I just finished reading William Dever’s excellent little book, Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?.  This well written, thought provoking and insightful book was a great introduction to the archaeological finds that relate to Israel’s settlement and emergence in Canaan.  While Dever’s naturalistic (read: anti-miraculous) approach does cause me to part ways with the general thrust of his assessment of the exodus, his desire to glean from the biblical text anything he can for a historical reconstruction of Israel’s origins is excellent and a far cry from many of the biblical minimalists who dismiss the Bible outright as utterly unreliable.