A history of Israel has to decide what to do with the Bible. Michael A. Grisanti and Todd Bolen take the biblical account as their primary source and read it alongside the archaeological record, the geography of the land and the texts of Israel’s neighbors. Working in chronological order from the nation’s beginnings through the united and divided kingdoms to the exile and the return, they explain not only what happened but why, with extended attention to the periods most histories hurry past. The result supplies the context that makes the Old Testament hang together, written to be accessible to students and pastors without thinning out the scholarship.