The history of biblical Israel, as it is told in the Hebrew Bible, differs substantially from the history of ancient Israel as it can be reconstructed using ancient Near Eastern texts and archaeological evidence. In A Concise History of Ancient Israel, Bernd U. Schipper uses this evidence to present a critical revision of the history of Israel and Judah from the late second millennium BCE to the beginning of the Roman period. Considering archaeological material as well as biblical and extrabiblical texts, Schipper argues that the history of “Israel” in the preexilic period took place mostly in the hinterland of the Levant and should be understood in the context of the Neo-Assyrian expansion. He demonstrates that events in the exilic and postexilic periods also played out differently than they are recounted in the biblical books of Ezra and Nehemiah. In contrast to previous scholarship, which focused heavily on Israel’s origins and the monarchic period, Schipper’s history gives equal attention to the Persian and early Hellenistic periods, providing confirmation that a wide variety of forms of YHWH religion existed in the Persian period and persisted into the Hellenistic age. Original and innovative, this brief history provides a new outline of the historical development of ancient Israel that will appeal to students, scholars, and lay readers who desire a concise overview.

The history of Israel is a much-debated topic in Old Testament studies. On one side are minimalists who find little of historical value in the Hebrew Bible. On the other side are those who assume the biblical text is a precise historical record. Many serious students of the Bible find themselves between these two positions and would benefit from a careful exploration of issues in Israelite history. This substantive history of Israel textbook values the Bible's historical contribution without overlooking critical issues and challenges. Featuring the latest scholarship, the book introduces students to the current state of research on issues relevant to the study of ancient Israel. The editors and contributors, all top biblical scholars and historians, discuss historical evidence in a readable manner, using both canonical and chronological lenses to explore Israelite history. Illustrative items, such as maps and images, visually support the book's content. Tables and sidebars are also included.

The definitve guide to the history of ancient Israel. The History of Ancient Israel covers the epic story of Jewish civilisation from its beginnings to the destruction of Jerusalem, and the Temple in AD 70. It deals with Israel's relations with the great empires which shaped its development and with the changing internal structure of the Jewish state, drawing both on excavation and the Hebrew Bible.

The Creation of History in Ancient Israel demonstrates how the historian can start to piece together the history of ancient Israel using the Hebrew Bible as a source.

Kalimi catalogues and categorizes the techniques by which the Israelite history in Samuel-Kings is reshaped in the biblical books of Chronicles. The chapters of this study consider the various historiographical and literary changes found in the parallel texts of Chronicles. Because about half of the material in Chronicles is available to us in other biblical sources, comparison of the literary and linguistic devices used by the Chronicler are very revealing. Kalimi considers the ways in which the Chronicler has edited the material available to him, addressing such topics as: literary-chronological proximity, historiographical revision, completions and additions, various kinds of parallelism and literary devices, and so on. A handy compendium of the ways in which the Chronicler treated his material by one of the premier scholars working in the field.

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.

In this much-anticipated textbook, three respected biblical scholars have written a history of ancient Israel that takes the biblical text seriously as an historical document. While also considering nonbiblical sources and being attentive to what disciplines like archaeology, anthropology, and sociology suggest about the past, the authors do so within the context and paradigm of the Old Testament canon, which is held as the primary document for reconstructing Israel's history. In Part One, the authors set the volume in context and review past and current scholarly debate about learning Israel's history, negating arguments against using the Bible as the central source. In Part Two, they seek to retell the history itself with an eye to all the factors explored in Part One.

This is a groundbreaking book on the origins of Israel, taking into account the contexts of geography, anthropology, and sociology, and drawing on a careful analysis of archaeological and written evidence. Thompson argues that none of the traditional models for the origin of biblical Israel in terms of conquest, peaceful settlement, or revolution are viable. The ninth and eighth century BC State of Israel is a product of the Mediterranean economy. The development of the ethnic concept of biblical Israel finds its context in history first at the time of the Persian renaissance. The volume presents a clear historical context and an interpretative matrix for the Bible.

Most of the papers collected in this volume were delivered at the conference held in June 2018, Mainz. They discuss recent developments in the analysis of history and historiography in ancient Israel and its surrounding cultures. The scholars compare the compositional and editorial approaches evident in biblical and post-biblical writings with those shown in other ancient literature, while concentrating on a specific theme. 0Professor Dr. Isaac Kalimi is the worldwide leading biblical scholar, historian and Judaist. He has published numerous books and articles in English, German, Hebrew and Polish.

In this collection of essays, Hans M. Barstad deals thoroughly with the recent history debate, and demonstrates its relevancy for the study of ancient Israelite history and historiography. He takes an independent stand in the heated maximalist/minimalist debate on the historicity of the Hebrew Bible. Vital to his understanding is the necessity to realize the narrative nature of the ancient Hebrew and of the Near Eastern sources. Equally important is his claim that stories, too, may convey positivistic historical "facts." The other major topic he deals with in the book is the actual history of ancient Judah in the Neo-Babylonian and Persian periods. Here, the author makes extensive use of extant ancient Near Eastern sources, both textual and archaeological, and he puts much weight on economic aspects. He shows that the key to understanding the role of Judah in the 1st millennium lays in the proper evaluation of Judah and its neighbouring city states within their respective imperial contexts. A proper understanding of the history of Judah during the 6th century BCE, consequently, can only be obtained when Judah is studied as a part of the much wider Neo-Babylonian imperial policy.