Myth And Ideology : Creating History In The Bible

The book seeks to clarify the origins of the Hebrew Bible by an investigation of the biblical text, relying on extra-biblical evidence, particularly archaeology. The author's approach is non-theological, referring to Bible Scholars for many of his sources and using quotes from the Bible and ancient Near Eastern texts to support his conclusions. The traditional view of a divinely revealed Pentateuch is examined and the author recounts the development of criticism of that view, culminating in the Documenary Hypothesis, which is explained in detail. The suggestion is made that the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic history, ending with the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, emanate from several disparate sources. The author explains that all the evidence indicates that the earliest sources of the Pentateuch date from sometime between 922 and 722 BCE, and he shows that much of the Bible's narrative is myth and reveals a political bias by its writers. Often, we are reading historical fict