AN Introduction to Biblical Archaeology.

• Author: Dever, William G.

Volkmar Fritz, a former professor of biblical studies at the University of Giessen, now director of the German Protestant Institute of Archaeology in Jerusalem, is also an archaeologist with thirty years of experience in Israel. This volume is a translation of a German original, published in 1985, intended primarily as an elementary textbook. In chapter one, "Definitions and Purpose," he acknowledges that "'biblical archaeology' has become the archaeology of Palestine" (p. 11 - as I have insisted for many years); but nevertheless he adheres to the German tradition, in which biblisches Archaologie, taught in theological faculties of state universities, has never had the fundamentalist connotations that the subject has had in this country.

There are several introductory chapters dealing with the geography of Palestine (ch. two); a brief history of research (ch. three); on excavation methods (ch. four); and chronology (ch. five).

Chapters six through eleven treat the Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age periods, together with a chapter on "Israel's neighbors," and a final chapter on the Hellenistic period. A postscript treats "Biblical Archaeology and Biblical Studies." These are straightforward summaries of the main features of each period, very efficiently covered, well illustrated by a choice of the most significant discoveries, and accompanied by rather full bibliographies. The specialist might quarrel with a number of points in passing; but these would be of little consequence to the intended audience, and...