As I have have said in the distant past in this group, the more
Archeologists find, the more they will confirm the truth of the Bible.

These are tough times for Liberal nonbelievers.
Tony

Archeologist unearths biblical controversy

Iranian Cultural Heritage News Agency


Canadian archeologist Russell Adams's interest is in Bronze Age and
Iron Age copper production. He never intended to walk into
archeology's vicious debate over the historical accuracy of the Old
Testament -- a conflict likened by one historian to a pack of feral
canines at each other's throats.

Yet by coincidence, Prof. Adams of Hamilton's McMaster University
says, he and an international team of colleagues fit into place a
significant piece of the puzzle of human history in the Middle East --
unearthing information that points to the existence of the Bible's
vilified Kingdom of Edom at precisely the time

the Bible says it
existed, and contradicting widespread academic belief that it did not
come into being until 200 years later.

Their findings mean that those scholars convinced that the Hebrew Old
Testament is at best a compendium of revisionist, fragmented history,
mixed with folklore and theology, and at worst a piece of outright
propaganda, likely will have to apply the brakes to their thinking.

Because, if the little bit of the Old Testament's narrative that Prof.
Adams and his colleagues have looked at is true, other bits could be
true as well.

References to the Kingdom of Edom -- almost none of them complimentary
-- are woven through the Old Testament. It existed in what is today
southern Jordan, next door to Israel, and the relationship between the
biblical Edomites and Israelites was one of unrelenting hostility and
warfare.

The team led by Prof. Adams, Thomas Levy of the University of
California at San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of the Jordanian
Department of Antiquities was investigating copper mining and smelting
at a site called Khirbat en-Nahas, by far the largest
copper-production site in the region.

They applied high-precision radiocarbon-dating methods to some of
their finds, and as they say in the British journal Antiquities, "The
results were spectacular."

They firmly established that occupation of the site began in the 11th
century BC and a monumental fortress was built in the 10th century BC,
supporting the argument for existence of an Edomite state at least 200
years earlier than had been assumed.

What is particularly exciting about their find is that it implies the
existence of an Edomite state at the time the Bible says King David
and his son Solomon ruled over a powerful united kingdom of Israel and
Judah.

It is the historical accuracy -- the very existence of this united
kingdom and the might and splendour of David and Solomon, as well as
the existence of surrounding kingdoms -- that lies at the heart of the
archeological dispute.

Those scholars known as minimalists argue that what is known as "state
formation" -- the emergence of regional governments and kings -- did
not take place in the area until the imperialistic expansion of the
Assyrian empire in the 8th century BC, so David and Solomon, rather
than being mighty monarchs, were mere petty chieftains.

And because everything that takes place in the Middle East inevitably
is political, the minimalist argument is seen as weakening modern
Israel's claim to Palestine.

In the biblical narrative, the Edomites are the descendents of Esau,
whose blessing from his father, Isaac, was stolen by his younger
brother, Jacob, ancestor of the Israelites. (Fans of the British
satirical-comedy group Beyond the Fringe will recall how Jacob pulled
off the theft by presenting himself as the hirsute Esau to their blind
father, saying in an aside: "My brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am
a smooth man.")

The Edomites are lambasted in the Bible for refusing to let the
Israelites rest on their land as they flee Egypt. God declares
obscurely: "Over Edom will I cast out my shoe." The Israelites grumble
enviously that there were kings of Edom before there were kings of
Israel -- a highly significant passage because it implies that state
formation occurred in Edom before it happened in Israel.

Finally, there is the biblical account of David's war against the
Edomites, in which David and his general, Joab, kill 18,000 Edomites
and establish military control over them by "putting garrisons
throughout all Edom."

Irish scholar John Bartlett, one of the world's great experts on the
Edomites, dates the battle at 990 to 980 BC, precisely when Prof.
Adams and his colleagues date the fortress.

Says Prof. Adams: "This battle between the Israelites and the
Edomites, although not possible to document, is typical of the sort of
border conflicts between Iron Age states. And the evidence of our new
dates at least proves that it may, in fact, be possible to place the
Edomites in the 10th century [BC] or earlier, which now supports the
chronology of the biblical accounts.

"It is intriguing that at Khirbat en-Nahas, our large Iron Age fort is
dated to just this period, suggesting conflict as a central concern
even at a remote copper-production site."

He concludes: "We're not out to prove the Bible right or wrong. We're
not trying to be controversial. We're just trying to be good
anthropologists and scientists, and tell the story of our
archeological site."


Source : The Globe and Mail

As I have have said in the distant past in this group, the more
Archeologists find, the more they will confirm the truth of the Bible.

These are tough times for Liberal nonbelievers.
Tony