Minimalist

Sauron,

I can't swear that this is the entire interview but it is a pretty fair excerpt and certainly conveys the points expressed by Hershel Shanks' panel of scholars.

http://themustardseed.wordpress.com/tag/judaism/

Gullwind

I think the link is wrong. I found it by searching for "The Exodus."

The article does refer to three-room houses, and my source was quite certain it was three. Apparently no one else in history had the technical ability to build a three-room house. :huh:

Cheerful Charlie

The Rise of Ancient Israel: A symposium at the Smithsonian Institute October 26, 1991 (or via: amazon.co.uk)
Edit by Hershel Shanks
BAR Press 1992

William Dever
"The conquest model is not subscribed to by most bibllical scholars today
- certainly no one in the mainstream of scholarship - and that's been true for some time. Moreover there isn't a single reputable professional archaeologist in the world who espouses the conquest model in Israel, Europe, or America. We don't need to say anymore about the conquest model in Israel. That's that. (Laughter) Not to be dogmatic about it or anything but ... (Laughter)."


CC

spamandham

More importantly, is it suggested by anything credible?

lpetrich

It seems that the likes of Dever and Finkelstein differ mostly about the level of historicity of the likes of Kings David and Solomon; is that a fair assessment?

They do agree, however, on the Exodus and the Conquest.


And about that hypothesis of a distant memory of the Hyksos, that might explain another curiousity. Some of the Ten Plagues of Egypt have been explained as memories of the great Thera caldera eruption of around 1600 - 1500 BCE. Though the precise date of that eruption remains controversial, the range of proposed dates is nevertheless within the range of when the Hyksos had been in Egypt. So some fleeing Hyksos could have taken with them some memories of those disasters, memories that would have been passed down through the centuries until they became part of the familiar Ten Plagues of Egypt narrative.

Dreadnought

I did start out with an argument pointing to the possibility and with some reasons. Feel free to address those if you find them lacking in credibility. Other than that I think I've received some good argumentation for how the "Egyptian link" could have arisen without any Israelites actually having been there as slaves and then left which is what I've always found troubling when discussing this issue. Perhaps I'm too hung up about the "if there's smoke there's fire"-line of thinking.

PS: Thanks for fixing my Wiki-link Toto.

spamandham

Huh? Finkelstein agrees on the Exodus and Conquest?

Cheerful Charlie

Yes, today's archeological big debate is the historicity of David and Solomon. Finkelstein has claimed evidence some large structures (city gates) thought to be built by Solomon were misdated by about 90 years.
This has started a large debate on the issue. The next issue is, how much history do the David/Solomon materials of the OT contain, and how much is latter day hypothesis by early Israelite writers?

CC

Minimalist

At one point in time, best represented by Dever's "What Did The Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It (or via: amazon.co.uk)" (The man likes long titles!) he was holding out for what is known as the "high chronology" which holds that the gates of Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer were built in the 10th century. He seems to have backed away from being very dogmatic about that in the intervening years. The major proponent of the High Chronology seemed to be Amihai Mazar who has been disputing the point with Finkelstein but in a debate in England it seemed that the two were down to about a 75 year difference. There was a C14 test which seemed to favor Finkelstein's Low Chronology but the +/- spread of the test was still too wide to be able to exclude one position or the other.

The significance is that Finkelstein, using the Low Chronology makes the case that the entire area area was developed by the Omride Dynasty, the first real kings of the northern state of Israel at a time when Jerusalem was still a hick town. Mazar's High Chronology holds out the hope that "Solomon" could have built the gates of Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer. However, were that the case it would be one of the only times in history where a king had engaged in monumental building projects in the outskirts of his realm while ignoring his capitol.

I'm nor sure where Dever stands on this issue anymore. His latest book, "Did God Have A Wife (or via: amazon.co.uk)" was more interested in the apparent polytheism of the population until well into the historical period.