The Ottawa School of Theology & Spirituality

The Ottawa School of Theology & Spirituality

The Bible: Archaeological and Historical Perspectives

September 16 – November 25, 2013Lecturer - David Steinberg

http://www.houseofdavid.ca/

[email protected]. 613-731-5964

Lecture 2

Archaeology; Biblical Archaeology; Documentary Hypothesis; Minimalists and Maximalists

Sept. 23, 2013Lecture 1 slides available at http://www.houseofdavid.ca/lecture1.ppt OR http://www.houseofdavid.ca/lecture1.pdf

Lecture 2 slides available at http://www.houseofdavid.ca/lecture2.ppt OR http://www.houseofdavid.ca/lecture2.pdf

http://www.houseofdavid.ca/

רבי טרפון ... היה אומרת "לא עליך המלאכה להבטל ממנה." לגמור ולא אתה בן חורין

Rabbi Tarfon … used to say “You are not required to complete the work but you are not free to desist from it.”Avot 2:21

Archaeology

• Definition – Archaeology, archeology, or archæology (from the Greek words αρχαίος = ancient and λόγος = word/speech/discourse) is the study of human cultures through the recovery, documentation and analysis of material remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, biofacts, human remains, and landscapes.

• Goals - are to document and explain the origins and development of human culture, understand culture history, chronicle cultural evolution, and study human behavior and ecology, for both prehistoric and historic societies. It is considered in North America to be one of the four sub-fields of anthropology.

ArchaeologyA Few Key Points–

1. Oldest at the Bottom (usually)

2. Relative Date vs. Absolute Date and Synchronicities (Limmu Lists from 911 through 631 B.C.E. (= B.C.)

3. Surveys, rescue digs, digs

4. Population c. 100 per built up acre;

5. Geophysics, pollen, middens etc.

6. Archaeological vandals – bad methodology, excessive digging, not publishing

Archaeology and the BibleArchaeology can–• Prevent the Bible from being mythalogical by

anchoring it in the realm of history• Provide the geographical and chronological

context of biblical people and events; show their cultural, economic, political etc. contexts

• Uncover the empirical evidence for clarifying the text

• Shed light on the daily life of biblical people by recovering their pottery, utensils, weopons, seals, architecture etc.

Trends in Archaeology• It has become a team effort• More analysis for less digging• Geophysical and remote sensing technology• Interest moved from trying to prove historical

events to reconstructing ancient societies with the aid of anthropological models

• Centre of interest moved from elites to ordinary people

Two Sage ObservationsFrom Archaeology and the Bible, J C H Laughlin 2000

Excavations, as a rule, record only those things which appear to them important at the time, but fresh problems in Archaeology and Anthropology are continually arising …. Every detail should, therefore, be recorded in the manner most conducive to facility of reference, and it ought at all times tio be the chief object of an excavator to reduce his own personal equation to a minimum. (Pitt-Rivers 1887)

Palestine: “Where more sins have probably been committed in the name of archaeology than on any commensurable portion of the earth’s surface.” (Mortimer Wheeler 1956)

Tel(l) 1

• Tell or tel, is a type of archaeological mound created by human occupation and abandonment of a geographical site over many centuries. A classic tell looks like a low, truncated cone with a flat top and sloping sides.

• Tells should be distinguished from more transiently populated sites which may not show any elevation

Tel(l) 2

Usually tells are located on or near:

•Permanent water supply

•Enough arable land to feed the population

•Trade routes

•Good defensive position

Tel Megiddo

Over 20 strata of occupation c7,000-586 BCE.2 Kings 23:29-30. “In his days Pharaoh Neco king of Egypt went up to the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates. King Josiah went to meet him; and Pharaoh Neco slew him at Megiddo … and his servants carried him dead in a chariot from Megiddo, and brought him to Jerusalem, and buried him in his own tomb.

Tel Hazor

The largest archaeological site in northern Israel, featuring an upper tell of 30 acres and a lower city of more than 175 acres

“Joshua turned back at that time and took Hazor, and struck its king with the sword, for Hazor was formerly the head of all those kingdoms. And they struck all the people who

were in it with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them … Then he burnt Hazor with fire” Joshua 11:10–11

Importance of Publication1From Archaeology and the Bible, J C H Laughlin 2000

• Without publications, the best of archaeological field work is a failure…. (A) well-published volume with plans, drawings, photographs and so on, enables others to reconstruct in their own minds exactly how the site was excavated. If a trained archaeologist cannot do this, then the publication is faulty and of limited, if any, use. A good publication also allows other archaeologists to interpret for themselves what the archaeological data mean.

Importance of Publication 2From Archaeology and the Bible, J C H Laughlin 2000

• It is to be hoped that it will soon be possible for computer information from all digs (past and present) to be readily accessed so that research and study can be conducted in the most comprehensive way possible.

Most Unusual Rescue Dig 1

From the “Great Man” to the Interdisciplinary Team 1

Prior to the 1960s, Palestinian/Israeli digs were dominated by a single individual usually a trained clergyman or biblical scholar who sidelined as an archaeologist. Professional standards were very uneven, a great deal of key evidence was discarded unrecorded and unexamined and publication did not occur or was poor and/or late.

From the “Great Man” to the Interdisciplinary Team 2

Now, excavations are headed by fully trained archaeologists, full recording is accomplished with the aid of computer systems and a full interdisciplinary team of surveyor, geophysicist, paleo-botanist, geologist, paleo-anthropologist, epigrapher, etc. aided by a large number of student and other volunteers.

Volunteer Opportunities

The First “Great Man”, the Father of Palestinian ArchaeologyFlinders Petrie (1853-1942)

Flinders Petrie

• At Tell el-Hesi (1890) he established pottery typology combined with stratigraphy as the key to (relative) dating.

“… once settle the pottery of a country and the key is in our hands for all future explorations.”

• Ever since pottery typology plus stratigraphy has been the key to dating particularly in periods (e.g. Iron Age/Israelite period) where inscriptions are rare or non-existent

The Greatest of the “Great Men” - Albright

Albright (1891-1971)

• The Biblical Archaeologist par excellence• Master of almost the whole of Ancient Near

Eastern studies• Developed the Albrightian synthesis (see

below)• Trained two generations of epigraphers and

Israeli and American Biblical Archaeologists• The Biblical Archaeologists he trained

eventually morphed into Syro-Palestinian archaeologists

Biases in Archaeological Interpretation

It is a paradox of archaeology that the objects dug up are concrete and real things, yet it is difficult to ascribe any meaning to them. Interpretation takes place, for example:

–in the choices made about what sites to excavate and what portions of those sites to excavate

–about what kinds of information to record and what kinds of material to send off to specialists for analysis, in the reports written by the excavators and specialists; and,

–in the choices made about what reports to consult in resolving a particular problem.

Interpretation is greatly affected, therefore, by the question of who makes what decisions in what context. Certain objects or places, for example, may be considered important for one interpreter and not worth bothering about by others.

Phases of ArchaeologyOverview

• Culture History – Relates to History

• Processual Archaeology – Relates to Anthropology

• Post-processual Archaeology – Post-Modernism– Gender Archaeology– Behavioral Archaeology– Evolutionary (Selectionist) Archaeology

Culture HistoryRelates to History

• Grouping sites into distinct "cultures", to determine the geographic spread and time span of these cultures, and to reconstruct the interactions and flow of ideas between them.

• Cultural historians employed the normative model of culture, the principle that each culture is a set of norms governing human behaviour. Thus, cultures can be distinguished by patterns of craftsmanship; e.g., if one excavated sherd of pottery is decorated with a triangular pattern, and another sherd with a chequered pattern, they likely belong to different cultures.

• Approach leads to a view of the past as a collection of different populations, classified by their differences and by their influences on each other.

• Changes in behaviour could be explained by diffusion whereby new ideas moved, through social and economic ties, from one culture to another or by replacement of one population (culture) by another.

Processual Archaeology (New Archaeology) Relates to Anthropology

• In the 1960s, American archaeologists (pre-history) developed a "New Archaeology", aimed at being more "scientific" and "anthropological".

• Culture - a set of behavioural processes and traditions responsive to environment. Processual archaeology has seen social system predominantly as a set of standard types of society drawn from cultural evolutionary thought – bands, lineage, chiefdoms, states (and derived and related forms). The main features are horizontal and vertical divisions, particularly class and ranking, and the distribution of resources, through social groupings, via exchange and other economic mechanisms.

• Borrowed from the exact sciences the idea of hypothesis testing and the scientific method.

• They believed that an archaeologist should develop one or more hypotheses about a culture under study, and conduct excavations with the intention of testing these hypotheses against fresh evidence.

• Partly response to evidence of anthropology, that ethnic groups and their development were not always entirely congruent with the cultures in the archaeological record. (Very important point for Biblical Archaeology)

Critiques of Processual Archaeology

• Too one-sided, too deterministic, too inflexible. Explanations generated are dominated by general overarching social forces and entities. How did real people fit into them? how we are to conceive of society in a way that allows its constituent people to be active and creative in reproducing and changing their society.

• How are we to understand how people are both determined by social structures, yet also act in ways that work to change those structures?

• Post processual archaeology has followed a great deal of social theory in positing much more dynamic social structures. The issue is one of balancing determinism and free-will when clearly people do not make history as they will, but nevertheless are not wholly determined in their actions by transcendent social structures and historical forces. It is about how action is to be conceived.

Post-processual Archaeology 1Post-Modern Archaeology

• In the 1980s, British archaeologists questioned processualism's appeals to science and impartiality by claiming that every archaeologist is in fact biased by his or her personal experience and background, and thus truly scientific archaeological work is difficult or impossible.

• Exponents of this relativistic method analysed not only the material remains they excavated, but also themselves, their attitudes and opinions. The different approaches to archaeological evidence which every person brings to his or her interpretation result in different constructs of the past for each individual. The benefit of this approach has been recognised in such fields as visitor interpretation, cultural resource management and ethics in archaeology as well as fieldwork.

• Post-processualism provided an umbrella for all those who decried the processual model of culture, which many feminist and neo-Marxist archaeologists for example believed treated people as mindless automatons and ignored their individuality

Post-processual Archaeology 2

• Started as a reaction to processual archaeology criticizing processualism as positivist, and materialist

• Now consists of a wide range of approaches focusing on e.g. religion, belief systems, social complexity, gender

• Studies art, architecture, burial goods, non-utilitarian artifacts

• Consists of a wide range of approaches all viewing culture as being comprised of individuals

From http://www.geog.unt.edu/~lnagaoka/arch2500/outlines/postproc.pdf#search=%22post-processual%20archaeology%22

Gender Archaeology

• Method of studying ancient societies by closely examining the roles played by men and women in the past as exhibited through the archaeological record.

• Gender archaeologists examine the relative positions in society of men and women through identifying and studying the differences in power and authority they held. These differences can survive in the physical record although they are not always immediately apparent and are often open to interpretation. The relationship between the genders can also inform relationships between other social groups such as families, different classes, ages and religions.

• Only 8% of the names in the Hebrew Bible are those of females!

Chronology – Absolute and Relative 1

Method Date Issues1. Pottery assemblages

Relative Are the changes in pottery synchronous in different areas.

Is the pottery intrusive?

2. Carbon 14, Optical, Thermo-luminescence dating

Absolute within range

Range of dates

3. Scarabs Absolute – earliest date of stratum

Is it an heirloom?

Only for pre-Iron Age

Chronology – Absolute and Relative 2

Method Date Issues4. Coins Absolute – earliest date of

stratumWas coin long in circulation or hoarded?

Hellenistic period and later

5. Contemporary Inscriptions and other Documents – Contents

Depends whether contents include datable references. DSS do not!

Extremely rare in Palestine – papyrus, ostraca, DSS

6. Contemporary Inscriptions and other Documents – Style of Writing (Paleography)

Relative Now have good series for most of the periods starting 9th C. BCE

7. Biblical Text Texts purport to tell of a range of periods

When were they written? (Documentary Hypothesis)

Did the author know much about the period purported to describe?

Is it tendentious?

Chronology – Absolute and Relative

Method Date Issues1. Pottery assemblages Relative Are the changes in pottery synchronous

in different areas.

Is the pottery intrusive?

2. Carbon 14, Optical, Thermoluminescence dating

Absolute within range Range of dates

3. Scarabs Absolute – earliest date of stratum Is it an heirloom?

Only for pre-Iron Age

4. Coins Absolute – earliest date of stratum Was coin long in circulation or hoarded?

Hellenistic period and later

5. Contemporary Inscriptions and other Documents – Contents

Depends whether contents include datable references. DSS do not!

Extremely rare in Palestine – papyrus, ostraca, DSS

6. Contemporary Inscriptions and other Documents – Style of Writing (Paleography)

Relative Now have good series for most of the periods starting 9th C. BCE

7. Biblical Text Texts purport to tell of a range of periods When were they written? (See reading on Documentary Hypothesis)

Did the author know much about the period purported to describe?

Is it tendentious?

Biblical Texts (as preserved) Archaeological Artifacts (as preserved)

Concretize thought and behavior

Symbolic, "encoded" messages of past

Express deliberate intent, imagination

Selective, elitist by nature Broadly representative, "populist"

Heavily edited in transmission Constitute random sample

Reflect principal ideology Reflect common practice

Closed corpus Dynamic, expanding source of data

Continuous tradition "Broken" tradition

Only a residue of past

"Curated artifacts"

Refract the past

Literature "Real" life

Biblical Texts(as preserved)

Archaeological Artifacts(as preserved)

Selective, elitist by nature Broadly representative, "populist"

Heavily edited in transmission Constitute random sample

Reflect principal ideology Reflect common practice

Closed corpus Dynamic, expanding source of data

Continuous tradition "Broken" tradition

Literature "Real" life

Views of the BibleThese lectures relevant to views 2 and 3

1. Divine or divinely inspired error-free document. Although revealed or authored at one time and place can be understood in every time and place without regard to original context.

2. Divinely inspired complex document whose original meaning(s) can only be understood in context of authors’ social-cultural-historical context.

3. Human complex document whose original meaning(s) can only be understood in context of authors’ social-cultural-historical context.

Key Concept 1 What We Mean by Myth

• A structure through which a community organizes and makes sense of its experience. The world "out there" does not impinge itself on us … organized into meaningful patterns. Our experience of the world is a complex transaction between what comes to us from "out there" and the way we structure or "read" it.

• Myths are the spectacles that enable us to see order in what would otherwise be confusion. They are created, initially, by "reading" communities, beginning with their earliest attempts to shape, explain, or make some sense out of their experience of nature and history.

• Gradually, as the mythic structure seems to work, to be confirmed by ongoing experience, it is refined, shared, and transmitted to later generations. It becomes embodied in official, "canonical" texts and assumes authoritative power. In its final form, it becomes omnipresent and quasi-invisible, so much has it become our intuitive way of confronting the world.

Key Concept 2

Ritual

• “… underlying the rituals, the careful reader will find an intricate web of values that purports to model how we should relate to God and to one another.

• Anthropology has taught us that when a society wishes to express and preserve its basic values, it ensconces them in rituals.‘… (R)ituals endure with repetition. They are visual and participatory. They embed themselves in memory at a young age, reinforced with each enactment.

• (W)hen rituals fail to concretize our theological commitment they become physical oddities, superstitions, or small idolatries. Ritual is the poetry of religion that leads us to a moment of transcendence. When a ritual fails because it either lacks content or is misleading, it loses its efficacy and its purpose. A ritual must signify something beyond itself, whose attainment enhances the meaning and value of life.

History of Biblical Israel(1930-1970)

Two choices1.Literary analysis (including Documentary

Hypothesis) of the Genesis-2 Kings = archaeology of the biblical text. Key names J Wellhausen; A Alt; M Noth (Noth’s The History of Israel 1958)

2.Biblical archaeology = dirt archaeology in intimate combination with (often naïve) reading of the biblical text) – key names W F Albright; G E Wright (J Bright’s A History of Israel 1959)

Background to Documentary Hypothesis 1

• The variations in the divine names in Genesis; • The secondary variations in diction and in style; • The parallel or duplicate accounts (doublets); • The continuity of the various sources; • The political assumptions implicit in the text; • The interests of the author(s). • Many portions of the Torah seem to imply more than one author. Doublets

and triplets repeat stories with different points of view. Notable repetitions include:

– the creation-accounts in Genesis. The creation-story in Genesis first describes a somewhat evolutionary process, starting with the creation of the Earth, then the lower forms of life, then animals, and finally man and woman (created together). It then begins the story again, but this time with the creation of man first, then animals to assuage man's loneliness, and when this fails, the creation of Eve from Adam's rib;

– in the flood story Noah takes his family into the ark twice; – the stories of the covenant between God and Abraham; – the naming of Isaac;

– the three strikingly similar narratives in Genesis about a wife confused for a sister;

– the two stories of the revelation to Jacob at Beth-El;

Background to Documentary Hypothesis 2

• three different versions of how the town of Be'ersheba got its name;

• Exodus 38:26 mentions "603,550 men over 20 years old included in the census" immediately after passage of the Red Sea, while Numbers 1:44-45 cites the precisely identical count, "The tally of Israelites according to their paternal families, those over 20 years old, all fit for service. The entire tally was 603,550", in a census taken a full year later, "on the first [day] of the second month in the second year of the Exodus" (Numbers 1:1);

• the story of the flood in Genesis appears to claim that two of all kinds of animal went on the ark, but also that seven of certain kinds went on, and that the flood lasted a year, but also lasted only 40 days;

• the Ten Commandments appear in Exod 20, but in a slightly different wording in Deut 5. A second, almost completely different set of Ten Commandments appears in Exod 34;

• Numbers 25 describes the rebellion at Peor and refers to daughters of Moab, but the same chapter portrays one woman as a Midianite;

• Moses' wife, though often identified as a Midianite (and hence Caucasian), appears in the tale of Snow-white Miriam as a "Cushite" (Ethiopian), and hence black;

• in some locations God appears friendly and capable of errors and regret, and walks the earth talking to humans, but in others God seems unmerciful and distant;

• a number of places or individuals have multiple names. For instance, some passages give the name of the mountain that Moses climbed to receive the commandments as Horeb and others as Sinai, Moses' father-in-law has at least three names in the Hebrew original ( ר Rֶת Rֶי ,רֹו Vִיֶת, and ל Yעּוֵא Vר), etc.

Documentary Hypothesis 1

• That the Five Books of Moses (the Torah; Genesis-Deuteronomy) represent a combination of documents from different sources rather than a single text authored by one individual.

• We do not know the original contexts in which the original documents were written

• Clear that different sources had different points of view and wrote in different historical contexts

Theological Concerns of the “Documents”

• P – priesthood and cult.

• D – covenant for Israel; its relationship to God in terms of divine obligation and reciprocity.

• J – God’s role both directly confronting the individual and working behind the scenes of human history.

• E – Role of the prophets in proclaiming God’s message to the people.


• The earliest documents incorporated probably date to 9th-8th c. BC though could have drawn on earlier written or oral traditions. Most written c. 700 BC – 586 BC in Jerusalem and after 586 BC in Babylon

• Genesis seems to be among the later parts to be written yet it describes anachronistically stories of Abraham (c. 1700 BC?). El Shaddai early or late? Also note dates of David (c. 1005- 965 BC). See Wikipedia article The Bible and history

• Continuing authoring, editing and final assembly c. 586 BC – c. 460 BC in Babylon. Key to final product but blank to us.


The hypothesis a redactor (R) composed the Torah by combining four earlier source texts (J, E, P and D), specifically:

• J (Jerusalem perhaps from 9th to 7th c. BC) - the Jahwist. J describes a human-like God called Yahweh and has a special interest in Judah and in the Aaronid priesthood. J has an eloquent style and uses an earlier form of Hebrew than P.

• E (Samaria region perhaps from 9th or 8th and before 722 BC) - the Elohist. E describes a human-like God initially called El or Elohim, and called Yahweh subsequent to the incident of the burning bush. E focuses on biblical Israel and on the Shiloh priesthood. E has a moderately eloquent style. E uses an earlier form of Hebrew than P.


• P (Jerusalem 8th and 7th c. BC) - the Priestly source. P describes a distant and unmerciful God, sometimes referred to as Elohim or as El Shaddai. P partly duplicates J and E, altering to suit P's opinion P wrote most of Leviticus. P has its main interest in an Aaronid priesthood and in King Hezekiah and lists and dates.

• D (Shiloh priestly traditions developed in Jerusalem after 715 and before 622 BC) - the Deuteronomist. D consists of most of Deuteronomy. D probably also wrote the Deteronomistic history (Josh, Judg, 1 & 2 Sam, 1 & 2 Kgs). D has a particular interest in the Shiloh priesthood and in King Josiah. D uses a form of Hebrew similar to that of P, but in a different literary style.

Collapse of the Documentary Hypothesis (DH)

• Wellhausen’s classical presentation of the DH was based on knowing the date of D (7th c. BCE) and assumptions about the evolution of religion.

• Date of D remains valid but his evolutionary assumptions are now widely rejected.

• The Making of the Pentateuch (1987) R. N. Whybray examined the evidence for the Documentary Hypothesis and concluded that it was insubstantial. His alternative proposal was that the Pentateuch was essentially the work of a single author who drew upon multiple sources and disregarded, or was ignorant of, modern notions of literary consistency and smoothness of style and language.

Consequence of Collapse of the Documentary Hypothesis (DH)

• Analysis of the text to recover its history have gone in every direction. Some scholars still maintain a modified version of the DH (See Who Wrote the Bible by R. E. Friedman). Other biblical scholars consider the DH to be dead without any consensus on anything to replace it.

• Many archaeologists (e.g. Dever; Finkelstein) continue to assume the validity of the DH because, probably, there is no usable alternative in sight.

• Given the fact that the limited evidence of the biblical text has been closely examined for over 200 years there is no likelihood that further reliable historical information can be derived from the text. (Contrast archaeology where data is always increasing.)

Deuteronomic Reform• An official program of the Judean king Josiah (reigned 639-609

BCE) to reform the cult and effectively to profoundly reform the theological, and probably also fiscal, underpinnings of the Kingdom of Judah.

• Based on a scroll said to have been found in the Jerusalem Temple which probably contained the core of the canonical Book of Deuteronomy. Probably authored in Jerusalem, in 7th century BC, drawing partly on materials originating in the former Kingdom of Israel. The newly found (authored?) scroll, like the canonical Book of Deuteronomy, had 3 characteristics which made it the bedrock of both Judaism and Samaritanism:– It was theocentric, leaving no room for a concept of

secularity;– It was absolutely unbending in demanding justice and

monotheism and promised that God, who is just, would reward or punish his people based on how they kept God's Torah; and,

– It demanded a single cultic site for sacrifices. This last demand is found nowhere else in the Torah

Josiah's Reform 1From 2 Kings 22-23

Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign. The high priest Hilkiah said ... "I have found the book of the law in the

house of the LORD." ... "….When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. Then the king commanded ... saying, "Go, inquire of the LORD for me, for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found; for great is the wrath of the LORD that is kindled against us, because our ancestors did not obey the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us." …

Then the king directed that all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem should be gathered to him. The king went up to the house of the LORD, and with him went all the people of Judah, all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and all the people, both small and great; he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant that had been found in the house of the LORD. The king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to follow the LORD, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his statutes, with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. All the people joined in the covenant.

Josiah's Reform 2From 2 Kings 22-23

'The king commanded the high priest Hilkiah, the priests of the second order, and the guardians of the threshold, to bring out of the temple of the LORD all the vessels made for Baal, for Asherah, and for all the host of heaven; he burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron, and carried their ashes to Bethel. He deposed the idolatrous priests whom the kings of Judah had ordained to make offerings in the high places at the cities of Judah and around Jerusalem; those also who made offerings to Baal, to the sun, the moon, the constellations, and all the host of the heavens. He brought out the image of Asherah from the house of the LORD, outside Jerusalem, to the Wadi Kidron, burned it at the Wadi Kidron, beat it to dust and threw the dust of it upon the graves of the common people. He broke down the houses of the male temple prostitutes that were in the house of the LORD, where the women did weaving for Asherah.

He brought all the priests out of the towns of Judah, and defiled the high places where the priests had made offerings, from Geba to Beer-sheba…. The priests of the high places, however, did not come up to the altar of the LORD in Jerusalem, but ate unleavened bread among their kindred.

He defiled the Topheth, which is in the valley of Ben-hinnom, so that no one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire as an offering to Molech. .. Moreover, Josiah removed all the shrines of the high places that were in the towns of Samaria, which kings of Israel had made.. Moreover Josiah put away the mediums, wizards, teraphim, idols, and all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of the law that were written in the book that the priest Hilkiah had found in the house of the LORD."

Finkelstein’s Proposal 1The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred

Texts Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman pp. 23 ff

The J and D sources - parts of Genesis and Deuteronomy-2 Kings reflect agenda and

background of Josiah’s reign when Josiah aimed at (re)unite all remaining Israelites and

traditional Israelite territories under his rule. This would be underwritten by God as he would

ensure that the written law (core of Deuteronomy) would be scrupulously followed including

making Jerusalem the only sacrificial site.

• “Although these stories may have been based on certain historical kernels, they primarily

reflect the ideology and world-view of the writers.” “… (including) the story of the patriarchs,

the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, and even the saga of the glorious united monarchy of

David and Solomon….”

•“(T)he genealogies of the patriarchs… offer a … commentary on political affairs in the region

in the Assyrian and Neo-Babalonian periods…. (M)any of the ethnic and place –names (can) be

dated to this time …(and) their characterizations mesh perfectly with what we know of the

relationship of neighboring peoples and kingdoms with Judah and Israel.”

•The story of Jacob and Esau – 7th c. perceptions in ancient dress serving = divinely

legitimated then existing relationships Edom-Judah

Finkelstein’s Proposal 2The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred

Texts Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman pp. 23 ff

• Patriarchal family joining northern (Jacob, Joseph) and southern (Abraham) traditions but

with Abraham as the senior.

• Joshua’s conquests project back Josiah’s hopes. King Josiah is behind the mask of

Joshua.

• “The glorious epic of the united monarchy was – like the stories of the patriarchs and the

saga of the Exodus and conquest – a brilliant composition that wove together ancient

heroic tales and legends into a coherent and persuasive prophecy for the people of Israel

in the 7th c. BCE.”

• Josiah is shown as a noble successor to Moses (regives the Torah), Joshua (reconquors

the land) and David (re-establishes the Davidic monarchy over all Israel). Many key

characters – the pious Joshua, David, Hezekiah; the apostates Ahaz, Manasseh – are

porteayed as positive and negative mirror images of Josiah.

• “(Josiah) a new David had come to the throne…. By cleansing Judah of the abomination of

idolatry – first introduced into Jerusalem by Solomon with his harem of foreign wives –

Josiah could nullify the transgressions that led to the breakdown of the Davidic “empire.”

Key Concept 3

History and Non-Historical Texts

“… you have to know what category of text you are dealing

with before you can begin analysis and comparisons. If you are

dealing with a literary text, it's a literary text; it's not a historic

annal …. There are, however, kernels of historic facts

imbedded in texts which are not at all historical. I don't think any

of us take the Gilgamesh epic as a historical document. But the

plain fact is that Gilgamesh has turned up in the king lists….. So we

mustn't despair of extracting history from legend, and even from

myth.”Cyrus Gordon

Old Testament as Historical Source

Consensus of Almost all Serious Scholars

• That the Five Books of Moses (the Torah; Genesis-Deuteronomy) represent a combination of documents from different sources rather than a single text authored by one individual.

• Different sources had different points of view and wrote in different historical contexts. The point of view may be obvious, the historical-political-social context which is key to understanding the intended message and audience is usually debatable.

• Almost all serious historians now agree that it is impossible to isolate any historical information about specific events that looks reliable from before the time of kings Saul (c. 1079-1007 BCE) or David (c. 1018-970 BCE). Information gets more reliable as approach main period of authoring 8th-7th c. BCE.

• For time of Saul, David, Solomon the Bible may or may not contain much authentic, recoverable data.

Biblical Archaeology

No one agrees on a definition. The following are some of the description/definitions:

• The archaeology of any area and period that might illuminate the Bible. As such, it is a decontextualized and hence distorting approach to –

– For the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) - Near Eastern (Syro-Palestinian plus Mesopotamian) plus Egyptian Archaeology;

– For the New Testament - Classical Archaeology relating to Italy and the eastern Roman provinces.

• Archaeology aimed at “proving the Bible right = ‘historical’

• An ‘arm-chair’ discipline of confronting the discipline of Archaeology with the discipline of scientific study of the Bible. This primarily takes place as a dialogue between archaeologists and biblical scholars.

• An ‘arm-chair’ approach of tasking convenient archaeological findings out of their context within scientific findings to “prove the Bible right = ‘historical’”

Biblical Archaeology Definitions

Definition Comments

1. The archaeology of any area and period that might illuminate the Bible.

An approach to general Syro-Palestinian, Mesopotamian, Egyptian and Classical Archaeology that lift them out of their historic context .

2. Archaeology aimed at “proving the Bible right = ‘historical’

Religious apologetics which tends to bias site selection and, more importantly, the interpretation of finds (Jericho, Hebron, Sexuality and Canaanite Religion).

3. An ‘arm-chair’ discipline of confronting the discipline of anthropologically-based archaeology with the discipline of scientific study of the Bible. This primarily takes place as a dialogue between archaeologists and biblical scholars.

See Dever What Did the Bible Writers Know

Grabbe Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How

Do We Know It?

4. An ‘arm-chair’ approach of tasking convenient archaeological findings out of their context within scientific findings to “prove the Bible right = ‘historical’

Religious apologetics which tends to bias the interpretation of finds and to ignore inconvenient ones

Outline of Biblical History as Seen by the 2 Approaches

Literary Analysis Biblical Archaeology

The text reflects its time of writing thus –•Virtually no historical events recoverable from much before the time of Solomon;•Genesis is mythical narrative, including etiological stories. It may include some general folk memories of earlier cultural periods may be in the text e.g. the family, priest-less sacrifices in the Abraham stories.

The Patriarchal narratives, exodus and conquest are clearly set in periods illuminated by archaeology. We cannot prove the existence of an actual Abraham, Moses, Joshua but they are likely to have existed. The essential historicity of the Bible

The book of Joshua is completely unhistorical. On the other hand, Judges does reflect some of the reality of pre-monarchical Israel. Alt’s infiltration theory; Noth’s amphictionary theory etc.

Pan-Israelite invasion based loosely on Joshua.

From David on basically a summary of the biblical text minus the miracles

Collapse of the Albrightian Synthesis

Two major works in the mid-1970s –

• Camels and Philistines

• Abraham and the south

• Abraham doesn’t fit in any known period

• Disjuncture between the archaeological and biblical conquest narrative - cities destroyed (Jericho; Ai); no mention of Egyptians when they were garrisoning Canaan in force until about 1140 BCE; population (approx. 45,000 in hill country c. 1000 BCE vs. Bible’s approx. 4 million in wilderness)

• Increasing professionalization of archaeology

The collapse of the Albrightian synthesis essentially left most archaeologists in agreement with Wellhausen that the biblical texts reflect the culture, issues etc. of their time of authorship or subsequent editing.

The collapse undermined the Biblical Theology movement.

Two interesting quotes

•“The French Dominican biblical scholar and archaeologist Roland

de Vaux noted ..."if the historical faith of Israel is not founded in

history, such faith is erroneous, and therefore, our faith is also” (The Bible Unearthed; Finkelstein and Silberman 2001)

•“But the stories about the promise given to the patriarchs in

Genesis are not historical, nor do they intend to be historical;

they are rather historically determined expressions about Israel

and Israel’s relationship to its God, given in forms legitimate to

their time, and their truth lies not in their facticity, nor in their

historicity, but in their ability to express the reality that Israel

experienced. (The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham by

Thomas L. Thompson 1974)

What Mainstream Scholars Believe Now

• The Bible has a complex history at every point requiring to be interpreted in the appropriate cultural-historical context.

• Perfect “objectivity” is unachievable but we should try to approach it by identifying and correcting for our biases

• Political, religious and other ideologies must not impact on analysis or predetermine analytical outcomes i.e. follow the evidence wherever it leads

Principles of the Historical Method 1from Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? by Lester L. Grabbe 2008 pp. 35-36

1. All potential sources should be considered. After a full critical evaluation, some sources might be excluded….

2. Preference should be given to primary sources … those contemporary of nearly contemporary with the events being described. This means archaeology and inscriptions. The biblical text is almost always a secondary source, written and(/or) edited long after the events ostensibly described. In some cases, the text may depend on earlier sources, but these sources were edited and adapted … (and) must be dug out from the present context.

3. The context of the longue durée must always be recognized…. (E.g. difference in economic potential between the north and south)

Principles of the Historical Method 2from Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? by Lester L. Grabbe 2008 pp. 35-36

4. Each episode or event has to be judged on its own merits….

5. All reconstructions are provisional….

6. All reconstructions have to be argued for. There can be no default position. You cannot just follow the text unless it can be disproved…. The only valid arguments are historical ones. Ideology, utility, theology, morality, politics, authority – non of these has a place in judging how to reconstruct an event.

Maximalists and Minimalists

There are a range of views on the degree to which (a) useful cultural background information and (b) historically accurate information on events and personalities can be derived from the Hebrew Bible particularly Genesis-2 Kings. There is the rational/scientific mid-range flanked by the dogmatically driven extremes.

Mid-Range Maximalists and Minimalists

Mid-Range Maximalists – these accept the non-miraculous historical stories as basically historically true unless contradicted by reliable historical or environmental information. Egs. Kitchen, Hoffmeier

Mid-Range Minimalists – skeptical of the historicity of the biblical stories unless reliable historical or environmental information supports their credibility. E.g. Grabbe, Finkelstein

Extreme Maximalists

• The Bible is (largely) infallible. Everything is interpreted in this light.

• If it is written it is “true” in a modern historic sense (no concept of myth)

• Archaeology is useful as a smorgasbord of handy teaching aids

Extreme Minimalists=Nihilists Believe 1

Main representatives - Niels Peter Lemche, Thomas L. Thompson (University of Copenhagen); Philip R. Davies, Keith Whitelam (University of Sheffield) who vary in their views but the following are representative –

•The Hebrew Bible is a product of the religious and cultural “identity crisis” of Judaism in the Hellenistic era, not the story of an actual historical Israel in the long-gone Iron Age.

•It thus constitutes a literary tradition, not a historical document; it is a “social construct” that reflects the religious interests and propaganda of a late, elitist theocratic party within Judaism. It reveals their history, if any.

Extreme Minimalists Believe 2

• It follows that “Biblical” and “ancient” Israel are fictitious—myths invented by the Biblical writers, not historical realities. Even if a “historical Israel” in the Iron Age could be reconstructed, it would consist of a very brief outline of a handful of later kings and a few skeletal political events, corroborated mainly by extra-Biblical texts. Archaeology may be a putative source of history writing, but in practice it is largely “mute” owing to scant data and methodological imprecision.

• There was no “early Israel” as a distinct ethnic entity in the Iron I period in Palestine, no Israelite state before the ninth century B.C.E., no Judahite state before the late eighth century B.C.E., no significant political capital in Jerusalem before the second century B.C.E.

Extreme Minimalists Believe 3

• Archaeologists and Biblical scholars should concentrate on writing the history of the Palestinian peoples, not that of an imaginary “ancient Israel.”

• Henceforth, Jewish and Christian theology should be “liberated” from historical considerations, allowed simply to compete in the marketplace of ideas in a multicultural and relativist society.

• Finally, the Biblical “meta-narrative,” the foundation of much of the Western cultural tradition, should be rejected as subversive.

Extreme Minimalist-Extreme Maximalist Similarities

• Dogmatically Driven

• Minimalists – Post-modernism

• Maximalists – Fundamentalist Christianity and Judaism

Can Reliable History be Culled from the Bible for 1000-586 BCE?

• The answer of the extreme biblical minimalists is “no”

• The answer of mainstream scholars is that some parts of the Bible are more reliable historically than others; each must be looked at separately. We have evidence for biblical tendentiousness, and for a remarkable historical memory reflected in biblical texts. Thus we should come to a new understanding of the biblical texts and their subtle historical value, not denigrate them as historically valueless

Reaction of Extreme Minimalists to Tel Dan Inscription

• Previously had demanded archaeological evidence of David’s existence

• Forgery

• Placename

• Beit-Dod – house of uncle, lover

• Beit Dud – house of kettle

Evidence Against the Extreme Minimalists

• Inscriptions

• Many details of biblical evidence that agree with what we know of the period written about but could not have been known to later writers except through old documents –e.g. the architecture of Solomon’s Temple, treaty format etc. etc.

• Biblical and Epigraphic Hebrew

Guidance from Sherlock Holmes

“….when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth…..”

Postmodernism• Postmodernism mid- to late-20th-century theory of

knowledge which states that there is no real knowledge of an objective, external world that can be perceived by the human senses. As Nietzsche put it, “There are no facts, only interpretations.”

• It was essentially a rebellion against all aspects of the modern culture that had prevailed in the West since the late 19th century. Specifically indicted were what may be called aspects of the Western cultural tradition: Cartesian individualism Rationalism, empiricism and positivist science The modern, liberal democratic nation-state Capitalist economics Industrial and technological society Western colonialism and imperialism Belief in common, universal progress

The Ottawa School of Theology & Spirituality

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