The Bible Unearthed

I read Finkelstein and Silberman’s The Bible Unearthed recently. It is a fascinating book. The authors compare the history of the Israelites as told in the Bible with archeological findings in Israel and surrounding countries over the past 200 years or so.

The latest archeological and textual findings show the following, among other things of course:

• The Israelites did not conquer Canaan – they were Canaanites.
• A degree of migration took place between Canaan and Egypt; in times of hardship Egypt offered refuge, and there was work to be had.
• There is no indication of any group inhabiting for a period of 38 years any one part of the desert the Israelites are supposed to have traversed after fleeing Egypt.
• Since there was no forced removal to Egypt, the Exodus did not take place as told, but rather consisted of nomads moving peacefully to and fro over a long period, and eventually settling in Canaan.
• There is no record at all of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and his sons; in all likelihood they are metaphorical representations of the various tribes and their relations with each other.
• Since the house of David is mentioned in fragmentary evidence dating back to the 9th century before Christ it is likely that David existed, maybe Solomon as well, but there is no record of the monumental building Solomon is said to have engaged in, and no mention of either in Egyptian or Mesopotamian texts.
• In the time of David and Solomon the area was sparsely populated with nomads and farmers, and small villages; there was no proper kingdom or state worth the name yet.
• Sites referred to as being inhabited by various groups during these Biblical times have been shown not to have existed during those times, or to have been of marginal importance; Jerusalem itself was a small and insignificant town for most of this time.
• The history of the Israelites as told in the Bible was largely collated, edited and composed during the 8th and especially King Josiah’s time in the 7th century BC, and serves the needs and interests of his kingdom; it depicts a pious and glorious history for Judah (the southern part, allegedly settled by Judah and Benjamin), and a sad tale of the northern kingdoms’ cycle of sinfulness and punishment – Josiah had plans to unite the north and south, and create a great united monotheistic Israel by means of a strict programme of religious purification (taking up the work of King Hezekiah, 50 years earlier).
• The history as set down in the Pentateuch and the books of the prophets is full of anachronisms, of ideas and facts belonging to the 8th and 7th century BC; it is in fact, a great revision of Israelite history, an intricate, complex collection of folk tales, legends, and contemporary history and edits, melded into a great tale about a people chosen by God, ruled by good (pious) kings and (idolatrous) bad.
• Some of the kings most vilified in the Bible are actually some of the greatest, judged by their works and impact; case in point: the evil Ahab and his even more evil Phoenician wife Jezebel – they, in fact, ran the first proper Israelite kingdom that engaged in foreign trade, employed an administrative bureacracy, and had a powerful standing army. Ahab and his father Omri placed Israel on the world map.
• Some of Judah’s greatest failures are glossed over in the Bible, or even depicted as victory instead of defeat: according to the 2nd book of Kings King Hezekiah’s revolt against the Assyrian king Sennacherib led to the miraculous delivery of besieged Jerusalem when the angel of the Lord went into the Assyrian camp in the night, killing 185 000 enemy troops. In fact, the revolt ended disastrously; the victorious Sennacherib left none of the Israelites’ important economic and cultural centres standing, other than Jerusalem itself.

So how does this impact belief and Christianity? Well, since the Patriarchs did not exist, there was no burning bush, no threatened sacrifice of Isaac, and since there was no Exodus, there was no wandering about in the desert for 40 years, no law tablets handed down by God himself, no golden calfs, no conquest of Canaan, no destruction of the walls of Jericho, etc. etc.

These Old Testament books were written to provide a small group of people with a proud history, a sense of nationhood and purpose, and to bolster the aims of a small kingdom intent on reclaiming land lost to conquering Assyrians and Babylonians, and establishing a strictly monotheistic state.

It is time for a revision of what’s taught in churches and Sunday schools, eh what?

~ by tamfuwing on April 2, 2008.