Israel Finkelstein is the director of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University and the co-author, with Neil Asher Silberman, of the international bestseller The Bible Unearthed (2001) and of David and Solomon (2006).

After the death of Solomon, in 933 BCE, what had been a single Hebrew entity split, forming two separate kingdoms: Israel, in the north, and Judea, in the south. In eighth century BCE, Israel, having become more powerful economically and militarily, came to dominate Judea.
And yet, in the Bible as well as in history books there is much less information about the northern kingdom. Many of the books that make up the Bible were written either by authors from Judea or after the Assyrian defeat of the northern kingdom, in 722 BCE, and the deportation of the population of Judea, the famous twelve lost tribes.
The latest archaeological studies — as well as various Eastern texts and a few, rare biblical passages that escaped Judean influence — have finally enabled us to learn about the Iron Age in northern Israel. These findings are what the author, a renowned expert on the origins of Israel, explores here as he attempts to determine the historical truth about this epoch.

• A complete overview of what is now known about the beginnings of Israel.
• What the Bible doesn’t tell us about Israel.