On the Reliability of the Old Testament.

• Author: Lemche, Niels Peter
• Position: Book Review

On the Reliability of the Old Testament. By K. A. KITCHEN. Grand Rapids, Mich.: WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY, 2003. Pp. xxii + 662, illus. $45.

In this volume, K. A. Kitchen, the well-known British Egyptologist, presents the results of a life-long occupation with the Old Testament in its Near Eastern context. Kitchen is open about his own position as a spokesperson for conservative biblical scholarship with an outspoken animosity against critical biblical scholarship as it has developed over more than two hundred years. His aim here is to prove that the literature of the Old Testament belongs squarely within the context of the ancient Near East, and can be dated on the basis of this context. Ideally, this Near Eastern background proves the biblical literature to contain not story but history.

Logically enough, he opens with a chapter on the divided monarchy in ancient Israel, the period from Solomon's death to the destruction of Jerusalem. This period, the end of the tenth century B.C. down to the beginning of the sixth century, is in any case best illuminated by documents from the ancient Near East that in a number of cases can be directly related to events recorded by the historical literature of the Old Testament. Beginning in this period, Kitchen proceeds to the time of the Exile in Mesopotamia and the Persian period (a very short chapter) before he moves backward in time, successively to the period of David and Solomon, the time of the united Hebrew monarchy, the period of Judges, the Hebrew Conquest of Palestine, the Exodus, and the period of the Patriarchs.

Each chapter follows a common pattern: Kitchen opens a section by paraphrasing the biblical narrative. Then he moves on to present the material from different parts of the ancient Near East, whereupon he reconstructs the history of the period in question, a reconstruction that almost without exception closely follows the layout of the biblical historiographers.

Thus the Book of Judges is truly a historical document that can be used as a primary source for the reconstruction of the pre-monarchical period in ancient Israel. The conquest really took place as described in the Book of Joshua, an Exodus of some magnitude--although Kitchen emends the numbers of persons involved in this Exodus--really happened, the covenant between Israel and Yahweh at Sinai was truly a historical fact, and the Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were really historical persons.

After the...