of the inveterate inhabitants, were melded together into a single Torah so that it could form a central authority able to unite the population. Artaxerxes, Darius' grandson, commissioned Ezra to take charge of Judah, following the divine laws which Ezra was holding in his hand; The Bible Unearthed comments that academics like Richard Elliott Friedman propose that Ezra himself was the final redactor of the Torah, noting that the Bible identifies him as the scribe of the law of the god of heaven. Reception The Bible Unearthed was well received by some biblical scholars and archaeologists and critically by others. Baruch Halpern, professor of Jewish Studies at Pennsylvania State University and leader of the archaeological digs at Megiddo for many years, called it "the boldest and most exhilarating synthesis of Bible and archaeology in fifty years", despite disagreeing with Finkelstein on the historicity of the United Monarchy. Jonathan Kirsch, writing in the Los Angeles Times, called it "a brutally honest assessment of what archeology can and cannot tell us about the historical accuracy of the Bible", which embraces the spirit of modern archaeology by approaching the Bible "as an artifact to be studied and evaluated rather than a work of divine inspiration that must be embraced as a matter of true belief". Phyllis Trible, professor of biblical studies at Wake Forest University, concluded her review in The New York Times as follows: A review of the book by fellow archaeologist William G. Dever published in the Biblical Archaeology Review and subsequently in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. At the outset of the review, Dever described the book as a "convoluted story", writing that "This clever, trendy work may deceive lay readers". What proceeded was heated exchanges between Dever and Finkelstein. Dever's review noted that the book had many strengths, notably archaeology's potential for re-writing the history of "Ancient Israel", but complained that it misrepresented his own views and concluded by characterizing Finkelstein as "idiosyncratic and doctrinaire". Finkelstein's reaction was to call Dever a "jealous academic parasite," and the debate quickly degenerated from that point. Evangelical Christian biblical scholar Kenneth Kitchen was critical, writing that "[A] careful critical perusal of this work—which certainly has much to say about both archaeology and the biblical writings—reveals that we are dealing very largely with a work of imaginative fiction, not a serious or reliable account of the subject", and "Their