Book Review – A book that challenges conventional wisdom and deeply entrenched myths about the foundations of the state of Israel.

Tel Aviv University professor Shlomo Sand recently spoke at NYU about his newly translated book “The Invention of the Jewish People,” a book that challenges conventional wisdom and deeply entrenched myths about the foundations of the state of Israel.

 

Among the revelations in the book is the fact that the ancient kingdoms of Solomon and David did not exist as the Bible describes. He also challenges the myth of the Exodus of ancient Jews from Egypt, noting “the Ancient Egyptians kept meticulous records of every event … yet there is not a single mention of any ‘children of Israel’ who lived in Egypt.” He further points out that an exodus from Egypt would have involved moving across the Sinai peninsula into lands Egypt ruled over — thus escaping from Egypt to … Egypt.

 

He also describes the process of proselytizing and conversion that led to whole populations converting to Judaism, thus explaining the dispersal of the religion throughout Europe and Asia.

 

Sand writes in his introduction, “I don’t think books can change the world, but when the world begins to change it looks for different books.” This book is an important contribution to the debate on the future of the Middle East. I sat down with professor Sand last Friday to talk about “Invention” while he was in New York.

 

What moved you to write this book?

 

I wrote the book because something in me wanted to look through things toward the truth — knowing that I cannot arrive at absolute truth. As a historian, I have an obligation to discover the truth of the past — I am paid for it. I remember being shocked the first time I heard that the Exile from Egypt was not true. Hearing that David and Solomon’s kingdoms didn’t exist. It shocked me so much that I decided in some way, when I have time, I will need to focus on Jewish history.

 

In Israel, in every university, there are two departments of history. There is the department of general history and the department of Jewish history. Because I work in the department of general history, I have no right to occupy myself with Jewish history. When I got a full professorship, I decided I had nothing to lose. Before that, I did write articles that were critical of the Israeli attitude toward Palestinians, but I never really took on Jewish history as a subject. As I explain in the preface to the book, living near all these archives, leaving this history only to the Zionist historians, was too much. I decided after I got my full professorship to write what I wanted to write.

 

You open with an examination of nationalism and the various ways it is defined. Can you talk about how that applies to what has come to be called the “Jewish people”?

 

If I use the phrase “French people”, if I use the phrase “Italian people,” if I use the phrase “American people” — I cannot, by the same criteria, use the phrase “Jewish people” because thinking about Jews in history, I thought that Jews did not have any secular practical norms in common culturally. They didn’t speak the same language, they didn’t eat the same foods, they didn’t have the same songs. The thing that bound Jews was something more important. It was religion, which in pre-modern time was the most important thing in some levels of life.

 

If you use the word American people, and you know it is something constructed in the last 200 years, slowly with a cultural basis common to all Americans — more or less — or the Italians, or the French, how can you, by the same criteria, apply the word Jewish people?

 

The tendency of most of the people is to say that — speaking of the Jewish people — they have the same origin. This is not a reason to call a human group a people. This is a mistake because there is not a human group that has the same origin in the world. But we are lazy. So we think if a human group had a similar origin, it is a people.

 

You make the point that the Bible “was transferred from the shelf of theological tracts to the history section. The more nationalistic the author, the more he treats the Bible as history — as the birth certificate attesting to the common origin of the ‘people.’ ” Could you talk about that?

 

The Bible is in fact a library — it is a number of books — that you can separate completely. It’s as though you have come up to a shelf with a lot of books and you call it “a book.”

 

It is astonishing to think about the fact that the Jews [historically] did not read the Bible. In the Yeshivas — the rabbinical schools — they did not work with the text of the Bible. They can only read interpretations.

 

The real Jews in history took the Pentateuch — the Torah — and they read it Saturday morning in the synagogue. Three categories of human beings seriously read the Bible. The Karaist [a Jewish sect of the eighth, ninth and 10th centuries], the Protestants — who are the first to treat the Bible as a historical book, more so than Catholics — and the Zionists.

 

The Zionists were the last ones to transform a very important theological work into a historical book. In Israel, a child, before he starts learning history, learns the Bible — and I’m speaking of the non-religious schools in Israel. I was introduced to the Bible when I was seven years old. In every school, for a few hours — not religious schools, secular schools — you are taught the Bible as history.

 

When I was younger I was sure that the Exile had occurred; Jews were expelled from their land, began wandering around the world, they arrived in Moscow, did a U-turn and came back to their land. It’s not just me as a historian that had internalized this view; most people believed this.

 

By chance I read a very short article that took on the question of the Exile by a historian, Israel Jacob Yuval, who said the Exile is a Christian notion. He thought that the reason there are populations of Jews throughout the world is because, at some point, they started to emigrate. But it was only one article.

 

I went to the library. I was sure I would find thousands of books about the subject, because we have so many books about what has happened to the Jewish community. The Exile is inscribed on our money. Shmuel Yosef Agnon, a very great Israeli writer, is quoted on a 50 shekel note saying that we were exiled by [the Roman emperor] Titus after the destruction of the Second Temple.

 

In the end I found only one book on the historical exile. There was not one serious historical work about the act of Romans that dispersed the Jews [after the fall of the Second Temple]. They took prisoners, they killed a lot of people, but they did not exile the Jews.

 

Two questions jumped to my mind. What happened to the people if they weren’t expelled? And how come there ended up being so many Jews in the world, especially in Eastern Europe?

 

I am a modernist, a contemporary historian, but I forced myself to read a lot of material from antiquity. Like a lot of readers of the Bible, I was shocked by this sudden discovery. What shocked me much more was that all of this was known. I had not discovered anything new. I was only organizing the knowledge differently.

 

What was your first thought on that realization? That you’ve discovered something in total contrast to everything you thought?

 

I was afraid of myself. I remember hesitating, even if I was a full professor, and don’t have to be afraid of anything [about my job]. I wasn’t sure about myself. I went to historians of Jewish antiquity and asked them what happened? Was there an exile or wasn’t there an exile?

 

They answered me saying, Shlomo, it was ‘not exactly an exile … but you know we never said it was an exile. You see, after the revolt, people left, they were upset … they said many different things,’ but they repeated, ‘We never said it was an exile.’

From the point of view of diffusion of knowledge in society it struck me that you have an elite, a very small elite, of specialists that know the Exile didn’t exist, but no historians are working on the subject.

 

Then I understood that this has something to do with collective memory. Once upon a time in the United States there were very few people that knew there was a genocide against the Indians. A few historians knew details, but it wasn’t diffused in the collective memory. Sixty years ago in the U.S., I don’t think most people knew about the genocide of Indians. Similarly, 60 years ago, French people believed their ancestors were Gauls.

 

What is tragic with our history is that today Americans know they are composed from a lot of things; they are not only an Anglo-Saxon-Protestant, white nation. It’s deeper now. Some people may want that, but most people understand that the country is made up of a very rich, very large gamut of origins. In the U.S. it’s clear. In the 19th century, a lot of people believed that the real American nation had to be Anglo-Saxon, Protestant and white. Today your president, while Protestant, is not white.

 

What happened with us is that most people believed the Exile happened and they believed they are the direct descendants of their Hebrew ancestors.

 

So if the Judeans — it’s not Jew because a Jew is someone that believes in the Jewish god. I’m speaking of the Judeans — were not expelled, what happened to them?

 

They become proselytizers. First they do it by force like all the other monarchies, forced their neighbors to become Jews or to leave the land. Some were already circumcised. Josephus Flavius [Jewish Roman historian] writes about this. When Judea stopped being an independent kingdom the proselytism continued. The proselytizing began with Hellenisation; I give the metaphor that Judaism mounted the Hellenistic eagle.

 

Then the Roman world destroyed boundaries and borders between tribes, between cities and created a circulation of culture and created conditions for diffusing Jewishness all over the Mediterranean.

 

Monotheism has a few advantages over paganism. Without getting into a long explanation, it did propose paradise as well as other moral aspects. As a result Judaism became very popular in the Roman world, it started to be diffused among all the classes, from slaves to masters. And every master that became a Jew forced his slaves to become Jews.

 

It was not only the conversion of individuals and families, there was also a big conversion of kingdoms, like the Himyar kingdom, in what is Saudi Arabia and Yemen today. Like the Berber kingdom before the Arabs arrived. And like the Khazar kingdom, which no one doubts, that in the 8th Century became a Jewish kingdom.

 

The Khazars were not a people. Before modern times I am very careful not to use the word people. Under the kingdom of the Khazars lived a lot of tribes: Turks, Slavs, etc. I think that more or less a big part of them accepted Judaism and became the demographic base of the spread of Judaism in East European countries.

 

You make the point that there was no push for archaeology in these areas.

 

Not at all, no pursuing of linguistics or archaeology, because they are afraid to prove that Jews are composed of so many origins, that they are so rich in color, they are so different in origins than the anti-Semitic caricature.

 

What have been the various reactions to the book?

 

This morning I was on the Internet and this guy said I want to eliminate Israel because I’m criticizing the nation. I don’t accept that. I knew some people would behave like this. I have also gotten death threats.

 

The reception has been varied. In Israel, the reception in the media was wonderful.

 

The Zionist historians reacted very badly. They are right, because I questioned all of what they are doing. I understand their emotions, their attacks, their aggressiveness, much more than I accept this stuff on the Internet sites that accuse me of anti-Semitism, or negation, of denial and all this.

 

There has also been a positive reaction that has somewhat surprised me. I’ve gotten hundreds of letters, most of them are very positive. I think most people who hate me — who hate the book — do not write letters.

 

So what would you say in conclusion?

 

The bottom line is that we have to change Israel quickly, before it is too late. The two-state solution has to be two states not for two people exactly, but for two open societies that are composed of a lot of groups.

 

The day that Israel gets out of the occupied territories — if you will help us a little bit, you Americans — I will fight for a confederation between Israel and Palestine. The one-state solution is not practical because I don’t think you can propose to the Israeli Jew to become a minority in their own state. My proposition that Israel normalize the Israeli state, to democratize the Israeli state, would give it a chance to exist for longer, but not for eternity. States don’t exist for eternity. I’m a historian. I know this very well.

 

I don’t deny Jewish identity. After Hitler, it would be stupid. I also don’t deny the possibility of Jewish solidarity. After Hitler, we need a little bit more Jewish solidarity than during the time of Hitler. But I’m against Jewish solidarity supporting Israeli militarism. But Jewish identity and Jewish solidarity is not the same as becoming a Jewish people. You know gay people have a lot of solidarity among themselves, the Bahá’í religion has a great deal of solidarity, but it doesn’t make them a people. When you say “people” you give a notion of propriety of land.

 

I accept Jewish identity, but I am an Israeli of Jewish origin. Why? Because I know that in Israel being a Jew means being privileged. I prefer to define myself as Israeli of Jewish origin, someone that is not defined by his religion. I’m not proud always of my Jewishness and I’m not proud always that I’m Israeli, especially after the last Gaza war. Yes, I deny that the Jewish people exist. Today, the real sufferer is not the Jew. Yesterday it was Jew, maybe tomorrow it will again be the Jews. But today it is the Palestinian, the sufferer is the immigrant, the unemployed, [struggling] people in Africa. Yesterday the principal sufferer was the Jew, not today. Fortunately, the Shoah is finished. The Nakba [the exodus of Palestinians in 1948] is not.

 

I am pessimistic, but I am not fatalist. I’m not a philosopher. I am a historian. What I mean by that is the conditions of the conflict in the Middle East … If human society came out of the 20th century without a nuclear war, everything is possible. And even this conflict, this long conflict, that looks today as though it is unsolvable, I am not a fatalist. I think history is capable of surprises. I remember in 1993, Rabin shaking hands with Arafat. If you asked me five years before if it were possible, as a political analyst, I would say, “In no case would that be possible.” This is the reason I am not a fatalist.

by Aaron Leonard

Published October 21, 2009

http://www.biyokulule.com/view_content.php?articleid=2333

http://nyunews.com/opinion/2009/10/21/leonard/

 

Inventing the Bible stories – Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs’ acts are legendary, the Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, they did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon, nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel.

 

 

Deconstructing the walls of Jericho

 

By Ze’ev Herzog

 

Following 70 years of intensive excavations in the Land of Israel, archaeologists have found out: The patriarchs’ acts are legendary, the Israelites did not sojourn in Egypt or make an exodus, they did not conquer the land. Neither is there any mention of the empire of David and Solomon, nor of the source of belief in the God of Israel. These facts have been known for years, but Israel is a stubborn people and nobody wants to hear about it.

 

This is what archaeologists have learned from their excavations in the Land of Israel: the Israelites were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the land in a military campaign and did not pass it on to the 12 tribes of Israel. Perhaps even harder to swallow is the fact that the united monarchy of David and Solomon, which is described by the Bible as a regional power, was at most a small tribal kingdom. And it will come as an unpleasant shock to many that the God of Israel, Jehovah, had a female consort and that the early Israelite religion adopted monotheism only in the waning period of the monarchy and not at Mount Sinai. Most of those who are engaged in scientific work in the interlocking spheres of the Bible, archaeology and the history of the Jewish people – and who once went into the field looking for proof to corroborate the Bible story – now agree that the historic events relating to the stages of the Jewish people’s emergence are radically different from what that story tells.

 

What follows is a short account of the brief history of archaeology, with the emphasis on the crises and the big bang, so to speak, of the past decade. The critical question of this archaeological revolution has not yet trickled down into public consciousness, but it cannot be ignored.

 

Inventing the Bible stories

 

The archaeology of Palestine developed as a science at a relatively late date, in the late 19th and early 20th century, in tandem with the archaeology of the imperial cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome. Those resource-intensive powers were the first target of the researchers, who were looking for impressive evidence from the past, usually in the service of the big museums in London, Paris and Berlin. That stage effectively passed over Palestine, with its fragmented geographical diversity. The conditions in ancient Palestine were inhospitable for the development of an extensive kingdom, and certainly no showcase projects such as the Egyptian shrines or the Mesopotamian palaces could have been established there. In fact, the archaeology of Palestine was not engendered at the initiative of museums but sprang from religious motives.

 

The main push behind archaeological research in Palestine was the country’s relationship with the Holy Scriptures. The first excavators in Jericho and Shechem (Nablus) were biblical researchers who were looking for the remains of the cities cited in the Bible. Archaeology assumed momentum with the activity of William Foxwell Albright, who mastered the archeology, history and linguistics of the Land of Israel and the ancient Near East. Albright, an American whose father was a priest of Chilean descent, began excavating in Palestine in the 1920s. His declared approach was that archaeology was the principal scientific means to refute the critical claims against the historical veracity of the Bible stories, particularly those of the Wellhausen school in Germany.

 

The school of biblical criticism that developed in Germany beginning in the second half of the 19th century, of which Julian Wellhausen was a leading figure, challenged the historicity of the Bible stories and claimed that biblical historiography was formulated, and in large measure actually “invented,” during the Babylonian exile. Bible scholars, the Germans in particular, claimed that the history of the Hebrews, as a consecutive series of events beginning with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and proceeding through the move to Egypt, the enslavement and the exodus, and ending with the conquest of the land and the settlement of the tribes of Israel, was no more than a later reconstruction of events with a theological purpose.

 

Albright believed that the Bible is a historical document, which, although it had gone through several editing stages, nevertheless basically reflected the ancient reality. He was convinced that if the ancient remains of Palestine were uncovered, they would furnish unequivocal proof of the historical truth of the events relating to the Jewish people in its land.

 

The biblical archaeology that developed from Albright and his pupils brought about a series of extensive digs at the important biblical tells: Megiddo, Lachish, Gezer, Shechem (Nablus), Jericho, Jerusalem, Ai, Giveon, Beit She’an, Beit Shemesh, Hazor, Ta’anach and others. The way was straight and clear: every finding that was uncovered would contribute to the building of a harmonious picture of the past. The archaeologists, who enthusiastically adopted the biblical approach, set out on a quest to unearth the “biblical period”: the period of the patriarchs, the Canaanite cities that were destroyed by the Israelites as they conquered the land, the boundaries of the 12 tribes, the sites of the settlement period, characterized by “settlement pottery,” the “gates of Solomon” at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, “Solomon’s stables” (or Ahab’s), “King Solomon’s mines” at Timna – and there are some who are still hard at work and have found Mount Sinai (at Mount Karkoum in the Negev) or Joshua’s altar at Mount Ebal.

 

The crisis

 

Slowly, cracks began to appear in the picture. Paradoxically, a situation was created in which the glut of findings began to undermine the historical credibility of the biblical descriptions instead of reinforcing them. A crisis stage is reached when the theories within the framework of the general thesis are unable to solve an increasingly large number of anomalies. The explanations become ponderous and inelegant, and the pieces do not lock together smoothly. Here are a few examples of how the harmonious picture collapsed.

 

Patriarchal Age: The researchers found it difficult to reach agreement on which archaeological period matched the Patriarchal Age. When did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live? When was the Cave of Machpelah (Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron) bought in order to serve as the burial place for the patriarchs and the matriarchs? According to the biblical chronology, Solomon built the Temple 480 years after the exodus from Egypt (1 Kings 6:1). To that we have to add 430 years of the stay in Egypt (Exodus 12:40) and the vast lifetimes of the patriarchs, producing a date in the 21th century BCE for Abraham’s move to Canaan.

 

However, no evidence has been unearthed that can sustain this chronology. Albright argued in the early 1960s in favor of assigning the wanderings of Abraham to the Middle Bronze Age (22nd-20th centuries BCE). However, Benjamin Mazar, the father of the Israeli branch of biblical archaeology, proposed identifying the historic background of the Patriarchal Age a thousand years later, in the 11th century BCE – which would place it in the “settlement period.” Others rejected the historicity of the stories and viewed them as ancestral legends that were told in the period of the Kingdom of Judea. In any event, the consensus began to break down.

 

The exodus from Egypt, the wanderings in the desert and Mount Sinai: The many Egyptian documents that we have make no mention of the Israelites’ presence in Egypt and are also silent about the events of the exodus. Many documents do mention the custom of nomadic shepherds to enter Egypt during periods of drought and hunger and to camp at the edges of the Nile Delta. However, this was not a solitary phenomenon: such events occurred frequently across thousands of years and were hardly exceptional.

 

Generations of researchers tried to locate Mount Sinai and the stations of the tribes in the desert. Despite these intensive efforts, not even one site has been found that can match the biblical account.

 

The potency of tradition has now led some researchers to “discover” Mount Sinai in the northern Hijaz or, as already mentioned, at Mount Karkoum in the Negev. These central events in the history of the Israelites are not corroborated in documents external to the Bible or in archaeological findings. Most historians today agree that at best, the stay in Egypt and the exodous occurred in a few families and that their private story was expanded and “nationalized” to fit the needs of theological ideology.

 

The conquest: One of the shaping events of the people of Israel in biblical historiography is the story of how the land was conquered from the Canaanites. Yet extremely serious difficulties have cropped up precisely in the attempts to locate the archaeological evidence for this story.

 

Repeated excavations by various expeditions at Jericho and Ai, the two cities whose conquest is described in the greatest detail in the Book of Joshua, have proved very disappointing. Despite the excavators’ efforts, it emerged that in the late part of the 13th century BCE, at the end of the Late Bronze Age, which is the agreed period for the conquest, there were no cities in either tell, and of course no walls that could have been toppled. Naturally, explanations were offered for these anomalies. Some claimed that the walls around Jericho were washed away by rain, while others suggested that earlier walls had been used; and, as for Ai, it was claimed that the original story actually referred to the conquest of nearby Beit El and was transferred to Ai by later redactors.

 

Biblical scholars suggested a quarter of a century ago that the conquest stories be viewed as etiological legends and no more. But as more and more sites were uncovered and it emerged that the places in question died out or were simply abandoned at different times, the conclusion was bolstered that there is no factual basis for the biblical story about the conquest by Israelite tribes in a military campaign led by Joshua.

 

The Canaanite cities: The Bible magnifies the strength and the fortifications of the Canaanite cities that were conquered by the Israelites: “great cities with walls sky-high” (Deuteronomy 9:1). In practice, all the sites that have been uncovered turned up remains of unfortified settlements, which in most cases consisted of a few structures or the ruler’s palace rather than a genuine city. The urban culture of Palestine in the Late Bronze Age disintegrated in a process that lasted hundreds of years and did not stem from military conquest. Moreover, the biblical description is inconsistent with the geopolitical reality in Palestine. Palestine was under Egyptian rule until the middle of the 12th century BCE. The Egyptians’ administrative centers were located in Gaza, Yaffo and Beit She’an. Egyptian findings have also been discovered in many locations on both sides of the Jordan River. This striking presence is not mentioned in the biblical account, and it is clear that it was unknown to the author and his editors.

 

The archaeological findings blatantly contradict the biblical picture: the Canaanite cities were not “great,” were not fortified and did not have “sky-high walls.” The heroism of the conquerors, the few versus the many and the assistance of the God who fought for his people are a theological reconstruction lacking any factual basis.

 

Origin of the Israelites: The fusion of the conclusions drawn from the episodes relating to the stages in which the people of Israel emerged gave rise to a discussion of the bedrock question: the identity of the Israelites. If there is no evidence for the exodus from Egypt and the desert journey, and if the story of the military conquest of fortified cities has been refuted by archaeology, who, then, were these Israelites? The archaeological findings did corroborate one important fact: in the early Iron Age (beginning some time after 1200 BCE), the stage that is identified with the “settlement period,” hundreds of small settlements were established in the area of the central hill region of the Land of Israel, inhabited by farmers who worked the land or raised sheep. If they did not come from Egypt, what is the origin of these settlers? Israel Finkelstein, professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University, has proposed that these settlers were the pastoral shepherds who wandered in this hill area throughout the Late Bronze Age (graves of these people have been found, without settlements). According to his reconstruction, in the Late Bronze Age (which preceded the Iron Age) the shepherds maintained a barter economy of meat in exchange for grains with the inhabitants of the valleys. With the disintegration of the urban and agricultural system in the lowland, the nomads were forced to produce their own grains, and hence the incentive for fixed settlements arose.

 

The name “Israel” is mentioned in a single Egyptian document from the period of Merneptah, king of Egypt, dating from 1208 BCE: “Plundered is Canaan with every evil, Ascalon is taken, Gezer is seized, Yenoam has become as though it never was, Israel is desolated, its seed is not.” Merneptah refers to the country by its Canaanite name and mentions several cities of the kingdom, along with a non-urban ethnic group. According to this evidence, the term “Israel” was given to one of the population groups that resided in Canaan toward the end of the Late Bronze Age, apparently in the central hill region, in the area where the Kingdom of Israel would later be established.

 

A kingdom with no name

 

The united monarchy: Archaeology was also the source that brought about the shift regarding the reconstruction of the reality in the period known as the “united monarchy” of David and Solomon. The Bible describes this period as the zenith of the political, military and economic power of the people of Israel in ancient times. In the wake of David’s conquests, the empire of David and Solomon stretched from the Euphrates River to Gaza (“For he controlled the whole region west of the Euphrates, from Tiphsah to Gaza, all the kings west of the Euphrates,” 1 Kings 5:4). The archaeological findings at many sites show that the construction projects attributed to this period were meager in scope and power.

 

The three cities of Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, which are mentioned among Solomon’s construction enterprises, have been excavated extensively at the appropriate layers. Only about half of Hazor’s upper section was fortified, covering an area of only 30 dunams (7.5 acres), out of a total area of 700 dunams which was settled in the Bronze Age. At Gezer there was apparently only a citadel surrounded by a casematewall covering a small area, while Megiddo was not fortified with a wall.

 

The picture becomes even more complicated in the light of the excavations conducted in Jerusalem, the capital of the united monarchy. Large sections of the city have been excavated over the past 150 years. The digs have turned up impressive remnants of the cities from the Middle Bronze Age and from Iron Age II (the period of the Kingdom of Judea). No remains of buildings have been found from the period of the united monarchy (even according to the agreed chronology), only a few pottery shards. Given the preservation of the remains from earlier and later periods, it is clear that Jerusalem in the time of David and Solomon was a small city, perhaps with a small citadel for the king, but in any event it was not the capital of an empire as described in the Bible. This small chiefdom is the source of the “Beth David” title mentioned in later Aramean and Moabite inscriptions. The authors of the biblical account knew Jerusalem in the 8th century BCE, with its wall and the rich culture of which remains have been found in various parts of the city, and projected this picture back to the age of the united monarchy. Presumably Jerusalem acquired its central status after the destruction of Samaria, its northern rival, in 722 BCE.

 

The archaeological findings dovetail well with the conclusions of the critical school of biblical scholarship. David and Solomon were the rulers of tribal kingdoms that controlled small areas: the former in Hebron and the latter in Jerusalem. Concurrently, a separate kingdom began to form in the Samaria hills, which finds expression in the stories about Saul’s kingdom. Israel and Judea were from the outset two separate, independent kingdoms, and at times were in an adversarial relationship. Thus, the great united monarchy is an imaginary historiosophic creation, which was composed during the period of the Kingdom of Judea at the earliest. Perhaps the most decisive proof of this is the fact that we do not know the name of this kingdom.

 

Jehovah and his consort: How many gods, exactly, did Israel have? Together with the historical and political aspects, there are also doubts as to the credibility of the information about belief and worship. The question about the date at which monotheism was adopted by the kingdoms of Israel and Judea arose with the discovery of inscriptions in ancient Hebrew that mention a pair of gods: Jehovah and his Asherah. At two sites, Kuntiliet Ajrud in the southwestern part of the Negev hill region, and at Khirbet el-Kom in the Judea piedmont, Hebrew inscriptions have been found that mention “Jehovah and his Asherah,” “Jehovah Shomron and his Asherah, “Jehovah Teman and his Asherah.” The authors were familiar with a pair of gods, Jehovah and his consort Asherah, and send blessings in the couple’s name. These inscriptions, from the 8th century BCE, raise the possibility that monotheism, as a state religion, is actually an innovation of the period of the Kingdom of Judea, following the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel.

 

The archaeology of the Land of Israel is completing a process that amounts to a scientific revolution in its field. It is ready to confront the findings of biblical scholarship and of ancient history. But at the same time, we are witnessing a fascinating phenomenon in which all this is simply ignored by the Israeli public. Many of the findings mentioned here have been known for decades. The professional literature in the spheres of archaeology, Bible and the history of the Jewish people has addressed them in dozens of books and hundreds of articles. Even if not all the scholars accept the individual arguments that inform the examples I cited, the majority have adopted their main points.

 

Nevertheless, these revolutionary views are not penetrating the public consciousness. About a year ago, my colleague, the historian Prof. Nadav Ne’eman, published an article in the Culture and Literature section of Ha’aretz entitled “To Remove the Bible from the Jewish Bookshelf,” but there was no public outcry. Any attempt to question the reliability of the biblical descriptions is perceived as an attempt to undermine “our historic right to the land” and as shattering the myth of the nation that is renewing the ancient Kingdom of Israel. These symbolic elements constitute such a critical component of the construction of the Israeli identity that any attempt to call their veracity into question encounters hostility or silence. It is of some interest that such tendencies within the Israeli secular society go hand-in-hand with the outlook among educated Christian groups. I have found a similar hostility in reaction to lectures I have delivered abroad to groups of Christian bible lovers, though what upset them was the challenge to the foundations of their fundamentalist religious belief.

 

It turns out that part of Israeli society is ready to recognize the injustice that was done to the Arab inhabitants of the country and is willing to accept the principle of equal rights for women – but is not up to adopting the archaeological facts that shatter the biblical myth. The blow to the mythical foundations of the Israeli identity is apparently too threatening, and it is more convenient to turn a blind eye.

 

http://history101.multiply.com/journal/item/196