This work comprises and exhaustive recasting of the scholarly literature on the ancient cultic site of Shiloh, in the Central Hill Country of Ancient Israel, and a re-evaluation of Shiloh's role in Israelite history and religion. The scholarly review begins in 1805 and is finalized in 1987; as such it provides a thorough overview of the application of historical-critical thinking to this topic. That is the subject of the first half of the book. The second half is devoted to an analysis of the texts pertaining to Shiloh in the Hebrew Scriptures, and to reconstruction the history of the site based on text and archaeology. The book is heavily influenced by the Göttingen school of biblical criticism, but given that fact presents some surprising conclusions.