The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Isreal and the Origin of Sacred Texts Read Online Free Page A
Author: Israel Finkelstein, Neil Asher Silberman
other gods, a new view of God as completely transcendent, and the absolute prohibition of the sacrificial worship of the God of Israel in any place but the Temple in Jerusalem. Scholars long ago recognized this book’s possible connection to the otherwise mysterious “book of the Law” discovered by the high priest Hilkiah in the course of renovations to the Temple during the reign of King Josiah—in 622 BCE . As narrated in 2 Kings 22 : 8 – 23 : 24 , this document became the inspiration for a religious reform of unprecedented severity.
The impact of the book of Deuteronomy on the ultimate message of the Hebrew Bible goes far beyond its strict legal codes. The connected historical narrative of the books that follow the Pentateuch—Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings—is so closely related to Deuteronomy linguistically and theologically that it has come to be called by scholars since the middle of the 1940 s the “Deuteronomistic History.” This is the second great literary work on the history of Israel in the Bible. It continues the story of Israel’s destiny from the conquest of the promised land to the Babylonian exile and expresses the ideology of a new religious movementthat arose among the people of Israel at a relatively late date. This work too was edited more than once. Some scholars argue that it was compiled during the exile in an attempt to preserve the history, culture, and identity of the vanquished nation after the catastrophe of the destruction of Jerusalem. Other scholars suggest that in the main, the Deuteronomistic History was written in the days of King Josiah, to serve his religious ideology and territorial ambitions, and that it was finished and edited a few decades later in exile.
The books of Chronicles—the third great historical work in the Bible, dealing with pre-exilic Israel—were put in writing only in the fifth or fourth century BCE , several centuries after the events they describe. Their historical perspective is sharply slanted in favor of the historical and political claims of the Davidic dynasty and Jerusalem; they almost entirely ignore the north. In many ways Chronicles uniquely reflects the ideology and needs of Second Temple Jerusalem, for the most part reshaping an historical saga that already existed in written form. For these reasons we will make minimal use of Chronicles in this book, keeping our focus on the earlier Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic History.
As we shall see in the coming chapters, archaeology has provided enough evidence to support a new contention that the historical core of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History was substantially shaped in the seventh century BCE . We will therefore put the spotlight on late eighth and seventh century BCE Judah, when this literary process began in earnest, and shall argue that much of the Pentateuch is a late monarchic creation, advocating the ideology and needs of the kingdom of Judah, and as such is intimately connected to the Deuteronomistic History. And we shall side with the scholars who argue that the Deuteronomistic History was compiled, in the main, in the time of King Josiah, aiming to provide an ideological validation for particular political ambitions and religious reforms.
History, or Not History?
Archaeology has always played a crucial role in the debates about the composition and historical reliability of the Bible. At first, archaeology seemed to refute the more radical critics’ contention that the Bible was a rather latecomposition, and that much of it is unreliable historically. From the end of the nineteenth century, as the modern exploration of the lands of the Bible got underway, a series of spectacular discoveries and decades of steady archaeological excavation and interpretation suggested to many that the Bible’s accounts were basically trustworthy in regard to the main outlines of the story of ancient Israel. Thus it seemed that even if the biblical text was set down in
The impact of the book of Deuteronomy on the ultimate message of the Hebrew Bible goes far beyond its strict legal codes. The connected historical narrative of the books that follow the Pentateuch—Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings—is so closely related to Deuteronomy linguistically and theologically that it has come to be called by scholars since the middle of the 1940 s the “Deuteronomistic History.” This is the second great literary work on the history of Israel in the Bible. It continues the story of Israel’s destiny from the conquest of the promised land to the Babylonian exile and expresses the ideology of a new religious movementthat arose among the people of Israel at a relatively late date. This work too was edited more than once. Some scholars argue that it was compiled during the exile in an attempt to preserve the history, culture, and identity of the vanquished nation after the catastrophe of the destruction of Jerusalem. Other scholars suggest that in the main, the Deuteronomistic History was written in the days of King Josiah, to serve his religious ideology and territorial ambitions, and that it was finished and edited a few decades later in exile.
The books of Chronicles—the third great historical work in the Bible, dealing with pre-exilic Israel—were put in writing only in the fifth or fourth century BCE , several centuries after the events they describe. Their historical perspective is sharply slanted in favor of the historical and political claims of the Davidic dynasty and Jerusalem; they almost entirely ignore the north. In many ways Chronicles uniquely reflects the ideology and needs of Second Temple Jerusalem, for the most part reshaping an historical saga that already existed in written form. For these reasons we will make minimal use of Chronicles in this book, keeping our focus on the earlier Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic History.
As we shall see in the coming chapters, archaeology has provided enough evidence to support a new contention that the historical core of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History was substantially shaped in the seventh century BCE . We will therefore put the spotlight on late eighth and seventh century BCE Judah, when this literary process began in earnest, and shall argue that much of the Pentateuch is a late monarchic creation, advocating the ideology and needs of the kingdom of Judah, and as such is intimately connected to the Deuteronomistic History. And we shall side with the scholars who argue that the Deuteronomistic History was compiled, in the main, in the time of King Josiah, aiming to provide an ideological validation for particular political ambitions and religious reforms.
History, or Not History?
Archaeology has always played a crucial role in the debates about the composition and historical reliability of the Bible. At first, archaeology seemed to refute the more radical critics’ contention that the Bible was a rather latecomposition, and that much of it is unreliable historically. From the end of the nineteenth century, as the modern exploration of the lands of the Bible got underway, a series of spectacular discoveries and decades of steady archaeological excavation and interpretation suggested to many that the Bible’s accounts were basically trustworthy in regard to the main outlines of the story of ancient Israel. Thus it seemed that even if the biblical text was set down in
Readers choose
Barry Chaison
Adam Croft
Tina Donahue
Daisy Prescott
Robyn Carr
Persia Woolley
Sandra Brown
Carla Rossi
Barbara Hambly
Thomas Mallon