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David A. Dorsey (1949–2014) taught Old Testament at Evangelical Seminary in Myerstown, Pennsylvania, from 1979 until retiring in 2013 as Distinguished Professor of Old Testament. Dorsey’s study on the Iron Age roads of ancient Israel stems from his dissertation work at Dropsie University, based on several years of extensive investigation of ancient sites in Israel by motorcycle and on in-depth study of biblical geography as a student of Anson Rainey, who served as the primary reader of his dissertation. Dorsey brings his research on the roads together in an unparalleled and detailed treatment of the road system of Iron Age Israel, showing lines of evidence for the highways and byways traversed by ancient Israelites in each region of the country from Dan to Beersheba.
“Anyone familiar with transportation and communications systems in the ancient Near Eastern world is well-aware of the groundbreaking work of David A. Dorsey, The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel. This work represents original first-hand research; it is the product of years spent across a wide sweep of Israel actively engaged in on-site and regional research, including working with the vestige of archaeological remains, local topography, and giving consideration to literary sources, both biblical and secular. In simplest terms, this volume as well as any shows us how a biblical character may have gotten from point A to point B in a given biblical episode. In unprecedented ways, this work seeks rather comprehensively to describe and to delineate roads in Israel during the Iron Age, a period of history that has become very much at the center of today’s biblical scholarship. I congratulate Wipf & Stock for its farsighted wisdom in bringing this necessary, valuable and widely-applicable biblical resource back into print.”
—Barry J. Beitzel, author of The New Moody Atlas of the Bible and editor of Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Gospels
“It is wonderful that David Dorsey’s seminal work, The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel, will again be available to the public! His groundbreaking research both in the ancient sources and in the field, combined with his creative insights, have made this the standard work on this important subject.”
—Carl Rasmussen, author of Zondervan Atlas of the Bible
“David Dorsey’s magisterial work The Roads and Highways of Ancient Israel is an indispensable tool for scholars and laity who are interested probing the functional world of the Bible. Dorsey’ method combines careful personal observation of the geography of the land with textual and archaeological data and common sense. By tracing the routes connecting the cities, towns and villages of ancient Israel, Dorsey has created a map that provides a grounded context by which the reality of ancient Israel can be better understood.”
—Paul Wright, president of Jerusalem University College and author of Rose Then and Now Bible Atlas
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