When this provocative text was first published, Lemche presented a new model of how we should understand Israelite society, its history and its religion. Lemche argues first that 'Israel' was the result of a social development among the Canaanite population of Palestine in the second half of the second millennium BCE. This implies that Israelite religion was originally 'Canaanite' and that what we think of as typically 'Jewish' religion did not arise until c. 500 BCE. 
Lemche's radical reassessment of Israelite history is based on the conviction that the Old Testament contains hardly any historical sources older than the seventh century BCE. The early history of Israel must therefore be reconstructed from archaeological results and non-biblical evidence, not from the Old Testament. In this new edition Lemche provides an extensive new introduction and bibliography, considering how the field has developed since the work first appeared.

Ancient Israel: A New History of Israel (T&T Clark Cornerstones)

History

Lemche, Niels Peter

Ancient Civilizations

T&T Clark

The Israelites in History and Tradition (Library of Ancient Israel)

A preeminent international Old Testament historian makes an important contribution to the understanding of the complex people and culture behind the biblical literature.

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Westminster John Knox Pr

Niels Peter Lemche focuses on the way Israelites understood themselves at different points in history--before, within, and after the monarchy. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding Israel's rich history.
Volumes in the Library of Ancient Israel draw on multiple disciplines--such as archaeology, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and literary criticism--to illuminate the everyday realities and social subtleties these ancient cultures experienced. This series employs sophisticated methods resulting in original contributions that depict the reality of the people behind the Hebrew Bible and interprets these insights for a wide variety of readers.

Middle East

Westminster/John Knox Press

From its inception at the time of the Enlightenment until the mid-twentieth century, the historical-critical method constituted the dominant paradigm in Old Testament studies. In this magisterial overview, Niels Peter Lemche surveys the development of the historical-critical method and the way it changed the scholarly perception of the Old Testament. He describes the rise and influence of historical-critical approaches and traces their decline and fall. Then, he discusses the identity of the authors of the Old Testament, based on the content of the literature they wrote, demonstrating that the "collapse of history" does not preclude critical study. Lemche goes on to investigates the theological consequences of this "collapse" and surveys Old Testament and biblical theology in its various manifestations in the twentieth century. An appendix includes a history of Palestine from the Stone Age to modern times, constructed without recourse to the Old Testament.

The Old Testament between Theology and History: A Critical Survey

Religion & Spirituality

Christian Books & Bibles

How useful is the Old Testament for reconstructing the history of early Israel? How accurate is the Bible's portrait of the ancient Near East over three thousand years ago? Such questions have recently dominated academic discussion and have spilled over even into the popular arena. Prelude to Israel's Past may add fuel to the fire of this often heated debate. Lemche, a scholar at the center of this debate, carefully explores the crucial questions that concern the biblical portrayal of Israel's early history. Does that portrait conform to the historical description of Bronze Age Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Mesopotamia that modern-day historians and archaeologists have uncovered? Did the biblical authors record the experiences of Israel's ancestors, or did these authors express their own experiences through historical fiction? Lemche's lucid answers to these and many other questions suggest that the biblical writers, like modern-day filmmakers, wrote tales that spoke to their audiences' tastes, intelligence, and (especially) needs. Consequently, the primary task of the modern student of the Bible is not to look to the patriarchs, or Moses, or Mount Sinai for historical reconstructions but to understand the theological context and purpose of these narratives. Only if we read the Old Testament in its literary and theological contexts can the Bible continue to speak to us today.

Prelude to Israel's Past: Background and Beginnings of Israelite History and Identity

Baker Academic

Of the many ancient civilizations we are aware of, few are smaller than the ancient Kingdom of Israel. Small both in geographical area and population, it was barely noticed by the major civilizations of the time in Egypt, Mesopotamia and elsewhere, which either ignored or crushed it. Yet, several millennia later, Israel is the civilization we remember most acutely, which we know – or think we know – the most about, and which has even been revised after a manner. Alas, what we know – or think we know – about Israel comes partly from the Old Testament and partly from fragmentary and sometimes distorted bits of historical evidence. For these very reasons, because Ancient Israel means so much to us and because we actually know so little for sure, this Dictionary is particularly important. It examines the usual sources in the Old Testament and surveys the findings of more recent archaeological research to help us determine just what happened and when, a far from simple task. It includes entries on most of the persons, places, and events which are generally considered, and shows more broadly what the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were like and what role they played in the ancient world, but it also defines them as closely as possible according to the latest data. While the results may differ from traditional views, they are essential correctives.

Historical Dictionary of Ancient Israel (Volume 13) (Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras, 13)

Scarecrow Press

Of the many ancient civilizations we are aware of, few are smaller than the ancient Kingdom of Israel. Small both in geographical area and population, it was barely noticed by the major civilizations of the time in Egypt, Mesopotamia and elsewhere, which either ignored or crushed it. Yet, several millennia later, Israel is the civilization we remember most acutely, which we know? or think we know? the most about, and which has even been revised after a manner. Alas, what we know? or think we know? about Israel comes partly from the Old Testament and partly from fragmentary and sometimes distorted bits of historical evidence. For these very reasons, because Ancient Israel means so much to us and because we actually know so little for sure, The A to Z of Ancient Israel is particularly important. It examines the usual sources in the Old Testament and surveys the findings of more recent archaeological research to help us determine just what happened and when, a far from simple task. It includes entries on most of the persons, places, and events which are generally considered, and shows more broadly what the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were like and what role they played in the ancient world, but it also defines them as closely as possible according to the latest data. While the results may differ from traditional views, they are essential correctives.

The A to Z of Ancient Israel (Volume 139) (The A to Z Guide Series, 139)

How useful is the Old Testament for reconstructing the history of early Israel? How accurate is the BibleÂ’s portrait of the ancient Near East over three thousand years ago? Such questions have recently dominated academic discussion and have spilled over even into the popular arena. Prelude to Israel's Past may add fuel to the fire of this often heated debate. Lemche, a scholar at the center of this debate, carefully explores the crucial questions that concern the biblical portrayal of IsraelÂ’s early history. Does that portrait conform to the historical description of Bronze Age Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Mesopotamia that modern-day historians and archaeologists have uncovered? Did the biblical authors record the experiences of IsraelÂ’s ancestors, or did these authors express their own experiences through historical fiction? LemcheÂ’s lucid answers to these and many other questions suggest that the biblical writers, like modern-day filmmakers, wrote tales that spoke to their audiencesÂ’ tastes, intelligence, and (especially) needs. Consequently, the primary task of the modern student of the Bible is not to look to the patriarchs, or Moses, or Mount Sinai for historical reconstructions but to understand the theological context and purpose of these narratives. Only if we read the Old Testament in its literary and theological contexts can the Bible continue to speak to us today.
"The merit of this solid and stimulating work is that it gives the fullest account available in English of Lemche's assessment of the pentateuchal traditions in relation to what we otherwise know of Bronze Age Syria and Palestine in their sociopolitical, literary, and religious dimensions. He concludes that while the Pentateuch carries cultural and literary traces that would accord broadly with the world in which it is set, these features are too fragmentary and contextless to give us recoverable history. In his view, the Pentateuch's narrative intention was to provide a foundation story for the monotheistic Jewish community of a much later age. Instead of providing us information on Israel's actual beginnings, it is an exceedingly valuable window into the postexilic thought world and communal concerns of those who composed it. Happily, Lemche's argument is free of the scornful polemics that have unfortunately characterized much of the scholarly debate on these issues in recent years, allowing the reader to consider his claims on their own terms. The reference value of the book is substantially enhanced by bibliographies attached to each subsection of the text." Â—Norman K. Gottwald, Pacific School of Religion

Prelude to Israel's Past: Background Amd Beginnings of Israelite History and Identity

World

Hendrickson Pub

Back to Reason: Minimalism in Biblical Studies (Discourses in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies)

Twenty years ago some biblical scholars at the University of Copenhagen were denounced as being nihilists and a threat to western civilization. What was their crime? They had exposed the fallacies of traditional historical-critical biblical scholarship, which was neither historical nor critical. Although the historical-critical interpretation of the Bible had developed over a period of more than a hundred years, it had ended up, with the help of a rationalistic paraphrase of the stories of the Old Testament, creating a society out of this world called biblical Israel. Israel was like no other society in the ancient world, and scarcely a real historic society at all. It was structured like a house of cards. Therefore, when some scholars began to question the historical content of the construction of ancient Israel, as it was usually called, the edifice broke down, first in bits and then totally. This study addresses the development of 'Minimalism' from its roots in the historical-critical paradigm and outlines an alternative theory which exposes and explains the intention behind the fallacy of using a story found in the Old Testament to simply invent the biblical concept of Israel.

Equinox Publishing

If I Forget You, Jerusalem! Studies on the Old Testament (Discourses in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies)

This selection of articles - never published in English before - reflects the author's position that the basic realization of minimalism has always been evident: that the Old Testament is not - exclusively - a book about history but is dominated by interests in theology both as literature and as an expression of the community in which biblical writings originated. It is a companion volume to his 2022 book Back to Reason: Minimalism in Biblical Studies and both gives an impression of the progress of biblical studies over the last generation or two but also presents a series of new ideas about subjects such as cultural memory, the redaction of Psalms, the importance of prophetic literature also for Christian theology and much more.

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lemche, Niels Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Lemche, Niels Peter

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Lemche, Niels Peter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Ancient Israel: A New History of Israel (T&T Clark Cornerstones)

The Israelites in History and Tradition (Library of Ancient Israel)

The Israelites in History and Tradition (Library of Ancient Israel)

The Old Testament between Theology and History: A Critical Survey

Prelude to Israel's Past: Background and Beginnings of Israelite History and Identity

Historical Dictionary of Ancient Israel (Volume 13) (Historical Dictionaries of Ancient Civilizations and Historical Eras, 13)

The A to Z of Ancient Israel (Volume 139) (The A to Z Guide Series, 139)

Prelude to Israel's Past: Background Amd Beginnings of Israelite History and Identity

Back to Reason: Minimalism in Biblical Studies (Discourses in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies)

If I Forget You, Jerusalem! Studies on the Old Testament (Discourses in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies)