From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible
Eric H. Cline
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 1426202083
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In this provocative yet persuasive book, now in paperback, Eric H. Cline uses the tools of his trade to examine some of the most puzzling mysteries from the Hebrew Bible and, in the process, to narrate the history of ancient Israel. Combining academic with an accessible style that has made him a favorite with readers and students alike, he lays out each mystery, evaluates all available evidence—from established fact to arguable assumption to far-fetched leap of faith—and proposes an explanation that reconciles Scripture, science, and history.
Numerous amateur archaeologists have sought some trace of Noah’s Ark to meet only with failure. But, though no serious scholar would undertake such a literal search, many agree that the Flood was no myth but the cultural memory of a real, catastrophic inundation, retold and reshaped over countless generations. Likewise, some experts suggest that Joshua’s storied victory at Jericho is the distant echo of an earthquake instead of Israel’s sacred trumpets—a fascinating, geologically plausible theory that remains unproven despite the best efforts of scientific research.
Cline places these and other Biblical stories in solid archaeological and historical context and reserves judgment on ideas that cannot yet be confirmed or denied. Along the way, our most informed understanding of ancient Israel comes alive with dramatic but accurate detail in this groundbreaking and entertaining book by one of the rising stars in the field.
Thus, Ussishkin’s renewed excavations at Lachish have broken what once seemed to be a firm link between archaeology and the biblical account of Joshua’s conquest of the city. But what about Hazor? Yigael Yadin, professor of archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and perhaps the best-known Israeli archaeologist, began excavating at Hazor in the 1950s. He quickly found what he thought was evidence for Joshua and the Israelites’ destruction of the Canaanite city, which he dated to “not
Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain—that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar. The Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, “I will give it to your descendants”; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.’ ” This, too, we shall soon discuss at greater length. IN OUR REVIEW of the textual
Chronicles is considered accurate, then Tiglath-pileser III carried off the captives to the same locations in Assyria that Sargon II did (or Shalmaneser V, if we don’t agree with Na’aman’s suggestion). However, if we consider the account in I Chronicles to be a later, anachronistic addition to the biblical text, as many biblical scholars do, then we are simply left with one specific set of locations that Sargon II/Shalmaneser V carried the deportees off to, and a more general designation from II
appearances, to help combat claims involving the Garden of Eden by a reporter/novelist, the treasures of the Copper Scroll by an Oklahoma fire marshal, and the reported discovery of Noah’s ark by the evangelical explorers from Noah’s Ark Ministries International (based in Hong Kong). As I wrote in the epilogue to this book, I still harbor the hope that future discussions of such biblical mysteries will be based more upon facts and less upon flights of fantasy. One day, hopefully soon, we will be
New Oxford Annotated Bible, 18OT. * The only other tidbit of biblical information See Howard, “Sodom and Gomorrah Revisited,” 392. * The other texts See Harland, “Sodom and Gomorrah. Part I,” 22-23, and “Sodom and Gomorrah. Part II,” 44-47. * a flurry of excitement took place See Paolo Matthiae, Ebla: An Empire Rediscovered (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977); Giovanni Pettinato, The Archives of Ebla: An Empire Inscribed in Clay (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1981). * were soon shown to be