More A Pamphlet
Than A Book

Disclaimer: Credo House is a great organization. Nothing said here is intended to reflect badly on them. But . . .

I recently purchased Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology, published under the banner of Credo House, and returned it in less than a day.

Why? Several reasons.

One, I paid over $7 for the Kindle version. Seven dollars isn’t huge but the price does come with expectations.

The book is listed as having 88 pages. That’s long enough to be considered a book but in this case it misrepresents the reality.

There was lots of white space and I do mean lots.

Don’t misunderstand. White space isn’t a bad thing. It helps with reading but in this case it seemed like it was used to inflate the size. Reduce the white space, which could easily be done, and the book is now much shorter.

Making it worse was the fact that there were many illustrations, which weren’t very clear (didn’t add much value), and the text didn’t wrap. Adjacent to each illustration, none of which were very large, was – you guessed it – white space.

There was a lot of white space that seemed to be added for no reason at all, and then each illustration introduced even more white space.

From a volume point of view the book was worth maybe a dollar, not seven.

Two, the discoveries, though significant, aren’t recent. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the late 1940’s. Hezekiah’s conduit was discovered in 1867. One of the more recent discoveries was the “House of David” inscription found at the Dan site in 1993. By archaeological standards that’s not recent.

The point is the book catalogs some of the more significant finds but it doesn’t add anything new. It’s very basic. If you are looking for up-to-date, this book won’t satisfy.

Three, you can find all the material scattered throughout the web for free. Because this information is relatively old, you can find it recorded in many places on the web. Just Google the “Top Ten Biblical Archaeological Discoveries” and you’ll easily find the listings and the information.

In fact, all the material in the book can be found in a series of posts on the Credo House blog, Reclaiming The Mind. The blog posts don’t just whet your appetite for the book. They are the book. The first post in the series can be found here.

BiblicalArchaeology.Org offers their version of the Top Ten finds as a free download for signing up. It seems to cover mostly different material but the fact that it offers 155 pages and is free gives some perspective on why the Credo House publication is not a great deal.

I’ve enjoyed reading the thoughtful and forward thinking posts on the Credo House Blog and recommend it. Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this book.

THINK!AboutIt