This article is a reply, from an archaeological perspective, to Keith W. Whitelam's article, 'The Identity of Early Israel: The Realignment and Transformation of Late Bronze-Iron Age Palestine', JSOT 63 (1994), pp. 57-87. Here it is argued that the current school of 'revisionist' historians of ancient Israel takes a needlessly 'minimal ist' view, underestimating the potential of modern interdisciplinary archaeology for writing a history of a real 'ancient Israel' during the Monarchy, as well as a history of Iron Age Palestine.
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