Strata: Criticism and Acclaim for Finkelstein

In our July/August 2014 issue, we published two harshly critical reviews of a book titled The Forgotten Kingdom—The Archaeology and History of Northern Israel by the dean of Tel Aviv University archaeologists and a leading so-called minimalist, Israel Finkelstein. Our reviewers were two equally distinguished American archaeologists, William Dever and Aaron Burke.^a At the same time, however, we called attention to the fact that the French publication of Finkelstein’s book had been awarded the prestigious Delalande-Guérineau prize by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

In view of these critical reviews, it seems to us only fair that we call attention to a recent (October 2014) review of Finkelstein’s book that appeared in the Society of Biblical Literature’s Review of Biblical Literature (RBL) by K.L. Noll of Brandon University in Canada. It concluded this way: “The Forgotten Kingdom is a sound explication of archaeological and epigraphic data, and even if Finkelstein had never discussed his propaganda hypotheses in its pages, this book would remain required reading for all Biblical scholars. I recommend that it become top priority on your must-read list.”

As for Finkelstein’s so-called Low Chronology for which he has become known, Noll writes that it “is not the radical revision some have claimed and is a healthy improvement over the older and internally inconsistent High Chronology.”