Virtual History and the Bible

What if Merneptah's scribes were telling the truth when they claimed "Israel has been laid waste?" What if the exodus and conquest had really happened? What if we had no Assyrian account of Sennacherib's third campaign of the palace reliefs depicting his capture of Lachish? What if the Chronicler did use the Deuteronomistic History? What if Luke had never met Theophilus? What if Paul had travelled east rather than west? This is not fantasy of fiction. The 16 essays in this volume engage in serious scholarly enquiry into alternative historical scenarios and their potential consequences. The result is a trenchant demonstration of the ways historians set about working with the evidence in order to reconstruct the past.