Kingdom of Priests

About this book

The purpose of this study is not so much to interpret the meaning of the underlying events -- a task more properly in the province of biblical theology -- as it is to discover the historical data themselves and by every resource at our disposal (including the biblical text, extrabiblical documents, and archaeology) to reconstruct the history of Israel along the lines of ordinary historiographical method, that is, to the extent that such a goal is possible, given the unique nature of the material. Any success in this endeavor will be of importance to the search for a true understanding of Israel's Old Testament past -- a worthy objective in itself -- and to the establishment of the historical factualness of the Old Testament record, the truthfulness of which is absolutely critical if the religious and theological message is to have any effect. -- Preface. With Kingdom of Priests, years of famine end and years of plenty begin. After decades of doing without a comprehensive history of Israel, evangelicals now have one that should be a satisfying standard for many years. The author approaches the Old Testament documents, on which one must depend almost entirely, "as the Word of God, with all that that implies for its worth and authority as historical source." He does not, however, merely retell the biblical story. "The very fact that the Old Testament relates those ancient events as 'sacred history,' as primarily theological rather than social or political phenomena, is enough to justify repeated attempts to reconstruct the story along the lines of normal historiography," he writes. "Our purpose is to understand the history of Israel as an integration of political, social, economic, and religious factors and to do so on the basis not only of the Old Testament as Scripture, but by careful attention to the literary and archaeological sources of the ancient Near Eastern world of which Israel was a part." The text of Kingdom of Priests receives support from extensive documentation. It interacts with histories of Israel written from other perspectives. It places charts and line maps near the discussion they illuminate. It indexes Scripture passages, subjects, and names in the text. In short, it does superbly everything a textbook should do. -- Jacket flap.