Quote:I hope I didn't piss you off by posting the book's information.
Certainly not, it is typical of the kinds of pointless replies they make.
Let me try to straighten out the "biblical archeology" mess for you. First off, William Dever uses the term Syro-Palestinian Archaeology to cover the region which is probably a better term.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries various religious institutions funded excavations which always found some link between their finds and the bible. It was a form of confirmation bias and they concocted a whole history on the basis of it.
Beginning in the 1950's the prevailing view was undermined somewhat when Kathleen Kenyon cast doubt on the whole Walls of Jericho story. Add in the newly discovered carbon 14 dating technique and the old system of using the bible to prove the bible was in trouble.
In the aftermath of the 1967 war Israel gained access to Sinai and the West Bank and teams of young archaeologists spread out seeking to find evidence of their ancestors. What they found ( or rather failed to find) stunned them. Groups at Kadesh Barnea a large oasis in the Eastern Sinai where the "Israelites" supposed lived for 40 years showed no indication of habitation prior to the Iron Age. Others searching for "Arad" found that this arch -enemy of the Israelites had not existed in the Late Bronze Age and, like Kadesh Barnea, only showed signs of occupation in the Iron Age. Meanwhile on the West Bank, surveys found a string of villages founded in the highlands that later grew into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. There was no outside conquest. The Israelites were indigenous to the region.
Since that time archaeology has moved steadily demolishing the bibles fanciful tales. Yes, fundies still cling to books written by preachers masquerading as archaeologists from 1910 but as with evolution you can't allow what fundies say to influence you.
