Authors: Bruce Feiler
I
NTRODUCTION
The early history of the Fertile Crescent is discussed in many places, including, most recently, Jared Diamond’s
Guns, Germs, and Steel
and Robert Wright’s
Nonzero
. The relations between the stories of Genesis and Mesopotamia are examined in Thorkild Jacobsen’s
The Treasures of Darkness,
O. R. Gurney’s
The Hittites,
Samuel Noah Kramer’s
The Sumerians,
and Nahum Sarna’s
Understanding Genesis
. The history of Noah’s ark is the subject of
The Incredible Discovery of Noah’s Ark
by Charles Sellier and David Balsiger and
Noah’s Flood
by William Ryan and Walter Pitman.
B
OOK
I
The historical roots of the patriarchal narratives are discussed in E. A. Speiser’s
Genesis,
John Bright’s
A History of Israel,
and Susan Niditch’s
Ancient Israelite Religion
. Many of the extrabiblical legends of the patriarchs are gathered in Louis Ginzberg’s
The Legends of the Jews
(the first three of seven volumes), Angelo Rappoport’s
Ancient Israel
(two volumes), and the writings of Josephus, gathered in
The Works of Josephus,
translated by William Whiston. Popular retellings of the stories appear in Chaim Potok’s
Wanderings
and Thomas Cahill’s
The Gifts of the Jews
.
Two extraordinary books of contemporary commentary on the Bible stand out as exemplary works of popular scholarship: The first is Jack Miles’s breathtakingly original
God:A Biography;
the second is James Kugel’s monumental
The Bible as It Was
. I have benefited immensely from both, and highly recommend them.
The question of the Bible’s authorship is examined in Harold Bloom’s
The Book of J
and Richard Elliott Friedman’s highly accessible
Who Wrote the Bible?
The history of biblical archaeology is told thoroughly in P. R. S. Moorey’s
A Century of Biblical Archaeology,
Moshe
Pearlman’s
Digging up the Bible,
and Neil Asher Silberman’s masterly
Digging for God & Country
. Silberman is also the author of
A Prophet from Amongst You:The Life of Yigael Yadin;
Leona Glidden Running and David Noel Freedman are authors of
William Foxwell Albright: A Twentieth-Century Genius
. Other scholarly books on archaeology I consulted include
Archaeology of the Land of the Bible
by Amihai Mazar and
The Oxford Companion to Archaeology,
edited by Brian Fagan. Easily the most popular book ever on biblical archaeology is Werner Keller’s
The Bible as History,
which is still in print today in English. It has a companion,
The Bible as History in Pictures
(New York, 1963).
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OOK
II
T. G. H. James has written several landmark histories of ancient Egypt, including
An Introduction to Ancient Egypt
and
Ancient Egypt
. I also consulted Barbara Mertz’s
Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs
and Emil Ludwig’s magisterial
The Nile,
the kind of ornate history that is rarely written today. I also highly recommend Alan Moorehead’s
The White Nile
and
The Blue Nile
.
The subject of Egypt’s relationship with the Bible is addressed in Donald Redford’s powerful and comprehensive
Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times,
as well as in his biography
Akhenaten:The Heretic King
. Other books that explore the relationship between Egypt and the Bible include James Hoffmeier’s
Israel in Egypt,
David Rohl’s
Pharaoh’s and Kings,
Ian Wilson’s
Exodus:The True Story,
and Sigmund Freud’s
Moses and Monotheism
.
The story of Joseph in Egypt is retold in Thomas Mann’s four novels,
Joseph and His Brothers, Young Joseph, Joseph in Egypt,
and
Joseph the Provider
. Though these books are hard to find, they are, to my mind, unrivaled acts of imagination and prose.
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OOK
III
The best single book I found on the Sinai, Saint Catherine’s, and Jebel Musa is
Mount Sinai
by Joseph Hobbs.
Exploring Exodus
continues the tradition of detailed examination of history, the natural world, and the
text that Nahum Sarna initiated with Genesis. Jonathan Kirsch’s biography
Moses
follows a similar pattern, with thoughtful literary analysis as well.
Other books I consulted include
Sinai
by Burton Bernstein,
Guide to Exploration of the Sinai
by Alberto Siliotti, and
Sinai:The Exodus Trip
by Mario Vinei. On the subject of early monasticism, I highly recommend
The Wisdom of the Desert
by Thomas Merton, an elegant and inspiring book.
B
OOK
IV
There are many contemporary histories of Israel. Two I have enjoyed and consulted frequently are
The Siege
by Conor Cruise O’Brien and
A History of Israel
by Howard Sachar. A broader history of the entire region is
The Middle East
by Bernard Lewis. The relationship between Israel and Britain, with particular focus on the Bible, is treated in Barbara Tuchman’s graceful
Bible and Sword
.
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OOK
V
The defining piece of adventure writing about the Middle East remains
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
by T. E. Lawrence. Other masterworks in this field include Sir Richard Francis Burton’s
Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina,
Charles Doughty’s
Travels in Arabia Deserta,
and John Lloyd Stephen’s
Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia, Petraea, and the Holy Land,
each of which is fascinating, if only in pieces. The collective impact of these writings is brilliantly illuminated in the opening chapters of Robert Kaplan’s
The Arabists
.
Two pieces of contemporary travel writing, William Dalrymple’s
From the Holy Mountain
and Bruce Chatwin’s
Songlines,
are sterling examples of how to mix the sacred and the profane into compelling personal narratives.
I benefited from a number of books on Petra and contemporary Jordan, including
The Art of Jordan,
edited by Piotr Beinkowsky,
Petra
by Iain Browning
,
and
Petra
by Jane Taylor. The same applies to
The JPS Commentary on Numbers
by Jacob Milgrom and
Moses and the Deuteronomist
by Robert Polzin.
I would also like to recommend a number of novels I read that relate directly, or in part, to life in the Middle East, or the desert:
The Sheltering Sky
by Paul Bowles,
Damascus Gate
by Robert Stone, and the incomparable
Quarantine
by Jim Crace.
The Internet has proved to be fertile territory for information about the Bible. There are newsgroups available for Bible research at alt.christ-net.bible and soc.culture.jewish. Recent archives for the extraordinary magazine
Biblical Archaeology Review,
the international standard-bearer of the field, can be found at www.bib-arch.org. The online search Bible I used most frequently contains the King James translation as well as the Revised Standard Version. It can be found at http://etext.virginia.edu/ frames/bibleframe.html.
In the spirit of keeping this ongoing conversation about the Bible alive, and in an effort to provide further help for those interested in visiting some (or all) of the sites described in this book, I have a started an online site of my own, www.walkingthebible.com. E-mail inquiries to me, or to Avner, are welcome at that site. The forum for discussing the biblical stories may have changed dramatically over time, but, as I believe our journey made clear, the desire of people around the world to connect themselves to these stories remains as strong—and as passionate—as ever.
Aaron
death of
tomb of
Abdullah, King of Jordan
Abdullah II, King of Jordan
Abel
Abimelech, King
Abraham
Abimelech and
as Abram
altars built by
at Beer–sheba
at Bethel
binding of Isaac (
akedah
) by
birthplace of
characteristics of
circumcision of
at Dan
dating of
death of
Dome of the Rock and
in Egypt
at Gerar
God’s covenant with
God’s promises to
at Harran
Hebron burial site purchased by
in Jewish tradition
kings defeated by
Lot’s separation from
meaning of name of
migration of
in Negev
as pastoralist
route taken by
at Shechem
Sodom bargain negotiated by
succession of
three messengers’ visit to
tomb of
well of
Abu Tayeh, Ada
Abu Tayeh, Fawaz
Abu Tour
Adam
meaning of name
Adam and Eve story
adonai yireh,
agricultural revolution
Ain el–Qudeirat
Ain Musa
Air Force One
Akhenaten, Pharaoh
monotheism of
Akiva, Rabbi
Akkad
Albright, William Foxwell
Albright Institute of Archaeological Research
Alexander II, Czar of Russia
Alexander the Great
alphabet, Semitic
Amalek
Amenhotep III, Pharaoh
Amman, Jordan
Ammon, Ammonites
Amon–Re
Amorites
Anakites
Anati, Emanuel
ANZAC (Australian–New Zealand Army Corps) memorial
Apocrypha
Arabic
Arabists
Arabs
Ishmael as progenitor of
see also
bedouin
Arad
Arafat, Yasser
Aramaic
arch, at Dan
archaeologists
minimalists
archaeology,
see
biblical archaeology
Archaeology
Ark of the Covenant
Armenians
Ashrawi, Hanan
Assyria, Assyrians
astrology
Aswan High Dam
Aten
Atkinson, Eddie
Augustine, Saint
Avni, Yehuda
Babylonians
Creation story of
flood stories of
gods of
Baedeker guidebook
Balaam
Balsiger, David
Barkay, Gabriel
silver rolls discovered by
Baruch
Basemath
bedouin
ancient burial site of
clothing of
daily life of
desert as viewed by
divorces of
fire carried by
gathered for tea
green as viewed by
hospitality of
houses of
Lawrence and,
see
Lawrence, T. E. legal system of
medicinal plants of
museum of culture of
nawamis
discovered by
number of
Petra’s Treasury urn as viewed by
quail netted by
religion of
tents of
ululation by
see also
Nabateans