Israel Finkelstein (; 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".
Academic career From 1976 to 1990, Finkelstein taught at the Department of Land of Israel Studies, Bar-Ilan University, beginning as a teaching assistant. He spent the academic year of 1983–84 in a research group led by Prof. Yigael Yadin in the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. In 1986/1987, Finkelstein taught at the Department for Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago. In 1987 he was appointed an associate professor with tenure at Bar-Ilan University and in 1990 moved to the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations at Tel Aviv University. In 1992/93 Finkelstein spent a sabbatical year as a visiting scholar at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University. Since 1992, he has been a Full Professor at Tel Aviv University. He served as the chairperson of the Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Studies (1994–1998) and as Director of The Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology (1996–2003). In 1998–1999 Finkelstein was a visiting scholar in the Centre de Recherche d'Archéologie Orientale and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in the Sorbonne, Paris.
Finkelstein was the editor of Tel Aviv, the journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University (2008–2021), and the executive editor of the Monograph Series by the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University (2005–2021). He is a member of editorial boards, including the Palestine Exploration Quarterly and the Archaeology and Biblical Studies series of the Society of Biblical Literature.
Fieldwork
Finkelstein was trained as a field archaeologist in the excavations of Tel Beer Sheva (1971, Director: Yohanan Aharoni) and Tel Aphek (1973–1978, Directors: Moshe Kochavi and Pirhiya Beck). Starting in 1976, he carried out his own fieldwork in a variety of sites and regions:
Past excavations and surveys In 1976–1978, he field-directed (under Prof. Moshe Kochavi) the excavations at 'Izbet Sartah, an Iron I–IIA village-site east of Tel Aviv.For the results, see I. Finkelstein, Izbet Sartah: An Early Iron Age Site near Rosh Ha'ayin, Israel, Oxford 1986. In the same years he conducted surveys of Byzantine monastic remains in southern Sinai,For the results, see I. Finkelstein, "Byzantine Monastic Remains in Southern Sinai," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 39, 1985, pp. 39–75. and directed salvage excavations at the mound of ancient Bene Beraq near Tel Aviv.For the results, see I. Finkelstein, "Soundings at Ancient Bene-Beraq," Atiqot 10, 1990, pp. 29–40. In 1980, Finkelstein co-directed (together with I. Beit-Arieh and B. Cresson) the excavation of Tel Ira, an Iron II site in the Beer-sheba ValleyFor the results, see I. Finkelstein and I. Beit-Arieh, "Area E," in I. Beit-Arieh, editor, Tel Ira: A Stronghold in the Biblical Negev, Tel Aviv 1999, pp. 67–96.
In the 1980s Finkelstein moved to projects in the highlands. He directed the excavation at biblical Shiloh, a site which features Middle Bronze, Late Bronze and Iron I remains (for the results, see I. Finkelstein, editor, Shiloh: The Archaeology of a Biblical Site, Tel Aviv 1993). Another comprehensive project was the Southern Samaria Survey, which covered an area of ca. 1,000 km2 in the highlands north of Jerusalem.For the results, see I. Finkelstein, Z. Lederman and S. Bunimovitz, Highlands of Many Cultures, The Southern Samaria Survey, The Sites, Tel Aviv 1997. In parallel, he carried out soundings at sites northeast of Jerusalem: Khirbet ed-Dawwara, an Iron I–IIA site in the desert fringe near Jerusalem;For the results, see I. Finkelstein, "Excavations at Kh. ed-Dawwara: An Iron Age Site Northeast of Jerusalem," Tel Aviv 17, 1990, pp. 163–208. and the Intermediate Bronze site of Dhahr Mirzbaneh.For the results, see I. Finkelstein, "The Central Hill Country in the Intermediate Bronze Age," Israel Exploration Journal 41, 1991, pp. 19–45.
Finkelstein's most extensive field work is the excavation at Megiddo (1994–present: co-directors David Ussishkin until 2012, and Matthew J. Adams and Mario A.S. Martin since 2014). Megiddo is considered one of the most important Bronze and Iron Age sites in the Levant.For the results, see: I. Finkelstein, D. Ussishkin and B. Halpern, editors, Megiddo III: The 1992–1996 Seasons, Tel Aviv 2000; idem. Megiddo IV: The 1998–2002 Seasons, Tel Aviv 2006; I. Finkelstein, D. Ussishkin and E.H. Cline, editors, Megiddo V: The 2004–2008 Seasons, Winona Lake 2013; I. Finkelstein and M.A.S. Martin, editors, Megiddo VI: The 2010–2014 Seasons, University Park Pennsylvania 2022; M.J. Adams, M. Cradic and I. Finkelstein, Megiddo VII: The Shmunis Family Foundation Excavation of Tomb 16/H/50 and Burial 16/H/45, University Park Pennsylvania, in press.
In 2006–2020, Finkelstein was co-director of excavations and geo-archaeology work in the Iron Age sites of Atar Haroa and Nahal Boqer, and the Intermediate Bronze Age sites of Mashabe Sade and En Ziq (with Ruth Shahack-Gross).For the results, see R. Shahack-Gross and I. Finkelstein, "Settlement Oscillations in the Negev Highlands Revisited: The Impact of Microarchaeological Methods," Radiocarbon 57/2, 2015, pp. 253–264.
In 2017–2019, Finkelstein co-directed the Shmunis Family Excavations at Kiriath-Jearim, a biblical site in the highlands west of Jerusalem associated with the Ark Narrative in the Book of SamuelFor the results, see: I. Finkelstein and Thomas Römer, The Shmunis Family Foundation Excavations at Kiriath-Jearim, University Park Pennsylvania, in press. (with Christophe Nicolle and Thomas Römer, the College de France).
Other projects In 2009–2014, Finkelstein was principal investigator of a European Research Council-funded project titled Reconstructing Ancient Israel: The Exact and Life Sciences Perspectives (with Steve Weiner of the Weizmann Institute of Science as co-Principal Investigator). The project was organized into 10 tracks dealing with radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA, geoarchaeology, paleoclimate, petrography, metallurgy, daily mathematics, advanced imaging of ostraca, residue analysis and archaeozoology. Samples were taken from a large number of sites in Israel and Greece.
Another project focused on the petrography of the Amarna clay tablets (1997–2022 with Yuval Goren and Nadav Na'aman; the results were published in: Y. Goren, I. Finkelstein and N. Na'aman; Inscribed in Clay: Provenance Study of the Amarna Letters and other Ancient Near Eastern Texts, Tel Aviv 2004.
Other studies dealt with the paleoclimate of the Levant (2009–2019, with Dafna Langgut of Tel Aviv University and Thomas Litt of the University of Bonn); The Archaeological and Historical Realities behind the Pentateuch (2016–2019, with Konrad Schmid of the University of Zurich, Thomas Römer and Christophe Nihan of the University of Lausanne and Oded Lipschits of Tel Aviv University); ancient DNA of animals and Humans (2009–present, with Meirav Meiri of Tel Aviv University, in cooperation with Joseph Maran and Philipp Stockhammer of the Universities of Heidelberg and Munich, Liran Carmel of the Hebrew University, and David Reich of Harvard University).
Another project is the study of 'Digital Epigraphy', in which algorithmic methods were introduced to the study of Iron Age Hebrew inscriptions, 2008–present, with Eli Piasetzky of Tel Aviv University. This study was later expanded, introducing computer science methods to the investigation of biblical texts (with Barak Sober of the Hebrew University and Eli Piasetzky of Tel Aviv University).
Scholarly contributions
Finkelstein has written on a variety of topics, including the archaeology of the Bronze Age and the exact and life sciences contribution to archaeology. Much of his work has been devoted to the Iron Age and, more specifically, to questions related to the history of Ancient Israel.
Emergence of Ancient Israel