PHeMoX,

Both you and the author of that article (at least from the quote you provide) show your ignorance of the Bible in this regard. There are vast assumptions being made that are simply not correct. I will try to briefly explain.

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many, if not most, of the Isrealites throughout the Monarchy were polytheists.

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This one statement shows that the author of these words does not know the Bible at all. The Bible itself shows the Israelites were polytheists. This was one of the main problems the prophets and other biblical writers were dealing with within Israel. God gave them a law to have no other gods before him. Despite this, the Israelites, from the very beginning, continued to worship a variety of gods including the Canannite gods of Molech and Baal (which were really the same god under different name). The Bible nowhere declares that the Israelites, as a nation, were monotheistic ... quite the opposite. As a result, archaeologically I would expect to find an abundance of evidence that demonstrates the polytheism of ancient Israel. In fact, this is what we find.

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There was no military conquest of Canaan

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Upon what archaeological evidence do they base this? Both the ancient city of Jericho and the ancient city of AI have been found. Both are in a state of destruction and both date from the approx. time frame of the conquest of Canaan by Joshua. The conquest was never truly completed and, as a result, many (if not most) of the Canaanites, Philistines and other peoples remained in the land of Israel throughout the entire monarchy period. As a result, there was always a presence of these peoples. This is what we would expect to find archaeologically from a reading of the Bible and this is what is found in fact.

Oh! And I am not just speaking these things from the top of my head. For the last 4.5 years I had lived in Israel and visited many of these sites, seen them with my own eyes, touched them with my own hands and, on occassion, even spoken with experts in the field concerning these places.

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Finding for example a city mentioned in the bible is one thing, however more than once it has turned out to be very different than described in the bible. Both in size, local importance and development.

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Can you give an example of this? Normally the Bible does not mention the size of a city (i.e. so many cubits or so many days journey to cross, etc). For example, it states simply that Jericho was a wall city. Not much more information is given. There are a few exceptions (such as Ninevah), but they are very rare.

In each case where the Bible mentions the importance of a place it was, indeed, important during that time. I cannot think of one instance where this would not be the case. For example, there is no denying that Jerusalem was the capital of Israel and then, after the nation split, of the southern kingdom of Judah. There is no denying that Babylon was the capital of the Babylonian empire. The importance given to cities in the Bible is fact, not because the Bible says so, but because they were indeed places of significance.

Rarely does the Bible even speak of the development of a city or even a people in any way. Mainly very simple and matter-of-fact statements are made such as a people group having "chariots of iron" and the like.

What I want to point out here is that you have made a claim and yet it seems that you have nothing to back up your statement. You claim the Bible makes statements about cities, their sizes, their importance and their development and then indicate the inaccuracy of the Bible in these areas. And, yet, the Bible rarely, if ever, makes any claims along these lines. In this case, it would seem, that the burdon of proof is upon you to show us these contradictions.