rob117

Reading a book about Ancient Israel by an archaeologist, and then reading one by a textual scholar afterward, you come across a lot of fairly glaring contradictions. Despite the fact that textual criticism books occasionally mention archaeological discoveries when directly relevant, overall they pretty much ignore it. Most "biblical maximalists" are textual scholars rather than archaeologists; for example, David Noel Freedman claims (implausibly, in my opinion) that the Song of Deborah could date as early as the 12th century BC- despite the fact that geographical information present in the poem regarding the territory of the Israelite tribes dates it to no earlier than the 10th century BC (or the ninth, if Finkelstein's Low Chronology is used); Harold Bloom (The Book of J), despite the fact that he is an atheist, is willing to consider the Court History of David (most of II Samuel) to be an eyewitness account of David's reign. Among most textual critics the tendency is to take the biblical account at face value, although minimalists (Davies, Thomson, Lemche) as well tend to be of a fairly non-archaeological (if not necessarily literary) persuasion.

On the other hand, Dever, who is often incorrectly considered a "maximalist," has gone on record stating that none of the major prose sources of the Bible can be earlier than the eighth century BC. Finkelstein, similarly, has been incorrectly called a "minimalist," even though he still dates most of the Pentateuch to the seventh century BC. While Dever and Finkelstein are often portrayed as opposites, I personally find their views to be very similar, essentially confined to whether or not certain archaeological strata should be down-dated by half a century. These kinds of stratigraphical debates are common in archaeology; the only reason we even hear about this one is that it has relevance to the historicity of a theologically and nationalistically prominent entity (the United Monarchy). In terms of the actual dating of the Pentateuchal sources, Dever and Finkelstein are far closer to each other than, either is to Freedman, Friedman, or Bloom on the one hand, and Lemche, Davies, and Thompson on the other.

Basically, what I don't understand is why there is not more communication between archaeologists and textual scholars, especially as communication between them could shed much light on the dating and content of certain biblical texts.

Clivedurdle

Could the archaeologists be science based and the lit cric folk faith based?

Steven Avery

Textcrit folks are rarely faith-based. And if they are, they are supposed to check any faith ideas at the door. In fact, the presups of modern scientific textcrit have an anti-inspiration and anti-preservation base, one that creates and enforces textual errancy.

Clivedurdle

But the first point of any academic study I thought was to review the literature, and what makes this so strange is that the tools of text analysis dating etc were developed by archaeologists trying to make sense of all the data sources! (Rosetta Stone!) Text crits should see themselves as specialists with documents within the overall context of archaeology. It sounds like they see themselves as separate when in fact they are dependant!

Where are they normally based? Within theology departments or archaelogy departments?

Diogenes the Cynic

Harold Bloom is only lit crit isn't he? Does he actually have any hard text crit credentials?

Kippaxblue

This cuts across a lot of historical study not just Biblical history. There is nothing unusual about tension and disputes between acheologists and text historians.

rob117

I don't think they consciously see themselves as separate. Most of them have headed excavations in Palestine, but it's an occassional thing, whereas professional archaeologists do it every summer. I know that in order to become a biblical critic you have to take a course on biblical archaeology- but it's a course, not an entire curriculum. I think the big difference is that biblical archaeologists are beginning to see their discipline as just one area of archaeology, whereas textual scholars are still more comfortable with the traditional view that biblical archaeology is a subset of biblical studies. Dever and Finkelstein have pushed for a synthesis in which archaeology is the primary factor in historical reconstruction, with the biblical texts carefully reviewed and used to supplement it where appropriate; textual scholars like Friedman and Freedman seem to make liberal use of archaeology to illuminate the texts, yet ignore it when it has no direct relation to the text.

Basically, I think textual critics choose to see archaeology as a tool to illuminate the Bible, whereas archaeologists recognize that the time and place they study is a world in itself, and that the Bible is merely one artifact among many.

Well, as I'm looking at colleges now any, I've noticed that Near Eastern archaeology as a whole is not even given the same treatment as other archaeological fields. The archaeology of East Asia, the Americas, Africa, Australia, and prehistoric Europe is usually in the anthropology department; the Near East (along with Classical Europe) is in the Classics department. Biblical archaeology is also found in the history and Judaic studies departments. Textual criticism, if dealt with at all, is in the Judaic studies or religious studies departments. It's a shame they're not organized better.

Steven Avery

Really ? I know James Tabor, a bit of a renaissance fellow, has headed an excavation in Galilee, Israel, while he has been working on a translation, but he really isn't a textcrit afficiondo. Who else ? Ehrman ? Metzger ? Who are these textcrit folks who are actually active in the real world

rob117

David Noel Freedman has done one at Ashdod and one at Jerusalem.