And the Bible is right

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And the Bible is right is a non-fiction book on archeology that the author Werner Keller (1909–1980) published in 1955.

content

The subtitle Researchers prove the truth of the Old Testament refers to Keller's central concern, to use biblical archeology in the Middle East to prove the statements of the Old Testament .

The book begins with the events of Genesis and ends with the wars against the Hellenistic Seleucids .

In the first part, Keller writes about the Fertile Crescent , the city of Ur in Chaldea and the excavation of the Flood, as well as Abraham and Lot . Keller points out that the myth of the Flood can be found in a report on a flood disaster in the Gilgamesh epic. Keller suspected a confirmation in the mud layer discovered in the 1920s near Ur , which, however, has meanwhile been classified as incorrect by archeology.

In the Kingdom of the Pharaohs tells of Joseph and the Israelites in Egypt . Forty Years in the Desert describes the search for evidence of the migration of the Israelites through the Sinai Peninsula to the borders of the Promised Land. Keller also speculates where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea . Keller sees confirmation of the heavenly bread manna in a discovery made by the Sinai expedition of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1927, during which two botanists identified manna as a sweet-tasting secretion from the tamarisk trees .

The battle for the Promised Land has as its subject the settlement of the Israelites and their fight against the Philistines . Israel was a major regional power in the times of Kings David and Solomon . The division of the empire ended with the destruction of the Jewish empires. Research on Nineveh can also be found in this chapter . In exile, the Israelites lived under the great Persian kings before they could return to their “Promised Land”.

rating

The book has been translated into more than 20 languages ​​and has a circulation of several million copies. It is considered "one of the strongest bestsellers of the post-war period". Some scholars are of the opinion that Werner Keller does not deal critically enough with the historical sources in this book and mainly focuses on what can be proven.

expenditure

  • First edition: Werner Keller: And the Bible is right: Researchers prove the truth of the Old Testament . Econ, Düsseldorf 1955.
  • Illustrated edition: And the Bible is right in pictures. Econ, Vienna a. a. 1963.
  • Current issue: And the Bible is right: researchers prove the historical truth. Edited and with an afterword by Joachim Rehork . Ullstein TB # 37246, 2009, ISBN 978-3-548-37246-4 .

literature

  • David Oels: Ceram - Keller - Porter. The archaeological bestsellers of the fifties as a historical projection space. In: Wolfgang Hardtwig, Erhard Schütz (Hrsg.): History for readers. Popular historiography in Germany in the 20th century , Stuttgart 2005, pp. 345–370
  • Johannes Maria Lehner: The Cross with the Bible - And the Bible is not right after all - Critical analysis of Keller's book . New edition with a changed title: Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2007, ISBN 9783837014709
  • Bernhard Lang : A classic, revamped: Werner Keller's “And the Bible is right”. In: Katechetisch Blätter 115 (1990) 716-719.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolf Schneider : Hottentottenstottertrottel. My long, whimsical life. Reinbek near Hamburg 2015, p. 70