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65-544: After the conquest of the land by Joshua until the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel in c. 1050 BC, the Tribe of Gad was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes. No central government existed, and in times of crisis the people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges (see the Book of Judges ). In the First Book of Samuel , King Nahash of Ammon appears abruptly as

130-562: A century later, so Finkelstein concluded that much of the monumental architecture characterizing Israel in the 10th century BCE that biblical United Monarchy has been traditionally associated with instead belongs to the 9th century. Finkelstein wrote that "Accepting the Low Chronology means stripping the United Monarchy of monumental buildings, including ashlar masonry and proto-Ionic capitals" According to Finkelstein and Neil Silberman ,

195-520: A clay bulla , or inscribed seal, of Jehucal , son of Shelemiah, son of Shevi, an official mentioned at least twice in the Book of Jeremiah . In July 2008, she also found a second bulla, belonging to Gedaliah ben Pashhur, who is mentioned together with Jehucal in Jeremiah 38:1. Amihai Mazar called the find "something of a miracle." He has said that he believes the building may be the Fortress of Zion that David

260-405: A deity worshipped by the tribe, Gad being thought by scholars to be likely to have taken its name from Gad , the semitic god of fortune; Like Asher, Gad's geographic details are diverse and divergent, with cities sometimes indicated as being part of Gad, and sometimes as part of other tribes, and with inconsistent boundaries, with Gilead sometimes including Gad and sometimes not. Furthermore,

325-620: A difference of one year at most. Ramoth-Gilead Ramoth-Gilead ( Hebrew : רָמֹת גִּלְעָד , romanized :  Rāmōṯ Gilʿāḏ , meaning "Heights of Gilead"), was a Levitical city and city of refuge east of the Jordan River in the Hebrew Bible , also called "Ramoth in Gilead" ( Deuteronomy 4:43 ; Joshua 20:8 ; Joshua 21:38 ) or "Ramoth Galaad" in the Douay–Rheims Bible . It

390-521: A massive anachronistic exaggeration. According to the biblical account, on the succession of Solomon's son Rehoboam , the United Monarchy split into two separate kingdoms: the Kingdom of Israel in the north, containing the cities of Shechem and Samaria ; and the Kingdom of Judah in the south, containing Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple . In the 1980s, a few biblical scholars began to assert that

455-455: A part of the kingdom of Israel, but had been pushing them north for a long while (with apperently Dibon taken in the 10th century BCE). According to the Torah , the tribe consisted of descendants of Gad the seventh son of Jacob , from whom it took its name. However, some Biblical scholars view this also as a postdiction , an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of

520-452: A political union between them existed, it might have had no practical effect on their relationship. In the biblical account, David embarks on successful military campaigns against the enemies of Judah and Israel and defeats such regional entities as the Philistines to secure his borders. Israel grows from kingdom to empire, its military and political sphere of influence expanding to control

585-471: A polity extending as far north as Jezreel and as far south as Hebron and reaching a border with Gath, with a capital located in Gibeon rather than Jerusalem. According to Dever, such a polity is a united monarchy in its own right, ironically confirming the biblical tradition. In addition, he rejected the notion that Gibeon was the capital of such polity since there is "no clear archaeological evidence of occupation in

650-534: A re-united Kingdom of Israel. However, on the accession of David's grandson Rehoboam , in c. 930 BC the northern tribes split from the House of David and from Saul's tribe Benjamin to reform Israel as the Northern Kingdom . Gad was a member of the Northern Kingdom until the kingdom was conquered by Assyria in c. 723 BC and the population deported. From that time onwards, the Tribe of Gad has been counted as one of

715-458: A strong centralised monarchy to meet the challenge, and the Tribe of Gad joined the new kingdom with Saul as the first king. After the death of Saul, all the tribes other than Judah remained loyal to the House of Saul, but after the death of Saul's son Ish-bosheth , successor to the throne of Israel, the Tribe of Gad joined the other northern Israelite tribes in making Judah's king David the king of

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780-511: Is consistent with the former existence of a unified state on its terrain." On August 4, 2005, archaeologist Eilat Mazar announced that she had discovered in Jerusalem what may have been the palace of King David . Now referred to as the Large Stone structure , Mazar's discovery consists of a public building she dated from the 10th century BCE, a copper scroll, pottery from the same period, and

845-451: Is no ultimate consensus between the different factions and scholarly disciplines concerned with the period as to when it is depicted as having begun or when it ended. Most biblical scholars follow either of the older chronologies established by American archaeologists William F. Albright and Edwin R. Thiele or the newer one by Israeli historian Gershon Galil . Thiele's chronology generally corresponds with Galil's chronology below, with

910-481: Is said to have captured. Other scholars are skeptical that the foundation walls are from David's palace. Garfinkel also claimed to have discovered David's palace in 2013, 25 kilometres away, at Khirbet Qeiyafa . Excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, an Iron Age site in Judah, found an urbanized settlement radiocarbon dated well before scholars such as Finkelstein suggest that urbanization had begun in Judah, which supports

975-579: The Dead Sea ( Joshua 13:24–28 ). The Tribe of Gad was allocated the central region of the three, east of Ephraim and West Manasseh, though the exact location is ambiguous. Among the cities mentioned in Numbers 32:34 as having at some point been part of territory of the Tribe of Gad were Ramoth , Jaezer , Aroer , and Dibon , though some of these are marked in Joshua 13:15–16 as belonging to Reuben . The location

1040-512: The Moabite Stone seemingly differentiates between the kingdom of Israel and the tribe of Gad, saying "the men of Gad dwelled in the country of Ataroth from ancient times, and the king of Israel fortified Ataroth", implicitly presenting Gad as predating Israel in the lands east of the Jordan. These details seems to indicate that Gad was originally a northwards-migrating nomadic tribe, at a time when

1105-578: The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. A genealogy of the "children of Gad" is set out in 1 Chronicles 5:11–17 . Following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes after about 1200 BCE, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes. However, in the case of the Tribes of Gad, Reuben and half of Manasseh , Moses allocated land to them on the eastern side of the Jordan River and

1170-801: The Bible. In his book, The Forgotten Kingdom (2016), Israel Finkelstein considered that Saul, originally from the Benjamin territory, had gained power in his natal Gibeon region around the 10th century BCE and that he conquered Jerusalem in the south and Shechem to the north, creating a polity dangerous to Egypt's geopolitical intentions. So, Shoshenq I , from Egypt, invaded the territory and destroyed this new polity, and installed David of Bethlehem in Jerusalem (Judah) and Jeroboam I in Shechem (Israel) as small local rulers who were vassals of Egypt. Finkelstein concludes that

1235-629: The Kingdom of Judah dates to about 750 BCE. Some see the united monarchy as fabricated during the Babylonian Exile transforming David and Solomon from local folk heroes into rulers of international status. Finkelstein has posited a potential United Monarchy under Jeroboam II in the 8th century BCE, whereas the former one was potentially invented during the reign of Josiah to justify his territorial expansion. Finkelstein's views have been strongly criticized by Amihai Mazar; in response, Mazar proposed

1300-760: The Modified Conventional Chronology, which places the beginning of the Iron IIA period in the early 10th century and its end in the mid-9th century, solving the problems of the High Chronology while still dating the archeological discoveries to the 10th century BCE. Finkelstein's Low Chronology and views about the monarchy have received strong criticism from other scholars, including Amnon Ben-Tor , William G. Dever , Kenneth Kitchen , Doron Ben-Ami , Raz Kletter and Lawrence Stager . Though Amélie Kuhrt acknowledges that "there are no royal inscriptions from

1365-450: The Syrians won the battle. Later, an incident occurred when Ahaziah and Joram fought against Hazael , king of Aram-Damascus , and Joram was wounded ( 2 Kings 8:28 ). Also in this city, Elisha , the prophet of God told one of the sons of the prophets to anoint Jehu , Joram's commander, king over Israel ( 2 Kings 9:1–6 ). The British Bible scholar, Hugh J. Schonfield theorized that

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1430-453: The United Monarchy in the 10th century BCE should be dated to the 9th century BCE. This model placed the biblical kingdom in Iron Age I , suggesting that it was not functioning as a country under centralized governance but rather as tribal chiefdom over a small polity in Judah, disconnected from the north's Israelite tribes. The rival chronology of Israeli archaeologist Amihai Mazar places

1495-402: The archaeological evidence for an extensive kingdom before the late 8th century BCE is too weak, and that the methodology used to obtain the evidence is flawed. In 1995 and 1996, Israel Finkelstein published two papers where he proposed a Low Chronology for the stratigraphy of Iron Age Israel. Finkelstein's model would push stratigraphic dates assigned by the conventional chronology by up to

1560-501: The attacker of Jabesh-Gilead , which lay outside the territory he laid claim to. Having subjected the occupants to a siege , the population sought terms for surrender , and were told by Nahash that they had a choice of death (by the sword) or having their right eyes gouged out. The population obtained seven days' grace from Nahash, during which they would be allowed to seek help from the Israelites , after which they would have to submit to

1625-449: The authors of The Bible Unearthed , ideas of a united monarchy is not accurate history but "creative expressions of a powerful religious reform movement" that are possibly "based on certain historical kernels." Finkelstein and Silberman accept that David and Solomon were real kings of Judah around the 10th century BCE, but they cite the fact that the earliest independent reference to the Kingdom of Israel dates to about 890 BCE and that to

1690-414: The battles between the northern kingdom of Israel and Syria, as Ahab , King of Israel, proposed to go to battle to win it back. After consulting prophets about the prospects of success, Ahab went to fight for Ramoth in Gilead, aided by Jehoshaphat , King of Judah . During the battle, Ahab was wounded by an arrow. He was propped up in his chariot facing the enemy, but by evening Ahab had bled to death and

1755-455: The biblical Eglon ) had uncovered an elite house (which he referred to as "the governor's residency"), whose foundations were dated by carbon-14 analysis in the late 11th–10th century BCE, the time usually ascribed to Saul, David and Solomon. Such dating would strengthen the thesis that a centralized state existed at the time of David. According to mainstream source criticism , several contrasting source texts were spliced together to produce

1820-533: The biblical account it appears that under Uzziah and Jotham the tribe of Gad joined with the kingdom of Judah instead. Nevertheless, when Tiglath-Pileser III annexed the kingdom of Israel in about 733–731 BC, Gad also fell victim to the actions of the Assyrians , and the tribe were exiled; in the Talmud , it is Gad, along with the tribe of Reuben , that are portrayed as being the first victims of this fate. The manner of

1885-409: The building programme. However, Israel Finkelstein's Low Chronology would propose to date them to the 9th century BCE. Yigael Yadin later concluded that the stables that had been believed to have served Solomon's vast collection of horses were built by King Ahab in the 9th century BCE. Following Solomon's death in c.  926 BCE , tensions between the northern part of Israel, containing

1950-656: The cities of Shechem and Samaria , and the southern Kingdom of Judah , which contained Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Israel (or the Northern Kingdom or Samaria) existed as an independent state until 722 BCE when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire . The Kingdom of Judah (or the Southern Kingdom) existed as an independent state until 586 BCE when it was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire . Many alternative chronologies have been suggested, and there

2015-510: The country of Ataroth from ancient times, and the king of Israel fortified Ataroth". Also Mesha calls his father " Chemosh-gad, king of Moab, the Dibonite", indicating that Dibon was already a major Moabite settlement for a long time (his father having been king for thirty years before him). This shows that in the middle of the 9th century BCE the Moabites still recognized Gad as a separate tribe, and as

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2080-468: The current Books of Samuel. The most prominent sections in the early parts of the first book come from a pro-monarchical source and from an anti-monarchical source. By identifying both sources, two separate accounts can be reconstructed. The anti-monarchical source describes Samuel , having thoroughly routed the Philistines , as begrudgingly accepting the people's demand for a ruler and appointing Saul by cleromancy . The pro-monarchical source describes

2145-582: The destruction of the First Temple . The Igbo in Nigeria claim descent from Gad through his son Eri, also the name of their first king. Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy) According to the Deuteronomistic history in the Hebrew Bible , a United Monarchy or United Kingdom of Israel existed under the reigns of Saul , Ish-bosheth , David , and Solomon , encompassing the territories of both

2210-505: The discovery of part of the ancient city walls around the City of David, which she believes dates to the tenth century BCE. According to Mazar, "It's the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel," and "It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem, there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction." The 10th century is the period the Bible describes as

2275-605: The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls : although not present in either the Septuagint or masoretic text , an introductory passage, preceding this narrative, was found in a copy of the Books of Samuel among the scrolls found in cave 4 : [N]ahash, king of Ammonites would put hard pressure on the descendants of Gad and the descendants of Ruben and would gouge everyone's right eye out, but no res(cuer) would be provided for Israel and there

2340-523: The divinely-appointed birth of Saul (a single word being changed by a later editor so that it referred to Samuel) and his leading of an army to victory over the Ammonites , which resulted in the people clamouring for him to lead them against the Philistines when he is appointed king. Many scholars believe that the Books of Samuel exhibit too many anachronisms to have been a contemporary account. For example,

2405-660: The establishment of a monarchy by anointing Saul. In the Second Book of Samuel , Saul's disobedience prompts Yahweh to curtail his reign and to hand his kingdom over to another dynasty, leading to Saul's death in battle against the Philistines. His heir Ish-bosheth rules for only two years before being assassinated. Though David was only the King of Judah, he ends the conspiracy and is appointed King of Israel in Ish-bosheth's place. Some textual critics and biblical scholars suggest that David

2470-406: The exile led to the further history of the tribe being lost , and according to the Book of Jeremiah , their former lands were (re)conquered by the Ammonites . Ethiopian Jews , also known as Beta Israel , claim descent from the Tribe of Dan, whose members migrated south along with members of the tribes of Gad, Asher , and Naphtali , into the Kingdom of Kush , now Ethiopia and Sudan , during

2535-581: The existence of an urbanized kingdom in the 10th century BCE. The Israel Antiquities Authority stated, "The excavations at Khirbat Qeiyafa reveal an urban society that existed in Judah already in the late eleventh century BCE. It can no longer be argued that the Kingdom of Judah developed only in the late eighth century BCE or at some other later date." The techniques and interpretations to reach some conclusions related to Khirbet Qeiyafa have been criticized by some scholars, such as Finkelstein and Alexander Fantalkin. In 2010, archaeologist Eilat Mazar announced

2600-404: The existence of the United Monarchy, but the dating and identifications are not universally accepted. The historicity of Solomon and his rule is also hotly debated. While the current consensus allows for a historical Solomon, it regards his reign as king over the United Monarchy in the tenth century BCE as uncertain and the biblical description of his apparent empire's lavishness as most probably

2665-422: The full stomach of the rich denies them sleep . When they arrived at the Jordan and saw the fertility of the land, they said: "One handful of enjoyment on this side is better than two on the other" ( Lev. R. 3:1). However, because they crossed the river to help their brethren in the conquest of Palestine, just as Simeon did when he took his sword and warred against the men of Shechem, they were found worthy to follow

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2730-555: The gap in Israelite history after the events described in Deuteronomy . Canaan State of Israel (1948–present) According to the biblical account, the united monarchy was formed when the elders of Israel expressed the desire for a king. God and Samuel seem to have a distaste for the monarchy, with God telling Samuel that "[Israel has] rejected me, that I should not be king over them." However, Samuel still proceeds with

2795-428: The historicity of the biblical narrative, those who doubt or dismiss it, and those who support the kingdom's theoretical existence while maintaining that the biblical narrative is exaggerated. Proponents of the kingdom's existence traditionally date it to between c.  1047 BCE and c.  930 BCE . In the 1990s, Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein contended that existing archaeological evidence for

2860-432: The later kingdoms of Judah and Israel . Whether the United Monarchy existed—and, if so, to what extent—is a matter of ongoing academic debate. During the 1980s, some biblical scholars began to argue that the archaeological evidence for an extensive kingdom before the late 8th century BCE is too weak, and that the methodology used to obtain the evidence is flawed. Scholars remain divided among those who support

2925-731: The location of Armageddon , mentioned only in the New Testament , at ( Revelation 16:16 ), is a Greek garbling of a supposed late Aramaic name for Ramoth-Gilead; that this location, having anciently belonged to the Hebrew tribe of Gad, was, in New Testament times, part of the Greek region known as the Decapolis , it was (Schonfield theorized) known as Rama-Gad-Yavan (Yavan meaning Greek), which when translated into Greek became Armageddon (much as Ramathaim

2990-581: The memory of a united monarchy was inspired by Saul's conquered territory serving first the ideal of a great united monarchy ruled by a northern king in the times of Jeroboam II and next to the idea of a united monarchy ruled from Jerusalem. In an article on the Biblical Archaeology Review , William G. Dever strongly criticized Finkelstein's theory, calling it full of "numerous errors, misrepresentations, over-simplifications and contradictions." Dever noted that Finkelstein proposes that Saul ruled

3055-575: The monarchy of Saul, the capital is in Gibeah . After Saul's death, Ish-bosheth rules over the Kingdom of Israel from Mahanaim , and David establishes the capital of the Kingdom of Judah in Hebron . After the civil war with Saul, David forges a powerful and unified Israelite monarchy and rules from c. 1000 to 961 BCE. Some modern archaeologists, however, believe that the two distinct cultures and geographic entities of Judah and Israel continued uninterrupted, and if

3120-555: The other tribes were quite settled in Canaan. In the biblical account, Gad's presence on the east of the Jordan is explained as a matter of the tribe desiring the land as soon as they saw it, before they had even crossed the Jordan under Joshua , and conquered Canaan . Classical rabbinical literature regards this selection of the other side by Gad as something for which they should be blamed, remarking that, as mentioned in Ecclesiastes ,

3185-496: The reign of King Solomon . Not all archaeologists agree with Mazar, and archaeologist Aren Maeir is dubious about such claims and Mazar's dating. In the Jewish Study Bible (2014), Oded Lipschits states the concept of United Monarchy should be abandoned, while Aren Maeir believes there is insufficient evidence in support of the United Monarchy. In August 2015, Israeli archaeologists discovered massive fortifications in

3250-527: The relevant period beginning in the early 10th century BCE and ending in the mid-9th century BCE, addressing the problems of the traditional chronology while still aligning pertinent findings with the time of Saul, David, and Solomon. Mazar's chronology and the traditional one have been fairly widely accepted, though there is no current consensus on the topic. Recent archaeological discoveries by Israeli archaeologists Eilat Mazar and Yosef Garfinkel in Jerusalem and Khirbet Qeiyafa , respectively, seem to support

3315-752: The role of David in the development of ancient Israel. In his books, Beyond the Texts (2018) and Has Archeology Buried the Bible? (2020), William G. Dever has defended the historicity of the United Monarchy, maintaining that the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon are "reasonably well attested." Similar arguments were advanced by Amihai Mazar in two essays written in 2010 and 2013, which point toward archaeological evidence emerged from excavation sites in Jerusalem by Eilat Mazar and in Khirbet Qeiyafa by Yosef Garfinkel . In 2018, archaeologist Avraham Faust announced that his excavations at Tel 'Eton (believed to be

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3380-415: The ruins of the ancient city of Gath , supposed birthplace of Goliath . The size of the fortifications shows that Gath was a large city in the 10th century BCE, perhaps the largest in Canaan at the time. The professor leading the dig, Aren Maeir , estimated that Gath was as much as four times the size of contemporary Jerusalem, which cast doubt that David's kingdom could have been as powerful as described in

3445-413: The ten northern tribes, and the southern section, dominated by Jerusalem and the southern tribes, reached a boiling point. When Solomon's son and successor Rehoboam dealt tactlessly with economic complaints of the northern tribes, in about 930 BCE (there are differences of opinion as to the actual year), the Kingdom of Israel and Judah splits into two kingdoms: the northern Kingdom of Israel , which included

3510-540: The tenth century, much less monumental architecture." Dever went as far as to dismiss Finkelstein's theory as "a product of his fantasy, stemmed by his obsession to prove that Saul, David and Solomon were not real kings and that the United Monarchy is an invention of a Judahite-biased biblical writer." Dever concluded by stating that "Finkelstein has not discovered a forgotten kingdom. He had invented it. The careful reader will nevertheless gain some insights into Israel—Israel Finkelstein, that is." Another more moderate review

3575-429: The terms of surrender. The occupants sought help from the people of Israel, sending messengers throughout the whole territory, and Saul , a herdsman at this time, responded by raising an army which decisively defeated Nahash and his cohorts at Bezek . The strangely cruel terms given by Nahash for surrender were explained by Josephus as being the usual practice of Nahash. A more complete explanation came to light with

3640-502: The text mentions later armour (1 Samuel 17:4–7, 38–39; 25:13), the use of camels (1 Samuel 30:17), cavalry (as distinct from chariotry ) (1 Samuel 13:5, 2 Samuel 1:6), and iron picks and axes (as if they were prevalent) (2 Samuel 12:31). Most scholars believe that the text of the Books of Samuel was compiled in the 8th century BCE - rather than in the 10th century when most of the events described took place - based on historical and legendary sources. The narrative served primarily to fill

3705-451: The time of the united monarchy (indeed very little written material altogether) and not a single contemporary reference to either David or Solomon," she concludes, "Against this must be set the evidence for substantial development and growth at several sites, which is plausibly related to the tenth century." Kenneth Kitchen ( University of Liverpool ) reaches a similar conclusion, arguing that "the physical archaeology of tenth-century Canaan

3770-476: The tribe of Simeon at the sacrifices on the occasion of the dedication of the Tabernacle ( Num. R . 13. 19). Moses was buried in the territory of Gad ( Sotah 13b; Yalkut Shimoni , Vezot Habrachah, sec. 961). According to some, Elijah was a descendant of Gad ( Gen. R. 71). The tribes of Gad and Reuben were the first that went into exile ( Lam. R. 1:5). Though initially forming part of the Kingdom of Israel , from

3835-478: The tribe to others in the Israelite confederation. In the Biblical account, Gad is one of the two descendants of Zilpah , a handmaid of Jacob, the other descendant being Asher ; scholars see this as indicating that the authors saw Gad and Asher as being not of entirely Israelite origin (hence descendants of handmaids rather than of full wives). In common with Asher is the possibility that the tribal name derives from

3900-761: The weaker client states of Philistia , Moab , Edom and Ammon , with Aramaean city-states Aram-Zobah and Aram-Damascus becoming vassal states. David is succeeded by his son Solomon, who obtains the throne in a somewhat-disreputable manner from the rival claimant Adonijah , his elder brother. Like David's Palace , Solomon's temple is designed and built with the assistance of Tyrian architects, skilled labourers, money, jewels, cedar and other goods obtained in exchange for land ceded to Tyre . Solomon goes on to rebuild numerous significant cities, including Megiddo , Hazor and Gezer . Some scholars have attributed aspects of archaeological remains excavated from these sites, including six-chambered gates and ashlar palaces, to

3965-493: Was located in the tribal territorial allotment of the tribe of Gad . According to ( 1 Kings 4:13 ), Ramoth-Gilead was the base of Ben-Geber , one of King Solomon 's regional governors. He was responsible for ("to him belonged") the towns of Jair the son of Manasseh , in Gilead and the region of Argob in Bashan : sixty large cities with walls and bronze gate-bars. It appears to have been lost to Syria ( Aram-Damascus ) during

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4030-558: Was never secure from invasion and attacks, since to the south it was exposed to the Moabites , and like the other tribes east of the Jordan was exposed on the north and east to Aram-Damascus and later the Assyrians . Gad is mentioned in the Mesha Stele (ca 840 BCE), where the Moabite king Mesha boast about his conquest of Atoroth (very probably Khirbat Ataruz ): "And the men of Gad dwelled in

4095-514: Was not left anyone among the children of Israel in the Tr(ans Jordan) whose right eye Nahash the king of Ammonites did not gouge out but be(hold) seven thousand men (escaped the power of) Ammonites and they arrived at (Ya)besh Gilead. About a month later Nahash the Ammonite went up and besieged Jabesh-Gilead. With the growth of the threat from Philistine incursions, the Israelite tribes decided to form

4160-423: Was responsible for the assassination and that his innocence was a later invention to legitimize his actions. Israel rebels against David and crowns David's son Absalom . David is forced into exile east of the Jordan River but eventually launches a successful counterattack, which results in the death of Absalom. Having retaken Judah and asserted control over Israel, David returns west of the Jordan. Throughout

4225-534: Was written in the same magazine by Aaron Burke: Burke described Finkelstein's book as "ambitious" and praised its literary style but did not accept his conclusions: according to Burke, Finkelstein's thesis is mainly based on his proposed Low Chronology, ignoring the criticism that it has received from scholars like Amihai Mazar , Christopher Bronk Ramsey and others, and engages in several speculations that archeology, biblical and extrabiblical sources cannot prove. He also criticized him for persistently trying to downgrade

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