SUMMARY

1. SUMMARY BIBLE AND ARCHAEOLOGY: Current Issues in Biblical Archaeology

2. Finkelstein: • (Textbook, pp. 183-88) • The Bible/Hebrew Scripture is not a historical record in the modern sense; • It isa sacred text written by authors who had strong theological and ideological convictions; • much of it set in writing in the 7th-5th centuries BC; • thus, it does not provide a direct, real-time testimony of many of the events narrated in it; • also, the Assyrian texts from the 9th-7th centuries are not free of ideological inclinations; • every historical description is bound to be influenced by the realities of the time of its compilation.

3. Finkelstein: • Archaeology: provides “objective” testimony to what happened in the past; • deals with the materials of the past; • thus, an “eye-witness” to what happened in the past; • it provides us with the material culture of ancient peoples; • sheds light on long-term social, economic, and demographic processes (as opposed to short-term events); • but archaeological interpretation is not free from modern trends and biases.

4. Finkelstein: • - Material and Text; • Material remains are mute; • as such, they can be interpreted in many ways; • almost every find is subject to more than one historical reconstruction; • archaeology needs the text; • without the text, archaeology can only give us general information about what happened in their time; • without the text, many essential questions remain unanswered;

5. Finkelstein: • For a reasonable reconstruction of the early history of Israel, one needs: • the archaeological finds; • the biblical text; and • other ancient Near Eastern records.

6. Finkelstein: • Traditional biblical archaeology has been dominated by the biblical story; • very often, histories of Ancient Israel have done nothing more than repeat the biblical story; • the text was put in the spotlight; • archaeology played a minor role; • it was not considered as an independent tool for historical research;

7. Finkelstein: • Archaeology must be studied independently of the biblical text; • then one checks the biblical text; • do the two types of evidence accord with each other? • if not, why not? • Why did the author portray history in this way?

8. Finkelstein: • Most scholars have studied early-Israelite history from early to late; a chronological study: Patriarchs; Exodus; Conquest; Period of the Judges; etc. • what should be done is the opposite; • one needs to establish the period when the traditions were put down in writing; • this is the point of departure for the study of Ancient Israel: to verify if the text and archaeology are harmonious; • If not, why not? • histoire regressive: starting from a secure point and then reconstructing history step-by-step further back and deeper into the past; • one should investigate from late to early.

9. Finkelstein: • - This means that the early chapters in Israel’s history cannot be understood as portraying straightforward historical realities; • But it is inconceivable that the authors invented stories – “made up history”; • biblical history written to serve an ideological platform; • it was written in a way that would seem reliable to the reader and/or listener; • it was written on the basis of tales, myths, traditions, and ancient memories; • the stories belong more to the world of the authors than to our world.

10. Finkelstein: • Much of the biblical description of Ancient Israel was written from an ideology that prevailed in Judah between the 7th-5th centuries BC; • The authors decided what ought to be in the text and what ought to be left out; • thus, we are reading a selective history; • The Bible does not represent all groups in Judah; • it certainly does not represent the world of the Northern Kingdom; • how different biblical history would be if it were written by someone from Samaria or even from Bethel or a rival of the “Deuteronomistic” camp in Judah.

11. Finkelstein: • Layers of tradition that gradually accumulated over centuries of oral transmission; • then redaction; • until the text reached its present state; • e.g., David and Solomon (Textbook, p. 186); • Text and Archaeology: view events from two different perspectives, namely, theology versus daily reality; • the scholar needs to be conscious of which is which.

12. Finkelstein: - faith, and historical research should not be harmonized or compromised.

13. Mazar: • (Textbook, pp. 189-95) • - Archaeology’s role: to attempt to determine the historical background to the stories in the Bible; • To determine whether or not those stories preserve valuable data on the ancient history of Israel; • Mazar refers to Finkelstein’s approach as “reflective historiography”, that is, that many of the stories in the Bible are intended to justify and glorify Josiah’s political and ideological goals; • this is a narrow and one-sided view of biblical historiography;

14. Mazar: • Many of the biblical stories are rooted in realities that precede their compilation by hundreds of years; • e.g., the conquest story of Hazor and the conquest of `Ai (Textbook, p. 191); • nevertheless, many of the stories are to be explained as folk stories and traditions compiled, edited, and rewritten by later authors … with literary skill and theological motivation; • archaeologists can dig into the layers of these stories and uncover realities which the stories reflect; • in many cases, the stories can be linked to archaeological evidence; • at the same time, archaeology has the ability to render improbable the historicity of some biblical stories, e.g., Conquest.

15. Mazar: • Archaeology does not “prove the Bible”; • it increases understanding and reconstructs aspects of life in Israel and among its neighbours including social structures, economy, technology, warfare, religious practices, etc.