Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, The

By Finkelstein, Israel and Neil Asher Silberman
Free Press, 2002, Paperback, 400 pp., ISBN: 0684869136, $15.00

Finkelstein and Silberman do not aim to undermine the Bible's import, but to demonstrate why it became the basic document for a distinct religious community under particular political circumstances.

Finkelstein, director of Tel Aviv University's excavations at Megiddo (ancient Armageddon), and Silberman, author of a series of successful and intriguing books on the political and cultural dimensions of archeology, present for the first time to a general audience the results of recent research, which reveals more clearly that while the Bible may be the most important piece of Western literature - serving concrete political, cultural and religious purposes - many of the events recorded in the Old Testament are not historically accurate.

They maintain that the Exodus was not a single dramatic event, as described in the second book of the Bible, but rather a series of occurrences over a long period of time.

The Old Testament account is, according to the authors, neither historical truth nor literary fiction, but a powerful expression of memory and hope constructed to serve particular political purposes at the time it was composed. The authors claim quite convincingly that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah became radically different regions even before the time of King David; the northern lands were densely populated, with a booming agriculture-based economy, while the southern region was sparsely populated by migratory pastoral groups. Furthermore, they contend, "we still have no hard archaeological evidence -- despite the unparalleled biblical description of its grandeur -- that Jerusalem was anything more than a modest highland village in the time of David, Solomon, and Rehoboam. From Publisher’s Weekly – Amazon.com