lpetrich

I have found Aviva Lori's very interesting interview with Israel Finkelstein in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz about the book he co-authored with Neil Asher, The Bible Unearthed (or via: amazon.co.uk).

He believes that much of the Old Testament or Hebrew Bible was written during the seventh century BCE in the southern kingdom, Judah, around the reign of King Josiah, and reflected an inferiority complex on the part of the southerners.

According to the Bible, the northern kingdom, Israel, was an unimportant place filled with sinners, while archeological evidence shows it to be the more prosperous of the two, with the southern kingdom looking relatively backward. It even had its own holy places, like Bethel and Samaria.

And before that? Finkelstein claims that there is little evidence of the big unified kingdom that David and Solomon had built and ruled; in the 10th century BCE, Jerusalem was a small town without the big monuments that one would expect of a big empire, and its neighbors were ignorant of it.

The northern kingdom met its end around 720 BCE, when Assyria conquered it; the southern kingdom barely escaped being conquered by Sennacherib's armies. And the southern kingdom lived in Assyria's shadow until 625 BCE, when it collapsed. This was during King Josiah's reign, and I'm sure that he might have been as surprised by that collapse as many of us were at the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1989.

Finkelstein proposes that a lot of history was invented and rewritten as a justification for King Josiah ruling both kingdoms. He could say something like:
Finkelstein proposes that the earlier stories in the Bible had similar origins; the Conquest related in the Book of Joshua was intended to demonstrate that Josiah was doing what predecessors like Joshua had done -- taking back what was rightfully his.

While Finkelstein is confident that there was a historical David and a historical Solomon, even if they ruled over small territories, he is sure that the Exodus never happened as described. He claims, however, that some Canaanites had gone to Egypt's Nile Delta in the first half of the second millennium BCE and that the Egyptians later expelled them. This could have been distantly remembered and later embellished into the Exodus story. Finkelstein also thinks that the Exodus story took its present form during the Babylonian Exile as a form of reassurance that "we Israelites were once exiled and held captive once before, but we got liberated then also, and we made our way back to our homeland then also."

The patriarchs Finkelstein thinks are equally mythological. I think that the Bible's account of them are an effort to fit various groups' legendary ancestors into a single overall narrative; it was also a way of claiming land for Judah ("See how God had granted our ancestors all that land?").

How does he relate to all his discoveries and conclusions? He says:
I wonder how many secular Jews are like that.

But some people may find it more difficult; they would insist in the literal truth of what they participate in.

Jayrok

Loved this book. Interesting interview as well. I'd like to see these guys do a series of TV specials on Biblical Archaeology highlighting his discoveries mentioned in the book.

The christian right wouldn't like it and somehow it probably wouldn't get any publicity. Or even if it is shown, it will be waved off as nonsense or inconclusive speculation on one man's part.

But people need to be educated on this issue. If enough people start to realize the Bible is largely mythological stories passed down and embellished for political reasons of the times, we might start getting somewhere.

French Prometheus

I liked the book too. I saw him on a French documentary a while ago, it was very good too.

mens_sana

If I remember correctly, the crux of Finkelstein's basic argument concerns the dating of several city gates, hitherto thought to be part Solomon's construction program. Finkelstein downdates them, which effectively erases all evidence of Solomon's kingdom, especially since excavation on the Temple Mount is severely constrained. The dating of these gates is NOT a done deal. Finkelstein is in a distinct (archaeological) minority here, although he has been coopted by the "Minimalists" (e.g., Davies, Lemche, Thompson, and Whitlam), none of whom are archaeolgists.

Hence, the argument for the post-exilic writing of the Hebrew Bible — because there was practically no one around to write it prior to the exile. I know of no one in mainstream scholarship who claims that the pre-exilic portions of the Hebrew Bible were textually frozen as the Masoretic Text is now. Editing, likely some extensive editing took place in the post-exilic period as the second temple constructed a history more to its liking. But this is not the same as saying that the pre-exilic texts were actually written in the post-exilic period.

Clivedurdle

I think it is the norm, from my experience of the atheist Jews I know! I suppose we do similar things with xmas and easter, but remember, our traditions are the old pagan ways, and this xianity superstitio always was an ill fitting cloth on the descendants of people who did things like stone henge and later were celts with druidic traditions of human sacrifice and annoying Caesar!

Our roots are not this middle eastern roman cult!

Anat

I have gone back to my Canaanite roots (true or imagined): on Passover I celebrate the arival of spring, the early harvest (because I like matzah). I'll try to add lamb roast for connecting with the shepherd side.

Last year I visited my parents so after many years I participated in a semi-traditional seder (ie reading the first half of the haggada, until the meal). There is no way I can tell the traditional story myself. It makes me feel dishonest.

HeretiKc

You know, I got kind of confused reading Bible Unearthed--at one point in the book, Finkelstein seems to be supporting the (Canaanite) peasant revolt/social revolution hypothesis:

But in an appendix (Appendix C, "Alternative Theories of the Israelite Conquest, pp. 329-339), he rejects it:

In fact, he he seems to dismiss all three major paradigms:

So what exactly does he suggest as the origin of Hebrew culture/lifestyle? Where does it first appear, and in what form?

_______________

I think it was on here that I was directed to Anson Rainey's BAR article "The 'Consensus Theory' is Dead", that reacted against most of these paradigms and attempted to paint early Israelite settlers as "Transjordanians"? Anyone think this holds up, or is there a serious flaw here?

Ah, okay, just now, I found William Dever's response to Rainey's article.

Someone tell me WTF is going on.

rob117

It's a subtle distinction. The "peasant revolt" model postulated a conscious, regionwide revolt, with the peasants actively rejecting their Canaanite identity. The "consensus theory" of Dever and Finkelstein essentially sees the settlement of the highlands as the sedentarization of indigenous pastoralists (shasu), with some elements of displaced farmers and outlaws from the coastal city-states (hapiru), and probably some small pastoral infiltration from the north, south, and east. Finkelstein showed in The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (1988) that this was part of a recurring cycle of sedentarization and nomadization in the Palestinian highlands that had happened along several archaeological boundary lines- the Chalcolithic/EB I boundary saw nomadization, EB I/II boundary saw sedentarization, etc. The LBII/Iron I boundary that saw the highland settlement that produced Israel was one of the periods of sedentarization. The most recent of these cycles in the region happened just a century ago, which saw the sedentarization of most of the bedouin.

The Bishop

What is your definition of pre-exilic and post-exilic here? My understanding of the consensus was that most of the Pentateuch was written after the return from exile, some of it based on documents (J and E)which were pre-exilic but post-destruction of Israel (722BCE). Also the first edition of the Deuteronomic History, written for King Josiah's benefit, is dated to his period, but then the last chapters and various linking texts which form the second edition (Dtr2) was definitely afterwards. And of course Redactor was post-Exile, but that is more or less what you said.

mens_sana

Let's call the exilic period as 587 BCE to 515 BCE. So J and E and the JE redaction are preexilic, along with DH1 (incl. Joshua-Judges), 1st Isaiah, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Zephaniah, Nahum, Habbukuk, the Royal Psalms, portions of Proverbs, and in the very early exile, 2nd Isaiah and 1st Jeremiah. I'm not sure when P came on the scene, but the Holiness Code would be preexilic. I was very impressed by Wm Schneidewind's How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel. (or via: amazon.co.uk) Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2004 (0-521-82946-1) which gives Josiah's court more credit than usual and his argument for the lack of a social infrastructure necessary for literary production for about a century after the return.