Biblical minimalism — also known as The Copenhagen School (because two of its most prominent figures taught at Copenhagen University) — was a movement or trend in biblical scholarship in the 1990s which made two main claims: first, that the Bible cannot be considered reliable evidence for what had happened in ancient Israel; and second, that "Israel" itself is a problematic subject for historical study.
Minimalism was not a unified movement, but rather a label that came to be applied to several scholars at different universities who held similar views, chiefly Niels Peter Lemche and Thomas L. Thompson at the University of Copenhagen, Philip R. Davies, and Keith Whitelam. Minimalism gave rise to intense debate during the 1990s - the term "minimalists" was in fact a derogatory one given by its opponents, who were consequently dubbed "maximalists", but in fact neither side accepted either label. The so-called Maximalists, or neo-Albrightians, were composed of two quite distinct groups, the first represented by the archaeologist William Dever and the influential publication Biblical Archaeology Review, the second by conservative evangelical Christians such as biblical scholar Iain Provan and Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen. Although these debates were in some cases heated, most scholars stayed in the middle ground between minimalists and maximalists evaluating the arguments of both schools critically, and since the 1990s, while some of the minimalist arguments have been challenged or rejected, others have been refined and adopted into the mainstream of biblical scholarship.
Read more about Biblical Minimalism: Background: Academic Study of The Bible in The 20th Century, Biblical Minimalism, Important Works, Reception and Influence