H. I. Hester (1895–1983)

This is a great, condensed overview of Hebrew history beginning with Genesis 1 up to the Second Temple. Covering roughly 1800 years in 330 pages, it naturally is not over detailed and should be used more of a guide in case you get lost in the timeline like I did when sorting out Kings and Chronicles. I have the 15th edition, printed 1962.

I would give it a 4/5 but I'm docking a star because it's getting out of date. This is especially apparent with the archaeology section wherein it's referred to as a "new science". For perspective, W. Albright's revolutionary work in Biblical archaeology was published less than 10 years before this book. Also, there are some questionable ethnic generalizations. E.G. the author claims the Jews became especially good a merchandising because of the Babylonian captivity (cue Yogurt from Spaceballs). You could get away with that in '62 but not so much nowadays.

Assessment: Good as a general timeline and basic overview of Hebrew history, but it's not aging well.

3.0/5… (mehr)