Did God Have a Wife?   By   Dr. William Dever   One reviewer (on the back flap) said that Dr. Dever ‘has written another page turner’ well only in disbelief that comment may be true. About the only honest statement the author makes is in the introduction where he states that ‘he makes no pretense of being objective.’   He isn’t and his bias is very clear from his unsubstantiated remarks concerning the documentary hypothesis to the illiteracy of the Israel nation to his belief in the supremacy of archaeology over theology.  Dr. Dever hides none of his personal feelings as he presents his theory of how monotheism arose in Israelite nation.   This is what the book is about and throughout its pages the reader can see how the author disregards and ignores the biblical record.  For him its pages of revealing God’s call to Abraham or  God’s separating the Israelites from other nations at Sinai mean nothing and are just an interesting tale to bolster the image the priests and scribes want the people to believe about their own history.   Dr. Dever mis-applies the archaeological evidence and creates his own fantasy, using the discoveries his own way and relies heavily upon his reputation plus 40 years of archaeological experience to persuade the reader he is right.   Fortunately, reputation and experience are not the criteria for being correct.  With the omitting of the earlier parts of the Biblical record Dr, Dever allows himself to conclude that the Israelites were just like the Canaanites and all the history recorded in the Bible was done by scribes trying to revise the Israelite past into something they can take root.   There is no consideration of the fact that the Israelites were monotheistic and then strayed from God’s path for them by the seductive powers of false beliefs.  This ignorance of this fact shows that the author had no intention of being honest nor of presenting the whole story. He is only interested in presenting his theory because he cannot accept the Biblical records for the simple reason his belief in archaeology is stronger than any belief he had in the Bible.   In an interview with the Biblical Archaeology Review magazine, Dr. Dever discusses his loss of faith as he looked to the physical evidence over God’s word.  Now to the unbeliever this may not be important but to the believer it is highly significant and shows why we cannot take Dr. Dever as being correct.    He has allowed himself to be deceived and this work reflects that deception as he totally tries to re-write Israeli history without regard to what the Bible says.  His work is not something worth reading as it does not examine all the facts, leaves out important information and assumes things not in evidence (revisions, editing, late authorship among other unsubstantiated charges).   It is easy to see where the author errs, as he looks for a conclusion to digest the evidence he and others have found.  One look at the Biblical record tells the reader that the evidence discovered proves the Bible where it talks about Israel ceasing to follow God and did what they wanted to do.   The evidence doesn’t prove a rise of monotheism from polytheism that is just interpretation not fact.  It does prove that the Bible recorded the true history and that the Israelites were and are an unfaithful people.    For the reader of these books, not just Dr. Dever’s, one cannot just assume the evidence is being used properly or that the conclusion it is being used to support is correct. One has to be able to compare notes with the Bible when reading these books and not just take the ‘expert’s word for it’ simply because they are experts.   Experts have their own influences which direct their steps and for the most part God is not one of them and that is the key.  We cannot blindly follow man’s conclusions especially when they disagree with the Biblical record.  Man does not have the authority to dictate what God did or didn’t do.   As for this book, its only value is the record of the evidence discovered.  The conclusions are false and need to be ignored.  Dr. Dever has presented just another alternative to the Bible, one which lacks in evidence and proper use of the evidence used.  Also it dismisses God and His role, His laws, His morality and decides that religion is a human construct not a divinely ordained idea.   After all, the Bible tells us that God put the desire to know Him in us and what we do with that desire, the decisions we make, the paths we follow, we will be held accountable.  No matter how hard people try, they cannot escape the truth and this book is aprime example of that fact.