Niels Peter Lemche (b. September 6, 1945) is a biblical scholar at the University of Copenhagen.
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Lemche is closely identified with the movement known as biblical minimalism, and "has assumed the role of philosophical and methodological spokesperson" for the movement.[1]
In common with the general trend of modern scholarship, Lemche identifies the Persian and Hellenistic period (5th century to 4th century BC) as the most appropriate setting in which to seek the composition of the majority of the biblical texts, arguing that this is the single period that best explains the 'mental matrix’ for most Old Testament literature and "probably all of its historiography".[1]
Lemche considers the traditional narratives of Israel's history as contained in the bible to be so late in origin as to be useless for historical reconstruction. His alternative reconstruction is based entirely on the archaeological record, and may be summarized as follows: From at least as early as the first half of the 14th century BC the central highlands were the habitation of the Apiru, "a para-social element ... [consisting] of runaway former non-free peasants or copyholders from the small city-states in the plains and valleys of Palestine," living as "outlaw groups of freebooters". When new settlements appear in the highlands over a century later, at the start of the Iron Age, they are evidence of new political structures emerging among those same groups. The Iron I settlements attest a return by those groups to a settled, agricultural lifestyle, and the beginning of a (re)tribalization process. Israel was the end-product of that process. Lemche's view has much in common with that of Israel Finkelstein, and forms part of a widespread re-assessment of Israel's origins and of the historicity of the bible.[2]