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1 results

  • Chapter 3 - Deconstructing (and Reconstructing) the United Monarchy as Historical

  • from Part I - The United Monarchy in the Bible and Contemporary Scholarship
  • Avraham Faust, Bar Ilan University, Israel, Zev I. Farber, Shalom Hartman Institute, Jerusalem
  • Book:
    The Bible's First Kings
    Published online:
    16 January 2025
    Print publication:
    20 February 2025, pp 59-106

  • Summary

    The consensus around the historicity of the United Monarchy is long gone, as already noted in the previous chapter’s conclusion. This chapter first expands on the old consensus, describing its decline and even “death” as it unfolded in the 1990s. It then describes the concomitant rise and development of the minimalist school, which, while failing to make many converts, had a major impact on scholarship. The chapter then looks at changes in the way the archaeology of the period is perceived by many biblical scholars, many of whom have become skeptical or even dismissive of the possibility of a large Israelite polity in the tenth century, and the word “empire” has all but disappeared from the discourse. The chapter pushes back against this excess of caution, examining how the supposed archaeological and historical reasons for it have not stood the test of time. Indeed, discoveries made over the past twenty years or so challenge this new skepticism and instead reinforce a more sophisticated version of the older views, which worked with the idea of a United Monarchy in this period.