Archeology and the Evidence for Judea
David and Soloman
Israel Finklestein & Neil Asher Silberman
Free Press 2006
I finished a book several months ago that investigated the archeological evidence of King David, his son Solomon and the state of Judea in the first millennium BCE. The author explores the time period that is said to be reflected in the Old Testament stories of the Davidic dynasty when Judea and Israel were joined in a united kingdom. As the first great trading empires rose and fell, the fortunes of these lands of the Jordan rose and fell. It is significant to recognize that the first global trade flowed not from the Far East to Europe but from Africa to the Euphrates river valley. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persians were all regional powers interested in trade and controlling as much of it as possible. The author presents a people and society caught between the growth and recession of the first great empires of the human race.
The introduction to the book is phrased like the topic sentence of a term paper or the thesis statement for a PhD candidate. It is the author’s intention to dispel the conception that there is anything in the story of King David that reflects literal truth. He uses the evidence found in numerous archeological digs to tell it’s own story and then compares the society and peoples described by the artifacts to the peoples and society describes in the biblical stories. Personally, the dust jacket declaration of this intention was the reason that I bought the book. I’m one of those irreverent souls that believe that for anything in the bible to be taken as literal truth, there needs to be at least an inkling of supporting evidence in the archeological record. This position has nothing to do with the faith portion of Judaism; I simply want to understand what the situation on the ground actually was. I’m pretty sure it smelled really bad and you don’t get that impression from the Old Testament read.
The book gives a description of life in tenth century Judea as one of instability and illiteracy. The main centers of population and commerce are near the coast lines or clustered near other arable lands with large areas of sparsely populated lawlessness in between. These Judean highlands appear similar to western Afghanistan and the mountain tribes that inhabit them. David rises from one of these highland bandits to become some kind of tribal chieftain. The conclusions that the author draw of life during this time are rather stark. Life is short, cruel and harsh. David is mythologized in the verbal histories that predated literacy amongst the Judean people as the bandit with the golden heart. He did battle against those that would harm his people and shared the bounty of his conquests. The archeology seems to paint a picture of a much less dynamic individual on a smaller playing field. These were time of growth and change on a larger scale. There were many great historical empires on the rise as well as a few on the wane. Trade on commerce was on the rise as was the population in the region. As these various empires grew and confronted each other, many of the peoples once outside their domain were brought under their domain and forced to choose allegiances. I’m a little jaded in my response to these stories. There are always the isolated mountain folk that come into contact with the sophisticated costal civilizations with the usual consequences. There’s an irritant introduced between the two that causes a conflict that leads to the eventual dominance of the highland jug-heads over the costal dandies. It appears that the origins of the House of David are something along these lines. The region commonly referred to as Judea was a region of no strategic or commercial value until the major empires in the region grew large enough and strong enough to warrant expansion. Trade routes and settlements spread inland towards the more inhospitable areas as these opposing forces competed for more efficient means to expand their empire. It was in this climate that the kingdom of Judea arose. David was the tribal chieftain in the south that confronted and conquered the corrupt Saul, king of the prosperous community in the north. From these humble beginnings came the basis for the biblical story of the Davidic dynasty. A story so over-told and referenced as to have become, in my mind at least, the epitome of cliché. It transcends time and space to have become threads within the fabric of our society, sequence chains in our DNA. Referenced and imaged and retold and reinterpreted so many times that any freshness or originality or wonder contained in the original text has been so thoroughly scrubbed from the reading that nothing, nothing, nothing can convince me that anything about the rise and fall of the House of David is relevant or true, let alone worthy of the moniker holy scripture. An incredibly harsh statement? Certainly, but it seemed to pour out of me in a rush. The trigger was that I’ve never sat down and read the story. I know the story though. I also know that any biblical scholar will correct me in not understanding the nuances and subtle messages contained in the original story, its clear and universal message that has and will sustain the test of time. Which is the crux of my argument; we’ve built an entire civilization based on the moral conduct and character portrayed in the Old Testament stories! Our history for the last two thousand years has been shaped and steered by the events described in the bible. Our courts, our governments, our culture have all been shaped by these histories and I don’t need to be reminded of the lessons that I to learn from reading them. Achieve enlightenment, understand the words, become one of us, drink the Kool-Aid. I’m for allowing the evidence to tell its own story.
After establishing a historic timeline from the archeological evidence, the author makes a clear argument that points at a historical figure that may be the origin of the Davidic lineage, but this person is far removed from the character described in the biblical histories. His conclusions concerning the kingdom of Judea are that while it was a thriving community, it was hardly a center of culture and knowledge and based on the evidence that the world described in the biblical story is an exaggeration of an oral tradition, a tale of King Arthur. It’s after he establishes this disparity between the archeological evidence and the tradition story that he embarks on a history of the story of the House of David and the story of the story turns out to be the basis of Judaism. I found this portion of the book rather interesting. I’ve never heard the whole story of the Jewish people, not the de Mille version, but the one that has some evidence to support it.
The story of the early Israelites is a description of the first period of empire and globalization and its consequences on a small group of highly literate people. The evidence supports that the Israelites existed in the Judean region and were conquered and dragged back to Babylon and then freed by Cyrus the Great of Persia. They returned to the highlands of Judea and built the temple that was subsequently destroyed by the Romans. This story strikes me as similar to many others in the ancient world. I could start waning cynically as I did above, but I did divine something original in the story of the Israelites. They appear to have jumped conceptually after they’re return from exile.
The story of the House of David occurred before the exile during what might be considered the heydays of Jerusalem and the Israelite Kingdom. After the return from exile the Israelites were considered a client state of a larger empire, probably autonomous but not free. They tried on several occasions to fight themselves free but succeeded rarely. It was then that the scholars took charge of the community. It was the peoples asking of God what they had done so wrong. The House of David was the story of the creation of the peoples of Judea and the Old Testament was this record of what God expected of his chosen. Perhaps the societal evolution that occurred was the notion that there was a God beyond that which was present here on earth. There is emphasis on the notion of an omnipotent being that is responsible for handing down laws for which the community was bound to follow. After the Judean aristocracy was allowed to return to Judea, Davidic line perished and the institution of the priests assumed the role of King and Court. No royal family, but the stewards of the family who carried out the laws handed down by God. The usual theological drivel about why it is the Law of God and why everyone is bound to follow it, but in this instance it had a refreshing twist. The Judean tradition was something that was beyond anyone one person or anyone place. The driving force was the cooperation of the community under the auspices of the Temple for the purpose of sustaining and maintaining the Temple.
The book was good. There were two authors, both of which appear to have Jewish names. The writing and the documentation that they are basing their conclusions on seem sound and the tone they have isn’t one of malice. The subject and the conclusions are controversial by their nature and there was a small uproar upon its publication, nut not as loud as you might think. There wasn’t all that much interest in it by the larger public. No one is really interested in another claimant to proof that the bible is philosophy and fabrication, this fact is common knowledge. The Judean religion is based on tradition and not on fact, or so it appears to me. It also appears to me that everyone knows it. I end up a couple of months later not being able to recall many of the highlights of the book, nor many of the revelatory moments and I guess that its because it’s a universal story. All of us have been taught that the stories and laws contained in the Old Testament are not only central to our civilization but are critical to the existence of the entire human race and this is simply not true.
Not a single fact but every word of it is true.
Israel Finklestein & Neil Asher Silberman
Free Press 2006
I finished a book several months ago that investigated the archeological evidence of King David, his son Solomon and the state of Judea in the first millennium BCE. The author explores the time period that is said to be reflected in the Old Testament stories of the Davidic dynasty when Judea and Israel were joined in a united kingdom. As the first great trading empires rose and fell, the fortunes of these lands of the Jordan rose and fell. It is significant to recognize that the first global trade flowed not from the Far East to Europe but from Africa to the Euphrates river valley. The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Persians were all regional powers interested in trade and controlling as much of it as possible. The author presents a people and society caught between the growth and recession of the first great empires of the human race.
The introduction to the book is phrased like the topic sentence of a term paper or the thesis statement for a PhD candidate. It is the author’s intention to dispel the conception that there is anything in the story of King David that reflects literal truth. He uses the evidence found in numerous archeological digs to tell it’s own story and then compares the society and peoples described by the artifacts to the peoples and society describes in the biblical stories. Personally, the dust jacket declaration of this intention was the reason that I bought the book. I’m one of those irreverent souls that believe that for anything in the bible to be taken as literal truth, there needs to be at least an inkling of supporting evidence in the archeological record. This position has nothing to do with the faith portion of Judaism; I simply want to understand what the situation on the ground actually was. I’m pretty sure it smelled really bad and you don’t get that impression from the Old Testament read.
The book gives a description of life in tenth century Judea as one of instability and illiteracy. The main centers of population and commerce are near the coast lines or clustered near other arable lands with large areas of sparsely populated lawlessness in between. These Judean highlands appear similar to western Afghanistan and the mountain tribes that inhabit them. David rises from one of these highland bandits to become some kind of tribal chieftain. The conclusions that the author draw of life during this time are rather stark. Life is short, cruel and harsh. David is mythologized in the verbal histories that predated literacy amongst the Judean people as the bandit with the golden heart. He did battle against those that would harm his people and shared the bounty of his conquests. The archeology seems to paint a picture of a much less dynamic individual on a smaller playing field. These were time of growth and change on a larger scale. There were many great historical empires on the rise as well as a few on the wane. Trade on commerce was on the rise as was the population in the region. As these various empires grew and confronted each other, many of the peoples once outside their domain were brought under their domain and forced to choose allegiances. I’m a little jaded in my response to these stories. There are always the isolated mountain folk that come into contact with the sophisticated costal civilizations with the usual consequences. There’s an irritant introduced between the two that causes a conflict that leads to the eventual dominance of the highland jug-heads over the costal dandies. It appears that the origins of the House of David are something along these lines. The region commonly referred to as Judea was a region of no strategic or commercial value until the major empires in the region grew large enough and strong enough to warrant expansion. Trade routes and settlements spread inland towards the more inhospitable areas as these opposing forces competed for more efficient means to expand their empire. It was in this climate that the kingdom of Judea arose. David was the tribal chieftain in the south that confronted and conquered the corrupt Saul, king of the prosperous community in the north. From these humble beginnings came the basis for the biblical story of the Davidic dynasty. A story so over-told and referenced as to have become, in my mind at least, the epitome of cliché. It transcends time and space to have become threads within the fabric of our society, sequence chains in our DNA. Referenced and imaged and retold and reinterpreted so many times that any freshness or originality or wonder contained in the original text has been so thoroughly scrubbed from the reading that nothing, nothing, nothing can convince me that anything about the rise and fall of the House of David is relevant or true, let alone worthy of the moniker holy scripture. An incredibly harsh statement? Certainly, but it seemed to pour out of me in a rush. The trigger was that I’ve never sat down and read the story. I know the story though. I also know that any biblical scholar will correct me in not understanding the nuances and subtle messages contained in the original story, its clear and universal message that has and will sustain the test of time. Which is the crux of my argument; we’ve built an entire civilization based on the moral conduct and character portrayed in the Old Testament stories! Our history for the last two thousand years has been shaped and steered by the events described in the bible. Our courts, our governments, our culture have all been shaped by these histories and I don’t need to be reminded of the lessons that I to learn from reading them. Achieve enlightenment, understand the words, become one of us, drink the Kool-Aid. I’m for allowing the evidence to tell its own story.
After establishing a historic timeline from the archeological evidence, the author makes a clear argument that points at a historical figure that may be the origin of the Davidic lineage, but this person is far removed from the character described in the biblical histories. His conclusions concerning the kingdom of Judea are that while it was a thriving community, it was hardly a center of culture and knowledge and based on the evidence that the world described in the biblical story is an exaggeration of an oral tradition, a tale of King Arthur. It’s after he establishes this disparity between the archeological evidence and the tradition story that he embarks on a history of the story of the House of David and the story of the story turns out to be the basis of Judaism. I found this portion of the book rather interesting. I’ve never heard the whole story of the Jewish people, not the de Mille version, but the one that has some evidence to support it.
The story of the early Israelites is a description of the first period of empire and globalization and its consequences on a small group of highly literate people. The evidence supports that the Israelites existed in the Judean region and were conquered and dragged back to Babylon and then freed by Cyrus the Great of Persia. They returned to the highlands of Judea and built the temple that was subsequently destroyed by the Romans. This story strikes me as similar to many others in the ancient world. I could start waning cynically as I did above, but I did divine something original in the story of the Israelites. They appear to have jumped conceptually after they’re return from exile.
The story of the House of David occurred before the exile during what might be considered the heydays of Jerusalem and the Israelite Kingdom. After the return from exile the Israelites were considered a client state of a larger empire, probably autonomous but not free. They tried on several occasions to fight themselves free but succeeded rarely. It was then that the scholars took charge of the community. It was the peoples asking of God what they had done so wrong. The House of David was the story of the creation of the peoples of Judea and the Old Testament was this record of what God expected of his chosen. Perhaps the societal evolution that occurred was the notion that there was a God beyond that which was present here on earth. There is emphasis on the notion of an omnipotent being that is responsible for handing down laws for which the community was bound to follow. After the Judean aristocracy was allowed to return to Judea, Davidic line perished and the institution of the priests assumed the role of King and Court. No royal family, but the stewards of the family who carried out the laws handed down by God. The usual theological drivel about why it is the Law of God and why everyone is bound to follow it, but in this instance it had a refreshing twist. The Judean tradition was something that was beyond anyone one person or anyone place. The driving force was the cooperation of the community under the auspices of the Temple for the purpose of sustaining and maintaining the Temple.
The book was good. There were two authors, both of which appear to have Jewish names. The writing and the documentation that they are basing their conclusions on seem sound and the tone they have isn’t one of malice. The subject and the conclusions are controversial by their nature and there was a small uproar upon its publication, nut not as loud as you might think. There wasn’t all that much interest in it by the larger public. No one is really interested in another claimant to proof that the bible is philosophy and fabrication, this fact is common knowledge. The Judean religion is based on tradition and not on fact, or so it appears to me. It also appears to me that everyone knows it. I end up a couple of months later not being able to recall many of the highlights of the book, nor many of the revelatory moments and I guess that its because it’s a universal story. All of us have been taught that the stories and laws contained in the Old Testament are not only central to our civilization but are critical to the existence of the entire human race and this is simply not true.
Not a single fact but every word of it is true.