The Bishop

If the Bible is the evidence for Solomon, I'm afraid it's also evidence for why we should not expect to find the temple that he built, since it is described as having been destroyed. The remains today are of the Second Temple, which obviously post-dated Solomon by nearly five centuries.

Sarpedon

Frequently, destroyed buildings leave traces. For example, at Amarna, Egypt, we can see the outlines of the floorplans of Akhnaten's temples, even though the temples themselves were pulled down and deliberately destroyed. A heavy stone building requires massive foundations. When people destroy a building, they are usually content with burning it and knocking down the walls. They rarely dig up the foundations and replace them with dirt.

Also, building materials frequently got recycled. Especially dressed stone. Skilled archaeologists can identify reused stone.

Roller

Yeah. I kinda took that one for granted. So people really doubt such temple ever existed?

Anat

For religious and political reasons it is impossible to do the kind of archaeological digs on Temple Mount that would allow one to discover whatever remains there were from such early times. However the evidence from nearby sites in Jerusalem such as the City of David indicates that prior to the late 8th century BCE (Hezekiah's times) it was a very small city with few public buildings. In 'David and Solomon' Finkelstein suggests that the Jerusalem temple started out as a small local shrine (maybe just another 'high place') that became more elaborate over the generations as the kingdom of Judah developed. That the references to repair works in the temple, such as on the 23rd year of Jehoash (2Kings 12) are actually about times when structures were added to the temple.

Sarpedon

Yes Roller, we do. The amount of Gold and Silver used in its construction is very high. This leads people who are skeptical to question whether it was real, imaginary, or an exageration of a lesser building. The bible is filled of made-up things: Noah's ark, the speaking head of John the Baptist, the Resurrection, Gopher wood, and so forth. Why not this as well?

Roller

Three million people in exodus, talking donkey in Numbers, zombies in Matthew... Yeah, I kinda know about the exaggerations. I never really thought much about the temple. I read "Bible Unearthed" but maybe I missed the discussion on this.

Doug Shaver

Yes, some do.

Nuwanda

Biblical Archaeology Review did an interesting article debunking Finkelstein's new book on David and Solomon. From your post it sounds as if you read it, or at least parts of it. The article makes clear that Finkelstein himself is aware that his "...views are at the very least debatable and in fact are not accepted by the majority of archaeologists and Biblical scholars" (BAR, July/August, 2006, p.57-58).

As one example of many the article brings to light shows Jerusalem to be a significant city in the 14th century B.C. According to the Amarna letters from the Late Bronze Age, 'Jerusalem was significant enough for its ruler, Abdi-Heba to correspond with the pharaoh of Egypt. It was in fact the most important city-state of the southern hill country, and it had an established scribal tradition.'

Fortuna

This seems a tad misleading, perhaps not. Let's elaborate a bit and see if this shows what BAR thinks it does.(I have footnoted a web site below that confirms what I'm about to say with a translation of this letter)

First, Abdi-Heba is the local ruler of that part of Canaan for the Pharoh. At this time, Canaan is a possesion of Egypt and Abdi is the Pharoh's representative there. (but not for long, it is being taken over, the point of the letter).

Secondly - The letter is in the Akkadian language and the writing is cunieform.
(Akkadian was a Mesopotamian language[from Akkad], also used by early Assyrians and Babylonians).

So, as for claiming that this is a "scribal tradition", OK, but we should also understand it as an imported scribal tradition. (That is, it did not originate there and it is questionable if it was even taught there). Other letters of the collection reference a "Syrian scribe" there.

The letter is telling the Pharoh that Egypt's land is being taken over by the " 'Apiru " and that Phatoh had better send some archers to help secure the land. There also appears to be some squabbles with other local governors and their actions regarding the 'apiru.

It is not immediately clear to me what this tells us about the size and importance of Jerusalem. Clearly, it is more than just a backwater village of farmers/herders, but we can't say with certainty from any of these that it is
a bustling metropolis nor a large city...but it is an influential one, good enough for Pharohs governor to be stationed there with his own scribes and entourage.


But, is not this in conflict with the bible's chronology of that time period and what is supposed to be going on at that time ? I cannot remember the bible ever mentioning that Canaan at this time was a possession of Egypt.

These letters are from the 14th century BCE (the 1300s). I thought that according to the Biblical timeline, the exodus was about 1500BCE. So, this is 200 years after the exodus. But according to these letters Egypt still has control of Canaan.

How do the biblical scholars resolve this ?


* http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/meso/amarna286.html

Nuwanda

I believe Michael D. Coogan (author of the article in question) is simply giving evidence that Jerusalem was much more than just a backwater town in Canaan in the 14th century, and not giving info as to the dominant people group there at the time. It was in the same league as Tyre, Megiddo, Ashkelon, Damascus and a few others he mentions.