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I had the pleasure to dig with him two years ago, very charismatic man.
Shouldn't something be said about this? Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 08:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I have deleted the reference to "lower chronology" until further contributions are made. Also, there are serious doubts about the scholarship behind Biblical Archaeology Review. That publication seems to be in existence to prove, albeit indirectly, that the Bible is literally true.--As286 20:18, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
I have removed the bits referring to the controversy into this section, as they do not really fit into the main article until they are cleared up. Biblical Archaeology is a popular publication not a serious scientific journal and the criticism below seems to be from a religious viewpoint, not arhchaeological one.
In the July-August 2006 issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review, Michael Coogan of Stonehill College, editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible, contends that Finkelstein and Silberman "move from the hypothetical to the improbable to the absurd."
Finkelstein's revised chronology is "not accepted by the majority of archaeologists and biblical scholars," Coogan asserts, citing four scholarly anthologies from the past three years. However, Professor Baruch Halpern praised The Bible Unearthed, as "the boldest and most exhilirating synthesis of Bible and archaeology in fifty years."
Professor David Noel Freedman, editor of the authoritative Anchor Bible Series, called it "readable and revolutionary." '
I've just changed the title of the 'Controversies' section to 'Historical and Archaeological Work,' which seems both more accurate for the information contained therein and appropriate for the first subsection of an individual's biography. User:6enoch 19:54, 17 November 2011
Jerusalem was no exception, except that it was barely a city—by our standards, just a village. In David's time, its population was only a few thousand, who lived on about a dozen acres, roughly equal to two blocks in Midtown Manhattan.
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suggested) (help) So, he agrees that David's Jerusalem could fit on five rugby fields. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:30, 4 April 2019 (UTC)I've just deleted some stuff which I thought was poorly sources, particularly for a BLP which needs high standards. Eg, the source used to say that he was rejected by most of his peers wasn't an archaeologist or archaeological journal, but a review of Finkelstein's book appearing a journal specializing in Zionist history and ideas by Raanan Eichler, a graduate student at a Jewish college specializing in Zionist history and ideas—Finkelstein himself says no such thing. This is not to say that Eichler is necessarily wrong, but it would be more convincing to cite a reliable source archaeologist like Ze'ev Herzog, who does portray Finkelstein's conclusions as a consensus among many prominent archaeologists. Doug Weller (talk) 06:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Look at http://mideastfacts.org/facts/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=38 and other articles by that site, that website is written by people who want the anti-Jewish bigots --Alpha166 (talk) 21:23, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
"The evidence clearly suggests that tenth-century Jerusalem was a small highland village that controlled a sparsely settled hinterland. If it had been the capital of a great kingdom with the wherewithal to muster tens of thousands of soldiers, collect tribute from vassals, and maintain garrisons in Aram Damascus and Edom (as the biblical narrative informs us it did), one would expect the presence of administrative buildings and storehouses, even outside the royal compound at the summit of the ridge. One would also expect to see changes in the villages of Judah—from which a significant portion of David’s armies were presumably mobilized and which would stand to benefit at least indirectly from the kingdom’s great wealth. Yet there is not the slightest evidence of any change in the landscape of Judah until the following century. The population remained low and the villages modest and few’ in number throughout the tenth century bce."[1]
Have they, or has he, written more about this? Doug Weller talk 15:04, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
WP:DOB"With identity theft a serious ongoing concern, people increasingly regard their full names and dates of birth as private. Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 11:24, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
Eminent a scholar though he may be, the massive article expansion here amounts to a listing of Dr. Finkelstein's entire CV. I removed the section on his PhD students, which clearly does not meet the standard for inclusion. --Jprg1966 (talk) 05:25, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
@Doug Weller, is the word "however" the only reason why you reverted it? And yes the reference backs absolutely the claim as quoted:
The other pillar on which Finkelstein’s rediscovered northern kingdom rests is his vaunted “low chronology,” in which he down-dates the previously accepted dates for the origins of Israel by as much as a hundred years. Yet this, too, is regarded by most mainstream archaeologists as without substantial foundations. First suggested some 20 years ago, Finkelstein has tirelessly championed his “low chronology” ever since. Here he presents it without so much as a single reference to its numerous critiques, some of them devastating (as Kletter 2004; Ben Tor and Ben Ami 1998; Dever 1997; Mazar 2007; Stager 2003; and others).2 In numerous publications over 20 years, Finkelstein has relentlessly reworked the stratigraphy and chronology of site after site, not only in Israel and the West Bank, but even in Jordan, in order to defend his “low chronology.”
- William G. Dever
Hope to resolve this in the talk page. Awerey1 (talk) 04:33, 31 December 2018 (UTC)
Let me spell it out for you from the BAR link: "The first review is by William G. Dever, one of America’s leading archaeologists. Finkelstein is one of Israel’s leading archaeologists." See? Leading archaeologist, not WP:FRINGE.
Allen says
I will be rather laconic: to my mind Dr. Dever is simply jealous; Dr. Finkelstein work has an intrinsic logic, I subscribe to his point of view.
January 6, 2015, 9:24 am Reply
— [3]
In other words, says archaeologist David Ilan, "Yossi has an agenda—partly ideological, but also personal. He's a very smart and ambitious guy. Finkelstein's the big gorilla, and the young bucks think he's got a monopoly over biblical archaeology. So they want to dethrone him."
— Robert Draper, David and Solomon, Kings of Controversy
Incidentally, all defections are from the traditional ‘majority’ to the Low Chronology ‘minority’.
— Israel Finkelstein, A Great United Monarchy? Archaeological and Historical Perspectives*
Jerusalem was no exception, except that it was barely a city—by our standards, just a village. In David's time, its population was only a few thousand, who lived on about a dozen acres, roughly equal to two blocks in Midtown Manhattan.
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suggested) (help) Coogan is a very distinguished OT scholar and he wrote a scathing review of Finkelstein's popular book. Yet according to Coogan, David's Jerusalem could easily fit upon five rugby fields. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:26, 31 December 2018 (UTC)Herzog laid out many of the theories Finkelstein and Silberman present in their book: "the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land [of Canaan] in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the twelve tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united kingdom of David and Solomon, described in the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom." The new theories envision this modest chiefdom as based in a Jerusalem that was essentially a cow town, not the glorious capital of an empire. Although, as Herzog notes, some of these findings have been accepted by the majority of biblical scholars and archaeologists for years and even decades, they are just now making a dent in the awareness of the Israeli public -- a very painful dent.
— Laura Miller, King David was a nebbish
So yes, we are biased towards science and biased against pseudoscience.
We are biased towards astronomy, and biased against astrology.
We are biased towards chemistry, and biased against alchemy.
We are biased towards mathematics, and biased against numerology.
We are biased towards medicine, and biased against homeopathic medicine.
We are biased towards venipuncture, and biased against acupuncture.
We are biased towards cargo planes, and biased against cargo cults.
We are biased towards crops, and biased against crop circles.
We are biased towards laundry soap, and biased against laundry balls.
We are biased towards water treatment, and biased against magnetic water treatment.
We are biased towards electromagnetic fields, and biased against microlepton fields.
We are biased towards evolution, and biased against creationism.
We are biased towards medical treatments that have been proven to be effective in double-blind clinical trials, and biased against medical treatments that are based upon preying on the gullible.
We are biased towards astronauts and cosmonauts, and biased against ancient astronauts.
We are biased towards psychology, and biased against phrenology.
We are biased towards Mendelian inheritance, and biased against Lysenkoism.
And we are not going to change.
I think we have to avoid extremes.
The minimalists would make out of the Bible a pious fraud and I think that's going much, much too far.
On the other hand, if we try as moderns to read the Bible literally in the way fundamentalists do, we make nonsense of it.
I would try to avoid both of those extremes.
— William Dever, Lateline. It Ain't Necessarily So
To outsiders, the debate about biblical chronology looks like a neverending story, and in such cases, epistemology or—if you prefer—common sense suggest that the question has been wrongly put. Once a wrong path has been set and followed for too long, we are unable to get rid of it, even to realize that the direction is wrong, and even less to identify the correct way. We need a moment of rest and reflection.
— Mario Liverani, The chronology of the biblical fairy-tale
To cut a long story short, Finkelstein has put everything he knows about Ancient Israel into a coherent story. Some consider it a sin, others a virtue. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:58, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
At least his last name is mentioned and someone with his full name visited. I'm not sure if there's any use for it except watching for pure pleasure.[4] Doug Weller talk 19:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)