Prolegomena to the History of Israel

Julius Wellhausen’s Prolegomena to the History of Israel, first published in German in 1878, ranks among the best-known and most influential studies ever produced by a biblical scholar. In it Wellhausen seeks to determine how one can draw historical conclusions from the documentary sources identified in the biblical text. Focusing on religious practices and on the distinctive viewpoints of the authors and editors, he develops contrasting pictures of preexilic and postexilic Israel. This classic treatment of some of the enduring problems faced by historians of Israel is here reprinted in its original English translation, accompanied by the historical survey Wellhausen wrote in 1881 for the Encyclopeadia Britannica as well as a foreword by Douglas A. Knight.