The Bible in Its World by K.A.Kitchen This author is another who writes well and with authority as, although  he has never achieved his doctorate he is well respected for his scholarly and exact work.  In previous work, he was able to establish that the price for slaves, when Joseph was sold into slavery, was exactly the amount recorded in the Bible.  This effort puts a crimp in the arguments of those who tend to minimalize the Biblical accounts and declare that the Bible was written centuries later by some agenda serving scribe. The importance of this book comes within the first 20 pages as Mr. Kitchen demonstrates the reality of working with the past.  It is not like one can go to the local store and find everything that they need and can examine each piece of the puzzle with an instruction booklet in one hand and pictures in the other.  The past reveals very little and this field of archaeology is severely handicapped by the influential factors which we all face every day. These influential factors are both natural and man made.  Everything takes its toll on the remains of pas tcivilizations and pottery and other artifacts are very fragile and not built to last for time.  Such factors are: earthquakes, storms, volcanoes, floods, and simple erosion (pg. 10) or those which are man made, construction and wars are two such examples.  all destroy the evidence of the past which makes the archaeologist's task very difficult at best. Another major factor that limits archaeological conclusions and theories is the fact that sites are rarely dug beyond a total of 5% of the whole site (pg.12) this limited discovery and research means that for the most part the archaeologist has to fill in the blanks and he/she could be very wrong while basing their articles on a miniscule amount of actual information. This is one reason we have to be careful when archaeologists like an Israel Finkelstein starts down dating to fit his theories.He doesn't have all the facts and his bias dictates what he concludes.  it is not the evidence, for it is usually inconclusive, but his conjecture, his disregard for the Biblical record, the incompleteness of information which leads him to the wrong conclusion.  This is something that has to be watched for as he is a popular writer but he is wrong as Kitchen has pointed out quite convincingly in another book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament. Another danger that needs to be carefully watched for is the reliance on dating an artifact or ms. (pg. 15)  Dating is very subjective and it varies depending upon the archaeologist and their personal beliefs and bias.  There is no alternative here as we all have the same evidence, we just don't all have the same opinion or interpretation. This book is a must read if one wants to navigate through the confusing popular division of archaeology.  Not every archaeologist is looking for the truth or for the validity of the Bible.  There are those who look to disprove it or minimalize its claims and make the Bible say something it does not.