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Simon Schama's Story of the Jews Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews, Volume 1, Finding the Words: 1000BCE-1492CE (London: The Bodley Head, 2013). Pp. 496. Paperback. ISBN-13: 978-1847921338

Simon Schama's Story of the Jews Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews, Volume 1, Finding the... REVIEW ARTICLE SIMON SCHAMA'S STORY OF THE JEWS John Rose Independent Scholar London, UK johnrose88@yahoo.co.uk Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews, Volume 1, Finding the Words: 1000BCE-1492CE (London: The Bodley Head, 2013). Pp. 496. Paperback. ISBN-13: 978-1847921338 The Hebrew Bible is at best just an `echo' of the historical truth', writes Simon Schama in In Egypt, the surprise opening chapter of the book version of his recent BBC TV Jewish history series. He goes on: `And sometimes, as with the entirely undocumented exodus story, written nearly half a millennium after it was supposed to have happened, it is probably not even that' (p. 7). Schama contrasts the Exodus Moses myth with Egypt's first real historical Jews identified in: `the tawny papyri of Elephantine with their neat black scribal hand, giving us something entirely different, something more earthily human and mundane . . . the people of YHWH jostled together on the . . . little island on the Nile' (pp. 7­8). Another contrast is at work in this chapter too: Schama, the talented and honest professional historian struggling to come to terms with Schama the supra Zionist-Jewish tribal loyalist. Are his highly creative ways of coping with http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Holy Land Studies Edinburgh University Press

Simon Schama's Story of the Jews Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews, Volume 1, Finding the Words: 1000BCE-1492CE (London: The Bodley Head, 2013). Pp. 496. Paperback. ISBN-13: 978-1847921338

Rose, John
Holy Land Studies , Volume 13 (2): 249 – Nov 1, 2014
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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Holy Land Studies, 2014
Subject
Review Articles; Islamic Studies
ISSN
1474-9475
eISSN
1750-0125
DOI
10.3366/hls.2014.0094
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Abstract

REVIEW ARTICLE SIMON SCHAMA'S STORY OF THE JEWS John Rose Independent Scholar London, UK johnrose88@yahoo.co.uk Simon Schama, The Story of the Jews, Volume 1, Finding the Words: 1000BCE-1492CE (London: The Bodley Head, 2013). Pp. 496. Paperback. ISBN-13: 978-1847921338 The Hebrew Bible is at best just an `echo' of the historical truth', writes Simon Schama in In Egypt, the surprise opening chapter of the book version of his recent BBC TV Jewish history series. He goes on: `And sometimes, as with the entirely undocumented exodus story, written nearly half a millennium after it was supposed to have happened, it is probably not even that' (p. 7). Schama contrasts the Exodus Moses myth with Egypt's first real historical Jews identified in: `the tawny papyri of Elephantine with their neat black scribal hand, giving us something entirely different, something more earthily human and mundane . . . the people of YHWH jostled together on the . . . little island on the Nile' (pp. 7­8). Another contrast is at work in this chapter too: Schama, the talented and honest professional historian struggling to come to terms with Schama the supra Zionist-Jewish tribal loyalist. Are his highly creative ways of coping with

Journal

Holy Land Studies – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Nov 1, 2014

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