Niels Peter Lemche (born 6 September 1945) is a biblical scholar at the University of Copenhagen, whose interests include early Israel and its relationship with history, the Old Testament, and archaeology.
[2] In 1987 Lemche founded the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament with Knud Jeppesen, a publication he has been associated with to the present time as chief editor.
[5] Lemche himself writes that the 'so-called "historical-critical" school that created a universe of its own dubbed "ancient Israel" has dominated the last two hundred years of biblical studies.
[4] 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 BCE 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".