It's an incredibly useful historical source when analyzed critically, but no, it's not historically accurate prior to about the 7th century BC, and after that it still remains a politically and religiously biased account of events rather than a really accurate one, like any ancient historical source.
There's no evidence for an exodus from Egypt or a conquest of the Canaanites; rather the Hebrews emerged as pastoral tribes in the highlands who began to settle down and form kingdoms after the collapse of the lowland Canaanite cities during the Bronze Age Collapse. The United Monarchy didn't exist and if David and Solomon existed, they were pastoral chieftains who founded a dynasty which only became powerful centuries later rather than great rulers themselves. The kingdom of Israel was far greater in its power, complexity and extent than the contemporary Judah which was a relative backwater, the opposite of how the Bible depicts it. Monotheism probably emerged gradually as the Judaean patron god of Yahweh was made first the sole god worshiped by the Hebrew people, then the supreme god in heaven and then the only true god at all.
Not him but please, The author is literally jew, writing about a jewish book, who is also an academic.
I'm not saying don't disagree with anything or take any academics word (Be they christian jewish or atheist) as gospel but what you are doing is just pure anti intellectualism.
Jack Wood
Do you have an actual criticism or does archaeology just hurt your feefees?
Asher Gomez
Yes, a review of the Unearthed book by their High School graduate Pastor in the middle of cornfuckstan is enough to refute it.
Parker Brown
>The United Monarchy didn't exist
I thought that the existence of the United Monarchy was a solid "maybe lol i dunno"
Isaac Reed
Sorry for offending your favorite jew.
Thomas Foster
The United Monarchy as depicted in the Bible is a large, unified and prosperous kingdom ruled from Judah covering all of Canaan, before it split into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah around 930 BC. There's no archaeological evidence for the existence of such a thing; at the time when the United Monarchy supposedly existed, there's no evidence for any large-scale political organization among the Hebrews who were still a tribal society transitioning from pastoral nomadism to village-based farming. Instead Israel seems to be the first kingdom to emerge around 900 BC, building a fairly powerful and complex urban state with plenty of archaeological evidence for its prosperity (art, architecture, etc), while Judah only emerged later around the mid-8th century and only rose to any relevance after Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrians around 720 BC.
The Davidic dynasty did exist and are attested in contemporary inscriptions, but they were only a minor kingdom or chiefdom in the shadow of Israel, nothing like the United Monarchy. The United Monarchy seems to just be an mythological golden age invented by the Judaeans to increase their own prestige relative to the Israelites.
