[SmithL]

In the process, Lavon expounds upon the nature of his archaeological work:

‘There’s a popular school of archaeological thought these days called biblical minimalism. The minimalists believe, among other things, that King Solomon was a mythical figure, something of a Jewish King Arthur. We’re trying to prove them wrong.’

‘Did he exist?’ [asks Allon]

‘Of course,’ said Lavon, ‘and he built a city right here at Megiddo.’

This conversation alludes to the school of thought, best exemplified by the suspect scholarship of Columbia anthropology professor Nadia Abu El-Haj, which seeks to undermine Israel’s ancient Jewish foundation despite the wealth of archaeological evidence to the contrary. In this instance, and in many others, Silva has his finger on the pulse of political trends within Middle East studies. . . .

MORE HERE

[SmithL]

Cinnamon Stillwell Ping

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[Titus Quinctius Cincinnatus]

What's ironic is that while the Nadia El-Haj school of scholarship continues to sink under the ever-increasing weight of evidence that the biblical account is actually extremely accurate, all the way back, the weight of evidence also shows that her traditional Islamic historiography is almost complete hokum up until around the time of Marwan I (684-685 AD).