Debate: The Albright Wars - The BAS Library
Login
Home > Magazines > BAR > January/February 2004

Debate: The Albright Wars

Alex Joffe responds to his critics, and other scholars weigh in, as well

By Alexander H. Joffe

In our May/June 2003 issue, we republished a damning book review by Alexander H. Joffe of BAS’s Ancient Israel that originally appeared in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies. The reviewer seemed to be saying that we can no longer ask historical questions about the Patriarchal period or about the Israelites in Egypt or about the settlement in Canaan. We invited our readers to comment, and several did in our September/October 2003 issue (pp. 9–10). Below is Joffe’s response to these readers’ letters. It is followed by comments from scholars William G. Dever, David Noel Freedman, Burke O. Long […]

Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.

Join the BAS Library!

Already a library member? Log in here.

Footnotes

1.

Burke O. Long, Planting and Reaping Albright (University Park, PA: Penn State Univ. Press, 1997).

2.

Julius Wellhausen argued that the Pentateuch consists of four different authorial strands, a view that, in general, is still widely accepted by scholars today.—Ed.

3.
Ms. Anderson wrote, “My goodness, Professor Joffe must live on antacid pills. Such vitriol!”—Ed.

4.

Mr. Edgren wrote that Joffe “ridicule[d] the continuing search for ‘historical kernels’” in the Biblical narrative.—Ed.

5.
Mr. Sturges suggested that by his review Joffe may have “done [us] a favor.” Sturges ordered a copy of Ancient Israel.—Ed.

6.
This is an apparent reference to BAS’s annual winter Seminar at Sea in the Caribbean, which features lectures by leading scholars.—Ed.