A History of Ancient Israel and Judah, Second Edition

An updating of a classic critical study. [Full Review]

Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 2006. Pp. xxii + 562. Paperback. $39.95. ISBN 0664223583. Kenton Sparks Eastern University St. Davids, PA 19087 In his review of the first edition of Miller and Hayes, Philip Davies wrote: “The basic question appears to be whether this book marks the end of the road for the genre of biblical history. My answer, with many others, is yes, and herein lies not so much a weakness but a strength of the Miller and Hayes volume. It is unlikely that this particular kind of history can be written much better” (JSOT 39 [1987]: 4). With these words, I take Davies to mean that Miller and Hayes had written a history of Israel that was on the verge of breaking free from the Bible’s grip, but which did not finally do so. For Davies and for those of his ilk, a fully appropriate history of Israel would realize that the Hebrew narratives are essentially works of late fiction, which can hardly provide the grist for modern historical mills. If this is really the kind of history that Davies and the minimalists want, then this new edition of Miller and Hayes is no better than the last one. In fact, if there is theoretical movement at all in the historiography of these authors, it would be a modest step in the direction of biblical history. By this I do not mean “biblical history” as incarnated in a conservative work like A Biblical History of Israel (by Provan, Long, and Longman; Westminster John Knox, 2003), which often amounts to a thoughtful but semi-critical paraphrase of the biblical narrative. Rather, the history of Miller and Hayes is “biblical” in the sense that these authors believe that the biblical histories, upon critical evaluation, can provide a useful window into the events narrated in them. [Full Review]