Writing a history of ancient Israel is not an easy task, and the authors of this volume are to be thanked for the effort to produce a concise (229 pages of text) survey of what they see as the history of Israel, from its “Prehistory” in the Late Bronze Age, until the end of the Bar-Kochba Revolt in 135 ce. The reason why it is not easy to write such a history is that much of what has been written and, in fact, is still being written about biblical Israel is wrought with substantial ideological baggage, whether of conservative histories in which the biblical narrative is taken as a given and serves as the basis for the historical narrative, or minimalist histories which find very little, if any, historical value in any of the biblical texts. Thus, overviews that attempt to use judiciously the available data – biblical, historical, archaeological or other – are of importance. Moreover, the relatively short length of the volume, and the extended period it covers (from c. 1300 bce until early second century ce), makes this volume a potential candidate for a classroom textbook for university students taking courses in topics such as “Biblical History”, “Ancient Israel”, and some parts of “Ancient Near Eastern History”, etc.
Unfortunately, I believe that the drawbacks of this volume make it less attractive to use as a text book as, too often, the opinions voiced by the authors are far from the consensus and the reader, unless intimately knowledgeable about the relevant issues (and students are not), would not know this. At times, historical recreations, which in the end are often based on creative interpretations of the biblical text, are somewhat hard to accept. Moreover, I have found quite a few omissions, mistakes and aspects in need of updating. Here I examine some of the points that I have noted while reading the text, most of them relating to the earlier periods covered in the text.
For example, there are some errors in the figures: figure 2, p. 15, with the 250 mm isohyet line around the Mediterranean is simply incorrect; fig. 4, p. 20: The claim that the Ben Hassan tomb painting of Canaanites arriving in Middle Kingdom Egypt depicts copper ingots is hard to accept as this painting dates from well before the earliest known “oxhide” ingots; and in fig. 7, p. 33, the interpretation of the rock drawing from the Negev as “the Egyptian army as perceived by friendly Shasus” is conjectural at best.
On p. 38, The suggestion that the Luwian hieroglyphic inscription mentioning “Palastin” indicates that the Philistine first settled in the Amuq valley in North Syria and then only arrived in Philistia in the late twelfth century bce is very hard to accept, and runs contrary to most scholarly opinions on this issue. On p. 39: Various etymologies of supposed Philistine words are suggested, some of which are of dubious background.
On p. 42, the suggested etymology of the name of the tribe “Judah” – connecting it to Arabic “wahda” (=rugged) – is without basis. P. 52, there is little or no support that trade in copper deriving from the Arabah Valley enable the Philistine cities to flourish during the Iron I.
On p. 60 the authors suggest that pigs were used primarily as sources of fat, and that the taboo in the highlands is due to the fact that olive oil provided an alternative fat source. This interpretation is not based on any zooarchaeological or other data.
P. 65: Table 3, with the sizes of various cities during various stages of the Iron Age is not updated. For example, the size of Gath during the various stages of the Iron Age is incorrect.
On pp. 72–5 the authors suggest that King David was allied with the Philistine Kingdom of Gath, but in opposition to the Philistine city of Ekron, and built an elaborate geo-political scenario based on this; this appears to be based on very little archaeological or historical data.
P. 82: The authors suggest that Stratum V at Megiddo was an Egyptian administrative centre, related to Pharaoh Shishak's campaign to the Levant. Once again, there is absolutely no evidence to support this supposition.
On p. 102, in discussing the mention of “Asherah” in Iron Age inscriptions, the authors chose to focus on one interpretation (that Asherah was YHWH consort) without mentioning that other interpretations exist (such as that Asherah is the name of a cultic object). This is a problem throughout the volume, which as a textbook, should enable students to see more than one interpretive option. Similarly, on pp. 112–3, in their discussion of the reign of Hezekiah of Judah (late eighth century bce), the authors present an idiosyncratic understanding of various aspects of his reign (e.g. royal stamps, water systems) without even mentioning the standard interpretations.
pp. 116–8: In the discussion of connections between Judah and South Arabia during the Iron Age II, the authors fail to note the recently published South Arabian inscription (Lemaire in 2012) in which the Kingdom of Judah is explicitly mentioned.
P. 123: Any connection between King Josiah and the Iron Age temple at Arad, as the authors suggest, has been demonstrated by Herzog as simply not supported by the archaeological evidence. Similarly, the connection between King Manasseh of Judah and the Judahite palace at Ramat Rachel does take into account recent excavations at the site by Lipschits et al.
P. 145: The authors suggest similarities between the Assyrian and Babylonian imperial practices. In fact, there is very little similarity between the two.
P. 153–5: In the discussion of the post-Iron Age Judahite/Israelite exile in Mesopotamia, the authors do not refer to much of the up-to-date research on documents mentioning these exiled peoples, save for Pearce's study from 2006. Much has been published in the last decade on this topic. Similarly, their suggestions regarding the language used by the Judahites in Persian Period Yehud and Babylonian/Persia Mesopotamia is based on insufficient data.
P. 175, fig. 40: the map showing centres and peripheries in the fifth–sixth centuries ce (Roman/Byzantine period) does not conform to accepted geopolitical views on this period.
Due to these and other points, as well as the somewhat unconventional historical interpretations suggested by the authors quite often (without explicitly explaining the more standard ones), it is difficult to recommend this book as an entry level text book on the history of ancient Israel. Perhaps the authors can contemplate relating to some of these issues and incorporate them in a second edition of this volume. If this is done, I do believe that the volume might be of utility as a college textbook in the next few years.
