Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 64:4 (Dec 2021)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

Has Archaeology Buried the Bible? By William G. Dever. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020, 158 pp., $25.99.

I read this new book by one of the world’s foremost archaeologists with great anticipation, hoping to learn more about the archaeology of the Bible. However, it is not primarily a book on archaeology nor is it a book on the Bible, but a mixture of both. It claims to verify or nullify (mostly the latter) the stories of the OT by using archaeological finds.

Dever follows a chronological pattern. After a preface, the first chapter offers an overview of how archaeology of the Holy Land has developed through the years, showing how some have used archaeological finds to support the biblical accounts while others deny the possibility of doing so.

The following chapters summarize the main events of the OT and then evaluate them critically in light of archaeological finds under the heading “What Is Left and Does It Matter?” When archaeology does not support the OT accounts, the accounts are usually considered fiction—although believable fiction, because they teach principles of life. According to Dever, archaeology helps separate fact from fiction and challenges a simplistic reading of the Bible. Interspersed in the chapters are short excurses explaining modern historical-critical methods of interpretation.

The second chapter is titled “Patriarchs, Matriarchs, and Migrations and the Promised Land.” The fact that Sarah has a baby at the age of ninety makes for a dramatic story according to Dever, but it is fictitious. All the patriarchal stories may contain some earlier components, but in their present form they have been composed around the end of the monarchy.

The third chapter, titled “Yahweh versus Pharaoh: Holy War,” deals primarily with the exodus and conquest. Dever says the Bible portrays the number of people who left Egypt to be roughly three million, but the Sinai desert could not support such a huge group of people. The biblical conquest, which mentions several Canaanite cities Joshua and his troops conquered and destroyed, is not supported by archaeology. Joshua is thus a work of fiction, celebrating a legendary military hero.

The fourth chapter is about Israel’s settling in the land of promise. Israel was able to settle in Canaan because Canaanite culture was collapsing in the Late Bronze Age. Dever adheres to Mendenhall’s philosophy that there was not really a conquest from outside. Rather, the early Israelites were displaced Canaanites, and the description of these early tribes is a literary construct. The earliest Israelite society was almost entirely illiterate, and therefore, the biblical texts were written centuries later.

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