Kamal Salibi, professor of history at the American University of Beirut, reveals startling linguistic evidence which controversially suggests that Judaism originated not in Palestine but in west Arabia. Whilst looking at the gazetteer of Saudi place names, he noticed a remarkable concentration of Biblical place names in an area of 600km long by 200km wide (the region of 'Asir). Ancient Hebrew, like Arabic, was written without vowels, Salibi believes that scholars of the sixth century might have added the vowels wrongly when standardizing texts, and so he went back to the original unvowelled Old Testament to prove his theory - and it did. The geography of Palestine has never corresponded in any way to the apparently specific stories on the Bible. Salibi's research authenticates the events as history for the first time - but within an Arabian setting. This book has caused a predictable storm amongst academics and politicians. The issue is of such importance that everyone should read the evidence first-hand.
