ridge - compass not necessarily right Archaeology And The...

ridge - compass not necessarily right Archaeology And The Legitimacy Of The Bible,
by Randall Price

Until modern times both the academic and the average man believed that the historical accounts in the Bible accorded well with what was known of the ancient Near East. Science texts accepted the Noahic Flood as a reasonable explanation for geological formations and secular history books included not only Abraham and Moses but also Adam and Eve as historical figures. The Bible as the foundation for Western culture was regarded both as the Good Book and as good history.
In the nineteenth century the acceptance of evolutionary theory and the application of higher criticism in religion resulted in the Bible being cast as a work of theological fiction. Its history was regarded as legend and its miracles as myths. This radical reassessment of Scripture was argued in part on the absence in the historical record of peoples in the Older Testament such as the Hittites. And because their linkage in the biblical text with larger-than-life personages like Abraham, David, and Solomon, these figures of faith were likewise rendered suspect. Moses was also said to be a myth because critical scrutiny deemed aspects of his biblical description as unhistorical. One reason for this supposed lack of historical reliability was the biblical statement that Moses had written the Torah (Deuteronomy 31:24). The scholarly consensus was that Moses must have been illiterate since the ancient Egyptians were thought to have delegated the work of writing to scribes. As a result, neither kings nor commoners learned the art. The Newer Testament was also regarded with equal criticism. It was viewed as the product of later ecclesiastical invention, with the Gospel of John offered as a prime example of a second century document of Gentile origin.

This momentum of scriptural skepticism could not be sustained. With the advent of the twentieth century the pendulum swung back toward an affirmation of biblical legitimacy. Even as the nineteenth century came to a close a return to biblical conservatism was forcing its way forward with discoveries such as that of the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire at Boghaz-Köy (Hattusha) along with more than 10,000 clay tablets chronicling its prodigious civilization! No longer were the Hittites a non-existent race nor were there grounds for excising the Patriarchs from plausibility as being equally historical. There also emerged from ancient Egypt a set of cosmetic tablets depicting King Narmer of the first dynasty (3100 B.C.). On one of the tablets the image of the king is revealed holding writing tablets, confirming that this first of Egypt’s dynastic pharaoh’s was literate. And since Moses had been educated in "all the learning of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22), he must have also been well versed in this scribal skill.
Then at the mid-point of the century came the monumental discovery in caves along the shores of the Dead Sea of biblical and Jewish sectarian manuscripts. Analysis of the sectarian documents from the area of Qumran (dated from 152 B.C. to A.D.68) brought to light numerous parallels with vocabulary and theological viewpoints in the Newer Testament. This comparison argued not only for a first century date of composition for the Newer Testament, but also for its Jewish authorship. As a result the Gospel of John, formerly showcased by scholars as an expression of Gentile syncretism, was re-classified as the most Jewish of the Gospels! Finally, with the establishment of the State of Israel and a new generation of Israeli archaeologists, evidence of the Jewish past in the Holy Land was increasingly being unearthed. Following the lead of such pioneering figures as Yigael Yadin, who boasted that he went into the field "with a spade in one hand and a Bible in the other," Israelis paraded before a watching world the rock witness of their biblical heritage. Accordingly, the twentieth century closed with major newsmagazines touting in cover stories the discoveries of the century as having offered archaeological confirmation of the Bible. Jack Cottrell represented this optimism by stating: "Through the wealth of data uncovered by historical and archaeological research, we are able to measure the Bible’s historical accuracy. In every case where its claims can be thus tested, the Bible proves to be accurate and reliable."

Even as the old century faded and the hopes of a new millennium filled the horizon, the pendulum has began to swing back with a postmodern momentum to again challenge the legitimacy of the Bible. Postmodernism, as a rebellion against western cultural tradition, influenced biblical revisionists to deconstruct the text of the Bible and biblical archaeologists to abandon the interpretations of the material culture made by their predecessors. Ironically, the leaders of this new revolution against traditional interpretation are Israelis; secular Jews who generally have grown up waging an academic war against religious Jews. For them the Bible is a literary tradition produced by an elitist group of religious Jews (usually thought to have written after the Babylonian exile) for propagandistic purposes, not an account of the actual history of the Jewish People. Therefore, rejecting Yadin’s notion that the Bible could direct archaeological discovery and that archaeological discovery could collaborate the Bible, these proponents of the "new archaeology" have sought to separate the term "biblical" from "archaeology." Prioritizing the archaeological evidence, they disdain any attempt to interpret archaeological discoveries (whether past or present) by the biblical text and dismiss the idea of an early Israel (at least before the ninth century B.C.) as literary fiction.

One leader of this group of "new archaeologists," known as biblical "minimalists" because of their belief that the biblical accounts of early Israel lack a basis in history, is Israel Finkelstein, (this is the guy who was interviewed extensively on the Compass program.....Snookerdirector of Tel-Aviv University’s Institute of Archaeology. He illustrates the minimalist’s position when he says: "There is no archaeological evidence to support some of the Bible’s most popular stories, including the Exodus, the wanderings in Sinai and Joshua’s conquest of Canaan. The ancient Israelites evolved from the local Bronze Age Canaanite civilization; there was no brutal military invasion." Moreover, he argues that "King David,” who made Jerusalem Israel’s capital and from whose lineage the Messiah is expected to rule over a restored Nation, "has no historical support;" King David as an important leader who united the kingdoms of Judah and Israel "is fantasy"; “there is virtually no archaeological evidence that the united kingdom of David and Solomon ever existed. David’s Jerusalem,” he argues, was "a poor, miserable village," and that there exists no archaeological evidence for Solomon’s Temple.

I well remember my first experience with the minimalist’s perspective when as a student at the Hebrew University my professor in a course on the history of early Israel declared: "Abraham never existed!" How, I wondered, could this professor as a Jew and a Zionist make such a statement when the Abrahamic Covenant remains the only historical basis for Israel as the promised Jewish homeland? With this same thought in view, the Palestinian Authority has recently capitalized on the minimalist’s contention that there is no archaeological support for the kingdoms of David and Solomon. They use this as proof to argue against the Jewish claim to the Holy Land. Despite the abundant evidence that ancient and modern Jews were one people and historically rooted in the Land of Israel, those such as Moain Sadek, the Palestinian Authority’s director of antiquities, have cited these Israeli archaeologists in supporting the Palestinian position that the Jews as late-comers to the land sought to displace their Palestinian (Philistine or Canaanite) ancestors who had already been there for thousands of years. The minimalists have especially strengthened the Palestinians claim in their political struggle for Jerusalem by espousing the notion that the city was never Jewish and that no Jewish Temple ever stood on the Haram es-Sharif (the name the Muslims use for the Temple Mount). Therefore, in this present case, the de-legitimizing of the Bible has repercussions beyond the religious realm threatening the very survival of the Jewish State. What can be said about these modern assaults on the Bible’s legitimacy? Is it valid to use archaeology in support of the historicity of the Bible and if so, is this record a witness for or against the accuracy of the text?

While archaeology is of great help to our understanding the Bible, the biblical evidence in the text must be given priority over the archaeological evidence from the field. The reason for this is the inherent limitations of archaeology. The primary limitation of archaeology is the extremely fragmentary nature of the archaeological evidence. Only a fraction of what is made or what is written survives. Most of the great Near Eastern archives were destroyed in antiquity through wars, looters, natural disasters or the ravages of time. To this we must add the limitation that less than 2% of sites in Israel have been excavated and hundreds more will never be excavated due to lack of access or resources and destruction through building projects, military maneuvers, and pillaging by Bedouins. Even when this small percentage of sites are excavated, only a fraction of the site is actually examined, and then only a percentage of what is excavated is ever published. Of the 500,000 cuneiform texts that are known to have been discovered over the past 100 years, only 10% have ever been published.

Such limitations in archaeology should caution historians, social scientists, and theologians from drawing unwarranted conclusions concerning the biblical text based on the paucity of archaeological remains. However, once we assess the proper purpose of archaeology and acknowledge its limitations, we can successfully compare its material evidence to the biblical record. Even so, it must be remembered that the Bible itself is an archaeological document and while we have only a limited number of archaeological artifacts from the biblical period, the Bible represents the most complete literary record we possess of these times. For this reason it is improper to elevate archaeological data above the biblical text to challenge the latter’s integrity. However, while the Bible is a completed revelation it is not an exhaustive one. Though its message can be readily understood in any age, it is still selective in its statements and set in ancient contexts. Therefore, despite its limitations, archaeology as a handmaiden to the Bible can enlarge the scope of its statements and make its context more understandable. But what are we to say concerning the minimalists claims that there exists no evidence of an early Israel?

As a general rule, the further back one goes in the archaeological record (and especially in the Land of Israel) the fewer material evidences they are able to recover. Therefore, our evidence of the material culture during the time of Israel’s prophets (9th-5th centuries B.C.) is good, while our evidence for earlier periods, such as that of King David and Solomon (the 10th century B.C.), is quite poor.

There are several reasons for this, especially in the case of Jerusalem.

First, there has not been extensive enough excavation in the areas that would contain the remains for these periods. In Jerusalem most sites are compromised by political disputes or covered by later buildings. The royal and religious buildings from this period are most likely to be found beneath the Temple Mount, however penetration of this site for archaeological purposes is politically impossible. In the Ophel lies the unexcavated site of King David’s palace, untouchable today because an Arab building covers it.

Second, court documents archived from this period were most likely destroyed in the Babylonian invasion or perhaps were written on poorer quality materials that were not preserved.

Third, later dwellers removed earlier 10th century structures to establish their own. In many Late Bronze and Iron Age sites (1550 B.C. – 586 B.C.) later Roman and Byzantine inhabitants cleared away all previous remains before rebuilding. We find this in the case of Jerusalem which was built on terraces and bedrock so that each succeeding city destroyed what was underneath to set its new foundations on bedrock while reusing the stones from the previous buildings. Nevertheless, despite such problems, there is sufficient evidence from this period to justify accepting the biblical accounts of David and Solomon as historical.

The Amarna letters (records of correspondence between the king of Jerusalem and the Egyptian pharaoh found in Amarna, Egypt) show that in the 14th century B.C. Jerusalem was a capital city ruling over considerable territory with a palace, a court with attendants, scribes, servants, and a temple in which the king served as head of state. Based on these diplomatic letters we know the status of Jerusalem, even though there are scarcely any remains from this period.

Therefore, as with the later 10th century Israelite beginnings in the city, the absence of evidence does not mean the evidence of absence. However, evidence supporting the emergence of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon in the 10th century B.C. may be attested in the Israelite town discovered at Tel Rehov in the Beth-SheanValley. In addition, in David and Solomon capital of Jerusalem, Israeli archaeologist Yigal Shiloh found a few walls that can be dated to this period as did British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon some two decades earlier. On the eastern ridge of the City of David a Stepped-Stone Structure (originally some 90 feet tall) was also uncovered which most likely dates to this period.

There are some Hebrew inscriptions that date from this period, such as the Gezer Calander, but by far the most significant is an inscription that bears a direct reference to the Davidic dynasty! In 1993-94 at the northern site of Tel Dan, in a wall constructed in the 9th or 8th century B.C. at the ancient entrance to the city, several fragments of a monumental stele inscribed in Aramaic were discovered. Apparently erected as a war memorial by Ben Hadad, king of Damascus, who gained a victory over the Israelis about 150 years after the time of King David. What was especially exciting was the mention in this inscription that he had defeated a "king of Israel of the House of David!" The king of Israel that is referred to is Jehoram the son of Ahab, while the king of the House of David [Judah] is Ahaziahu [Ahaziah]. Here then is an extra-biblical reference to personages of which the Bible speaks (2 Kings 8:7-15; 9:6-10). Based on the revelation of this Aramaic text, the French scholar André LeMaire was able to identify the reading of the name "David" in a formerly unreadable line "House of D …" on the 9th century B.C. Mesha Stele from Moab. The implication of these texts is clear: if there was a "house of David" there must have been a "David" to have a house! In addition, the many geographical and cultural details in the life of David can be supported by archaeological discovery. While this does not necessarily validate the existence of David. It makes more plausible the belief that a David existed who made the various conquests and alliances, rather than other explanations of the Jewish occupation of Jerusalem and the expansion of the Israelite kingdom during this period.

As to King Solomon, there are major archaeological sites that have been discovered in Jerusalem and throughout Israel that are associated with Solomon of the Bible. In particular, the sites of Gezer, Hazor, and Megiddo are stated in the Bible to have been chariot cities fortified by Solomon (1 Kings 9:15, 19). Excavations at these sites (some still in progress) have uncovered massive walls, gate systems, water-tunnels, silos, and storehouses all bearing the style of royal monumental architecture. Minimalists contend that these structures belong to the period of the later Judean king Ahab, although the original excavator’s verdict was for Solomon (and at present the final verdict has not yet been decided). Even if the archaeological record has not yet produced direct evidence for Solomon, it has indirectly given confirmation of his historical accomplishments. For example, Solomon can be found in the fact that archaeological remains evidence the First Temple attributed to him. While structural remains of the First Temple may never be found due to the extensive nature of King Herod’s rebuilding of the Second Temple on the same site, buildings from the First Temple period have been discovered in the area south of the Temple platform known as the Ophel. The particular design of the Solomonic Temple, as given in the Bible (1 Kings 6:2-17) is a style that appears to have been derived from the long-room temple type common in Syria from the second millennium B.C.4. The best archaeological examples discovered are long-room tripartite temples at ‘Ain Dara in Syria (excavated in the 1930's by the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute) and Tel Tainat (in the Amuq Valley at the northern Orontes). These examples confirm that the biblical description of the First Temple agrees with historical models of the time, and fits the architectural design expected for a building engineered by Phoenician artisans (2 Chronicles 2:13-14). In addition, 10th century inscriptions have come to light that mention the First Temple. One is a small ivory object carved in the shape of a pomegranate. On it is an inscription using the well-known biblical phrase "the house of the Lord." It has been identified as scepter head that once topped a staff and that it most likely belonged to a priest who officiated in the First Temple. A second inscription mentioning "the house of the Lord" was discovered on an ostracon (a broken piece of pottery used for writing). Most likely it served as a receipt for a donation given at the Temple. In addition, the extensive use of large quantities of gold in the ancient world accords with the descriptions of Solomon’s use of gold in the 10th-century B.C. in adornment for the Temple (1 Kings 6:15, 21-22, 28-30) and other items in his royal Palace and the house of the Forest of Lebanon (1 Kings 10:16-21).5 The biblical figure of 666 talents of gold (US 25 tons) reported for Solomon (1 Kings 10:14) is not extraordinary by comparison with the 7,000 tons found by Alexander the Great in Persia (1,180 in Susa alone). Egyptian hieroglyphic texts further record a gift by Pharaoh Osorkon I to his gods of 383 tons of gold and silver during the years of 924-921 B.C.6 This places Osorkon’s gift in the period immediately following the death of Solomon. Evidence of gold-plated temples exists from Assyria, Babylon, and Egypt (where also gold-plated furniture is well-attested), while golden shields like those described for the house of the Forest of Lebanon have appeared in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, Ras Shamra (Ugarit), and in cuneiform lists of conquered items during the Assyrian monarch Sargon II. Such details reveal that the biblical account of Solomon, like that of his father David, are historically accurate to the time and place of writing.

Similar support for contested events such as Joshua’s Conquest of Canaan has also emerged in the last few years. At the northern site of Tel Hazor evidence of intense burning (over 2,350 degrees Fahrenheit) has been revealed from the recently excavated Canaanite occupation level which accords with the biblical record that it was one of three cities so destroyed by the Israelites under Joshua (Joshua 11:10-14). But could not someone else have burned the city other than the Israelites? Only four groups active at the time could have destroyed Hazor: (1) one of the Sea Peoples, such as the Philistines, (2) a rival Canaanite city, (3) the Egyptians or (4) the early Israelites. The Sea Peoples as maritime traders were concerned with controlling the coastal plain and therefore Hazor located in the Golan Heights was of no interest. In the hundreds of thousands of potsherds recovered from Hazor not a single one can be attributed to this culture. Furthermore, excavations of the destruction level uncovered numerous mutilated statutes of Canaanite and Egyptian origin. There is no historical precedence of a conquering army desecrating statuary images of its own kings and gods. That leaves us with only the Israelites. Therefore, weighing all of these historical candidates, Amnon Ben-Tor, director of Hazor excavations, concludes: "Forty years ago, Yadin ironically observed that for scholars, who are sometimes adverse to substantiating the Bible, ‘Everyone is a potential destroyer of Hazor, even if not mentioned in any document, except those specifically mentioned in the Bible as having done so.’ We agree with Yadin. Our excavations at Hazor seem to indicate that the Israelites … may be considered guilty of Hazor’s destruction …"7 If, therefore, the biblical account of the destruction of Hazor is accurate, should not the Bible’s declaration of the burning of Jericho by Joshua and the Israelites during this same period (Joshua 6:20-21) be likewise reckoned as historical (even if the archaeological evidence is still being debated)?

As the 21st century unfolds I believe that we will see much greater confirmations of the Bible from the archaeological remains than we have seen from the previous two centuries combined. We have the technology with ground-penetrating radar to make discoveries even before we dig, and if in the days to come Israel gains access to previously politically sensitive areas for excavation the secrets of the Temple Mount itself may be disclosed. Nevertheless, the lines of evidence, which we have already presented, demonstrate the historical reliability of the Bible and defend its legitimacy as the Word of God for yet another generation of believers. Thus, as Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, the renown British classical scholar and director of the British Museum, said in summing up the evidence for the Bible: "The Christian can take the whole Bible in his hand and say without fear or hesitation that he holds in it the true Word of God, handed down without essential loss from generation to generation throughout the centuries."