Original sentence: Traditionally, this has explained as being due to the southern kingdom being too far away to be involved in the battle, but Israel Finkelstein et al.claim the alternative explanation that the southern kingdom was simply an insignificant rural backwater at the time the poem was written
Edited sentence: Traditionally, this has explained as being due to the southern kingdom being too far away to be involved in the battle, but according to an increasing majority of archaeologists, the southern kingdom was simply an insignificant rural backwater at the time the poem was written