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Israel Finkelstein Biography & Facts

Israel Finkelstein (Hebrew: ישראל פינקלשטיין‎; born March 29, 1949) is an Israeli archaeologist, professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University and the head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. Finkelstein is active in the archaeology of the Levant and is an applicant of archaeological data in reconstructing biblical history. Finkelstein is the current excavator of Megiddo, a key site for the study of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Levant. Finkelstein is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities an associé étranger of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Finkelstein has received several noteworthy academic and writing awards. In 2005, he won the Dan David Prize for his revision of the history of Israel in the 10th and 9th centuries BCE. In 2009 he was named chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture, and in 2010, received a doctorate honoris causa from the University of Lausanne. He is a member of the selection committee of the Shanghai Archaeology Forum, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Among Finkelstein's books are The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts (2001) and David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (2006), both written with Neil Asher Silberman. Also he wrote the textbooks on the emergence of Ancient Israel, titled The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (1988); on the archaeology and history of the arid zones of the Levant, titled Living on the Fringe (1995); and on the Northern Kingdom of Israel, titled The Forgotten Kingdom (2013). Other books deal with biblical historiography: Hasmonean Realities Behind Ezra, Nehemiah and Chronicles (2018), Essays on Biblical Historiography: From Jeroboam II to John Hyrcanus (2022), and Jerusalem Center of the Universe (in press, to appear in 2024). Background Family Israel Finkelstein was born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 29, 1949. His parents were Zvi (Grisha) Finkelstein (born 1908) and Miriam Finkelstein (maiden name Ellenhorn, born 1910). His great-grandfather on his mother's side, Shlomo Ellenhorn, came to Palestine from Grodno (today in Belarus) in the 1850s and settled in Hebron. He was one of the first physicians in the Bikur Cholim Hospital in Jerusalem, and is listed among the group of people who purchased the land in 1878 in order to establish Petah Tikva – the first modern Jewish settlement in Palestine outside the four holy cities. Finkelstein's father was born in Melitopol (Ukraine). He came to Palestine with his family in 1920. Finkelstein is married to Joelle (maiden name Cohen). They are the parents of two daughters. Education Israel Finkelstein attended the PICA elementary school (1956–1963) and Ahad Ha'am High School (1963–1967), both in Petah Tikva. He then served in the Israel Defense Forces (1967–1970). He studied archaeology and Near Eastern civilizations, and geography at Tel Aviv University, receiving his BA in 1974. While there, Finkelstein was a student of Prof. Yohanan Aharoni. He continued as a research student under the supervision of Prof. Moshe Kochavi, receiving his MA in 1978 (thesis on Rural Settlement in the Yarkon Basin in the Iron Age and Persian-Hellenistic Periods). He graduated as a PhD in 1983 with a thesis titled "The Izbet Sartah Excavations and the Israelite Settlement in the Hill Country". Academic career From 1976 to 1990, Finkelstein taught at the Department of Land of Israel Studies, Bar-Ilan University, beginning as a teaching assistant. He spent the academic year of 1983–84 in a research group led by Prof. Yigael Yadin in the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. In 1986/1987, Finkelstein taught at the Department for Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago. In 1987 he was appointed an associate professor with tenure at Bar-Ilan University and in 1990 moved to the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations at Tel Aviv University. In 1992/93 Finkelstein spent a sabbatical year as a visiting scholar at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University. Since 1992, he has been a Full Professor at Tel Aviv University. He served as the chairperson of the Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies (1994–98) and as Director of The Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology (1996–2003). In 1998–99 Finkelstein was a visiting scholar in the Centre de Recherche d'Archéologie Orientale and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in the Sorbonne, Paris. Finkelstein was the editor of Tel Aviv, the journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University (2008-2021), and the executive editor of the Monograph Series by the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University (2005-2021). He is a member of editorial boards, including the Palestine Exploration Quarterly and the Archaeology and Biblical Studies series of the Society of Biblical Literature. Fieldwork Finkelstein was trained as a field archaeologist in the excavations of Tel Beer Sheva (1971, Director: Yohanan Aharoni) and Tel Aphek (1973–1978, Directors: Moshe Kochavi and Pirhiya Beck). Starting in 1976, he carried out his own fieldwork in a variety of sites and regions: Past excavations and surveys Finkelstein carried out field work in a variety of sites, representing different periods. In 1976-1978 he field-directed (under Prof. Moshe Kochavi) the excavations at 'Izbet Sartah, an Iron I-Iron IIA village-site east of Tel Aviv (for the results see I. Finkelstein, Izbet Sartah: An Early Iron Age Site near Rosh Ha'ayin, Israel, Oxford 1986). In the same years he conducted surveys of Byzantine monastic remains in southern Sinai (for the results see I. Finkelstein, Byzantine Monastic Remains in Southern Sinai, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 39, 1985, pp. 39–75), and directed salvage excavations at the mound of ancient Bene Beraq near Tel Aviv (for the results see I. Finkelstein, Soundings at Ancient Bene-Beraq, 'Atiqot 10, 1990, pp. 29–40). In 1980, Finkelstein co-directed (together with I. Beit-Arieh and B. Cresson) the excavation of Tel Ira, an Iron II site in the Beer-sheba Valley (for the results see I. Finkelstein and I. Beit-Arieh, Area E, in I. Beit-Arieh, editor, Tel Ira: A Stronghold in the Biblical Negev, Tel Aviv 1999, pp. 67–96). In the 1980s Finkelstein moved to projects in the highlands. He directed the excavation at biblical Shiloh, a site which features Middle Bronze, Late Bronze and Iron I remains (for the results see I. Finkelstein, editor, Shiloh: The Archaeology of a Biblical Site, Tel Aviv 1993). Another comprehensive project was the Southern Samaria Survey, which covered an area of ca. 1000 km2 in the highlands north of Jerusalem (for the results see I. Fi.... Discover the Israel Finkelstein popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Israel Finkelstein books.