Jack Finegan's book "Archaeological History of the Ancient Middle East" is a wonderful classic. His book is separated into two parts. The first being an examination of Mesopotamia from the beginning of the Mesolithic to the end of the Persian empire. He covers in detail significant historical events within that time period of Mesopotamia. The Second part of his book deals with Egypt from the Mesolithic era to the fall of the Late Dynastic period at the coming of Alexander the Great. The book is beautifully pieced together with hundreds of photographs, tables, and maps from all the periods discussed. I highly recommend Finegan's book for anyone interested in Mesopotamian and Eygptian history. A must for any collection

How old are the oldest surviving secular books? Old testaments? New Testaments? What is the oldest representation of the face of Jesus. How is papyrus made? What is vellum, parchment, etc. How old is writing? What do Sumer, Babylon, Akkadia, Egypt, Greece, have to do with modern religions? When were the catacombs rediscovered? How were the ancient languages deciphered? Finegan's masterpiece would be my choice were I allowed to have but one book in my history library. Written for the educated and open minded layman, it presents six thousand or so years of history of the religious history of western man in one large volume with as complete a coverage as is possible in one work, with plenty of the tidbits of trivia required to keep history interesting. The photos are well selected and Finegan treats the whole without giving a glimpse into his personal religious philosophy or detracting from the others he is bringing to light. I have loaned my copy out twice and twice had much trouble in getting it back. It is a book I read and reread and is one which can be opened at random for a quick ten minutes or so of enlightenment.

This book is intended to help the sudent of the bible become familiar with the various issues and problems in biblical chronology. It is NOT intended to defend the biblical chronology from divergent chronologies derived from extrabiblical sources. My own area of interest being the Old Testament of patriarchal and Exodus times, I can say that the book does a fantastic job of both revealing difficulties in the biblical chronology as well as offering possibilities for solving those difficulties and preserving the reliability of the biblical record. References to extra-biblical sources are only used when explaining the intrabiblical discrepancies or apparent discrepancies. Finegan has no interest in the Egyptian and near-eastern chronologies in their own rights. He wants only to present the chronology that the bible presents. Finegan accepts the centuries long lifespans of the antedeluvians without a second thought. His aim here is not to convince or defend the validity of any statements in the bible. He only wants to help you see what the bible is telling you. While this makes the book useful to sceptics and the faithful alike, it can be frustrating to those who want to see where the bible measures up against the other ancient chronological sources. I had hoped that the bibliographic references in this book would point me to other works covering the obscure fields of Babylonian and Egyptian chronology, but they do not. If the book had discussed biblical chronology against the backdrop of other systems of chronology, I would have given it five stars. It does do its job of laying out the chronology of the bible perfectly, though, and is a fantastic reference for all students of the bible. Historians of the ancient Middle East might be a bit frustrated, though.

Absolutely essential for straigtening out the chronology associated with Herod's death. Professor Finegan now makes it clear that Herod DID NOT die in 4 B.C. as all of us historians and theologians have thought, but in 1 B.C. This information is indispensible for the student of New Testament history and the chronology of Jesus' life and it illumines one of the darkest periods in the early imperial history of Rome. This volume changes all previous standard works for the past 100 years dealing with the Nativity of Jesus and the history dealing with it. There is much more too for the biblical student. A first class work that every library must have. Professor Finegan must be congratulated (in his 89th year of life) for producing such a splendid and profitable volume of research.

Ernest L. Martin, Ph.D. Academy for Scriptual Knowledge Portland, OR 97825

Amazingly, at the age of 89, Jack Finegan has revised his 1964 classic and has done a wonderful job! The new book reads a lot like the first edition, but is substantially revised to include many references up to 1996. Sections on Jesus' birth and Herod's death now discuss both the standard dating (nativity before 4 BC), and that of Martin, Keresztes, etc (3/2 BC); Finegan favors the latter dating, as well as 33 AD for the crucifixion. The new section on John the Baptist mainly focuses on the chronology of the cycle of priestly courses, which Finegan seems to over-emphasize. Literature listings and scriptural & subject indexes are each about double the lengths in the first edition. Overall, I find it a very valuable tool with up-to-date information.

This is a wonderful and lovingly prepared work. For the best of all worlds, I would suggest reading this with the incredible companion book, "The Autobiography of Jesus of Nazareth and the Missing Years". Then it is almost like an interactive experience, because you see the real man Jesus through "The Autobiography..." and see exactly where he lived in this book. It may appear a daunting book because of its 400 + pages, but I found it too short! If there is anything else the authors could have included in this excellent book, it can only because there is still 2000 years of dust on it! Buy it today.

This is a surprisingly concise treatment of the various forms of non-Christian faith, as well as some heretical forms of Christianity prior to the time of Jesus and for a few hundred years afterwards. There are some clever insights that distinguish this work from an everyday encyclopediac approach. And it is well footnoted (though it does lack the "special" touch of footnotes with some explanatory comments, rather than simply the page references that are given). By the time I finished the book, I had a re-awakened interest in exploring the ancient West's views of what was called Brahminism. There are brief glimpses of this provided by Finegan, but Finegan leaves me with the feeling that Brahminism spoke more to our Western forefathers more than we understand, and yet the book does not really explore this idea at all. I will have to find another book for this new hunger of mine. But as far as the Roman/Palestinian/Persian developments, this is a VERY efficient treatment.

If your into textual criticism, definitly get Metzger and Aland's books (both named TEXT OF THE NEW TESTAMENT) before this one.

Kind of a strange book, on one hand it give you very basic introductry info on textual criticism, then it dives into some very complex comparison/contrast of greek wording in variant readings of some of the more important witnesses (i.e. p66, p75, Aleph, B, etc.) -- You'll have to be pretty sharp in greek to make any sense of these....

For your money, you're much much better off getting Metzger's and Aland's books. You will learn WAY MORE!!!

I would only recommend this book to someone who has first read and enjoyed the books mentioned above. -- but even then, the buyer will be disappointed in the amount and depth of info when compared to Metzger/Aland.

Recomendation: Save your money, there are so many other great books to buy ahead of this one.

Eric