Customer Reviews

The history of ancient Israel

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an excellent resource on understanding the history of Israel following the text of the Hebrew Bible. Michael Grant is a superb writer, who conveys a solid knowledge of the Hebrew Bible, Jewish history, and commentary in a single accessible, and enjoyable text. A must read for teachers both academic and religious.

Michael Grant is a peerless writer on the ancient world. His earlier book on King Herod was superb. This comprehensive review of the history of Israel is the best thing of its kind I have ever seen. I am ordering a copy for myself even before finishing it. It will be a key reference book and essential background preparation for my own book in progress about early Christianity. Michael Grant knows how to write. And he covers all essential points in clear and insightful fashion.

This book is a "light" read.It covers a lot of histroical areas,but not in much detail.
The author uses the name "Yahweh".He gives some details on the books of the Old Testament mostly.
He writes about the "source theory" and some of the differences in beliefs such as when the name Yahweh was first known in OT times.
There are some interesting theories:
Zilpah and Bilhah were of "mixed race".
The tribe of Levi never went to Egypt at all.
The idea that boiling a kid in it's mother's milk was a Canaanite,magic fertility rite.
The possible split authorship of Isaiah,1-39 and 40-66.

He mentions a few times in passing the lost ten tribes of Israel and the history of Samaria as a capitol for King Omri.

This is a book suited to someone wanting a starter type book on Biblical history.
I would recommend "Restoring the Original Bible" by Ernest L. Martin to anyone wanting a more detailed study of Biblical history.

Having been quite impressed by one of Grant's Roman Empire books, I had high expectations for this book -- expectations which (excepting maybe the chapter on Herod) were not met. The problem is this: Grant had abundant source material for his Roman books, so he can give a seemingly accurate description of imperial Rome. But for most of Israel's history up to about 100 BC or so, there is almost no source material other than the Bible. Thus, you can't even try to interpret Hebrew history before 100 without intelligently explaining your view on the truth (or lack of same) of the Hebrew Bible (or as Christians call it, the Old Testament). So to intelligently discuss what might have happened, you have to show some understanding of the theological issue -- and Grant, being a historian and not a theologian, doesn't even try to do so. Unfortunately, Grant just assumes the truth of one view (the "Documentary Hypothesis" -- i.e., that the Bible was written by a wide variety of people rather than being transmitted by God to Moses and the prophets) rather than arguing the point, so his interpretations are useless to anyone but hardened secularists. I gave this book two stars instead of one only because Grant does have some interesting tidbits about various minor points (e.g. minor similarities between early Judaism and paganism).