Talk:Israel Finkelstein

message: I had the pleasure to dig with him two years ago, very charismatic man.
:Ya same here (one year ago at Megiddo as a volunteer), he is very nice, but the images you see of him don't give you an idea of just how tall he is, lol. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie Say Shalom! 06:54, 2 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  awesome professor! 

message: Shouldn't something be said about this? Arch O. La Grigory Deepdelver 08:30, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lower chronology 

message: I have removed the bits referring to the controversy into this section, as they do not really fit into the main article until they are cleared up.  Biblical Archaeology is a popular publication not a serious scientific journal and the criticism below seems to be from a religious viewpoint, not arhchaeological one. 
In the July-August 2006 issue of the Biblical Archaeology Review, Michael Coogan of Stonehill College, editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible, contends that Finkelstein and Silberman "move from the hypothetical to the improbable to the absurd."
Finkelstein's revised chronology is "not accepted by the majority of archaeologists and biblical scholars," Coogan asserts, citing four scholarly anthologies from the past three years.
''
However, Professor Baruch Halpern praised The Bible Unearthed, as "the boldest and most exhilirating synthesis of Bible and archaeology in fifty years." 
Professor David Noel Freedman, editor of the authoritative Anchor Bible Series, called it "readable and revolutionary."
''''''
:The above isn't signed, but it's not up to individual editors to determine the worth of legitimate 3rd party references. If there are controversies related to the Professor detailed by other scholars or commentators  those do not necessarily have to come from "serious scientific journals", that's up to the reader to decide, otherwise you are delving into personal POV.Awotter 21:22, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Coogan is a highly reputed OT scholar. He also stated in  So, he agrees that David's Jerusalem could fit on five rugby fields. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:30, 4 April 2019 (UTC)
thread_title: Controversy

message: I've just deleted some stuff which I thought was poorly sources, particularly for a BLP which needs high standards. Eg, the source used to say that he was rejected by most of his peers wasn't an archaeologist or archaeological journal, but a review of Finkelstein's book appearing a journal specializing in Zionist history and ideas by Raanan Eichler, a graduate student at a Jewish college specializing in Zionist history and ideas—Finkelstein himself says no such thing. This is not to say that Eichler is necessarily wrong, but it would be more convincing to cite a reliable source archaeologist like Ze'ev Herzog, who does portray Finkelstein's conclusions as a consensus among many prominent archaeologists. Doug Weller (talk) 06:27, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Whatever the website, the article itself is from  Haaretz - are you claiming that  Haaretz is whatever you are trying to say? dougweller (talk) 22:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent   deleted edits 

message: "The evidence clearly suggests that tenth-century Jerusalem was a small highland village that controlled a sparsely settled hinterland. If it had been the capital of a great kingdom with the wherewithal to muster tens of thousands of soldiers, collect tribute from vassals, and maintain garrisons in Aram Damascus and Edom (as the biblical narrative informs us it did), one would expect the presence of administrative buildings and storehouses, even outside the royal compound at the summit of the ridge. One would also expect to see changes in the villages of Judah—from which a significant portion of David’s armies were presumably mobilized and which would stand to benefit at least indirectly from the kingdom’s great wealth. Yet there is not the slightest evidence of any change in the landscape of Judah until the following century. The population remained low and the villages modest and few’ in number throughout the tenth century bce."
Have they, or has he, written more about this? Doug Weller talk 15:04, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: See at least Israel Finkelstein, Ido Koch, Oded Lipschits,  ‘The Mound on the Mount: A Possible Solution to the Problem with Jerusalem,’ The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Vol 11, January 2011 estimates that if it was like all other known settlements for that period, Jerusalem in the Iron Age and at least down to Iron 11B (mid/late 8th cen t BCE) extended about 5 hectares (which fits the late Bronze-early Iron Age median for acropolis royal/bureaucratic sites), and was  under the present Temple Mount, with the hoi polloi quite a way off outside dispersed in the hinterland. The expansion to the so-called City of David began only around 750s onwards. None of this of course is in the relevant wiki articles. Instead we have wonderful digital images (City of David) retrojecting much later developments in a Davidic royal fantasy that has yet to find an archaeological basis.Nishidani (talk) 15:36, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  His 20007 book on D&S with Silberman 

message: WP:DOB"With identity theft a serious ongoing concern, people increasingly regard their full names and dates of birth as private. Wikipedia includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object."  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs) 11:24, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: As he lists his date of birth in his CV (available for every one to see on his website ), he himself has made his birth date public. There is therefore no issue with Wikipedia including his full date of birth as per WP:DOB. Gaia Octavia Agrippa Talk  13:15, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please don't add full birthdate even if sources 

message: Eminent a scholar though he may be, the massive article expansion here amounts to a listing of Dr. Finkelstein's entire CV. I removed the section on his PhD students, which clearly does not meet the standard for inclusion. --Jprg1966 (talk) 05:25, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: I have removed some of the spam.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.173.24.91 (talk) 13:22, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: About "best-sellers": it is not spam, it's a fact, these books were really best-sellers. Tgeorgescu (talk) 13:44, 15 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tagged for cleanup 

message: To cut a long story short, Finkelstein has put everything he knows about Ancient Israel into a coherent story. Some consider it a sin, others a virtue. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:58, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Morals 

message: At least his last name is mentioned and someone with his full name visited. I'm not sure if there's any use for it except watching for pure pleasure. Doug Weller talk 19:05, 19 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pretty sure this song is mentioning the subject  "I Am the Very Model of a Biblical Philologist"