Religions > Atheism > Re: GOD, NOAH, MOSES, CAPTIVITY, EXOSUS, CONQUEST ARE MYTHS
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Religions > Atheism |
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"THE MOCKER" |
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16 Sep 2003 02:45:44 PM |
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Re: GOD, NOAH, MOSES, CAPTIVITY, EXOSUS, CONQUEST ARE MYTHS |
(From Ha'aretz Magazine, Friday, October 29, 1999)
Deconstructing Jericho
By Ze'ev Herzog
Prof. Ze'ev Herzog teaches in the Department
of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
at Tel Aviv University. He took part in the
excavations of Hazor and Megiddo with Yigael
Yadin and in the digs at Tel Arad and Tel Be'er
Sheva with Yohanan Aharoni. He has conducted
digs at Tel Michal and Tel Gerisa and has
recently begun digging at Tel Yaffo. He is
the author of books on the city gate in Palestine
and its neighbors and on two excavations, and
has written a book summing up the archaeology
of the ancient city.
-----
Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel,
archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs' acts are legendary
stories, we did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, we did not
conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David
and Solomon. Those who take an interest have known these facts for
years, but Israel is a stubborn people and doesn't want to hear about it
This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the
Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in
the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not
pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is
that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the
Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it
will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, YHWH,
had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted
monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount
Sinai.
Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking
spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish
people=97and who once went into the field looking for proof to
corroborate the Bible story=97now agree that the historic events
relating to the stages of the Jewish people's emergence are radically
different from what that story tells.
What follows is a short account of the brief history of archaeology,
with the emphasis on the crises and the big bang, so to speak, of the
past decade. The critical question of this archaeological revolution has
not yet trickled down into public consciousness, but it cannot be
ignored.
Inventing the Bible Stories
The archaeology of Palestine developed as a science at a relatively late
date, in the late 19th and early 20th century, in tandem with the
archaeology of the imperial cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and
Rome. Those resource-intensive powers were the first target of the
researchers, who were looking for impressive evidence from the past,
usually in the service of the big museums in London, Paris and Berlin.
That stage effectively passed over Palestine, with its fragmented
geographical diversity. The conditions in ancient Palestine were
inhospitable for the development of an extensive kingdom, and certainly
no showcase projects such as the Egyptian shrines or the Mesopotamian
palaces could have been established there. In fact, the archaeology of
Palestine was not engendered at the initiative of museums but arose from
religious motives.
The main push behind archaeological research in Palestine was the
country's relationship with the Holy Scriptures. The first excavators in
Jericho and Shechem (Nablus) were biblical researchers who were looking
for the remains of the cities cited in the Bible. Archaeology assumed
momentum with the activity of William Foxwell Albright, who mastered the
archaeology, history and languagess of the Land of Israel and the
ancient Near East. Albright, an American whose father was a priest of
Chilean descent, began excavating in Palestine in the 1920's. His stated
approach was that archaeology was the principal scientific means to
refute the critical claims against the historical veracity of the Bible
stories, particularly those of the Wellhausen school in Germany.
The school of biblical criticism that developed in Germany beginning in
the second half of the 19th century, of which Julius Wellhausen was a
leading figure, challenged the historicity of the Bible stories and
claimed that biblical historiography was formulated, and in large
measure actually 'invented', during the Babylonian exile. Bible
scholars, the Germans in particular, claimed that the history of the
Hebrews, as a consecutive series of events beginning with Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and proceeding through the passage to Egypt, the
enslavement and the exodus, and ending with the conquest of the land and
the settlement of the tribes of Israel, was no more than a later
reconstruction of events with a theological purpose.
Albright believed that the Bible is a historical document, which,
although it had gone through several editing stages, nevertheless
basically reflected the ancient reality. He was convinced that if the
ancient remains of Palestine were uncovered, they would furnish
unequivocal proof of the historical truth of the events relating to the
Jewish people in its land.
The biblical archaeology that developed following Albright and his
pupils brought about a series of extensive digs at the important
biblical tells: Megiddo, Lachish, Gezer, Shechem (Nablus), Jericho,
Jerusalem, Ai, Giveon, Beit She'an, Beit Shemesh, Hazor, Ta'anach and
others. The way was straight and clear: every new finding contributed to
the building of a harmonious picture of the past.
The archaeologists, who enthusiastically adopted the biblical approach,
set out on a quest to unearth the 'biblical period': the period of the
patriarchs, the Canaanite cities that were destroyed by the Israelites
as they conquered the land, the boundaries of the 12 tribes, the sites
of the settlement period, characterized by 'settlement pottery', the
'gates of Solomon' at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, 'Solomon's stables' (or
Ahab's), 'King Solomon's mines' at Timna=97and there are some who are
still hard at work and have found Mount Sinai (at Mount Karkoum in the
Negev) or Joshua's altar at Mount Ebal.
The Crisis
Slowly, cracks began to appear in the picture. Paradoxically, a
situation was created in which the glut of findings began to undermine
the historical credibility of the biblical descriptions instead of
reinforcing them. A crisis stage is reached when the theories within the
framework of the general thesis are unable to solve an increasingly
large number of anomalies.
The explanations become ponderous and inelegant, and the pieces do not
fit together smoothly. Here are a few examples of how the harmonious
picture collapsed.
Patriarchal Age:
The researchers found it difficult to reach agreement on which
archaeological period matched the Patriarchal Age. When did Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob live? When was the Cave of Machpelah (Tomb of the
Patriarchs in Hebron) bought in order to serve as the burial place for
the patriarchs and the matriarchs? According to the biblical chronology,
Solomon built the Temple 480 years after the exodus from Egypt (1 Kings
6:1).
To that we have to add 430 years of the stay in Egypt (Exodus 12:40) and
the vast lifetimes of the patriarchs, producing a date in the 21st
century BCE for Abraham's move to Canaan. However, no evidence has been
unearthed that can sustain this chronology. Albright argued in the early
1960s in favor of assigning the wanderings of Abraham to the Middle
Bronze Age (22nd -20th centuries BCE). However, Benjamin Mazar, the
father of the Israeli branch of biblical archaeology, proposed
identifying the historic background of the Patriarchal Age a thousand
years later, in the 11th century BCE=97which would place it in the
'settlement period'. Others rejected the historicity of the stories and
viewed them as ancestral legends that were told in the period of the
Kingdom of Judea. In any event, the consensus began to break down.
The Exodus from Egypt, the wanderings in the desert and Mount Sinai:
The many Egyptian documents that we have make no mention of the
Israelites' presence in Egypt and are also silent about the events of
the Exodus. Many documents do mention the custom of nomadic shepherds to
enter Egypt during periods of drought and hunger and to camp at the
edges of the Nile Delta. However, this was not a solitary phenomenon:
such events occurred frequently over thousands of years and were hardly
exceptional. Generations of researchers tried to locate Mount Sinai and
the encampments of the tribes in the desert. Despite these intensive
efforts, not even one site has been found that can match the biblical
account.
The power of tradition has now led some researchers to 'discover' Mount
Sinai in the northern Hijaz or, as already mentioned, at Mount Karkoum
in the Negev. The central events in the history of the Israelites are
not corroborated in documents external to the Bible or in archaeological
findings. Most historians today agree that at best, the stay in Egypt
and the exodus events occurred among a few families and that their
private story was expanded and 'nationalized' to fit the needs of
theological ideology.
The conquest:
One of the formative events of the people of Israel in biblical
historiography is the story of how the land was conquered from the
Canaanites. Yet extremely serious difficulties have cropped up precisely
in the attempts to locate the archaeological evidence for this story.
Repeated excavations by various expeditions at Jericho and Ai, the two
cities whose conquest is described in the greatest detail in the Book of
Joshua, have proved very disappointing. Despite the excavators' efforts,
it emerged that in the late part of the 13th century BCE, at the end of
the Late Bronze Age, which is the agreed period for the conquest, there
were no cities in either tell, and of course no walls that could have
been toppled.
Naturally, explanations were offered for these anomalies. Some claimed
that the walls around Jericho were washed away by rain, while others
suggested that earlier walls had been used; and, as for Ai, it was
claimed that the original story actually referred to the conquest of
nearby Beit El and was transferred to Ai by later redactors.
Biblical scholars suggested a quarter of a century ago that the conquest
stories be viewed as etiological legends and no more. But as more and
more sites were uncovered and it emerged that the places in question
died out or were simply abandoned at different times, the conclusion
that there is no factual basis for the biblical story about the conquest
by Israelite tribes in a military campaign led by Joshua was bolstered.
The Canaanite cities:
The Bible magnifies the strength and the fortifications of the Canaanite
cities that were conquered by the Israelites: 'great cities with walls
sky-high' (Deuteronomy 9:1). In practice, all the sites that have been
uncovered turned up remains of unfortified settlements, which in most
cases consisted of a few structures or the ruler's palace rather than a
genuine city. The urban culture of Palestine in the Late Bronze Age
disintegrated in a process that lasted hundreds of years and did not
stem from military conquest.
Moreover, the biblical description is unfamiliar with the geopolitical
reality in Palestine. Palestine was under Egyptian rule until the middle
of the 12th century BCE. The Egyptians' administrative centers were
located in Gaza, Yaffo and Beit She'an. Egyptian presence has also been
discovered in many locations on both sides of the Jordan River. This
striking presence is not mentioned in the biblical account, and it is
clear that it was unknown to the author and his editors.
The archaeological findings blatantly contradict the biblical picture:
the Canaanite cities were not 'great,' were not fortified and did not
have 'sky-high walls.' The heroism of the conquerors, the few versus the
many and the assistance of the God who fought for his people are a
theological reconstruction lacking any factual basis.
Origin of the Israelites:
The conclusions drawn from episodes in the emergence of the people of
Israel in stages, taken together, gave rise to a discussion of the
bedrock question: the identity of the Israelites. If there is no
evidence for the exodus from Egypt and the desert journey, and if the
story of the military conquest of fortified cities has been refuted by
archaeology, who, then, were these Israelites? The archaeological
findings did corroborate one important fact: in the early Iron Age
(beginning some time after 1200 BCE), the stage that is identified with
the 'settlement period', hundreds of small settlements were established
in the area of the central hill region of the Land of Israel, inhabited
by farmers who worked the land or raised sheep. If they did not come
from Egypt, what is the origin of these settlers?
Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, has
proposed that these settlers were the pastoral shepherds who wandered in
this hill area throughout the Late Bronze Age (graves of these people
have been found, without settlements). According to his reconstruction,
in the Late Bronze Age (which preceded the Iron Age) the shepherds
maintained a barter economy of meat in exchange for grains with the
inhabitants of the valleys. With the disintegration of the urban and
agricultural system in the lowlands, the nomads were forced to produce
their own grains, and hence the incentive for stable settlements.
The name 'Israel' is mentioned in a single Egyptian document from the
period of Merneptah, king of Egypt, dating from 1208 BCE: 'Plundered is
Canaan with every evil, Ascalon is taken, Gezer is seized, Yenoam has
become as though it never was, Israel is desolated, its seed is not.'
Merneptah refers to the country by its Canaanite name and mentions
several cities of the kingdom, along with a non-urban ethnic group.
According to this evidence, the term 'Israel' was given to one of the
population groups that resided in Canaan toward the end of the Late
Bronze Age, apparently in the central hill region, in the area where the
Kingdom of Israel would later be established.
A Kingdom With No Name
The united monarchy:
Archaeology was also the source that brought about a shift regarding the
reconstruction of the reality in the period known as the 'united
monarchy' of David and Solomon. The Bible describes this period as the
zenith of the political, military and economic power of the people of
Israel in ancient times. In the wake of David's conquests, the empire of
David and Solomon stretched from the Euphrates River to Gaza ('For he
controlled the whole region west of the Euphrates, from Tiphsah to Gaza,
all the kings west of the Euphrates,' 1 Kings 5:4). The archaeological
findings at many sites show that the construction projects attributed to
this period were meager in scope and power.
The three cities of Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, which are mentioned among
Solomon's construction enterprises, have been excavated extensively at
the appropriate layers. Only about half of Hazor's upper city was
fortified, covering an area of only 30 dunams (7.5 acres), out of a
total area of 700 dunams which was settled in the Bronze Age. At Gezer
there was apparently only a citadel surrounded by a casemate wall
covering a small area, while Megiddo was not fortified with a wall. The
picture becomes even more complicated in the light of the excavations
conducted in Jerusalem, the capital of the united monarchy.
Large sections of the city have been excavated over the past 150 years.
The digs have turned up impressive remnants of the cities from the
Middle Bronze Age and from Iron Age II ( the period of the Kingdom of
Judea). No remains of buildings have been found from the period of the
united monarchy (even according to the agreed chronology), only a few
pottery shards. Given the preservation of the remains from earlier and
later periods, it is clear that Jerusalem in the time of David and
Solomon was a small city, perhaps with a small citadel for the king, but
in any event it was not the capital of an empire as described in the
Bible. This small chiefdom is the source of the title 'Beth David'
mentioned in later Aramean and Moabite inscriptions. The authors of the
biblical account knew Jerusalem in the 8th century BCE, with its wall
and the rich culture of which remains have been found in various parts
of the city, and projected this picture back to the age of the united
monarchy. Presumably, Jerusalem acquired its central status after the
destruction of Samaria, its northern rival, in 722 BCE.
The archaeological findings dovetail well with the conclusions of the
critical school of biblical scholarship. David and Solomon were the
rulers of tribal kingdoms that controlled small areas: the former in
Hebron and the latter in Jerusalem.
Concurrently, a separate kingdom began to form in the Samaria hills,
which finds expression in the stories about Saul's kingdom. Israel and
Judea were from the outset two separate, independent kingdoms, and at
times were in an adversarial relationship. Thus, the great united
monarchy is an imaginary historiosophic creation, which was composed
during the period of the Kingdom of Judea at the earliest. Perhaps the
most decisive proof of this is that we do not know the name of this
kingdom.
YHWH and his Consort
How many gods, exactly, did Israel have?
Together with the historical and political aspects, there are also
doubts as to the credibility of the information about belief and
worship. The question about the date at which monotheism was adopted by
the kingdoms of Israel and Judea arose with the discovery of
inscriptions in ancient Hebrew that mention a pair of gods: YHWH and his
Asherath. At two sites, Kuntilet Ajrud in the southwestern part of the
Negev hill region, and Khirbet el-Kom in the Judea piedmont, Hebrew
inscriptions have been found that mention 'YHWH and his Asherah', 'YHWH
Shomron and his Asherah', 'YHWH Teman and his Asherah'. The authors were
familiar with a pair of gods, YHWH and his consort Asherah, and send
blessings in the couple's name.
These inscriptions, from the 8th century BCE, raise the possibility that
monotheism, as a state religion, is actually an innovation of the period
of the Kingdom of Judea, following the destruction of the Kingdom of
Israel.
The archaeology of the Land of Israel is completing a process that
amounts to a scientific revolution in its field. It is ready to confront
the findings of biblical scholarship and of ancient history as an equal
discipline. But at the same time, we are witnessing a fascinating
phenomenon in that all this is simply ignored by the Israeli public.
Many of the findings mentioned here have been known for decades. The
professional literature in the spheres of archaeology, Bible and the
history of the Jewish people has addressed them in dozens of books and
hundreds of articles. Even if not all the scholars accept the individual
arguments that inform the examples I have cited, the majority have
adopted their main points. Nevertheless, these revolutionary views are
not penetrating the public consciousness. About a year ago, my
colleague, the historian Prof. Nadav Ne'eman, published an article in
the Culture and Literature section of Ha'aretz entitled 'To Remove the
Bible from the Jewish Bookshelf', but there was no public outcry. Any
attempt to question the reliability of the biblical descriptions is
perceived as an attempt to undermine 'our historic right to the land'
and as a shattering of the myth of the nation that is renewing the
ancient Kingdom of Israel. These symbolic elements constitute such a
critical component of the construction of the Israeli identity that any
attempt to call their veracity into question encounters hostility or
silence.
It is of some interest that such tendencies within the Israeli secular
society go hand-in-hand with the outlook among educated Christian
groups. I have found a similar hostility in reaction to lectures I have
delivered abroad to groups of Christian Bible lovers, though what upset
them was the challenge to the foundations of their fundamentalist
religious belief.
It turns out that part of Israeli society is ready to recognize the
injustice that was done to the Arab inhabitants of the country and is
willing to accept the principle of equal rights for women - but is not
up to adopting the archaeological facts that shatter the biblical myth.
The blow to the mythical foundations of the Israeli identity is
apparently too threatening, and it is more convenient to turn a blind
eye.
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