Author: Keith W. Whitelam
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131779916X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
The Invention of Ancient Israel shows how the true history of ancient Palestine has been obscured by the search for Israel. Keith W. Whitelam shows how ancient Israel has been invented by scholars in the image of a European nation state, influenced by the realisation of the state of Israel in 1948. He explores the theological and political assumptions which have shaped research into ancient Israel by Biblical scholars, and contributed to the vast network of scholarship which Said identified as 'Orientalist discourse'. This study concentrates on two crucial periods from the end of the late Bronze Age to the Iron Age, a so-called period of the emergence of ancient Israel and the rise of an Israelite state under David. It explores the prospects for developing the study of Palestinian history as a subject in its own right, divorced from the history of the Bible, and argues that Biblical scholars, through their traditional view of this area, have contributed to dispossession both of a Palestinian land and a Palestinian past. This contoversial book is important reading for historians, Biblical specialists, social anthropologists and all those who are interested in the history of ancient Israel and Palestine.
The Invention of Ancient Israel
Author: Keith W. Whitelam
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131779916X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
The Invention of Ancient Israel shows how the true history of ancient Palestine has been obscured by the search for Israel. Keith W. Whitelam shows how ancient Israel has been invented by scholars in the image of a European nation state, influenced by the realisation of the state of Israel in 1948. He explores the theological and political assumptions which have shaped research into ancient Israel by Biblical scholars, and contributed to the vast network of scholarship which Said identified as 'Orientalist discourse'. This study concentrates on two crucial periods from the end of the late Bronze Age to the Iron Age, a so-called period of the emergence of ancient Israel and the rise of an Israelite state under David. It explores the prospects for developing the study of Palestinian history as a subject in its own right, divorced from the history of the Bible, and argues that Biblical scholars, through their traditional view of this area, have contributed to dispossession both of a Palestinian land and a Palestinian past. This contoversial book is important reading for historians, Biblical specialists, social anthropologists and all those who are interested in the history of ancient Israel and Palestine.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131779916X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290
Book Description
The Invention of Ancient Israel shows how the true history of ancient Palestine has been obscured by the search for Israel. Keith W. Whitelam shows how ancient Israel has been invented by scholars in the image of a European nation state, influenced by the realisation of the state of Israel in 1948. He explores the theological and political assumptions which have shaped research into ancient Israel by Biblical scholars, and contributed to the vast network of scholarship which Said identified as 'Orientalist discourse'. This study concentrates on two crucial periods from the end of the late Bronze Age to the Iron Age, a so-called period of the emergence of ancient Israel and the rise of an Israelite state under David. It explores the prospects for developing the study of Palestinian history as a subject in its own right, divorced from the history of the Bible, and argues that Biblical scholars, through their traditional view of this area, have contributed to dispossession both of a Palestinian land and a Palestinian past. This contoversial book is important reading for historians, Biblical specialists, social anthropologists and all those who are interested in the history of ancient Israel and Palestine.
A Concise History of Ancient Israel
Author: Bernd U. Schipper
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 1646020278
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
The history of biblical Israel, as it is told in the Hebrew Bible, differs substantially from the history of ancient Israel as it can be reconstructed using ancient Near Eastern texts and archaeological evidence. In A Concise History of Ancient Israel, Bernd U. Schipper uses this evidence to present a critical revision of the history of Israel and Judah from the late second millennium BCE to the beginning of the Roman period. Considering archaeological material as well as biblical and extrabiblical texts, Schipper argues that the history of “Israel” in the preexilic period took place mostly in the hinterland of the Levant and should be understood in the context of the Neo-Assyrian expansion. He demonstrates that events in the exilic and postexilic periods also played out differently than they are recounted in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. In contrast to previous scholarship, which focused heavily on Israel’s origins and the monarchic period, Schipper’s history gives equal attention to the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, providing confirmation that a wide variety of forms of YHWH religion existed in the Persian period and persisted into the Hellenistic age. Original and innovative, this brief history provides a new outline of the historical development of ancient Israel that will appeal to students, scholars, and lay readers who desire a concise overview.
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 1646020278
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128
Book Description
The history of biblical Israel, as it is told in the Hebrew Bible, differs substantially from the history of ancient Israel as it can be reconstructed using ancient Near Eastern texts and archaeological evidence. In A Concise History of Ancient Israel, Bernd U. Schipper uses this evidence to present a critical revision of the history of Israel and Judah from the late second millennium BCE to the beginning of the Roman period. Considering archaeological material as well as biblical and extrabiblical texts, Schipper argues that the history of “Israel” in the preexilic period took place mostly in the hinterland of the Levant and should be understood in the context of the Neo-Assyrian expansion. He demonstrates that events in the exilic and postexilic periods also played out differently than they are recounted in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. In contrast to previous scholarship, which focused heavily on Israel’s origins and the monarchic period, Schipper’s history gives equal attention to the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, providing confirmation that a wide variety of forms of YHWH religion existed in the Persian period and persisted into the Hellenistic age. Original and innovative, this brief history provides a new outline of the historical development of ancient Israel that will appeal to students, scholars, and lay readers who desire a concise overview.
Revealing the History of Ancient Palestine
Author: Keith W. Whitelam
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351260383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
This volume is part of the Changing Perspectives sub-series, which is constituted by anthologies of articles by world-renowned biblical scholars and historians that have made an impact on the field and changed its course during the last decades. This volume offers a collection of seminal essays by Keith Whitelam on the early history of ancient Palestine and the origins and emergence of Israel. Collected together in one volume for the first time, and featuring one unpublished article, this volume will be of interest to biblical and ancient Near Eastern scholars interested in the politics of historical representation but also on critical ways of constructing the history of ancient Palestine.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351260383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Book Description
This volume is part of the Changing Perspectives sub-series, which is constituted by anthologies of articles by world-renowned biblical scholars and historians that have made an impact on the field and changed its course during the last decades. This volume offers a collection of seminal essays by Keith Whitelam on the early history of ancient Palestine and the origins and emergence of Israel. Collected together in one volume for the first time, and featuring one unpublished article, this volume will be of interest to biblical and ancient Near Eastern scholars interested in the politics of historical representation but also on critical ways of constructing the history of ancient Palestine.
The History of Ancient Palestine from the Palaeolithic Period to Alexander's Conquest
Author: Gösta Werner Ahlström
Publisher: Burns & Oates
ISBN:
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 1032
Book Description
Publisher: Burns & Oates
ISBN:
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 1032
Book Description
The Emergence of Israel in Ancient Palestine
Author: Emanuel Pfoh
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134947755
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Taking advantage of critical methodology for history-writing and the use of anthropological insights and ethnographic data from the modern Middle East, this study aims at providing new understandings on the emergence of Israel in ancient Palestine and the socio-political dynamics at work in the Levant during antiquity. The book begins with a discussion of matters of historiography and history-writing, both in ancient and modern times, and an evaluation on the incidence of the modern theological discourse in relation to history and history-writing. Chapter 2 evaluates the methodology used by biblical scholars for gaining knowledge on ancient Israelite society. Pfoh argues that such attempts often apply socio-scientific models on biblical narratives without external evidence of the reconstructed past, producing a virtual past reality which cannot be confirmed concretely. Chapter 3 deals with the archaeological remains usually held as clear evidence of Israelite statehood in the tenth century BCE. The main criticism is directed towards archaeological interpretations of the data which are led by the biblical narratives of the books of Judges and Samuel, resulting in a harmonic blend of ancient literature and modern anthropological models on state-formation. Chapter 4 continues with the discussion on how anthropological models should be employed for history-writing. Socio-political concepts, such as chiefdom society or state formation should not be imposed on the contents of ancient literary sources (i.e., the Bible) but used instead to analyse our primary sources (the archaeological and epigraphic records), in order to create a socio-historical account. The final chapter attempts to provide an historical explanation regarding the emergence of Israel in ancient Palestine without relying on the Bible but only on archaeology, epigraphy and anthropological insights. This Israel is not the biblical one. This is the Israel from history, the one that the modern historian aims at recovering from the study of ancient epigraphic and archaeological remains. The arguments presented challenge the idea that the biblical writers were recording historical events as we understand this practice nowadays and that we can use the biblical records for creating critical histories of Israel in ancient Palestine. It also questions the existence of undisputable traces of statehood in the archaeological record from the Iron Age, as the biblical images about a United Monarchy might lead us to believe. Thus, drawing on ethnographic insights, we may gain a better knowledge on how ancient Levantine societies functioned, providing us with a context for understanding the emergence of historical Israel as a major highland patronate, with a socio-political life of almost two centuries. It is during the later periods of ancient Palestines history, the Persian and the Graeco-Roman, that we find the proper context into which biblical Israel is created, beginning a literary life of more than two millennia.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134947755
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257
Book Description
Taking advantage of critical methodology for history-writing and the use of anthropological insights and ethnographic data from the modern Middle East, this study aims at providing new understandings on the emergence of Israel in ancient Palestine and the socio-political dynamics at work in the Levant during antiquity. The book begins with a discussion of matters of historiography and history-writing, both in ancient and modern times, and an evaluation on the incidence of the modern theological discourse in relation to history and history-writing. Chapter 2 evaluates the methodology used by biblical scholars for gaining knowledge on ancient Israelite society. Pfoh argues that such attempts often apply socio-scientific models on biblical narratives without external evidence of the reconstructed past, producing a virtual past reality which cannot be confirmed concretely. Chapter 3 deals with the archaeological remains usually held as clear evidence of Israelite statehood in the tenth century BCE. The main criticism is directed towards archaeological interpretations of the data which are led by the biblical narratives of the books of Judges and Samuel, resulting in a harmonic blend of ancient literature and modern anthropological models on state-formation. Chapter 4 continues with the discussion on how anthropological models should be employed for history-writing. Socio-political concepts, such as chiefdom society or state formation should not be imposed on the contents of ancient literary sources (i.e., the Bible) but used instead to analyse our primary sources (the archaeological and epigraphic records), in order to create a socio-historical account. The final chapter attempts to provide an historical explanation regarding the emergence of Israel in ancient Palestine without relying on the Bible but only on archaeology, epigraphy and anthropological insights. This Israel is not the biblical one. This is the Israel from history, the one that the modern historian aims at recovering from the study of ancient epigraphic and archaeological remains. The arguments presented challenge the idea that the biblical writers were recording historical events as we understand this practice nowadays and that we can use the biblical records for creating critical histories of Israel in ancient Palestine. It also questions the existence of undisputable traces of statehood in the archaeological record from the Iron Age, as the biblical images about a United Monarchy might lead us to believe. Thus, drawing on ethnographic insights, we may gain a better knowledge on how ancient Levantine societies functioned, providing us with a context for understanding the emergence of historical Israel as a major highland patronate, with a socio-political life of almost two centuries. It is during the later periods of ancient Palestines history, the Persian and the Graeco-Roman, that we find the proper context into which biblical Israel is created, beginning a literary life of more than two millennia.
The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective
Author: Robert B. Coote
Publisher: Sheffield Phoenix Press Limited
ISBN: 9781906055455
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This highly original study takes a panoramic view of history in order to set the emergence of Israel in the broadest possible perspective. It begins with a study of the nature of historywriting and the increasing problems involved in utilizing the biblical text for historical reconstruction. The authors suggest an alternative approach which assigns priority to interpreting archaeological data within a broad interdisciplinary framework. The book provides a broad overview of settlement patterns and social relations throughout Palestinian history from the middle of the third millennium BCE to the present day in order to illustrate how the emergence of Israel in the early Iron Age fits into the march of time. Archaeological evidence for the appearance of dispersed settlements in the highlands and steppes of Palestine at the beginning of the early Iron Age followed by the rapid centralization of this area suggests that Israel emerged within Palestine in response to the decline in east Mediterranean trade at the end of the Late Bronze Age. The development of an Israelite monarchy is seen as being inextricably linked to the factors involved in Israel's emergence-as distinct from much previous research which has presented the monarchy as alien to the origins of Israel. This volume is a reprint of the 1987 edition with a new preface by Robert B. Coote and Keith W. Whitelam setting the work in the context of recent debates on the history of ancient Israel.
Publisher: Sheffield Phoenix Press Limited
ISBN: 9781906055455
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
This highly original study takes a panoramic view of history in order to set the emergence of Israel in the broadest possible perspective. It begins with a study of the nature of historywriting and the increasing problems involved in utilizing the biblical text for historical reconstruction. The authors suggest an alternative approach which assigns priority to interpreting archaeological data within a broad interdisciplinary framework. The book provides a broad overview of settlement patterns and social relations throughout Palestinian history from the middle of the third millennium BCE to the present day in order to illustrate how the emergence of Israel in the early Iron Age fits into the march of time. Archaeological evidence for the appearance of dispersed settlements in the highlands and steppes of Palestine at the beginning of the early Iron Age followed by the rapid centralization of this area suggests that Israel emerged within Palestine in response to the decline in east Mediterranean trade at the end of the Late Bronze Age. The development of an Israelite monarchy is seen as being inextricably linked to the factors involved in Israel's emergence-as distinct from much previous research which has presented the monarchy as alien to the origins of Israel. This volume is a reprint of the 1987 edition with a new preface by Robert B. Coote and Keith W. Whitelam setting the work in the context of recent debates on the history of ancient Israel.
Essays on Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern Context
Author: Nadav Naʼaman
Publisher: Eisenbrauns
ISBN: 1575061287
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
Reflecting the breadth and interconnectedness of Professor Na'aman's research areas, this volume contains contributions on archaeology, ancient Near East (other than ancient Israel), Israel's ancient history and historiography, and biblical studies. --from publisher description.
Publisher: Eisenbrauns
ISBN: 1575061287
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 498
Book Description
Reflecting the breadth and interconnectedness of Professor Na'aman's research areas, this volume contains contributions on archaeology, ancient Near East (other than ancient Israel), Israel's ancient history and historiography, and biblical studies. --from publisher description.
Rethinking Israel
Author: Oded Lipschits
Publisher: Eisenbrauns
ISBN: 9781575067872
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"Israel Finkelstein is perhaps the best-known Israeli archaeologist in the world [...] His work has greatly changed the face of archaeological and historical research of the biblical period. His unique ability to see the comprehensive big picture and formulate a broad framework has inspired countless scholars to reexamine long-established paradigms. His trail-blazing work covering every period from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age through the Hasmonean period, while sometimes controversial, has led to a creative new approach that connects archaeology with history, the social sciences, and the natural and life sciences [...] This volume, dedicated to Professor Finkelstein's accomplishments and contributions, features 36 articles written by his colleagues, friends, and students in honor of his decades of scholarship and leadership in the field of biblical archaeology"--back cover.
Publisher: Eisenbrauns
ISBN: 9781575067872
Category : Bible
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
"Israel Finkelstein is perhaps the best-known Israeli archaeologist in the world [...] His work has greatly changed the face of archaeological and historical research of the biblical period. His unique ability to see the comprehensive big picture and formulate a broad framework has inspired countless scholars to reexamine long-established paradigms. His trail-blazing work covering every period from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age through the Hasmonean period, while sometimes controversial, has led to a creative new approach that connects archaeology with history, the social sciences, and the natural and life sciences [...] This volume, dedicated to Professor Finkelstein's accomplishments and contributions, features 36 articles written by his colleagues, friends, and students in honor of his decades of scholarship and leadership in the field of biblical archaeology"--back cover.
Palestine
Author: Nur Masalha
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1786992752
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
This rich and magisterial work traces Palestine's millennia-old heritage, uncovering cultures and societies of astounding depth and complexity that stretch back to the very beginnings of recorded history. Starting with the earliest references in Egyptian and Assyrian texts, Nur Masalha explores how Palestine and its Palestinian identity have evolved over thousands of years, from the Bronze Age to the present day. Drawing on a rich body of sources and the latest archaeological evidence, Masalha shows how Palestine’s multicultural past has been distorted and mythologised by Biblical lore and the Israel–Palestinian conflict. In the process, Masalha reveals that the concept of Palestine, contrary to accepted belief, is not a modern invention or one constructed in opposition to Israel, but rooted firmly in ancient past. Palestine represents the authoritative account of the country's history.
Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN: 1786992752
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 344
Book Description
This rich and magisterial work traces Palestine's millennia-old heritage, uncovering cultures and societies of astounding depth and complexity that stretch back to the very beginnings of recorded history. Starting with the earliest references in Egyptian and Assyrian texts, Nur Masalha explores how Palestine and its Palestinian identity have evolved over thousands of years, from the Bronze Age to the present day. Drawing on a rich body of sources and the latest archaeological evidence, Masalha shows how Palestine’s multicultural past has been distorted and mythologised by Biblical lore and the Israel–Palestinian conflict. In the process, Masalha reveals that the concept of Palestine, contrary to accepted belief, is not a modern invention or one constructed in opposition to Israel, but rooted firmly in ancient past. Palestine represents the authoritative account of the country's history.
Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times
Author: Donald B. Redford
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691214654
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512
Book Description
Covering the time span from the Paleolithic period to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the eminent Egyptologist Donald Redford explores three thousand years of uninterrupted contact between Egypt and Western Asia across the Sinai land-bridge. In the vivid and lucid style that we expect from the author of the popular Akhenaten, Redford presents a sweeping narrative of the love-hate relationship between the peoples of ancient Israel/Palestine and Egypt.
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691214654
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 512
Book Description
Covering the time span from the Paleolithic period to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the eminent Egyptologist Donald Redford explores three thousand years of uninterrupted contact between Egypt and Western Asia across the Sinai land-bridge. In the vivid and lucid style that we expect from the author of the popular Akhenaten, Redford presents a sweeping narrative of the love-hate relationship between the peoples of ancient Israel/Palestine and Egypt.