I hope Ann Killebrew doesn't review my books

James Davila having posted about Brian R. Doak's Ancient Israel’s Neighbors now links to Ann E. Killebrew's review. The book may or may not be competent - I haven't read it. I can however read Killebrew and I must report she is not competent, to judge this book at least.

My first annoyance: The Edomites survived into the Roman period, during which time this [Jordan-Negev] region was occupied by the Nabateans, a nomadic desert people who created the famous rock city of Petra. Anybody following the graffiti and inscriptions of this region knows that the Nabatis weren't some generic or mysterious nomadic desert people but literate Arabs. We have direct Safaitic and Hismaic attestation (in the myriads!), plus loanwords into Nabataean Aramaic. Petra - Reqem - might even count as infamous given Dan Gibson's independent scholarship, widely read (if not academically-cited) as of Doak's composition of the book over the last 2010s. If Doak's blurb is accurate that this book is animated by the latest and best research then Killebrew has not informed us.

Passive-voice weasels its way here: major Philistine cities were destroyed, though Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ashdod continued to be inhabited. Inhabited by whom? I'd been under the impression: by Phoenicians, this book's term for the classical-era Canaanites. Several seventh-to-sixth-century Mesopotamian and Transpotamian empires were big on transplanting populations often under the guise of "restoring" those populations, most-famously the Jews. That wouldn't be a continuation of habitation; that would be a takeover by foreigners or a reconquista, depending on your viewpoint at the time - either way doesn't matter to us today. As applied - or, if applied - to those three cities my point is: their habitation was not continued, from the Philistines there at the time. Assuming Killebrew has accurately transmitted Doak's content.

All this brings me to wonder how in a 176 page book the publisher couldn't expand space for a coda about the Arabs. We don't have to discuss "Midian" or "Ishmael" - that's a Problematic, given late-antique Bible-informed propaganda - but we should be fine simply talking about the Nabataeans, with an aside on Saint Paul. Since as mentioned they're mentioned. Or maybe the book did discuss the Arabs? Killebrew doesn't tell us, either to complain or to affirm.