Keith W. Whitelam was Professor and Head of Department of Religious Studies at the University of Stirling and later Head of Department and Professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Sheffield. Having spent over 30 years in academic life, he took early retirement to continue writing. He has also published The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London, Routledge, 1996), The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective (with Robert B. Coote; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, reprinted 2010), along with other specialist works.