The Bible Unearthed by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman

This is a book that takes on a subject that most Christians comfortably assume to be safe ground. Don't get me wrong; it's not an assault on Christianity (well, not from my point of view), it's a critical questioning of the interpretation of the archaeological evidence that is often used to support the idea of the Bible as literal history.

For example, the Bible tells the story of the Israelites emigrating from Egypt after having spent generations there in slavery. Basically there isn't any evidence for this in the material record. The Egyptians kept detailed records, and while they did have slaves, they tell no stories about having an entire population enslaved. One would think they might given that it would require a massive effort to support them. As a matter of fact, the Egyptians do tell of using the local farmers to build the pyramids. They have records of that, as well as the material evidence we have uncovered that supports that.

In short, modern scientists committed the error of first taking the Bible as truth and then reinterpreting (or misinterpreting) the archaeoligical record in support of that. This book shines a new light on many instances of such misinterpretation. One example would of course be the question of where the Israelites came from (not surprisingly, the evidence supports the idea they were there all along). It also questions the Biblical account of the kingdom of David and Solomon and the interpretation of such data as there is which supposedly supports it.

The book is very dense and not the best read. It's certainly not a work of pop non-fiction and requires you know something about both the Bible and archaeology. That's not knowledge everyone is going to have, but you can muddle through anyway. I think this book is very rewarding. For those of you who want to have specific reasons to doubt the truth of the Bible (reasons that can be backed up with material evidence that is) you can read this book and certainly find what you're loooking for. Of course if you're not willing to question the Biblical account, you probably don't ever read books like this, but if you do perhaps it will be enlightening as to the development of Israel. Read it!