Biblical Narrative and Palestine's History

Modern biblical scholarship's commitment to the historical-critical method in its efforts to write a history of Israel has created the central and unavoidable problem of writing an objective and critical history of Palestine through the biblical literature with the methods of Biblical Archaeology. 'Biblical Narrative and Palestine's History' brings together key essays on historical method and the archaeology and history of Palestine. The essays employ comparative and formalistic techniques to illuminate the allegorical and mythical in Old Testament narrative traditions from Genesis to Nehemiah. In so doing, the volume presents a detailed review of central and radical changes in both our understanding of biblical traditions and the archaeology and history of Palestine. The study offers an analysis of Biblical narrative as rooted in ancient Near Eastern literature since the Bronze Age.

Thomas L. Thompson

Introduction, Philip R. Davies 1. The Joseph and Moses Narratives 4: Narratives about the Origins of Israel 2. Historical Notes on Israel's Conquest of Palestine: A Peasants' Rebellion 3. The Background of the Patriarchs: A Reply to William Dever and Malcolm Clark 4. Conflict Themes in the Jacob Narratives 5. History and Tradition: A Response to J. B. Geyer 6. Text, Context and Referent in Israelite Historiography 7. Palestinian Pastoralism and Israel's Origins 8. The Intellectual Matrix of Early Biblical Narrative: Inclusive Monotheism in Persian Period Palestine 9. How Yahweh Became God: Exodus 3 and 6 and the Heart of the Pentateuch 10. 4Q Testimonia and Bible Composition: a Copenhagen Lego Hypothesis 11. Why Talk About the Past? The Bible, Epic and Historiography 12. Historiography in the Pentateuch: Twenty-Five Years After Historicity 13. The Messiah Epithet in the Hebrew Bible 14. Kingship and the Wrath of God: Or Teaching Humility 15. From the Mouth of Babes, Strength: Psalm 8 and the Book of Isaiah 16. Job 29: Biography or Parable? 17. Mesha and Questions of Historicity 18. Imago Dei: A Problem in the Discourse of the Pentateuch 19. Changing Perspectives on the History of Palestine