A History of Israel: From the Bronze Age through the Jewish Wars

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“The contemporary historian’s approach tends to differ from that of his earliest counterparts in three ways: he generally takes a critical stance toward his sources; (2) he is inclined to disregard the supernatural or miraculous in his treatment of past events; (3) he is very much aware of his own historicity and, accordingly, of the subjectivity and tentative character of his own historical conclusions.’” (Page 4)

“Fallacy No. 5: History writing must not give logical and necessary priority to written evidence over material culture.” (Page 7)

“Fallacy No. 3: History cannot include narratives about individuals, but must focus on nations instead.^{14” (Page 6)}

“Fallacy No. 4: History must not focus on individuals as shapers of the times, but on sociological factors that attempt to discover general laws and large-scale societal forces that influence historical change.” (Page 7)

“Interestingly enough, however, the disagreement among scholars is not so much over the ‘facts’ in the field; rather, it is over how one should interpret those facts, and with what sorts of presuppositions one may legitimately approach the study of Old Testament history.” (Pages 1–2)