Abstract
This is the first in a series of five articles which cover one aspect of a debate in biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies. In question is the historical reliability of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). Historical/biblical minimalism, the side in the debate which finds the Hebrew Bible almost completely unreliable as a source for history, has already received substantial bibliographic treatment. Therefore, this series attempts to provide balance by covering the literature in support of historical reliability.
These articles focus not on modern histories of ancient Israel, but rather, publications related to the historicity of the non-miraculous assertions and references in the biblical text. Because of the nature of the debate, the series treats works in English from 1992 through 2008 on the historicity of the biblical content regarding the periods preceding the return from exile (itself disputed) soon after 539 B.C.E. Some relevant articles from 2009 and later are treated in notes.
The other articles are tentatively titled: Part 2, the literature of critique, methodology, and perspective; Part 3, the literature on the Hebrew Bible as a whole that supports historicity with external evidences; Part 4, the literature that supports historicity within particular periods with external evidences, and Part 5, the literature on internal evidences in the Hebrew Bible.
Keywords
biblical historicity, biblical minimalism, historiography, history of Israel, Old Testament history
Published in:
Journal of Religious and Theological Information vol. 9, no. 3–4 (2010): 71–83
Link to original published article:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10477845.2010.526920
Date of this Version
9-2010
Included in
Biblical Studies Commons, History of Religion Commons, Library and Information Science Commons
Comments
This article is used here as part of a pilot program begun in November 2011 by the Routledge imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. To link to this article’s Version of Record, click on: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10477845.2010.526920. It was first published in Journal of Religious and Theological Information vol. 9, no. 3–4 (2010): 71–83, which became available on November 25, 2010.