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William Dever has recently published a review article of our book The Bible Unearthed (2001 a). It is our view that Dever either misunderstood the book, or misrepresented it in certain important respects. We will present the reasons for our position by citing Dever's own words (in italics) and responding to them (in regular font). To make it easier for the reader to follow this rebuttal, we have divided our citations into two major categories, each set in the order in which they appear in Dever's review article.
CATEGORY #1: PROBLEMS OF FACT AND INTERPRETATIONS OF HISTORY
"The story of `Biblical Israel' found in the Deuteronomistic history-the books of Joshua through Kings-is 'survival' literature, produced by orthodox, nationalist reform parties during the Assyrian crisis in the brief reign of Josiah, late in Judah's history" (2001a: 67).
The citation above comes from Dever's critical summary of our book. Josiah ascended the throne in Jerusalem in 639 and died in 609 B.C.E. Most scholars have argued that the Assyrians withdrew from Palestine a few years before the death of Ashurbanipal in 631 B.C.E., and that from the very beginning of his reign, Josiah was free to conduct his own independent policies (e.g., Cross and Freedman 1953; Noth 1958: 272-73; Spalinger 1978: 49-51; Miller and Hayes 1986: 381-85). Na'aman (1991: 33-41) proposed that Assyria withdrew from Palestine a bit later, in the 620s B.C.E. In any event, in the days of Josiah, the Assyrian crisis was over, or almost over. Most of his days-certainly as an adult-are therefore post-Assyrian. The main power that Josiah had to deal with was Egypt, which, under the 26th (Saite) Dynasty, inherited the territories of Assyria in Palestine (Miller and Hayes 1986: 383-85, 388-90; Na'aman 1991). At least one chapter in The Bible Unearthed -the one dealing with the Exodus narrative- specifically deals, at length, with the Judah-- Egypt confrontation in the days of Josiah. Thus Dever misconstrued the main point of the book, that the burst of activity of the Deuteronomistic movement was closely related to the withdrawal of Assyria from the region rather than to the "Assyrian crisis."
It is also surprising to find exactly the same language, almost word for word, in his own recent book: "In short,...