Posted on 01/26/2005 8:44:58 PM PST by blam
Archeologist unearths biblical controversy
Artifacts from Iron Age fortress confirm Old Testament dates of Edomite kingdom
By MICHAEL VALPY
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Canadian archeologist Russell Adams's interest is in Bronze Age and Iron Age copper production. He never intended to walk into archeology's vicious debate over the historical accuracy of the Old Testament -- a conflict likened by one historian to a pack of feral canines at each other's throats.
Yet by coincidence, Prof. Adams of Hamilton's McMaster University says, he and an international team of colleagues fit into place a significant piece of the puzzle of human history in the Middle East -- unearthing information that points to the existence of the Bible's vilified Kingdom of Edom at precisely the time the Bible says it existed, and contradicting widespread academic belief that it did not come into being until 200 years later.
Their findings mean that those scholars convinced that the Hebrew Old Testament is at best a compendium of revisionist, fragmented history, mixed with folklore and theology, and at worst a piece of outright propaganda, likely will have to apply the brakes to their thinking.
Because, if the little bit of the Old Testament's narrative that Prof. Adams and his colleagues have looked at is true, other bits could be true as well.
References to the Kingdom of Edom -- almost none of them complimentary -- are woven through the Old Testament. It existed in what is today southern Jordan, next door to Israel, and the relationship between the biblical Edomites and Israelites was one of unrelenting hostility and warfare.
The team led by Prof. Adams, Thomas Levy of the University of California at San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities was investigating copper mining and smelting at a site called Khirbat en-Nahas, by far the largest copper-production site in the region.
They applied high-precision radiocarbon-dating methods to some of their finds, and as they say in the British journal Antiquities, "The results were spectacular."
They firmly established that occupation of the site began in the 11th century BC and a monumental fortress was built in the 10th century BC, supporting the argument for existence of an Edomite state at least 200 years earlier than had been assumed.
What is particularly exciting about their find is that it implies the existence of an Edomite state at the time the Bible says King David and his son Solomon ruled over a powerful united kingdom of Israel and Judah.
It is the historical accuracy -- the very existence of this united kingdom and the might and splendour of David and Solomon, as well as the existence of surrounding kingdoms -- that lies at the heart of the archeological dispute.
Those scholars known as minimalists argue that what is known as "state formation" -- the emergence of regional governments and kings -- did not take place in the area until the imperialistic expansion of the Assyrian empire in the 8th century BC, so David and Solomon, rather than being mighty monarchs, were mere petty chieftains.
And because everything that takes place in the Middle East inevitably is political, the minimalist argument is seen as weakening modern Israel's claim to Palestine.
In the biblical narrative, the Edomites are the descendents of Esau, whose blessing from his father, Isaac, was stolen by his younger brother, Jacob, ancestor of the Israelites. (Fans of the British satirical-comedy group Beyond the Fringe will recall how Jacob pulled off the theft by presenting himself as the hirsute Esau to their blind father, saying in an aside: "My brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man.")
The Edomites are lambasted in the Bible for refusing to let the Israelites rest on their land as they flee Egypt. God declares obscurely: "Over Edom will I cast out my shoe." The Israelites grumble enviously that there were kings of Edom before there were kings of Israel -- a highly significant passage because it implies that state formation occurred in Edom before it happened in Israel.
Finally, there is the biblical account of David's war against the Edomites, in which David and his general, Joab, kill 18,000 Edomites and establish military control over them by "putting garrisons throughout all Edom."
Irish scholar John Bartlett, one of the world's great experts on the Edomites, dates the battle at 990 to 980 BC, precisely when Prof. Adams and his colleagues date the fortress.
Says Prof. Adams: "This battle between the Israelites and the Edomites, although not possible to document, is typical of the sort of border conflicts between Iron Age states. And the evidence of our new dates at least proves that it may, in fact, be possible to place the Edomites in the 10th century [BC] or earlier, which now supports the chronology of the biblical accounts.
"It is intriguing that at Khirbat en-Nahas, our large Iron Age fort is dated to just this period, suggesting conflict as a central concern even at a remote copper-production site."
He concludes: "We're not out to prove the Bible right or wrong. We're not trying to be controversial. We're just trying to be good anthropologists and scientists, and tell the story of our archeological site."
Please add me to this list, Thanks!
You need to understand what "history" implies. PS: I have posted many things from the bible - pro - bible and rspectful of the New Testemant - that is.
But I am not a fundamentalist in that I don't think every thing in the Bible is to be taken literally. Much is allegory.
"But I am not a fundamentalist in that I don't think every thing in the Bible is to be taken literally. Much is allegory."
Yes, those evil fundamentalist. You are brainwashed!
I am not brainwashed - I follow original, orthodox and pure Christianity directly linked to to the Apostles.
Actually, the more they learn about the Late Bronze Age, the more they realize how many little details Homer got right (there are also some little details about features of LBA ships that appear in the Odyssey, for example). While that doesn't prove the Olympians were real gods, it does suggest that there can be a firm historical grounding and firm historical details in ancient accounts of what happened, even when they've been passed down verbally for many generations.
I, personally, believe that the Old Testament was heavily editorialized and do believe that some amount of ancient Near-Eastern and Middle-Eastern mythology and speculation may have found it's way into the Bible (e.g., the Tower of Babel, the Flood, etc.) and are not literally true. I don't find that particularly shocking or problematic, nor do I have any particular axe to grind with those who do believe they are literally true.
As for miracles in general, Timothy Luke Johnson makes an excellent point about that in his book The Real Jesus : The Misguided Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Truth of the Traditional Gospels. If you exclude all of the miracles in the Gospels as myth, you shouldn't be surprised if you wind up with a Jesus who is just a man. Basically, you wind up excluding the evidence that could create a different conclusion. In a broader sense, if you insist on viewing everything in the Bible through a secular lens in which miracles and anything having to do with God is rejected, of course you can create an interpretation that's free of God and miracles. It's simply the flip side of the claim that people who are religious find God because they want to -- perhaps non-religious people don't find God because they don't want to.
The "Old Testament" was meant to teach the religion of God.. Judaism, and used myth, allegory, and symbolism to do so..
We know that Hittite and Sumerian legends of the creation were incorporated into the first book of Genesis..
Proceeding books looked at historical events ( i.e., current events to the Israelites ) and interpreted them in their religious context to build upon the lessons God was trying to teach his "chosen people"..
While occassionally historically significant events were recorded, it was their religious significance that was emphasized.. ( what lesson does this event teach about God's will ? )
Not necessarily. Pick up the soundtrack CD of a movie sometime and then pick up a CD of music "inspired" by that movie. There is a big difference between the Word of God and the Word of God filtered through fallible human authors who introduce their own opinions, world view, interpretations, and errors into the mix.
One problem with modern copies of ancient texts is that they often give the false impression that there is one difinitive and correct copy of ancient texts. Heck, read the introduction to a book containing the collective works of Shakespeare, written far more recently, and you'll see that not only isn't there one difinitive version of many Shakespeare plays but that the spelling has been regularized and edited. Similarly, if you go back and look at Biblical texts, including those found at the Dead Sea, you'll find that they don't always agree 100% (hence the footnotes in some translations). Does that mean that the Bible is riddled with errors? No. But it does mean that it's also not 100% perfect, either. And I honestly don't see why that's a problem for so many people. If you are basing your entire faith on the meaning of one word, phrase, or even story in the Bible, I think you are missing the forest for the trees.
EXACTLY
If literalists are going to accept the dating of the Edomite fortress, then they can accept the dating of a fire pit in a cave in france to 30,000 years B.C., and the great coal seams of the Permian Age., approx. 280 million years ago.
The story of Jericho is thought to be myth because the destruction layers found at Jericho are dated at a time that doesn't match the currently accepted chronology for the Israelites in Canaan. That is why this finding is so significant. It has the potential to alter the accepted chronology of the Israelites, so that the Biblical accounts of Israel align up well with archeology, including Jericho.
The whole idea behind the OT is that God revealed Himself to Israel through their history. If the history wasn't accurate how could the lessons learned also be accurate? If the OT isn't historically accurate it is largely worthless. Likewise the NT is also worthless since it assumes the OT is historically accurate.
Passages that exist in newer manuscripts but not older ones may certainly have been introduced later (and I'm especially inclined to believe that they were when the grammer, vocabulary, style, or other details point to the hand of a different author) but some also could have come from an oral tradition or other even older manuscripts that no longer exist to compare against. There is a lot of oral mythology built into the interpretation of many Bible stories that are not clearly supported by the text. They could be later additions or could very well be based on authentic oral history or earlier variants. For example, I'm not entirely convinced that a "Q" existed or that Mark, per se, was a major source for the other Gospels. As the non-canon Gospel of Thomas shows, the sayings and acts of Jesus travelled around verbally in many forms, just as the Quran did. We don't know what all of the original sourses were and there may have been even more material that once existed that has now been lost. The similarities and differences could simply reflect was different communities remembered.
I hope it does.
Is this also how you feel about those 'evolutionary tree of life' claims?
How do you know?
A true historian would not have prejudged hostility to the bible nor will he try and protect the bible's accuracy.
Nope.
But it certainly provides proof to refute the theories that Troy never existed.
"And because everything that takes place in the Middle East inevitably is political, the minimalist argument is seen as weakening modern Israel's claim to Palestine."
This really blows a hole in the minimalist argument. What will the Palestinians do now? Oh, right keep right on killing Jews.
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