The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel: Invited Lectures Delivered at the Sixth Biennial Colloquium of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism, Detroit, October 2005

Engage the results of three decades of dialogue, discussion, and debate within Syro-Palestinian archaeology and ancient Israelite historyThis book brings together for the first time an emerging “centrist” paradigm that the material cultural data, the biblical traditions, and the ancient Near Eastern written sources are all significantly relevant to the historical quest for Iron Age Israel. The historical essays presented here are based on invited lectures delivered in October of 2005 at the Sixth Biennial Colloquium of the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism in Detroit, Michigan.Features:- Balanced approach to the question of the relevance of the biblical account for reconstructing early Israel’s history- Organization by time period for easy comparison of Finkelstein and Mazar’s positions- Introductory essays for each section give overviews of the archaeological theories