¹ M. LIVERANI, "Nuovi sviluppi nello studio della storia dell’Israele biblico", Bib 80 (1999) 490-492, 497-500, 502-505.

² W.G. DEVER, Archaeology and Biblical Studies. Retrospects and Prospects (Archeologia 4.1; Evanston 1974) 17-25, 34-43; ID., "Retrospects and Prospects in Biblical and Syro-Palestinian Archaeology’, BA 45 (1982) 103-107; H. SHANKS, "Should the Term ‘Biblical Archaeology’ Be Abandoned?" BARe 7/3 (1981) 54-57; E.F. CAMPBELL, "Letter to Readers", BA 45 (1982) 68; H.D. LANCE, "American Biblical Archaeology in Perspective", BA 45 (1982) 97-101. Dever first introduced the term as referring to an ‘independent, secular discipline ... pursued by cultural historians for its own sake’ in the "Introduction" to Biblical Archaeology (ed. S.M. PAUL – W.G. DEVER) (Library of Jewish knowledge; Jerusalem 1973) ix. (I thank Prof. Paul for this reference.)

³ J. Jahn (1750-1816) published an original five volume Biblische Archäologie in 1802. He abridged this publication into a one volume J. JAHN, Archaeologia biblica in Epitomen redacta (Vienna 1814), latter translated as ID., Archæologia Biblica. A manual of biblical antiquities (Andover 1823) by the the American poet and translator T.C. Upham from the Latin. His translation was reprinted with additions and corrections under the shorter title Jahn’s Biblical Archaeology until 1853. The quotation is from an 1839 edition published in New York.

⁴ K.F. KEIL, Handbuch der biblischen Archäologie (Frankfort a. M. – Erlangen 1858-1859) 2. This book came out in a second German edition in 1875 that was translated with Keil’s additions and corrections and published as ID., Manual of Biblical Archaeology (Edinburgh 1887-1888) I-II.

⁵ KEIL, Handbuch, 1-5.

⁶ J.G. LANSING, Outlines of the Archaeology of the Old Testament (New Brunswick 1896) 4-5.

⁷ P.J. KING, American Archaeology in the Mideast. A History of the American Schools of Oriental Research (Philadelphia 1983) 3-4; C.C. LAMBERG-KARLOVSKY, Beyond the Tigris and Euphrates (Beersheba 1996) 26-29. Indeed, most of the travelers published either popular or scientific accounts of their travels, so that information about the Holy Land and the Bible was widely circulated in English, French, and German.

⁸ I observed what was available in the stacks of the library at Princeton Theological Seminary in August and November, 2000. Due to a shortage of books with the required two words, I included books whose titles indicated that they were dealing with similar types of data.

⁹ Cf. E. KALT, Biblische Archäologie (Freiburg 1924), a short volume focusing on political, religious and social institutions in their geographical setting. Although written more than 60 years after Keil — it could be considered an updated abridgement of the earlier work — Kalt did not incorporate findings from dirt archaeology into his discussions.

¹⁰ Cf. KING, American Archaeology in the Mideast, 83, regarding the approach of M. Kyle, a conservative Biblicist long associated with W.F. Albright and American archaeology in the Holy Land.

¹¹ See J.C. MEYER – V.H. MATTHEWS, "The Use and Abuse of Archaeology in Current Bible Handbooks", BA 48 (1985) 149-159; ID., "The Use and Abuse of Archaeology in Current One-volume Bible Dictionaries", BA 48 (1985) 222-237. Many of the abuses sighted and cited by these authors address the older, traditional use of archaeological material in denominational settings.

¹² This description is borrowed from Weaver who used it to suggest how the historical impasse caused by archaeology might be addressed theologically in the 1990’s; cf. W.P. WEAVER, "The Archaeology of Palestine and the Archaeology of Faith: Between a Rock and a Hard Place", What has Archaeology to do with Faith? (eds. J.H. CHARLESWORTH – W P. WEAVER) (Faith and Scholarship Colloquies; Philadelphia 1992) 89-105 ("The Failure of Archaeology as an Apologetic Strategy").

¹³ W.G. DEVER, "What Archaeology Can Contribute to an Understanding of the Bible", BARe 7/5 (1981) 40-41; ID., "Archaeology and the Bible. Understanding Their Special Relationship", BARe 16/3 (1990) 52-58, 62.

¹⁴ P.R. DAVIES, In Search of Ancient Israel (JSOTSS 266; Sheffield 1992). Actually, Davies was partially anticipated by N.P LEMCHE, Early Israel. Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Israelite Society Before the Monarchy (VTS 37; Leiden 1985). Lemche’s book, however, did not generate the furor and spark the debate. Subsequent to the characterization of these scholars as ‘minimalists’, he was associated and associated himself with them. G. GARBINI, History and Ideology in Ancient Israel (New York 1988) 1-20, 125-126, 132, 154-169, anticipated the minimalists in attacking theological interpretations of history that countenanced the theologizing historiography of the Biblical texts as historical statements and in dating Biblical compositions to the Persian and Hellenistic periods. His pugnacious essays, published in English translation two years after appearing in Italian, have not become part of the minimalist conversation.

¹⁵ T.L. THOMPSON, Early History of the Israelite People. From the Written and Archaeological Sources (SHNE 4; Leiden 1992).

¹⁶ P.R. DAVIES, "What Separates a Minimalist from a Maximalist? Not Much", BARe 26/2 (2000) 24-27, 72-73.

¹⁷ Models of cultural evolution and diffusion became popular in much historical and archaeological explanation during the 1970s and remains so. Their application reflects the trend to reject explanations of change in ancient populations through recourse to theories of invasions and migrations. Scholars felt that the changes might be better explained as due to ordered socio-archaeological processes operating on the indigenous, local population. Cf. J. CHAPMAN – H. HAMEROW, "On the Move Again — Migrations and Invasions in Archaeological Explanations", Migrations and Invasions in Archaeological Explanation (eds. J. CHAPMAN – H. HAMEROW) (BAR.IS 664; Oxford 1997) 1; and the new migration research presented in Migration, Migration History, History. Old Paradigms and New Perspectives (eds. J. LUCASSEN – L. LUCASSEN) (Bern 1999).

¹⁸ DAVIES, In Search of Ancient Israel, 11-14.

¹⁹ N.P. LEMCHE, "On the Problems of Reconstructing Pre-Hellenistic Israelite (Palestinian) History", Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (http://purl.org/jhs) 3 (2000) pars. 4.2.

²⁰ Arguments dating the final edition of the Pentateuch, most historical writings, the final edition of the Prophetic literature, psalms, and proverbs of the Hebrew Bible to different parts of the Persian and Hellenistic periods were prominent at the end of the nineteenth century. They were influenced greatly by judgments of Kuenen and Wellhausen after K.H. Graf presented what were then considered strong sound arguments for the post-exilic dating of the Priestly source; cf. A. KUENEN, An Historico-Critical Inquiry into the Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch (London 1886 [trans. from the 2nd Dutch ed. of 1885]) 313-321; J. WELLHAUSEN, Prolegomena to the History of Ancient Israel (New York 1957 [repr. of 1885; transl. from the 2nd German ed. of 1883]) 13. These 19th century comprehensions maintained themselves in Continental scholarship with increasing sophistication, but appear to have had little influence on English or American scholars; cf. H. BOUILLLARD-BONRAISON, "Les livres bibliques d’époque perse", La Palestine à l’époque perse (ed. E.M. LAPERROUSAZ) (Études annexes de la Bible de Jérusalem; Paris 1994) 157-188; B. GOSSE, Structuration des grands ensembles bibliques et intertextualité à l’époque perse. De la rédaction sacerdotale du livre d’Isaïe à la contestation de la Sagesse (BZAW 246; Berlin 1997).

²¹ Cf. his summary study, N.K. GOTTWALD, The Tribes of Yahweh. A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E. (Maryknoll 1979). Gottwald himself refined ideas initially introduced by G. MENDENHALL, "The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine", BA 25 (1962) 66-87, providing them with a theoretical basis in socio-anthropological models.

²² Concerning the conquest and settlement, see G.E. WRIGHT, "The Literary and Historical Problem of Josh 10 and Ju 1", JNES 5 (1946) 105-114; J. BRIGHT, A History of Israel (Philadelphia 1959) 110-127, presented an Albrightian-Wrightian synthesis of data even as the archaeological evidence for the conquest and settlement is described muddily as ‘not at all points unambiguous’ (ibid., 118). More recent work that minimalists, but not only minimalists, consider to have solved the problem adequately contends that there was no conquest and no settlement. It gives up completely on employing Biblical narratives in any meaningful way for a historical synthesis because they are felt to be incompatible with the hard archaeological evidence. Cf. I. FINKELSTEIN, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem 1988); ID., "The Emergence of Early Israel: Anthropology, Environment, and Archaeology", JAOS 110 (1990) 677-686.

Concerning the Patriarchs, see T.L. THOMPSON, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Period (BZAW 113; Berlin 1974); and J. VAN SETERS, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven 1975). Claims that extra-biblical data supported the historicity of the patriarchal period in the Middle Bronze II or Late Bronze periods popular in the 1950’s were dispatched by these two individuals working independently. Few scholars, if any, have challenged the specific conclusions of their important books. The consensus, however, may change eventually as a consequence of new data and new analyses of old data from Mari on the middle Euphrates; cf. D. FLEMING, "Mari and the Possibilities of Biblical Memory", RA 92 (1998) 42, 46-51, 58-59, 76.

²³ This intellectual phenomenon is described and analyzed in chap. I of my book, Z. ZEVIT, The Religions of Ancient Israel. A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (London 2001) 49-68.

²⁴ DAVIES, In Search of Ancient Israel, 46-47 and 19, n. 4. Although this particular statement seems to distinguish Davies from elements of postmodern discourse that maintain that there are no objective truths, only subjective ideologies, within the context of discussions between Biblicists, it is a rhetorical foil that renders defense of his arguments unnecessary. His opponents are describing what minimalists call ‘historical Israel’.

²⁵ DAVIES, In Search of Ancient Israel, 161. His anticipation of rejection was realistic, given that he addressed himself to Biblicists and attacked the same audience that preserved the ‘Biblical archaeology’. N.P. LEMCHE, "Ideology and the History of Ancient Israel", SJOT 14 (2000) 165-166, also describes anticipating the rejection of his ideas at the very beginning of his career for much the same reason but resolving to plunge into the fray nevertheless.

²⁶ The term ‘maximalist’ creates the false impression that this group consists of literary fundamentalists. Minimalists ended up with a better label than their opponents.

²⁷ W.G. DEVER, "Save Us from Postmodern Malarkey", BARe 26/2 (2000) 28-35, 68-69; J. HACKETT, "Spelling Differences and Letter Shapes Are Telltale Signs", BARe 23/2 (1997) 42-44; R. HENDEL, "The Date of the Siloam Inscription: A Rejoinder to Rogerson and Davies", BA 59 (1996) 233-237; S. NORIN, "The Age of the Siloam Inscription and Hezekiah’s Tunnel", VT 48 (1998) 37-48; A. HURVITZ, "The historical quest for ‘ancient Israel’ and the linguistic evidence of the Hebrew Bible: some methodological considerations", VT 47 (1997) 301-315; S. JAPHET, "Can the Persian Period Bear the Burden? Reflections on the Origins of Biblical History", Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies Jerusalem, July 29 – August 5, 1997. Division A. The Bible and Its World (ed. R. MARGOLIN) (Jerusalem 1999) 35-43. Lemche’s response to these types of criticism is to minimize the significance of any objective, empirical extra-biblical evidence by allowing that only a smidgen of veracity may be found in the historical narratives. For example, commenting on extra-biblical inscriptions mentioning Israelite and Judahite kings in connection with international events referred to also in the Bible, he writes that they show only that biblical evidence on the succession of kings and synchronisms ‘are not totally misleading’, and that after biblical and extra-biblical data are compared one may conclude that the history of the biblical historians ‘is not totally devoid of historical information’. Surprisingly and strangely, Lemche writes about the period most crucial to most minimalists, but, apparently, no longer to him, ‘the Persian period is, finally, a dark spot on the historical map of Palestine. We know nothing about this period. Ezra, the great hero of post-exilic Judaism is probably a late invention (by Pharisaic authors?)’; cf. LEMCHE, "On the Problems of Reconstructing Pre-Hellenistic Israelite (Palestinian) History", 5.5; 8.9.

²⁸ N.P. LEMCHE, "Ideology and the History of Ancient Israel", SJOT 14 (2000) 169-173, 190-193. The contradiction between his assessment of the Persian period in this statement and that cited in the previous footnote, both published the same year, has not yet been clarified in subsequent publications.

²⁹ For this reason the controversial book by K.W. WHITELAM, The Invention of Ancient Israel. The Silencing of Palestinian History (London 1996) has had no significant ongoing role in minimalist discussions. It is beside the point. A minimalist, Whitelam adopts the anti-Orientalist stance of the literary critic E. Said in critiquing both maximalists and minimalists. All are faulted for being Anglo-European scholars and for writing in the etic terminology of western scholarship (ibid., 393-370, 119-121, 203-222, 234, 236). The book, a cleverly written rhetorical polemic, is all negative criticism. It presents neither a positive agenda nor any ‘how to’ formulae of its own nor does it even suggest how unsuppressed history might look. Astonishingly, Whitelam reveals only in the last sentences on the last page of his book that throughout he only assumed the existence of the history that he claimed was suppressed. It has not yet been ‘(re)discovered’ (ibid., 237). There is no historical revisionism here, only a preference for silence.

³⁰ For example, minimalists assume the large non-indigenous population in Yehud whose anxious comprehension of its own circumstances precipitated the creative process generating what became Biblical literature. In fact, although information from both Biblical and extra-Biblical written sources attest the settlement of foreign populations around Samaria in the eighth-seventh centuries BCE by the Assyrians, no such evidence supports a similar scenario for the areas around Jerusalem after the Babylonians exiled parts of the local population in the sixth-fifth centuries BCE. No evidence, however, contradicts the assumption.

³¹ F. PETRIE, Tell el-Hesy (Lachish) ( London 1891) 40.

³² I thank Profs. A. Mazar of the Hebrew University and S. Gitin, Director of the W.F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, for discussing this problem with me briefly in January, 2001.

³³ Problems using dates provided by carbon-14 analyses are apparent in the fact that different laboratories in Europe, Israel, and the United States working with similar samples provide different B(efore) P(resent) dates as do the same laboratories with the same samples. Among the sources for the discrepancies are the types of samples provided, their quality of preservation, and the problem of contamination before and after being submitted to the laboratory for analysis. Despite this, carbon-14 dating of grain and wood samples from well defined Iron Age strata at sites such as Bethsaida by the Sea of Galilee, Dor by the Mediterranean coast, and Tel Rehov south of Bethshean and, of course, Megiddo have now become part of the debate because the range of dates obtained have been interpreted as providing relevant limits. Dates provided by samples from Dor reportedly support some of Finkelstein’s low chronology dates while those from Bethsaida contradict them completely. Complicating this picture is the fact that archaeologists do not always publish the dates of all samples reported back to them by the laboratories, only those which appear useful. This matter is now being engaged by an important project, conducted by Drs. I. Sharon and A. Gilboa at the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Their project coordinates all carbon-14 data in the hope that patterns in the discrepancies can be discerned that will help work out the bugs so that this and other high-tech approaches will be able to provide absolute dates independent of pottery chronology. Its success will depend on archaeologists providing them with all information about all tested samples.

³⁴ I. FINKELSTEIN, "The Date of the Settlement of the Philistines in Canaan", TA 22 (1995) 218-225, 229-233; S. BUNIMOVITZ – A. FAUST, "Chronological Separation, Geographical Segregation, or Ethnic Demarcation? Ethnography and the Iron Age Low Chronology", BASOR 322 (2001) 1-3.

³⁵ E.g. A. MAZAR – J. CAMP, "Will Tel Rehov Save the United Monarchy?", BARe 26/2 (2000) 48-50. FINKELSTEIN’S presentation of his case appears in the following essential studies: "The Archaeology of the United Monarchy: An Alternative View", Levant 28 (1996) 177-187; "The Stratigraphy and Chronology of Megiddo and Beth-Shan in the 12th-11th Centuries B.C.E.", TA 23 (1996) 170-184; "Bible Archaeology or Archaeology of Palestine in the Iron Age? A Rejoinder", Levant 30 (1998) 167-173; "Hazor and the North in the Iron Age: A Low Chronology Perspective", BASOR 314 (1999) 55-70; "Hazor XII-XI with an Addendum on Ben-Tor’s Dating of Hazor X-VII", TA 27 (2000) 231-247.

³⁶ Aside from qualified acceptance of some of his positions by two colleagues at Tel-Aviv University, D. Ussishkin and Z. Herzog, I am unaware of Syro-Palestinian archaeologists, including those with no vested interest in Iron Age archaeology, who accept his overall thesis. Most rebuttals have been in scholarly presentations in Israel and the U.S.A., and many were repeated in public lectures. Fewer have been made in print, and these are by archaeologists whose sites Finkelstein re-evaluated in print in order to bolster his case: A. MAZAR, "Iron Age Chronology: A Reply to I. Finkelstein", Levant 29 (1997) 157-167; A. BEN-TOR – D. BEN-AMI, "Hazor and the Archaeology of the Tenth Century B.C.E.", IEJ 48 (1998) 1-37; A. BEN-TOR, "Hazor and the Chronology of Northern Israel: A Reply to Israel Finkelstein", BASOR 317 (2000) 9-15; MAZAR – CAMP, "Will Tel Rehov", 48-50. On Jan 10, 2001, a one day conference "The Question of the Tenth and Ninth Centuries BCE at Sites in the Land of Israel", jointly sponsored by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Center for the Study of the Land of Israel and Its Settlement, was held in Jerusalem. All reports presented there, from peripheral sites in the north, Horbat Rosh Zayit (identified as biblical Cabul), Rehob, Bethshean to southern sites such as Tel Hamid, Tel Batash (identified as biblical Timnah), Tel Safit (identified with biblical Gath), Lachish, and even from excavations in Jerusalem provided clear stratigraphical evidence for tenth century BCE strata and pottery assemblages.

³⁷ In Jerusalem, the only area where intensive, large-scale excavations that might bear on this problem is in the City of David. There, however, the excavations were restricted to non-damaged parts of the steep eastern slope and no monumental structures datable to this period identified.

³⁸ An apologetic but low rhetoric rebuttal to this analysis is found in D. USSISHKIN, "The Credibility of the Tel Jezreel Excavations: A Rejoinder to Amnon Ben-Tor", TA 27 (2000) 248-256.

³⁹ Another element in argumentation supporting what is called the ‘low chronology’ was Finkelstein’s observation that tall collared-rim jars, characteristic of the twelfth-eleventh centuries are completely absent from stratum VI A at Megiddo, a stratum excavated both by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and by the Tel-Aviv University Institute of Archaeology. In an intensive reinvestigation of records, photographs, and materials from the Chicago Oriental Institute’s excavations of the early twentieth century, Timothy P. Harrison of the University of Toronto uncovered evidence for the presence of such jars (in what is now called stratum VI A). Furthermore, Finkelstein informed me that in Summer 2000, his team discovered a restorable, whole collared-rim jar in the same stratum. Harrison’s work and the corroborating new discovery present data inconvenient for the proposed chronology.

⁴⁰ FINKELSTEIN, "The Archaeology of the United Monarchy", 177.

⁴¹ I. FINKELSTEIN – N.A. SILBERMAN, The Bible Unearthed. Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origins of its Sacred Texts (New York 2001) 45, 65, 68, 92-96, 284, 301-305. The book presents Finkelstein’s positions — the ‘New Vision’ of the title — on a number of key and minor issues in Israelite history, not only the tenth century debate, but it does so without comment as to their status in the field (ibid., 114-118, 141,142). In doing so, it misleads its intended audience which will include Biblicists unfamiliar with details of the archaeological debate. The book presents hypotheses as facts, not informing readers what is disputed and why, and it does not indicate that there are difficulties or uncertainties about the new vision, not of ‘archaeology’, but of a single archaeologist.

⁴² FINKELSTEIN, "Bible Archaeology or Archaeology of Palestine", 167. Similarly, commenting on why the late Y. Yadin and Y. Aharoni dated Iron Age I at Hazor to the twelfth-eleventh centuries BCE, he writes: ‘... it is obvious that their dating was influenced by their historio-biblical bias more than by a thorough typological investigation. Yadin was eager to see his early Israelites settle on the ruins of the city which they had vanquished’ (ID., "Hazor XII-XI with an Addendum on Ben-Tor’s Dating of Hazor X-VII", TA 27 [2000] 237). The Hazor excavations were concluded in 1958. Yadin and Aharoni, both deceased, are faulted for not having reached conclusions similar to those of Finkelstein.