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Deciduous, Perennial or Evergreen? The Choices in the Debate over ‘Early Israel’

Memorial Library, 728 State St., Madison, WI 53706, USA

In two recent articles Iain Provan has argued that those who question the reality of ‘early Israel’ do not have adequate epistemological grounds for their reasoning. Provan is particularly interested in preserving much of the testimony of the Hebrew Bible, if only because, without it, there is virtually no evidence left. Here I argue a different position, largely from a comparative framework. Given the remarkable lack of archaeological and external support for biblical history, I wonder why we should give the Hebrew Bible—or any source that is sui generis and largely uncorroborated—the benefit of any doubts. In other times and other places such sources have lost much of the credibility given them by earlier generations; why not here? The historiographical and epistemological situation is ripe for open debate. In any zetetic process, it is now the turn of those who prefer to use biblical evidence for orientation to justify this with more than variations of a refrain. In the meantime, postulating reconstructions of this period and place can be little more than gamesmanship.

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