This is a historian’s book – Michael D. Coogan wrote a Prologue, 12 other historians each wrote a chapter, and the Epilogue is by another historian. It starts with the earliest records and goes chronologically through the Christian Roman Empire. It is quite thorough, using all possible sources - archeology, anthropology, and all available writings.

Information is used from all cultures of the biblical world: Sumerian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Persian, Syrian, Hebrew, Phoenician, Philistine, Samarian, Greek and Roman. It is “an integrated study of the history, art, architecture, languages, literatures, and religions of biblical Israel and early Judaism and Christianity in their larger cultural contexts.” It focuses on the Hebrews in Canaan - upper Palestine, the land of the God El (hence Israel, the people of El) and Judah - lower Palestine, the hill country and the God Yahweh, and their exiles. (Canaan became Samaria and Judah became Judea.) The earlier periods seem to be war after war after war, because that is all they bothered writing about. Most cultures omitted their defeats, so it is crucial to have all sides to know what happened. Their stories borrowed heavily from each other – if a story was good, they took it and adapted it to their culture and god(s). One historian compared this to a “Hollywood treatment” or, at best, a docudrama. The Hebrews were unique in that they didn’t blame their god for bad times, instead they blamed themselves for not being true to their god. How their perceptions of El and Yahweh during their difficult history evolved into the God of Jerusalem makes this book a very informative read. I agree with the historians that “understanding the biblical world is a vital part of understanding the Bible.” But it seemed overly long since there was significant repetition by many of the chapter authors. So I would have liked it to have had a stronger editor who would have reduced its size.