From the Search for Ancient Israel to the History of Ancient Palestine

EMANUEL PFOH

History, Archaeology and the Bible Forty Years after 'Historicity': Changing Perspectives 6

Routledge

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2016; p. 143 - 158

During the last four decades, a remarkable shift of research paradigms took place within biblical and historical studies of Israel. If we list some of the main changes, we must note: (1) a progressive deconstruction of biblical stories as referring to ancient history and their placing instead among theological and ideological realms or interpretive contexts; (2) a dating of the production of biblical stories from the Iron Age to the Persian, Hellenistic, or Greco-Roman periods; (3) a shift from a main concern with the history of ?ancient Israel? in pre-classical times to a more broader and regional history of ancient Palestine. These historiographical shifts may certainly be seen as responding to broader external and internal changes in the field of biblical studies. Among the external changes, the linguistic turn in social sciences but also a visibilization of the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be count as important, even if their impact is not always direct or explicit. Among the internal changes, the results of the archaeological practice in Israel and the Occupied Territories and the appearance of new interpretative approaches are to be considered as pivotal in our new understandings of Palestine?s past, peoples and cultural productions and manifestations.