The Old Testament, and biblical scholarship itself, distinguishes between mythical and historical. This book argues that only historical thing in the Bible is the Bible itself, a superb product of Jewish thought. What is narrated in the Bible is only myth. But this myth about Israel’s past was still built with fragments of history, or rather with written traditions that were different from those expressed in the actual text, and obviously more ancient. These essays follow in the spirit of Garbini’s controversial History and Ideology in Ancient Israel, which combine detailed philological research, a wide knowledge of ancient Near Eastern literature and biblical archaeology, and a radical way of understanding what the biblical text is really telling us. This is an erudite and thought-provoking book, which should not be ignored by anyone who finds the origin of the Bible a fascinating and still largely unknown phenomenon.
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- Foreword by the author
- Applies the criteria of classical philology
- Includes bibliographical references and indexes
Praise for the Print Edition
While Garbini’s (effect-cause) formula is readily apparent in each chapter, his work is anything but formulaic. Once the reader has accommodated to Garbini’s perspective on myth and history, his discussion never fails to intrigue, his philology to impress, nor his conclusions to provoke. Clearly, we have here the work of a seasoned scholar who has ruminated long and read wide.
—David Bergen, sessional instructor, University of Calgary
- Title: Myth and History in the Bible
- Author: Giovanni Garbini
- Publisher: T&T Clark
- Publication Date: 2005
- Pages: 160
About Giovanni Garbini
Giovanni Garbini is a lecturer of semitic philology at the University Di Roma “La Sapienza.”