The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. Vol. 1: Ancient Israel, from Its Beginnings through 332 BCE.

• Author: Fried, Lisbeth S.

The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization. Vol. 1: Ancient Israel, from Its Beginnings through 332 BCE. Edited by JEFFREY H. TIGAY and ADELE BERLIN. Lucerne: THE POSEN FOUNDATION, and New Haven: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2021. Pp. Ivii + 538, illus. $200.

This is a beautiful book containing gorgeous photographs of ancient artifacts in rich color, several maps of Israel and of the ancient Near East, plus charts of Israelite and Judean chronology, of archaeological periods, and of the dates of the kings of Israel and Judah.

It is the first volume of a projected series often volumes presenting Jewish culture and civilization from its beginning until the end of the long twentieth century. Volume 1 includes the period from the late second millennium through the fourth century BCE. The major contentions of volume 1, and of the series, are that 1) Jewish culture and civilization reach back to ancient Israel, and 2) that the culture of ancient Israel is represented by the Hebrew Bible (p. xxxi).

In their long introductory chapter, the editors point out that the biblical accounts of Israel's history are "selective and interpretive," and "more an ideological interpretation than an objective narration" (p. xxxvii). They note that nothing in the five books of Moses can be confirmed by external evidence, and the archaeological evidence that does exist most often refutes it (ibid.). Rather than Hebrew enslavement in Egypt and an Exodus, for example, an Egyptian stela dated to the year 1208 BCE refers to a people "Israel" living in the hill country of Canaan (p. xxxviii). Archaeology provides evidence of hundreds of small settlements exhibiting the same Israelite culture throughout both the central hill country and the upper Galilee during the following centuries (ibid.). Rather than slavery in Egypt, this Egyptian text and archeological evidence confirm the people Israel as indigenous to the land of Canaan dating back to the Bronze Age.

The first section proper is an introduction to what is entitled "Long Prose Narrative." The authors state that the use of prose rather than poetry for long literary narrative is an innovation distinctive to ancient Israel (p. 1). One may compare the poetry of Homer, for example. Nevertheless, Herodotus and Xenophon, writing in the fourth century, wrote their histories in prose, suggesting a date for the bible's composition. This section summarizes the historical books of the Bible from Genesis through...