biblical and Ancient Near Eastern written sources for reconstructing the history of Ancient Israel: to what extent can we penetrate beyond their ideological constructs and establish the facts ‘on the ground’? Other articles focus more on how to use archaeological data correctly, with a focus on their advantages and limitations. The following sections zoom in on three key time periods, with the studies in Section 2 discussing the (lack) of historicity of the Exodus narrative, the book of Joshua and the book of Judges. A larger set of essays investigates the similarly meagre archaeological data that support a monarchy under the rule of Saul, David and Solomon, yet the possibility that these three men may be historical characters is seldom excluded. The articles in the much smaller remaining sections consider the arguments for and against the historicity of Josiah’s reform and that of the rebuilding of the city wall in the fifth century
After having read the book, I am less optimistic of its suitability for my course for two reasons. First, I found the selected material to be somewhat one-sided. Although different viewpoints are represented, including some rather extreme ones, and although there is a good combination of biblical scholars and archaeologists, at times I detected a bias towards ‘minimalist’ scholars who attribute relatively little historical value to the biblical texts. In contrast, the corresponding ‘maximalist camp’ is represented by a book review. Other articles might have advocated this scholarly position better. Likewise, the ‘annotated bibliographies’ often comprise a surprisingly narrow selection of authors. In addition, I want my students to encounter a diverse scholarly community: here, however, 25 of the 27 essays are written by white males, with some of the authors (including Ernst Axel Knauf and Nadav Na’aman, as well as Grabbe himself) responsible for more than one essay. On the positive side, the selected authors represent a good mix of predominantly European and Israeli contributors. Second, the price tag is a deterrent. This is exactly the kind of book that I would like to encourage my students to buy, yet I do not have students who can afford it. In my view, a slimmer paperback with a selection of up to 20 articles would have been significantly more useful for teachers and students alike.