Israel Finkelstein

伊斯雷尔·芬克尔斯坦（希伯来语：ישראל פינקלשטיין，英语：Israel Finkelstein，1949年3月29日—）是以色列著名考古学家。他是以色列北部米吉多考古遗址的发掘联合主任。他于1996至2002年在特拉维夫大学担任索尼亚和马可纳德勒考古学研究所所长。 2005年，他获得了丹·大卫奖。

生平

伊斯雷尔·芬克尔斯坦出生于佩塔提克瓦。他在特拉维夫大学完成他的学业，并撰写了博士论文。

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. Finkelstein is the current excavator of Megiddo, a key site for the study of the Bronze and Iron Ages in the Levant. Finkelstein's fieldwork in northern Israel and the West Bank, as well as his development of the "Low Chronology", upended prior archaeological assessments by showing that the Kingdom of Israel was substantially larger and more prosperous when it coexisted alongside the Kingdom of Judah. Finkelstein has used these insights to challenge the biblical narrative that David and Solomon ruled a united monarchy of Israel and Judah from Jerusalem in the 10th century BCE.

Finkelstein is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities an associé étranger of the French Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, and International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2005, he won the Dan David Prize for his study of the history of Israel in the 10th and 9th centuries BCE. 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. 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), co-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).

Background

Family

Israel Finkelstein was born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Tel Aviv, Israel, on March 29, 1949. His parents were Zvi (Grisha) Finkelstein and Miriam Finkelstein (née Ellenhorn). His great-grandfather on his mother's side, Shlomo Ellenhorn, came to Palestine from Grodno (today in Belarus) in the 1850s and settled in Hebron. He was one of the first physicians in the Bikur Cholim Hospital in Jerusalem, and is listed among the group of people who purchased the land in 1878 in order to establish Petah Tikva – the first modern Jewish settlement in Palestine outside the four holy cities. Finkelstein's father emigrated from Ukraine. Finkelstein is married to Joelle (née Cohen). They are the parents of two daughters.

Education

Israel Finkelstein attended the PICA elementary school (1956–1963) and Ahad Ha'am High School (1963–1967), both in Petah Tikva. He then served in the Israel Defense Forces (1967–1970). He studied archaeology and Near Eastern civilizations, and geography at Tel Aviv University, receiving his BA in 1974. While there, Finkelstein was a student of Prof. Yohanan Aharoni. He continued as a research student under the supervision of Prof. Moshe Kochavi, receiving his MA in 1978 (thesis on Rural Settlement in the Yarkon Basin in the Iron Age and Persian-Hellenistic Periods). He graduated as a PhD in 1983 with a thesis titled "The Izbet Sartah Excavations and the Israelite Settlement in the Hill Country".