G. I. Davies – författare

The inscriptions dealt with in this book come from the Old Testament period (c. 1000 BC to c. 200 BCE) and constitute an important additional source for our knowledge of the Hebrew language and the religion, history and customs of ancient Israel. The corpus includes texts like the Lachish and Arad letters, the Siloam tunnel inscription, the recently discovered religious texts from Kuntillet Ajerud, and the hundreds of seals, seal-impressions and weights that are now known. Each text is given a unique reference number according to a specially devised system, with an indication of its date and place of origin (where these are known) and one or more bibliographical references. It covers all complete words in the texts (including prepositions and names of persons and places), and also the Egyptian hieratic numerals and other symbols that were used in them.

The Old Testament accounts of the Exodus contain various indications of the routes taken by the Israelites and the so-called wilderness itineraries appear to be very precise. From the earliest times, students of the Bible have tried to relate references in the texts to place names known in their own day. In this monograph Dr Davies traces the beginnings of such studies as they emerge from Jewish, Christian and Arabic writings and reviews both these and more recent theories in the light of modern biblical scholarship and archaeological exploration. In the process he finds it necessary to look again at major problems of bibliographical geography such as the identity of the 'Red Sea' and the location of Mount Sinai. Old Testament scholars will not be alone in finding this monograph of interest. Archaeologists, historical geographers and ancient historians will value it as a background to their own work on the period and Dr Davies' presentation ensures that this book may usefully be studied by the non-specialist.