Older readers may remember a character from Escolinha do Professor Raimundo whose catchphrase was “it was going so well!”. The student in question started out getting everything right, only to come up with a ridiculous answer at the end. Well, that’s more or less the feeling of reading the “Thomas Nelson Manual of Biblical Archeology”, written by Randall Price and Wayne House, if the student gave the crazy answer over and over again, interspersed with interesting and correct information.
It’s a shame, because, at an initial reading, the book has a lot to offer, starting with the very careful iconographic research, which really brings to light the material culture of the biblical world from the Bronze Age to the Roman period, whether in the large buildings or in the daily. The work also provides very clear summaries of the results of archaeological excavations at the main sites in the region today encompassed by Israel, Palestine, Jordan and their surroundings.
However, both authors have degrees in theology and teach at conservative evangelical schools in the United States. This would not necessarily be a problem — if they were not so fixated on trying to harmonize archaeological data with a nearly literalist interpretation of the biblical text.
The authors defend, for example, the idea that the book of Genesis was written by the prophet Moses, the historicity of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as the historical occurrence of the Exodus basically in the manner described by the biblical text.
None of these interpretations is accepted by archaeologists and historians in non-denominational institutions today, that is to say. Readers of the book, therefore, need to keep in mind that interpretations of the relationship between archaeological data and the biblical text have religious belief as primacy.
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