BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY
BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY ,
a branch of archeology whose task is to reconstruct and analyze the historical realities reflected in the Bible (cm. BIBLE). The specificity of this area of science lies in the comparative analysis of materials from archaeological excavations and texts of the Holy Scriptures. After 1917, this area of archeology, for obvious reasons, turned out to be inaccessible to Russian scientists and, until recently, was practically not covered in domestic publications. Meanwhile, scientists from Europe, the United States and Israel were actively excavating on the territory of the biblical countries throughout the 20th century. The geographic scope of the excavations extended to all the territories described in the texts of the Bible, that is, practically to the entire Eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia and, in part, Egypt.
The Emergence of Biblical Archeology
Interest in the lands mentioned in the Holy Scriptures existed in all eras, but regular research into biblical antiquities began only in the 19th century, with the beginning of the identification of ancient cities mentioned in the Old Testament. Beginning in 1865, societies for the exploration of Palestine began to appear: the first arose in Britain, then in America, Germany and Russia (1882). Early archaeological research was reconnaissance in nature: the ruins that were on the surface were entered on maps and described. The first excavations in Jerusalem were carried out by the Englishman C. Warren in 1867, but archaeological work at that time did not yet give satisfactory results due to the lack of a rigorous scientific methodology. The beginning of truly scientific archeology can be considered 1890, when the English archaeologist F. Petrie (cm. Petrie Flinders William Matthew) developed a method for systematizing ceramic complexes, which made it possible to determine the relative chronology of cultural layers identified during excavations of a particular settlement. Thus, the first truly scientific excavations in Palestine began at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. They were led by the British (Pitrie, Mackenzie, Macalister), the Americans (Reisner, Fischer), the Germans (Schumacher, Watzinger), the French (Voghus, Clermont-Ganneau). Russian scientists also made their contribution to the exploration of Palestine at the turn of the century (Olesnitsky, Kondakov (cm. KONDAKOV Nikodim Pavlovich), Rostovtsev (cm. ROSTOVTSEV Mikhail Ivanovich), Archimandrite Antonin (Kapustin) (cm. ANTONIN (Kapustin))).
During this period, active excavations were carried out not only in Palestine, but also in Mesopotamia, where work went on in many directions at once: Ashur (cm. ASSHUR (city)), Nineveh (cm. NINEVIA), Babylon (cm. BABYLON) and the most ancient Sumerian centers (Uruk (cm. URUK), Nippur (cm. NIPPUR) and etc.). On the territory of Syria, Alalakh was found - a city that existed from 4 to the end of 2 thousand BC. e.
First half of the 20th century
In the period between the two world wars, the chronological range of research expanded dramatically: the study of monuments of pre-literate eras - the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic - began. During this period, the outstanding American archaeologist W. Albright began to work in Palestine, who began to study small centers, thereby forming a new, broader archaeological context for the analysis of biblical sources. Ras Shamra excavations begin in Syria (cm. RAS SHAMRA)- a settlement that existed from the Neolithic era, and from the middle of 2 thousand BC. e. known as the Amorite center of Ugarit (cm. UGARIT). In Mesopotamia, Khalafskaya was opened (cm. HALAF CULTURE) and Ubeid early agricultural cultures (5-4 thousand BC).
Israeli school
The Israeli school of archeology began to form even before the creation of the State of Israel itself: excavations were carried out by Jewish scientists from the time when Palestine became the territory of the English mandate (Mazar, Avigad, Sukenik, Yadin). After 1948, the circle of Israeli archaeologists expanded (Avi-Iona, Dotan, Aharoni, Kaplan, later - Barag, Ronen, Ussishkin, Epshtein, and others). Archaeological excavations were carried out almost throughout the country. It was possible to trace the stages of development of the Syro-Palestinian region during the pre-literate period of its history: from the appropriating economy of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic to early agricultural cultures (7-4 thousand BC) with a producing economy.
Second half of the 20th century
In the middle of the 20th century manuscripts were found on the western coast of the Dead Sea in the caves of Qumran and the Judean Desert (cm. DEAD SEA MANUSCRIPTS) dating from the 3rd c. BC e. up to the 8th c. n. e. In northwestern Syria, an Italian expedition discovered the city-state of Ebla (cm. EBLA)(3 thousand BC). In the 1980s Russian scientists (Munchaev, Merpert, Bader) began to work in Iraq and Syria, who studied monuments of 7-3 thousand BC. e. Along with the expansion of the chronological and geographical scope of archaeological research, excavations continued in such well-known centers as Jerusalem, Jericho, Megiddo, Samaria, Lachish, Hazor, etc.
Comprehensive Research
Since the end of the 1960s, a multidisciplinary approach has been developed in the archeology of the Middle East region: in addition to field archaeologists and specialists in stratigraphy and ceramics, climatologists, paleobotanists, anthropologists, etc., began to be involved in the work. These revolutionary innovations for archeology were proposed by the American archaeological school, which in the 1970s and 1980s acquired leading importance. American scientists Dever, Cohen, Seger, Levy, Schaub and others carried out several broad multidisciplinary projects in the Negev mountains, the Jordan region (Bab ed-Dra), Khirbet-Iskander and a number of other places. A new approach to research has made it possible to multiply the amount of information extracted from archaeological sites. However, changes in the approach to research led to a rethinking of biblical archeology as such: it gradually became apparent that the increase in information did not lead to qualitative changes in understanding the accumulated material. New data obtained through multidisciplinary research still made it possible to reconstruct the types of settlements and features of life, but not the social organization and, moreover, the ideology and religion of the ancient inhabitants of Palestine.
Rethinking
At the time of the birth of biblical archeology in the middle of the 19th century. scientists believed that the mutual correlation of archaeological sources and biblical texts would make it possible to form a more objective idea of the historical events described in the Bible. The problem of the relationship between archaeological data and biblical texts turned out to be much more complex than it was imagined by the positivist scholars who stood at the origins of this discipline. Hopes that the Bible could be placed on a solid archaeological foundation, characteristic of older archaeologists, have given way to a more pragmatic approach: numerous disputes about the relationship between the Bible and archeology have led to the realization that a direct correlation between archaeological finds and biblical texts is essentially not exist. Scholars have had to acknowledge the fact that over the 150 years of its existence, biblical archeology has failed to prove the historicity of many biblical characters and events, especially in relation to early eras (for example, the era of the patriarchs or the conquest of Canaan). Thus, today the concept of "biblical archeology" is gradually giving way to the concept of "Syro-Palestinian archeology". In other words, the archeology of this region began to lose its specific status, and most modern researchers consider it as one of the territorial branches of general archeology.
Nevertheless, no matter how one calls this branch of archeology, one cannot but admit that its achievements in themselves are very significant.
On the lands of the "fertile crescent
The territory of Palestine has been inhabited since time immemorial: in the place of Ubeidiya, 3 km south of Lake Tiberias, in the layers of the ancient Paleolithic (about 700 thousand BC), the oldest stone tools were found. In the Middle Paleolithic (170-45 thousand BC), along with cave sites, open sites are already recorded, as well as the beginnings of funeral rituals. In the Upper Paleolithic (45-14 thousand BC) in the Syro-Palestinian region, the so-called. Kebaran culture (20-13 thousand BC): in its settlements, the first artificial dwellings appear, round or oval in terms of a semi-dugout. The role of vegetable food is increasing, as evidenced by the finds of reaping knives, mortars and pestles for grinding grain. In the Mesolithic, the Kebaran culture was replaced by the Natufian (cm. NATUFI CULTURE)(13-10 thousand BC), spreading from the Mediterranean coast in the west to the middle Euphrates in the east. Within the framework of this culture, extensive long-term settlements are already emerging, and at its later stage, land houses with stone walls and thatched roofs. The first signs of social stratification are visible in the burials, but the economy still remains appropriating. At this stage, there are no domesticated animals or cultivated plants yet. The transition to a productive economy occurs only in the Neolithic era.
One of the oldest centers of agriculture in the history of mankind arose on the territory of the so-called. "fertile crescent" (from the northern tip of the Negev desert to southern Turkey, eastern Mesopotamia and the valleys of southwestern Iran). Impressive evidence of the Neolithic revolution that took place here - the transition to productive forms of economy - is a settlement discovered under the Tell es-Sultan hill, better known in the later era under the biblical name Jericho (cm. JERICHO). The age of this city, which has survived to this day in its original place, is 11 thousand years. Excavations by the English researcher K. Kenyon (1952-1958) discovered here a stone wall and a tower about 8 m high - stone structures that are 5 thousand years older than the Egyptian pyramids. Similar early Neolithic settlements (the epoch of the so-called pre-pottery Neolithic), although inferior to the proto-Jericho in scale, were found in various parts of Palestine, Syria and southeastern Turkey. In the second half of 7 thousand BC. e. there is a strong decline of these settlements, but the reasons for it are unclear. The development of river valleys acquires predominant importance: individual large centers are replaced by a mass of small ones. In the era of transition from the early, pre-ceramic Neolithic to the next stage, the Ceramic Neolithic (i.e., the period characterized by the appearance of fired clay vessels), a cultural regression is observed in Palestine.
On early stage ceramic Neolithic (6 thousand BC), new centers arise, among them - Byblos (cm. BIBL (city)), the oldest port, which played an important role in trade with Egypt at a later time. In Mesopotamia, large agricultural communities began to form: the Hassun, Samarra and, a little later, Khalaf culture.
At the turn of 5-4 thousand BC. e. active mining of copper ore begins. The Eneolithic (Copper Stone Age, the era of the coexistence of copper and stone tools) in Palestine dates from about 4300-3300 BC. BC. Eneolithic settlements have been found in the Judean Desert, in the Ber Sheva region, near the Golan Heights. Their location indicates that in 5000–4000 these now arid territories were dominated by a different climate. One of the significant centers of that era is Teleilat-Ghassul - a settlement in the southeast of the Jordan Valley. Worth mentioning are the frescoes found there, which have no analogues in the art of the Ancient East: they depict mythological creatures, gods, animals, ritual masks and astral symbols. In this era, the first necropolises appeared in Palestine: before, burials were made on the territory of settlements, under the floors of houses.
At the beginning of the Bronze Age (the end of the 4th millennium BC), population movements are recorded in Palestine, possibly caused by external pressure from the north and east. At this time, it began to lag behind the level of development from the early states of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Her connections with Egypt are attested: a fragment of a vessel with the name of the Egyptian pharaoh Narmer was found in Arad (cm. NARMER), Palestinian ceramics are recorded in the settlements of the Nile Delta. The active formation of the most ancient cities begins: Asora, Megiddo (cm. MEGIDO), Tell el-Fara, Jericho, Lachish, Arad, etc. Defensive structures appear in them. The population density is increasing, active ties are being established with Lebanon, Syria, Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia. There are, for example, cylinder seals with drawings typical of the early dynastic period in Mesopotamia. However, in the last third of 3 thousand BC. e. the development of cities in western Palestine is abruptly interrupted and resumed only after three centuries. The most likely reasons for this decline are external influences: Egyptian military campaigns or the invasion of nomadic Amorite tribes. (cm. AMORIAN).
At the turn of 3-2 thousand BC. e. significant groups of the Semitic-speaking population penetrate into Palestine from the northeast, thanks to which the urban culture begins to revive and develop. The newcomer population was agricultural, it created an extensive and long-term cultural community preserved in this region for more than 500 years. Cities were rebuilt and fortified. Large palace complexes appeared in them. A type of temple structures was formed, characteristic of the entire Syro-Palestinian region: the temples were monumental, rectangular structures with an entrance in the end wall and a niche in the wall opposite the entrance. Great changes took place in the field of military affairs: defensive systems became much more complicated, chariots, battering rams, and bronze weapons appeared.
Arrival of the Jews in Palestine
Period 18th–16th centuries BC e. characterized by mass movements of nomadic pastoral tribes, covering not only Mesopotamia and the Syro-Palestinian region, but even Egypt (the Hyksos invasion (cm. HYKSOS)). With this era, researchers usually associate the events that formed the basis of the biblical tales of the patriarchs: the movement of a nomadic tribal group led by Abraham (cm. ABRAHAM) from Ur (cm. UR) to Haran and on to the territory of Canaan (cm. CANAAN). However, any hypotheses regarding the movement of Abraham are based only on the analysis of narrative sources: archaeological research in no way sheds light on this issue. It is hardly to be expected that the situation will change here, since with the help of archeology it is impossible to trace the paths of small groups of the population moving in a related ethnic and cultural environment.
The middle of 2 thousand BC. e. dated inscriptions found in Sinai in Serabit el-Khadim, and in the place of the find were called proto-Sinaitic. They are pictograms with a small number of acrophonic signs (signs that convey not depicted objects, but the initial sounds of the corresponding words). Later, similar inscriptions were found in Shechem, Gezer and Lachish, some of which turned out to be even older than the proto-Sinaitic ones. This type of writing was called proto-Canaanite. It is generally accepted that it served as the basis for the Phoenician script. (cm. PHOENICIAN LETTER), and the latter, in turn, influenced the development of the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet. Along with proto-Canaanite writing in Palestine in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. another peculiar type of writing was recorded: Ugaritic alphabetic cuneiform (cm. UGARITIC LETTER).
Thanks to the excavations of the French archaeological expedition led by A. Schaefer in Ugarit (cm. UGARIT)- an ancient port city, which flourished in the 17th-13th centuries. BC e. - an archive was found, consisting of tablets written in different languages (Ugaritic, Sumerian, Akkadian, Egyptian, Hittite, Hurrian). The Ugaritic cuneiform turned out to be a kind of modification of the Akkadian syllabary: the signs of the Ugaritic cuneiform, unlike the Akkadian, were not syllabic, but alphabetic. Ugaritic literary texts are older than the biblical ones and therefore they are the most important source for studying the genesis of the texts of the Bible. The similarity between the Ugaritic texts and biblical literature can be traced at the level of linguistic and stylistic commonality. The significance of the Ugaritic texts is especially great because they are, in fact, the only literary monuments of ancient Canaan, for the literature of the Phoenician cities has practically not been preserved.
Palestine and Egypt
In the third quarter of 2 thousand BC. e. The Syro-Palestinian region began to experience very strong pressure from Egypt: in the 15th century. BC e. most of the region fell under Egyptian rule, and then found itself in the path of the Egyptian armies fighting the Hurrians and - later, in the 13th century. BC e., with the Hittites. As a result, the number major cities decreased in Palestine. Jericho, Hebron, Dan and a number of other centers suffered, but many cities (Lachish, Ashdod, Megiddo, Hazor, etc.) continued to exist throughout the entire period of Egyptian domination, and new centers even appeared on the Mediterranean coast thanks to the intensified maritime trade.
In 1897, a very valuable find was made in Egypt: the Egyptian fellahs accidentally stumbled upon the royal archive (cm. AMARNA), buried in the sands of Tell el-Amarna (ancient Egyptian Akhetaten - the capital of Amenhotep IV-Akhenaton (cm. EKHNATO)(1351-1334 BC), containing more than three hundred cuneiform tablets, on which the correspondence of Egyptian kings (Amenhotep III (cm. Amenhotep III) and Akhenaten) with the Babylonian, Hittite, Mitannian kings, as well as the Syrian and Palestinian vassals of Egypt. These invaluable documents are the main source of information for the reconstruction of the circumstances of life in Palestine in the 15th-14th centuries. BC when it was under the control of the Egyptian kings. It should be noted that the Amarna correspondence does not yet know tribal names that can be attributed to the tribes of the Jewish circle. The names of three such tribes (Israel, Moab (cm. MOAB) and Edom (cm. EDOM)) appear only on the monuments of the XIX - early XX dynasty (13-12 centuries BC): Moab is mentioned in the texts of Ramesses II (cm. RAMSES II), Edom - in the report of the commander of the times of Merneptah (cm. MERNEPTACH), Israel - on the famous so-called. the stele of Israel also from the time of Merneptah. Under Ramesses III, Edom is mentioned again.
Another curious archaeological problem is connected with Egypt - the problem of localization of the biblical city of Pit, mentioned in Ex. 1:11. This city is supposedly identified with Tell el-Maskhuta - a settlement in the eastern part of the Nile delta, the ancient name of which was Per-Atum ("House of Atum"). However, archaeological confirmation of this hypothesis has not yet been found: the now generally accepted dating of the events of the Exodus dates them to the middle of the 13th century. BC e., a ancient traces The stay of Jews in the territory of Tell el-Maskhuta, according to the latest excavations, dates back to the turn of the 7th-6th centuries. BC e.
Israel and the Philistines
The last quarter of the 2nd millennium BC e. - this is the beginning of the Iron Age, which in Palestine was accompanied by sharp ethnic and cultural changes: the invasion of Israeli tribes began from the north and east, from the west - the peoples of the sea. The people of Aegean origin were called the Philistines. According to the Bible (Jer. 47:4, Am. 9:7), the Philistines came from Caphtor (Crete), but archaeological evidence of this has not yet been found. The Philistines took possession of four Canaanite cities: Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gath and Gaza, the fifth city - Ekron - was, apparently, founded by them. In the 12th-11th centuries. characteristic Philistine ceramics are recorded throughout the territory of Canaan, another characteristic feature of the Philistine culture is anthropoid ceramic sarcophagi. Own language Philistines is unknown: soon after their appearance in Canaan, they adopted the Canaanite dialect, and all known Philistine gods have Semitic names.
Archaeological picture of the Exodus
In the 12th-11th centuries. BC. There are three spheres of influence in Palestine: Canaanite, Philistine, and Israelite. Archaeological data do not allow us to talk about a single crushing invasion of the Israelite tribes into the territory of Canaan. A number of cities (Lachish, Hazor, Bethel) were indeed destroyed, but in some cases, archaeological data contradict the biblical evidence (Arad, Jericho). Probably, the settlement of Canaan by the Israelites took place gradually and was accompanied by a long series of wars against individual Canaanite cities. A significant number of small Israelite settlements have been found coexisting with Canaanite and Philistine cities. There is very little information about cult centers: in those places where, according to biblical texts, altars or sanctuaries should have been located, as a rule, nothing has been preserved. Sometimes there are monuments, the identification of which is difficult.
In general, the culture of the settled Canaan was higher than the culture of the Israelite nomadic tribes who came here, and it had a great influence on them. Thus, the Canaanite traditions during the period described were preserved in ceramics and metalworking, and in the cities occupied by the Israelites, the former architectural canons dominated. An independent branch of the Canaanite culture continued to exist for a long time on the Mediterranean coast (the territory of modern Lebanon), where it began to be called Phoenician (probably Phoenicia is the Greek equivalent of the name Canaan), and retained its specific appearance until the Hellenistic era.
Israelite kingdom and division
The short period of the unified Kingdom of Israel (1000-925 BC) - the time of the reign of the biblical kings of Saul (cm. SAUL), David (cm. DAVID (Jew) and Solomon (cm. SOLOMON (Judea)- is also poorly represented by archaeological sites. In Jerusalem, the remains of a bypass wall that existed in the 10th century were found. BC e., however, the most interesting monument - the temple of Solomon, described in detail in the 3rd Book of Kings - is currently not available for excavations, since it is located under a Muslim shrine, the so-called. Dome of the Rock. Judging by the description, the temple of Solomon had undoubted prototypes in Canaanite architecture, but exceeded its known examples in scale. There is no archaeological evidence for Solomon's palace either. Buildings from the time of Solomon preserved in Megiddo (cm. MEGIDO), Asor and Gezer: monumental six-chamber gates were found there, built of hewn stones (in Gezer - from wild, but faced along the facade) and fortified with protruding towers. A single type of monumental structures found in different places testifies to the centralized royal construction. Artificial water supply systems found in a number of Israeli cities speak of the high development of engineering art and the ability to organize the large masses of the population necessary to create such structures.
In 925 BC. e. The united kingdom split into two parts: Israel (Northern Kingdom) with its capital in Samaria and Judah (Southern Kingdom) with its capital in Jerusalem. Samaria (cm. SAMARIA)- the first city founded by the Israelites in a new place. Remains of buildings from the time of the kings of Omri and Ahab, powerful defensive walls, as well as a treasure trove of decorative bone plates of Phoenician origin, possibly a trace of the “ivory house” built by Ahab (1 Kings 22:39), were found here.
Active building activity was also carried out in Dan and Bethel, which became the new cult centers of the Northern Kingdom, as well as in Megiddo, Hazor and Tirza. In Azor, 9th–7th centuries. BC e. there are as many as five building phases, reflecting a series of destruction of the city during local wars with Judea and external conquests that ended with the Assyrian invasion, three waves of which - in 732, 720 and 701. BC e. put an end to the existence of the kingdom of Israel. Its capital Samaria resisted for two years, but in 720 (the invasion of the Assyrian king Sargon II (cm. Sargon II)) the city fell and in some places was completely destroyed. Even the excavation of stones from the foundations of its defensive structures was recorded. Samaria was later restored and turned into the center of the Assyrian province: the archaeological layers of the city dating back to the time after the defeat differ sharply from the previous ones, they show a strong Assyrian influence, indicating a change in the dominant culture. In Megiddo and Hazor, judging by the abundance of Assyrian ceramics, the garrisons of the conquerors were stationed.
Judea was also subjected to the Assyrian invasion, but withstood and continued to exist as an independent state for more than a century. In Judea, Jerusalem stood out sharply among other cities: its area was more than 7 times the area of Lachish, the second largest city in the Southern Kingdom. In Jerusalem, new defensive walls were erected and the Siloam water tunnel was built - a real miracle of engineering art of that era - which made it possible to provide the city with water from the Gihon spring in any conditions. Thanks to this, Jerusalem withstood during the invasion of Sennacherib. (cm. SYNACHERIBE) in 701 BC e., as a result of which the kingdom of Israel was finally destroyed and a number of cities in Judea, including Lachish, were destroyed. The siege and assault of Lachish are depicted in detail on the reliefs of the palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh. (cm. NINEVIA). The archaeological layers of the city, corresponding to this rout, are very informative and are combined with biblical texts. An Assyrian siege mound, large layers of ash and numerous arrowheads were found here.
An important settlement of Judea in the 8th century BC. e. there was Arad - a fortress that protected the paths to the Red Sea and Edom. Numerous ostraca have been found here, most which are letters from the archive of the military commander who commanded the fortress. These ostraca represent the largest and most informative group of written sources covering the end of the First Temple era.
Captivity and the Second Temple era
The Kingdom of Judah fell in 586 BC. e. under the blows of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar (cm. NEBUCHADONOSOR II). The Babylonian invasion of Judah, like the earlier Assyrian invasion that destroyed Israel, came in several waves: during the first and second invasions of 598 and 588. BC e. the long-suffering Lachish was defeated twice. After that, it was no longer revived as a significant center. In 588, the siege of Jerusalem began, lasting 18 months. At the end of the siege there was a collapse of the system of terraces leaning on the lower walls of the city. The collapsed stones were subsequently partially used in the construction of new walls. As a result of this military campaign of Nebuchadnezzar, a significant part of the population of Judea was resettled on the territory of the Babylonian Empire.
Babylon ( cm.
The main step towards the scientific study of East. antiquities in the 1st half. 19th century began work on deciphering the Assyro-Babylonian cuneiform and Egypt. hieroglyphic writing. At the same time, the European diplomats, military instructors and travelers made the first attempts to measure and excavate in the "biblical countries", laying the foundation for archaeological research of such monuments as Babylon, the biblical Ascalon, the tombs of the pharaohs and the temples of Egypt, the Behistun inscription, Nineveh (Kuyundzhik) and Khorsabad with the palace of Sargon II and then Nimrud.
Mesopotamian archeology began with the work of P. E. Bott in Nineveh (1842-1846) and O. G. Layard in the cities of Babylonia (1845-1848). A number of monuments important for biblical history were discovered: a “black obelisk” with a description of the Assyrian wars. king Shalmaneser III, including with the kingdom of Israel; the image of the siege of Lachish, found in the palaces of Sennacherib on Kuyunjik, and most importantly, the library of Ashurbanipal, in which cuneiform texts of the Babylonian era were stored. In 1850, Loftus continued to describe the monuments in the Euphrates valley, starting with the biblical Erech (Uruk).
Syro-Palestinian period
All R. 19th century archeology dr. Egypt, M. Asia and the Syro-Palestinian region took only the first steps: in Egypt in 1842-1845. a Prussian expedition (K. R. Lepsius) worked, publishing its research Denkmäler aus Aegypten und Aethiopien (12 volumes); in 1850 to Egypt for a Copt. O. F. Mariet sent manuscripts; in M. Asia, the British Museum began excavations of Ephesus.
Especially important for A.'s development. there were studies in the Holy Land, but work here progressed slowly. The scientific stage began with a trip to Palestine in 1838 by Amer. Hebraist E. Robinson and missionary E. Smith. They described a number of archaeological sites on the spot, identifying them with cities known from the Bible (Robinson E ., Smith E . Biblical Research of Palestine and Adjacent Regions. N. Y., 1841-1842, 1956. 3 vol.). The case was continued by him. researcher T. Tobler and Frenchman V. Guerin, who started in 1852 a project to map monuments and measure them. Mapping of monuments Zap. Palestine in 1871-1878 conducted by K. R. Konder and G. G. Kitchener; Haurana and Sev. Jordan in 1896-1901 - G. Schumacher and A. Musil; much later Yuzh. Jordan and the Negev Desert - N. Gluck.
An important step was the founding in 1865 of the Palestine Research Fund for the study of Jerusalem. Excavations have been carried out here since 1848, when L. F. de Solsi cleared the tract of the “royal tombs” (the graves of the kings of Adiabene). The scientific study of the topography and history of the city began in the 60s. 19th century Foundation staff, Brit. officers C. Warren and C. Wilson. De Solsi and Warren were not archaeologists, so their work in Jerusalem and Jericho turned out to be ineffective and gave rise to confusion: the monuments of the era of Herod the Great (I century BC) were attributed to King Solomon, and Tell el-Ful (the fortress of the Maccabees) was attributed to the era of the Crusades. In 1872-1878. for examination Zap. Palestine The Palestine Research Foundation organized an expedition at the hands of. Kitchener and Conder; the latter's books about the results of his work have served many. generations of researchers and have retained their significance to the present. time.
A significant event in the history of the formation of A. b. there were finds of C. Clermont-Ganno, fr. consul in Palestine (since 1867), to-ry laid the foundations of Palestinian epigraphy, introducing into scientific circulation a number of the most important for A. b. objects: the stele of the Moabite king Mesha, the inscription in Greek. language, forbidding non-Jews to enter the courtyard of the Jerusalem temple, graffiti on ossuaries; he also identified the ruins of the city of Gezer and others. In the 60s. 19th century in the study of ancient Jerusalem included Rus. scientists. Having headed the Russian spiritual mission in Jerusalem in 1865, archim. Antonin (Kapustin) organized excavations and publication of their results at the advanced scientific level for his time. He opened the second bypass of the city wall (445 BC), the “Doomsday Gate” and part of the constructions of the basilica of imp. Constantine (see in the articles "Jerusalem", "Church of the Holy Sepulcher"). In the same years, prof. KDA A. A. Olesnitsky began to publish essays on the antiquities of Palestine (The fate of the ancient monuments of the Holy Land. St. Petersburg, 1875; the Old Testament Temple in Jerusalem. St. Petersburg, 1889, etc.). The basic role in their natural study was played by imp. Palestinian Orthodox Society (since 1882). In the 90s. 19th century he was supported by a number of expeditions to the Holy land under the arms. N. P. Kondakova, M. I. Rostovtseva, N. Ya. Marra, in the 10s. 20th century it was supposed to open the Russian. archaeological in-t in Jerusalem (see Belyaev L. A. et al. Church science: Biblical archeology // PE. T .: ROC. S. 435-437).
In con. XIX - beginning. 20th century
the study of antiquities important to A. b. accelerated. This had non-scientific geopolitical prerequisites (the weakening of Turkey, the “development” of the Middle East by European states) and was associated with the formation of methods of scientific archeology, with the need of theologians to refute the conclusions of hypercritics on the basis of archaeological sources (see Hypercriticism).
The disproportion in the development of field studies still remained: the primacy remained with the objects of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the lands of which were better studied, and the monuments provided many written sources. In 1872, among 25 thousand texts from the library of Ashurbanipal, a Babylonian version of the description of the flood "The Epic of Gilgamesh" was discovered; the missing part of the text of the epic was found by J. Smith in Kuyundzhik.
In Nineveh, a clay prism with the annals of Ashurbanipal and 4 cylinders with a description of the campaigns of Sennacherib, including the invasion of Judea and the siege of Jerusalem, were found. There followed the discovery of more ancient monuments of Sumer, the systematic study of Babylon by R. Koldevey (1899-1917), who recreated the structure of the fortifications, residential quarters, palaces and temples of the city, the discovery of C. L. Woolley of the city of Alalakh beyond the river. Orontes. In the beginning. 20th century Hittology appeared: in 1906 it. the scientist G. Winkler began work in Sidon and Bogazkoy, but the texts from Bogazkoy, written in the Hittite language, were deciphered only 10 years later in Czech. scientist F. Grozny.
Since the 80s 19th century began a new flowering of archeology in Egypt. In 1887, the first tablets with Amarna letters were accidentally discovered in the ruins of Tell el-Amarna, containing new information about the life and politics of Egypt and ancient Canaan before it was settled by ancient Jews.
In the Syro-Palestinian region, the exploration period dragged on for a long time. Although in the 70s and 80s 20th century the American Palestine Research Society, the Lutherans, originated here. German Palestine Union (1877), Russian. Orthodox Palestine Society (1882), Dominican French School of Biblical and Archaeological Research (1894), Franciscan Bible School, and later "schools" in Jerusalem (German Evangelical Institute for the Study of Antiquities of the Holy Land, American Schools of Oriental Studies (1900) , British Archaeological School in Jerusalem (1919)), they were unable to scientifically organize long-term excavations at large sites. Nevertheless, the exploration work they carried out made it possible to continue the tradition. reconstruction of the historical geography of Palestine, which led to the creation of the classic work of J. Smith (The Historical Geography of the Holy Land. N. Y., 18973).
Interwar years
(Especially 1920-1935) is called the "golden age" of the Middle East. archeology. After the First World War, the former lands were opened for archaeological work. The Turkish Empire, to which England and France received mandates. To Near In the East, excavation methods developed by prehistoric and classical archeology were increasingly used. Special meaning had an increased interest in archeology, as well as a continuation of the theological controversy between "modernists" and "traditionalists".
From the 20s. 20th century discoveries followed one after another: El-Amarna (where J. Pendlebury began work) and Byblos (bibl. Eval), the port of ancient Phenicia, where P. Monte opened a tomb with the sarcophagus of King Ahiram (see Ahiram sarcophagus), Bet-Shean in Decapolis, where K. S. Fisher, A. Rowe and G. Fitzgerald uncovered layers up to the 3rd millennium BC; C. L. Woolley (until 1914 led the work in Carchemish) led the expedition of the British Museum (until 1934) to the ruins of Ur, the city of Abraham (Ur, or Tell el-Muqayyar); 1925 - the opening of an "archive" in Nuzi containing information about the era of the Old Testament patriarchs (Yorgan-Tepe, northern Baghdad, near the mountains of South Kurdistan).
For the development of the archeology of the Holy Land, a favorable time began with the establishment of Brit. mandate (1917). Monument protection authorities were created, similar to Brit. (Palestinian Department of Antiquities). Of particular importance was the beginning of the work of the American Schools of Oriental Research under the hands of. W. Albright. Arriving in Jerusalem in 1919, he organized work on Tell el-Ful and Kiriath Sefer (1922). His students also worked at Bet Tzur (see Beth Tzur), Tell Beit Mirsim, Bet Shemeshei and others. , K. Duncan and J. W. Crowfoot from 1923 explored Ophel Hill; E. L. Sukenik - city walls) and in caves above the Galilee m., where traces of prehistoric man were found. At the same time, one of the first agricultural crops, Natufian (D. Garrod, 1928-1934), was discovered and studied. Excavations began at Megiddo (Fisher and others), Geras in Jordan (Horsfield and Crowfoot), Mitzpah (Tell en-Nasbeh) and Tell Beit Mirsim southwest of Hebron. The organization of work and the fixation of the excavated objects were set to the proper height. Albright was able to draw up a clear typology and chronology of Iron Age pottery (clarified by Phidian-Adams on Ascalon, Albright himself on Giweaf and Tell Beit Mirsim, works in Bethel (see Bethel) and Megiddo), Crowfoot in Samaria and E. Grant (excavations at Bet-Shemesh, which opened the period of its capture by the ancient Jews in the XII-IX centuries BC).
Seal with the inscription: "Shems, servants of Jeroboam". 8th century (?) BC Megiddo. Copy
Seal with the inscription: "Shems, servants of Jeroboam". 8th century (?) BC Megiddo. Copy
30s 20th century were marked by the work of J. Garstang (Palestinian Department of Antiquities) in Jericho, where the first Neolithic urban culture was discovered (in 1952-1958 by K. Kenyon). Excavations began on the Maccabean fortress at Beth Tzur. J. L. Starkey dug in Lachish and collected important information about the era of the preaching of the prophets. Jeremiah (626/27-586 BC). Works in the biblical Ai have made it possible to identify this city in the future. Of particular importance were the 13-year surveys of Transjordan, from the Gulf of Aqaba. to Sir. borders. N. Gluck identified and dated the cemetery of the Nabataean era in Jebel al-Tannur (1937), northeast of the Dead Sea, and in the post-war period - Etzion-Gever. B. Mazar began to study the largest Heb. Cemetery of Beth Shearim. Important are the results of the excavations of Mari (Tell-Hariri) on the Euphrates, which lasted until 1960 (A. Parro), as well as the work of K. Sheffer on Ras Shamra (Ugarit), which gave samples of the world's oldest alphabetic writing.
During the interwar period, expeditions were better organized, their composition became more professional, reports were written more carefully, and materials were more quickly analyzed, compared with others and published. On the eve of World War II, relations between the colonial authorities and the local population took on a form of conflict, sometimes leading to the death of archaeologists.
2nd floor 20th century
The basis of the work in the 50-60s. remained Western European projects. and Amer. scientific schools: the complex excavations of Jericho were carried out under the hands of. K. Kenyon (1952-1968); work in Seachem (under the direction of E. Wright) proved that the city dates back to the Bronze Age. Digging at Givvefon (J. B. Prichard), in Jericho, r. era (D. L. Kelso, J. B. Pritchard), in Beth San (N. Zori), in Divon (W. Merton) and Dothan (J. P. Free). P. Lapp excavated Arak-el-Emir, Taanah, a settlement of the 4th millennium BC Bab-ed-Dra (with a large necropolis) and discovered a papyrus from Samaria near Jericho, dated 722 BC. in Caesarea, an inscription was found mentioning Pontius Pilate. In the 70-80s. realized major project- long-term excavations in Gezer (W. Dever, J. D. Seger and others). Israeli archaeologists trained in Gezer then set to work on the sites of synagogues in the Galilee, at Tell el-Khesi, Sepphoris, Lahav, Tell Mikne, and other places.
Especially widely developed work in Petra: in the 50s. The Jordanian Department of Antiquities began the restoration of monuments and excavations (F. Hammond), from the 60s. continued by the Princeton Theological Seminary expedition. Many works of Sabaean art and a temple of the goddess of the Moon of the 8th century have been revealed in Marib. BC Perrot worked in Tell Abu Matar (near Beersheba). A number of Eneolithic settlements to the east were found and studied. on the bank of the Dead Sea, in Jordan (Teleilat-el-Ghassul).
A significant contribution to the study of Mesopotamia was made by the Russian expedition under the arm. R. M. Munchaeva, N. Ya. Merpert and N. O. Bader, who worked since 1969 in Iraq and Syria on the monuments of the 7th-3rd millennium BC.
The independent states that emerged after the war, and above all Israel, were interested in the study of archeology. Along with Western European and Amer. scientists began to expand the work of the museums of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the Israeli Research Society, the Jewish University, and other organizations. They were led by the first generation of local archaeologists who had been educated in Europe and America even before the war—Mazar, Sukenik, Avigad, Avi-Yona, and others. 2 years later, R. de Vaux launched research on the site of Qumran and the rural settlement of Ain-Feshka.
Israeli archaeologists adhered to several. methods other than European. and Amer. They paid more attention to local history and continuous surveys of territories (reconnaissance by N. Gluck in the Negev desert, etc.), purposefully studied the Late Bronze Age; early iron; period of the Second Temple. I. Yadin launched a search for monuments of the last phase of the history of Dr. Israel, especially during the Bar Kokhba uprising (the first serious finds were made in 1951 by Harding and de Vaux, including the "copper scroll" - a list of treasures of the Qumranites). In the 60s, while examining the Dead m., Yadin, using aerial photographs, determined the place of Rome. camp near En Gedi and found the remains of Bar Kokhba fighters in the surrounding caves. The remains of the Israeli fortress of Masada were soon explored.
Israeli scientists of the new generation since the 50s. began digging in Hazor (since 1955), on Ramat Rachel and Arad (Aharoni, 50-60s of the XX century), in Ashdod and in Caesarea (Avi Yona, A. Negev), explored the synagogues of the first centuries R. H., Mampsis - the most east. the city of Center. Negev. In con. 60s excavations began in the Old City of Jerusalem (in 1968 under the direction of Mazar south of the Temple Mount) and in Sinai. Finds followed one after another: a scroll from Qumran - a "textbook" of religions. rules, notes for the construction of the temple and even a military mobilization plan; in one of the many ossuaries, the remains of a man subjected to crucifixion were found; inscriptions containing many names mentioned in the Gospels and Acts. Work begun in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem (under the direction of Avigad) uncovered villas and cobbled streets of the Hellenistic era, the remains of ancient walls, Herod's residence, baths, Byzantium. church.
An important role was played by the work of the 70s. on Tell el-Khesi, which showed the complexity of the fortifications and the high level of development of the city of the Bronze Age. It has been proven that the habitation of Tell Hisban goes back to about 1200 BC and it could be ancient Sihon. When working in the yard of the arm. church on Mount Zion (Jerusalem), a settlement of the 7th century was discovered. BC, where figurines of animals and people were found; in 1975 a cemetery of the 7th-8th centuries was opened. BC on the slope of the Kidron Valley, north of the Damascus Gate; in Dane, they found a “horned altar” of the ancient Jews (a cubic block of limestone from the 9th century BC), which stood on a hill in the courtyard. New materials from the era of the Second Temple have appeared: in Jerusalem, these are streets built in the era of Herod. The first sanctuaries of the Philistines were also opened (for example, the temple in Tell-Kasil, the remains of 2 wooden columns to-rogo resemble those described in the Book of Judges (16. 26)). In the 70s. storage vessels with royal seals, levels of destruction of the city by Sennacherib (early VIII century BC) and Nebuchadnezzar II (VI century BC), as well as Egypt were found in Lachish. an inscription in the level of the 12th century, which made it possible to attribute the death of the city of the Canaanites to the era of the conquest of Canaan by Heb. tribes. The most important for A. b. discoveries were made in Syria - Ras Shamra (Ugarit), in Lebanon - Baalbek, Byblos, Sidon, Tire, Kamed el-Loz (Kumidi) and Zarefat, Eble (Tell Mardikh, near Aleppo). Italian archaeologist P. Mattie found evidence that the inhabitants of Ebla, the city-state of the 2nd floor. III millennium BC, they spoke a special Semite. language, their beliefs can be correlated with information from the OT.
Outside the Holy Land, the study of monuments important to A. b., intensified in the widest range, from the “epoch of the patriarchs” to New Testament times, and on a vast territory: from the North. Africa to Ephesus and Corinth, from V. Nile to England. In 1979, the discovery of Egypt was announced. archaeologists of the ancient city of Yona, where Joseph, Moses, Plato visited.
On the basis of the appeared new data And. scientists came to the conclusion about the special role of Near. East and its ancient history in the development of mankind: for example, agriculture found in this region turned out to be more ancient than previously thought. The most important link in the transition to settled life and the creation of "proto-villages" (Natufian culture of the Mesolithic) was identified. The excavations of K. Kenyon in Jericho showed the following stage: the flourishing of the producing economy and the formation of the first "cities". Based on a developed system of stratigraphy, Kenyon discovered layers of a previously unknown era - the “pre-ceramic Neolithic”. It turned out that already in the 9th-7th millennium BC, mankind firmly mastered the skills of agriculture and the construction of stone fortresses, that monuments close to ancient Jericho cover the south of M. Asia, the foothills of Zagros, Sev. Mesopotamia, Jordan (Beida), the Syro-Palestinian region (Ain Ghazal, Beisaman, etc.).
Archaeological Evidence for the Biblical OT Story
Archaeological sites Near. East have features that allow you to restore history for many years. centuries. The most important of them are telli - hills formed by the remains of long-term settlements (including cities that grew up on the basis of an agricultural economy), successively layered one on top of the other. This sequence reflects the continuity of development, sometimes with short or long breaks that mark natural or historical cataclysms: seismic and climatic shifts, wars, migrations, regrouping or population change. The average chronological framework for the existence of tells is from 1 to 2 thousand years, but among them there are such “long-livers” as Tell es-Sultan, first settled more than 11 thousand years ago (modern Jericho stands on its peak). In Palestine, telli are characteristic primarily of coastal, intermountain, and river valleys; their height in some cases exceeds 20 m, the area varies on average from 2.8 to 8 ha, very small (0.8 ha) hills and telly giants (Asor, 80 ha) are known. The information content of the tell is extremely high: they serve as standards both for establishing the relative chronology of the sites and for the historical interpretation of their materials.
Single-layer monuments are also important, not as long-term as telli. Their diversity (partly dictated by the sharp difference in the natural zones of the Holy Land, see the article " Biblical Geography") allows you to explore the structure of the settlement of the region. Many are known. thousands of settlements: from agricultural settlements, coastal and river valleys with adobe ground houses to karst caves and basalt houses of mountainous areas, underground dwellings and mines of ancient miners. Copper mines constitute a special group of monuments, documenting the special role of the Holy Land in the emergence of metallurgy. Funeral monuments are the most important for judging the ideology, worldview and spiritual culture of the population. In Palestine, the most diverse forms of the rite are recorded: corpses in pits (elongated or crouched), secondary burials of bones in ossuaries, ground (dolmens, stone boxes, domed tombs, etc.) and underground structures. Part of the burials is accompanied by funeral gifts, sometimes quite rich and informative. To religion. The monuments include less common desert sanctuaries and single stone zoomorphic images. The most important type of finds (comparatively rare in Palestine) are the oldest inscriptions on stone, clay, and other materials, from the famous Gezer calendar (X century BC) and the Mesha stele (IX century BC) to Qumran manuscripts.
Development of a unified generally accepted methodology for comparing archaeological materials with the texts of St. The Scriptures are still far from complete, since the task of conjugating archaeological and written data is complicated by 2 apparently opposite trends: attempts to find accurate archaeological confirmation even for those biblical events that could hardly leave a significant archaeological trace at all, or, conversely, to refute the biblical tradition of little use for this archaeological material. In addition, the researcher is tempted to somehow connect any significant monument in the region with biblical history. Similar attempts were made even by very prominent scientists, for example. N. Gluck, who, according to his excavations, connected the desolation of Transjordan in the middle. II millennium BC with the raid of Chedorlaomer on this territory (Gen 14), although such a raid could hardly have significantly affected the settlement of the region, subsequent excavations showed that there was no desolation itself. On the other hand, information from the Bible about the capture of a particular city is often questioned, since archaeological excavations have not revealed traces of destruction there in the corresponding era; however, traces can only remain from the destruction of a large scale, and it might not be reflected in the biblical narrative.
Archeology, as a rule, fixes individual details of cultural development or the main stages in the history of settlements and regions, reflecting large-scale processes - climatic, economic and social changes, but it cannot accurately determine either the causal relationship, or what exactly caused these processes and changes.
For a long time, the era of the Old Testament patriarchs was associated with the period known from the excavations of Mari (XIX-XVIII centuries BC), since biblical narrative, and these excavations depict the life of the "nomadic" app. Semites; however, a similar way of life was common in the Middle. East, both in earlier and later times, and only by chance became known by the discovery of Marie's archive.
In the Holy Land for the period earlier con. XI - 1st floor. 10th century BC (the reign of Kings David and Solomon), archaeological material draws a general picture of development, but does not reveal specific events in biblical history: the vicissitudes of the existence of a small ancient Hebrew. groups, the material culture of which is not separated from the related Semites. environments known from the Bible are not yet known archaeologically. But since the advent of the Heb. kingdoms, when the scale and illumination of ancient Hebrew. stories grow in comparison with previous epochs, archaeological correlates of many others. major events Holy stories can be set.
A. b. shows that the process of settlement of Palestine by Israeli groups from the early 12th century. BC covered the Central Highlands, a number of regions of Transjordan and North. Negev, while in Galilee it is recorded mainly in the 11th century. to R. X. In con. 11th century before R. X. pl. settlements were abandoned and not revived (Silom, Gai, Tell-Masos, etc.). Others (Beth Tzur, Hebron, Tell Beit Mirsim, Dan, Hazor, Tell en Nasbeh) were restored and flourished during the period of the United Kingdom, which was associated with a concentration of population in the emerging Israeli cities and, obviously, the Philistine invasions, however, there is no fortification in most of the settlements, and their layout speaks of the building traditions of the semi-nomadic Bedouins.
Direct archaeological evidence of the era of the United Kingdom of David and Solomon is small, with the exception of Jerusalem and other cities that have preserved the remains of their construction activities, but even these traces are not always sufficiently definite (which is partly due to the difficulties of archaeological work in Jerusalem).
Jebusite Jerusalem was located on the high hill of Ophel, its natural protection from the very beginning was supplemented by fortifications. Appearing on Wed. Bronze Age, they were subsequently rebuilt many times, supplemented, replaced by new ones. The wall of the era of the Jebusites and King David repeated the line of the wall cf. Bronze Age and fenced the area approx. 4.4 ha. On the steep east on a hillside, above the source of Gihon, a giant supporting wall supported a destroyed monumental structure - possibly the Jebusite “Zion fortress”, taken during the storming of Jerusalem and becoming the “City of David” (1 Chronicles 11. 5). Under Solomon, the citadel was shifted to the north.
It is assumed that the temple of Solomon was located to the west of the sacred rock, possibly playing the role of an altar-altar (now covered by a large dome and included in the complex of the Muslim shrines of Haram el-Sherif), and its long axis is oriented from east to west.
Modest unfortified settlements that arose on the ruins of the kon destroyed during the wars are attributed to the era of David. XI - beg. 10th century BC Canaanite and Philistine cities (Megiddo, layer V B; Tell Kasil, layer IX). Lachish, defeated in the middle. 12th century BC, revived in the tenth century. to R. X. on a limited, originally unfortified area (layer V). These monuments are considered indicators of the process of urbanization that began in Israel. For the X century. BC, a close picture of the origin of Israeli settlements on the ruins of cities was recorded by the excavations of Tell Beit Mirsim and Timna.
Evidence of Israel's exit to the Gulf of Aqaba. and the flourishing of the Red Sea trade under Solomon, described in the Bible (1 Kings 9. 26-28), consider powerful fortifications in the Elat region (Tell-Keleifa, date on ceramics of the 10th century BC). Probably, the rapid and widespread appearance of new settlements in the Negev desert (including about 50 fortified ones), dating back to the time of Kings David and Solomon, is probably connected with the control over the ways. They arose primarily near water sources, where agriculture was possible; houses were placed outside the fortresses, along rivers and wadis. The pottery of the settlements demonstrates the symbiosis of the new settled agricultural (Israeli?) and the local semi-nomadic population: vessels of the same group are common for the period of the United Kingdom, ch. arr. for Judea; the second is the so-called. Negev ceramics, akin to those that existed among local nomads from the late Bronze Age.
The excavations also confirm the capture of the Assyrians. king Sennacherib in 701 BC, the densely built-up city of Lachish. It was protected by 2 walls: the outer one, in the middle part of the hill, and the inner one, which protected the top and reached a thickness of six meters; the six-chambered internal gates (exceeding the gates of Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer) were distinguished by special power. The palace-fortress stood on a high (6 m) podium - the largest of the Iron Age structures known in Palestine, which changed in size from a square of 32´ 32 m to a rectangle of 36´ 76 m.
Direct archaeological data of the III layer of Lachish are well combined with biblical texts, written and pictorial evidence of the Assyrians about the destruction of the city. According to the relief of the palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh, one can imagine the assault on both walls with gates and towers: the defenders of the city threw stones from slings, arrows, stones and torches, battering rams pulled up on specially built ramps hollowed out the walls. Indeed, in the southwest. corner of the city wall, a siege stone ramp was found, equal in height to it, accumulations of sling stones and iron arrowheads, powerful fire layers, heavy stone blocks thrown by the defenders of the city on enemies, a counter ramp built by them, which strengthened the wall against a ram, and even a chain for trapping and ram stops (I. Yadin's assumption).
A picture of the fall of the Heb. kingdoms is complemented by the complete destruction of Samaria, which resisted until 722: even the foundations of its fortifications and the royal quarter, which were razed to the ground, were chosen. The city was turned into one of the centers of Assyrian domination: the casemate walls preserved around the top now protected structures built according to completely different plans, and ceramics also changed dramatically. A complete break in the course of the cultural process is recorded in Megiddo, Tell el-Far, and a number of other cities. Domination of Assyria in the 7th century BC demonstrates the appearance in Palestine of the so-called forms. Nimrud style and the development of cities in Assyrian. and sir. (aram.) traditions (documented by the III layer of Megiddo, turned into a typical center of the Assyrian province).
The invasion of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar is archaeologically recorded in many places. cities of Judea, part of which (Tell Beit Mirsim, Bethshemesh) was no longer restored. The destructiveness of the Babylonian policy for the country's economy is also confirmed: it could no longer support the densely populated cities of Heb. kingdoms Twice Lachish was defeated and burned (in 597 and 588 BC). The third layer of the city is covered with calcined building remains, the palace-fort is completely destroyed, a huge accumulation of human skeletons (over 2 thousand) was found outside the city, placed in an ancient cave tomb.
After the defeat of 598 BC, Lachish was partially restored, but in 588 BC it was burned a second time, as they say so-called. "Lakhish letters" - an accumulation of 18 ostraca in the conflagration layer, in the guard room between the outer and inner gates of the city. Some of the letters are military reports from Hoshayahu, the commander of the advanced fortification, to Yaush, the ruler of Lachish, including the termination of communication with Azek (cf. the role of Azek in Jer 34.7). It is believed that the "Lachish letters" reflected the confrontation between adherents and opponents (the prophets Jeremiah and Uriah) of resistance to the enemy.
On the siege and fall of Jerusalem in 588-587. BC says the state of the walls of the city. The fortifications withstood the Babylonian assaults for many months, their sections were even reconstructed and strengthened (for example, the eastern wall over the Kidron Valley). But during the final assaults, the lower walls collapsed, the outer edge of the terrace system resting on them, and the structures standing on these terraces (the stones of the old wall were partially used by Nehemiah in the construction of a new wall upon his return from the Babylonian captivity). After the Babylonian defeat, the large cities of Judea actually turn into villages, the centuries-old tradition of the development of the material culture of Palestine is stopped forever, the monuments of later times (for example, the bypass wall of Nehemiah in Jerusalem) belong to a different tradition, formed in the multi-tribal state of the Achaemenids, with the undivided dominance of the Aram. influence in the Syro-Palestinian region.
A. b. and Archeology of the Syro-Palestinian Region: Problems of Methodology and Interpretation
As an area of biblical studies, A. b. uses the general archaeological methodology of field and desk research, borrowed from the classical, primitive and Middle East. archeology. However, the approach to interpreting sources in A. b. for a long time was determined by a special view of the object under study and was formed both in connection with the deployment of field work, and in discussions of theological, historical-religious. and even political.
Recently, professional archaeologists are increasingly abandoning the name A. b. in favor of "archeology of the Syro-Palestinian region", "archeology of the Middle. East of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages” (cf. the titles of the publications “Near Eastern Archaeologist” and “Encyclopaedia of the Near Eastern Archeology”, etc.). Behind these names is the completed delimitation of 2 scientific fields. One studies material culture, using the accepted modern. archeology, field work methods and a comprehensive analytical approach in order to restore the historical and cultural process as part of the global one. The second remains a branch of biblical studies and strives through archeology to understand the Bible more deeply, comprehensively, both as a complex historical source and as a sacred book.
At the pre-scientific stage, the stimulus for the study of antiquities was the attitude towards them as relics. In the era of the birth of rational knowledge, 2 schools of study of religions arose. antiquities - Rome. and Protestant. (see the section “Christian Archeology”), which during this period in the East set themselves not so much archaeological as biblical-geographical tasks: to identify the places described in the Bible with the real landscape and thereby “illustrate” the information, known from St. Scriptures.
In the 2nd floor. 19th century to the task of identification was added the need to confirm the historicity of OT messages as a reaction to the development of modern. historical-lit. critics of the Bible (see article "Bible Studies"). The search for independent, external arguments has led theologians to study the archeology of Palestine. Since that time, the methodological level of field work and cameral analysis procedures in the field of A. b. began to lag behind the general development of science, since research was often carried out by theologians who were not professional archaeologists. A significant part of the work was controlled by monastic orders (Italian Franciscans, French Dominicans) and other religions. org-tion.
Archaeologists were not interested in Palestine for a long time, because it did not promise bright field discoveries, the finds were modest compared to Ugarit, Ur or Egypt. On the other hand, scientists who set themselves the goal of apologia for the Bible, starting from the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. very actively studied Palestine. They chose first of all those monuments that could be directly connected with the OT (for example, Jericho, Shechem), and tried to "dig up" direct evidence of the sacred text. The extracted facts of ancient history were considered strictly within the framework of the OT - observations that were not correlated with the text were simply not taken into account. A. b. began to develop separately, materials individual works were not compared for a long time, a common chronological scale for Palestine was not created.
fundamentalism and modernism. The heyday of A. b. in the 20-60s. 20th century determined the efforts of the head of the Amer. school of W. Albright, who proved the fundamental possibility of forming this scientific field. Under his influence, the method of research finally took shape, in many respects akin to the old "Roman school", where the goals and methods of archeology were subordinated to the tasks of interpreting the Bible. The choice of the excavation site had to be substantiated by Ph.D. biblical text, personnel were selected almost exclusively from teachers of theological schools, financial and business support was provided by religions. (mostly Protestant.) structures. Albright considered it possible to archaeologically confirm the historicity of the figures of the Old Testament patriarchs and Moses, the early emergence of monotheism, the conquest of Canaan. The position of his follower E. Wright, who argued that “today faith in the Bible depends entirely on the answer to the question of whether the main events described in it really took place” (God Who Acts: Biblical Theology as Recital. L., 1952), was closer to fundamentalism than Albright's historicism.
Changes in A. b. happened in the 70s and 80s. Although many US archaeologists have remained within the tradition. A. b. (J. A. Gallaway, P. Lapp, J. B. Pritchard), the younger generation of Albright's students was convinced in practice that the field methods and scientific approaches of A. b. needs to be updated. On the development of A. b. the “stratigraphic revolution” of Kenyon influenced, as well as the complexity of the excavations, which required the abandonment of the services of amateurs and the creation of professional personnel, the financial support for the work increased many times over. The emergence of "field schools" and the involvement of students of secular universities in the work led to the improvement of the methodology. The most important "field school" of the new direction of archeology in Palestine was the work in Gezer, where in the 60-80s. methods were tested and cadres of scientists were formed.
A. b. succeeded in the 80s. connect contemporary working methods with more traditional. approaches. Mn. scholars, especially Amer., sharply criticized the "old" A. B., accusing her of confessional bias and a narrowly pragmatic approach to the history of the Near. East. They announced the birth of an academic discipline independent of biblical studies, with strictly scientific methods for collecting and analyzing materials and broader goals, and the abandonment of the name A. b. in favor of the term "Syro-Palestinian archeology" (proposed by Albright in the 30s). Dr. Canaan (including the biblical Israel of the Iron Age) became for her only one (albeit very important) area of research.
Fragment of a stele with an inscription mentioning "the house of David". 9th century BC Tell Dan
2nd floor 20th century turned out to be for A. b. no less tense in the political-religious. respect. The struggle of the powers for influence in the Syro-Palestinian region intensified due to the confrontation between Israel and the Arabs. gos-you. The ability to build a system of national ideology for these states, to justify the rights to resettlement or control over territories often depended on the solution of issues of ancient history. Already in the 20-30s. 20th century youth organizations of Jews in Palestine demanded that young settlers participate in archaeological work, believing that direct contact with antiquities would be one of the means of forming the identity of the nation. Later, Israeli archaeologists created their own system of studying the "biblical past" and aimed to fill in the gaps in the history of the "era of conquest" of Canaan, the formation of monotheism, the era of the Second Temple and the Jewish wars. State. support helped Israeli archeology in the 70-90s. not only to withstand competition in field research, but also to quickly create generalizing works that reconstruct the course of the historical process in the Syro-Palestinian region in the era from the Bronze Age to the Roman Empire.
The results of the discoveries were used in the ideological, political and religious. fight. However, already in the 80s. some researchers of history Dr. Israel started talking about the excessive one-sidedness of the "Israeli paradigm" in the study of the Holy Land. A number of scholars (F. Z. Davies, T. L. Thompson, N. P. Lemhe) accused them of “stealing history”, in an attempt to appropriate the “Palestine heritage” belonging to Muslim Palestinians. They proceed from the fact that the texts of the OT date back no earlier than the time of the Persians. captivity or the Hellenistic era and are therefore unsuitable for the reconstruction of the history of ancient Israel. Traditional A. b. are accused of incorrect conclusions regarding the absence of cities in the center of Bronze Age Palestine, of the lack of criteria for distinguishing between the cultures of the Canaanites and the Jews, and even of the absence of archaeological evidence for the existence of the Canaanites, of the impossibility of the existence of the state of Judea until the 7th century. BC because of its weak population, etc. This caused a reaction from the younger generation of Albright's students, led by W. Dever, who opposed the refusal to recognize the antiquities of the early Iron Age as "Israeli" specific finds, such as inscriptions 9th century BC from Dan (Northern Israel), where the “house of David” and “the king of Israel” are mentioned, as well as the polyethnicity of the monuments of Palestine of the Iron Age, referring them to different cultures (Gezer - Canaanites, Izbet-Sartakh - proto-Israelites, Tell Mikna - Philistines, etc.).
Prospects for interaction between archeology and biblical studies
Archaeology is an independent field of study of monuments of the material culture of the past, closely connected with related disciplines (general archeology, ethnography, sociology), natural and exact sciences. Unlike A. b. Syro-Palestinian archeology does not regard the history of ancient Israel as unique, Rev. history, but studies Canaan and Israel as part of the complex development of life on Dr. East, as part of the "history of settlement", seeking to reveal the course of the real cultural process and the very phenomenon of culture in Palestine. Archeology, not having its own confessional interests, is able to open up new opportunities for studying the Bible as a historical source, and almost the only one capable of introducing independent sources and new data about the events described in the Bible into scientific circulation. Archaeological finds give an idea of the cultural background of Dr. East, in Krom, through comparative studies, the features of Israel as a cultural and historical region are revealed.
Lit.: Macalister R . A. A Century of Excavations in Palestine. L., 1925; Watzinger C. Denkmäler Palaestinas. Lpz., 1933-1935. 2 bde; Aharoni Y . The Present State of Syro-Palestinian Archeology // The Haverford Symp. on Archeology and the Bible / Ed. E. Grant. New Haven, 1938. P. 1-46; idem. The Old Testament and the Archeology of Palestine // The Old Testament and Modern Study / Ed. H. R. Rowley. Oxf., 1951. P. 1-26; idem. The Archeology of Palestine, 1960; idem. The Impact of Archeology on Biblical Research // New Directions in Biblical Archeology / Ed. D. N. Freedman, J. C. Greenfield. Garden City (N. Y.), 1969. P. 1-14; idem. The Archeology of the Land of Israel. Phil., 1979; Wright G. E. The Present State of Biblical Archeology // The Study of the Bible Today and Tomorrow / Ed. H. R. Willoughby. Chicago, 1947, pp. 74-97; idem. Archeology and Old Testament Studies // JBL. 1958 Vol. 77. P. 39-51; idem. Biblical Archeology Today // New Directions in Biblical Archeology / Ed. D. N. Freedman, J. C. Greenfield. Garden City (N. Y.), 1969. P. 149-165; idem. Archaeological Method in Palestine // Eretz Israel. 1969 Vol. 9. P. 13-24; idem. The "New Archeology" // BiblArch. 1974 Vol. 38. P. 104-115; Dever W. G. Archeology and Biblical Studies: Retrospects and Prospects. Evanston, 1973; idem. Two Approaches to Archaeological Method - The Architectural and the Stratigraphic // Eretz Israel. 1974. P. 1-8; idem. Biblical Theology and Biblical Archeology: An Appreciation of G. Ernest Wright // HarvTR. 1980 Vol. 73. P. 1-15; idem. Archaeological Method in Israel: A Continuing Revolution // BiblArch. 1980 Vol. 43. P. 40-48; idem. The Impact of the "New Archeology" on Syro-Palestinian Archeology // BASOR. 1981 Vol. 242. P. 14-29; idem. Syro-Palestinian and Biblical Archeology // The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters / Ed. D. A. Knight, G. M. Tucker. Phil., 1985. P. 31-74; Smith M. S. The Present State of Old Testament Studies // JBL. 1969 Vol. 88 Vol. 19-35; Lapp P. W. Biblical Archeology and History. Cleveland, 1969; Frank H. Th. Bible, Archeology and Faith. Nashville (N. Y.), 1971; Ben Arieh Y . The Rediscovery of the Holy Land in the Nineteenth Century. Jerusalem, 1979; Harker R. Digging up the Bible Lands. 1972; Kroll G. Auf den Spuren Jesu. Stuttg., 19808; Toombs L. E. The Development of Palestinian Archeology as a Discipline // BiblArch. 1982 Vol. 45. P. 89-91; idem. A Perspective on the New Archeology // Archeology and Biblical Interpretation / Ed. L. G. Perdue, L. E. Toombs, G. L. Johnson. Atlanta, 1987. P. 41-52; Klaiber W. Archaeologie und Neues Testament // ZNW. 1981. Bd. 72. S. 195-215; Lance H. D. The Old Testament and the Archaeologist. Phil., 1981; Moorey P. R. S. Excavation in Palestine. Grand Rapids., 1981; Sauer J. A. Syro-Palestinian Archeology, History, and Biblical Studies // BiblArch. 1982 Vol. 45. P. 201-209; Bar-Yosef O ., Mazar A . Israeli Archeology // World Archaeology. 1982 Vol. 13. P. 310-325; Silberman N. A. Digging for God and Country: Exploration, Archeology, and the Secret Struggle for the Holy Land, 1798-1917. N.Y., 1982; Dornemann R. H. The Archaeology of the Transjordan in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Milwaukee, 1983; Kempinski A . Syrien und Palästina (Kanaan) in der letzten Phase der Mittlebronze IIB-Zeit (1650-1570 v. Chr.). Wiesbaden, 1983; King P. J. American Archeology in the Mideast. Phil., 1983; Recent Archaeology in the Land of Israel / Eds. H. Shanks, B. Mazar. Washington, 1984; Stern E . The Bible and Israeli Archeology // Archeology and Biblical Interpretation / Ed. L. G. Perdue, L. E. Toombs, G. L. Johnson. Atlanta, 1987. P. 31-40; Mazar B. Archeology of the Land of the Bible: 10000 - 586 BCE. N.Y., 1988; Weippert H. Palestine in vorhellenistischer Zeit. Munch., 1988; Kuhnen H.-P. Palästina in griechisch-römischer Zeit. Munch., 1990; The Archaeology of Ancient Israel / Ed. Ben-Tor A. New Haven, 1992; Belyaev L . AND . Christian Antiquities. M., 1998; Deopik D . AT . Biblical archeology and ancient history of the Holy Land: a course of lectures. M., 1998; Merpert N. I AM . Essays on the archeology of biblical countries. M., 2000; Bibliography: Thomsen P . Die Palästina-Literatur. Lpz.; B., 1908-1972. 7 Bde. [Bibliography. 1878-1945]; Röhrich R . Bibliotheca geographica Palaestinae. Jerusalem, 1963. [Bibliogr. before 1878]; Vogel E . K. Bibliography of Holy Land Sites: Comp. in Honor of Dr. N. Glueck // Hebrew Union College Annual. 1971 Vol. 42. P. 1-96; Vogel E . K ., Holtzclaw B . Bibliography of Holy Land Sites II // Ibid. 1981 Vol. 52. P. 1-91 [Bibliogr. before 1980]; Elenchus Bibliographicus Biblicus R., 1968-1984. Vol. 49-65; Elenchus of Biblica. R., 1988-.; Intern. Zeitschriftenschau für Bibelwissenschaft und Grenzgebiete. Leiden, 1954-. bd. one-.; Atiqot: Engl. Ser. Jerusalem, 1965-.
L. A. Belyaev, N. Ya. Merpert
The Bible is a collection of ancient books written and edited over thousands of years. The cultures that created these books are long gone. As for the New Testament era, we can learn a lot about it from the writings of Greek and Roman authors. But there is almost no written evidence about the era of the Old Testament, except for the Bible itself. Of course, in order to understand the main thing in these books, the most general ideas about life in the ancient world are enough: after all, the Word proclaimed to people by the Bible is eternal. It is intended for all mankind, all epochs. But very much in the content of the Bible is inextricably linked with the specific destinies of individuals and nations. So, for example, digging up the ruins of the cities of the 9th century BC, you can find out what the house looked like in which the prophet Elisha stayed, and what kind of lamp the rich Sonamite placed at the head of the bed (2 Kings 4: 8-10). Thanks to archeology, we have been able to learn a lot about the world of Biblical times.
People have always been interested in their past. In the 19th century, as travel became easier and education became more accessible to more people, interest in antiquities skyrocketed. Local residents and visiting treasure hunters dug up statues, jewelry and pottery, tools from the ruins and graves and sold them to collectors. Then the scientists realized how valuable the information about the circumstances of the find was: where they found it, with what they found it, etc.
Archeology can provide certain information that is essential for understanding the first five books of the Bible: information about events and customs, generally about the person of that era. Archaeological data can shed new light on many episodes of the Bible. Of all the archaeological discoveries made in the Middle East, the most important, of course, are the finds of written monuments. Here are the names of ancient cities, and the names of kings and priests, and stories about invasions and wars, about famine and destruction. There are texts dedicated specifically to the description of social order and customs, while others mention it only in passing. Religious hymns and prayers, legends about the heroes of the past were often recorded. In other words, written testimonies reflect all aspects of human life.
By far the most amazing discovery associated with the New Testament era is the Dead Sea Scrolls. No one expected that such ancient documents could be preserved in Palestine. In 1947, in a cave near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, a shepherd boy accidentally found a jar filled with old leather scrolls. He had no idea what it was and sold the scrolls for next to nothing. Archaeologists soon learned about the find and organized targeted searches. In total, fragments of more than 400 scrolls were found. The ancient books turned out to be the collection of the library of the Qumran religious community. The library was hidden in caves in 68 AD, during the invasion of the Roman army. The dry and hot climate of the mountains near the Dead Sea saved the scrolls from destruction. The New Testament texts, however, were not there. However, we have access to a huge amount of new information about religious life Jews in the New Testament era. scripture bow biblical
The language of the scrolls is mainly Hebrew and Aramaic. Most of the texts are Old Testament books, of which only the book of Esther is missing. Thanks to these copies, scientists have come to the conclusion that the traditional Hebrew text (until this discovery was known only from lists made at the end of the 1st millennium AD) already in the 1st century AD. was generally accepted.
Do not forget that the interpretation of any archaeological find largely depends on the general concept that guides the archaeologist. In the 19th century, for example, it was very common for Western scholars to be suspicious of the testimonies of ancient writers. Thus, the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 450 BC) was often accused of errors and inaccuracies. But archaeological discoveries in Egypt, Iraq, and the former Soviet Union confirm the validity of his books time and time again. The same can be said about other ancient texts. We gradually get used to treating them with respect. Together with other archaeological materials, they become an invaluable source of interesting information about the most distant past.
A very valuable discovery for the science of the New Testament was the discovery in Egypt of many papyrus documents. The found papyri contain records of the most diverse properties - from tax receipts to literary masterpieces. Most of them are state documents: correspondence of officials, instructions from superiors, complaints, records of tax payments or debts. Most texts are written by professional scribes and secretaries. If the sender knew how to write, then at the end of the letter he usually attributed the greeting with his own hand. The official letter must be signed. The Apostle Paul thus "assured" some of his epistles: 1 Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians and 2 Thessalonians. The existence in the history of the cities and localities in question does not raise any doubts now. But here is another example of the attitude towards the reliability and correctness of the geographical location of the cities mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. At first, archaeologists questioned the information taken from the text of Luke that the cities of Lystra and Dervia were in Lycaonia, but the city of Iconium was not (Acts 14: 6). They relied on the writings of Roman authors, in particular, Cicero, who pointed out, that Iconium was in Lycaonia, and, on this basis, it was argued that the Book of the Acts of the Apostles was not trustworthy. However, Sir William Ramsey discovered an ancient monument that proved that Iconia was a Phrygian city. This discovery was confirmed by later findings.
The Apostle Paul, who preached the Gospel in many places, often had to come into contact with the officials of the Roman Empire. Among the Romans, each position corresponded to a certain official title. Since independence from Rome, the provinces have retained their own titles. Some of these titles are found in the Acts of the Apostles. At one time, scholars considered this work of Luke to be a fiction created a hundred years after Paul's death. But when the text of the book was examined in terms of the reliability of the details found in it, and in particular the official titles of officials mentioned, it turned out to be remarkably accurate. Of course, such checks alone cannot fully guarantee the authenticity of the book of Acts. But the diligence and accuracy of the author, his attentive attitude to details are very revealing. This means that the author talks about the main thing with no less conscientiousness.
Sir William Ramsey, one of the greatest learned geographers, was a follower of the German historical school of the mid-19th century. After a topographical survey of Asia Minor, during which he had to refer to the writings of Luke, he became convinced that the book of Acts was not written in the middle of the second century AD, as he believed before. As a result of the irrefutable evidence uncovered in the course of the study, Ramsey was forced to radically reconsider his views. Speaking about the merits of Luke as a historian, Ramsey, who devoted 30 years to studying this issue, came to the following conclusion: “Luke is a first-class historian; not only are his descriptions of the facts completely trustworthy… this author should be on a par with the greatest historians.”
At one point, it was thought that Luke was mistakenly referring to the Philippine rulers as "praetors" - historians argued that "duumvirs" should have ruled the city. However, it turned out that Luke was right: later finds showed that in the Roman colonies the members of the magistrate were called praetors. In the same way, it turned out that Luke quite correctly uses the term “proconsul” in relation to the office of Gallio (Acts 18:12): an inscription was found in the Greek city of Delphi, which contains, in particular, the following lines: “Lucius Junius Gallio, my friend and proconsul of Achaia…”. This Delphic inscription, dated to AD 52, allows us to determine the time when Paul preached in Corinth for a year and a half. From other sources we know for certain that Gallio assumed the office of proconsul on July 1 and held it for a year, which means that Paul was in Corinth just at that time. The ruler of the island of Melite, named Publius, Luke calls "the head of the island." Ancient inscriptions have been discovered in which Publius is called "the first man on the island."
In favor of the reliability of the information contained in the writings of Luke, the word “politarch”, with which he describes the mayors of Thessalonica (Acts 17: 6), testifies. Since this word is not in classical literature, many critics convicted Luke of a mistake. However, since then, archaeologists have discovered 19 different inscriptions in which the word occurs.
All other administrative terms in the Acts of the Apostles also correspond to the usage adopted in the 1st century AD. e. The same can be said about the Gospels. Pontius Pilate officially held the position of prefect of Judea (the title "procurator" was assigned only to his successors after 54 AD). In the inscription on a stone found in the Roman theater in Caesarea, Pilate is called "prefect of Judea." It is this title (and not “procurator”) that appears in the Greek text of the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles.
Science sometimes agrees well with the Bible, and sometimes, on the contrary, insists on their unreliability. In any case, however, the following must be kept in mind. It makes no sense to say that archeology "confirms" or "refutes" the Bible. For the Bible tells about God and His relationship with people, and science is not able to discuss these topics.
Used Books
- 1. Bible Encyclopedia. Russian Bible Society. 1996 edition.
- 2. Josh McDowell. "Proof of the Resurrection". Publishing house "Soviet Siberia". 1992.
The story of how and why the Bible was written and how it fits into the extraordinary history of Israel is closely linked to the impressive story of modern discoveries. The search was centered on a tiny land, hemmed in on two sides by desert and on one side by the Mediterranean Sea, plagued for millennia by periodic droughts and near-constant war. Its cities and population were extremely small compared to those of the neighboring empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Moreover, her material culture was poor in comparison to the splendid and extravagant culture of others. And yet this land has become the birthplace of a literary masterpiece that has an unprecedented impact on world civilization, both as scripture and as history.
Over two hundred years of detailed study of the Hebrew text of the Bible, and ever-larger studies in all the lands between the Nile and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, have allowed us to begin to understand when, why, and how the Bible appeared. A detailed analysis of its language and distinctive literary genres has enabled scholars to identify the oral and written sources on which the modern biblical text is based. At the same time, archeology has gained a stunning, almost encyclopedic knowledge of the material conditions, language, society and historical development of those centuries during which the traditions of ancient Israel gradually crystallized, and spanning approximately six hundred years - approximately from 1000 to 400 years. BC. Most importantly, textual ideas and archaeological evidence have come together to help us distinguish between the power and poetry of the biblical saga and the more mundane processes and events of ancient Near Eastern history.
The world of the Bible was so accessible and thoroughly studied not from ancient times. Thanks to archaeological excavations, we now know what crops the Israelites and their neighbors grew, what they ate, how they built their cities, and with whom they traded. Dozens of cities mentioned in the Bible have been discovered and uncovered. To analyze the civilizations of ancient Israel and the peoples around them - the Philistines, Phoenicians, Arameans, Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites - modern excavation methods and a wide range of laboratory studies were used. In a number of cases, inscriptions and seals have been found that may be directly related to the persons mentioned in the biblical text. But this does not mean that archeology has proven that the biblical account is true in all its details. This is far from being the case: it is now obvious that many events in biblical history never took place in a certain era or in the manner described. Some of the most famous events in the Bible apparently never happened at all.
Archeology has helped us recreate history beyond the Bible, both at the level of the great kings and kingdoms and in the images of everyday life. And as we will explain in the following chapters, we now know that the early books of the Bible and its well-known accounts of the history of early Israel were first codified (and, in key respects, compiled) at a specific place and time—in seventh-century B.C.E. Jerusalem.
What is the Bible?
First, we introduce basic definitions. When we speak of the Bible, we are primarily referring to the collection of ancient writings long known as the Old Testament, now commonly referred to by scholars as the Hebrew Bible. It is a collection of legends, laws, poetry, prophecy, philosophy and history written almost entirely in Hebrew (with a few passages in a Semitic language called Aramaic, which became the lingua franca in the Middle East after 600 BC) . It consists of thirty-nine books, which were originally divided by subject and author, or in the case of longer books such as 1-2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles, by the standard length of a roll of parchment or papyrus. The Hebrew Bible is the main scripture of Judaism, the first part of the Christian canon and a rich source of allusions and ethical teachings in Islam, transmitted through the Qur'an. The Hebrew Bible is traditionally divided into three main parts (Fig. 1).
Rice. 1. Books of the Hebrew Bible
Torah, also known as the Pentateuch of Moses, includes the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. They tell the story of the people of Israel from the creation of the world, through the period of the flood and the patriarchs, to the exodus of the Jews from Egypt, wandering in the wilderness, and receiving the Law at Mount Sinai. The Torah ends with Moses' farewell to the people of Israel.
next section, prophets, is divided into two main groups of scriptures. The Early Prophets - the books of Joshua, Judges, 1 - 2 Kings - tell the story of the people of Israel from their crossing of the Jordan River and the conquest of Canaan through the rise and fall of the Israelite kingdoms to their downfall and expulsion at the hands of the Assyrians and Babylonians. The later prophets include divinations, public teachings, bitter condemnations, and messianic expectations from various groups of enthusiastic individuals, covering a period of about three hundred and fifty years, from the middle of the eighth century B.C. until the end of the fifth century BC.
Finally, scriptures are a collection of sermons, poems, prayers, proverbs and psalms that represent the most memorable and powerful expressions of the ordinary Israelite's devotion in moments of joy, crisis, worship and personal reflection. In most cases, they are extremely difficult to connect with any historical events or authors. They are the products of a lengthy compilation process that spanned hundreds of years. Although the early material in this collection (in the Psalms and Lamentations of Jeremiah) may have been collected late in the monarchy or shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C.E., most of the Scriptures appear to have been compiled much later, from the fifth to second century BC, in the Persian and Hellenistic periods.
This book examines the main "historical" works of the Bible, primarily the Torah and the Early Prophets, which tell the saga of the people of Israel from its origins to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 586 B.C.E.
We compare this narrative with the rich archaeological material that has been collected over the past few decades. As a result of discovering fascinating and complex connections between what in reality happened in the land of the Bible during the biblical period (as well as it can be determined), and the well-known details of the elaborate historical narrative that the Hebrew Bible contains.
From Eden to Zion
The heart of the Hebrew Bible is an epic story describing the emergence of the people of Israel and their ongoing relationship with God. Unlike other mythologies of the ancient Near East, such as the Egyptian tales of Osiris, Isis, and Horus or the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh, the Bible is based on purely earthly history. This is a divine drama that is being played out before the eyes of all mankind. Also, unlike the histories and royal chronicles of other Middle Eastern nations, it does more than simply celebrate the power of tradition and ruling dynasties. It offers a complex but clear vision of what why history unfolded for the people of Israel—and indeed the whole world—in a pattern directly related to the demands and promises of God. The people of Israel are the main actor in this drama. His conduct and his observance of the commandments of God determine the direction in which history will proceed. Everything depends only on the people of Israel, and through it, on all readers of the Bible, to determine the fate of the world.
The biblical story begins in the Garden of Eden and continues through the story of Cain and Abel, Noah's flood, finally focusing on the fate of one kind - Abraham. Abraham was chosen by God to be the father of a great nation and faithfully follow God's instructions. He migrated with his family from his original residence in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan, where for a long period he wandered as a stranger among the settled population, and his wife Sarah gave birth to a son, Isaac, who would inherit the divine covenant first given to Abraham.
Isaac had a son, Jacob, a third-generation patriarch who fathered twelve separate tribes. In the course of a bright, chaotic life of wandering, growing to a large family and creating altars throughout the earth, Jacob wrestled with an angel and received the name Israel (meaning "he who wrestled with God"), by which all his descendants would be known. The Bible tells how the twelve sons of Jacob fought each other, worked together, and eventually left their homeland to take refuge in Egypt during the great famine. And the patriarch Jacob in his will declared that the tribe of his son Judah would rule over all the rest (Genesis 49:8-10).
The great saga then shifts from family drama to historical spectacle. The God of Israel shows his amazing power against the pharaoh of Egypt, the most powerful ruler on Earth. The children of Israel grew into a great nation, but were enslaved as a despised minority building the great monuments of the Egyptian regime. God's intention to make himself known throughout the world is carried out through his choice of Moses as an intermediary in an effort to free the Israelites so that they can fulfill their true purpose. And perhaps the most striking sequence of events in the literature of the Western world is described by the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers - how, through signs and wonders, the God of Israel leads the children of Israel out of Egypt into the wilderness. At Sinai, God revealed to the people his true identity as YHWH (a sacred name consisting of four Hebrew letters) and gave them a set of laws to guide their public and private lives.
The holy terms of Israel's covenant with YHWH, written on stone tablets and placed in the ark of the covenant, became their sacred battle standard on their journey to the promised land. In some cultures, the founding myth may stop at this point as a miraculous explanation of how the people came into being. But the Bible had more than centuries of history to list many victories, miracles, unexpected defeats, and many future sufferings. Great Israelite victories in the conquest of Canaan, King David's founding of a great empire, and Solomon's building of the Temple in Jerusalem were followed by schism, relapses into idolatry, and ultimately exile. The Bible goes on to describe how, soon after Solomon's death, the ten northern tribes, rejecting their subjection to the Davidic kings of Jerusalem, unilaterally separated from the united monarchy, thus hastening the formation of two rival kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south.
Over the next two hundred years, the people of Israel lived in two separate kingdoms, reportedly succumbing again and again to the temptation of foreign deities. The leadership of the northern kingdom is described in the Bible as irreparably corrupt, and some of the kings of Judah are also described as having strayed from the path of complete devotion to God. Over time, God sent oppressors and conquerors to the people of Israel to punish them for their sins. In the beginning Israel was disturbed by the Arameans of Syria. Then the mighty Assyrian Empire made an unprecedented devastation of the cities of the northern kingdom and in 720 BC. brought a large part of the ten tribes the bitter fate of destruction and exile. The kingdom of Judah lasted more than a century longer, but even its people could not prevent the judgment of God. In 586 B.C. the growing, brutal Babylonian empire destroyed the land of Israel and set fire to Jerusalem and its Temple.
With this great tragedy, the biblical narrative deviates sharply in yet another characteristic way from the usual pattern of the ancient religious epic. In many such stories, the defeat of a god by a rival army meant the end of his cult as well. But in the matrix of the Bible, the power of the God of Israel was considered to be even greater after the fall of Judah and the expulsion of the Israelites. Far from being humiliated by the devastation of his Temple, the God of Israel was deemed to be a deity of unsurpassed power. After all, it was he who manipulated the Assyrians and Babylonians as his instruments in punishing the people of Israel for their unfaithfulness.
In the future, after the return of some of the exiles to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple, Israel will no longer be a monarchy, but will become a religious community, guided by divine laws and dedicated to the exact performance of the rituals prescribed in the sacred texts of the community. And it will be the free choice of men and women to maintain or break this divinely established order, and it is this, and not the behavior of their kings or the rise or fall of great empires, that will determine the course of events in the subsequent history of Israel. This extreme emphasis on human responsibility is the great power of the Bible. Other ancient epics will disappear over time. The impact of the biblical narrative on Western civilization will only grow.
Who wrote the Pentateuch and when?
For centuries, readers of the Bible took it for granted that the scriptures were both divine revelation and accurate history, handed down directly from God to a wide range of Israelite sages, prophets, and priests. Established religious leadership, both Jewish and Christian, naturally assumed that the Pentateuch of Moses was put into writing by Moses himself, shortly before his death on Mount Nebo, as recounted in the book of Deuteronomy. The books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel (1 and 2 Samuel) were viewed as sacred records preserved by the venerable prophet Samuel in Shiloh, while the books of Kings were seen as the writings of the pen of the prophet Jeremiah. In addition, King David was considered the author of the Psalms, and King Solomon - of Parables and the Song of Songs of Solomon. Yet by the dawn of the modern age, in the seventeenth century, scholars who devoted themselves to a detailed literary and linguistic study of the Bible found that things were not so simple. The power of logic and reason applied to the texts of Scripture has raised some very disturbing questions about the historical accuracy of the Bible.
The first was the question - could Moses really be the author of the Pentateuch, if the last book, Deuteronomy, describes the time and circumstances in great detail own death Moses? Other inconsistencies soon became apparent: the biblical text was filled with literary digressions, explaining the ancient names of some places and often noting that evidence of famous biblical events was still visible "to this day." These factors convinced some seventeenth-century scholars that the first five books of the Bible were at least shaped, expanded, and embellished later, over the centuries, by unknown editors and proofreaders.
In the late eighteenth century, and especially in the nineteenth, many critical biblical scholars began to doubt that Moses had anything to do with the writing of the Bible; they became convinced that the Bible was exclusively the work of later writers. These scholars have pointed to seemingly different versions of the same stories within the Pentateuch, suggesting that the biblical text was the work of several recognizable hands. A careful reading of the book of Genesis, for example, reveals two conflicting versions of creation (Gen. 1:1-2:3 and Gen. 2:4-25), two completely different genealogies of Adam's descendants (Gen. 4:17-26 and Gen. 5:1–28) and two combined and intertwined flood stories. In addition, there were dozens of duplications, and sometimes three versions of events in the account of the wanderings of the patriarchs, the Exodus from Egypt, and the sending down of the Law.
Yet there was a clear order to this seemingly chaotic repetition. As noted as early as the nineteenth century (and clearly explained by the American biblical scholar Richard Elliott Friedman in his book "Who Wrote the Bible?") the duplications that appear mainly in the books of Genesis, Exodus and Numbers were not arbitrary variations or repetitions of the same stories. They contained certain, easily recognizable features of terminology and geographical accents, and, most notably, used in the narrative various names God of Israel. Thus, one set of stories consistently used the Tetragrammaton (YHWH's four-letter name) in the course of their historical narrative and seems to have been most interested in the tribe and territory of Judah. Another set of stories used the names Elohim or El for God, and seemed to be particularly concerned with the tribes and territories in the north of the country—mainly Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin. Over time, it became clear that duplications come from different sources, written in different time and in different places. Scholars gave the name Yahvist to one source ( J), and to the other - Elogist ( E).
The distinctive use of geographical terminology, as well as the roles played by the various Jewish "tribes" (tribes) in these two sources, have convinced scholars that the text in Source J was written in Jerusalem and expressed the view of a united monarchy or kingdom of Judah, presumably during or immediately after the life of King Solomon. At the same time, it seemed that the text of source E was written in the north and expressed the point of view of the kingdom of Israel, and should have been composed during the independent existence of this kingdom (c. 930-720 BC).
The book of Deuteronomy, with its distinctive message and style, seemed to be an independent work, " D". And among the sections of the Pentateuch there were those that could not be assigned to J, E or D and contained a large number of passages devoted to purely ritual matters. Over time, these sections came to be considered part of a long work called the P, or Priestly Spring, which took a special interest in ritual purity, cult, and the laws of sacrifice. In other words, scholars have gradually come to the conclusion that the first five books of the Bible as we now know them were the result of complex editorial work, in which the four main sources - J, E, P and D - were artfully combined and connected by scribes or "editors ", whose literary traces (called by some biblical scholars the passages " R”) consisted of connecting sentences and editorial digressions. The latest of these redactions took place in the period after the exile.
Over the past few decades, scholarly opinions on the dating and authorship of these individual sources have changed rapidly. Although some biblical scholars believe that these texts were written and edited during the period of the united monarchy or kingdoms of Judah and Israel (c. 1000 - 586 BC), others insist that they were later compositions collected and edited by priests and scribes during the Babylonian exile and return from captivity (in the sixth and fifth centuries) or even later in the Hellenistic period (fourth to second centuries BC). However, everyone agrees that the Pentateuch is not a single, seamless work, but a mixture of various sources, each written under different historical circumstances to express different religious or political views.
Two versions of the later history of Israel
The first four books of the Bible - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers - seem to have been the result of a skillful interweaving of sources J, E, and P. At the same time, the fifth book, Deuteronomy, was a completely different case. It carries distinctive terminology (which does not match with other sources) and contains an uncompromising condemnation of the cults of other gods, a new view of God as a completely transcendent being, as well as an absolute ban on performing sacrifices anywhere except the Jerusalem Temple. Scholars have long recognized the possible connection of this book with the mysterious "Book of the Law" found by the High Priest Helkiah during repairs to the Temple during the reign of King Josiah, in 622 BC. BC. According to 2 Kings 22:8-23:24, this document was the inspiration for religious reform unprecedented difficulty.
The influence of the book of Deuteronomy on the final message of the Hebrew Bible goes far beyond its legislative code. The historical narrative in the books following the Pentateuch - Joshua, 1-2 Kings - is so closely related linguistically and theologically to Deuteronomy that they have come to be called "Deuteronomic History" by scholars since the mid-1940s. This is the second great historical work on the history of Israel in the Bible. He continues the story of the fate of Israel from the conquest of the promised land to the Babylonian captivity and expresses the ideology of a new religious movement that arose among the people of Israel relatively late. This work has also been edited several times. Some biblical scholars believe that it was composed during the captivity in an attempt to preserve the history, culture, and identity of the defeated nation after the catastrophic destruction of Jerusalem. Other scholars are convinced that the Deuteronomic History was largely written during the time of King Josiah to support religious ideology and territorial ambitions, and that it was completed and edited in captivity several decades later.
The Books of Chronicles, the third great historical work in the Bible about the pre-captive Israel, did not take shape in writing until the fifth or fourth century BC, several centuries after the events they describe. Their historical point of view leans strongly in favor of the historical and political claims of the Davidic dynasty and Jerusalem; they constantly ignore the north. In various ways, the Chronicles unequivocally reflect the ideology and needs of Jerusalem during the time of the Second Temple, and for the most part are a reworking of a historical saga that already existed in writing at that time. For these reasons, in this book we will make minimal use of the Chronicles, focusing our attention on the earlier Pentateuch and the Deuteronomic history.
As we shall see in later chapters, archeology has provided ample evidence to support the new claim that the historical core of the Pentateuch and Deuteronomic history was largely formed in the seventh century BC. Therefore, we will focus on Judea at the end of the eighth and seventh centuries BC, when this literary process began in earnest, and we will argue that most of the Pentateuch is a late monarchical work, promoting the ideology and needs of the kingdom of Judah and how it is connected with Deuteronomic history. And in this we will be on the side of those scholars who are convinced that the Deuteronomistic History was written mainly in the time of King Josiah in order to provide ideological legalization for specific political ambitions and religious reforms.
History or no history?
Archeology has always played an important role in debates about the structure and historical accuracy of the Bible. At first it seemed that archeology should refute most of the claims of radical critics that the Bible was quite late work, and that much of it is historically unreliable. Since the late nineteenth century, when modern exploration of biblical territories began, a series of exciting discoveries and decades of sustained archaeological excavation and deciphering have largely suggested that the biblical accounts were basically reliable about the basic contours of ancient Israel's history. Thus, it seemed that even if the biblical text was written much later than the events described in it, it must be based to a large extent on carefully preserved memories. This conclusion was based on several new sets of archaeological and historical evidence.
Geographic identifications
Although Western pilgrims and travelers have roamed the land of the Bible since the Byzantine period, but only with the advent of modern historical and geographical research, in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, scholars well versed in both the Bible and other ancient sources , began to reconstruct the landscape of ancient Israel not relying on the ecclesiastical traditions of various holy places, but on the basis of topography, biblical references and archaeological finds. A pioneer in this field was the American Congregationalist clergyman Edward Robinson, who conducted two lengthy surveys in Ottoman Palestine in 1838 and 1852 in an attempt to refute the theories of biblical criticism by searching for and identifying genuine, historically verified biblical sites.
Although some of the main sites of biblical history, such as Jerusalem, Hebron, Jaffa, Beth San, and Gaza, were never forgotten, hundreds of additional sites mentioned in the Bible were unknown. Using the geographic information contained in the Bible and a careful study of the country's contemporary Arabic place names, Robinson found that it was possible to locate dozens of ancient hills and ruins of previously forgotten biblical sites.
Robinson and his followers were able to identify extensive ruins at the sites of El-Jib, Beitin, and Khirbet Seilun north of Jerusalem as likely sites of the biblical Gibeon, Bethel, and Shiloh. This process was especially effective in regions that had been inhabited continuously for centuries and where the name of the place was preserved. But later generations of scholars realized that in other places where the modern names had nothing to do with biblical sites, other criteria could be applied for identification, such as size and dateable pottery types. Thus, Megiddo, Hatzor, Lachish, and dozens of other biblical places were gradually added to the developing reconstruction of biblical geography. In the late 19th century, the British royal engineers of the Palestine Exploration Fund carried out this work in a highly systematic way, compiling detailed topographic maps of the entire country from the headwaters of the Jordan River in the north to Beersheba in the Negev Desert in the south.
More important than even specific identifications was the growing familiarity with the major geographic regions of the biblical land. (Fig. 2): the wide and fertile plains of the Mediterranean, the foothills of the Shefela rising to the central highlands in the south, the arid Negev desert, the Dead Sea and Jordan Valley regions, the northern highlands and the wide valleys in the north of the country. The biblical land of Israel was an area of unusual climatic and ecological contrasts. It also served as a natural land bridge between the two great civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Its characteristic landscapes and conditions in almost every case turned out to be accurately reflected in the biblical narrative.
Monuments and archives of Egypt and Mesopotamia
During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, repeated attempts were made to establish a standard chronology for the events described in the Bible. Most of them were dutifully verbatim. External sources were needed to verify the internal biblical chronology, and they were eventually found among the archaeological remains of two of the most important and most learned civilizations of the ancient world.
At the end of the 18th century, European scientists began to intensively study Egypt with its amazing monuments and a huge treasure of hieroglyphic inscriptions. But it was only with the deciphering of Egyptian hieroglyphs by the French scholar Jean-Francois Champollion in the 1820s (based on three identical texts in three languages on the Rosetta Stone) that the historical value of the Egyptian remains for dating and possibly verifying historical events in the Bible became apparent. Although the identity of the individual pharaohs mentioned in the stories of Joseph and the Exodus has not been precisely known, other direct connections have become apparent. The victory stele erected by Pharaoh Merneptah in 1207 BC, mentioned the great victory over the people called Israel (in fact, the word "Israel" on the stele was arbitrarily installed by Christian researchers, a more likely translation of this word is "Syria", - note translator). In a later era, Pharaoh Shishak (Susakim), mentioned in 1 Kings 14:25 as having come to Jerusalem to receive tribute in the fifth year of the reign of Solomon's son, was identified as the pharaoh of the twenty-second dynasty, Sheshonk I, who ruled from 945-924. BC. He left a record of his campaign on the wall of the Temple of Amun at Karnak in Upper Egypt.
Another rich source of discoveries for chronology and historical identification came from the broad plains between the Tigris and Euphrates, an ancient region of Mesopotamia. Beginning in the 1840s, scientific representatives from England, France, and eventually the United States and Germany, discovered the cities, huge palaces and cuneiform archives of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires. The main monuments and cities of these powerful eastern empires have been uncovered for the first time since the biblical period. Places like Nineveh and Babylon, formerly known mostly from the Bible, now proved to be the capitals of powerful and aggressive empires, whose artists and scribes painstakingly documented the military campaigns and political events of their time. Thus, in the Mesopotamian cuneiform archives, among others, references were found to a number of important biblical kings - the Israelite tsers Omri (Omri), Ahab and Jehu (Egu) and the Jewish kings Hezekiah and Manasseh. These external references have allowed scholars to view biblical history from a broader perspective, as well as to synchronize the reigns of biblical monarchs with more complete systems dating of the ancient Near East. Couplings were gradually created, and the dates of the reigns of the kings of Israel and Judah, the Assyrian and Babylonian rulers, and the Egyptian pharaohs were put in order, giving for the first time a fairly accurate dating.
Rice. 2. Geographical areas of the land of Israel
In addition, even much earlier, the Mesopotamian and Egyptian archives from the Middle and Late Bronze Age (2000-1150 BC) shed light on the world of the ancient Near East and, accordingly, on the cultural environment from which the Bible eventually emerged. from cities such as Mari, Tell el-Amarna and Nuzi.
In areas closer to Israel, individual inscriptions will also be found that offer even more specific references. A triumphal stele of the Moabite king Mesha, discovered in the 19th century in Transjordan, mentions Mesha's victory over Israel's forces and provides outward evidence of the war between Israel and Moab reported in 2 Kings 3:4–27. The most significant inscription for historical verification was discovered in 1993 in the Tel Dan region of northern Israel, apparently reporting the victory of the Aramean king Ghazael over the king of Israel and the king from the "house of David" in the ninth century BC. Like the Moabite inscription, it provides an extra-biblical reference point for the history of ancient Israel.
Excavations of biblical sites
Without a doubt, the most important source of data on the historical context of the Bible has come from over a hundred years of modern archaeological excavations in Israel, Jordan, and neighboring regions. Closely associated with advances in archaeological technology throughout the world, biblical archeology has become capable of identifying a long sequence of easily dateable architectural styles, pottery, and other artifacts that allows scientists to date layers of buried cities and burial sites with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Started at the beginning of the 20th century by F. Lyaohodz among American scientists. allow scholars to date Bibles coming from more than a hundred years of excavations by the American scholar William F. Albright, this branch of archeology is centered on the excavation of the hills of large cities (called in Arabic "tells", in Hebrew "teles"), consisting of many superimposed city levels (layers) in which one can trace the development of society and culture over millennia.
After decades of excavation, researchers have been able to recreate the vast archaeological context in which the biblical story should be included. (Fig. 3). Beginning with the region's first evidence of agriculture and settled communities at the very end of the Stone Age, archaeologists have gone on to trace the rise of urban civilizations in the Bronze Age (3500-1150 BC) and their transformation into territorial states in the subsequent period, in Iron Age (1150-586 BC), when most of the historical events recorded in the Bible probably took place.
ARCHAEOLOGICAL PERIODS*
* Dating follows the system described in this book. The dating from the Early Bronze Age to the Middle Bronze Age is approximate and based on cultural considerations. The dating from the Late Bronze Age to the Persian is based on historical events.
KINGS OF ISRAEL AND JUDAH*
| Rehoboam | 931 – 914 | Jeroboam I | 931 – 909 |
| Avia | 914 – 911 | Nadav | 909 – 908 |
| Asa | 911 – 870 | Vaasa | 908 – 885 |
| Yosaphat | 870 – 846** | Ela | 885 – 884 |
| Yoram | 851 – 843** | Zimri (Zimri) | 884 |
| Ahaziah | 843 – 842 | Famniy (Tivni) | 884 – 880*** |
| Gofolia (Atalya) | 842 – 836 | Omri (Omri) | 884 – 873 |
| Joas | 836 – 798 | Ahab | 873 – 852 |
| Amasya | 798 – 769 | Ahaziah | 852 – 851 |
| Ozziah | 785 – 733** | Joram | 851 – 842 |
| Jotham (Yotam) | 743 – 729** | Jehu (Yehu) | 842 – 814 |
| Ahaz | 743 – 727** | Yoahaz | 817 – 800** |
| Hezekiah | 727 – 698 | Joash | 800 – 784 |
| Manasseh | 698 – 642 | Jeroboam II | 788 – 747** |
| Ammon | 641 – 640 | Zechariah | 747 |
| Yosia | 639 – 609 | Shallum | 747 |
| Yoahaz | 609 | Manaim (Menahem) | 747 – 737 |
| Joachim | 608 – 598 | Fakia (Pekahia) | 737 – 735 |
| Yehonia | 597 | Fakey (Pekah) | 735 – 732 |
| Zedekiah | 596 – 586 | Hosea | 732 – 724 |
* According to Anchor Bible Dictionary, Volume. 1, p. 1010 and Galil "Chronology of the Kings of Israel and Judah"
** Including joint management
*** Simultaneous reign with another rival
Rice. 3. The main archaeological periods and the chronology of the Jewish and Israeli kings.
By the end of the 20th century, archeology had shown that there were too many material correspondences between finds in Israel and throughout the Middle East and the world described in the Bible to argue that the Bible was late and bizarre priestly literature, written without any historical foundations. But at the same time, there were too many contradictions between the finds and the biblical narrative to claim that the Bible provided an accurate description of what really happened.
From Biblical Illustration to Anthropology of Ancient Israel
As long as biblical textual critics and biblical archaeologists maintained their basically conflicting views on the historical accuracy of the Bible, they continued to live in two different intellectual worlds. Textual critics continued to view the Bible as an object of analysis, which could be divided into ever smaller sources and sub-sources, according to whatever religious and political ideas they expressed. At the same time, archaeologists often took the historical narrative of the Bible at face value. Instead of using archaeological data as an independent source for reconstructing the history of the region, they still relied on the biblical narrative, especially traditions about the origins of Israel, to interpret their findings. Of course, as the excavation and research continued, new understandings of how Israel arose and developed appeared. Questions have been raised regarding the historical existence of the patriarchs, as well as the dating and scope of the Exodus. New theories have also been developed that suggest that the Israelite conquest of Canaan as a single military campaign, as the book of Joshua insists, may not have happened. But in relation to biblical events beginning from the time of David ca. 1000g. BC, there was an archaeological consensus, at least until the 1990s, that the Bible could be considered a largely reliable historical document.
However, in the 1970s, new trends began to influence the behavior of biblical archeology, and eventually they changed the focus and completely turned traditional relationship between artifact and biblical text. For the first time, archaeologists working in the Bilean lands did not seek to use their finds as illustrations for the Bible; in a dramatic transition to the methods of the social sciences, they sought to study the realities of human life worth behind text. In the excavation of ancient monuments, special attention was no longer paid only to sites associated with the Bible. Excavated artifacts, architecture and settlement models, as well as animal bones, seeds, chemical analysis of soil samples, and long-term anthropological models drawn from many cultures around the world, have become key to perceiving broader changes in the economy, political history, religious practices, population density, and the very structure of the society of the ancient Israelites. Applying methods used by archaeologists and anthropologists elsewhere, a growing number of scholars have attempted to understand how human interaction with the complex, fragmented natural environment of the land of Israel influenced the development of its unique social system, religion, and spiritual heritage.
A New Look at Biblical History
Recent advances in archeology have finally allowed us to bridge the gap between the study of biblical texts and archaeological finds. We can now see that the Bible, along with the distinctive forms of pottery, architectural styles, and Hebrew inscriptions, is a typical artifact that tells a lot about the society in which it originated.
This is because it is now clear that such phenomena as clerical work, administrative correspondence, royal chronicles, and the compilation of the national Holy Scripture, especially such a deep and complex one as the Bible, are associated with a certain stage of social development. Archaeologists and anthropologists working all over the world have carefully studied the conditions in which complex genres of writing emerge, and in almost every case they are a sign of the formation of a state in which power is centralized in national institutions, such as an official cult or a monarchy. Other features of this stage of social development include monumental building, economic specialization, and the presence of a dense network of integrated communities ranging in size from large cities to regional centers to medium-sized towns and small villages.
Until recently, both textual scholars and archaeologists assumed that ancient Israel reached the stage of full statehood during the united monarchy of David and Solomon. Indeed, many biblical scholars continue to believe that the earliest source for the Pentateuch is Document J (or Yahwist), and that it was compiled in Judea during the age of David and Solomon, in the 10th century B.C.E. In this book, we will argue that such a conclusion is extremely unlikely. From an analysis of the archaeological evidence, there is no sign of a broad script or other attributes of a full-fledged statehood in Judea (and, in particular, in Jerusalem), until more than two and a half centuries later, around the end of the 8th century BC. Of course, no archaeologist can deny that the Bible contains legends, characters, and fragments of stories that go far back in time. But archeology can show that the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomic History bear unmistakable signs of their original compilation in the 7th century BC. Why is this so, and what does it mean for our understanding of the biblical saga, and is main theme this book.
We will also see how much of the biblical narrative is the product of hopes, fears, and ambitions that culminated in Judah during the reign of King Josiah in the late 7th century B.C.E. We will argue that the historical core of the Bible arose from purely political, social and spiritual conditions and was formed under the influence of the creativity and vision of extraordinary personalities. Much of what is taken for granted as accurate history—the tales of the patriarchs, the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, and even the saga of the glorious united monarchy of David and Solomon—is rather the creative expression of a powerful religious reform movement that flourished in the Kingdom of Judah in late Iron Age. Although these stories may be based on a certain historical core, they primarily reflect the ideology and worldview of their authors. We will show how the Bible's narrative was uniquely suited to the further religious reform and territorial ambitions of Judah during the important final decades of the 7th century BC.
But the assumption that most of the known stories of the Bible did not happen the way the Bible tells them does not mean that ancient Israel did not have true history. In the following chapters, we will reconstruct the history of ancient Israel on the basis of archaeological evidence, the only source of information about the biblical period of history that has not been extensively corrected, edited, or reworked by many generations of biblical scribes. With the support of archaeological finds and extra-biblical records, we will see that the biblical narrative is itself part of the story, and not the undisputed historical basis that every single archaeological find or conclusion must conform to. Our story will deviate sharply from the familiar biblical narrative. This is the story of not one, but two chosen kingdoms, which together constitute the historical roots of the people of Israel.
One kingdom, the kingdom of Israel, was born in the fertile valleys and uplands in the north of the land of Israel and grew to be among the wealthiest, most cosmopolitan, and most powerful kingdoms in the region. Today it is almost completely forgotten, except for the villainous role it plays in the biblical books of Kings. Another kingdom, Judea, arose in the rocky, inhospitable southern highlands. It survived due to its isolation and rigid devotion to its Temple and royal dynasty. These two kingdoms represent two parts of ancient Israel, two completely different societies with different views and different national identities. Step by step we will trace the stages in which the stories, memories and hopes of both nations were powerfully united in a single Holy Scripture which, more than any other document ever written, has shaped (and continues to shape) the face of Western society.
Wayne Jackson
STUDYING THE BIBLE IN THE LIGHT OF ARCHEOLOGY
The book examines the archaeological evidence,
confirming the correctness of the biblical narrative,
and also analyzes the typical mistakes of opponents-commentators of the Bible.
Source: Christian Science Apologetics Center
PART 1(Title photo: fragment of an inscription from Caesarea in the 1st century AD with the name of Pilate)
INTRODUCTION
The study of biblical archeology is truly an exciting experience. The word archeology is a compound term derived from two Greek roots, archaeios(ancient) and logos(study, science), which literally means the study of antiquity. The Jewish historian Josephus used the word in the title of one of his books, Antiquities of the Jews [Archaeology].
In recent years, there has been an increase in the general public's interest in biblical archeology. A nationwide secular magazine proclaimed just a few years ago:
“At 100 licensed sites in Israel, archaeological excavations continue to provide new evidence that the Bible is often surprisingly accurate in historical detail, to a greater extent than earlier researchers thought. By establishing the material setting of the biblical narratives and certain details of the evidence (for example, the finds of altars with horns like those mentioned in 1 Kings 1:50), archeology in recent years has strengthened the credibility of the Bible.
Such a statement is an acknowledgment of the large number of discoveries made over the past two and a half centuries - discoveries that continue to confirm our confidence in the divine origin of the Holy Book.
SCOPE OF CERTIFICATES
When we start talking about the archeology of the past few centuries, we are not just talking about a couple of trifling jars accidentally discovered in the territory of the ancient East. On the contrary, literally thousands of thousands of wonderful finds have come to light. The amount of work done will allow us to draw attention to only a few of the most outstanding projects.
1. In 1843, the French explorer Paul-Emile Botta discovered Khorsabad (in Assyria) and the famous palace of Sargon II (who conquered Samaria and destroyed the kingdom of Israel). When the ruins of the palace were completely freed from the sand, it turned out that they covered an area of twenty-five acres (larger than the territory of many cities in modern Palestine). In 1845, Henry Layard, an English archaeologist, discovered ancient Nineveh. Its walls were 9.5 meters thick and 22.5 meters high. The magnificent palace of Sennacherib was found. Inside the palace they found a huge library of Assurbanipal, the grandson of Sennacherib. “Fragments of cuneiform tablets numbered about 26,000, representing about 10,000 different texts. They included historical, scientific and religious literature, official documents and archives, business papers and letters.”
2. In 1887, a peasant woman was digging for compost in the ruins of Tel el-Amarna and found the priceless Letters of Tel el-Amarna. This collection contained 350 letters (on clay tablets) from the Egyptian royal archives. About 150 of these letters were written to or sent from Palestine. These documents provide important information regarding conditions in Palestine and Syria in 1400-1360. BC
3. Between 1925 and 1931 in the town of Nuzi in northern Iraq, about 20,000 cuneiform tablets in the Babylonian dialect were excavated from the ground. These tablets contained data on four or five generations in the 15th and 14th centuries BC. The striking correspondences between the customs and social conditions of these peoples and the patriarchs provide useful information and background to the patriarchal period, and "is one of the external factors that confirms the historicity of this part of Genesis."
4. In 1888, John P. Peters (with Haynes and Hilprecht) discovered 20,000 clay tablets at Nippur, north central Babylonia. Nippur was one of the oldest Mesopotamian civilizations, founded around 4000 BC. Among these texts was the Sumerian flood story, older than even the Gilgamesh epic [the Babylonian flood story]; there was also a fragment of the Sumerian creation narrative.
5. In 1906, Hugo Winkler from Berlin began excavations of Boğazköy in Turkey. Bogazkoy turned out to be the capital of the ancient Hittite Empire. More than 10,000 clay tablets have been found containing legends, myths, historical records and a code of laws.
6. Between 1929 and 1960 C.F.A. Shaffer conducted excavations near Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit). In the course of this work, palaces, temples (one dedicated to Baal), etc., dating from the 14th century BC, were dug out of the ground. More than 350 Ugaritic texts have been found that have shed significant light on the study of the Old Testament.
7. In Mari, southeastern Syria, approximately 20,000 clay tablets were found between 1933 and 1960. These finds date back to the 18th century BC. The texts are written in a Semitic dialect said to be "virtually identical" to that spoken by the Hebrew patriarchs. They provide a treasure trove of information regarding the patriarchal period.
8. Between 1937 and 1949 Sir C.L. Buli explored a site of ancient Alalakh in northern Syria. The 456 tablets dating from the age of the patriarchs shed considerable light on the accounts in Genesis of the patriarchal period.
9. Beginning in 1947, about 500 documents were discovered in the area west of the Dead Sea, collectively referred to as the Dead Sea Scrolls, or Qumran manuscripts. They include biblical and non-biblical writings. About 100 scrolls are Hebrew texts of the Old Testament, representing at least fragments of all the Old Testament books (with the exception of the Book of Esther). These manuscripts date from the last few centuries BC. and ending with the beginning of the first century A.D. The magazine Biblical Archaeologist (May, 1948) called this find "the most important discovery ever made in the study of Old Testament manuscripts...".
10. In 1974, Dr. Pado Mattie of the University of Rome led a team of Italian archaeologists in the discovery of the ancient city-state of Ebla at Tel Mardikh, Syria. By 1976, 15,000 tablets from the ancient past had been discovered (there are now more than 20,000). The age of these tablets belongs to the era of Sargon I, the Assyrian king (about 2300 BC) - that is, from two hundred to five hundred years before Abraham. They are written in the Semitic dialect, which is closely related to the Hebrew language. These documents contain many different types of material - letters, farming texts, legal codes, mythological narratives, and so on. They also contain numerous place names and personal names. David Noel Friedman described the find as "one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time".
The above examples represent only a fraction of the discoveries made. Moreover, much remains to be done. For example, in Palestine alone, out of 5,000 sites suitable for excavation, only about 150 have been excavated. Paul Lapp notes that archaeological surveys in Palestine have been carried out for the most part "only two percent of potential sites." In addition, out of a total of approximately 500,000 cuneiform tablets, only about 10% were published! Any explorer can spend many years doing archeology in the British Museum without turning over a single shovel of earth!
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THESE DISCOVERIES
Archaeological science contributes to the study of the Bible in many ways. Archeology:
1. Helped in identifying biblical places and establishing biblical dates;
2. Assisted in understanding ancient customs and incomprehensible idiomatic expressions;
3. Shed new light on many biblical words;
4. Improved our understanding of some essential New Testament teachings;
5. Consistently silenced unbelieving critics of the inspired Word.
Of course, this does not mean that the Scriptures were not clear enough for a person to know the way to salvation without recent help from the shovel of archaeologists. The truth of the Lord has always been simple enough for people to know the way of salvation. However, in the light of these ongoing explorations, our gratitude for the Holy Book deepens and our confidence in its divine origin increases.
ARCHEOLOGY, GOD AND THE Descent of Man
People who deny that God was the Creator of man (Gen. 1:26; 2:7) argue that in fact man became the creator of God(s). Atheism claims that man was originally a polytheist; that he personified his many gods from those forces of nature, which he feared and did not understand. However, archaeological research has shattered these false theories.
Although anthropologists often claim, as Ashley Montague did, that "the Jews are credited with being the first people to develop the idea of monotheism," archaeological research shows otherwise. George Rawlinson, professor of ancient history, Oxford University, confirmed that "historical research has shown us that in early times everywhere, or almost everywhere, there was a belief in the unity of God, the barbarian peoples possessed it on an equal basis with the civilized, it was the basis of polytheism, which tried to crush it[emphasis mine - W.J.], this belief has left its mark in language and thinking, from time to time it has had special advocates who did not claim their right to discover it. The famous Egyptologist Sir William M.F. Petri argued that “...monotheism is the first state that can be traced in theology. ... When we can trace polytheism to the earliest stages of its development, we find that it is the result of combinations of monotheism."
Sir William Ramsay, lecturer in classical languages at the University of Aberdeen from 1886 to 1911, who was an acclaimed epigrapher, geographer and historian, as well as a renowned archaeologist, wrote: “The available evidence, with extremely rare exceptions, indicates that the history of religion in human environment it decline history» [Emphasis mine - W.J.]. OH. Says was a professor of Assyriology at the University of Oxford. In 1898 Sayce announced that “he found in the British Museum on three separate tablets from the time of Hammurabi [King of Babylon, circa 1792-1750]. BC] the words "Yahweh (Jehovah) is God."
And where is the evidence that primitive man simply personified the forces of nature as his gods? Historical evidence they don't talk about it. J.R. Swanton, who was associated with the Smith Institute's American Bureau of Ethnology, wrote that "... the derivation of religious ideas or emotions from natural phenomena, however close the connection between them may seem, unproven and impossible...". [emphasis mine - W.J.]. Professor Sayce was quite right when he remarked: “Without the support of archaeological evidence as to what is older and what is newer in development, all theories about the evolution of ideas, whether religious or otherwise, are absolutely worthless.”
The book of Genesis indicates that mankind originated in the region of Mesopotamia (Gen. 2:10–15). Mainly as a result of the work of Dr. Louis S.B. Lyceum in recent years, non-believers have argued that man evolved in Africa. However, after many years of archaeological research, the world famous researcher U.F. Albright exclaimed: "Archaeological research has thus established beyond any doubt that there is no center of civilization on earth that could rival in antiquity and activity with the basin of the Eastern Mediterranean and the territory that begins immediately to the east of it - the fertile crescent."
For decades, Bible critics have scathingly ridiculed the inspired creation story. It has been called the myth of Genesis, the legend of Eden, and so on. Is the Genesis version of creation reliable? In 1876 George Smith of the British Museum published some fragments of the "creation narrative" from Assurbanipal's library [see p. section "Scope of Evidence" at the beginning of this book, part 1]. After a great deal of work that included comparing this Babylonian version of the creation with other ancient versions (for example, the Assyrian version), the Assurbanipal library narrative has been almost completely restored. This document is known as the Enuma Elish and contains some striking similarities to the story in Genesis. Pay attention to the following:
1. The book of Genesis speaks of seven days of creation; the Babylonian version was recorded on seven tablets.
2. Both stories describe a time when the earth was formless and empty.
3. In Genesis, order follows formlessness; in Enuma-Elish, Murduk conquers chaos and establishes order.
4. Both narratives tell about the creation of the moon, stars, flora, animals and man.
5. Man was created on the sixth day in Genesis; his creation is recorded on the sixth tablet in the Babylonian narrative.
However, it should be recognized that these narratives have much more differences than similarities. For example, Enuma Elish is highly polytheistic and assumes the eternal existence of matter. Religious modernists have characteristically claimed that the biblical narrative is a reworking of the older Babylonian narrative, but this is a completely false accusation. Professor Kitchen says that this statement is “erroneous on methodological grounds. In the ancient Near East, as a rule, simple stories or traditions can give rise (by coalescence and embellishment) to complicated legends, but not vice versa. Both the Book of Genesis and the Enuma Elish point to a common historical event, but Moses' account, in its purest and simplest form, was inspired by God, and therefore is an authentic creation account.
In the Book of Genesis, God placed man in a beautiful paradise in Eden (Gen. 2:8). Eden was a place of perfection, where neither death nor its accompanying evil (sickness, etc.) entered until the sin of man. In the archaeological literature of the ancient Sumerians (the northern tip of the Persian Gulf) there is a story about the land of Dilmun. This is a paradise in which it is good, clean and light; he does not know sickness or death. It was claimed to be located in the place where the "sun rises" (cf. Gen. 2:8 - "in the east").
According to the Genesis account, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden had access to the "tree of life" (Gen. 2:9; 3:22). G.H. Livingston says: “From ancient Mesopotamia came cylinder seals and other works of art depicting a tree and figures, possibly divine beings. ... sacred tree life was closely associated with the ruling king of almost all ancient peoples. The Bible Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Zondervan publishing house (vol. 2, p. 492) shows the "Tree of Life", depicted as a young fig tree on a bone handle found in the ancient city of Gazor. Harold Steigers puts this material in the right perspective: "The tree of life motif can be seen presented on the monuments of the Middle East, it is evidence of the truth of the biblical story, but at the same time a distortion of its place in the original plan of God."
In the last century, a seal was found in Nineveh depicting a man and a woman located on both sides of a fruit tree, and a snake "stands" to the left of the woman. About this seal, which is now kept in the British Museum, Dr. I.M. Price said, “There is not a single word on the seal. The story is told by those depicted in it. Many researchers suggest that this is a figurative representation of some traditional story about the fall of man, which was common among the peoples of old Babylonia. Price was a professor of Semitic Languages and Literature at the University of Chicago. Another seal called "The Seal of Adam and Eve" was discovered in Tepe Gavra (Iraq) in 1932 by Dr. E.A. Speiser at the University Museum of Pennsylvania. It depicts a naked man and woman, dejectedly wandering, followed by a snake. Speiser said it "looked a lot like the story of Adam and Eve". Photographs of both seals can be seen in Helley's Bible Reference (p. 75, see footnote 11). Again, Steigers wrote well: “Some authors doubted that these seals could have any real value as evidence of the fall. However, one cannot easily get rid of its specific characters and elements. Why should an artist choose such a motif for his work, which testifies to the cause of the decline of mankind? On the contrary, the choice is more likely to be made in favor of a topic that improves the image of a person.”
While we are certainly not dependent on the findings of archaeologists for our belief in the divine origin of man, we are encouraged to know that the archaeologists' shovel has become a ready witness to the reliability of Scripture.
BIBLICAL PLACES
About a century and a half ago, geographical references in the Bible were subject to considerable misunderstanding. Most of the cities and towns of antiquity have been lost to the dust of a silent past. One of the earliest scholars of biblical lands was Edward Robinson, a Hebrew teacher from Massachusetts, who, with Eli Smith, a Syrian missionary, made two landmark surveys (1838; 1852) that included Sinai, Palestine, and Lebanon. These studies have been of great help in identifying many biblical sites. Robinson has been called "the father of the geography of Palestine". By 1880, about 6,000 places had been identified in Palestine. Of course, many others have been identified over the past century, and some of them are of great importance to Bible students.
Ur. Until 1850, "Ur of the Chaldees", the ancient home of Abram, was believed to be located at Urfa, near Haran in southern Turkey. [In fact, this view has been revived in recent times - cf. Cyres Gordon, Abraham and the Merchants of Urfa, Journal of Near East Studies, XVII, (1958), p. 28–31; Harold Steigers, "Commentary on Genesis" (see note 18), but has not been accepted by most scholars.] Ur is located about 200 kilometers from the Persian Gulf (some believe that in the time of Abram it may have been a seaport, but 4,000 years of sedimentation has pushed the site significantly inland). The city of Ur was discovered by J.E. Taylor in 1854, and between 1922 and 1934. Sir Leonard Woolley carried out significant excavations there. Exciting discoveries showed that Ur had a well-developed writing system, advanced means of mathematical calculations, religious records, fine arts, an educational system, and so on. It has been estimated that the population of Ur was about 34,000, with about 250,000 living in its vicinity. The chief god in Ur was the moon god, Nain (whom the Semitic peoples called "Sin"). It is interesting to note that the name of Abram's father, Terah (Gen. 11:26), comes from a Hebrew word commonly associated with the moon god. Perhaps this sheds some light on Joshua 24:2: "... Terah, Abraham's father... served other gods." Some have argued that the reference to "Ur of the Chaldees" (Gen. 11:28) betrays a later author of Genesis, since the Chaldeans only took over the Ur area in the 7th century BC. But Donald Wiseman, lecturer in Assyriology at the University of London, replied: “The ancient city of Ur was undoubtedly located in the territory called Kaldu (Chaldea) from the very beginning of the first millennium BC. Since this territory was usually named after the tribes that lived there, and since an earlier common name for this territory is not known, it would be unscientific to call the reference to Ur as "Chaldean" an anachronism.
Sava. Solomon was one of the most prominent characters of the Old Testament era. the bible says that “the wisdom of Solomon was higher than the wisdom of all the sons of the east and all the wisdom of the Egyptians. ... and his name was in glory among all the surrounding peoples ”(1 Kings 4:30,31). He wrote songs, poems, understood botany, zoology, economics, etc. People came from all over to hear his wise words (1 Kings 4:34). In this regard, Scripture says that the Queen of Sheba heard about the glory of Solomon, so she "came to test him with riddles" (1 Kings 10:1). She brought a caravan of camels to Jerusalem with gold, incense and precious stones. She was so amazed by what she saw and heard that, having traveled 2,000 kilometers, she exclaimed: “I was not even told half” (1 Kings 10:7). Some skeptical scholars of the past have questioned this Old Testament account; he was treated as a legend, a possible embellishment by which some ancient writer gave interest to the chronicle. However, with the advent of more and more archaeological discoveries, these criticisms have all but disappeared. Professor Yigael Yadin of the Hebrew University acknowledges that "in recent years, the essential historicity of this event has been increasingly recognized." Of course, it is now known that the Kingdom of Sheba was located on the territory of the Sabeans in southeastern Arabia. In an amazing book called This Incredible Book Is the Bible, Dr. Clifford Wilson tells the gripping story of how two European explorers disguised as Bedouins infiltrated ancient Mariv almost a hundred years ago. Exposed, they were forced to flee for their own lives, but before that they managed to make out some wall inscriptions that claimed that Mariv was indeed the capital of ancient Sava. As a side note, Jesus Christ confirmed the historicity of the "Queen of the South" and her visit to Solomon (Matt. 12:42), and this is the answer to this question.
Silom. The prophet Jeremiah addressed the wicked Jews of his time with words about the Jerusalem temple, saying: “I will do to this house as I did to Shiloh...” (Jer. 26:6; cf. 7:12; 26:9 ). What exactly did this warning mean? Shiloh was the place where the Israelites set up the tabernacle after the division of the land between the tribes when Israel entered Hannan. Archaeological evidence appears to indicate that Shiloh was not inhabited prior to the arrival of the Israelites. However, it was inhabited from the time of the Jewish conquest until about 1050 B.C. Although the biblical account nowhere specifically mentions the destruction of Shiloh, it was apparently destroyed around 1050 B.C. and remained neglected until about 300 B.C. Apparently his fate was known to Jeremiah, and the prophet used this as a warning to rebellious Jerusalem. Thus, the mention of Jeremiah is fully consistent with modern finds. The accuracy of the Bible in detail is simply amazing.
Samaria. Although Samaria was not built until fifty years after Solomon's death, it is mentioned more than a hundred times in the Old Testament. Located about 65 kilometers north of Jerusalem, this city was founded by Ombri (about 875 BC), who worked on it for six years (construction was continued by Ahab). It was so well built on a high hill (about 90 meters) that it took the Assyrians three years to take it (2 Kings 17:5). Ahab built a beautiful palace (later remodeled by Jeroboam II) that was decorated with ivory (1 Kings 22:39). Excavations at Samaria were carried out during two major projects, Harvard (1908-1910) and a joint project between Harvard, the Hebrew University and the British School of Archeology (1931-1935). Ahab's palace was discovered. It “was over ninety meters long. It corresponded to the usual plan of Middle Eastern palaces, that is, it was a series of two-story buildings erected around open courtyards. It may be recalled that Ahab's son Ahaziah died from a fall from the window of the upper room (room on the top floor) (2 Kings 1:2–17). Part of the splendor of Ahab's palace was its ivory decorations. It should be remembered that the brave Amos, a prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel, warned that God would strike “the winter house along with the summer house, and the houses with ivory ornaments will disappear ...” (3:15). The prophet rebuked those who reclined "on couches of ivory" (6:4). “The Harvard expedition discovered about five hundred fragments of carved bone, mostly inlaid furniture and small caskets. This significant number remained after the Assyrians sacked the palace in 722 BC. Some fragments had Phoenician inscriptions on the reverse side, and this indicates that either craftsmen or the jewelry itself was brought to Samaria from foreign countries. A pond (10 by 5 meters) with a gentle slope on one side was also found in the yard. Professor Wiseman says that "perhaps this was the same pool in which Ahab's chariot was washed, drenched in his blood" (1 Kings xxii. 38).
Of course, the above examples are only a small fraction of what could be usefully considered. A large amount of new information awaits us in the course of further research, excavations, translations, etc. Undoubtedly, many wonderful discoveries await the serious student of the Bible.
BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY
The task of biblical chronology is to determine as accurately as possible the correct dates for the events and people described in the Bible, so that we can better understand their role in the great plan of the Lord. This area of study is beset by difficulties due to the lack of data and sometimes due to different methods of dating and timing. Often, the definition of dates should be approximate. And here a very important caveat should be mentioned. The Bible is the verbally inspired Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16). Therefore, her testimony is always reliable. When she speaks about questions of chronology, we can be sure that she is right. Therefore, no chronological system can be trusted that contradicts the simple historical and chronological data contained in the sacred text, or requires the manipulation of factual biblical information (which is often done by compromisers who are fascinated by the chronological absurdities of the theory of evolution).
Some say that the chronology of the Bible is, in fact, a rather insignificant subject. Nothing could be further from the truth. Dr. Edwin Thiel wrote: “Chronology is important. Without chronology it is impossible to understand history, for chronology is the basis of history. We know that God considers chronology important because He filled His Word with it. We find chronology not only in the historical books of the Bible, but also in the books of the prophets, in the gospels, and in the writings of Paul.”[emphasis mine - W.J.].
Some archaeologists, in an effort to determine the dates of certain biblical events, have not only adopted methods that are largely based on conjecture, but have also succumbed to the use of those techniques that cast a shadow on clear chronological data in Scripture. For example, some researchers talk about the "ulerhod-14" dating method as if it were a virtually infallible guide to dating some ancient artefacts, overlooking the fact that this system is subject to many assumptions. It is not the purpose of this book to deal with these assumptions, but other authors have done so in a remarkable scientific manner. It will suffice to remark that Dr. W.F. Libby, who won the Nobel Prize in 1960 for discovering this method, was no doubt aware of its shortcomings. He once said: “You read books and find statements that such and such a civilization or such and such an archaeological site is 20,000 years old. We have learned rather unexpectedly that these ancient ages are in fact unknown; in fact, the time of the First Dynasty in Egypt is the latest historical date that has been established with certainty." [Some argue that even the time of the first Egyptian dynasty is not chronologically accurate at all.] Dr. Libby once determined the age of an acacia trunk from an Egyptian tomb from the reign of Pharaoh Djoser to be 2000 B.C., which actually lags behind its true age. 700 years old! And the error probability factor increases with the age of the test sample. Frelic Rainey wrote: “Many archaeologists still believe that the method of radiocarbon dating is a scientific technique that must be either right or wrong. If only everything was that easy!” Continuing, he says that 1870 B.C. (± 6 years) is "the earliest actually recorded date in human history". Therefore, as Kitchen and Mitchell said, carbon-14 “makes little sense in biblical chronology; possible sources of error in this method require that carbon-14 dates continue to be treated with restraint."
There are many other problems associated with trying to build a biblical chronology based on a subjective analysis of archaeological data. The famous archaeologist Dame Kathleen Kenyon, who worked for many years in Palestine, engaged in excavations, argued: "Chronology in Palestine cannot stand on its own feet, if we are not talking about a relatively late era." The difficulties of archaeological dating are well discussed in Dr. Donovan Corville's two-volume The Problem of the Exodus and Its Consequences (see footnote 31).
However, archaeological discoveries may be more authoritative in later periods of Israel's history. Let's look at a few examples.
Exodus. The Bible scholars have proposed two main periods for the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt, the early period (15th century BC) and the later period (13th century BC). For those who accept the clear chronological statement in 1 Kings 6:1, the matter is settled: “In the four hundred and eightieth year after the departure of the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of the reign of Solomon over Israel, in the month of Zif, which is the second month, he began to build a temple to the Lord. The fourth year of the reign of Solomon is considered to be 966 BC. This means that the Exodus took place around 1446/5 BC. But, as Professors John Davies and John C. Whitcomb have noted, "many scholars, refusing to accept the historical accuracy of the numbers in the Bible, date these events to the thirteenth century BC." But some argue that archaeological evidence supports a later date. However, this allegation was well answered by Gleason Archer.
“Defenders of a later exodus date rely on the archaeologically inferred date of the fall of Lachish, 1230, and the nearly simultaneous destruction of Davir, as well as Bethel (which was presumably confused with Ai in the seventh chapter of the Book of Joshua), as an indication of a possible the time of Joshua's invasion of Canaan. This would move the time of the exodus to between 1290 and 1260. (taking into account forty years of wandering in the wilderness). But this is evidence in the highest degree unconvincing, since Joshua 10:32 says nothing about the actual destruction of Lachish itself (but only about the slaughter of its inhabitants). Also, Joshua 10:38 says nothing about the burning of Debir. As for Jericho, no archaeological evidence was found either by K. Kenyon or by other researchers who excavated in Tel el-Sultan to refute the find of J. Garstang, who found that the cemetery connected to Jericho of the fourth layer of the Bronze Age did not contain scarabs of a later period than the reign of Amenhotep 111 (1412-1376), or earthenware dating before 1400 (out of 150,000 clay fragments, only one sherd definitely belonged to the Mycenaean type). Actually, the archaeological evidence against the later date theory is quite convincing." [emphasis mine - W.J.]
In connection with the above data, Dr. Siegfried H. Horn, Professor of Archeology and Antiquity at Andrews University, wrote:
“During the excavations of the great city of Hazora in northern Galilee, conducted by Yigael Jadin in 1955-1958, evidence came to light that showed that this city was destroyed during the thirteenth century BC. Some researchers, believing that the exodus took place in this century, have interpreted this archaeological evidence as supporting their hypothesis about the date of the exodus. However, biblical chronological data points to the fifteenth century B.C. as the time of the exodus, and evidence of the destruction of this ancient city in this century was also found in the ruins of Hazor. Moreover, the destruction of Hazor during the thirteenth century corresponds to the war of liberation waged by the Israelites against the king of Hazor, led by Deborah and Barak, in 1258 B.C. (Book of Judges, chapters 4 and 5). During this war, the army of the king of Hazor, Jabin, under the leadership of Sisera, was decisively defeated, and, undoubtedly, Hazor was destroyed. The ruins provide eloquent evidence of destruction precisely during the period of the judges. [emphasis mine - W.J.].
Battle of Karkor. An inscription made on a stone in ancient Assyria, now in the British Museum, tells of great battle under Karkor [Karkar] on the river Orontes north of Damascus in 853 BC. The clash was between the Assyrian army of Shalmaneser III and a coalition of Syrian forces, however, among the opponents of Shalmaneser, "Ahab, the Israelite" is especially mentioned, who provided 2,000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers for this military campaign. "This document is the first direct chronological mention of relations between Israel and Assyria..."[emphasis mine - W.J.]. The Assyrian chronology of this period is well established by means of the Assyrian eponymous lists, which mention a solar eclipse on June 15, 763 B.C. This information, together with that provided by Shalmaneser's records and the corresponding biblical data, allows Ahab's death to be determined with relative certainty around 853/2 B.C.
Tribute to Jehu. Between 849 and 841 BC Shalmaneser III went west nine times. Syria has become a vassal. In the inscription on the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, a four-sided black limestone column 2 meters high, found in Nimrod by A.Kh. Layard, the Assyrian monarch says: "I received tribute from the inhabitants of Tire, Sidon and from Jehu, son of Omri." Since it is known that, according to the Assyrian eponymous list, this happened in the eighteenth year of the reign of Shalmaneser, it is known that Jehu was on the throne in 841 BC, thus establishing a key date in biblical chronology. Interestingly, the Black Obelisk contains an image of Jehu bowing before the Assyrian king, while Israelite servants bring gifts to him as tribute. Jehu is depicted with a short round beard, dressed in a sleeveless jacket and a long skirt with a fringe and a belt. He has a soft cap on his head. This is the only image of the Jewish king of that time that we have.
Invasion of Sennacherib. In the ruins of Nineveh, a six-sided clay prism (called the Taylor prism) was found, on which the story of several military campaigns of the Assyrian king Sennacherib is recorded. The prism shows that Sennacherib invaded Judah in 701 BC, which, according to 2 Kings 18:13, happened in the fourteenth year of the Jewish king Hezekiah. The Assyrian king boasts that he conquered the forty-six fortified cities of Judah (cf. 18:13) and laid siege to Jerusalem (cf. 18:17). Of Hezekiah he says: "I shut him up as a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal city, like a bird in a cage." In characteristic fashion, he forgets to mention why he did not take Jerusalem! The Messenger of the Lord went out and killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night (2 Kings 19:35,36; 2 Chron. 32:21,22; Is. 37:36-38). This dreadful event is wonderfully depicted in Lord Byron's epic poem "The Defeat of Sennacherib," from which we quote one stanza:
The angel of death only spread its wings to the wind
And breathed into their faces - and their eyes dimmed,
And a dream fell on cloudy eyes without end,
And only once rose and cooled hearts.
(Translated by A. Tolstoy)
Babylonian food leave tablets.“Shortly before the Second World War, Ernst Weidner was working in a Berlin museum on many simple and unpretentious cuneiform tablets from a storage of grain and oil found on the grounds of Nebuchadnezzar's palace in Babylon. These documents list the number of products allocated daily to people who were in the palace in a dependent position, builders, artists and hostages. To his surprise, Widener found on several documents from 592 B.C. the name of the Jewish king Jeconiah, along with his five sons and their Jewish mentor, as recipients of grain and oil, five years after the start of Jeconiah's exile. ... The discovery of Babylonian food rationing tablets mentioning Jeconiah was the first confirmation of the accuracy of the biblical narrative regarding one of the conquests of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar.
Further confirmation of this same conquest came in 1956, when Donald Wiseman published a text found among clay tablets in the British Museum. This tablet contained the Babylonian chronicles of several years of Nebuchadnezzar's activity. It had arrived at the British Museum many years earlier, but its extraordinary value was only recognized after Wiseman subjected it to study and deciphering. Among other extremely interesting historical information was the news that Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem on the second day of the twelfth month of the seventh year of his reign, deposed King Jeconiah and replaced him on the throne with a new king. For the first time in the history of biblical archeology, a text appeared that established the exact date of a biblical event. The biblical record only says that the conquest of Jerusalem and the captivity of Jeconiah after his short three-month reign took place in 597 BC, but there was no hint in the Bible as to the time of year when this happened. “However, this missing date is filled in by the Babylonian records, which indicate March 16, 597 B.C. according to the Julian calendar"[emphasis mine - W.J.].
When we turn to the New Testament, we find that although it is very accurate in historical footnotes and follows a chronological sequence, it does not, at least now, fit into the chronology of the first century with the archaeological accuracy that characterizes the Old Testament.
Decree of Claudius. During his second missionary journey, Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. There, we know, he found a Jew named Aquila, “newly come from Italy” with his wife Priscilla, “because Claudius commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome” (Acts 18:1,2). This is mentioned by the Roman historian Suetonius, who says: "... Since the Jews constantly made unrest, instigated by Crestus, he [Claudius] drove them out of Rome ..." ("Life of Claudius", xxv, 4). [Note. By "Crestus" is usually meant a mention of Christ.] But Suetonius does not mention the date of this event. However, Orosius, the historian of the fifth century, dates it to A.D. 49. ("History", VII, vi, 15). Thus, this reference gives the general time of Paul's arrival in Corinth.
Gallion in Achaia. During Paul's stay in Corinth, when Gallio was the proconsul of Achaia, the Jews rebelled against the great apostle and brought him before the judgment seat of Gallio (Acts 18:12). At the beginning of this century, in the city of Delphi (ten kilometers from the northern part of the Gulf of Corinth), a mangled inscription was discovered that mentions Gallio (with his official title, "proconsul") and determines the time of his stay in power. F.F. Bruce puts it this way:
"Evidence for the period of Gallio's proconsulship in Achaia is provided by an inscription containing Claudius' rescript to the inhabitants of Delphi... which mentions that Gallio held this office during the period of Claudius's 26th acclamation as emperor - this period, as is known from other inscriptions ( Corpus Incriptionum Latinarum, iii, 476; vi, /256), continued during the first seven months of A.D. 52. Proconsuls took office on 1 July. If this rescript does not belong to the very end of the period in question (in which case Gallio could have received the proconsulship on July 1, 52 AD), then Gallio arrived in his province on July 1, 51 AD. or so."
Finegan notes: “The Book of Acts gives the impression that Gallio arrived in Corinth shortly before the Jews brought Paul into his presence. Since by that time the apostle had been in the city for a year and a half (Acts 18:11), we can with sufficient certainty date Paul's arrival in Corinth to the beginning of 50 AD.
THE HISTORICAL ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE
If the Bible is indeed the inspired Word (2 Tim. 3:16), we have every right to expect it to be accurate in historical detail. However, for many years the enemies of Scripture have sharply criticized the sacred narrative. It has often been claimed that the Bible contains numerous historical errors. However, the painstaking work of archaeologists turned these "mistakes" into steam, just as the sun evaporates the morning dew. Let's explore some of the so-called biblical "inaccuracies."
Camels in Egypt. When Abram was temporarily in Egyptian soil, Pharaoh gave this patriarch certain possessions, among which were camels (Gen. 12:16). Therefore, it is clear that there were camels in Egypt at that time. Also, several centuries later, when the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians, we remember how the Lord brought a series of plagues on the Egyptians because of the stubbornness of the pharaoh, who refused to let the Israelites go. One of these plagues was a disease (plague) that afflicted the livestock of the Egyptians, and among the afflicted animals were camels (Ex. 9:3). Hence, we have another incidental mention of camels in the Bible, which testifies to their presence in Egypt during this early historical period.
However, liberal writers have made fairly outspoken accusations that Scripture is simply wrong on this point. For example, the author with modernist views R.Kh. Pfeiffer classifies this reference as an obvious mistake, and T.K. Cheyne says of these passages, "The claim that the ancient Egyptians knew camels is unsubstantiated." Such statements reflect a very bold attitude towards the Bible and are completely unjustified.
Archaeological evidence has undoubtedly justified the Genesis narrative in this matter. Professor Kenneth Kitchen says: “Despite its limitations and imperfections, the available evidence indicates that the domesticated camel was known by 3000 B.C. and continued to be used as a slow carrier of goods during the second millennium B.C. .X., while the donkey remained the main beast of burden.” Archaeologist Joseph P. Free argues that considerable evidence supports the use of camels in Egypt long before the time of Abraham. For example, in 1935, a camel skull was found in an oasis southwest of Cairo, dating from about 2000-1400 BC. Canton-Thompson discovered camel hair rope during excavations in 1927–28. (about 2500 BC). Also in the Egyptian province of Faiyum camel heads made by pottery were found (age from 3000 BC).
Hittites. The twenty-third chapter of the Book of Genesis tells how Abraham bought the cave of Machpelah (for the burial of Sarah) and the field in which it was located from Ephron the "Hittite" (v. 10). Abraham's grandson, Esau, married two Hittite women (Gen. 26:34). One of David's companions was Ahimelech, the Hittite (1 Sam. 26:6), and David's adultery with Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite, is well known (2 Sam. 23:39). Dr. Ira Price wrote of these passages: “The Hittites (Hittites) are often mentioned in the Old Testament. In other respects, they were a forgotten people until the second half of the nineteenth century. The lack of extra-biblical evidence for their existence has led some scholars to deny their historicity. They ridiculed the idea that Israel found allies with a non-existent people like the Hittites, as mentioned in 2 Kings 7:6. But these statements turned into steam.”
The name "Hittites" is apparently used in the Old Testament in two different values. First, it refers to an ethnic group that lived in Canaan during the patriarchal period (Gen. 15:20; 23:10, etc.). Secondly, it is used in relation to a large empire that covered all of Syria “from the desert and this Lebanon to the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites; and to the great sea [Mediterranean] towards the setting of the sun” (Josh. 1:4). Some researchers suggest that the Canaanite Hittites were not the same people as the Hittites from the north (their names are similar, but they are not the same); others believe that the Canaanite Hittites migrated to this territory from some part of the great country of the Hittites many years before. As J.A. Thompson, it is known that "at the beginning of the second millennium in the ancient Near East there were significant movements of peoples, and in Canaan the presence of representatives of completely different peoples can be expected." The Ebla tablets testify to the large number of migrations during the patriarchal period.
In 1906, Henry Winkler of the German Oriental Society discovered the Hittite capital of Bogazköy in Turkey. More than 10,000 clay tablets were recovered from the ground at the excavation site. Bogazkoy was big city with strong fortifications. The evidence from this place has greatly advanced the study of this people. Moreover, some of these discoveries are related to the patriarchs in Genesis, thus establishing the accuracy of this inspired document. For example, in the twenty-third chapter of the Book of Genesis, the historian recorded that Abraham bought the cave of Machpelu and the field in which it was located from Ephron the Hittite for four hundred shekels of silver. The details of this deal are of great interest (verses 8–16). In 1901, Morris Jastrow of the University of Pennsylvania criticized the account of the event in Genesis, arguing that these "details, such as the formal purchase, may have been added by someone's imagination of a much later period, in which the embellishment of Abraham in Midrashic style has become a favorite subject. This unsubstantiated claim was shattered by evidence from Bogazköy. Thus, Manfred R. Lehmann stated:
“Thus we find that the twenty-third chapter of Genesis is permeated with a fine awareness of the complex intricacies of Hittite laws and customs, which is rightly related to the time of Abraham and fits the Hittite characteristics of the biblical narrative. With the final destruction of the Hittite capital of Hattusas around 1200 B.C., these laws must have fallen into oblivion. This study once again confirms the authenticity of the Old Testament "background materials", which makes it such an invaluable source for the study of all aspects of the social, economic and legal life of the periods of history that it depicts.
To this we add the commentary of John Davies, teacher of Old Testament and Hebrew at Grace Theological Seminary and a frequent participant in archaeological expeditions in Palestine: “The obvious parallels between this transaction and those preserved in the Hittite documents have at least two possible implications. . First, they may indicate that the Hittites who lived in the southern hill country of Palestine were indeed related to those who lived in ancient Anatolia. Secondly, they seem to eliminate the later date for the writing of Genesis."
Philistines. On several occasions, the Genesis account states in passing that Abraham, Isaac, etc. had occasional contact with the Philistines. Liberal researchers consider this an anachronism - the details of the later period are placed in the context of the patriarchal period. H.T. Frank called these references a "historical inaccuracy", arguing that: "Archaeology has shown that the patriarchs and the Philistines were separated in time by at least 300 years and at most perhaps 700 years." Archeology has not "showed" anything like this! Gleason Archer summed up the problem and gave an answer:
“Because of the existence of the Ramses III inscription at Medinet Habu, which records a naval victory over the Philistines in about 1195 B.C., many critics have suggested that it was defeat at the hands of the Egyptians that caused them to settle on the Philistine coast. They thus conclude that any mention of the Philistines prior to 1195 B.C. is necessarily an anachronism, whether in the twenty-first chapter of Genesis, the thirteenth chapter of Joshua, or the third chapter of Judges. According to this interpretation, neither Abraham nor Isaac could find the Philistines at Gerar as recorded (cf. Gen. 21:32,34; 26:1,8,14,15,18). But the fact that the Philistines who raided Egypt were driven back by Ramses III to the Palestinian coast in no way proves that the Philistines were not there before. Biblical references show that it was a heterogeneous people, including several separate groups, such as Kheleths and Feleths, Kaftorians and Keftians. It is possible that these various groups arrived in successive waves of migration from the island of Crete. Even in the Minoan period, the inhabitants of Crete were enterprising merchants long before the time of Abraham. In this regard, they certainly had every incentive to establish centers of trade on the Palestinian coast for the purpose of bartering.”
The fact that the existence of the Philistines before the 12th century B.C. is not supported by archeology, it is just a lack of information, and this argument has no convincing value. Kitchen noted: “With regard to ancient inscriptions, we know so little about the Aegean peoples in comparison with other peoples of the ancient Near East in the second millennium BC, that it would be premature to completely deny the possible existence of the Philistines on the shores of the Aegean before 1200 BC. BC" In light of the recurring events of the past, it would seem that the modernists must have learned to restrain their final judgments as long as the question remains open. But they choose to blame the Bible for errors, and through this constantly plunge themselves into one embarrassing position after another!
Writing. Writing is first mentioned in the Bible in the Book of Exodus 17:14, when after the defeat of the pagan king Amalek by the Israelites, God said to Moses: "Write this for memory in a book ...". This is followed by numerous other references to writing. Moses wrote down "the words of the covenant, the ten words" (Ex. 34:27,28; cf. 24:4; Deut. 31:19,22; Num. 33:2; Jos. N. 8:31, etc.) .
Hostile critics of the Bible, remaining true to themselves, argued that in the time of Moses there was no system of alphabetical writing. This was one of the arguments used to "prove" that the Pentateuch was written at a later period than the life of Moses. T.K. Cheyne, in The Encyclopedia of the Bible, claimed that the Torah [law] was written nearly a thousand years after Moses. In fact, the modernists said that the art of writing was virtually unknown in Israel until the establishment of the Davidic kingdom. But these claims of unbelievers have been completely refuted. Let's consider the following.
(1) In 1933 J.L. Starkey, a student of the renowned archaeologist W.M.F. Petri, began excavations at Lachish, a Jewish city, which played big role in the conquest of Canaan by Joshua (cf. Joshua ch. 10). Among the striking finds was an earthenware jar "on which was a dedication of eleven archaic letters, the earliest known 'Jewish' inscription." (2) “Old or Paleo-Hebrew writing is similar to the writing system used by the Phoenicians. The royal inscription of the Ebal king Shafatbal (byblos), made in this alphabet, dates from about 1600 BC.” (3) In 1904–1905 Sir Flinders Petrie discovered examples of the Proto-Semitic alphabet at Serawit el-Khadem in the Sinai Peninsula. U.F. Albright dates these finds to the beginning of the 15th century BC, although Finegan puts their age at about 1989-1776. BC Significant about these inscriptions is the fact that they were found in turquoise mines in the very place where God commanded Moses to "write" (Ex. 17:14). “Only a very ignorant person can now argue that writing (in many forms) was not known in Palestine and the territories surrounding it during the entire second millennium BC.” (4) In 1949, K.F.A. Schaefer found a tablet in Ras Shamra containing thirty letters of the Ugaritic alphabet in their correct order. It was found that the sequence of letters in the Ugaritic alphabet was the same as in modern Hebrew, which means that the Hebrew alphabet is at least 3,500 years old. (5) In 1908 R.A.S. Macalister discovered a small limestone tablet at Gazer. It dates from around the 10th century BC. Obviously, this is a schoolboy's tablet, which lists agricultural activities for twelve months. It is written in the Hebrew alphabet. Professor Archer notes that "since this is an obvious exercise for a schoolboy, it shows that the art of writing in Israel was so well known and widely used in the tenth century that even children in the provinces were taught this skill." Once again, the skeptics were proven wrong.
Grapes in Egypt. When Joseph ended up in Egyptian prison (because of a false accusation), God was with him (Gen. 39:21) and he was given the ability to interpret dreams. One day, Joseph's neighbor in the prison room, the king's chief butler, told his dream to this Jew, the man of God. The cupbearer said: “... behold, the vine is before me; There are three branches on the vine. She developed, the color appeared on her, the berries grew and ripened on her. And Pharaoh's cup in my hand. I took the berries and squeezed them into Pharaoh's bowl...” (Gen. 40:9-11). Therefore, the biblical account makes it clear that the Egyptians cultivated grapes. However, there were some who thought they knew better, and so they declared that Moses' story was wrong. In an interesting book, Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament, George Rawlinson, professor of ancient history at Oxford, mentions that Herodotus, known as the "father of ancient history," denies the existence of grapes in Egypt" (p.77). Moreover, he says that Plutarch claims that wine was only consumed in Egypt during the reign of Psammetichus (centuries after the death of Joseph). But Rawlinson quotes Sir G. Wilkinson that "wine in Egypt was universally consumed by the rich, and beer replaced it on the tables of the poor, not because there were no grapes in the country, but because beer was cheaper."
In Dr. Henry Rimmer's book The Dead Tell Stories, there is a photograph of a fresco depicting an Egyptian feast with wine. One section of the fresco "depicts a noble woman who is depicted with her slave holding a silver goblet as she vomits excess fluid that clashes with the more worthy elements of the feast!" Of course, today such criticism of the Old Testament has fallen silent. One recent work says: "Paintings found on the walls in Egyptian tombs describe the various stages of wine making, while inscriptions and sculptures testify to the importance of wine." In fact, over the past few decades, archaeologists have discovered a number of remarkable details in the Genesis account of Joseph's sojourn in Egypt that correspond to the actual historical circumstances of the period. Dr. Clifford Wilson devoted an entire chapter to these questions in one of his books, and he writes: “These are moments that in themselves may seem insignificant, but when they are multiplied in so many ways, we again and again come to realize that The Bible is an amazingly accurate textbook of history."
Sargon, king of Assyria. Isaiah says: “In the year that Tartan came to Azoth, being sent from Sargon, king of Assyria, and fought against Azoth, and took him ...” (Is. 20:1). In these words the prophet states the following: (1) Sargon was an Assyrian king; (2) this king conquered Azoth; and (3) this conquest was carried out by "Tartan", i.e., his general (see note in SPBT). Until 1843, the Bible was considered the only work in all of classical literature that mentioned the name of Sargon. This has led some critics of the Bible to deny its existence. Others have identified Sargon with his predecessor, Shalmaneser V, or his son Sennacherib. What was the real solution to this question?
In 1843, the French archaeologist Paul-Emile Botta discovered the exquisite palace of Sargon II, built in 706 BC. in Khorsabad, twenty-two kilometers northeast of ancient Nineveh. It has been described as "perhaps the most remarkable palace in the whole world, covering an area of twenty-five acres". The artistic bas-reliefs on the city walls and in the palace depict various aspects of the Assyrian way of life with striking realism. Scenes depicting Sargon's victories are numerous. It has been estimated that, if added together, the sculpted bas-reliefs found among the ruins would be about 1,600 meters long. These scenes depict the courage, bloodshed, and victories of Sargon's troops, but never his defeats. Thus, it was convincingly proved that Sargon II really lived, that it was not Shalmaneser V, who was his brother, and was not Sennacherib, who was his son.
Ashdod was one of the five important Philistine cities located east of Jerusalem near the Mediterranean Sea (cf. 1 Sam. 6:17). This city was captured by the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C., but in 712 B.C. he rebelled, and so Sargon II sent forces to quell the resistance. Isaiah says that Sargon sent Tartan, that is, his general, to pacify the rebellion. But some Assyrian records seem to indicate that Sargon led the raid himself, so the accuracy of Isaiah 20:1 has again been questioned. However, once again it turned out that Isaiah was absolutely right. Additional Assyrian evidence vindicated him. This case is considered by William Hallo: "Sargon remained in his land", as evidenced by the eponymous chronicle, and this confirms the statement of Isaiah that his commander, Tartanu, led the campaign, contrary to the statements of Sargon's chroniclers ... that he personally led this hike." Archaeologists excavated the city of Azot in 1963 and found evidence of Sargon's conquest. One gruesome find was in a small room containing thirty skeletons, “probably the victims of an Assyrian attack. In 1963, three fragments of an Assyrian pole depicting the victory of Sargon became a remarkable find in Azot.
There is another question regarding Sargon that is of archaeological interest to Bible students. In 2 Kings 17:1–6 we are told that Shalmaneser, the Assyrian king, marched against the city of Samaria and besieged it for three years. Finally, it is said that “the king of Assyria took Samaria and resettled the Israelites in Assyria…” (v. 6). The difficulty lies in the fact that in the annals of Sargon II he boasts that he took Samaria. He claims to have been "the conqueror of Samaria and all the land of Israel". He says, "I laid siege and subjugated Samaria and took 27,290 of its inhabitants into captivity." So, who actually took Samaria - Shalmaneser V or Sargon II? Which narrative is more accurate - the Bible or the annals of Sargon? Are these two facts mutually exclusive?
Some, like Andre Parrotte, who wrote the book Nineveh and the Old Testament, foolishly accused the author of the Books of Kings of a mistake. The question to be raised at this point is why it happens to many scholars that if there is a seeming contradiction between the Bible and a piece of non-biblical literature, it is initially assumed that Scripture is to be blamed. Doesn't this show the theological bias of such critics?
Well, the answer to this riddle can be found in the Bible itself (primarily). In 2 Kings 18:9,10 we read the following: “Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, went to Samaria and laid siege to it. And he took it three years later ... ". The grammatical form of the verb in this case indicates that it should be translated as "took", that is, the plural. It is possible that Sargon is included in this mention! Several solutions to this problem have been proposed. Some, like D.J. Wiseman and Howard Vos, consider it likely that Shalmaneser carried out most of the conquest, but he died in 722 BC, at which time Sargon took the throne, and the city fell in the first year of his reign. Others believe that Samaria did indeed fall to Shalmaneser, but Sargon, who was the general at the time of the siege, later exaggerated his role in the conquest to embellish the records. There seems to be compelling evidence to support this view. Hallo wrote: “Salmaneser V died in December of the same year (722 B.C.), that is, after the fall of Samaria, and those scholars who, like Olmsted, argued that 2 Kings 17:6 and 18 :10 is exactly what it suggests, received confirmation of their point of view. Although Sargon may have participated in the siege of Samaria as the second most important general, much later in his reign he misappropriated the triumph of his predecessor to fill a gap in military activities, which existed in the first year of his reign in the early chronicles". Similarly, Professor William Shea notes that Sargon “could only add to his prestige by claiming such a conquest. It is suspicious that there is no mention of the conquest of Samaria in manuscripts from the early days of Sargon's reign; they come mainly from inscriptions attributed to the fifteenth or sixteenth year of his reign.” Moreover, as Shi notes:
“There is the Babylonian Chronicle, which can be regarded as a relatively unbiased source of information about Assyria and Samaria. It is also considered one of the most objective sources on the history of Mesopotamia during the periods it covers. Since the Babylonian Chronicle attributes the conquest of Samaria to Shalmaneser and not to Sargon, the significance of this evidence reinforces the assertion that the first of the two kings was the true conqueror of Samaria in 722 BC. However, it may be noted in Sargon's favor that he took Shalmaneser's place in December of that year and indeed played an important role in leading the attack on Samaria, although Shalmaneser V is still the most likely candidate for the laurels of the king who reigned in Assyria at that time, when Samaria fell before his army."
Therefore, it seems most likely that the plural form in 2 Kings 18:10 is another of the thousands of examples of the absolutely amazing accuracy of God's Word.
Belshazzar. The great feast of Belshazzar, king of Babylon, is vividly depicted in the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel. In the midst of a pagan feast, when wine flowed like a river, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote words of evil omen and condemnation on the plastered wall of the royal palace. God numbered Belshazzar's kingdom and brought it to an end. Belshazzar was weighed on the scales of the divine measure and was found light. According to the Word of God as interpreted by Daniel, the empire was to be taken from the king and divided between the Medes and the Persians. Because of his role in this dramatic episode, Daniel was dressed in purple, placed on a golden chain, and proclaimed third in the kingdom. That same night, Babylon was attacked and Belshazzar was killed.
This narrative, like many others, bore the weight of critical barbs. Professor A.A. Bevan of Cambridge wrote of this event: “...the narrative in the Book of Daniel is unhistorical. However, a non-historical narrative is not necessarily pure fiction, and in this case it appears that the author of the Book of Daniel has taken advantage of the traditional narrative. Theological liberalism has found fault with Daniel 5 in the following details: (1) since Belshazzar's name disappeared from historical records for many centuries, some have argued that he did not really even exist; he was pure fiction; (2) others acknowledged his existence, but argued that he was not "king" as presented in Daniel's account (5:1,2 etc.); (3) it is stated that Nebuchadnezzar was by no means his "father" (5:2,11); since chapter 5 (as part of 2:4–7:28) was written in Aramaic and not in Hebrew, it was argued that it could not have been written by Daniel, so it was written many centuries later. What to say in response to these accusations? The shovel of archaeologists has become a diligent assistant in protecting the integrity of the biblical text. Let's consider the following.
First of all, the name of Belshazzar was discovered in the chronicles of Nabonidus (published in 1882); he was not fictional; it really existed, although evidence of it was hidden for many centuries. Secondly, although he was not the sole monarch of the Babylonian kingdom, he nevertheless was indeed "king" in joint rule with his father Nabunayd [Nabonid]. The text of one of the Babylonian cuneiform personalities says about Nabonidus: “He entrusted the camp to his eldest son, the firstborn [Belshazzar]; he sent the army of the earth with him. He freed his hand; he entrusted him kingdom...” [emphasis mine. - W.J.]. The Nabonidus Chronicle tells that Belshazzar became king (in 556 BC) while Nabonidus was in Arabia for about ten years. Jack Finegan writes: "Hence, since Belshazzar did indeed exercise joint rule in Babylon, and no doubt did so to the end, Daniel 5:30 is right in presenting him as the last king of Babylon." Thirdly, the mention of Nebuchadnezzar as the father of Belshazzar should not be considered as a mistake. The use of the word "father" in the Semitic languages was vague; Edward Young says that it could have been used in at least eight different ways. Many researchers believe that Belshazzar was the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar (on the maternal side). In any case, the word "son" often denoted a successor in the same position, regardless of whether there was a blood relationship. In Assyrian manuscripts, Jehu is called the "son of Omri", although in reality he was only the king's successor without any genealogical connections. Fourth, a number of discoveries have shown conclusively that the Aramaic part of the Book of Daniel does not reject its origin in the sixth century BC. Papyri found in 1903 on the island of Elephantine (the ancient Greek name), in Upper Egypt, led many scholars to conclude that the linguistic arguments in favor of the late date of the writing of the Book of Daniel should be put aside. The discovery of additional documents since then (such as those from Qumran) has solidified conservative positions about the authorship of the Book of Daniel.
The accuracy of Daniel 5 is also demonstrated in other ways. (1) Daniel was proclaimed third in the kingdom (and this indicates that Nabonidus and Belshazzar occupied the first two places in the empire). (2) Mysterious writing appeared on the "lime" of the palace wall. "The excavations have shown that the palace walls did indeed have a thin layer of painted lime." (3) The entry of the queen into the banqueting hall and her advice to call on Daniel to interpret the inscription on the wall is in good agreement with the facts of antiquity, which present the Babylonian queen mother as occupying a high position in the palace. (4) The Babylonian record records the death of an unnamed king when Babylon was captured by the Persians (see Dan. 5:30), but it could not be Nabonidus, for, as the Babylonian chronicles show, Nabonidus was not in Babylon when there was his fall; he returned later and was taken into custody. Dr. John Whitcomb has well said that Daniel "has evidence of having a more accurate knowledge of Neo-Babylonian and early Persian history during the reign of the Achaemenids than any other known historian from the sixth century BC." Thus, The bible is right.
Darius Midyanin. In the book "Darius the Mede and the Four World Empires in the Book of the Prophet Daniel" (1935) H.Kh. Rowley, the famous British explorer, calls Darius the Mede from the Book of Daniel (5:31; 6:1,6,9,25,28, etc.) "a fictitious creature" (p. 59). Since Darius the Mede is not mentioned outside the Old Testament (at least not under that name, as finds made so far show), and since the cuneiform inscriptions do not mention any king between Nabonidus/Belshazzar and the accession of Cyrus, many liberal scholars have denied historicity of Darius. Some, like D.J. Wiseman, identified Darius with Cyrus himself; a more acceptable view is that he was a king under Cyrus, for the text says that he was "appointed, was king" (9:1) [who appointed him?] and he "received the kingdom" (5:31 ) [from whom?], and this indicates someone who had more power than he did. Dr. John C. Whitcomb said that Darius was actually the same person as "Gubaru", the ruler under Cyrus, who appointed lower rulers [satraps (cf. 6:1)] in Babylon immediately after her fall (as recorded in the chronicle of Nabonidus). Since there is a significant lack of archaeological evidence for the Neo-Babylonian period, it would no doubt be superficial to conclude that the Book of Daniel is in error in this case. Faith in the integrity of the Word of God will patiently await further research. The author of this book predicts that in time Daniel's account will be fully confirmed.
Archeology has become a friend not only of the Old Testament, but also of the New. The reader may study the following interesting examples.
Lysanias. Luke's mention of "Lisanias, tetrarch (tetrarch) in Abilene" at the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist, in the fifteenth year of Tiberius, has been quoted for many years! as a mistake in the narration of the historian. The only ruler who, according to ancient sources, bore this name was Lysanias, who ruled in Chalcea; Josephus mentions him, but he died in 36 BC. This led David Strauss and other kindred spirits to accuse Luca of a "significant chronological error". However, "Two Greek inscriptions at Avila, northwest of Damascus, prove that there was a 'Tetrarch Lysanias' between 14 and 29 AD. from R.Kh.”
Quirinius in Syria. Explaining how Joseph and Mary ended up in Bethlehem when Jesus was born, Luke (2:1,2) announces the decree of Caesar Augustus for a census throughout the earth (i.e., in the Roman Empire). He states that "this census was the first in the reign of Quirinius over Syria." Since it is known that the census under Quirinius, who ruled in Syria, was taken in the year 6 A.D., and nothing is known of any other census, and since it is certain that Christ was born before the death of Herod the Great in 4 AD. BC (cf. Matt. 2:1 et seq.), some scholars have concluded that Luke here erroneously referred to the A.D. 6 census. But this is impossible, for Luke certainly knew about the census of Quirinius A.D. 6, and this is evidenced by the fact that he refers to this "census" in connection with the rebellion of Judas the Galilean (Acts 5:37; cf. Josephus Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, 18.1.1). So, Luke still did not get confused.
In 1912, an inscription (dated 10-7 BC) was discovered in Antioch in Pisidia, which states that a certain Gaius Coristanius Front was "the prefect of the duumvir P. Sulpicus Quirinius." Sir William Ramsay, a critic who became convinced of the reliability of Luke's account through his own archaeological research, thus argued that Quirinius "ruled" Syria-Cilicia (the unified provinces of the time) around 8 B.C. It is possible that he was a "ruler" (Greek word, hegemoneuo, can mean "to be a leader, command, rule, order") in some other position, different from the usual ruler of Syria. If the execution of the census scheduled for this time was delayed by a couple of years or so, which is quite possible, then this would fit wonderfully into Luke's account. Moreover, another inscription, discovered in Rome in 1828, which is called Lapis Tiburtinus, says that someone served Interum Syriam, that is, "the second time Syria". Ramsay claims it was Quirinius. Unfortunately, there is no name on this inscription, but, as Vardaman points out, “no one will do better in this case than Quirinia!”. There is certainly no evidence that Luke was wrong, and in light of his known accuracy in every verifiable detail, it would be wise to trust his account. He was much closer to those circumstances than modern slanderers.
Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate is one of the most odious characters in the New Testament narrative. His relationship with Christ is well known to virtually every student of the Bible. Although several authors of the first century speak of Pilate (Philo, Josephus Flavius and Tacitus), nevertheless, as H.T. Frank, "other than coins, until 1961 there was no conclusive archaeological evidence of its presence in Palestine." However, in 1961, Italian archaeologists working in Caesarea accidentally discovered an inscription with the name of Pilate. This inscription served as a dedication of the temple from Pilate to Tiberius (probably to worship the emperor). A free translation of this inscription reads something like this: “Tiberium [a temple dedicated to the worship of Tiberius] was presented by Pontius Pilate, the prefect of Judea, from the Caesareans.” This agrees remarkably with the New Testament indication that Pilate sought to ingratiate himself with Caesar and was afraid of losing him (cf. John 19:12). Pilate's contempt for the Jews is also shown in the three coins he minted (two kinds); they depict "remarkable pagan symbols - litus(diviner's wand) and simpulum(bucket for libations). This, of course, is consistent with the gospel narratives.
crucifixion.“And when they came to the place called Skull, there they crucified Him...” (Luke 23:33). Although there are many references to the crucifixion in the secular literature of the first centuries of the Christian era, the first material evidence was discovered in June 1968. An urn (stone box) was found on the Armory Hill in the northeastern part of Jerusalem, in which were the bones of a crucified young man named John. This find is dated between 6 and 66 years. from R.H. The fold of the radius shows that it was nailed in the area of the forearm [ cheiras, translated as "hands" (John 20:27)]. This urn also contained heel bones pierced with a 10 cm iron nail (see illustration). Also, the bones of the legs were broken, as in the case of the thieves, who were crucified on both sides of the Lord (John 19:31,32).
Nazareth Decree. The apostle Paul was absolutely right when he stated: “If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is in vain, and our faith is also in vain” (1 Cor. 15:14). If any fact of antiquity can be proved, it is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The great scholar of ancient philology, Thomas Arnold (1795–1842), who was professor of modern history at Oxford, once described the Lord's resurrection as "the most confirmed fact in human history." Of course, the resurrection of Christ, on the basis of both the New Testament narrative itself and the profound influence of Christianity, is already irrefutable. However, there is a strong possibility that recent archaeological discoveries will further strengthen the historicity of the resurrection event.
Historian Michel Rostovtsev in 1930 stumbled upon a stone slab that became known as the Nazareth Decree. Although it was in Germany as early as 1878, its content was not translated until 1932. The text consists of twenty-two lines in Greek, which say:
Caesar's order. I wish that graves and tombs remain intact forever in the possession of those who built them for the worship of their ancestors, or children, or family members. However, if anyone has information that another has either destroyed them or somehow extracted dead body, or with malicious intent moved it to another place to cause harm, or moved the seal or other stones, I order such a judgment to please the gods and the cult of mortal worship. For honoring the buried should be a duty. Let it be absolutely forbidden for anyone to disturb them. In case of violation of the law, I wish that the offender be sentenced to death on charges of violating the burial."
Archaeologist E.M. Blakelock believes that this inscribed slab was erected in Nazareth about A.D. 50. He writes: “If this inscription belongs to a date a little earlier than half of the first century, and despite thirty years of active controversy, it is this date that seems most likely, the emperor who ordered it to be erected could be none other than Claudius.” But what is the significance of this inscription, which warns against disturbing “graves and tombs”, and anyone who dares to transport bodies to other places or move “seals or other stones” should be put on trial? Blakelock puts it all together in the following way.
The first Christians certainly preached the gospel in Rome in the early forties of the first century. Naturally, the fact of the bodily resurrection of Christ was the central theme of their sermon. The Jewish enemies of Christianity confronted them with the story that the disciples of Christ had stolen the body (Matt. 28:13). Probably tired of this confrontation, Claudius "ordered all the Jews to depart from Rome" (Acts 18:2). According to the historian Suetonius, we know that “Since the Jews were constantly indulging in disturbances of the peace, instigated by the word of Krestus [a distorted form of the Greek Christos– Christ], he sent them out of Rome” (“The Life of Claudius”, xxv. 4). After further investigation of this matter, in the course of which he learned that Christ was born Nazareth (Mt. 2:23), it is very likely that the emperor caused this decree to be erected (especially in the home city of the Lord), according to which the theft of dead bodies became a crime, punishable by death, and through this he hoped to stop the emergence of other religions on the basis of similar stories. If this line of thought is correct, and it is likely that it is, then here we have the first secular evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The accuracy of Luke's account in the Book of Acts has been questioned for many years by scholars such as Adolf Harnack, Germany, who in his book The Physician Luke (1907) said: "St. Luke is an author whose writings are easy to read, but one only needs to look more closely to find that there is no other author in the New Testament who is such a nonchalant historian as Luke. However, Harnack himself turned out to be careless in his accusation, because the historical statements of Luke in the Book of Acts were confirmed more than once.
Sir William Ramsay argued that Luke "should be placed on a par with the most eminent historians". This fellow traveler of Paul was a diligent and scrupulous historian. For example, he mentions in the Book of Acts thirty-two countries, fifty-four cities, and nine islands in the Mediterranean. He also mentions ninety-five people, of which sixty-two are not mentioned in other books of the New Testament. He is well aware of the geographical and political conditions of his time. And this is truly surprising, since the political and territorial situation in those days was constantly changing. Consequently, it becomes a great test for the author whether he can be accurate in all matters. Luke comes out of this test with honor.
Proconsul Sergius Pavel. During the first missionary journey, Paul and Barnabas sailed to the island of Cyprus, the latter's homeland. In Paphos, on the western tip of the island, they met the proconsul Sergius Paul, who showed an interest in the gospel and, having witnessed Paul's preaching and the miracle he performed, came to faith (Acts 13:6-12). For years, Bible critics accused Luke of calling Sergius Paul a "proconsul." Augustus Caesar divided the Roman provinces into two large groups - senatorial and imperial. The senatorial provinces were ruled by proconsuls, while the imperial provinces were ruled by propraetors or legate consuls. It has been argued that Cyprus was an imperial province, hence Luke erroneously used the wrong title. Of course, it is now known that, although in 27 B.C. Cyprus became an imperial province, five years later Augustus gave it to the Senate in exchange for Dalmatia, and from that time it was ruled by a proconsul, like other senatorial provinces.
A coin from Cyprus mentions Proclus, the successor of Sergius Paul, and he is called "proconsul of the Cypriots" (see illustration). Other inscriptions contain the names of several people called "Sergius Pavel". There was "Lucius Sergius Paulus" who was curator of the Tiber in the administration of Claudius, and it is possible that he subsequently went to Cyprus as a proconsul. Also, an inscription from Kythraia in northern Cyprus, preserved in fragments, mentions "Quintus Sergius Paulus", a government official, although his title has been erased. At Soli on the northern coast of Cyprus, an inscription was found that refers to a proconsul named Paul. Thus, archeology has shown that Luke was quite right in using the term "proconsul".
The first people of Antioch. Continuing that first missionary campaign, Paul and Barnabas eventually arrived at Antioch in Pisidia. On the Sabbath day, Paul received an invitation to speak in the synagogue. His sermon was so convincing that he had to speak again the following Saturday. However, the Jews were filled with envy, and they incited noble women and "the first men in the city," so that the preachers of the Lord were persecuted (cf. Acts 13:50). When Luke uses the expression "the first men in the city", he correctly uses the title that was used for the council of magistrates in the Greek cities. See also Acts 28:7, where Publius is referred to as "the chief," that is, the first man, of the island of Melite (Malta). Archaeological finds have confirmed this use of official titles.
pagan sacrifice in Lystra. When Paul and Barnabas arrived at Lystra (Acts 14:6–18), Paul healed a lame man who had suffered from birth. As a consequence, the pagan crowd concluded that they were the gods, Zeus and Hermias, (Hermes), and brought oxen to be sacrificed. “A coin issued in Lystra depicts a priest leading two oxen to sacrifice, just as they went to sacrifice them to Paul and Barnabas. This whole story corresponds to the way of life that existed in Lystra.
Politarchs in Thessalonica. Arriving in Thessalonica, Paul Barnabas again proclaimed the gospel, and the Jews again persecuted the brothers. Jason and the other brothers were brought before "the rulers of the city" (Acts 17:6). The Greek text uses the word politarchas. Since this word does not occur in any other ancient literature, liberal scholars again questioned the accuracy of Luke's account. But the shovel of archaeologists once again justified the inspired historian and shamed the critics. H.T. Frank comments: “The word politarch was not known, except for its use in Acts 17:6. Archaeologists then discovered it on the Oxyrinx papyri from Egypt and on the Gallery Arch in Thessalonica. In addition to this, two other inscriptions in this Macedonian city contained the word, one from the reign of Augustus (27 BC–14 AD) and the other from Claudius (49–54 AD). from R.Kh.). We now know that the politarchs were four or five officials who constituted the council for the administration of the Macedonian cities. Paul's friends in this area are Sosipater the Berean, Gaius the Macedonian, and Secundus the Thessalonian (cf. Acts 19:29; 20:4).
Paul in Athens. In the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Acts, Luke gave a fascinating account of Paul's visit to Athens in Greece. Archeology has again highlighted the accuracy of the inspired narrative. For example, in Athens, Paul's spirit was indignant because he saw "a city full of idols" (Acts 17:16), and the apostle described the people of Athens as "especially pious" (Acts 17:22). It was claimed that there were more gods in Athens than in the rest of Greece, and Pausanius, a writer of the second century A.D., said that on the main street in Athens it was easier to meet a god or goddess than a man! J.A. Thompson noted that even today "the surviving remains of temples and religious sculptures undoubtedly confirm Paul's remark."
Secondly, in his great sermon, the apostle turned to the Athenian altar, on which was the inscription of the dedication Agnosto Theo("Unknown God"). The Athenians claimed to have a comprehensive knowledge, they almost did, but they did not know the true God! Pausanius in his Description of Greece (i.1.4) speaks of altars for the gods, who are called "unknown". And Philostratus at the beginning of the third century noted that in Athens "even unknown deities had altars erected for them" ("Life of Apollonius", vi.3.5). In 1909, an inscription with a dedication to "unknown gods" was found in Pergamon. Thus, the Book of Acts is perfectly accurate in describing the situation of the first century.
Paul in Corinth. During his second missionary journey, Paul arrived in Corinth, where he labored for a year and a half (Acts 18:1-11). The Jews were in an uproar over Paul's preaching, and so they brought him before the court of Gallio, who was Achaia's proconsul. As noted above [cf. chapter "Biblical Chronology" in this book, section "Gallion in Achaia"], in the ancient city of Delphi, evidence was found that allows dating the reign of Gallio. Moreover, in 1896, archaeologists began excavations in Corinth, which continued for many years. In Corinth, a special place was occupied by a market called the agora. Among the features of the agora was the "judgment" (Greek. beta), a stone platform on which Paul was probably accused before Gallio. Also, one of Paul's converts in Corinth was Erastus, called "the city treasurer" (Rom. 16:23; note that the same name occurs in Acts 19:22 and 2 Timothy 4:20, although there is no certainty that we are talking about the same person). In April 1929, archaeologists discovered a slab in Old Corinth, the Latin inscription of which read: "Erast, in the performance of his duties as aedile [commissioner for public works], paved this sidewalk at his own expense." There is a possibility that this is the same Erast that Paul speaks of in Romans 16:23.
Paul in Ephesus. On his third missionary journey, Paul arrived in the great city of Ephesus, where he established a community of God's people (Acts 19:1-7). Luke's description of the apostle's three-year activity (cf. 20:31) at this point turned out to be accurate in many details. For example, Ephesus was known as a center of superstition and magical arts (cf. 19:19). F.F. Bruce noted that in the works of antiquity the expression Ephesia grammata("Ephesian script") was commonly used of documents containing charms and magical incantations, like the long magical papyri found in collections in London, Paris, and Leiden. In Ephesus there was a temple to the goddess Artemis (Diana), and we remember that Demetrius, a silversmith, was very upset about Paul's preaching, saying: “This Paul, with his convictions, seduced a considerable number of people, saying that those made by human hands are not gods; And this threatens us with the fact that not only our craft will come into contempt, but also the temple of the great goddess Artemis will mean nothing, and the greatness of the one that all Asia and the universe honors will be overthrown” (Acts 19:26,27). Silver coins found in various places show the truth of the claim that the goddess Ephesus was worshiped throughout the ancient world. They contain an inscription Diana Ephesia(cf. 19:34).
As a result of these accusations, the city was seized with unrest, and a huge crowd rushed to the theater (v. 29). This huge theater, where the unrest took place, was located on the gentle slope of Mount Peony. It was 150 meters in diameter. The seats in it were divided into three parts of twenty-two rows each, so that it could accommodate about 25,000 spectators. The ruins that can be seen today are a reconstruction that was carried out in the time after Paul, but the plan of this building has been preserved almost unchanged since the time of the apostle. In addition, according to Luke's account in the nineteenth chapter of the Book of Acts, the "city clerk" (see SPBT), or "gram-teus", the secretary (see PC), calmed the raging crowd. Inscriptions discovered by archaeologists have shown that grammateus"was the chief official in the city, directly responsible to Rome for such disturbances of the peace as the illegal assembly."
The examples given above show wonderfully how archaeological science has helped to establish the fact that biblical documents are first-class works of literature; they are characterized by amazing accuracy. Renowned archaeologist Dr. Nelson Glueck wrote: “The author of this review has spent many years studying biblical archaeology and, together with his colleagues, has made discoveries that confirm the historical statements of the Bible in general and in particular. He is willing to go further and say that not a single archaeological discovery has been made that contradicts or refutes historical statements in Scripture.”
Dr. Millar Burroughs of Yale University, who is far from conservative, however, wrote: “On the whole, however, archaeological work has undoubtedly strengthened confidence in the reliability of the biblical account. The respect for the Bible on the part of many archaeologists deepened with the experience of excavations in Palestine.” He further argued: “Archaeology has in many cases refuted the views of contemporary critics. She has shown in a number of cases that these views are based on false assumptions and unrealistic, artificial plans for historical development. This is a truly valuable contribution that should not be underestimated.” The man who has thus become acquainted with the evidence, and who has an honest approach to it, cannot do otherwise than accept the thought of Sir Frederick Kenyon, former director of the British Museum, who maintained that "the Bible only needs to benefit from increasing knowledge," and this knowledge comes from discoveries in archeology.
end ne first part. Read the sequel Part 2.
