The Bible unearthed

An interesting look at just what the archaeological and historical record shows us about the history of ancient Israel and the foundation of Judaism. I was more interested in the former than the latter, but the two are tightly intertwined.

The conclusions made are going to be controversial to anyone with a literalist interpretation of the Bible, but seem sound based on the evidence presented.

A brilliant book examining the text of the Bible versus the recent archaeological findings and contemporary texts. The conclusion is that the initial text of the Bible was composed during the 7 C. BC in order to create a myth around which the residents of a small poor state of Yehuda could unite. The nature of this particular myth, containing a historical narrative and an optimistic prognosis for the future, was unique at the time and offered different people in the future a similar myth they could unite around. Of course the myth was created around historical memories of the time and it is particularly interesting to see how contemporary historical memories were used.