No fall of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, And No Fall of Kingdom of Judah

[MarkA]

The United Israelite Kingdom that everybody except you and the fringe whackos of the Copenhagen School knows existed.

Evidence and not opinions are required. There is nothing fringe about the total lack of evidence either archaeological or independent written evidence for this kingdom.

 

[robertp6165]

Evidence and not opinions are required. There is nothing fringe about the total lack of evidence either archaeological or independent written evidence for this kingdom.

Odd. Just about everyone except the Copenhagen School seems to find archaelogical evidence for the United Kingdom at places like Hazor, Megiddo, etc.

 

[MarkA]

Odd. Just about everyone except the Copenhagen School seems to find archaelogical evidence for the United Kingdom at places like Hazor, Megiddo, etc.

Odd that you seem to think so. Please give some citations of this evidence.

 

[MerryPrankster]

"The Bible Unearthed" is not the be-all end-all of Middle Eastern archaeology.

Here's something relatively new:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/17/MNS314468L.DTL

Furthermore, the notion that the entire OT was essentially political propaganda for King Josiah's attempt to expand Judean political control into the former Northern Kingdom and he was somehow able to convince the entire Jewish nation of a false history (basically the premise of "TBE") reeks of conspiracy theory.

Obviously one cannot dismiss a claim because it involves a conspiracy, but since the majority of conspiracy theories are nonsense, one must take things with a grain of salt.

 

[MarkA]

"The Bible Unearthed" is not the be-all end-all of Middle Eastern archaeology.

Here's something relatively new:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/17/MNS314468L.DTL

Furthermore, the notion that the entire OT was essentially political propaganda for King Josiah's attempt to expand Judean political control into the former Northern Kingdom and he was somehow able to convince the entire Jewish nation of a false history (basically the premise of "TBE") reeks of conspiracy theory.

Obviously one cannot dismiss a claim because it involves a conspiracy, but since the majority of conspiracy theories are nonsense, one must take things with a grain of salt.

The find is certainly interesting but does not show David existed or that there was a united kingdom. Even the date needs to be verified since there is no indication in your article that the olive stones were in situ above the buildings. If this is the only dating evidence, much more needs to be done to verify Garfunkels hypothesis. Indeed, it is not certain who occupied the site, if it changed hands or when.

As for the conspiracy theory it is a much more complex situation than you claim. Ar the time of Josiah there were different versions of the OT in circulation that promulgated different theologies and/or evolutions of the mythology like the dieties consort or even his relationship with the other gods. There is archaeological evidence of the worship of different gods within the area occupied by the two kingdoms, there is evidence that this new innovation caused consternation among the people and of course there is the weight of history that shows religion is usually composed by and imposed on the people, by the rulers.

 

[robertp6165]

Odd that you seem to think so. Please give some citations of this evidence.

I'll tell you what. Since you are the one challenging what has been the mainstream thought on these issues, how about you provide the citations that show that the Copenhagen School is anything other than a revisionist fringe movement within Biblical Archaeology?

 

[Grimm Reaper]

And how do these two small and weak nations survive between much more powerful nations like Egypt or Assyria, out of curiousity?

Historically the consensus is that the so-called golden age for Judah and Israel would have been at a time when the major powers were in disarray or weakened, thus permitting local powers to rise to regional prominence.

Alas, the major powers recovered and, if we go by the Old Testament, Israel was the proverbial bug on Assyria's windshield while Judah survived by living on its collective knees for decades. Hardly glorious.

So how do you arrange for a minor power like Israel, half of whose territories consisted of other nationalities of extremely questionable loyalty, to withstand a country like Assyria which crushed the vastly more powerful and more secure Egyptians?

 

[robertp6165]

And how do these two small and weak nations survive between much more powerful nations like Egypt or Assyria, out of curiousity?

Historically the consensus is that the so-called golden age for Judah and Israel would have been at a time when the major powers were in disarray or weakened, thus permitting local powers to rise to regional prominence.

Alas, the major powers recovered and, if we go by the Old Testament, Israel was the proverbial bug on Assyria's windshield while Judah survived by living on its collective knees for decades. Hardly glorious.

So how do you arrange for a minor power like Israel, half of whose territories consisted of other nationalities of extremely questionable loyalty, to withstand a country like Assyria which crushed the vastly more powerful and more secure Egyptians?

I agree. It certainly can't be done with such a late POD as suggested by the OP. But if a united kingdom had been maintained, and if the early Hebrew religion had allowed forced conversion and assimilation of outsiders, by the time Assyria came out of eclipse, there could possibly have been a unified Syro-Palestinian "Israelite" state with enough muscle to withstand the Assyrians. A Syro-Palestinian coalition did, after all, defeat Assyria at Qarqar in 853BC.

 

[MarkA]

I'll tell you what. Since you are the one challenging what has been the mainstream thought on these issues, how about you provide the citations that show that the Copenhagen School is anything other than a revisionist fringe movement within Biblical Archaeology?

On what basis do you claim that the belief in the existence of the kingdom of David and Solomon is mainstream archaeology?

You are the one who claims the existence of this ghost empire that no contemporary power even noticed and that has no physical evidence for its existence. You must provide evidence that it existed not ask the old chestnut (and logical fallacy) of someone to prove it did not.

 

[Mostlyharmless]

You must provide evidence that it existed not ask the old chestnut (and logical fallacy) of someone to prove it did not.

I am not aware of good evidence for an empire but there is an argument for the existance of David and Solomon based on the lies in the story as told. For example, why are we told about David's adultery? No one should have been able to record his orders about Uriah. However, if no adultery, then Solomon is the son of Uriah. Thus the story is his claim to the throne. Good sense if a real King Solomon told the writers what to write but crazy if created hundreds of years later.

My source is "David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King" by Baruch Halpern but you might also like to read "The King David Report" by Stefan Heym.

 

[Ian the Admin]

Thus, my TL is based on two POD:

1. That the Northern Kingdom of Israel (in samaria) is not captured by Assyria in 722 BCE, and instead is being reunited with the Southern Kingdom of Judah, under the leadership of King Hezekiah
2. That the Re-United Monarchy of Israel (after the re-union of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms) does indeed suffer from the exile of King Jeconiah, and looting of the temple by the Babylonians in 597 BCE; And yet they get somehow saved from the final Destruction of the Kingdom, and of the Temple, in 586 BCE. (which happened in OTL)

You're already on shaky ground historically. Best archaeological evidence I've seen is that Israel and Judah couldn't be "re-united" because they weren't united in the first place (there's debate over this but the "united kingdom" side seems to have mainly the Bible to go on, whereas if you ignore the Bible the evidence is totally against it). Judah was a relative backwater which only took over Israel after it was crushed by the foreign invasion and collapse of the Assyrian presence. And Judaism (as a religion with a specific set of laws rather than looser traditions like "don't eat pork") only came into being in Judah, and only spread to Israel after post-conquest Judahite immigration.

So in the event that local "superpower" politics somehow resulted in Israel being conquered by Assyria, Judah either remains a backwater or perhaps is conquered by Israel or some other nearby power. Judaism as we know it never quite exists, and the Bible/Torah/whatever is never written. Even in Judah, major Jewish precepts seem to have emerged in response to the opportunity to take over Israel.

The prohibitions on intermarriage, for example, seem to have been encouraged to keep Judahite men from taking Canaanite wives in the typical manner that invaders do. The extreme prejudice against intermarriage was critical to the survival of the Jewish Diaspora as a perpetually un-assimilated ethnic group (other populations such as Romani/gypsies and Armenians who have major diasporas have the same prejudice against intermarriage). If the Judahites weren't put in a position of conquering a much larger territory and their priests thus not given a reason to condemn intermarriage so thoroughly, Judaism would probably be less clannish and Jews would assimilate more when conquered by someone else. (Not that they didn't assimilate anyway, witness the Palestinians, but still). So as another poster said, a Jewish kingdom would be a small fish and still eventually conquered by someone else - but probably with much less ingrained opposition to assimilating.

 

[Paul Spring]

Re: the United (Israelite) Kingdom, I was under the impression that they had found extensive fortifications around a lot of ancient towns that were constructed around the time when Solomon was believed to have lived. This seems to have been a pretty extensive building/military project, the kind of thing that a ruler of a decent-sized kingdom would do.

 

[Ian the Admin]

"The Bible Unearthed" is not the be-all end-all of Middle Eastern archaeology.

Here's something relatively new:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/17/MNS314468L.DTL

This seems to be a classic example of interpreting archaeology in light of the Bible. I haven't bothered to check sources for this but basically, there was a fortified city on the border of Judah. This indicates some level of trade and organization. It doesn't actually contradict the findings that Israel was the more developed area, supported by things like comparing evidence of everyday habitation and population density.

From an archaeological perspective, this simply means "hey, Judah was a bit more developed than we used to have evidence for" (still no evidence for Judah being the capitol of the Israel/Judah region). For someone willing to use the Bible as their main authority, it says "hey, any evidence of development in Judah is added support for the Judah-as-capitol idea". It may correspond to a city mentioned in the Bible but as scholars have already pointed out, the Bible's historical "accuracy" is clearly based on the knowledge of people ~700 BC. Their present world, and history as far back as they knew it (which really seems to have been not more than a couple of centuries). Evidence that the Bible's writers knew of cities in Judah itself from a couple of hundred years ago isn't all that interesting, and doesn't say anything about the accuracy of more politically relevant parts of the text.

The article itself is also incredibly misleading in referring to "Hebrew civilization" and to a proto-Canaanite language as being basically Hebrew (and Chaucer's English was American civilization... yeesh). But it does quite honestly point out that scholars sought to comment on the issue mention there's a big debate about whether David existed at all.

Furthermore, the notion that the entire OT was essentially political propaganda for King Josiah's attempt to expand Judean political control into the former Northern Kingdom and he was somehow able to convince the entire Jewish nation of a false history (basically the premise of "TBE") reeks of conspiracy theory.

Since history writing throughout almost all of human history was primarily intended as political propaganda it's hardly a "conspiracy theory" to apply the same sort of analysis to the Bible as is given to every single other major historical document (or set of bas reliefs or whatever). Claiming that it wasn't a piece of political propaganda is a rather extraordinary claim.

 

[MerryPrankster]

But the Bible is a written source from that time period, is it not?

Even if it is an inaccurate source, Herodotus is not wholly accurate either--1,000,000 Persian soldiers at Thermopylae?

I don't think there'd be near as much inveighing about interpreting archaeology in the light of Herodotus.

 

[robertp6165]

MarkA, if you want to dispute the historicity of the "empire of David and Solomon," meaning the supposed empire which stretched from the River of Egypt to the Euphrates, that is one thing. There is a lot of reason to question whether that existed, and I have not, during this discussion, even mentioned it.

But as for the "United Israelite Kingdom" of David and Solomon, you are on far more shaky ground.

You are the one who claims the existence of this ghost empire that no contemporary power even noticed...

The only contemporary powers who left written records at all during this time period were Assyria and Egypt. Assyria during the time period in question (c. 1000-c. 925 BC, which is the most commonly used dates for the reigns of David and Solomon) was being ruled by a succession of weak kings about whose reigns we know very little, because they didn't leave much in the way of written records. We don't even have records of what these kings did themselves. Why should we expect to have records of the doings of a kingdom hundreds of miles away in Palestine?

As for Egypt, pretty much the same type of situation prevails. Egypt was ruled by weak Pharaohs who were totally absorbed with the internal affairs of Egypt and who did not generally record the doings of kingdoms outside their own realm.

It would be MORE surprising, in that context, if there WERE mentions of the Israelite kingdom in Assyrian and Egyptian records of the time, than it is that there are not.

...and that has no physical evidence for its existence.

There you are wrong. There is, in fact, physical evidence of it's existence.

First, there are the Solomonic gates at Megiddo, Gezer, Ashdod, Hazor, Beth Shemesh, and Lachish. These gates are virtually identical in design, and are dated by most archaelogists (i.e. those outside Israel Finkelstein and the other followers of the Copenhagen School) to the mid 10th century BC. The fact that at least two of these virtually identical gates (Megiddo and Hazor) were in what later became the northern Kingdom of Israel, while most of the others (Gezer, Beth Shemesh, and Lachish) were definitely in the territory of Judah, represents strong evidence of a unified kingdom at the time they were built. Otherwise, one would expect there to be significant differences in the design of the gates. Furthermore, the gate at Ashdod...which was a Philistine city...is likely evidence that, at this time, this united Israelite kingdom held sway over Philistine territory.

It is specifically stated in the Bible that the fortifications of these cities were rebuilt by the architects of King Solomon. I know you put no stock in the Bible as a historical document, but in this case, the archaelogy and the text does seem to be a close match.

Second, a large public building, which dates to the 10th Century BC and which may be King David's Palace, has been discovered in Jerusalem.

As for the existence of the Davidic Dynasty, it is true that there are no documents dating to the 10th century which mention David or Solomon. However, there is a written record, dating from about a century after Solomon's death, which mentions the kings of the House of David. That is, of course, the Tel Dan Stele. There may also be another reference to the dynasty in the Mesha Stele.

Oh, I know that you will dismiss all this evidence and claim it is misdated or misinterpreted. But so far, the minority "minimalists" have not proven such a case, and there is more reason to believe that a united Israelite kingdom existed, than there is to believe that it did not.

 

[robertp6165]

But the Bible is a written source from that time period, is it not?

Even if it is an inaccurate source, Herodotus is not wholly accurate either--1,000,000 Persian soldiers at Thermopylae?

I don't think there'd be near as much inveighing about interpreting archaeology in the light of Herodotus.

Exactly right. The Bible is held up to a much more strict standard than most other historical documents of the period. One wonders why that is...could it be that most of the people disputing it are more interested in attacking it because it is "religion" than in finding the historical truth that may be contained in the Bible?

 

[Mostlyharmless]

those outside Israel Finkelstein and the other followers of the Copenhagen School

I don't think it is correct to link Finkelstein with the Copenhagen School Minimalists. One problem for supporters of a large Davidic kingdom is that archeology shows that the North was richer and more populous than Judah. How could David possibly conquer the North? However, Finkelstein offers the theory that Shoshenq's campaign was directed at Saul with David as an Egyptian agent. With the Egyptians doing the heavy lifting, establishing a Davidic kingdom looks much more possible.

 

[MerryPrankster]

Exactly right. The Bible is held up to a much more strict standard than most other historical documents of the period. One wonders why that is...could it be that most of the people disputing it are more interested in attacking it because it is "religion" than in finding the historical truth that may be contained in the Bible?

That seems to be the case with the "Jesus Never Existed" crowd.

Their web-site discusses the iniquities of the Christian Church CENTURIES AFTER CHRIST much more than it discusses the historicity of Christ Himself.

Much more likely to be accurate (if Christianity and/or Judaism are not the True Religion) is that Jesus, David, etc. are based on real people and their deeds were exaggerated by many retellings.

 

[MerryPrankster]

and of course there is the weight of history that shows religion is usually composed by and imposed on the people, by the rulers.

The Temple priesthood did not have the kind of wealth or influence the medieval Catholic Church did, particularly if the Judaeans were the hayseeds that Finkelstein and company say they were.

 

[robertp6165]

I don't think it is correct to link Finkelstein with the Copenhagen School Minimalists. One problem for supporters of a large Davidic kingdom is that archeology shows that the North was richer and more populous than Judah. How could David possibly conquer the North?

Well, the Bible doesn't indicate David conquered the North. The kingdom, according to that source, was ALREADY united when he took the throne for himself. The situation as described in the Bible more resembles a palace coup than a conquest. Is there any particular reason to interpret it otherwise?

However, Finkelstein offers the theory that Shoshenq's campaign was directed at Saul with David as an Egyptian agent. With the Egyptians doing the heavy lifting, establishing a Davidic kingdom looks much more possible.

This requires basically re-writing the accepted chronology, which places Shoshenq's (who most scholars equate with the Biblical Shishak) invasion in the aftermath of Solomon's reign, and there is no compelling reason to do that.

EDIT: It's kind of hilarious, too, that Finkelstein, who spends so much time insisting that David didn't exist because we "can't find him in the archaelogical record," would then try to use an attack on SAUL, for whom, if anything, we have even LESS evidence, as a way to resolve an issue with the chronology!