Call for papers: Dossier “Writing about Ancient Israel Today: History, Archaeology, and the Bible”
Since antiquity, people have written about ancient Israel, beginning with the Bible itself. Ancient and medieval historians relied on the authority of the Holy Scriptures, whether to glorify the Jewish past in the eyes of Greeks and Romans or to explain the course of human history before and after the Incarnation. From the Renaissance onward, especially during the Enlightenment, the development of the historical-critical method introduced a new way of thinking about ancient Israel, subjecting the content of biblical texts to rigorous exegetical analysis. This led to the first “modern” histories of Israel, which emphasized the contextual and therefore human dimension behind the writing of the Bible.
By the mid-19th century, this critical approach was complemented and intensified by the decipherment of hieroglyphic and cuneiform writing systems, as well as the advancement of archaeological expeditions in Egypt and the Near East. These efforts eventually gave rise to the field of Biblical Archaeology which, although it has long played the role of an auxiliary discipline within Biblical Studies, was also used as a reaction against critical approaches, claiming that archaeological evidence could prove that “the Bible was right” (Keller, 1956). It is important to note that these debates took place in a context deeply shaped by the conflicts of the first half of the 20th century: the colonization of the Middle East, the rise of antisemitism, the Holocaust, and the beginnings of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the 1960s, archaeology underwent both theoretical and methodological renewal, which brought about a new way of analyzing evidence, now framed within long-term systemic- evolutionary social processes in which ancient Israel was part of a broader series of settlement and mobility cycles (e.g., Finkelstein & Na’aman, 1994). This perspective, partially decentered from the biblical narrative, contributed to growing doubts by the end of the last century regarding the very possibility of writing a history of ancient Israel (e.g., Grabbe, 1997), as the historical Israel, that is, the sociopolitical entity reconstructed from archaeological and epigraphic evidence, seemed not to correspond with, and even
contradict, the biblical Israel, that is, the history of the Chosen People as told in the biblical texts.
Since then, this “minimalist” critique has sparked a series of responses: on the one hand, “maximalist” arguments reaffirming the historicity of biblical Israel (e.g., Provan et al., 2003); on the other, centrist positions attempting to find a middle ground between both extremes (e.g., Finkelstein & Silberman, 2001); and finally, various alternative approaches that aim to explain the possible relationship between the “historical” and the “invented” (e.g., Liverani, 2003). Needless to say, these debates are themselves part of a broader intellectual crisis brought about by the impact of postmodernity, manifested, among other things, in the cultural turn and postcolonial critique (to greatly simplify the landscape that has characterized the social sciences and humanities since the late 20th century).
This multiplicity of approaches has, however, encouraged proposals more attuned to the social history of ancient Israel (Kessler, 2008), incorporating gender perspectives and subaltern studies (Perdue et al., 2015). Nevertheless, such diversity seems at odds with a current sociopolitical context in which fundamentalist discourses are gaining ground, discourses that, on the one hand, legitimize and promote a permanent state of war, ethnic cleansing, and even genocide, and on the other, remain indifferent to the unprecedented concentration of wealth and resulting social inequality. All of this unfolds in a context where there is a growing sense that humanity, in the face of the rapid advance of new technologies –especially Artificial Intelligence– is approaching the threshold of its existence, or at least of existence as we have known it.
The crisis of our time thus calls into question our deepest assumptions, compelling us to ask, once again, why we continue to research and write history, and in particular, the history of ancient Israel. Should we abandon these questions entirely, disregarding the knowledge accumulated over recent centuries? Or should we instead redouble our efforts to investigate the nature of that entity upon which our culture has projected –and continues to project– its anxieties, shaping the way we understand the world in which we live?
Ultimately, we invite all those who feel addressed by these questions to contribute to this dossier, which aims to rethink ancient Israel through an approach that values historical, archaeological, and biblical studies alike. In this spirit, we welcome articles that address one or more of the following themes:
-Critical analyses of research approaches to ancient Israel:- from a historical perspective,
- from archaeological perspective,
- and/or from Biblical Studies;
- application of new approaches,
- reevaluation of previous studies through fresh perspectives,
- proposals on how to articulate different disciplines;
- patterns of settlement and mobility,
- economic and social dynamics,
- cultural configurations,
- artistic and symbolic expressions,
- religious practices and beliefs;
- topics and issues related to ancient Egypt and the Near East,
- topics and issues from other ancient societies,
- topics and issues from premodern Asian and/or African
Finally, in addition to research articles, we welcome critical reviews of books linked to the central theme of the dossier, or related to ancient Asia or Africa. We have several recent titles in our catalog that we would like to include, so feel free to reach out with any questions or suggestions.
Deadline: May 31th, 2026.
Contributions in English, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish are welcome. Extension limit: 25 pages (suggested).
Please read the editorial norms in the attached file. Contributions must be sent to:
pablojaruf@gmail.com magneresm@yahoo.com.ar
Pablo Jaruf y Magdalena Magneres
Instituto de Historia Antigua Oriental – Universidad de Buenos Aires Instituto de Estudios Histórico-Sociales – Universidad del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires PROEHAA, Área Historia del Mediterráneo Antiguo – Universidad Nacional de Luján
Los trabajos son publicados bajo licencia 
Centro de Estudios sobre Diversidad Cultural
