Israel Finkelstein

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Israel Finkelstein
ישראל פינקלשטיין‎
Israel Finkelstein ca. 2010
Born	(1949-03-29) March 29, 1949 (age 75) Tel Aviv, Israel
Nationality	Israeli
Alma mater	Tel Aviv University
Known for	The Bible Unearthed
Spouse	Joelle Cohen
Children	Adar and Sarai
Awards	Dan David Prize
Scientific career
Fields	Archaeology
Institutions	Tel Aviv University University of Haifa
Website	https://israelfinkelstein.wordpress.com

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.^[1] 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,^[2] 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.^[3] 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.^[4] 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 The Center of the Universe (2024).