Reliable history in the Bible

If thats your idea of "problems" I have then Ill gladly take them.First of all, the site and area of what would later be Rameses had lots of activity from at least the time of the 13th dynasty (actually there were times in the 12th too)down to the Hyksos period and frnakly also the 18th dynasty(and of course the 19th).Tell-el-Daba was excavated for 40 years by Bietak.David Rohl said it best so, my quotes of him will be my responce that gets this issues out of the way (Then Im going to respond in a later post on "Ai" later, and I must put it in quotations with regards to your comments because you arent actually discussing the actual site of archaeologically)Rohl mentions Genesis 47:11 and the "region of Ramesses".The Biblical writers (if they made it up) clearly would only be using an anachronism to describe a general location.All scholars know that the Redactor would have put this in.Rohl adds."But just a minute.If the region of Rameses was an anachronism, not also be just such an anac then why should the "Raamses" of Exodus 1:11 not also be such an anachronism--surely it too could have been edited for a 6th century BC reading that the Romans crossed the English Channel to invade southern Britain in around AD 50and that the Emperor Hadrian finally established a garrison of the 6th legion at York in AD 120.All perfectly clear to us,but we must not forget that in the 2nd century AD the Latin name for the English Channel was Litus Saxonicum and the Roman town that occupied the site of modern York was called Eboracum(the city derived its modern name from 'Yorvic'-- the Viking town estabished on the same site only in the 9th century AD).Would we make the Sixth Legion contemporary with Alfred the Great simple because a book we had read stated that the Romans had fortified York? Of course not.So why should we so readily acceptthat Ramesses II was the Pharoah of the Opression simply because, according to the book of Exodus,the Israelites had built a store city of Raameses? It is quite possible, taking our example of 'Roman York', that the Israelites built an earlier city at the same spot which, by the sixth century BC, was hidden deep under the ruins of Pi-Rameses."Rohl goes on to mention that this part of the Delta (with footnote) was still called Ramesses during the 4th century AD.So the "store-city" built in Exodus chapter 1 was built at the site of or in the region of "Ramesses" which was named after a famous city.Before,I get to AI I should offer some links in my favorites section that cover some interesting issues.One is a debate around a T.V. documentary that (I didnt see it)seemed to indicate a Conquest of 1490 BCE (I disagree).The link(below) has Herschel Shanks (the Biblical Archaeology Review editor)review the program, then the program director responds and a it becomes a good debate.Page not found - Biblical Archaeology SocietyThis link(below,a continuation of the debate from same site)has (of all people!) Ronald Hendel "review" the program.Hendel is one of the Bibles biggest critics and BAR commonly calls on him for "responces" to conservative articles.He lacks substance as a rule, and aside from snide remarks, he generally doesnt say much beyond bold pronouncements.He has lost so many debates to Kenneth Kitchen (even when getting the last word) that it is simply unreal.Kitchen showed in March/April 1995 BAR that slaves were sold for 10-15 shekels from 2370-2000BCE (Akkad Empire & Third Dynasty of Ur),20 shekels from 1900-1700 BCE (Code of Hammurabi and Inscriptions of Mari),and 30 shekels from 1600-1300 BCE (Inscriptions of Nuzi & Ugarit).Kitchen showed that Joseph was sold as a slave for 20 shekels of silver in Genesis 37:28 but by Moses time, the price was 30 shekels (Exodus 21:32).Kitchen showed that the changing prices in the Bible reflected the going rates in Near-Eastern countries at the same time.(its ironic but Kitchen assumes the time of Moses to be around 1250-1300 , but the actual time of Moses was around 1590-1600, though BOTH are within the 1600-1300 going rates)Joseph was sold into slavery either 215 or 400-430 years before 1590(circa).2000-1600 BCE (20 shekels going rate) fits the actual dates and the 1650 date Kitchen assumes.Hendel got the last word in May/June 1995 BAR.His attempt to refute Kitchen was based around his confused reference to Leviticus 27:5.It listed 2 redemption prices (20 and 50 shekels depending on the age)required that free Israelites gave to dedicate themselves to God.It (Leviticus 27:5)did not give the price of slaves ,and Kitchens observation's of the Near-Eastern slave prices for their times wasnt refuted.Nearly 10 years later,BAR botched a review of Kitchens 2003 book On the Reliability of the Old Testament by letting Hendel review it! It lead to a Take 2 in July/August 2005, and it was an interesting deal where 2 people (1 Hendel and the other William Hallo)reviewed it and Kitchen got to give a multi page responce.The end result was that Kitchen destroyed Hendels argument that Deuteronomy was aritten circa 600BCE, by showing that the objective evidence places it around the 14th-12th century.(Im subjective and feel it was mostly written around 1600 BCE, but I respect objective informed scholarship based on broad non-selective fact gathering)Hendel strikes BAR again!I got this in the mail by ABR (not BAR!)(snip) NOW,here is the BAR debate where Hendel jumps in!Page not found - Biblical Archaeology SocietyI mentioned the JACF earlier and didnt know that issue #10 was free to read.Honestly, it may be the best evidence against my contention (based on mainstream archaeology) that all towns listed in the reference works as destroyed in "1550BCE" may actually be from different periods.(Bimson's article in issue #2 doesnt reflact his current views but they show Jericho details very well)ISIS - Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum(index to all issues)ISIS - Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum(issue 10, great scholarship!)
ISIS - Journal of the Ancient Chronology ForumAlso, Brian said we would take each and every town in order(gulp..its 33).I disagree with this site (below) in endless ways but it is a good guide to what we will be discussing.Canaan Conquest in Biblical Archeology I sure hope Im not the only one that going to be discussing/debating everything.I havnt even gotten to Ai yet(coming)....

Circa 1550 "Israelites Nomads" is little more than symantic sleight-of-hand.

This is going to be a lesson that EVERYBODY should take notice of and refer to.We need to go back to source material (in this case 1828)to make sure we arent building the 10th story to a building that never even had floors 1-9 built on a solid foundation.Ill start with the trite commentary we have all heard till our ears popped.Commentary on Et-tell I mean "Ai". "Ai" "Ai" "Ai"Heard enough(it can only be measured in trillions of audible repeats and playbacks)However here is YET more on "Ai" "Ai" "Ai". "Ai" "the site" "Ai" "Ai" "Ai"Whew, like we needed to hear the same old stuff a few more times!More commentary on Et-tell I mean "Ai" "Ai" "Ai"This time from a conservative evangelical.... "God God" people are telling me as I type these nauseating playbacks that only serve to prove what a bunch of lemmings the state of the people behind modern "scholarship".Well,we start to get clues on top of clues as to why this guy (and others) are so far off. Ugh.He continues (and please keep in mind that this was 1998 when it was already known that Hazor's terminated LBA destruction was c1300 NOT c1230)Actually thats enough of him.Lets go to the cover story of the September 7, 1998 issue of Christianity Today which was "Did the Exodus Never Happen" pages 44-51Hoffmeier mentioned Stratum VIII and the c1300 destruction of Hazor Actually sounds good till you read his next sentence (keep in mind this is 1300 BCE though Hoffemier thinks it was 1230...and it gets worse...) Judges had a battle between Israelites and Hazor around 1300BCE(perhaps another player was involved but not mentioned in scripture)and Hoffemier is talking about this 1300 battle (which he thinks was 1230)that included the destruction of stratum VII as from Joshuas time??!!Hoffmeier proved to be much more competent than Browning though when he said THIS about Ai.IMPORTANT! Wow.Somebody actually ot it right (or began to get to the heart of the issue most simply take for granted as if there isnt a foundational issue).There is hope yet.Common sense has its place in this world yetWith that crack of hope,lets take the common sense step and go to the foundational issue involved.Bethel.Lets step back all the way to 1828 (sad that one has to slip back 178 years, buts that was the last time we hadnt screwed up totally, with this centuries "experts" taking the reward for the worst screwing up) I addeded the emphesis myself and the next section starts with"Roman Milestones Tell The Story"This link may show much of what the journal showed.http://www.ancientdays.net/bethel14.htm The Anchor Bible article spends much of the time criticising the work done as poor and the excavation reports as unusable.The artcile didnt mention it but the whole identification was the most sloppy exercise of all.So, with reagrds to Ai , it is not et-tell.We dont know what it is.We need to know which site is Bethel first.Beitin isnt Bethel.We know that much.Thus we havnt a clue where Ai is.Edited by MightyPlaceNimrod, : No reason given.Edited by MightyPlaceNimrod, : No reason given.Edited by MightyPlaceNimrod, : No reason given.Edited by MightyPlaceNimrod, : No reason given.Edited by MightyPlaceNimrod, : Working on better material.Edited by MightyPlaceNimrod, : No reason given.

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Judges had a battle between Israelites and Hazor around 1300BCE(perhaps another player was involved but not mentioned in scripture)and Hoffemier is talking about this 1300 battle (which he thinks was 1230)that included the destruction of stratum VII as from Joshuas time??!!

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Hoffmeier is competent. Hazor is supposedly destroyed by fire by Joshua's invading army (Joshua 11:11-13). According to Judges 4-5 the Israelites fight and defeat the Canaanite ruler of Hazor, but there is no mention of the city being destroyed - or even attacked, let alone burnt.So what you seem to be arguing is that both Joshua and Judges are inaccurate. You say that the destruction that the Bible attributes to Joshua really belongs in Judges 4-5 (from which it is wrongly omitted). That may be so but I hardly think that you can call Hoffmeier incompetent for not taking such a view.

Sorry.I meant to say that the 1300 destruction (and Rohl in 1993 told everybody that the "1230" destruction was actually 1300, as he had a conversation with Ben-Tor, Hoffmeier and others shouldnt be making that mistake in 1998)was the Judges battle.And it was.Ill respond to you, CA, and others once I clean up #93.Ill provide sourced material for anwsers.EDIT:Im glad you quoted that.Stratum "VIII" is the topic.i need to edit that too.Edited by MightyPlaceNimrod, : No reason given.

I wouldn't rely on Rohl's chronology - it has serious problems which is why it isn't accepted. Using it just undermines your case.I think we can agree that major fire damage is to be expected if a city is taken and burned, but it isn't very likely to be the result of a war where the city is not taken and probably not directly attacked at all. So I really don't see any way you can make a strong case that the damage is due to the conflict in Judges, because Judges doesn't mention anything that could account for it (and it's not something the writer would be likely to omit).

Not at all.Silberman (a co-author with Finkelstein) calls this Finkelstein theory....."Invisible Israelites" (Secrets of The Bible)Rejecting the idea of a peasant revolt for the c1200 transformation, and not acepting evidence of a struggle between Israelites and Canaanites , pastoralists and settled population, feudal lords and peasants.Finkelstein goes far beyond the "chronological limits" most accept.He traced settlement patterns over the canaanite hill country over hundreds of years.The demogrphic revolution of the Early Iron Age isnt to be seen in isolation.The issue of the Israelite settlement are connected closely to much much earlier developments. Silberman adds."These hill-country farmers-turned herdsman (almost invisible to archaologists when compared to populations that built permanent houses) were able to establish.." a new way of life. Ill try and grab the book and give a fuller quote later.Silberman clearly described Finkelsteins views that the pastoralist peoples that emerged 1550 were what would later be Israelites.The Merenptah document proves who they were.The archaeological situation fits the bible like a glove.The only think the Bible isnt 100% clear on is when exactly the Israelites settled into cities.The archaeological record shows around 1200-1150 when the settled population exploded.The Israelites were demanding a king by 1050 at the latest according to the bible.I need to grab the book i refered to and quote it fully.Edited by MightyPlaceNimrod, : No reason given.

I was refering to the fact that Rohl did his homework and talked to the Hazor excavators.The final phase in the LBA Hazor city was terminated c1300 BCE. Keep in mind, this is a William Dever article.He has a good imagination.See my post 57 (In Edom thread)for expert Egyptian scholarship that tells that there is no evidence for the early Egyptian 18th Dynasty to be responible for these destructions.The great archaeologist Manfred Bietak says that Ahmose didnt get past the south-west of Palestine (Hazor is in the extreme north) and was stuck in multi year wars over single towns.Even then,that wasnt till about 1520 (Hazor Stratum 16)was destroyed in 1550 at the latest based on archaeology unless you allow LB1 lags in Palestine, and frankly I think the "1550" date could be pushed perhaps a few decades back as it was reached to fit with the dreamed up Ahmose "campaigns", which didnt happen and even what did happen was in 1520) Thutmose III didnt campaign till after 1450, almost till the end of the LBI.(LB1 1550-1400) Dever speaks of the impressive rebuilding programs for the rest of this section before getting to the Amarna Age.No destruction from Thutmose III. In Secrets of the Bible of Neil Asher Silberman Silberman adds earlier that the destruction of the palace and entire city was "destroyed by fire sometime in the late 14th or early 13th century" LBIIA seems to be the trend. Kenneth Kitchen has shown that there were several kings named jaban in the historical and archaeological record.The Bible also mentions 2 kings named Jabin.In Joshua and Judges.Both ended in destruction by fire.The dates are unclear but there seems to be around 200 years seperation between the 2 battles.You can see that stratum 16 (1550) BCE plus VIIB-VIII (1300) have 2 destructions.And there ware artifacts of a King named Jabin found in that stratum.There may have even been a destruction layer around 1440 BCE as well.

If you attribute a date to Rohl without further evidence then it's rather likely that it is part of his chronology. The only mention of a 1300 BC date in your whole post is a carbon date of a single olive pit but no indication of why that should be taken as giving the destruction date.

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The Bible also mentions 2 kings named Jabin.In Joshua and Judges.Both ended in destruction by fire.

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Please produce the Judges verses that say that Hazor was destroyed by fire in that period.

[qa]Judges4
23 On that day God subdued Jabin, the Canaanite king, before the Israelites. 24 And the hand of the Israelites grew stronger and stronger against Jabin, the Canaanite king, until they destroyed him.
[/qa]Score one against me.Maybe Im being too hard on Hoffmeier and others.I just dont like the idea that they keep trying to take a few battles from 1200 and another one (Hazor) from c1230 (at the latest)and try and say that it was the Conquest.There were dozens of battles in Joshua.It doesnt work.Jericho didnt have any walls then.A c1200 conquest doesnt add up in so many other ways.It doent leave much time for the Judges period when the Israelites were pastoralist.The 1550 situation was when the population dropped 95%.The 1550 situation was when the cities were destroyed.The 1550 situation was when the pastoralist people (Israelites) emerged.Though they were "invisible" to archaeology.Whether Hazor was destroyed in c1300 or c1230 (inbetween these times, Seti of Egypt claimed to have destroyed Hazor), the fact is that the urban city was destroyed and it wasnt till perhaps 200 years later that even small activity was found archaeologically.If the Conquest was the 1230-1300 battle, then how could a destroyed city (with no population in the archaeological record) field an army with several hundred chariots in the time of Judges?As for your comment about Rohl,just relax.It was a friggin footnote in his book! Nothing to do with his chronology.My point was that he DID KNOW about it a long time ago.I showed you what Ben-Tor said (how much more does one need!).I quoted Silberman.Silberman is the editor of Archaeology magazine.He ha been a co-author with Finkelstein.Edited by MightyPlaceNimrod, : No reason given.

I think that you will find that the reason why some go for a 13th Century BC date is that it fits the Bible chronology better. (And probably they want there to be an Exodus).If Rohl gives a date without discussing the evidence then you can't assume that it has nothing to do with his chronology.

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I showed you what Ben-Tor said (how much more does one need!).

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What Ben-Tor SAID was that he suspected that the date was earlier than 1230 BC and that there was an olive pit dated from 1300 BC. So it should be obvious what more is needed - some solid support for your 1300 BC date.Your quotes from Silbermann don't provide any support for a 1300 BC date either.

Then Silberman either misunderstands Finkelstein or renders his views poorly or - far more likely - is being read through a distorted lens and rendered with self-serving sloppiness. To say that the Israelites emerged from the hill country populations is a far cry from pretending a coherent culture that could reasonably be labeled "Israelite Nomads". And to use this pretense as the foundation for asserting that

the Bible isnt 100% clear ..."

is just silly ...

....were many of the most important Conquest cities destroyed in a single year (1550)archaeologically and why did the population drop 95% in the EXACT place where the Israelites conquered?Infact, the Bible's given locations for genocide (to put it bluntly)also happens to be the ONLY place where the population dropped.And what a drop it was(95% man!).All in the same year that the Bibles named cities were destroyed.And though Finkelstein doesnt seem to want to notice the match-up (between the conquered cities mentioned in the Bible and the archaeological record), he at least can be clearly seen as saying that those people who were present at the time were the same as (what would LATER become, in Finkelsteins view) the Israelites.My interpretation isnt silly.Finkelstein DOES view the Israelites as emerging much later.Many view them as emerging around 1200-1150 (Finkelstein would see it as even later though he admits the 1210 Merenptah record shouldnt be ignored).They are looking at the population explosion when pastoralist peoples started to settle down into city life.They view that sedentarization process as the emergence of what would soon become the Israelites.I think the sedentarization process (in the archaeological record of the Iron Age post 1200BCE) is irrelevent to the origins of the Israelites, but is VERY relevent with regards to how they settled down and advanced toward their monarchy.The fact is that cities named in the Bible existed in 1550.That fact alone should cause us to take notice. (Granted the name Israelites called cities by post-Monarchy may not have been the exact cities in the 1550 Conquest; they may have named later cities after famous ones which were destroyed and which would later become a distant memory in which the names werent forgotten during the 400 year pastoralist eexistence between the Conquest and the sedentarization transition around 1150BCE).The fact is that the Israelites described the exact name of Hazor kings.We now know that it was a name many Hazor kings took.And Hazor was a city that the Bible clearly described as surving and thriving after the Conquest.Nearly 200 years after the Conquest (I counted around 150), the Bible describes Hazor as a powerful city of surviving Canaanites.About 180 years (or perhaps slightly more)after 1550, the Bible describes the Israelites as freeing themselves from a multi-decade opression that Hazor imposed on them.Jerusalem was clearly described as surving the Israelites attacks.Now there is no record of Jerusalem being conquered in 150, but that is because of the massive modern population covering the city and preventing overly-significant and comprehensive archaeological work from being done.Archaeology, including The Amarna records,back the Bible up with regards to who survived the 1550 Conquest.Nothing contradicts the Bible, and the broad archaeological picture supports it though micro-details arent going to be found (one could *almost* call the 1550 destructions in the archaeological record "micro-details" but they arent quite since no written records survive-the best hope for written records would be a possible archive found in Hazor but we could be "800 years" away from finding that).It all fits like a glove.But there is still a possibility the Bible could be falsified during the Joshua-Judges period.It just hasnt happen yet.

But you dished out this nonsense, not as your "interpretation", but as Finkelstein's position. That isn't "silly" - it's dishonest, and it typifies the word salad of cherry-picked references, baseless assertions, and equally vapid inference that you pawn off as archaeological argument.So, you abused Finkelstein. The best thay one can say for you is that you were equally disingenuous when dealing with his oft time opponent, Dever. And what does Dever say about all this:

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Let me begin by clarifying which books of the Hebrew Bible I think can be utilized by the would-be historian, whether textual scholar or archaeologist. With most scholars, I would exclude much of the Pentateuch, specifically the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. These materials obviously constitute a sort of "pre-history" that has been attached to the main epic of ancient Israel by late editors. All this may be distilled from long oral tradition, and I suspect that some of the stories -- such as parts of the Patriarchal narratives -- may once have had a historical setting. These traditions, however, are overlaid with legendary and even fantastic materials that the modern reader may enjoy as "story," but which can scarcely be taken seriously as history.

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- What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It? (pg. 97)

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After a century of exhausive investigation, all respectable archaeologists have given up hope of recovering any context that would make Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob credible historical figures. Virtually the last archaeological word was written by me more than 20 years ago for a basic handbook of biblical studies, Israelite and Judean History. And, as we have seen, archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus has similarly been discarded as a fruitless pursuit. Indeed, the overwhelming archaeological evidence today of largely indigenous origins for early Israel leaves no room for an exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness. A Moses-like figure may have existed somewhere in southern Transjordan in the middle 13th century B.C., where many scholars think the biblical traditions concerning the god Yahweh arose. But archaeology can do nothing to confirm such a figure as a historical personage, much less prove that he was the founder of later Israelite religion. As for Leviticus and Numbers, these are clearly additions to the "pre-history" by very late Priestly editorial hands, preoccupied with notions of ritual purity, themes of the "promised land," and othe literary motifs that most modern readers will scarcely find edifying, much less historical.

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- ibid (pg. 99)

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Now let us turn to the biblical data. If we look at the biblical texts describing the origins of Israel, we see at once that the traditional account contained in Genesis through Joshua simple cannot be reconciled with the picture derived above from archaeological investigation. The whole "Exodus-Conquest" cycle of stories must now be set aside as largely mythical, but in the proper sense of the term "myth": perhaps "historical fiction" ...

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- ibid (pg. 121)

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The "historical fiction" that informs the Torah deserves far more respect than does the pedagogical farce you offer up for consideration.

I never passed off anything Dever said as supporting the Biblical Conquest.I own and have read the book of his you quoted.I dont even like the guy(for reasons I wont mention), and usually I wont dislike an archaeolohgist enough to point out any personal views I hold toward the person.I only quoted from him because he happened to have written many of the archaeological articles I needed to refer to.There simply isnt anything (-Im thinking-)I can think of, that leads me to understand your point in attacking me over somehow presenting Dever's views as somehow *supporting*(?)my Biblical Conquest views.I presented archaeological facts, and if you bothered to read some OTHER quotes that I pasted, you would know that I consider raw-archaeological data(NOT peoples opinions!)to be the closest thing to science that we can get to in this debate.As for Finkelstein, I urge you to check out the book (by Silberman) I refered to AND QUOTED.It was completed about the same time as The Bible Unearthed (which Silberman co-authored with Finkelstein).The 2 are very close and Silberman-being a top of the line archaeological journalist- knows Finkelsteins views very well.I was simply showing that they viewed the 1550 Canaanites as ancestors of what would later become the Israelites.I was fairly clear about that(go back and re-read it).Again, I am more interested in the raw-data.Not specific conclusions.Finkelsteins view (keep in mind that he leaves out the 1550 destructions while discussing the 1550 situation;he doesnt find them especially note-worthy) is that much of the city population that vanished in 1550 took to a pastoralist existence where archaeological artifacts-comeing from the people's he is surveying- simply cant be traced.I appreciate his ability to study and report the data.I have duely noted his work!I disagree with his interpretation though.I would say that the Canaanites were killed and the new pastoralist population was the incoming Israelites.Based on the raw data (I admit that without the Bible; I wouldn be able to reach that conclusion, but the Bible seems to be describing that time period).Unless we have been living under a rock, most people debating Israelite origins will know that Finkelstein desnt believe in the Conquest(and Dever for that matter).If Dever and Finkelstein have DATA though, then I will use it. (the ironic thing is that c1200 Conquest believers disagree with Finkelstein when he says that the huge increase in the Iron Age population was due to native pastoralist peoples settling down and thus being "seen" in the archaeological record as reflected in the new-city settlements.They view the huge increases in oppulation as incoming Israelites who they-being c1200 Conquest believers-feel immediately took to a settled city life.).