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What about Menachem Begin and Yitzak Shamir?


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Ain't this one of life's little ironies?

They tried real hard in the literature to separate themselves from the rest of the Canaanites, yet their material culture and their language gives this fact away.


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Jayhawker Soule

Actually, they did a rather good job separating themselves, and there was, it seems, a shift in material culture at the end of the Bronze.

spin

Firstly, there was no shift from what was there before, other than natural evolutionary changes. You just had regional diversities, such that the physical culture in the Judean highlands wasn't that of Samaria.


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MiddleMan

I'm a fan of both Finkelstein and Dever (Dever more than Finkelstein, however) but I've just finished reading Kenneth Kitchen's new book, "On the Reliability of the Old Testament." Kitchen violently disagrees with Finkelstein and has only a few kind words for Dever. Here's a sample:

RE: The Bible Unearthed
"The mishmash on Joshua and Judges is an idle repetition of all the usual nineteenth-century shibboleths; the answer to which may be found in our chapter 5. Stuck with their a priori dogma of solely indigenous Hebrews (no exodus, no 'entry' into Canaan), F & S are entirely unable to account for the massive population explosion in Canaan in Iron IA. If they do not want an immigration (what's so sociologically sinful about that?), then maybe they should opt for a sex-orgy hypothesis (chap. 5)!" pg. 468

RE: What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?
"There seems to be a psychological hangover here; in the 1950s to 1960s, Albright and Dever's much hated 'American Biblical Archaeology' (plus theology) movement had believed in the patriarchs and exodus -- so (irrationally) nobody now (two generations later) must either be allowed to study them seriously or to produce any data (no matter how genuine or germane) that do suggest their possible reality. In the light of what is now known, there is no excuse whatsoever for dismissing either the patriarchs (with a firm date line) or the exodus; see the entirely fresh treatments in chapters 6 and 7 above [in which Kitchen argues that the exodus is very much historically possible, paring down the population of Hebrews to about 22,000 and giving natural explanations for the plagues. In addition, he argues that the lack of any evidence is to be expected in the Nile delta. Any mudbrick built to house the Hebrews would have long been swallowed back up by the soggy conditions and any papyrus reporting the event would have been dissolved as well -- added by MiddleMan ]...Archaeologists that have 'given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob credible "historical figures"' (98) are not thereby rendered 'respectable'; in fact they simply do not know the relevant source materials (which are mainly textual ), are not competent to pass judgment on the issues, and would be better described as pitifully ignorant, and can now be mercifully dismissed as out of their depth." (pp. 468-469)

Interesting, to say the least! Kitchen has called Finkelstein's work "mishmash" and Dever "pitifully ignorant." Comments?

Doctor X

Consequent Atheist:

I will add a :notworthy for that comment as well.

I found Biblical Archaeology far more scholarly than The Bible Unearthed. Considering it describes why pot-shards are important, the fact it does not induce coma in, and of itself, is an achievement. Anyways, I think they do take the Tel Dan findings a bit far. They are, however, honest about doing that.

MiddleMan:

This is probably not an appropriate criteria to judge a scholar--"my fallacy beats your fallacy"--but I generally do not trust invective spewing. Also, his explanation of the Nile "washing away" evidence does NOT explain the Sinai!!

Then, again, I like Thompson and his The Mythic Past. I have not read Dever, but, apparently, he does not like Thompson though both seem to be arguing similar things.

Anyways, Kitchen, by your quotes, HAS to utterly diminish the Exodus--22,000--which utterly changes the texts and ruins the myth . . . in order to save the myth? So, then, does he believe Pharoh did not move against them with an army--his heart softening and hardening 'n all? So how does he explain the 22,000 not getting wiped out?

Nice to see how scholarship remains a gentleman's profession . . . with pistols at dawn. . . .

--J.D.

Celsus

Yes. Kitchen should take a long hard look in the mirror, and then examine where his conjecture has replaced evidence. Kitchen is a favourite of conservative apologists, by the way.

Joel

MiddleMan

Regarding the Sinai (in particular Finkelstein's discussion of it in Unearthed , Kitchen wrote the following:

"As for no clues in Sinai, it is silly to expect to find traces of everybody who ever passed through the various routes in that peninsula. The state of preservation of remains is very uneven. For the Late Bronze Age, F. & S. have overlooked the Egyptian mining site at Serabit el-Khadim. The seasonal miners must have had interim stopping places between Serabit and Egypt, if they traveled overland back to the East Delta (on a reverse route to the Hebrews in Exod. 16-19), or at port sites like Markha if they sailed back to Egypt. Why, then, have we no record of these? This absence does not disprove the Egyptian regular visitations into Sinai, given their solid monumental presence --therefore, the ansence of possible Hebrew campsites is likewise meaningless. What is more, from Sinai the Hebrews expected initially to be in Canaan in a year, not in forty years. They had no need to lug tons of heavy pottery around with them (just to oblige F. & S. with a few sherds!) if leatherwork or skins would do." (pg. 467)

<snip>


It would appear that way, no?



I could not quickly find any mention of the pursuing Egyptian army and its fate in Kitchen's book (it may nonetheless be there), but I did find a number of instances where he mentions the Hebrews specifically trying to avoid contact with the Egyptian military. Perhaps he meant to cover such a question with a quote I found on page 263 of his book. He wrote, "It is impractical to comment here on every incidental detail of the exodus narratives."

MiddleMan

I learned that rather quickly, and disappointingly, after reading his book, Joel.

Doctor X

MiddleMan:

Yeah, he seems to argue from absence. Welcome to the forums, by the way.

Later, I will post the summary from Biblical Archaeolgy of the problems with Exodus--I have it at home and not here.

--J.D.