Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times.

• Author: Ward, William A.

Donald Redford is one of the few contemporary scholars who has the background to synthesize the history and culture of the ancient world, from the Aegean to Mesopotamia, from neolithic times to the fall of Jerusalem in the sixth-century B.C. This work is a miniature Cambridge Ancient History, brought up to date and filtered through one historian's experience. Such a book needs to be produced from time to time, a synthesis of history, archaeology, linguistics, socio-economic and cultural history; it wrestles with that most elusive problem of all: what is and what is not a genuine reflection of intercultural borrowing or influence? Dealing with that question is Redford's main goal, all else being his panoramic description of ancient society within which cultures variously affected each other.

Redford is not just an able historian, he is a very capable writer and his narrative is a pleasure to read. His prose is anything but dull. He knows his subject and communicates it extremely well. The only jarring note is the firmness of his opinions, which brook no disagreement. For example: "It would be blind to deny that the increase of a nonurban transhumant economy in post-EB III Palestine could be put down in large measure to the depredations of the Egyptian armed forces" (p. 64). One can express such opinions forcefully without the implication that those who disagree cannot see the obvious. And I must admit to being a bit rankled at being charged with misreading an Egyptian text when the error is Redford's own (p. 75, n. 18). This, however, is a matter of personal style and it is rather the content of this work which is important. Redford does cover the whole spectrum of evidence, enormous in scope, and offers a splendid bibliography in his notes.

Due to lack of space, any synthesis on such a grand scale inevitably forces the author to emphasize his own views at the expense of others. For example, Redford speaks strongly in favor of a Hyksos armed invasion of Egypt (pp. 101-6), versus those of us who prefer an indigenous rise to power of an Asiatic population long present in the eastern Delta. One would have preferred a fuller and more balanced critique, but this matter alone would have absorbed a whole chapter. The problem here is that neither view is provable and, while Redford's argument is reasonable, it contains too many questionable interpretations to be convincing. Were the evidence as sure as he contends, an alternative explanation could...