Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
60 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Grave Disappointment, December 22, 2000
When I found this book in the inventory of a local discount book liquidator, priced at less than six dollars, I felt gratified by what appeared to be an extraordinary bargain presenting itself to me. An acquaintance of mine had heard claims that its author, Amy Dockser Marcus, had uncovered a great deal of new information regarding the historicity of the Hebrew Bible, and ever since had persistently and enthusiastically asked me to read this book so that I could give her my "expert" (I am a doctoral student with a candidacy for a Ph.D. in Near Eastern History, specializing in the formation and development of ancient Israel) opinion of it. Having been led into a state of hopeful expectation by my friend's enthusiasm, I began to read this book as soon as I returned home from the bookstore, only to find myself immediately disappointed at the poor quality of Ms. Marcus' work.This is an exasperating text to read. It is composed in a style that is confusing and seemingly without direction, and defies the reader's every attempt to determine what the point of the author's treatment might be. The book is filled with incomplete thoughts, non-sequitors, latent postulations, and sudden reversals of the tone and tenor of its argumentation. Archaeological discoveries of monumental importance are blithely noted and then passed by, leaving the reader in a state of unrequited expectation, waiting for the other foot to fall. Other discoveries of equal importance are completely omitted from discussion, possibly because they render the positions of Biblical apologists completely untenable. Ms. Marcus also contradicts herself on many important points developed in the text, and I got the sense at times that she was being unwittingly impelled to and fro across a landscape of contentious scholarship by a number of conflicting forces. It seems that her ignorance of the subject matter leaves her insensible to the true depth and nature of the conflicts in which she has become embroiled. Thus, the resulting composition contains a number of mischaracterizations of both scholars and the data they treat, and frequently launches into unprofitable tangents away from relevant analysis. Further, Ms. Marcus commits some grotesque factual errors in her text. For example, she states that most modern scholars believe that the island of Thera erupted ca. 1500 BCE, and states that a portion of the "historical" basis for the Exodus narrative might be found in this event. However, the fact is that such low dating of the Thera eruption has always been in the minority opinion of scholarship, and has been refuted by recent radiometric, isotopic ratiometric, and other physical studies that allow us to conclude with strong certainty that Thera's eruption occurred in the seventeenth century BCE. Similarly, she claims that historians have never offered a satisfactory explanation of why a tradition of a past slavery in Egypt would emerge among the Israelites if it were not based on fact. However, an analysis of the works of Stiebing, Fields, and other prominent historians gives the lie to this claim, showing that there are a number of models that adequately explain the emergence of such a tradition as an historical fiction. These historical models exclude no pertinent data from their analyses, which, of course, cannot be accurately stated of the models produced by any Biblical apologist. This book also suffers from Ms. Marcus' clear bias and partiality on the issues she discusses. The positions and factual underpinnings of the scholarship of the "Copenhagen School" are somewhat misrepresented and largely minimalized, while the positions of a vast cadre of Biblical apologists are substantially over-credited. She seems to be unduly influenced by some key personalities (such as William Dever), and I got the impression that at times the author was "duped" regarding the true motives and imperatives that motivate some of the scholars upon whom she relies (several of whom I know personally). At other times Ms. Marcus has her own philosophical ax to grind. Models developed from the impartial application of disciplined historical methodologies are termed "radical" or "highly controversial", whereas thoroughly disproven and discredited positions of Biblical apologists are given strong credence. She seems to want to maintain the relevance of the Biblical narrative, though in slightly non-traditional terms, and refuses to give proper countenance to the vast amount of data that completely undermines the Bible's veracity as an historical document. However, with the foregoing detractions being noted, this book might prove to be of value to novices in the field of Near Eastern History. The author does provide an extensive bibliography and list of source references, and for this reason I give this book two stars in my rating instead of only one. But for those of us who possess more than a rudimentary knowledge of the subject, this book cannot fail but to disappoint. I would recommend that all serious students of the ancient Near East eschew this book in preference of more scholarly, objective, and reliable works.
|
|
|
42 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Confused Point of View, February 17, 2001
Because I have an MA in ancient history and my main area of interest is the Near East and Egypt, I expected to find The View from Nebo an interesting read. To some extent I did, but for the most part I found it somewhat confusing. I had expected the author's main thrust to be the newer archaeological data on the biblical period and a clarification of the life and cultures of that period. Instead what I found was an overview of some of that data, of the personalities involved in the research and of the on going problems in the modern Middle East. The author is a journalist rather than an archaeologist, and while her vita might not lend itself to "expert" views on the topic under discussion, it should have led to a less biased view of the overall work in the field. Instead the book seems to wander from topic to topic, starting off well in some parts but then going off the rails or at least onto side tracks all over the Middle East using biblical narrative as justification for the digressions. I found particularly confusing the author's embarrassing confrontation with modern Egyptian archaeologists and museologists over the Exodus tradition. I wasn't quite sure what had she expected to accomplish other than to irritate her hosts. With an extensive native history of its own, with limited funds for excavation, preservation, presentation, and publication, and with a tumultuous relationship with modern Israel, why would Egypt feel compelled to study or present the history of the Exodus? Were they expected to be "good sports?" Were they expected to emulate the recent papal move, and as to Galileo, apologize? For what? I couldn't help but suspect the trip had functioned as a tax write-off for an exotic vacation. I was also rather surprised to have the Exodus used to date the explosion on ancient Thera. The occurrence of the Exodus itself is difficult to document; certainly people of Levantine origin crossed and recrossed Egypt's borders in antiquity, and doubtless some of these people contributed genetic material to the creators of the Israelite nation state. That this occurred in the manner in which it was described in the Bible, which is hard put to it to remain consistent with its own narrative, would be--indeed has been--difficult to prove. The event on Santorini (ancient Thera), though it would conveniently explain a lot about the biblical plagues and the tsunami like behavior of the Sea of Reeds, can be dated by geophysical methods and core samples taken from the northern and southern ice sheets. A volcanic event is an indisputable fact of nature, and geologists would place this one at a much earlier date than 1500 BCE. If the author wants to use it to date the Exodus, then the Exodus occurred considerably earlier, the reverse dating is not doable! What I felt the author did do extremely well in the book was to point out how "history" is reshaped by each new generation to meet it's own needs and philosophy and to point out that historical "truth" is something redefined with each rewriting of the narrative. It reminded me of Shaw's general in the Devil's Disciple. When asked by his aide what history would say when the British army surrendered to the Americans during the civil war, he responded that "History would lie as usual." And again of Napoleon's "History is lies agreed upon." As the author points out, each of the modern day states in the Middle East has chosen its particular brand of historical truth to achieve its own agenda.
|
|
|
24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reader from Silver Spring, MD, April 8, 2000
By A Customer
I just returned from a trip to the Middle East and picked up this book. I wish I had been able to read it before I left. I traveled to many of the sites it mentions, such as Jerusalem, the pyramids in Egypt and Mount Nebo in Jordan, but there was so much information in the book that the tour guides don't tell you. The most interesting part to me was the chapter about Egypt and the Exodus story. I had visited the pyramids, but had no idea that just a short distance away from where I was standing, archaeologists had uncovered an entire cemetery of graves of workers who built the pyramids. The information that archaeologists are providing about what the workers' lives were really like is different from the image that I had of what it must have been like building the pyramids. The book provides an additional history of the region - all the information not found in the guidebooks and travelogues!
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by William G. Dever
by Amy Dockser Marcus
by Archaeology Magazine
See all Editorial Reviews
