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18+ Works 2,329 Members 31 Reviews 1 Favorited

About the Author

Works by Neil Asher Silberman

Message and the Kingdom (1997) 193 copies
Secrets of the Bible (2004) — Introduction — 54 copies

Associated Works

Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (1972) — Introduction — 352 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Spring 1996 (1996) — Author "The Romans at Masada" — 26 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Autumn 1989 (1989) — Author "The Masada Myth" — 16 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Spring 1989 (1989) — Author "The Pequot Massacres" — 15 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Winter 1996 (1995) — Author "Sons of Light, Sons of Darkness" — 14 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Winter 1990 (1989) — Author "Custer's Ghostherders" — 12 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Winter 1991 (1990) — Author "That Miserable Fort!" — 11 copies
MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History — Winter 1998 (1997) — Author "The Coming of the Sea Peoples" — 9 copies

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Common Knowledge

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Reviews

This powerful and persuasive book illustrates the strength of the message of Jesus and Paul, the Kingdom of God in the hamlets of Galilee, and the churches in the cities of the Roman Empire as they stood together against cosmic and imperial, and personal and individual, evil.
 
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PendleHillLibrary | Feb 1, 2024 |
Good intro to a particular view of the real history behind the bible (up to the return from the Babylonian exile). Summary-ish

- Most of the major stories that happened before 800-700BC contain many significant historical errors that make it clear that they're written from a later context - sometimes it's likely the errors are intentional to create a greater parallel with the current story of Judah, other times it's simply ignorance (eg the story of Abraham is attempting to write about a pastoral history but includes camels which didn't exist for hundreds of years afterwards)
- Therefore the patriarchs didn't exist, at least not in the story the bible suggests. Parts may have been based on folk tales
- The Exodus didn't happen. There's no evidence of anything even vaguely like it and Egypt controlled the areas the Israelites supposedly escaped to the whole time period anyway. It's possible there was an initial basis in particular anti-Egypt experiences due to the occupation and certain conflicts (eg the Hyksos and Apiru) but the story itself is fiction.
- The Israelites were always Canaanites and although the circumstances of the initial separation are murky the bible's insistence on total division is nonsense. Interestingly our first evidence of Israelite cultural separation is the lack of pig bones in their refuse in the ~1200s BC
- There was no invasion as portrayed in Joshua - most of the places supposed to have been destroyed were either destroyed much earlier or later than the timeframe the story demands. Jericho was settled at the time but was a small settlement with no walls.
- The bible is incredibly biased against Israel, which was far richer and more powerful than Judah. Because it's written retrospectively after the Assyrian destruction of Israel it's easy for the authors to present any successes of Israel as a temporary reprieve while the trading and cosmopolitanism that made them wealthy is used as a reason for their destruction, because they didn't keep their purity to God.
- There was likely no United Monarchy of Israel and Judah and this was a later propaganda invention to justify Judah's dreams of conquest of Israel's former territories. If there was any sort of United Monarchy it had a very limited territory.
- The golden age of Solomon is a total myth. Archaeology makes clear things that were previously attributed to Solomon were mostly the product of Israel's Omride dynasty, who were rich and involved in many building projects across a large territory. The Solomonide golden age is again a later propaganda creation likely based on the stories of the great wealth and trade that Israel experienced before the Assyrian destruction (and possibly partly the new status as a wealthier nation Judah gained as an Assyrian vassal on a major trading route during Josiah's reign)
- The first 5 books of the bible and the whole Deuteronomic history of Joshua, Samuel and Kings was likely first compiled in the reign of King Josiah. Most of the historical details in it match up to that era and the whole narrative is presenting Josiah as an ideal messianic character who'll finally restore a great kingdom through devotion to God, who always rewards the truly faithful. Later, there were edits that changed the emphasis somewhat to the holiness of the whole *nation* of Israel to recover from his unceremonious death in an obscure meeting with an Egyptian army, paving the way both for the dominance of the priesthood as well as helping retain the faith among the whole people even after the major losses. (Worth nothing he only touches on the composition of the Pentateuch in general, which is fair, because it's an absurdly complicated subject)
- The Babylonian Captivity only carried away a small percentage of people, not even all the upper classes, but they later were able to impose their particular views of worship and "pure" identity on those who remained due to being backed by the power of the Persians.

There's obviously stuff in this book that's hotly contested - history always is and especially stuff like this, which is heavily emotive and the evidence is complicated - so to be clear it's just one particular "school"'s idea of what happened from the evidence at the time (the evidence base is constantly moving too, obviously). There's also maybe a bit too much recounting of what the bible says before leading into what the evidence says, which is maybe a bit of a waste if you're already familiar. Sometimes it does get a little bit dry while detailing the various archaeological finds, which are fascinating but very hard to picture and a bit repetitive due to the similar architectural styles. However, if you have an interest in the topic you'll definitely be fascinated anyway and I can recommend it if the topic of the actual history behind the bible and the region is interesting to you.
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tombomp | 23 other reviews | Oct 31, 2023 |
very interesting, well written scholarly work, yet accessible to a non archaeologist. the idea that the pentateuch is just one of many historical artifacts that we can use to reconstruct the bronze and iron age near east. the idea that the pentateuch was primarily a propaganda piece for king Josiah, and it was setting him up to be the Savior, creating and embellishing the older stories just to point to Josiah. fascinating and very different point of view of the Bible.
remember that there are historical, semi historical, and non historical verses in the Bible, sometimes right next to each other, so you can neither take the entire thing to be absolute history, nor can you throw it all out as fable.… (more)
 
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zizabeph | 23 other reviews | May 7, 2023 |
"The Bible Unearthed" compares the earlier books of the Old Testament of the Bible with the many archeological findings in the Mideast, and infers what the differences may teach us about what actually happened there and also about the sources, motivations, and times of the writers of those books. This is the best exposition I have read on this subject. It is also a way to learn a little Bible without having to wade through some duller stuff in it such as details of rituals and lists.

The account seems balanced and without any intention either to justify or to undermine any religious ideology. Previous historical criticism assumed that the biblical narrative is true and then used archaeological investigation as a tool to prove the narrative. Practices over the last 40 years, based on more recent and extensive findings, constrain the Bible to serving as one of the artifacts to be examined.

Two reflections. The more un-historical the biblical accounts are, the more we learn thereby about the motives of the (mostly seventh-century BCE) writers, who were intending to fashion not an accurate history but rather, retaining the wisdom of the ancient laws but freely adapting the echoes of a history long past, a foundation tale in support of political aims. Knowledge of the true nature of the development of the Old Testament is surely more important to the western world today than the corresponding historical facts themselves, even as the former rests upon the latter.

The book has been well received by biblical scholars. Limited professional disagreement with the authors appears to emerge from fundamentalist tendency.

Highly recommended. Wikipedia has an excellent summary of this book. If you don’t have time for the book, then check out the article.
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KENNERLYDAN | 23 other reviews | Jul 11, 2021 |

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