This is a substantial book, a serious and formidable work, by a non-specialist who devoted over a decade to sorting through the academic and scholarly discussions and controversies dealing with the historical and archaeological evidence related to the texts of the Hebrew Bible. Is there evidence for the biblical Exodus? What are we to make of the various chronologies of the ancient world compared and contrasted with those in the Hebrew Bible and Greek Septuagint? Is the Torah a unified whole or a composite product stemming from many sources? How might the laws of the Torah be interpreted and do they have any relevance in our modern world? What about the various covenants found therein? How do the prophetic portions of the Torah and the Hebrew Bible as a whole fit in with the legislative foundation and the unfolding history of the people of Israel? able.