Not long ago we reviewed Philip Jenkins' Hidden Gospels, a book by a scholar of moderate persuasion who had had it up to the proverbial here with revisionists like the Jesus Seminar and the feminist theologians. Now we have William Dever doing the same for Biblical archaeology, and the results are just as interesting.

Dever is by no means an evangelical! He does not accept the Pentateuch or Conquest narrative as historical, but on the other hand does not think that the Bible as a whole is fiction either. It is of course, he says, biased even as it reports truth (as no one would disagree anyway, as all historical writing has some bias) but in his view certain people have now gone too far with political correctness, to the point of claiming that Israel as a nation did not exist until Hasmonean times.

Much of Dever's book is devoted to case studies and explanatory info on archaeology that any reader would find immensely useful. The rest is a harsh (and warranted!) indictment against a fringe element that is more concerned with the feelings of modern people than with reality and data, often, as Dever notes, ignoring the data or desperately explaining it away as forged, or what have you. That, Dever explains with a measure of impatience, is not the way to do study in this area. His discussion of convergences between texts and evidence is particularly helpful. But be prepared to launch into hysterical laughter at the claims of some of these "revisionists" as he calls them (for example, Israeli archaeology is attempting to cover up the heritage of the modern Palestinians). The impetus behind such theorizing is the same Jenkins saw in his field, only with a good dash of deconstruction added. To such as these Dever wryly replies in a way that shows their way to be self-refuting: "If I perceive their intentions wrongly, I would welcome other readings (that is, if texts really have any 'meaning')." Dever also provides a slight corrective for those enamored with Finkelstein's The Bible Unearthed (Finkelstein is slightly infected with this deconstruction disease, and his theories are not in the mainstream).

In conclusion: Dever's voice is a welcome moderation and one we can draw from with profit. In spite of his fundamental disagreements with evangelicalism, his work is a worthwhile read.