"Who Wrote the Bible" vs. "The Bible:Unearthed"

[butswana]

I am currently reading "Who Wrote the Bible". In it the author claims that there is archeological evidence of Saul and lots of evidence for David and even more for Solomon.
But in "The Bible:Unearthed"(if my memory serves me), the authors claimed there was no evidence for Saul with the only evidence for David was a broken stele piece and not much more for Solomon,including Oded Golans' bogus pomogranite.
What gives?

[Mageth]

I just finished Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible?, and I don't recall him making any positive claims about (solid) archaeological evidence for the existence of Saul, David or Solomon. Have I just forgotten it? I'll have to reread those sections if so.

I would note that Friedman does seem to work with the assumption that these characters (probably?) existed in his evaluation of how the "First Bible" came to be, but I took that more as a concession on his part to write the work he did, which is, of course, more concerned with who wrote the Bible (Torah) than whether or not the characters described therein actually existed. IOW, I don't think his reasons for writing the book included establishing, or even claiming, that the stories described therein are historicall accurate.

[Celsus]

Hi butswana

[begin gratuitous self-plug]
I just wrote some things pertaining to this topic in Introduction to Archaeology III (http://eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?t=227). You may substitute maximalists like Friedman with Dever and get essentially similar results. I highlight Dever vs. Finkelstein in the piece, so you can make up your mind on their versions of events. In Part IV, I'll be dealing with the claims on monarchy specifically, so look out for that--I'll post a notice so long as it's acceptable to the moderators here. Elsewhere, my review of Dever was linked here recently, it is at my forum here (http://eblaforum.org/main/viewtopic.php?t=219).
[end gratuitous plug]

Joel

[DrJim]

Mageth,
I think you're right about Friedman, but IIRC, his case seems to depend very heavily on the general outlines of Samuel-Kings being accurate: it gives him his early Israelite / Judean monarchies to hang "early" biblical passages on.

I'm working through WWtB, and he is basically paraphrasing Sam-Kings to provide a "history" of the kingdoms. As you say, he is not trying to "prove" it true, he is relying on others: for example, regarding Solomon's administration, he refers to some work by B. Halpern, praising him for sorting stuff like that out, but not really getting into the details of the argument.

As far as I've gotten in the book (and its not that far), there seems to be no indication at all that questions about the existence of the Israelite United Monarchy and empire could even be raised. All that is in question is the details. In this day and age, Friedman's 1987 work seems pretty obsolete, at least in this respect. I'll reserve judgment on the his main point till I get to it, but all indications are that the early rise of a powerful Judah is an important stage in developing the details of the political / relgious scenarios which become premises in his identifying at least some of the biblical writers. If so, then the strenght of his thesis will be weakened.

for instance, on p. 49 he writes:

During the two hundred years tha tthese two kingdoms existed side by side, there lived two of the writers we are seeking. Each composed a version of the people's story. Bother versions became part of ht eBible. With this picture of the early years of the biblical world, we are now ready to identify these two of the writers of the Bible.
We can see a bit of the importance of his paraphrastic history later when he is discussing "Two Kingdoms, Two Writers" (chap3). He says that the northern "E" source "disdains the Judean policy of missim", the levy of labour imposed by Solomon. Call into question the existence or even the biblical details about Solomon's policies, and Friedman looses this connection. More telling, he links the E source to disenfranchized priest of Shiloh (an event he reconstructs from Samuel). This gives him the "motive" for E to write.

Therefore, his interpretation of E is dependent upon his perception of the history of the kingdoms as he understands it. Take away that history, and one might not only take away his date, but perhaps more of his theory, too. Haven't finished it, so I won't comment more.

You are right, then, that Friedman has not produced a book on history, but it is one that seems to hang an awful lot on one view of history. That view, however, is now being attacked from many biblical critics and scholars.


JRL

[Mageth]

DrJim:

Agreed. Good points.

[Doctor X]

I am not certain how much Friedman "believes" the history. If anything he demonstrates the different authors changing the history. In his later book, The Hidden Book of the Bible he argues that the Court History is also a J text. Whether you buy that or not, it does rather imply that it is a literary work rather than historical.

Anyways, scholars have rather "assumed" that "some history" existed "back then" that the OT reflects. It is difficult to remove such, frankly, belief. Notice the reactions to the likes of Finkelstein and Thompson.

Friedman more argues that the texts reflect the values of, say Judah for J and Israel for E. The stories divide neatly geographically in a way that reflects that division. That does not make Saul, Samuel, or anyone else "real."

Hard evidence such as archaeology wins pretty much over a story. His major "date point" is the Assyrian destruction of Israel which forced people into Judah in 722 BCE. If someone proves that never happened then contact Friedman or, better yet, his detractors--you may get a free dinner.

Speaking of problems with "history:"

J. Maxwell Miller asked Van Seters: If the Deuteronomistic Historian was writing history by invention, and not from real historical sources, how did he manage to describe the actions of Pharaoh Shishak (in I Kgs 11:40; 14:25) so accurately? As Miller put it, how did he get Shishak in just the right "time and pew"? Van Seters responded that he assumed that there were monuments all over the country with information on them. Miller explained that this still would not enable a historian centuries later to locate Shishak so well in the right "time and pew" of an invented history, and so he asked again: If the biblical historian was just inventing, how could he possibly have gotten such details right? Van Seters's response was, "I wish I knew."

--J.D.

[Amlodhi]

Hi Doctor X,

Doctor X

J. Maxwell Miller asked Van Seters . . .

I was wondering when you would come out with that. As I mentioned previously, I had read through Friedman's WWtB once or twice back around 1990 or so when it first came out. Later, when the new edition came out in 1997, I picked this up to have my own copy. I'm now in the process of reviewing this book again because my memory is . . . is. . . what was I saying . . .

Well, anyway, I recently started Friedman's new book and, when I read the passage you quoted, I knew it wouldn't be long until I saw it here.

As you have probably noticed, I have been trying to keep up with Celsus and spin in the continued discussion of this very subject. I haven't yet responded to Celsus' last post, but the question there directly reflects the quote you gave from Friedman's book.

The point being that Friedman's divided kingdom origins for the sources simply makes a great deal of sense. Because it is apparent that there are at least two parallel traditions in many of the stories contained in the pentateuch, attributing these sources to the post-exilic period is (to me) much harder to explain. For instance, it has been stated that perhaps the sources originated by there being one tradition developing in Babylon during the captivity while another was developing from among the refugees left in Jerusalem. Yet, if there were no sources predating this period, each faction would necessarily be relying on collective memory and invention to construct their particular version. And regardless of the differences between the parallel versions we have, it seems to me that the tremedous similarity that is also present is too great to be attributed to mere collective memory and invention.

It has also been suggested that perhaps there was a scribal school which, when divided during the captivity, developed separate traditions which were later conflated in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah. And yet, if there was a scribal school in existence before the separation, that would seem to imply the existence of written source material before the separation, which would seem to actually support Friedman's position.

I will, however, continue to review and read new information provided here and elsewhere and perhaps someday a coherent picture will emerge.

Namaste'

Amlodhi

[capnkirk]

Originally posted by Doctor X
....Hard evidence such as archaeology wins pretty much over a story. His major "date point" is the Assyrian destruction of Israel which forced people into Judah in 722 BCE. If someone proves that never happened then contact Friedman or, better yet, his detractors--you may get a free dinner.

Speaking of problems with "history:"Sometimes I think that the naysayers on this forum get a little carried away. Granted, being able to claim that none of it ever happened wraps everything up in a neat little bundle, but it's almost never that simple. http://users.pandora.be/eforum/emoticons4u/sad/1361.gif

There IS one convincing piece of archaeological confirmation for the Assyrian invasion of 722 BCE. It is the Assyrian account of that campaign (among others), found in excavations at Nineveh. It is the Prism Inscription of Sennacherib, which Friedman erroneously places in the London Museum and erroneously describes it as having eight sides. It has six sides, with the account of the campaign against Israel on side 3. It resides in the Mesopotamian Gallery of the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. I saw it there shortly after the gallery reopened last fall.

While there is independent confirmation that the conquest happened, it does absolutely nothing to support any claims of supernatural events. Just as the evidence at Jericho shows destroyed walls (but from the wrong time period), it also shows that while the OT account of the battle of Jericho was (at the very least) exaggerated to mythical proportions, "some" Jews probably did pass that way, saw the ruins and imagined that a mighty battle had taken place there. They themselves may have even clashed with Canaanites near there. But that's about the upper limit of the historical kernel. Likewise the Prism inscription of Sennacherib validates that he did conquer the northern provinces and deport or kill its population, that Jerusalem was a capital city with a king named Hezekiah, that he laid siege to it, and that the seige was lifted without breeching the city walls, apparently for a ransom.

What we CAN be relatively sure of is that there were competing accounts of Jewish history, and Friedman does a good job of showing how those accounts got woven together into the Hebrew Bible. Sorting out how much historicity is beneath the epic veneer is obviously another matter.

[Doctor X]

Indeed, which is why I do not find them necessarily incompatible. Scholars develop their opinions over time, and certainly Friedman notes where he changes his mind between editions of WWtB. What is funny is that by his second edition and The Hidden Book of the Bible he utterly discards any speculation as to the sex of J. Indeed, he rather goes after Bloom for basing a book on what what was basically a "hey guys, here is a neat thought!"

--J.D.

[DrJim]

Doctor X,
I think we may be talking past each other here a little. I accept the gist of what you say, but still, Friedman does not just read the biblical accounts of early monarchic history as only literary artefacts. I'm not try to suggest that he ignores their status as written documents. Yet, Friedman also uses Sam-Kings as sources of information for real life events: events which he then uses to explain the political and ideological backgrounds of the writers he posits produced the biblcal texts. Teh assyrian invasion may be the first firm date he gives, but his analsysis is dependent on a lot of history prior to that date: a history he gains by a rationalized paraphrase of the Bible.

His use of the texts as sources of history is evident in chapter one of WWtB: "The World that Produced the Bible 1200-722 bce" The purpose of the chapter is not to provide a synopsis of the biblical story of early Israel to inform them about the Bible: rather it paraphrases the biblical account to provide his reader with what Friedman think the real history of early monarchic Israel was like. Certainly he sees the writer's art and invention behind some it, but in many cases that does not really seem to concern him.

I think it misrepresents Friedman to say that he does not believe at least the general outlines of the biblical accounts of Samuel, Saul, David and Solomon. That may be fair enough, but he sure blurs any distinction between the depiction of Israel in the Bible and the real world entity. Even if a history is very "accurate", there is always a fundamental distinction between real past events and its literary representation. Freidman's "World that Produced the Bible" is really little more than the world depicted in the Bible.

Notice what he says on p. 41:
In order to see how the life, events, and individual persons of that world produced the Bible, one must also look into the story of the royal family. Their relationships, conflicts, and political alignments affected the course of history and, with that, the character of the Bible

Here, the people and events of "that world" must the be folk and events of the real historical world. So he says to study that, we should read the Bible' accounts of the Royal family. So he is constructing the "real" history of the Israel's royalty from the biblical stories. He doesn't however meantion the stories of the royal family as stories, but jumps right back to the "real world" speaking of the "relationships, conflicts, and political alignments" that influenced history (Certainly the relationships of literary characters can't do that, they can only represent or even mis-represent them!). Then he turns around again and jumps back into describing how these purported real life relationships etc affected the "character of the Bible".

Now, what if part of the "character of the Bible" involved creative descriptions of the relationships of real life royal folks? There goes his "real life" history, or at least enough detail to find a hisotircal justification for the "character of the Bible."

Friedman hinges a lot on his "history". While I suspect his case for separating redactional layers and sources may be quite good, if his dating and isolation of the setting of the sources depends on a history reconstructed in this fashion then it is methodologically naive.

As far has his recollection of conversations between Miller and Van Seters what does this prove? All that is demonstrated is the Van Seters has a hole in his own case: it proves nothing about the strenght of any alternatives to Van Seters. The real issue for Friedman is whether or not Sam-Kings is as old and as reliable IN DETAIL as he needs it to be, and that is the very thing he is avoiding. He is more evasive than Van Seters!

Look at the number of details that Chronicles changes when it adapts the ealier Kings narratives. How can he be so sure that transmitters of kings did not play havoc with many details of episodes in earlier versions or source material while keeping the kinglists and basic history of imperial history more or less intact?

Perhaps he makes a good case for the JEPD source theory on the merits of word use, duplications etc. I will wait till I can read it in detail. The history of Israel upon which he hangs it in WWtB, however, I have read quite closely over the past few days and in view of all the recent advances in methodology, it is an illusory history. If he subjectied it to the same degree of demands he makes on Van Seters, it would collapse instantly, existing only as his assumption.

[Doctor X]

Dr. Jim:

How much he believe "history" versus "literary" is Friedman's business. I do not know, frankly. However, his presentation of the DH is not dependent on the history.

This:

As far has his recollection of conversations between Miller and Van Seters what does this prove? All that is demonstrated is the Van Seters has a hole in his own case: it proves nothing about the strenght of any alternatives to Van Seters. The real issue for Friedman is whether or not Sam-Kings is as old and as reliable IN DETAIL as he needs it to be, and that is the very thing he is avoiding. He is more evasive than Van Seters!

rather misrepresents how Friedman makes his argument and how Van Seters ignores his and other proponents of the DH with pre-exilic texts evidence. While like me you may wish to avoid The Hidden Book of the Bible--why just have J?--if you can get it used or out of a library it gives a detailed treatment of the evidence for the sources and what Van Seters conveniently misrepresents. I included the quote because, frankly, it demonstrates a rather pathetic explanation--the assumption that there were these monuments all over the place that gave the late, late DtH the historical aspects of his history!

Friedman's newer book gives a good summary of his and his collegues' case for the date while also stating what is "certain" and what is "speculative."

--J.D.

[Celsus]

Incidentally, Finkelstein disagrees that the Iron II destruction layers can be attributed to Shishak. Although it has been taken for granted that Shishak's campaign represents a fixed boundary in which to establish a chronology, much of it is circular, as you can see below. There is a destruction layer, there is a 50-year window, and "There is only one known historical candidate that fits the destruction date of Tel Rehov Stratum V, 940 to 900 B.C.E., based on 12 high-quality 14C dates: the invasion of Pharaoh Shoshenq I." (Bruins, van der Plicht, Mazar, quoted below). So J.M. Miller to then challenge Van Seters on Shishak/Shoshenq's campaign as mentioned in the Bible, when the destruction layer's correlation comes from the Bible is a little disingenuous, to say the least. On the notion of what precisely Shoshenq invaded, his victory stele and the towns listed in the Bible differ.

Note: Amihai Mazar et al. produced a paper recently to try to salvage that position. "14C Dates from Tel Rehov: Iron-Age Chronology, Pharaohs, and Hebrew Kings", Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/300/5617/315), Vol 300, Issue 5617, 315-318 , 11 April 2003:
In conclusion, the radiocarbon results, in relation to archaeological, historical, and biblical data, lead us to propose a modified traditional chronology for the Iron Age in the Levant (table S2). The modification is that the Iron Age IIA cultural period includes both the 10th and much of the 9th century B.C.E. (~980 to 835 B.C.E). There is only one known historical candidate that fits the destruction date of Tel Rehov Stratum V, 940 to 900 B.C.E., based on 12 high-quality 14C dates: the invasion of Pharaoh Shoshenq I.

Our research negates an important argument of the low chronology theory, namely, that Iron Age IIA ceramic assemblages should be confined exclusively to the 9th century B.C.E. The 14C dating results imply that it is difficult to distinguish between "Solomonic" and "Omride" pottery. The site of Ta'anach (27), about 8 km southeast of Megiddo (Fig. 1), is also mentioned on the Karnak list of places destroyed by Shoshenq. Period II-B pottery at Ta'anach, assigned to 960 to 918 B.C.E. (27) and to the 9th century in the low chronology (28), is identical to that found in Tel Rehov Stratum V. Period II-B ended in a fierce destruction, which can be related to Shoshenq's campaign in view of our results.
Finkelstein's response is "Comment on 14C Dates from Tel Rehov: Iron-Age Chronology, Pharaohs, and Hebrew Kings", in Science (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/302/5645/568b), Vol 302, Issue 5645, 568 , 24 October 2003:
The Tel Rehov data do not contradict and may indeed support the Low Chronology system. Stratum IV ends the Iron IIA sequence at Tel Rehov (Strata VI to IV). At Megiddo, the same sequence comes to an end with Stratum VA. Both were destroyed in a fire and hence they were probably contemporary. Therefore, the date of around 925 to 840/835 B.C.E. given by Bruins et al. (1) to Rehov IV seems to confirm the dating of Megiddo Stratum VA in the early 9th century instead of the mid–10th century B.C.E. This is also supported by a series of new, yet unpublished, readings from Megiddo, where Stratum VIA, which ends the Iron I sequence, is dated well within the 10th century B.C.E. Hence, the Megiddo palaces, once considered the symbol of Solomonic grandeur in the mid–10th century B.C.E., were actually built by the Omride dynasty in the early 9th century B.C.E.

[Celsus]

Originally posted by Amlodhi
As you have probably noticed, I have been trying to keep up with Celsus and spin in the continued discussion of this very subject. I haven't yet responded to Celsus' last post, but the question there directly reflects the quote you gave from Friedman's book.
I will look forward to your comments. My point in all these posts (especially the introductory series) is to simply illustrate the interpretive, tentative nature of historical reconstruction. It is not to prove their version of events never happened (obviously an impossible task), but that their approach in reaching their conclusions is flawed. The "neopositivists" (Dever's own label, not mine) sought to discredit the Bible once and for all with their version of events, but when a similar skepticism was brought to bear on their version of events, they had no clue how to respond. Much better is to recognise that what is happening here is subject to debate and discussion, which some people haven't yet realised. If they wish to put forward a case, which is certainly possible, they must respond by more than just Dever's handwaving or others' confident proclamations of what happened. Of course my biases are evident, but I could take the opposite side to even things up a little so long as the difficulties are first recognised.

Joel

[spin]

Originally posted by Celsus
On the notion of what precisely Shoshenq invaded, his victory stele and the towns listed in the Bible differ.

Cute fact: of the zillions of one-cow towns Shoshenq I lists, there is no Jerusalem. He went straight through as though it weren't there.

(That was nice C-14 data.)


spin

[capnkirk]

Dr Jim,

Reading your POV with regards to Friedman's WWtB, I am struck by parallels with my own posts to a recent thread about Ehrman's Lost Christianities. I was challenging him on grounds that were important to me, but were actually incidental to the thesis of Ehrman's book.

Similarly, Friedman's thesis, as expressed in the book title, is: Who wrote the Bible?...Not, Who wrote it? When did they do it? How accurate were their depictions? How well does archaeology support the story as a whole?

His analysis was and is a literary one. His starting point was the OT as a completed work. He finds first that one cannot say that this book was written by A and that one by B. Instead he finds that A and B are each partly written by more than one author, and that the overall construction of authorship has an entirely different basis. He unravels the threads to demonstrate that there are multiple complete and mostly parallel traditions that developed separately and were integrated by others at various points along the way. His methodology would not have been one whit different had everyone stipulated beforehand that the entire story was inarguably myth. His point was to demonstrate that here was one group with one POV, and another with a different and somewhat antagonistic POV, each writing separate accounts. What is important to Friedman, so far as the book's thesis is involved is to show where (within the context of the whole testament) the various POV's of the various factions were integrated, who the factions were, what were their motivations.

I view his analysis as a valuable foundation to stand on to begin to ask the questions you are asking, rather than to fault him for not asking them, which is precisely what I was (unfairly) doing to Ehrman. I am not faulting you for asking questions that reflect on the archaeological historicity of the account. Those questions need to be asked. What I am trying to point out is that Friedman is not who those questions need to be asked of. Quite the contrary, the discovery of the existence and relative POV of separate J and an E authors very clearly points to a period when the kingdom was divided, and that the literary evidence for it runs much deeper than the (easily manipulated) surface narrative, making a much stronger case than if each book had been written by a single author who would be much more free to editorialize. The precise length of the separate kingdoms is left for others to try do tie down. That is both WWtB's strength and its limitation.

[spin]

Originally posted by DrJim
Look at the number of details that Chronicles changes when it adapts the ealier Kings narratives. How can he be so sure that transmitters of kings did not play havoc with many details of episodes in earlier versions or source material while keeping the kinglists and basic history of imperial history more or less intact?

I would argue for a common source to both Sam-Kgs and Chr. Each added their own materials and each their own perspective, eg Sam-Kgs has a priestly royal line and its history of Samaria, and Chr moves away from priests to Levites and gives the manic genealogies. The simplest explanation is not a heavy editorial slash/hack of the original, as envisaged for Chr but a simpler upgrade in two different directions by Sam-Kgs and Chr.


spin

[Doctor X]

I think it is quite clear that Chronicles uses Kings-Samuel as a source. "The Chronicler" follows K-S pretty closely, but makes interesting changes here and there--such as deleting the "Solomon loved foreign women." Solomon does not require any effort to become king--that is, squishing his rivals. There is no need for him to demonstrate his wisdom--it is manefest.

The Chronicler is infamous on recent threads for giving the first example of "Satan" as a figure as a way to remove the fault from YHWH for the Davidic Census.

Basically, the Chronicler makes a great deal legitimizing Solomon's Temple. This makes sense with a post-exilic Chronicler writing around the time of the founding of the second Temple.

--J.D.

[spin]

Originally posted by Doctor X
I think it is quite clear that Chronicles uses Kings-Samuel as a source. "The Chronicler" follows K-S pretty closely, but makes interesting changes here and there--such as deleting the "Solomon loved foreign women." Solomon does not require any effort to become king--that is, squishing his rivals. There is no need for him to demonstrate his wisdom--it is manefest.

The Chronicler is infamous on recent threads for giving the first example of "Satan" as a figure as a way to remove the fault from YHWH for the Davidic Census.

Basically, the Chronicler makes a great deal legitimizing Solomon's Temple. This makes sense with a post-exilic Chronicler writing around the time of the founding of the second Temple.

Chronicles was probably redacted after the time of Josephus, not too long after Ezra and Nehemiah. There is a tiny Chronicles-like fragment from Qumran which doesn't agree with either Kgs or Chr but is more Chr-like in the few words preserved.

We've been through the several generations of the line of David through Zerubbabel found in Chr., making it at least 150 years after the time of Zerubbabel (1 Chr 3:19-24), none of which bears any resemblance to the two attempts in Mt and Lk. The incessant dabbling in genealogies is a particularly late interest. In fact, its high priestly genealogy (1 Chr 6:1-15) is the most evolved in Jewish literature, more than 2 Esdras, though still inadequate to cover the time it is meant to.

Just to show you what Chr is on about do a search for "Levites" and for "priests" in both Sam-Kgs and Chr. You'll find that they are quite similar in number regarding priests.

Solomon was quite a popular fellow in late biblical times with Psalms of Solomon, Wisdom of Solomon, Odes of Solomon and a few others. This of course was after Ben Sira who had harsh words for Solomon: "you stained you honour and defiled your family line". So when did Solomon's image get tarted up? I'd say definitely after Ben Sira's time.

Another interesting problem in the dating of Chr: it uses the names Huram and Tou instead of Hyram and Toi (as found in Kings). Now the alternation between WAW and YOD is famous in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

When did Belial, as he was known throughout the Qumran literature, start being called Satan?

And I've got lots of other nice juicy clues for dating Chronicles.


spin

[butswana]

I've only read though the first chapterof WWtB(The World that Produced the Bible 1200-722 bce), but it seems to me that if Friedman is basing his position on the historical accuracy of Samuel-Kings, then he doesn't have much to stand on. While it is a literary analysis, he is attempting to attach authorship to real people. How can he do that if he is assuming the truth of something that has vitually no evidence to back it up?
It appears a bit irresponsible to stake so much on so little actual evidence. Especially when some of the items that were used as evidence have recently had thier authenticity come under scutiny(David stele & Solomon pomegranate). I know the book was written in 1997, so he couldn't have taken into account the whole Golon/Lemuire fraud thing.

[Celsus]

Originally posted by capnkirk
While there is independent confirmation that the conquest happened, it does absolutely nothing to support any claims of supernatural events. Just as the evidence at Jericho shows destroyed walls (but from the wrong time period), it also shows that while the OT account of the battle of Jericho was (at the very least) exaggerated to mythical proportions, "some" Jews probably did pass that way, saw the ruins and imagined that a mighty battle had taken place there. They themselves may have even clashed with Canaanites near there. But that's about the upper limit of the historical kernel.
Please explain, particularly the emphasised part.

Joel

[Celsus]

Originally posted by butswana
I've only read though the first chapterof WWtB(The World that Produced the Bible 1200-722 bce), but it seems to me that if Friedman is basing his position on the historical accuracy of Samuel-Kings, then he doesn't have much to stand on. While it is a literary analysis, he is attempting to attach authorship to real people. How can he do that if he is assuming the truth of something that has vitually no evidence to back it up?
It appears a bit irresponsible to stake so much on so little actual evidence. Especially when some of the items that were used as evidence have recently had thier authenticity come under scutiny(David stele & Solomon pomegranate). I know the book was written in 1997, so he couldn't have taken into account the whole Golon/Lemuire fraud thing.
Firstly, it does not stand or fall on Golan/Lemaire's frauds. I think we've been a little carried away in explaining the minimalist paradigm. Friedman does have some basis for his claims: Arguably, there was an Israelite monarchy, and it could have been responsible for authorship of the bible. My claims, and spin's, and Finkelstein's, and Van Seters', are all in the minority of the spectrum of Biblical scholarship. However, my purpose, at least, is to expose the question-begging that mainstream scholarship has engaged in, and has only recently begun to come to terms with. Other scholars still want to keep their heads buried in the sand. If you get at least that much out of the thread, then I'm happy.

You can still go on to read archaeological work that does support (to an extent) Friedman's views, such as Mazar's Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, or Dever's Who were the early Israelites?, but with a critical eye to the issues exposed.

Just to be fair, etc.

Joel

[capnkirk]

Originally posted by Celsus
Please explain, particularly the emphasised part.

Joel Just go back and read the paragraph immedialely preceding the one you took the quote from. Never mind, I'll do it. And I'll even red-letter the reference (which occurs both before and after the excerpt you pulled).There IS one convincing piece of archaeological confirmation for the Assyrian invasion of 722 BCE. It is the Assyrian account of that campaign (among others), found in excavations at Nineveh. It is the Prism Inscription of Sennacherib, which Friedman erroneously places in the London Museum and erroneously describes it as having eight sides. It has six sides, with the account of the campaign against Israel on side 3. It resides in the Mesopotamian Gallery of the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. I saw it there shortly after the gallery reopened last fall.

While there is independent confirmation that the conquest happened, it does absolutely nothing to support any claims of supernatural events. Just as the evidence at Jericho shows destroyed walls (but from the wrong time period), it also shows that while the OT account of the battle of Jericho was (at the very least) exaggerated to mythical proportions, "some" Jews probably did pass that way, saw the ruins and imagined that a mighty battle had taken place there. They themselves may have even clashed with Canaanites near there. But that's about the upper limit of the historical kernel. Likewise the Prism Inscription of Sennacherib validates that he did conquer the northern provinces and deport or kill its population, that Jerusalem was a capital city with a king named Hezekiah, that he laid siege to it, and that the seige was lifted without breeching the city walls, apparently for a ransom.Or did you perhaps stumble over the word "conquest", thinking that I had changed the subject to the alleged Hebrew conquest of Canaan? I can understand how you could have done that, since my comparative reference in the next sentence was to the most famous battle of that "conquest". That reference was intended only to establish an absolute upper limit for what historicity could be drawn from any of the OT accounts of that conquest (The limitations I imposed serve to illustrate that almost nothing of the OT account of the "conquest of Canaan by Joshua, et al, should be taken as historical.), and to implicitly argue for a much lower realistic probability. I used that example to preface the following statement concerning how much of Hezekiah's version of events were supported by his opponent's version, and what was clearly not.

I could have been more clear. My apologies.

[butswana]

As far as I know, the only extra/biblical reference to David is the stele fragment. Is there any thing else? If not and the stele turns out to be a fake, that pushes the first verifiable king to Solomon. How about Solomon? What evidence supports his historical existence? What do Mazar & Dever say about this slim evidence?
According to (that goddamn)Finkelstein(shit kid), There is no physical evidence prior(biblical timeline) to the David reference.
If that is indeed the case, why does the bible suddenly become a reliable source of history once the phrase "House of David" is found on a busted up monument?
The practice of telling the Sam/Kings cronology as history without much evidence just bugs me.
I don't know. Maybe I should just read the rest of the damn book.

[DrJim]

CaptKirk:
True, Fiedman's goal is to determine who wrote the Bible. To prove his case for who did that, he needs to produce a relatively detailed history of early monarchic Judah's political circumstances to get the background for find writers with the coresponding point of view to each source. He obtains this history by a naive reading of Samuel Kings. This weakens his main point about writers in the two subsequent monarchies considerably. That is my point. Please note: I am not reading Freidman as a history of Judah and Israel, I am critiquing the historical premises upon which he bases his source critical analysis. As I said, I'm withholding judgment on the source delineation till I can read it in detail, but his approach to the historical question which grounds the study is not of a very high critical standard, and this will undoubtedly have consequences for the reliability of his analysis, especially regarding the dates and political circumstances of the writers (If his history of early monarchic Israel was not important to his analysis, why include it?).

Spin:
I've been toying the idea of Graeme Auld's notion ("Kings without Privelege", T & T Clark) of a common source for Sam-Kings + Chronicles for a while: Auld was my thesis supervisor in Edinburgh. I'm not to sure where I stand on that right now: He caught a lot of flak for it, at least in details which were elevated to a rejection of the whole idea. I do remember he told me "Don't go down in MY sinking ship", so I went off to drill a few holes in a barge of my own invention. It felt good...

Your point is well taken, and I should revise, rephrase and clarify: I think it is poor historical methodology to take details in the Sam-Kings account at more or less face value, especially about the political / economic policies of Davidic/Solmonic state, since we can't definitely prove its existence. IT is not a simple matter to assume that such an entity existed with a government structure as depicted in the Biblical accounts, let alone saw the kinds of political intrigue narrated in those texts.
As far as the sources employed in Sam-Kings, even if they are adopted with minimal change (albeit with supplementation) we don't know their history can't assume their reliability in the kinds of details that Friedman needs to produce the political and religious climate in which he finds his writers of the biblical sources.

All told, Friedman's use of Sam-Kings to provide solid information about the early monarchy is tenuous at best. It is a bit curious how he simply assumes objective historical information in those narratives which in turn provides a historical setting to isolate the subjectivity of the narrative's writers. In the quote from Freidman I made in my previous post, this is pretty plain.

JRL

[Celsus]

Originally posted by butswana
As far as I know, the only extra/biblical reference to David is the stele fragment. Is there any thing else? If not and the stele turns out to be a fake, that pushes the first verifiable king to Solomon. How about Solomon? What evidence supports his historical existence? What do Mazar & Dever say about this slim evidence?
You're getting a little confused: The Mesha stele (Moabite Stone) has a line in it that says bt...d or b...wd (I forget which). Our ever-reliable Andre Lemaire thinks that it is refering to byt dwd or "House of David". The Tel Dan inscription clearly mentions "House of David" and has nothing to do with Lemaire (it was discovered in situ by Avraham Biran, a reputable archaeologist), but it is used as a political label (think "House of Lancaster" or "Tudor", etc.) It could have started off as a specific reference to David's dynasty, but there is no conclusive way to prove this. As for Solomon, several gates found at cities like Megiddo, Hazor, and I forget where else are ascribed to him, but these are disputed. If Shishak/Shoshenq's invasion is to be correlated with the Iron II layers that Mazar et al. believe it to be, it still doesn't actually prove the historicity of Solomon, only that the Biblical chronology can now be fixed (and does not consider problems about whether one should or shouldn't rely on biblical chronology).
According to (that goddamn)Finkelstein(shit kid), There is no physical evidence prior(biblical timeline) to the David reference.
If that is indeed the case, why does the bible suddenly become a reliable source of history once the phrase "House of David" is found on a busted up monument? [/B]
It doesn't. It only says that we can now conclusively prove that someone or something called dwd existed prior to the inscription in the 8th century.

Joel

P.S. Here is a good page (http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/westsem/westsem.html)

[capnkirk]

DrJim:

I am not suggesting that Friedman's presumed foundationational assumptions be accepted without reservation. Rather, I am suggesting that those assumptions be conditionally accepted as valid in the absence of exclusionary counter-evidence, as a working model to begin our search for historicity from. I will stipulate that Midrash was alive and well both before and during the periods being examined here, and that it necessarily colored the OT account. The task is to determine the extent of this coloring. Further, I would assert that there is no hope of establishing a complete historical consensus without significantly more archaeological evidence than has thus far be discovered. The best that we can presently expect is that some historical anchors can be ascertained that can be used to either support, modify or exclude the scenario that currently represents the best distillation of events available within the OT accounts. Central to that process is to determine what impact each archaeological find has on Friedman's literary model; which suspected errors are incidental, which are injurious, and which are fatal. The final product will necessarily be composed of parts that are historically certain, others that are probably true, still others that might be true, and exclude those parts that cannot be true.
by DrJim
True, Fiedman's goal is to determine who wrote the Bible. To prove his case for who did that, he needs to produce a relatively detailed history of early monarchic Judah's political circumstances to get the background for find(ing) writers with the coresponding point of view to each source. He obtains this history by a naive reading of Samuel Kings.I agree...with the following caveat. To discredit his analysis on the basis of Friedman's naivite, one must also demonstrate that similar naivete did not extend to the writers (by virtue of earlier midrashic editing). For example: Presuming the "fact" of a Deuteronomist author by virtue of the demonstration of a body of writing which clearly belongs to an unkhown author permits one to derive a POV from that body. Whether that POV was historically sound is an entirely different matter, but one must assume that the "D" author believed it was true, or that he committed midrash himself to support his POV. In either case, he certainly had an itentifiable POV. It is certainly a valid point of investigation to attempt to determine to what extent he adjusted the historical information available to him. It is also a valid point of investigation to attempt to determine what political reality would inspire him to write at all. But unless one could present archaeological evidence that would preclude the existence of such a political reality, then Friedman's analysis should remain in the category of "conditionally" accepted.
This weakens his main point about writers in the two subsequent monarchies considerably. That is my point. Please note: I am not reading Freidman as a history of Judah and Israel, I am critiquing the historical premises upon which he bases his source critical analysis.I am saying that Friedman makes no pretense of claiming a historical basis (in any archaeological sense), and to elevate his conditional acceptance to the status of "historical basis" is to erect a strawman argument. At most, he is saying that this is the most accurate account that the OT can offer. Any and all archaeological evidence, either in support or refutation of that account is most welcome. Unless you can offer evidence that Friedman intentionally ignored archaeological information that would damage his case, then he has committed no error to be faulted for. Independent archaeological evidence can and should be used to support or refute the OT account, but that in and of itself does not refute his literary analysis. If you were given a body of literary work that you knew to be full of interpolations, and set about to determine the authorship of that work, I believe that you would consider that refutations that impugned your analysis, based on a lack of historicity of the literary account itself to be unfair. THAT is the point I am making.
....but his approach to the historical question which grounds the study is not of a very high critical standardAs I said, he never asserts that his study is grounded in a historical question. That is the gounding for YOUR study, not his.
...and this will undoubtedly have consequences for the reliability of his analysis, especially regarding the dates and political circumstances of the writers (If his history of early monarchic Israel was not important to his analysis, why include it?).If the historical grounding of the account is faulty, it surely will have consequences for the reliability of the account itself, and fault would be rightly placed there. For example he makes no assertions about the historicity of the creation or flood stories; his interest is in who wrote them down, and why there are multiple versions included. Why do you hold him to a different standard when it comes to inclusions that are less obviously mythical? By all means, USE his analysis to attack the account, but don't fault him for not doing it for you.

[Amlodhi]

Hi Celsus,

The primary focus of the "Friedman on Myths and Documentary Hypothesis" thread seems to have relocated here. And since I have already presented (here) some of my questions regarding your previous post, I thought it might be best to consolidate the remainder of my responses here as well rather than maintaining two threads on basically the same topic. Also, since this thread is more current, it may generate more contributions from other posters regarding the questions presented here.

Briefly then, I will just say that I do agree with you regarding the tendency of many authors to make unwarranted conjectures based on a minimum of objective evidence. This tendency, I think, is especially prevalent in the field of textual criticism.

However, I also think that there are morphological markers that can provide clues as to where invention can be separated from (at least the basics) of historical narrative. For instance, you mentioned the story of Ai, and it is (as you said) a good case in point. The term "Ai" translated means "heap" or "ruin". And while this cannot be taken to be conclusive in itself, it does provide a literary clue that what was written as historical narrative, actually informs us that a legendary Israel was busily attacking what was already a heap of ruins.

In addition to such literary clues, Finkelstein makes a good case that the demographical backdrop of the exodus and conquest narratives, rather than reflecting the demographic circumstances of the LB, more accurately depicts the situation as it stood in the 8th/ 7th century.

What is compelling to me here, is the conflation of these methodologies. It is only in the 8th/ 7th centuries that the (basic historical) biblical narratives begin to be corroborated by archaeological and extra-biblical evidence. Narratives of alleged events occuring before this time are rife with literary anachronisms, demographical anachronisms and a lack of archaeological and extra-biblical corroboration.

This is not to say that embellishment added to these narratives (early or late) is factual any more than the boasting stelae of foreign kings need necessarily be the unvarnished truth. Still, the basic political interactions of the kings and countries as depicted in the biblical narrative (regarding the 8th/ 7th centuries onward), match fairly well with the extra-biblical records we have from Assyria, Egypt, Babylonia, and etc.

Alphabet soup notwithstanding, it is hardly disputable that there are (at least) two parallel traditions in many of the early biblical narratives. Yet, I don't think that the events described in the united kingdom narratives can be used as causative factors in the north/south orientation of the respective sources (I suspect the UK tales are more a result than the cause). Nevertheless, for the independent reasons given above, an 8th/ 7th century placement for these sources enjoys a natural and intuitive explanation for their north/south orientation, i.e. the divided kingdom.

Thus, I have two basic reservations concerning the theory of post-exilic sources. The first is: why? We can see from the Assyrian records that Judah (in the late 8th/ 7th century) and Israel (even earlier, perhaps late 9th/early 8th century) certainly had the culture and the resources to record the political, (basically) historical, and legendary narratives of their respective countries(rather than merely their day-to-day domestic transactions). What indication is there that they didn't?

And the second reservation would be: if it wasn't until the exilic or post-exilic period that these records began to be recorded, why does the literature seem to switch from legendary to recording a (basically) historical account at precisely the time when the archaeological record indicates they could (i.e., again, 8th/ 7th century)? Also, why would the earlier legendary narratives appear to anachronistically reflect the demographical situation just as it existed in the 8th/ 7th century? It seems unlikely that this would be the case for sources written in the mid 6th/ 5th century and based on collective memory.

Again, this is an interesting subject to me, and I will be interested in your (and everyone's) responses.

Amlodhi

[Celsus]

Just a quick response since I have to run (will get back to this in time):
it is hardly disputable that there are (at least) two parallel traditions in many of the early biblical narratives.
If you are refering to J and E, then this is very much in dispute, and the search for E has mostly been abandoned. If you are talking about J and P, no one will strongly disagree, but probably wouldn't term them "parallel". I will try and say something about Finkelstein's correlation later on (and it won't be nice).

Joel

[spin]

Originally posted by DrJim
Spin:
I've been toying the idea of Graeme Auld's notion ("Kings without Privelege", T & T Clark) of a common source for Sam-Kings + Chronicles for a while: Auld was my thesis supervisor in Edinburgh. I'm not to sure where I stand on that right now: He caught a lot of flak for it, at least in details which were elevated to a rejection of the whole idea. I do remember he told me "Don't go down in MY sinking ship", so I went off to drill a few holes in a barge of my own invention. It felt good...

I humbly have to admit that I've read nothing by Auld. I came at the situation in an effort to see how Josephus used Sam/Kgs and Chr., and the evidence was quite strange. Josephus usually has the tendency to work with a single document as a source and work in bits and pieces from others as he goes, always sticking to his one source. With Sam/Kgs and Chr, though I can't really find any of the unique material from Chr, I do find passages that apparently flit from one to the other at a paragraph level -- sometimes even at a phrase level -- which doesn't represent the way he worked in the bulk of his material. My conclusion was that he may have been using a source which was different again, but possible the same source as the other two used. But then there are complications with that idea, eg Josephus uses Ishbosheth and Mephibosheth, so perhaps he did use Sam/Kgs or some intermediate text.

Still from other grounds I can't imagine when Sam/Kgs was written if it were before the Hasmonaean era because I can't justify priests writing or preserving such texts which show so little interest in the priesthood and which give priestly rights to the king.

We must remember -- and I can't stress this too much -- the only people who could sustain a scribal community through the second temple period before the Hasmonaeans were the priests, so fundamentally the priesthood had a monopoly over religious texts. To get an idea of the prestige of a scribe, see Ben Sira 38:24-39:11. At the same time it should be noted that the community based on Jerusalem was basically just that, just Jerusalem and little more, for much of the time down to the Hasmonaean expansion, so there was no-one else to be able to support a non-earning member of society. It took years to train a scribe without any recompense, so it took a lot of wealth to "create" one. Again the only people who had such wealth besides a few rich merchants were the priests.

I think therefore that any consideration about what was or was not in texts, when they were written and by whom needs to consider who was capable of commissioning new texts or redaction of old ones or just duplication of old ones.


spin

[DrJim]

Spin:
Good points: I will have to come back to them again when I'm not so busy! Maybe a new thread one day on it will be useful. Now I have to get a lecture on Hindu Bhakti in order. I keep having images of Homer Simpson dressed up as Ganesha at Apu's wedding running through my mind...

[DrJim]

Spin has raised the question of reliablity of the common perception of the Chronicler's use of Samuel and Kings as a source material. Spin holds there seems to be evidence of both Sam-Kings and Chr. developing independently from a common source, baing himself on Josephus' retelling of monarchic history, among other reasons.

As I noted in an earlier post, Graeme Auld of the U. of Edinburgh has argued for a similar conclusion to Spin on albeit completely different grounds. His main theory was outlined in his book "Kings without Privelege (T and T Clark, now part of Continuum International).

Those interested in the question will have to wait for Spin to get the time and inclination to lay out all his evidence.

Auld, however, has contributed a chapter to a book produced under the auspices of the journal Biblical Interpretation. It is available online for free (I think I've mentioned it before).

http://zerlina.ingentaselect.com/vl=1567235/cl=18/nw=1/rpsv/cw/brill/09272569/contp1.htm

The volume is entitled, "Virtual History and the Bible" which explores a lot of "what if" scenarios. Auld writes on "What if the Chronicler did Use the Deuteronomistic History".

On the link above, scroll down to volume 8: 1/2. You will be able to read the whole book. Lots of neat stuff.

As far as Auld's thesis goes, it will take an awful lot of detailed discussion to test it. It has been ruled out by a lot of folk, but as I remember it, htere is more substance to it than first meets the eye. Anyway, I don't have a copy of "Kings without Privilege" myself, and its been ages since I read it, so I'm not really qualified to attack or defend it in any detail.

Anyway, I hope you have some fun with "virtual history".

SOME of the TOC:
'ISRAEL IS LAID WASTE; HIS SEED IS NO MORE': WHAT IF MERNEPTAH'S SCRIBES WERE TELLING THE TRUTH?
Keith W. Whitelam

ADDE PRAEPUTIUM PRAEPUTIO MAGNUS ACERVUS ERIT: IF THE EXODUS AND CONQUEST HAD REALLY HAPPENED
Lester L. Grabbe

WHAT IF WE HAD NO ACCOUNTS OF SENNACHERIB'S THIRD CAMPAIGN OR THE PALACE RELIEFS DEPICTING HIS CAPTURE OF LACHISH? Diana Edelman

IF THE LORD'S ANOINTED HAD LIVED Philip R. Davies

It might be fun to do some virtual history here too to think through some issues: like, What would history be like if David did have an empire? I'm just being naughty, sorry. ;)

I don't mean to hijack this thread, so, back to the regular programming...

JRL

[Celsus]

Originally posted by Amlodhi
Briefly then, I will just say that I do agree with you regarding the tendency of many authors to make unwarranted conjectures based on a minimum of objective evidence. This tendency, I think, is especially prevalent in the field of textual criticism.
And, as we shall see, we see archaeologists doing the same sort of thing about the Bible.
However, I also think that there are morphological markers that can provide clues as to where invention can be separated from (at least the basics) of historical narrative. For instance, you mentioned the story of Ai, and it is (as you said) a good case in point. The term "Ai" translated means "heap" or "ruin". And while this cannot be taken to be conclusive in itself, it does provide a literary clue that what was written as historical narrative, actually informs us that a legendary Israel was busily attacking what was already a heap of ruins.
Not necessarily. I don't think an in-joke can be read into such a thing. Rather, the people who did see the ruin genuinely thought that that ruin was the work of their forebears. Having no name for Ai other than Ai, they wrote the story in the same way as Jericho and the rest (with a slightly different twist).
In addition to such literary clues, Finkelstein makes a good case that the demographical backdrop of the exodus and conquest narratives, rather than reflecting the demographic circumstances of the LB, more accurately depicts the situation as it stood in the 8th/ 7th century.
Or in the 6th, or it could have represented the demographic circumstances of a Hellenistic writer who had a really old history, travelogue, or map. Remember, ancient "histories" also included ancient geographies--Manetho and Herodotus both give detailed descriptions of Egypt's geography in their "histories" and any sort of description of Israel may well have done the same (More stuff thought up in the last 5 minutes... er, the Manetho/Herodotus bit is true). In fact, if one looks at Manetho, you get a very good idea of how an ancient historiographer may have worked. Things that we say about Manetho are barely permitted in biblical scholarship. I will try and do a comparison between him and our biblical authors one day (and what scholars say about each). It is extraordinarily revealing (I'll explain Finkelstein proper below).
What is compelling to me here, is the conflation of these methodologies. It is only in the 8th/ 7th centuries that the (basic historical) biblical narratives begin to be corroborated by archaeological and extra-biblical evidence. Narratives of alleged events occuring before this time are rife with literary anachronisms, demographical anachronisms and a lack of archaeological and extra-biblical corroboration.

This is not to say that embellishment added to these narratives (early or late) is factual any more than the boasting stelae of foreign kings need necessarily be the unvarnished truth. Still, the basic political interactions of the kings and countries as depicted in the biblical narrative (regarding the 8th/ 7th centuries onward), match fairly well with the extra-biblical records we have from Assyria, Egypt, Babylonia, and etc.
As I've said before, the errors are less, but by the time we get to the bits of Kings prior to the exile, we are very near my proposed date of authorship (at least in its original form), so I'm not surprised if there are records available. Baruch Halpern wrote what almost is an apologetic called The First Historians. You may like to get your hands on that. I believe that this idea of Israelite historians is another myth of biblical scholarship and retrojecting modern methodologies into the hands of the ancients. So what, if there starts to be some corroboration? It doesn't give us anything more than a lower date, and the stories are still fanciful.

An obvious point is that if one reads the Deuteronomy-Kings portion as a single text (which many scholars do), it ends at the exile, and therefore can date to no earlier than the 6th century. When one reads Genesis-Numbers, to what degree does it presuppose Deut-Kings? That's the start of the investigation. The problem with archaeologists reading the Bible is that Halpern, Finkelstein, Dever, etc. all pick and choose from the Bible wherever it suits them. They find a correlation with one of their theories, and immediately declare the Bible to date to that period so that they can bring that period to life with much more detail.
Alphabet soup notwithstanding, it is hardly disputable that there are (at least) two parallel traditions in many of the early biblical narratives. Yet, I don't think that the events described in the united kingdom narratives can be used as causative factors in the north/south orientation of the respective sources (I suspect the UK tales are more a result than the cause). Nevertheless, for the independent reasons given above, an 8th/ 7th century placement for these sources enjoys a natural and intuitive explanation for their north/south orientation, i.e. the divided kingdom.
What do you think of the theory that so-called "E" elements seem to reflect the concerns of traditions in Beersheba and the Negev?
Thus, I have two basic reservations concerning the theory of post-exilic sources. The first is: why? We can see from the Assyrian records that Judah (in the late 8th/ 7th century) and Israel (even earlier, perhaps late 9th/early 8th century) certainly had the culture and the resources to record the political, (basically) historical, and legendary narratives of their respective countries(rather than merely their day-to-day domestic transactions). What indication is there that they didn't?
I would say the lack of political centralisation, the fact that Palestine was always the stomping grounds of Middle Eastern powerhouses, the high diversity of religious beliefs and polytheism, the nonexistence of the Hebrew language (in its biblical form), the nonbelief of the first truly Israelite dynasty (Omrides), and so on. Is that enough to give reasonable doubt?
And the second reservation would be: if it wasn't until the exilic or post-exilic period that these records began to be recorded, why does the literature seem to switch from legendary to recording a (basically) historical account at precisely the time when the archaeological record indicates they could (i.e., again, 8th/ 7th century)?
Really? Is David's joining the Philistines as a mercenary, or slaughtering of Uzziah "legendary"? There isn't any supernatural elements to that. Or what about Abraham's trickery with Abimelech (or was it Pharoah? ;)) What's so legendary about that? What about the sacrifice to Chemosh (2 Kings 3)? What about the Elijah/Elisha cycles? Aren't those legendary? Perhaps all this has something to do with the annalistic nature of Kings?
Also, why would the earlier legendary narratives appear to anachronistically reflect the demographical situation just as it existed in the 8th/ 7th century? It seems unlikely that this would be the case for sources written in the mid 6th/ 5th century and based on collective memory. [/B]
See above. Finkelstein's work bases itself on names of towns. What can we confidently know about the towns in the Iron II? Not a lot. So the demographical situation is quite sketchy, and Finkelstein is asking for too much out of his data, and his correlation with the Bible is not as strong as you may think. The key point is: it does not necessitate placing the Bible in that period (lest I be accused of special pleading). That is all. I recognise that my theories are conjectural and not completely supportable, and Finkelstein should recognise likewise.

Joel

[Amlodhi]

Celsus

The key point is: it does not necessitate placing the Bible in that period (lest I be accused of special pleading). That is all. I recognise that my theories are conjectural and not completely supportable, and Finkelstein should recognise likewise.

Hi Celsus,

Of course I agree, no theory regarding the sources is, at this point, completely supportable.

Just wanted to make a note here to thank you, spin, Doc X, etal., for your collective input on this matter. I have some additional selected reading (including Van Seters) I want to digest, and then, with your indulgence, perhaps I will impose on you again.

Thanks,

Amlodhi