Synopsis

The Invention of Ancient Israel shows how the history of ancient Palestine has been obscured by the search for Israel. Keith W. Whitelam argues that ancient Israel has been invented by scholars in the image of a European nation state. He explores the theological and political assumptions which have shaped research into ancient Israel by Biblical scholars, and contributed to the vast network of scholarship which Said identified as 'Orientalist discourse'.
Keith W. Whitelam's groundbreaking study argues that Biblical scholars, through their traditional view of this region, have contributed to dispossession of both a Palestinian land and a Palestinian past. This is important reading for historians, biblical specialists, social anthropologists and all those who are interested in the history of ancient Israel and Palestine.

Steven W. Holloway

In this fascinating study, Whitelam boldly argues that there is a sustained interplay between the invention of ancient Israel in 20th-century scholarship and the foundation narratives of the modern state of Israel, with the plea that Palestinian history take its place as an autonomous discipline in the academy....This is a timely pioneering study in a minefield that will evoke applause from some quarters and, perhaps, obloquy...from others. —Society of Biblical Literature

Biography

Keith W. Whitelam is Professor of Religious Studies and Head of Department at the University of Stirling. He is the co-author of The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective (1987), and has produced a series of articles on ancient Israelite and Palestinian history.