Analysis Archives - Page 14 of 29

Multiple Exoduses from Egypt?

Last week I linked to Bryant Wood’s article on new evidence for Israel’s existence in 1400 BC.

According to three European scholars, an inscription mentions Israel several hundred years earlier than the Merneptah Stele.

There are several ways to respond to this proposal. James Hoffmeier, an advocate of the late-date exodus (1230 BC), says that the inscription should not be read as Israel and thus is irrelevant to the question of the exodus.

In an article published in the January/February 2012 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review (HT: G. M. Grena and Shmuel Browns), Hershel Shanks summarizes the recent studies and concludes with a discussion about multiple departures from Egypt by Israelite tribes at different times. Earlier advocates of such include Albrecht Alt, Yohanan Aharoni, and Abraham Malamat.

Such an approach is wrong-headed, I believe. In the first place, it can only be reconciled with the biblical account by considering the latter to be only an elaborate and glorious myth created hundreds of years later (and peppered liberally with shameful acts of those who devised the myth). Second, such an approach replaces one exodus for which there is no record in Egyptian sources with many exoduses for which there are no record in Egyptian sources.

A better approach is to take a step back and reconsider the issue afresh. The reason why scholars argued for a 13th century BC date for the exodus/conquest in the first place was because of an apparent lack of evidence for Israel in Canaan at an earlier time. The Merneptah Stele, paired with the appearance of hundreds of agricultural villages in the 12th century, has been considered to provide evidence for the earliest Israelites. This evidence does not, however, tell us anything about Israel’s entrance into the land. It tells us only when Israel was already in the land (and defeated by Egypt).

Last year I showed how the Merneptah Stele gives evidence for Israel’s invisible (to archaeologists) presence in the land of Canaan for some time before they settled down in the hill country villages.

The recently published inscription, if the reading of Israel is accurate, provides even earlier evidence for the nation’s existence. As with the Merneptah Stele it does not tell us anything about the exodus or the conquest. To theorize that there were multiple exoduses when these inscriptions provide evidence for none is the wrong course indeed.

The best historical reconstruction takes into account all of the evidence. Israel fled from Egypt in about 1450 BC. They arrived in Israel in about 1400 BC. They continued their pastoral way of life that they were used to from the time of the patriarchs, their time in Egypt, and their time in the wilderness. This lifestyle left relatively little discernible and distinctive archaeological evidence from 1400-1200 BC. Some factors (weather?, political turmoil?, invasions?) forced the Israelite tribes to settle down at the beginning of what archaeologists call the Iron Age. This corresponds well with the record in the book of Judges in which the first indication of a settled existence is mentioned in the time of Gideon, who led the nation in about 1200.

Merneptah Stele

Tagged Analysis, Egypt, Exodus-Conquest

Western Wall Discovery: Follow-Up

The discovery announced yesterday was analyzed by a number of writers:
Doug Petrovich (ANE-2) notes that “it long has been accepted” that King Herod did not finish the Temple Mount project and that “all this find does is to date more precisely the building of the SW corner of the Temple Mount (to AD 17/18).”

Ferrell Jenkins observes that “we already knew” what archaeologists claim to have discovered, given the record of Josephus and John 2.

Alexander Schick provides photos of the incomplete section on the northern end of the Western Wall, suggesting that the story is sensational only because the New Testament evidence was ignored.
(Google translation link)

Shmuel Browns was at the press conference and provides his own summary. He also makes some observations and poses some questions in a comment to yesterday’s post on this blog.

The Reuters story provides one solution to the press release by suggesting that academic historians are aware of Josephus but that tour guides are not.

Leen Ritmeyer explains the phases of construction of the western and southern walls of the Temple Mount. This is a must-read for any tempted to claim that Herod did not build the Western Wall.

Ritmeyer’s expert diagrams will help you to understand even if you are not familiar with some of the terms and place names. Read it!

Tagged Analysis, Jerusalem, Temple Mount

Western Wall Discovery: IAA Desperate for Headlines

Today’s press conference at the Western Wall promised to “challenge the conventional viewpoint” of the dating of the construction of the Temple Mount. The new evidence does that only if imagines that the conventional viewpoint was something other than it is. Someone in the Israel Antiquities
Authority obviously felt that this minor story needed to be a major story and this justified creating a new conventional viewpoint that could be contradicted.

All quotations are from the official press release (also here) of the Israel Antiquities Authority, not from some journalist untrained in the field.

The release begins:

Who built the Temple Mount walls? Every tour guide and every student grounded in the history of Jerusalem will immediately reply that it was Herod.

This might be true. When asked a simple question, a tour guide may respond with a simple answer.

However, in the archaeological excavations alongside the ancient drainage channel of Jerusalem a very old ritual bath (miqwe) was recently discovered that challenges the conventional archaeological perception which regards Herod as being solely responsible for its construction.

Ah, but now they’ve twisted the question so as to create a dramatic discovery. The question asked every tour guide above was not who was solely responsible for its construction. Actually, every tour guide and student knows that Josephus reported that in AD 64 work was halted on the Temple Mount and 18,000 workers were laid off (Ant. 20:219-23).

In fact, the press release acknowledges as much, in the concluding (and bolded) paragraph:

This dramatic find confirms Josephus’ descriptions which state that it was only during the reign of King Agrippa II (Herod’s great-grandson) that the work was finished, and upon its completion there were eight to ten thousand unemployed in Jerusalem.

So if this find confirms Josephus’ descriptions, how does it “challenge the conventional viewpoint”?

The fact is that it doesn’t.

Furthermore, the press release fails to note that the New Testament makes it clear that the Temple Mount construction was on-going during the time of Jesus’ ministry (ca. AD 30).

John 2:20 (NET) “Then the Jewish leaders said to him, ‘This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and are you going to raise it up in three days?’”

The conventional viewpoint is that construction on the Temple Mount began in 20 BC and continued, likely with some stops and starts, until AD 64.

There is valuable information gained from the recent excavation that is nearly obscured by the pathetic attempt to garner headlines with inaccurate reporting. The excavations of Shukron and Reich demonstrate that construction of Robinson’s Arch and the area in the southwestern corner of the Temple did not begin until AD 17/18. This spectacular staircase may have been freshly completed when Jesus arrived with his disciples. So if the story corrects an interpretation for guides and students of the Temple Mount, it is that King Herod, who died in 4 BC, never entered the complex by means of the southwestern gate.

The press release, with inline photos, can be read at the Israel MFA site. Two high-resolution photos may be downloaded at the IAA site (temporary link) or with this direct link to the zip file.

The story is reported in the media by the Associated Press, the Jerusalem Post, Arutz-7, and Haaretz.

All of these publications report that the excavations “challenge” what we knew and “confirm” what Josephus says. None of them mention John 2:20.

Leen Ritmeyer provides photos including a portion of a well-known unfinished section and notes that “this late date is not surprising” because of the reference in John 2.

Southwestern corner of the Temple Mount and Robinson’s Arch

Tagged Analysis, Jerusalem, Temple Mount

The Identification of Eshtaol: A Brief Case-Study in Recent Research

Several years ago I began a study on the location of Eshtaol that was interrupted by a leg injury. Last week I had the occasion to conclude the research and summarize it for another project I’m working on. While this is a bit more technical than most of the blog fare here, there are some insights that may be of interest, even if you are not so concerned with the location connected with the birth and burial of Samson (Judg 13:25; 16:31)

The reason for this study is to reveal a confusion about the site location of Eshtaol that has developed in recent literature. As you will see below, the site of Eshtaol has been “moved” without the guilty parties apparently being aware of what they were doing. This brief review may serve to identify failures in the process and encourage careful work in future study of this and other sites.

1. Michael Avi-Yonah was not the first involved in the identification of this site, but he is a convenient starting point for the purposes of this study. He believed that Eshtaol was located at Tell Abu el-Qabus (Kh. Deir Abu Qabus) on the hill above the Arab village of Ishwa, and he noted that Iron Age remains were found at the site (Encyclopedia Judaica, 1st ed., 6: 280).

2. In 1983, Anson Rainey agreed with Avi-Yonah’s identification, noting that Ishwa preserves the name of Eshtaol, just as many modern names in the Shephelah preserve the ancient ones (“The Biblical Shephelah of Judah,” BASOR 251: 7).

3. In 1986, Zechariah Kallai rejected Deir Abu el-Qabus on grounds that “the finds are incompatible,” preferring instead Kh. Deir Shubeib (Historical Geography of the Bible, 368). Kh. Deir Shubeib is located 1.6 miles (2.7 km) northwest of Tell Abu el-Qabus.

4. In a brief article in the Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992), Raphael Greenberg likewise identified Eshtaol with Khirbet Deir Shubeib, but he was imprecise in claiming that it is “near the village of Ishwa, which retains elements of the ancient name” (2:617).

5. Aaron M. Gale, writing in the Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000), confused the two sites, identifying Eshtaol with Khirbet Deir Shubeib, but locating it at the site of Tell Abu el-Qabus, 1.5 miles east of Zorah, near Ishwa (425).

6. Rainey in The Sacred Bridge (2006) apparently followed Greenberg/Gale in this mistake, as he writes, “Eshtaol is evidently to be located at Khirbet Deir Shubeib beside the village of Ishwa‘” (141). Kh. Deir Shubeib is 1.8 miles (3 km) west of Ishwa; Tell Abu el-Qabus is next to Ishwa.

On the basis of the observations above, some conclusions may be suggested:

1. Greenberg’s brief article made it unclear that there were two candidates and his imprecision led to later confusion.

2. Gale combined data from the ISBE and ABD articles and in doing so he incorrectly gave the name of Khirbet Deir Shubeib to the site of Tell Abu el-Qabus.

3. Rainey perpetuated Gale’s mistake in his 2005 work. Because The Sacred Bridge will be the standard reference work for historical geographers for the next generation, this mistake may live a long life.

4. The site of Eshtaol has “shifted” not because of convincing evidence but because of careless research and writing.

5. The identification of Eshtaol at either of the sites must be determined on the basis of archaeological study of the two proposed sites. It is doubtful, contrary to initial impressions, that Rainey was intending to follow Kallai’s identification over Avi-Yonah’s. Without further archaeological data, we prefer the conclusion of Avi-Yonah and the initial conclusion of Rainey that Eshtaol is located in the immediate vicinity of the Arab village that preserves its name.

The map below was made by British Mandate authorities, with Israeli additions in purple. The two sites in question are clearly identified. Google Earth users can find Kh. Deir Shubeib at 31.798000°, 34.985200° and Kh. Deir Abu Qabus at 31.785790°, 35.009930°.

My thanks to A.D. Riddle for his assistance with this study.

The vicinity of biblical Eshtaol in the eastern end of the Sorek Valley

Tagged Analysis, Shephelah

How To Spell Bible Places

In the old days, if you wanted to know how to spell something, you looked it up in the dictionary. If you were looking for a technical term or a proper noun, you might require a specialized dictionary.

Because the names of biblical sites are transliterated from other languages, and because time and tradition play a role, one often cannot say that there is “one right way” to spell a place name. In the
case of biblical site names, there are several approaches to determining the best spelling.

The first approach is to check with the authorities. I have often used the NIV translation as my standard. Recent scholarly Bible dictionaries are also good resources.

A second approach is to determine what is most popular. I’ve used Google on many occasions to see which form is more widely used. Since what is “correct” in spelling is largely a matter of usage, this is less problematic than it might first appear.

Another approach combines the best of the other two methods. By searching the scholarly literature, one can determine which is most widely used by the experts. Since my goal, in the projects I am working on, is to use names that are most common in the field, this has proven to be a worthy approach.

By how does one search the work of experts? I use Logos 4 to search my entire library for a given spelling of a word. I confess that I owned the program for a year before I gave this a try, having been so traumatized by searches in Logos 3 that seemed to take weeks and months. But Logos 4 is almost as quick as Google. Because my library contains many of the best reference works in biblical history and geography, I have instant access to the way that the experts spell a word.

So how does one spell Beth Shean, Beersheba, or Michmethath? Opinion is often divided, but knowing who and how many prefer a spelling usually helps me to make a good decision. Here is what I found by running searches on some more popular terms.

Beth Shan or Bet Shean?
- The older sources tend to prefer the latter, while the newer works favor the former.
En Gedi or Ein Gedi?
- The former gets 1,700 hits and the latter 500.
Succoth or Sukkoth?

The former is the place name; the latter is an autumn feast.

Beersheba or Beer Sheba?

(The former gives 4,800 hits and the latter 3,700. Many Bible dictionaries prefer Beer-Sheba.)

Elath or Eilat?

The biblical name is the former; the modern city is the latter.

Medeba or Madaba?

My Logos library is consistent with the former but notes that Wikipedia uses the latter.

Michmethah or Michmethath?

The latter has the clear edge.

Here is a screenshot of what a Logos search looks like for “Beth Shean.”

You can use this approach also to identify clear misspellings. No one would claim that Meggido is correct, despite the fact that this spelling can be found in ABD, ISBE, EDB, HALOT, some issues of BA and BAR, commentaries in Hermeneia and NIGTC, and Neusner’s translation of the Talmud.

(One can hope that publishers in the future will take advantage of computer technology to reduce misspellings.)

I’m happy to have found a new, quick method to determine the best way to spell names of biblical sites in English. If you don’t already own a library in Logos or the Mac program Accordance, I wouldn’t claim that it’s worth investing in one just for this, but for those who already committed, this may be a useful tip. Google Books may be another alternative, although I have not checked to see if they include the resources I would consider most authoritative.

Instructions for Logos users: Open program. Click the “Search” button. Make sure “All Text” and “Entire Library” are selected. Then type in search term. Wait 0.59 seconds.

Tagged Analysis

Top Stories of 2011

Multiple Exoduses from Egypt?

Western Wall Discovery: Follow-Up

Western Wall Discovery: IAA Desperate for Headlines

The Identification of Eshtaol: A Brief Case-Study in Recent Research

How To Spell Bible Places