Approaching Biblical Archaeology

Anthony J. Frendo FSA is professor emeritus of Near Eastern Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible, and Senior Fellow at the University of Malta, Malta. He is also a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, UK.

• Acknowledgements Preface 1. Introduction 2. What did the Excavators Actually Find? The Archaeological Data and their Interpretation 3. Artefacts: Inscribed and Uninscribed 4. Earlier, Concurrent, or Later? Stratigraphy as the Backbone of Archaeology 5. Adducing the Evidence: Without Going Round in Circles 6. In Practice: A Two-Way Flow of Traffic — Archaeology - Bible 7. Conclusions BibliographyIndex of ReferencesIndex of Authors

Anthony Frendo has done an important service to biblical studies in this introduction to “how archaeologists think” and how biblical scholars can (and should) evaluate what they say. His admirable aim is to foster greater cooperation between the two disciplines. Alongside the step-by-step account of archaeological method, I particularly liked the way that quite lengthy treatments of current problems (like the 'low chronology' for the monarchy period and the nature of Yahweh's asherah) were used as examples to show how in practice such assessment and cooperation can best be done. Readers can learn much from watching a master of both fields doing his work and even experienced scholars will value the information about recent publications in the field.