The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel Book

A study of Old Testament and early Middle Eastern history. Using advances in Palestinian and biblical archaeology the book aims to provide a synthesis of studies since the mid 1970s. In conclusion the author argues that the notion of Israel and its history is a literary fiction.Read More

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  • Amazon Review

    One of the great controversies surrounding the Bible in the last 20 years centers on whether it is a historical document and therefore literally "true." Thomas L. Thompson has spent his academic career steeped in this controversy, researching the archaeological histories of Israel and Palestine, and has concluded that the Bible is not a historical document. Thompson contends however, that understanding the Bible as fictive does not have to undermine its truth and integrity. Currently a professor of the Old Testament at the University of Copenhagen, Thompson's The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel aims to separate the Bible from history in order to understand it on its own terms, in the context its authors intended. While parts of The Mythic Past value research and analysis over readability, it is arranged to help aspiring scholars negotiate the vast and complex history of biblical understanding. Thompson believes that "How the Bible is related to history has been badly misunderstood. As we have been reading the Bible within a context that is certainly wrong, and as we have misunderstood the Bible because of this, we need to seek a context more appropriate. As a result, we will begin to read the Bible in a new way." --Jodie Buller

  • Product Description

    "This is a very important book. It should be given to every person training for the ministry or priesthood of a Christian church. It should be compulsory reading for every member of the Knesset."-A. N. Wilson, The Independent

    The Jewish people's historical claims to a small area of land bordering the eastern Mediterranean are not only the foundation for the modern state of Israel, they are also at the very heart of Judeo-Christian belief. Yet in The Mythic Past, Thomas Thompson argues that such claims are grounded in literary myth, not history. Among the author's startling conclusions are these:

    - There never was a "united monarch" of Israel in biblical times
    - We can no longer talk about a time of the Patriarchs
    - The entire notion of "Israel" and its history is a literary fiction.

    The Mythic Past provides refreshing new ways to read the Old Testament as the great literature it was meant to be. At the same time, its controversial conclusions about Jewish history are sure to prove incendiary in a worldwide debate about one of the world's seminal texts, and one of its most bitterly contested regions.

  • 0465006493
  • 9780465006496
  • Thomas L. Thompson
  • 16 March 2000
  • Basic Books
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 432
  • Reprint
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