The Mythic Past Biblical Archaeology And The Myth Of Israel

Author : Thomas L. Thompson
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0786725176
Total Pages : 432 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology And The Myth Of Israel written by Thomas L. Thompson and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jewish people's historical claims to a small area of land bordering the eastern Mediterranean are not only the foundation for the modern state of Israel, they are also at the very heart of Judeo-Christian belief. Yet in The Mythic Past, Thomas Thompson argues that such claims are grounded in literary myth, not history. Among the author's startling conclusions are these:* There never was a "united monarch" of Israel in biblical times* We can no longer talk about a time of the Patriarchs* The entire notion of "Israel" and its history is a literary fiction.The Mythic Past provides refreshing new ways to read the Old Testament as the great literature it was meant to be. At the same time, its controversial conclusions about Jewish history are sure to prove incendiary in a worldwide debate about one of the world's seminal texts, and one of its most bitterly contested regions.

Author : Thomas L. Thompson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781567317046
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Mythic Past written by Thomas L. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Niels Peter Lemche
Publisher : Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN 13 : 9780664227272
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Israelites in History and Tradition written by Niels Peter Lemche and published by Westminster John Knox Press. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Niels Peter Lemche focuses on the way Israelites understood themselves at different points in history--before, within, and after the monarchy. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding Israel's rich history. Volumes in the Library of Ancient Israel draw on multiple disciplines--such as archaeology, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and literary criticism--to illuminate the everyday realities and social subtleties these ancient cultures experienced. This series employs sophisticated methods resulting in original contributions that depict the reality of the people behind the Hebrew Bible and interprets these insights for a wide variety of readers.

Author : Gary Greenberg
Publisher : Sourcebooks, Inc.
ISBN 13 : 1402230052
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book 101 Myths of the Bible written by Gary Greenberg and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2002-09 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his startling book, Gary Greenberg exposes the reality behind the greatest story ever told. Learn about the Egyptian myths and ancient folklore that survive in one of history's most sacred texts, and discover how: -King David's bodyguard, not David, killed Goliath -Noah's Ark did not land on Mount Ararat -Samson did not pull down a Philistine temple -There are at least two versions of the Ten Commandments -The walls of Jericho were destroyed 300 years before Joshua arrived there -Sodom and Gomorrah were mythical cities that never existed -The story of Esther had nothing to do with the Jews of Persia -And much, much more 101 Myths of the Bible provides a new dimension of biblical studies for believers, historians and anyone who has ever wondered about the facts behind the legends. By looking deeper into history, Greenberg shows that the true story makes the Bible more interesting than ever imagined!

Author : Giovanni Garbini
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 0567608867
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Myth and History in the Bible written by Giovanni Garbini and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2003-06-01 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Old Testament, and biblical scholarship itself, distinguishes between mythical and historical. This book argues that only historical thing in the Bible is the Bible itself, a superb product of Jewish thought. What is narrated in the Bible is only myth. But this myth about Israel's past was still built with fragments of history, or rather with written traditions that were different from those expressed in the actual text, and obviously more ancient. These essays follow in the spirit of his controversial History and Ideology in Ancient Israel, which combine detailed philological reseaerch, a wide knowledge of ancient Near Eastern literature and Biblical Archaeology--and a radical way of understanding what the biblical text is really telling us. This is an erudite and thought-provoking book, which should not be ignored by anyone who finds the origin of the Bible a fascinating and still largely unknown phenomenon.

Author : Nadia Abu El-Haj
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226002152
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Facts on the Ground written by Nadia Abu El-Haj and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-06-24 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeology in Israel is truly a national obsession, a practice through which national identity—and national rights—have long been asserted. But how and why did archaeology emerge as such a pervasive force there? How can the practices of archaeology help answer those questions? In this stirring book, Nadia Abu El-Haj addresses these questions and specifies for the first time the relationship between national ideology, colonial settlement, and the production of historical knowledge. She analyzes particular instances of history, artifacts, and landscapes in the making to show how archaeology helped not only to legitimize cultural and political visions but, far more powerfully, to reshape them. Moreover, she places Israeli archaeology in the context of the broader discipline to determine what unites the field across its disparate local traditions and locations. Boldly uncovering an Israel in which science and politics are mutually constituted, this book shows the ongoing role that archaeology plays in defining the past, present, and future of Palestine and Israel.

Author : Thomas L. Thompson
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0786739118
Total Pages : 433 pages
Book Rating : 4.10/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Messiah Myth written by Thomas L. Thompson and published by . This book was released on 2009-04-20 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the eighteenth century, scholars and historians studying the texts of the Bible have attempted to distill historical facts and biography from the mythology and miracles described there. That trend continues into the present day, as scholars such as those of the "Jesus Seminar" dissect the Gospels and other early Christian writings to separate the "Jesus of history" from the "Christ of faith." But with The Messiah Myth, noted Biblical scholar Thomas L. Thompson argues that the quest for the historical Jesus is beside the point, since the Jesus of the Gospels never existed.Like King David before him, says Thompson, the Jesus of the Bible is an amalgamation of themes from Near Eastern mythology and traditions of kingship and divinity. The theme of a messiah-a divinely appointed king who restores the world to perfection-is typical of Egyptian and Babylonian royal ideology dating back to the Bronze Age. In Thompson's view, the contemporary audience for whom the Old and New Testament were written would naturally have interpreted David and Jesus not as historical figures, but as metaphors embodying long-established messianic traditions. Challenging widely held assumptions about the sources of the Bible and the quest for the historical Jesus, The Messiah Myth is sure to spark interest and heated debate.

Author : William G. Dever
Publisher : Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN 13 : 9780802844163
Total Pages : 286 pages
Book Rating : 4.62/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? written by William G. Dever and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2006-03-31 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A respected archaeologist's engaging, revealing take on ancient Israel. A thorough yet readable examination of a much-debated subject -- of relevance also to the current Israeli-Palestinian situation -- this book is sure to reinvigorate discussion of the origins of ancient Israel.

Author : Thomas Levy
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317491513
Total Pages : 463 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Bible and Radiocarbon Dating written by Thomas Levy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-05 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past several years, a number of Levantine archaeologists working on the Iron Age (ca. 1200 - 586 BCE) have begun to employ high precision radiocarbon dating to solve a wide range of chronological, historical and social issues. The incorporation of high precision radiocarbon dating methods and statistical modelling into the archaeological 'tool box' of the 'Biblical archaeologist' is revolutionizing the field. In fact, Biblical archaeology is leading the field of world archaeology in how archaeologists must deal with history, historical texts, and material culture. A great deal of debate has been generated by this new research direction in southern Levantine (Israel, Jordan, Palestinian territories, southern Lebanon & Syria, the Sinai) archaeology. This book takes the pulse of how archaeology, science-based research methods and the Bible interface at the beginning of the 21st century and brings together a leading team of archaeologists, Egyptologists, Biblical scholars, radiocarbon dating specialists and other researchers who have embraced radiocarbon dating as a significant tool to test hypotheses concerning the historicity of aspects of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible. As this book "raises the bar" in how archaeologists tackle historical issues as manifest in the interplay between the archaeological record and text, its interest will go well beyond the 'Holy Land.'

Author : John N. Oswalt
Publisher : Zondervan Academic
ISBN 13 : 0310322421
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.29/5 ( download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book The Bible among the Myths written by John N. Oswalt and published by Zondervan Academic. This book was released on 2009-08-30 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sixty years ago, most biblical scholars maintained that Israel’s religion was unique—that it stood in marked contrast to the faiths of its ancient Near Eastern neighbors. Nowadays, it is widely argued that Israel’s religion mirrors that of other West Semitic societies. What accounts for this radical change, and what are its implications for our understanding of the Old Testament? Dr. John N. Oswalt says the root of this new attitude lies in Western society’s hostility to the idea of revelation, which presupposes a reality that transcends the world of the senses, asserting the existence of a realm humans cannot control. While not advocating a “the Bible says it, and I believe it, and that settles it” point of view, Oswalt asserts convincingly that while other ancient literatures all see reality in essentially the same terms, the Bible differs radically on all the main points. The Bible Among the Myths supplies a necessary corrective to those who reject the Old Testament’s testimony about a transcendent God who breaks into time and space and reveals himself in and through human activity.