It Ain't Necessarily So: Investigating the Truth of the Biblical Past

This a detailed survey of the current debate which avoids jumping to conclusions. It gives space to different interpretations of the accumulating evidence both from biblical literalists to outright rejectionists. He does however favor a middle view. As the tittle says it all "it ain't necessarily so" with an implied "ain't ncessarily not so". Archeology suggests that the Israelites were not invaders but groups of Canaanites who broke free of the old cities to bring under cultivation the till then lowly inhabited hill country. It is hard to see how the account in Joshua of an external invasion fits with this but the description of the Israelites in Judges fits the archeology quite well. He makes it quite clear, however, the extent that the evidence is too sketchy for anyone make dramatic claims about having found the "truth".

It's a disgrace to "intellectuals" of the world, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim, that they have ignored this book. It should be in every city public library, university library, and it should be a best seller of a major publisher. It was favorably reviewed by The Times (of London) Literary Supplement (Jan.11, 2002, page 27), but never by the N.Y. Times (although the ideas were summarized on page B7 of the March 9, 2002 N.Y. Times). This easy-to-read (though somewhat wordy) book collects the evidence that there are no archeological remains of the great cities and temples of the Bible (or else a few remains at very wrong places and with very wrong carbon-14 dating). Excellent records were kept by Egyptians, Romans, Assyrians, etc., but none show anything about biblical people or events before King Josiah, hundreds of years after Moses, David, Solomon, etc. Therefore Josiah probably commissioned Hebrew scribes (who were truly writers of genius!) to make up ALL(!) the great stories. The book is fascinating and important, although millions of people are trying hard to ignore it.