Archaeology and the Hebrew Bible

[Marduk]

can't we do the Indiana Jones ending instead

 

[OCaptain]

I have no problem with the ark being a real object, seen by the worshippers as the throne of their god. I believe it resided in the holy of holies. I don't think YHWH was represented. His cult seems to have been, for the most part, anti-iconic.

I suspect the ark of the covenant was destroyed, along with the temple, by the Chaldeans. The most likely building stone used for the temple would have been limestone, i.e. calcium carbonate. If brushwood was piled against the temple and set alight. It would have quickly generated a great deal of heat. The bronze leaf coating the walls would have begun to melt, transmitting its heat to the stone. The cedar roof beams, wooden roof planks and inside wooden paneling would have caught fire, burned and transmitted their heat to the stone, as well. Limestone, like other carbonates, decomposes when heated to temperatures that would only make silicates and aluminosilicates red hot. Limestone decomposes into carbon dioxide - which goes up in smoke, carrying over half the molecular weight with it - and calcium oxide, or quicklime - which melts. In the resulting inferno, the ark, a wooden box surmounted by gold images of cherubim, would have been been consumed.

There appear to have been plenty of time and opportunities for someone so inclined to remove it as booty, from the 10th century til the 6th.

Taking Marduk's lead about Indiana Jones, there is the Hollywood notion that it found its way to Egypt during the invasion of Sheshonq I.

There's the reign of Manasseh, given as the reason faithful YHWHist priests took the chest to Elephantine, then on into Ethiopia, per Graham Hancock.

II Maccabees records the hiding of the Ark in a cave underneath Mt Nebo, an idea not found or supported by any other documentation.

Then there is the idea you suggest that the Ark was melted down by the Babylonians in 586BCE.

There are other ideas proposed by evangelicals and mystics, but I give them no credence.

To me, the idea that the chest survived in place from the 400-odd years from Solomon to Hezekiah is not likely.

 

[TimCallahan]

. . . (snip) . . . There's the reign of Manasseh, given as the reason faithful YHWHist priests took the chest to Elephantine, then on into Ethiopia, per Graham Hancock. . . . (snip) . .

Forgive me, but whenever I hear of Graham Handcock I think of mental masturbation.

 

[OCaptain]

Forgive me, but whenever I hear of Graham Handcock I think of mental masturbation.

Fair enough.

 

[Piggy]

Now, getting back to the assertion by Finkelstein & Silberman that Solomon's temple was no big deal as some sort of architectural wonder, they're absolutely right. Even the very biased biblical text supports them. Solomon's temple would have been a simple "long room temple" of the sort that was common throughout the Near East and the Balkans. That 1 Kings considers it a big deal demonstrates that Israel and Judah were minor players in the world of the ancient Near East. This makes me a believer?

It would have been about as big as a 2 story house in a well-to-do neighborhood in the States. About 30 feet tall, 30 feet wide, and 90 feet long. Made of cedar.

The outer room would have been about 60 feet long, and the inner sanctum a 30 foot cube, just large enough to house 2 sphynx-like cherubim, and the old tabernacle from Shiloh beneath their wings.

But Solomon's Temple wasn't ever supposed to be the wonder. His palaces have that reputation, and they were different buildings.

Last I heard, they'd excavated down to about the time of Asa, about a century after Solmon, and had found some pretty interesting stuff. And while Jerusalem was certainly the sticks compared to the capitals of the great empires, the complexes are impressive.

More progress has surely been made since (unless politics has stopped work, as it often does over there) but I haven't been keeping up with it.

 

[Piggy]

Richard Elliott Friedman thinks that "P" was written during the reign of Hezekiah (715 - 692 BCE), but most scholars say it was written during the Babylonian Captivity (586 - 538 BCE), which would also mean it was written in Mesopotamia.

Seems to me Friedman has to be correct. Everything snaps into place and several knotty problems disappear, and I don't know of any significant new problems it creates.

 

[Piggy]

Do you think that a temple of Solomon would have been designed with a physical representation of YHWH within the holy of holies?

Was the Ark of the Covenant designed as a throne for the deity? Do you understand the Ark to have been a real object?

YHWH was seated upon the cherub throne -- or at least his kvd, or "glory" was -- but there was no artifact in that space to represent him.

The Temple was built to house the Tabernacle when it was brought to Jerusalem.

The brilliance of David, you see, was his plan for national unification.

To that end, he sacked the Jebusite city of Jebus (Jerusalem) which lay on the border between Judah and the northern provinces, and moved the capital of Judah to there from Hebron.

He then installed both a Northern (Mushite) and Judean (Aaronite/Zadokite) High Priest in Jerusalem, and brought the Tabernacle there from the old Northern shrine at Shiloh.

The Tabernacle was a structure of overlapping cedar panels covered with some sort of heavy tarp, which had the images of cherubim (which look like sphinxes) woven into the sides. God lived in it, although he also was wherever he wanted to be at any given time.

Inside the Tabernacle were artifacts such as divination objects and a box containing the oldest extant version of the Mosaic Law, on tablets (the Covenant, inside the Ark of the Covenant).

The Temple was built around the Tabernacle. Two sculptures of cherubim were built on either side of the Tabernacle, like standing sphynxes facing a person approaching the entrance. Their wings touched above the Tabernacle.

A cube-shaped cedar room was built around the cherubim, so that the tips of their wings touched the walls. The upper half of the room, starting about 15 feet up in the air, was the seat of the glory of YHWH. Within the Tabernacle itself, one could commune with God.

The Ark may have come back to Jerusalem after the return under Cyrus. There were 2 Davidic regent kings, but the second one simply disappears from the record. Perhaps the Davidic regents, with the vestments and the Ark etc., either let it go to their heads or perhaps their very presence fomented undesired nationalism, but for whatever reason, their line simply ends, and none of the contents of the Tabernacle are ever heard from again.

Then again, maybe the Ark never left Mesopotamia and was at some point either looted or destroyed.

In any case, Ezra's temple featured an empty inner sanctum.

 

[TimCallahan]

It would have been about as big as a 2 story house in a well-to-do neighborhood in the States. About 30 feet tall, 30 feet wide, and 90 feet long. Made of cedar.

The outer room would have been about 60 feet long, and the inner sanctum a 30 foot cube, just large enough to house 2 sphynx-like cherubim, and the old tabernacle from Shiloh beneath their wings.

But Solomon's Temple wasn't ever supposed to be the wonder. His palaces have that reputation, and they were different buildings.

Last I heard, they'd excavated down to about the time of Asa, about a century after Solmon, and had found some pretty interesting stuff. And while Jerusalem was certainly the sticks compared to the capitals of the great empires, the complexes are impressive.
More progress has surely been made since (unless politics has stopped work, as it often does over there) but I haven't been keeping up with it.

The kingdoms of Israel and Judah made money off of taxing caravans on the Incense Route, carrying frankincense and myrrh. This caravan route stretched from what is now Yemen to Damascus. They were also able to tap into the ivory trade, which took a maritime route from the Horn of Africa to the port of Elath in Edom, which was controlled by Judah. Additionally, the kingdoms of the Levant exported olive oil as a cash crop to Mesopotamia.

Thus, though Israel and Judah weren't major players with the wealth o Egypt or the power of Assyria, they were reasonably prosperous and supported an urban population with some degree of literacy and sophistication.

 

[Piggy]

The kingdoms of Israel and Judah made money off of taxing caravans on the Incense Route, carrying frankincense and myrrh. This caravan route stretched from what is now Yemen to Damascus. They were also able to tap into the ivory trade, which took a maritime route from the Horn of Africa to the port of Elath in Edom, which was controlled by Judah. Additionally, the kingdoms of the Levant exported olive oil as a cash crop to Mesopotamia.

Thus, though Israel and Judah weren't major players with the wealth of Egypt or the power of Assyria, they were reasonably prosperous and supported an urban population with some degree of literacy and sophistication.

True, but as I said, compared to the great empires, they were a relative backwater. I'm certainly not in the camp which maintains that Jerusalem under the monarchy was little more than a cow town. Your description of a kingdom which was "reasonably prosperous and supported an urban population with some degree of literacy and sophistication" is right in line with how I would describe it.

 

[OCaptain]

It would have been about as big as a 2 story house in a well-to-do neighborhood in the States. About 30 feet tall, 30 feet wide, and 90 feet long. Made of cedar.

The outer room would have been about 60 feet long, and the inner sanctum a 30 foot cube, just large enough to house 2 sphynx-like cherubim, and the old tabernacle from Shiloh beneath their wings.

But Solomon's Temple wasn't ever supposed to be the wonder. His palaces have that reputation, and they were different buildings.

Last I heard, they'd excavated down to about the time of Asa, about a century after Solmon, and had found some pretty interesting stuff. And while Jerusalem was certainly the sticks compared to the capitals of the great empires, the complexes are impressive.

More progress has surely been made since (unless politics has stopped work, as it often does over there) but I haven't been keeping up with it.

That's a fair summary, Piggy. The cubit, as a unit of measurement, has always been open to some interpretation. Although in its most basic anthropic form, it's designed to represent the length of a forearm, any time scholars have encountered a reference to the cubit in ancient writings or inscriptions, they've had to ask themselves if it refers to the Egyptian standard cubit (ca. 18"), the Egyptian Royal cubit (ca. 21"), the Sumerian Nippur cubit (ca. 20.4").

Have you been following the recent excavations in the oldest, City of David part of Jerusalem by Eilat Mazar? Her enthusiasm for "solving" biblical puzzles notwithstanding, she's doing a lot of positive work on such a controversial site, certainly more than I thought the Waqf would have allowed.

There is a 2010 analysis of her work by Conor Martin Trouw of the University of Melbourne available here http://dtl.unimelb.edu.au/R/DD1SAC1...t_id=269667&local_base=GEN01&pds_handle=GUEST

 

[OCaptain]

Seems to me Friedman has to be correct. Everything snaps into place and several knotty problems disappear, and I don't know of any significant new problems it creates.

Agreed. Just to maintain the integrity of P as a source requires the earlier date. Realizing how much information would have been lost as far as temple rituals, etc, makes P less necessary (and understandable) if it were all rapidly-fading memory during the captivity, mixed in with Babylonian religious practice.

 

[OCaptain]

YHWH was seated upon the cherub throne -- or at least his kvd, or "glory" was -- but there was no artifact in that space to represent him.

The Temple was built to house the Tabernacle when it was brought to Jerusalem.

The brilliance of David, you see, was his plan for national unification.

To that end, he sacked the Jebusite city of Jebus (Jerusalem) which lay on the border between Judah and the northern provinces, and moved the capital of Judah to there from Hebron.

He then installed both a Northern (Mushite) and Judean (Aaronite/Zadokite) High Priest in Jerusalem, and brought the Tabernacle there from the old Northern shrine at Shiloh.

The Tabernacle was a structure of overlapping cedar panels covered with some sort of heavy tarp, which had the images of cherubim (which look like sphinxes) woven into the sides. God lived in it, although he also was wherever he wanted to be at any given time.

Inside the Tabernacle were artifacts such as divination objects and a box containing the oldest extant version of the Mosaic Law, on tablets (the Covenant, inside the Ark of the Covenant).

The Temple was built around the Tabernacle. Two sculptures of cherubim were built on either side of the Tabernacle, like standing sphynxes facing a person approaching the entrance. Their wings touched above the Tabernacle.

A cube-shaped cedar room was built around the cherubim, so that the tips of their wings touched the walls. The upper half of the room, starting about 15 feet up in the air, was the seat of the glory of YHWH. Within the Tabernacle itself, one could commune with God.

The Ark may have come back to Jerusalem after the return under Cyrus. There were 2 Davidic regent kings, but the second one simply disappears from the record. Perhaps the Davidic regents, with the vestments and the Ark etc., either let it go to their heads or perhaps their very presence fomented undesired nationalism, but for whatever reason, their line simply ends, and none of the contents of the Tabernacle are ever heard from again.

Then again, maybe the Ark never left Mesopotamia and was at some point either looted or destroyed.

In any case, Ezra's temple featured an empty inner sanctum.

I can't disagree with most of what you've written here.

The main record that has always bothered me about any later (ie 597-586 BCE) removal of the Ark by the Babylonians has been the biblical inventory which details the sacred items of worship that were allowed to come to Jerusalem with the returnees many decades later.

If we take that as an accurate list, the Ark is notable by its absence. I think that imagining that the Ark was melted down by the captors of Israel is the intellectually lazy way to go in providing any real research into it. It requires no real work to be done.

 

[Piggy]

That's a fair summary, Piggy. The cubit, as a unit of measurement, has always been open to some interpretation. Although in its most basic anthropic form, it's designed to represent the length of a forearm, any time scholars have encountered a reference to the cubit in ancient writings or inscriptions, they've had to ask themselves if it refers to the Egyptian standard cubit (ca. 18"), the Egyptian Royal cubit (ca. 21"), the Sumerian Nippur cubit (ca. 20.4").

Have you been following the recent excavations in the oldest, City of David part of Jerusalem by Eilat Mazar? Her enthusiasm for "solving" biblical puzzles notwithstanding, she's doing a lot of positive work on such a controversial site, certainly more than I thought the Waqf would have allowed.

There is a 2010 analysis of her work by Conor Martin Trouw of the University of Melbourne available here http://dtl.unimelb.edu.au/R/DD1SAC1...t_id=269667&local_base=GEN01&pds_handle=GUEST

I'm using Egyptian standard. I think it's most likely for the Levites.

And yeah, but I haven't heard anything from/about Mazar in a year or two, I guess... have been mucking around in the 1st century lately, need to catch up.

 

[Piggy]

The main record that has always bothered me about any removal of the Ark by the Babylonians has been the passages which detail the sacred items of worship that were allowed to come to Jerusalem with the returnees many decades later.

If we take that as an accurate list, the Ark is notable by its absence. I think that imagining that the Ark was melted down by the captors of Israel is the intellectually lazy way to go in providing any real research into it. It requires no real work to be done.

Well, it's pure speculation, but if I were the Persians, I would not let them go back with their ancient relic of their law. I would insist that they understand that they're going back with the right, under my law, to observe their law locally.

That might have been too powerful a relic. I mean, the Davidics reached a sudden dead end regardless.

But for the Persians, it would have been a museum piece. Certainly nothing to safeguard when the wolves were at the door.

 

[OCaptain]

The kingdoms of Israel and Judah made money off of taxing caravans on the Incense Route, carrying frankincense and myrrh. This caravan route stretched from what is now Yemen to Damascus. They were also able to tap into the ivory trade, which took a maritime route from the Horn of Africa to the port of Elath in Edom, which was controlled by Judah. Additionally, the kingdoms of the Levant exported olive oil as a cash crop to Mesopotamia.

Thus, though Israel and Judah weren't major players with the wealth o Egypt or the power of Assyria, they were reasonably prosperous and supported an urban population with some degree of literacy and sophistication.

Agreed. And we have archaeological evidence to reinforce the presence of Sabaean traders in Israel in the 9th century BCE. Benjamin Sass describes potsherd fragments found in the City of David section of Jerusalem. These sherds are unique because they feature graffito SA (South Arabian) script. (Sass, Benjamin. “Arabs and Greeks in Late First Temple Jerusalem”. In Palestine Exploration Quarterly 122, 1990, pp. 59-61.) The find was made by Yigael Shiloh and demonstrates South Arabian merchants residing in Jerusalem in Iron Age (IA) II period. The find consists of three potsherds that are inclusive of lettering identified as South Arabian by Shiloh and independently confirmed by Maria Hofner (Shiloh, Yigal. Excavations in the City of David 1978-1985. Vol. VI: Inscriptions. Ed. D.T. Ariel. 2000.). They were made from local clays, and in a manner consistent with Judean pottery-making in late first Temple times (Shiloh 1987, 11-14). Sass questions the identification of the letters on sherds 2 and 3 as South Arabian, while understanding sherd 1 is indeed North or South Arabian (Sass 1990, 60). It is quite likely that these pottery fragments, with their more significant South Arabian monograms, indicate the presence in Jerusalem of South Arabian merchants, during the IA II period. This view is shared by Shiloh.

 

[pakeha]

I'm using Egyptian standard. I think it's most likely for the Levites.

And yeah, but I haven't heard anything from/about Mazar in a year or two, I guess... have been mucking around in the 1st century lately, need to catch up.

Hmm. Here's an 'interesting' take on her work.
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=17768

In 2005, archaeologist Eilat Mazar announced she had discovered the palace of King David circa 10 Century BCE. The excavations in Silwan were funded by the Shalem Center whose Zionist neocons have invested heavily in the judaisation efforts to give historicity to the David myth. Shalem's founder, Ron Lauder of the Estee Lauder empire, is an uncompromising Zionist extremist, a Likudnik and a major shareholder in Israeli TV Channel 10 as well as the current Chairman of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and President of the World Jewish Congress (JWC) which normalises the Israeli occupation. Curiously, in January, Abbas and Erekat had a closed meeting with Lauder in London even though the Palestinian team refused to meet with Netanyahu.

There's more in the same vein.

 

[TimCallahan]

Even if Eliat Mazar has found David's palace, it wouldn't change the fact that, since the Jews were driven out of the Levant about 2,000 years ago, they really had no claim on the land, unless one accepts as literally true the story that God gave the land to Abraham (most likely a mythical figure) and his descendants in perpetuity.

 

[Piggy]

Hmm. Here's an 'interesting' take on her work.

Politics is, and probably always will be, the bane of Abrahamic scholarship.

Held up Qumran work for years.

 

[OCaptain]

Politics is, and probably always will be, the bane of Abrahamic scholarship.

Held up Qumran work for years.

That's why I stay out of the politics of it.

A waste of time.

 

[David Swidler]

Even if Eliat Mazar has found David's palace, it wouldn't change the fact that, since the Jews were driven out of the Levant about 2,000 years ago, they really had no claim on the land, unless one accepts as literally true the story that God gave the land to Abraham (most likely a mythical figure) and his descendants in perpetuity.

This is a slight derail (prompted, i assume, by the reference to Mazar's politics), but the Jews weren't driven out of the Levant under the Romans; they lost sovereignty, yes, but the area was hardly devoid of Jews.