A
annem
Guest
This is from the blog, “Singing in the Reign” (I would give one of those lines to click on if I knew how to do it)
An archaeological dig at Khirbet Qeiyafa, which was reported on a few months ago by the New York Times, is turning out finds that are rocking the scholarly community.This may very well go down as the “21st century Dead Sea Scrolls”.
…Background…Many scholars dispute the historical reliability of the Old Testament, particularly the parts prior to Ezra and Nehemiah: e.g., David, Solomon, the kingdom, etc. Why?
According to many scholars the stories about the glorious reign of David and Solomon are myths–of little more value than the stories about King Arthur and the Roundtable… When Israel returned from their Babylonian exile the past history of Israel was “invented”… The Israelites “idealized” their past…
In sum, the Old Testament narratives about David, Solomon–not too mention that of Abraham and the Patriarchs–were nothing more than political propoganda. Some scholars believed Israelite writing didn’t even exist at that point… Such scholars–often called “minimalists”-…
Until now.
Evidence at Khirbet Qeiyafa suggests that in fact there was a massive political force in the land of Israel in the 10th century. Aside from artifacts, and pottery, writing has even been found, shattering just about everything many scholars thought they knew about the development and spread of literacy. Carbon-14 dating is really making this a discovery hard to dismiss…
The discovery involves the excavation of what apparently was a heavily fortified structure. Though some think it may be the fortress of David himself,
The scholarly world is all a-buzz with the find. Even skeptical scholars–who have staked their reputation on minimalistic claims–are now making some very telling admissions…John Hobbins at the blog Ancient Hebrew Poetry has even called it the “end of minimalism as we’ve known it”. He writes, “Minimalism will go down in the annals of scholarship as a classic example of over-reach.” I think he’s absolutely right.
Again, caution is always necessary… I think the likelihood that we have here a significant find–one involving a seismic shift–is very high.
In fact, what we are witnessing here to assumptions made in Old Testament scholarship may be quite similiar to what happened in the 20th century in New Testament studies. Many scholars at that time believed the Fourth Gospel, for example, was a late creation–a second century document with no historical value. Then of course a fragment of it was found in Egypt dating to the turn of the second century. As a result, a lot of the books that were hot items in libraries got put back on the shelf. They are collecting dust to this day.
Given that minimalists are now making some key admissions about this find, I think it is safe to say that something similar is going to happen to a lot of the books now being checked-out by students on the history of Israel.
UPDATE:
In the comment box I received the following from Barnea Levi Selavan, the codirector of the organization behind the excavation,
An archaeological dig at Khirbet Qeiyafa, which was reported on a few months ago by the New York Times, is turning out finds that are rocking the scholarly community.This may very well go down as the “21st century Dead Sea Scrolls”.
…Background…Many scholars dispute the historical reliability of the Old Testament, particularly the parts prior to Ezra and Nehemiah: e.g., David, Solomon, the kingdom, etc. Why?
According to many scholars the stories about the glorious reign of David and Solomon are myths–of little more value than the stories about King Arthur and the Roundtable… When Israel returned from their Babylonian exile the past history of Israel was “invented”… The Israelites “idealized” their past…
In sum, the Old Testament narratives about David, Solomon–not too mention that of Abraham and the Patriarchs–were nothing more than political propoganda. Some scholars believed Israelite writing didn’t even exist at that point… Such scholars–often called “minimalists”-…
Until now.
Evidence at Khirbet Qeiyafa suggests that in fact there was a massive political force in the land of Israel in the 10th century. Aside from artifacts, and pottery, writing has even been found, shattering just about everything many scholars thought they knew about the development and spread of literacy. Carbon-14 dating is really making this a discovery hard to dismiss…
The discovery involves the excavation of what apparently was a heavily fortified structure. Though some think it may be the fortress of David himself,
The scholarly world is all a-buzz with the find. Even skeptical scholars–who have staked their reputation on minimalistic claims–are now making some very telling admissions…John Hobbins at the blog Ancient Hebrew Poetry has even called it the “end of minimalism as we’ve known it”. He writes, “Minimalism will go down in the annals of scholarship as a classic example of over-reach.” I think he’s absolutely right.
Again, caution is always necessary… I think the likelihood that we have here a significant find–one involving a seismic shift–is very high.
In fact, what we are witnessing here to assumptions made in Old Testament scholarship may be quite similiar to what happened in the 20th century in New Testament studies. Many scholars at that time believed the Fourth Gospel, for example, was a late creation–a second century document with no historical value. Then of course a fragment of it was found in Egypt dating to the turn of the second century. As a result, a lot of the books that were hot items in libraries got put back on the shelf. They are collecting dust to this day.
Given that minimalists are now making some key admissions about this find, I think it is safe to say that something similar is going to happen to a lot of the books now being checked-out by students on the history of Israel.
UPDATE:
In the comment box I received the following from Barnea Levi Selavan, the codirector of the organization behind the excavation,
Code:
I am Codirector of the Foundation Stone organization. We are developing the Elah Fortress/Qeiyafa site, and are responsible for the excavation of Prof Garfinkel of Hebrew U. I appreciate your words. I invite you to see the promo movie and articles on our website [www.elahfortress.com](www.elahfortress.com), and must share with you there is even more.
The massive fortified city, the unprecedented 10 ton stones, in the unprecedented second gate of an Iron Age city -which may identify it as Sha'arayim, "Two-Gates", mentioned three times in the Bible in this area, twice related to King David before he became king, which would fit its early dating-the clear destruction layer context, an opportunity to examine the workings of the architecture of the casemate wall and houses(21,400 pieces of pottery pulled from 600 square meters), the absence of pig bones, the seemingly destroyed and reused cultic stone, the location at the gateway between the Judean Foothills and the Philistine Coastal Plain, the consensus of scholars that it the pottery typology is early 10th century, the consensus of all the major Philistine excavators that the pottery "is not a coastal ssmeblage"-Sy Gitin- so it is not Philistine, the early proto-Canaanite Hebrew writing with its implications of how and when this writing spread to the Greeks and others, the interesting words and the potential historical value of its actual text, the range of hi-tech imaging methods used to see the letters not visible to the naked eye, the over 100 jug handles with finger impressions until now found only a couple at a time and not valued as a feature, the short Hellenistic-Ptolemaic period reuse of the fortifications, and their strategic approach to fortifications, the short term use of the city - as there is no remodeling, the carbon-14 dating range of burnt olive pits, the potential revising of the transition or even structure of dating Iron Age I and Iron Age II, the surety of more discoveries because of the layout of the casemate walls, the elephant in the room- the historical implications for the accuracy of events and characters reported in the bible, as the urban society of 300o years ago (dating based on science alone-the pottery typology and carbon-14 dating; the ostracon found in the same destruction layer context in a tightly-controlled provenanced excavation) was using writing, not only oral traditions, and this means a higher degree of accuracy is expected in transmission of acts and events, even if passed down to several hundred years later, even as academics currently claim (contrary to ancient Jewish traditions of literacy accuracy and writing throughout, and when the books were written) .... I may have missed something.
Yours
Barnea Levi Selavan
