Customer Reviews

On the Reliability of the Old Testament

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Kenneth Kitchen is an emeritus professor of Egyptology and Archaeology from the University of Liverpool; his interests and writings span many millennia of the ancient world across Egypt and the ancient Near East, including the area of biblical history. In this volume (which he amusingly describes as reducing to the acronym OROT, or O! ROT! as some of his critics may proclaim) Kitchen puts forth an interesting argument here against the dominant tide of biblical studies in Old Testament studies, eschewing modern or postmodern ideas of interpretation and preferring a more traditional approach. Having been inspired by his friend I. Howard Marshall and the text by F.F. Bruce 'Are the New Testament Documents Reliable?', he set out on the massive task of producing a similar volume for the Old Testament.

The job presents many difficulties, of course, not the least of which is the ever changing atmosphere, culture, literacy ability, and more of the people of the ancient lands over the millennia. Kitchen does have a care for facts - he doesn't engage in arguments of philosophical import (he doesn't care to address the nature of absolute truth, for instance, seeing that as an often-used diversionary sideline getting away from the basic understanding of reasonably certain objective facts in history). Kitchen supports his arguments with a wide-ranging knowledge of history and the languages of the areas and times. Kitchen makes it clear in the introduction there are three elements he means to address (history, literature and culture) and three he does not (theology, doctrine and dogma). Obviously the nature of the documents require discussion of the latter three, but these are not the focus points. Two primary questions Kitchen also addresses are these: Is there genuine information of the Israelite/Jewish culture from 2000-400 BCE contained in the biblical texts? Secondly, he asks did these documents originate entirely after this period, namely, the period 400-200 BCE?

Kitchen's approach is neither chronological nor canonical, but circles back through the text in a manner looking at culture and exile first primarily through kingdom and exile periods, going then back around to the patriarchs and the progress of history through to the prophets back to the exilic period again. Regardless of one's interpretative framework, much of this information is valuable and interesting, and makes one revisit some of the text from a new perspective.

Perhaps the most interesting chapter is the final chapter, where Kitchen does a survey of the history of the interpretation of biblical history and texts. As perhaps only someone who has spent a lifetime devoted to the subject can do (and no longer has to worry about academic promotions, etc.), Kitchen candidly presents his analysis of key ideas and figures in the development of our understanding of the biblical text over the past 200 years of study. His particular thrust here is against the minimalists, and his biases are very clear here. After discussing the problems with various scholars' approaches, he puts together brief answers to his initial questions, deciding that there is far more reliability than many think.

Kitchen stops far short of proclaiming a word-for-fact inerrant correlation between the text we have today and actual history, but does go to great links to minimise the minimalists, showing that there is far more respect for the reliability of the text due to the Old Testament. Biblical literalists may still find the text difficult to accept because of this, but it does include much information for them to consider in a manner probably less problematic than most mainstream biblical scholarship.

This is primarily a book for scholars, evidenced by the wide range of material gathered, the assumptions of knowledge of history, archaeology, language, culture and biblical studies, and the extensive notes made in the text (the endnotes comprise more than 100 of the 660 pages of the text). There is a generous supply of plates, tables, charts and maps, and reasonable indexes for subject and scripture references. However, it is generally accessible to those with at least an undergraduate or equivalent education.

For those who are looking for an answer to the question, 'Can we trust the reliability of the Bible?', this gives some interesting information. Worth reading by those from the liberal and the orthodox camps.

Kitchen assesses the reliability of the Hebrew Bible in the light of archaeological evidence, and argues that the Hebrew Bible is very reliable.
Through eight chapters he explores the material on the patriarchs, Exodus, Joshua and judges, the united monarchy, the divided monarchy, the prophets and the exiles and their return. Finally, he concludes with an analysis of minimalist work of various periods on the Hebrew Bible.
Kitchen's method is to carefully outline the text as it stands (noting minimalist distortions of the text where necessary). He then turns to the relevant archaeological data. Kitchen's analysis here is extensive and detailed. The presentation of the material is very systematic, and Kitchen is often witty. Kitchen maintains his clarity throughout, and the book reads mellifluously.
I was astonished at the quantity of archaeological data available for this study. I expected that through the passage of time, especially in the region in which the Bible is set, a lot of relevant material would've been destroyed (naturally or otherwise), and Kitchen is very careful in explaining that absence of evidence doesn't always count as evidence of absence. Nevertheless, there is so much clear archaeological evidence - of many different forms - for the accuracy of the Biblical record! The relevant archaeological material stretches over a period of more than two-thousand years and over a vast region including many cultures, whose literature is in ten Near Eastern languages. This breadth is matched only by Kitchen's extensive knowledge.
Kitchen's book also has devastating relevance for the so-called "higher criticism" of the Hebrew Bible, its documentary hypothesis of a multiplicity of sources and late authorship of the Pentateuch. Kitchen's careful analysis and comparisons of the style of external literary sources and archaeological artefacts from various periods of the ancient Near East shows how the style and content of the Biblical books fit perfectly into the times at which they are set - and no other times.
A couple of times, however, I wasn't impressed with Kitchen's interpretation of Biblical verses. I wasn't impressed with his treatment of the numbers of the Exodus. I suspect that some won't like his naturalistic explanation of some miracles such as the ten plagues. Note that Kitchen isn't trying to prove the theology of the Hebrew Bible or establish the correctness of the religious interpretations of events. He is simply trying to establish whether the Biblical record of events is accurate insofar as the archaeological record goes, but religious Jews and Christians will, of course, be interested in this as well. I also would've preferred the relevant maps and sketches to have been included within the text rather than at the end of the book.
A previous reviewer comments that Kitchen's book ignores inconvenient evidence and is outdated. I strongly disagree. Throughout the book Kitchen contends with his opponents. Much of the final chapter is devoted to carefully responding to the most recent works of biblical minimalism.
In order to get a balanced view of the debate I also purchased Finkelstein and Silberman's "The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts". This is a recent (2001) rejection of the Biblical record in the light of archaeological evidence. It seems that Kitchen destroys this book; a response to virtually every significant claim made in "The Bible Unearthed" can be found in Kitchen's book.
Kitchen's book is monumental, stretching over five hundred pages with an additional hundred pages of endnotes, about forty pages of maps, charts and sketches, an extensive index of scriptural references and a subject index. Kitchen's book is essential for anyone interested in whether the Hebrew Bible is reliable. The book is also wonderful for less critical readers who are interested in the context of the Hebrew bible, the nations and places it mentions, the history of its times and its geography. For the critic this work is a stunning rebuttal of minimalist claims; for everyone it makes the Hebrew Bible come alive.

First, a personal observation. When I grew up, Sweden was already the most secularized nation in the world. Naturally, the public schools were secular. Yet, the Lutheran Church of Sweden was still the officially established religion! What to do? The problem was solved by a typical Swedish compromise: all public school students had to learn the Bible, but only as history. So I grew up thinking that Moses was a real historical person, that the Exodus actually happened, that the Israelites crossed the Reed Sea (not the Red one), etc.

Years later, when I started reading "Biblical Archeology Review", I was surprised to learn, almost shocked, that archeologists regard the Pentateuch and Joshua as purely mythological! Except a certain Kenneth Kitchen, who wrote interminable articles trying to prove everything from Abraham to Moses with esoteric arguments about ancient slave-prices and bussines transactions. Naturally, I was intrigued. Later, I learned that Kitchen isn't just an Oberprofessor of Egyptology, but also an evangelical Christian. Which may or may not explain his "maximalist" view of the Bible. Still, I tend to symphatize with the "maximalists" in the heated debates about Biblical archeology. After all, the credibility of our secular education system is at stake!

Naturally, I just had to give Kenneth Kitchen's tour de force "On the reliability of the Old Testament" five stars. Kitchen may represent a minorityite position within archeology, but his arguments are nevertheless interesting. In a review this size, only my own personal favorite arguments can be high-lighted.

Kitchen starts by pointing out the obvious: the Bible is confirmed by Assyrian and Babylonian sources from king Ahab (853 BC) foreward. If the Bible can be trusted, as a purely historical chronicle (sans miracle) from the divided monarchy forward, why can't it also be trusted when it talks about, say, David and Solomon? Those parts of the Bible are also written in the form of a historical chronicle. There is no obvious break between the "unproven" parts of the Bible and the proven parts. As for miracles and theologizing, even king Ahab is pretty theologized, not to mention the destruction of Jerusalem.

In a book like this, that old saying "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" must of necessity play a prominent part. Why aren't David and Solomon mentioned in Assyrian or Egyptian chronicles? Because Assyria didn't expand westward into Canaan during their reign, and so wasn't interested in the local rulers. And Egypt was weakened during this period, no longer considering Canaan its sphere of influence or dominion. Thus, there are logical reasons for the "absence of evidence" for the United Monarchy. As for Jerusalem, that city have been destroyed and rebuilt so many times, that it would be a miracle in itself if substantial remains of, say the First Temple, would be found by excavators - in the unlikely case that the Muslims would permit an excavation inside the Dome of the Rock! Nor can we expect hard evidence for the Exodus. Slave-huts made of mud doesn't show up in the archeological record, Egyptian pharaos never commemorated defeat on their monuments, and 99% of all papyrus documents from the Eastern Delta have been destroyed by bad climate (including any secret intelligence report about rebellious Israelite slaves). Besides, Kitchen believes that only 20,000 people participated in the Exodus, not millions.

Other arguments I found interesting include the observation that Jerusalem might have been the capital of a mini-empire although small, since Thebes was even smaller when it became the capital of an Egyptian mega-empire, that Solomon was a quite poor chap by Iron Age standards, and that the Queen of Sheba fits a period when some women played a prominent role in Arab politics (they didn't after Solomon's time). Less convincing is the treatment of Jericho and Ai. I'm not sure if Kitchen have solved the problem of these towns being destroyed at the "wrong" time. However, he does make the funny observation that women in-keepers á la Rahab were typical of the period!

Most of Kitchen's arguments for the reliability of the Old Testament are necessarily indirect. He searches the Biblical texts for information about covenants, business transactions, slave-prices, personal names or special kinds of architecture (and yes, in-keepers), and asks himself whether these were typical of the period during which Biblical text is supposed to have been written. If so, one can conclude that the Israelites either had very long (and very good) memory spans....or the Biblical texts actually *were* written long before the Dead Sea Scrolls! To take just one example, Kitchen believes that the mix of Semitic and Hurrian names in Joshua is typical of the so-called Conquest period, but not later. And yes, poor Joseph was sold for 20 shekels, supposedly a typical price for a hapless slaveboy during the time of the Patriarchs.

As a layman, I cannot possible judge these arguments, and others have taken issue with Kitchen's interpretation, in the pages of "Biblical Archeology Review" (where else?). Still, Kitchen's book makes interesting reading, and apart from a few rather tedious sections about the rethorical style of ancient documents (yawn), it's surprisingly easy to read, and even humorous (unless you are a competing archeologist, at whose expense the jokes are made). I therefore warmly recommend this book to friend and foe alike. Five stars!!!

The title speaks for the subject of the book. Dr. Kitchen has once again produced an incredible work. Regardless of whether you are a Biblical Maximalist, Minimalist, or something in between, this book sets the bar for future scholarship on the subject. Kitchen takes a conservative approach to the material using a vast array of primary texts and originial sources. He is a paragon in the fields of Egyptology and the Ancient Near East--the material shows it.
I'm slightly dissappointed with his section on 'Judges'. He believes in a later date for the exodus (which is fine) except for the fact that he contradicts his own methodoly in handling the data found in the text(1kings 6:1; Judges 11:26; Ex. 2:23, and 12:40) . . . all to fit the latter date for the exodus. He chides his opponents for doing the very same thing.
Despite this, the work is monumental. So well written, his opponets will probably meet the material with silence . . . unable to answer Kitchen's convincing arguments on equal terms. Well done!

The well respected English scholar--Kenneth Kitchen--has penned another masterpiece in this book on the inherent reliability of the Old Testament. This study is characterised by his renowned attention to detail and well supported arguments which caters primarily to the scholar/academician rather than the average lay book reader. The book covers 500 pages on the Old Testament before one reaches his volumnious bibliography which includes the author's incisive commentary.

Kitchen demonstrates that the Biblical Joseph could only have been sold into slavery for 20 shekels in Mesopotamia, as the Bible states, in the 18th or 17th Century BC when the price of slaves averaged this price. (pp.344-345) Hence, his career as Pharaoh's chief Vizier can only be dated to this time--deep within Egypt's Second Intermediate Period during either the Asiatic 14th Dynasty which controlled Egypt's Delta region or the Hyksos era. (c.1648-1540 BC) A later date for Joseph's existence in 15th or 14th Century BC New Kingdom Egypt is ruled out by the fact that the average price of slaves had risen to 30 shekels by 15th and 14th Century BC Mesopotamia. (p.345) Since Joseph was young and healthy at the time his brothers sold him into slavery, he can be expected to have commanded the standard average price of 20 shekels.

Kitchen counters the familiar refrain of Biblical skeptics: "Why [are there] no inscriptions of David's and Solomon's time?" by noting that these problems encompass both the survival of artifacts and official state policy. (p.90) He aptly notes that one must expect any 10th century Jewish texts in Jerusalem and Samaria to have suffered from "repeated changes, destructions and rebuildings" throughout antiquity. The Babylonians "thoroughly destroyed the temple and palace of the 'City of David' in 586 BC" while the massive building projects of King Herod would have removed most remaining traces of Solomonic era stelas or monuments, if any had survived to this time, in Jerusalem.(p.90) At Samaria, archeological excavations have produced "no series of official stone inscriptions either" with the possible exception of one small fragment which "bears the single anodyne word 'asher, [meaning] 'who, which'!" (p.91) However, like Jerusalem, Samaria--the capital of post-Solomon Israel--suffered much damage in 722/720 BC while in Herodian and Roman times, it was completely redeveloped. Furthermore, scholars have not established if Israel's early kings created formal inscriptions on stone during king David or Solomon's reign compared to the unofficial Siloam tunnel inscription which dates to Hezekiah's rule. Kitchen contends that apart from Jerusalem or Samaria, no other Jewish towns merited any major official inscriptions. He plausibly concludes that the lack of attestations for contemporary monuments of David or Solomon's reign is not convincing evidence for denying Israel's existence in the early 10th Century BC by noting that there are similiarly minimal surviving documents or inscriptions for Israel's own contemporary neighbours. Only the shattered Tel-Dan stela, a few minor inscribed ivory labels in Assyria and several horse blinkers attests to Hazael's existence as a king of Aram-Damascus. (p.91) In addition, Mesha's stela is the only known document from his reign as a king of Moab; no other Moabite kings are monumentally known by any artifacts aside from one reference thus far. Similiarly "only about three pieces commemorate [the] kings of Ammon" while no monument mentions any of the kings of Edom. (p.91) Consequently, Kitchen reasonably concludes that in this context of minimal surviving historical documents, one can hardly complain about the almost total failure to discover texts belonging to David or Solomon's era. (p.91) It must be stressed that prior to the 1993 discovery of the Tel-Dan stela, the name David was never found in any Near Eastern document. (pp.36-37 & 91) This again speaks to a general paucity of surviving objects concerning Israel or its neighbours in the Levant.

Apart from the reference to the 'House of David' in the shattered ca. 841 BC old Aramaic Tel-Dan stela of Hazael, Kitchen compiles strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that a Palestinian place-name from Pharaoh Shoshenq I's 920's BC Karnak list of conquered Canaanite cities also contains an indirect allusion to David. (p.92-93) He notes that this place-name, located within a group of names clearly located by association to the Negev/South Judah area, reads as "the heights of Dwt." (p.93) The author notes that Dwt cannot be a reference to Dothan since the term lacks a final 'n' character and is "in entirely the wrong context for a north Palestinian settlement." (p.93) Kitchen stresses, however, that an Ethiopian inscription by the Emperor of Axum which dates to the early 6th century AD from southwest Arabia explicitly cites passages from the "Psalms of Dawit"--precisely the "same consonants Dwt as found with [the list of] Shoshenq." (p.91) Kitchen also observes that in the Egyptian translation of foreign names, a 't' could and sometimes did transcribe a Semitic 'd'. He writes: "This occurs in the New Kingdom in such familiar place names as Megiddo (Egyp. Mkt), edre'i (Egyp. 'itr') Adummin (Egyp. itmm), Damascus (Egyp. Tmsq), Dothaim/n (Egypt. Ttyn)." (p.93) The author argues that "there is no reason to doubt a final -d becoming a voiceless t in both Egyptian and Ethiopic (both Afro-Asiatic languages)" and since no other plausible alternative appears forthcoming in reading this place-name, it should be read as simply as the Heights of David located somewhere in the Negev. (p.93) He notes that this would give us a place-name which commemorated David within only 50 years of his death--and in a region where David features prominently during king Saul's time (1 Sam. 24:1; 27; 30;). (p.93) Kitchen concludes that such a place-name is essentially analogous to the "field of Abram" which also occurs in Shoshenq's Karnak list.

Another observation by the author concerns the famous Israel stela which records that Pharaoh Merneptah (1213-1203 BC) crushed a revolt by the cities of Yenoam, Ascalon, Gezer around his fifth regnal year and defeated Israel in turn. Kitchen presciently notes that while one may have expected a new king to face a revolt in more distant regions of the Egyptian Empire such as Phoenicia or South Syria, a revolt by Canaanite cities such as Ascalon or Gezer which were located close to Egypt's border "was not normal." (p.229) He stresses that there must have been specific reasons for the Egyptian campaign and suggests that it was these vassal states' inability to pay their required grain-tax tribute to Pharaoh in a world where the "failure to do so constituted rebellion" in the eyes of the king. (p.229) In this case, if these towns were unable to pay their expected tribute, the reason could have been connected with the marauding bands of Israelites who came down from the Canaanite hills at harvest time and stole the grain crops of these towns. Kitchen notes that a king of Gezer had once been "worsted by Joshua's raiders (Josh. 10:33), and a little later some Judean raiders may have penetrated briefly to Ascalon and its grainfields (cf Judg 1:18)." (p.229) The Egyptians who investigated the source of the trouble would have presumably attempted to expel these new intruders. The author notes that since Merneptah's troops encountered "people who called themselves not Judahites or Benjaminites or Manassites, etc., but Israelites (italics)," the Pharaoh would have logically assumed that they belonged to the nation of "Israel." (p.229) This confirms the antiquity of the term "all Israel" as early as 1208 BC for the people of Israel.

There are many other interesting arguments and revelations in Kitchen's book. But it is safe to say that his book does counter the efforts of Biblical minimalists who challenge the Bible's veracity. Kitchen rightly criticises those scholars who refuse to accept evidence for the clear reference to king Omri in the Tel-Dan stela and notes that certain critics of the Bible have no scholarly training or often harbour untenable views. While the Bible is not perfect--for instance, the late archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon discovered that the city of Jericho was apparently abandoned when its walls reportedly fell before Joshua--its account cannot be doubted as a work of fiction unless there is consistent evidence to the contrary. Other Canaanite cities such as Hazor certainly met a fiery end during the time of the Hebrews entry into the Promised land, as the Bible states.

K.A. Kitchen is one of the most learned and well-read orientalists in the world today, and his effort in this book shows it. This is the kind of broadside against minimalizing tendencies that many have been waiting for. OROT is thorough and detailed, but covers so much that it leaves you wanting more. Upon finishing it the reader will likely come to the realization that the subjects for nearly every chapter require whole volumes in and of themselves. Sometimes I wish Kitchen had divided the book into separate parts so that he could make space for fleshing out his arguments more. Nonetheless this is an enjoyable and useful read that will bring students of Old Testament/Ancient Near Eastern studies to understand why maximalists can't be dismissed with the wave of a hand as merely ignorant fundamentalists or "red state" evangelicals.

Because Scripture is such a battle ground, both theologically and historically, many teachers (and, so, many students) treat it as if it were a thing completely apart from other aspects of Judaism and Christianity and other survivals from the ancient world. This is surely a mistake, sometimes inadvertent, sometimes deliberate.
As a specialist in early Christianity who has sometimes taught courses in Scripture, I am very glad to see this careful work offered to the non-specialist reader.

Archaeological work continues and new discoveries are made and those examining Scripture remain ignorant of them from a lack of willingness to test their convictions, whether those are that the Bible is completely true or almost never dependable. The study of the Bible has long been notorious for the poor level of much of its scholarship, and rightly so, since scholars of all stripes have allowed their passions to run away with them. All students of the Scriptures should examine this work, which gathers information from across the various fields that work on the ancient Near East and Egypt and applies what has been discovered to see how the Scriptures look when placed beside what we know. As the author shows convincingly (to me), there is usually enough information from outside the Bible to give us good reason to take what it says seriously as coming from the ancient world and reflecting that world's time and culture. Those who are searching for the impossible: either proof positive of the truth of Scripture or proof positive of its falsity, will not be satisfied, but those who wish to study the Holy Scriptures in the light of what we can know about their background will be enlightened and encouraged.
I believe that the Bible is the whole word of God, entire and trustworthy, and I would have no qulams about using this book with my students, both undergraduates and seminarians. Those of other stripes should have no qualms either, since Kitchen provides information and there is ample room left for teacher and students to do their own thinking. Those of us who want our students to think should welcome this book's arrival!

This book is essential reading for all those interested in near & middle east history/chronology. It is written by a man versed and qualified in history who does not appear to have an axe to grind for/against the historisity of the Old Testament. He does not suffer fools gladly (and there are many of them who sneer at the historicity of the O.T., apparently for a variety of motives).

We have not heard the last of the historicity of the Old Testament or the dating of the ancient civilisations but this book helps define the paramaters of the debate.

A great read.

If you have watched any Nova or National Geographic specials on pretty much any facet of the Old Testament over the past few years, it very quickly becomes obvious that a rather stark historical minimalism is dominant in the scholarly world, or at least the scholarly world they feature. And this could be dismissed as just media bias, but a similar minimalism is also quite prominent in the OT academic circles and is evidenced in many introductory OT textbook. So what in the OT is historical? The Bible certainly treats the major characters and events in the OT as historical, and it builds its understanding of God and his character from God's acts in history (God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the exodus). So if the OT was entirely made-up history, a fictional construct from after the exile to give a rag-tag band of people an identity, that would have pretty profound implications for how we understand God and how we understand the Bible.

K. A. Kitchen, an emeritus professor of Egyptology at Liverpool University, takes these questions head on, as he systematically looks at the historicity and plausibility of the OT writings in their historical contexts. The book is a detailed era-by-era investigation into the Biblical text (sometimes point out that what we assume the Bible says isn't actually what it reports), cultural settings, archaeological discoveries, and documentary and inscriptional evidence from the Levant and the surrounding world, in order to see whether the Bible's historical record fits with, and often intersects with, the history as it can be understood from outside the Bible.

The book is filled with detail. It is 500 pages of discussion of the evidence and the various approaches to its reconstruction along with careful evaluation of how the historical and archaeological data coheres with the Bible, along with another 150 pages of notes, diagrams, and indices. That's all to say, he deals with all of the major issues that arise out of this wide-ranging subject matter. This mountain of detail and discussion is made easily navigable by its good organization, helpful use of charts, and its concise summaries at the end of each chapter.

Kitchen's careful conclusion is that the minimalism so prevalent in the academy and in popular scholarship today is merely a relic of past assumptions now eclipsed by the evidence. He concludes his investigation of whether the Biblical writings were composed entirely within the postexilic period (400-200 B.C.) or whether they reflect their purported historical settings by asserting, with regard to the divided monarchy, exile, and return, that the Bible's accounts of these periods "show a very high level of direct correlation (where adequate data exists) and of reliability." And, concluding on what can be said of the historicity of the accounts before the united monarchy, when direct evidence is more difficult to find, that "the Hebrew founders bear the marks of reality and of a definite period." Thus, he concludes that the Bible's historical accounts make sense in the times that they purport to represent, and don't give evidence of a postexilic invention so popular in academic circles. I must also say that while Kitchen's study is indeed detailed, it is also entertaining, as he shows a warm and sometimes scathing humor as he looks at historical evidence or at rival historical reconstructions. The book was enjoyable to read, and is a very helpful push back against the minimalism that can begin to erode Biblical faith. It certainly isn't the last word on any of these matters, but it is an important and substantial tome that will need to be reckoned with. And if you're not ambitious enough to dig in to all of the data, selective reading of especially important topics and careful reading of all of the introductory and summary materials makes for a good overview of the relevant materials.

After reading several books on archaeology of ancient Israel, I found it important to read a book which deals fairly and squarely with those scholars who question whether the United and Divided Kingdoms really existed, or whether the Old Testament is a distorted history to serve the needs of the priests of Israel and Judea. This is important issue, because of the bearing it has on the current turmoil in the Middle East and the claims by some states that the State of Israel has no right to exist.

Dr Kitchen tackles the task of proving the reliability of Old Testament by working backwards, starting with the time of the Divided Kingdoms of Israel (Chapter 2), for which there is considerable archaeoligical evidence to corroborate the biblical accounts of the these kingdoms, the conquest of the Israel by the Assyrians, the later dispersal of the inhabitants of Judea by the Babylonians, and the occupation of the country (Chapter 3) during the Babylonian, Persian and Greek periods.

The point of working backwards becomes very clear when he moves to the analysis of the period of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon (Chapter 4), where there is only circumstantial archaeological evidence at best. This period follows the invasions of the Sea Peoples and coincides with the beginning of the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (on which Dr Kitchen is a foremost expert), and immediately before the establishment of the Assyrian Empire. The archaeological data and historical inscriptions are not only sparse, but seemingly full of contradictory evidence and he describes the evidence such as it is, showing that it is not inconsistent with the biblical accounts.

For the period of Joshua and the Judges (Chapter 5), he dissects these books in great detail, pointing out that they show quite clearly that the Israelites infiltrated into the land of Canaan rather than by rapid conquest. This is consistent with the archaeological record which indicates a group on incomers infiltrating the land of Canaan over a period of about a 150 years. There is, of course, no historical inscriptions that can verify this view, but the consistency of the archaaeological and biblical record is there. Dr Kitchen uses a similar technique in comparing the biblical account of the Exodus (Chapter 6), with the archaeological evidence in Egypt and Palestine which which he believes to have occurred in the last decades of the 13th century - this being the period of the reigns of Ramesses II of the 19th Dynasty of Egypt and his son Merneptah. He shows that the descriptions of the culture and behaviour of the Israelites who left Egypt are consistent with the culture recorded on many inscriptions in tombs, temples, etc of that period of the New Kingdom

I think these two chapters are the key parts of the whole book. Dr Kitchen clearly shows that the archaeological record does support the biblical account for the later periods, but here it is mainly the matter of comparing cultures and behaviour, and I think it best to read these chapters with the appropriate Biblical books in hand for reference.

Some people would argue that the biblical record in Genesis is simply a legend and bit of a fairy tale, but Dr Kitchen (in Chapters 7 and 9) does show that the culture of the Patriarchs, their predecessors, and the genealogical lists of peoples, is generally consistent with records on inscriptions of the first half of the 2nd millenium BCE but, of course, there is no direct evidence of the Patriarchs, only of peoples who seem to have had a culture similar to that ascribed to the Patriarchs

Chapter 8 is an interesting analysis of the culture of Prophets and Prophecy during the late 2nd millenium and 1st half of the 1st millenium BCE, and the final chapter (10) is a glorious polemic on the misinterpretations, mis-statement of facts, etc of those who deny the reliability of the Old Testament

The book is 650 pages long, has 100 pages of very detailed notes, 40 pages of maps and illustrations of objects, a subject index, and 14 pages of biblical reference. It is a very thorough book, and Dr Kitchen provides a full description and analysis of the archaeological evidence, and its relevance to the accounts in the books of the Old Testament. In doing so, he provides detailed notes on the findings and differing views of the various scholars, irrespective as to whether those views coincide with his or not. He is, of course, in major disagreement with many of these views, and is quite outspoken and often quite scathing about the "sloppy thinking", "blunders", and "failure to understand" of some of the most famous scholars. While this is quite amusing to read, it is somewhat disconcerting because, this kind of scoffing can be seen by some to be hiding a weakness in his own position. In his defence I would observe that where he does so, it is usually with a very thorough exposition of the weakeness of the other party s view and analysis of the facts. So even though his strongly held views permeate the whole book, I have to applaud his objectivity and overall fairness.

It took me a while to complete my study of this book. I read it from start to finish, and then read it in reverse order to make sure I had captured the major points. Dr Kitchen has done such a thorough job on this subject that I think it should be required reading by any serious scholar who has doubts about the Reliability of The Old Testament, as well as those students who wish to find the truth for themselves from their own studies.