Ploddingly pedestrian. The central aim - to compare the Hebrew Bible with the archaeological and non-Biblical evidence - succeeds only in the negative sense that there is scarcely any evidence. Doesn't make for a a great story, and his manner is pretty prosaic: many 'mays' and mights' and ' is-consistent-withs", plus fairly lengthy chunks of the Bible itself. I gave up when it came to a full reading of the description of the cubit measurements of the Ark of the Covenant.
I'm familiar with the fact that there are no extra-Biblical written mentions of Jesus, apart from an item in Josephus which is probably a later insertion. i was intrigued to find that the Old Testament is equally a chorus of one. But Cline doesn't tell it like that, tries to be "balanced". Describes the Copenhagen school as more or less marginal deniers of the historicity of the good book. He makes much of the principle "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". But the search has been going on for at least two centuries; the origins of archaeology are in the search for biblical backup, and the Israeli state invests hugely in archaeological hunting to back its claim to the land. Pretty clear there is not enough evidence to make a case.
Shlomo Sand [The Invention of the Jewish People} has argued that the whole story is a nationalist myth; Cline's underpowered balance doesn't do much for a different view. ( )