Dever argues that the Israelites were not external conquerors, but ethnic Canaanites who at some point separated themselves from the larger Canaanite population to distinguish themselves as a separate ethnic, social, and religious group.
To commence, Dever provides a detailed examination of the history of Biblical archaeology, from its earliest apparent ‘successes’ to its later unfortunate ‘failures’ and confrontations with contradictory evidence. The succeeding years are then described, during which various alternative readings of the Biblical text were proposed with no one model able to demonstrate sufficient support to establish a new scholarly consensus. By the end of this section it is apparent that no traditional readings of the Exodus-Conquest narrative can survive a confrontation with the evidence, and most of the post-traditional readings are also without any meaningful support.
Historic theories of Israelite origin are then discussed briefly, and their weaknesses exposed. Dever next moves to the core of his own model, which is that the Israelites were indigenous to Canaan. Taking issue with the interpretation of I. Finkelstein,[1] he provides a useful critique of Finkelstein’s views (which have become popular with Minimalists).
Dever’s primary argument against the Conquest narrative is that there is no substantial discontinuity of material culture within Canaan at the time of the Israelite invasion. However, Dever must also provide sufficient evidence to substantiate a significant discontinuity of material culture illustrating eventual Israelite emergence as a distinct group.
Providing an abundance of archaeological evidence for a discontinuity of Israelite culture from Canaanite culture, Dever acknowledges that this break in continuity took place during the very era that the Biblical record indicates Israel was conquering Canaan. In fact, Dever provides substantially more than that they were an indigenous Canaanite group.
Most striking of the evidence for discontinuity is that which is clearly religious in nature:
- Absence of pig bones from settlement sites: evidence for a radical departure from existing Canaanite food practices, and the emergence of a new ethnic group.
- Massive abandonment (and in some cases physical destruction) of Canaanite temples, cult sites and idols: evidence that these areas had now been taken by a new ethnic group which eschewed the religious beliefs and practices of the Canaanites.
Finally, Dever attempts to harmonize the evidence within a scheme which interprets the early Israelites as an indigenous Canaanite group. It is telling that this last section is the shortest of all and that Dever himself acknowledges ‘my theory is speculative’ and has ‘little archaeological evidence to support it’.
Dever’s work is an extremely useful survey of archaeological data and commentary concerning the early conquest, and the interpretation of Joshua and Judges. However, readers are advised of alternative readings of the evidence which are more sympathetic to the Biblical account:
- Provan, V. Philips Long and T. Longman A Biblical History of Israel (Louisville: WJK Press, 2003).
- K. Hoffmeier Ancient Israel in Sinai (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
- Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).
[1] I. Finkelstein and N. A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts (New York: Touchstone, 2001).
Review of “The Early Earth” by John Whitcomb (1972)