For someone who is not a Middle East archaelogist, this book could potentially be overwhelming: The synthesis in the last few chapters reads faster than most pages in the early part of the book.

William Dever speaks to the question that is the title of the book from an objective point of view, truly mapping the common ground between the Bible and the archaelogy of the early-Israelite periods in the region. Anyone looking to fully prove or disprove the Bible probably should not look to this book–this book offers the scholarly opinion with as little agenda as is possible given the subject matter involved.