Constructing a Past to Order

Wm. Clay Poe, Ph.D., RPA

Professor of Archaeology Emeritus
Sonoma State University
“We know how to speak many lies that ring of the truth
But we also know how to speak true things when we want to”
The Muses in Hesiod, Theogony 27-28
“I am bound to tell what I am told, but not in every case to believe it.”
Herodotus, The Histories, Book 7, Ch. 152.
Abbreviations
BCE Before Common Era
CBCE Century BCE
CCE Century CE
CE Common Era
CJB Complete Jewish Bible
NKJV New King James Version
LXX Septuagint
MT Masoretic Text
NRSV New Revised Standard Version
Introduction
History is commonly written to understand an effect by proposing a cause. It is very important in
evaluating a historical text to understand the perspective of the author and to understand the
message intended for the presumed audience. When the author and the intended audience are from
the same group as the subject of the historical text, then the text is commonly etiological,
explaining a present condition by providing a past cause. In such a case events of the past are
transformed into cultural memory. This is the case with the historical texts in the Tanakh. Pamela
Barmash writes that, “The Deuteronomistic History, the major historical narrative of the Bible,
makes the effort to explain the past in moral terms, and that attempt determines what is
remembered and what is forgotten.”1
There are events recorded concerning the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah in Egyptian, Assyrian,
and Babylonian inscriptions but without historical narrative. The only significant early history of
the Kingdoms outside of the Tanakh is that of Titus Flavius Josephus (37 – ca. 100 CE). He was
born Yosef ben Matityahu in Jerusalem. He commanded Jewish forces in Galilee during the First
Jewish-Roman war, surrendering in 67 CE to Vespasian after a six-week siege at Jotapata.
Vespatian kept Josephus as a slave and interpreter and freed him upon Vespatian’s being declared
Emperor in 69 CE. At that time Josephus adopted the emperor’s family name of Flavius. He was
granted Roman citizenship and served as an advisor to Vespatian’s son, Titus, who had assumed
command of the Roman forces when his father returned to Rome to serve as Emperor. Josephus

1
Barmash, Pamela. “At the Nexus of History and Memory: The Ten Lost Tribes.” AJS Review, vol. 29, no. 2, 2005,
p.225. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4131732. Accessed 30 Jan. 2021
wrote Jewish history, particularly The Jewish War, (ca. 75) and Antiquities of the Jews (ca. 94)
from a Jewish perspective for a Greek and Roman audience.
The Text
Manuscripts were created in the form of a scroll of parchment sheets except in Egypt where
papyrus was the preferred material. Scrolls need to be of a reasonable size and that often
determined the organization. When the scribe was faced with shorter texts he started with the
longest, then the next longest, and continued until a scroll of reasonable length was reached.
Beginning in the 1st CCE codices began to be more commonly used than scrolls. Parchment is
expensive and a codex permitted writing on both sides. The parchment sheet was folded in half to
form a folio, folded again to form a quarto, and once more to form an octavo. This was called a
quire and was sewn up the spine. In the earliest use the quires were simply stacked together and
the package wrapped and tied in a piece of leather. The Torah continued to be written in scrolls
because the rabbis judged that that was the form of the manuscript that Moses had placed in the
Ark.
Tanakh is a acronym representing the combination of the words ‫תּוָֹרה‬, tôrāhʼ, “instruction,” ‫ְנִביִאים‬,
nĕbī’īmʼ, “prophets,” and ‫ְכּתוִּבים‬, kĕtûbīm, “writings.” This forms the primary division of the text.
This is a text that has a complex history. Many of the writings and some of the prophets show signs
of a single authorship and little, if any, later editorial revision. Other texts show evidence of
extensive editorial addition and revision. Much of the analysis of the text began with German
Protestant scholars late in the 19th century. Currently the field is dominated by secular scholars,
Reformed Jewish scholars, and Protestant scholars. Most of the scholarship is focused upon dates
of authorship, redaction history, intended audience, and historicity.
The oldest complete text of the Tanakh in Hebrew is the Leningrad Codex housed in the National
Library of Russia in St. Petersburg and dated to 1008 or 1009 CE. It is the source of the currently
accepted Hebrew text. It was corrected from the Aleppo Codex which was written in the 10th CCE
and endorsed by Moses ben Maimon. It was housed for 500 years in the Central Synagogue of
Aleppo. The synagogue was burned in anti-Jewish riots in 1947 and the codex disappeared for a
decade. It reappeared in Israel in 1958 with about 40% missing.
The Letter of Aristeas, 2nd CBCE, says that the Torah was translated into Greek at the request of
Ptolemy II Philadelphos (285-247 BCE) by 70 Jewish scholars. Actually, there were several Greek
translations and the final form of what is now the Septuagint did not take shape until late in the 1st
CCE. Aramaic was the language of administration and commerce in the Levant of the Assyrian,
Babylonian, and Persian empires, 7th through most of the 4th CBCE. In many areas it remained the
milk tongue of a majority of the population even after the advent of the Hellenistic kingdoms and
the Roman Empire. Readings of the Torah in the synagogue were supplemented by Aramaic
translations and explanations that by the end of the 1st CCE were put into writing as the Targums.
There are thousands of fragments of Hebrew texts from the Tanakh in the Cairo Genizah and the
Dead Sea Scrolls, and 14 from Masada.
The five scrolls that comprise the Torah were originally kept in the synagogue as five separate
scrolls. At some point there was a transition to copying them into a single long scroll. The oldest
liturgical Torah scroll is from a synagogue at En Gedi in the Dead Sea Valley that burned, for

2
unknown reason, about 600 CE. The recovered burned scroll fragment is from Leviticus and dates
to the 1st or 2nd CCE. A blank first sheet in the scroll makes it clear that it was a separate scroll.2
Modern Torah scrolls used in synagogues are large with sheets from calves that may be about 20”
high sewn together with sinew to a length of about 125’. The oldest complete text of a Tanakh
scroll is that of the Isaiah scroll, 1QIsaa, found at Qumran. The scroll is written on 17 sheets of
parchment. It is about 24 feet long and with sheets just a bit over 10 inches high. It is commonly,
but incorrectly, stated that the Isaiah scroll is identical to the Leningrad Codex demonstrating the
rigor of the copying process. If fact there are over 2,900 differences, mostly orthographic, none of
which affect the meaning of the text. The strict rigor of the Torah copying tradition is a feature of
the late 1st millennium CE. It is also commonly stated, also incorrectly, that all of the quotations
from the Tanakh in the New Testament are from the Septuagint. In fact, none of them match
exactly the currently accepted version of the Septuagint. Some of them are probably actually the
authors’ translations into Greek of selections from the Aramaic Targums.
Decipherments
The middle of the 19th CCE saw the decipherments of Akkadian, the oldest attested Semitic
language, and Egyptian. Codes, such as that of Hammurabi, were often engraved on stelae.
Akkadian and other Mesopotamian languages are written in cuneiform on clay tablets and records,
epics, and religious texts were maintained in libraries that were part of administrative offices.
Those documents sometimes had epics, laws, or typical practices that paralleled some of the Torah.
The Gilgamesh epic included a story of a flood similar to that of Noah. Family laws of marriage
and inheritance were often similar.
During the 1930’s scholars such as Cyrus Gordon and William Albright used such parallels to
assign historical credibility to the Patriarchal Narratives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and assign
those stories to the Middle Bronze Age, generally the first half of the second millennium BCE.
However, it is notable that most of the parallels were held in common by most Semitic language
speaking groups over a long period of time, in many cases to the present among many Arabic
speaking people. This effort was an example of confirmation bias rather than analysis. It is parallel
to the effort of conservative Christians to claim that American law is based on the ten
commandments. It is true that both prohibit murder and stealing but so do most law codes in the
world. Could free enterprise exist if envy were a crime?
Historiography and Storytelling in the Tanakh
Documentary Hypothesis
In the later part of the 19th century a literary analysis of the Torah was developed that is called the
Documentary Hypothesis. It proposed that what became the Torah was the result of a series of
editors, often called redactors, combining and reworking early sources. The proposed redactors
were given letter names. The redactor called J was the one or more authors who preferred to use
the tetragrammaton, YHWH, Yahweh, or Jahweh in German, to refer to God. It was proposed that
this author wrote in the first half of the 9th CBCE in Jerusalem. The redactor named E used the
name Elohim to refer to God and wrote in the second half of the 8th CBCE. D stands for
Deuteronomy and was taken to be a group of editors around the time of Josiah’s reforms in 621

2
Computers Decipher Burnt Scroll Found in Ancient Holy Ark
3
BCE3. And P stands for Priestly and identifies the texts in Leviticus and elsewhere in the
Pentateuch that were written by a priest or priests during the exile in Babylon after 586 BCE, and
identified based upon their focus on cultic practice. The hypothesis that later editors blended
traditions served to explain some inconsistencies such as Noah being told to bring a pair of every
living thing and just a few verses later told to bring seven pairs of ritually clean animals. It was
proposed that the later reflected the Priestly editor’s concern to have animals available for sacrifice.
And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to
keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their
kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground
according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. (Genesis
6:19,20)
Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the
animals that are not clean, the male and its mate; and seven pairs of the birds of the air
also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. (Genesis 7:2,3)
This schema dominated the analysis of biblical text until the latter part of the 20th century.
Deuteronomistic History
The Documentary Hypothesis was based upon a broader hypothesis that assumed that there were
court records that were available as sources. The German scholar Marin Noth proposed that the
books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings were the work of a single Judean historian writing
centuries later during the exile. This person is called the Deuteronomic Historian (DtrH) because
the evaluations in his historical writing follow the ideology of the core of the book of
Deuteronomy. Later analysis suggested that initial material may have been written at the end of
the 7th CBCE and added to in phases throughout parts of the exile. The work of the DtrH is a record
of the leadership from Joshua through the judges and the monarchies of the Kingdoms of Israel
and Judah. Many scholars believe that there was a source document from Israel that was combined
with a parallel one created for Judah. The proposed source documents would have been outlines
of the activities of prophets and kings to which the DtrH added speaches and evaluations. The
document is critical of all of the kings of Israel and only Hezekiah and Josiah of Judah are spared
criticism and praised for their reforms. David is generally praised but faulted for his affair with
Bathsheba and arranging the death of Uriah. Solomon is condemned for marrying foreign wives
and permitting them to bring with them foreign religion.
The DtrH proposes the cultic faithlessness of almost all of the kings as the cause that led to the
destruction of the temple and the exile as the effect.
The DtrH directs the reader to sources for further exploration.
Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, all that he did as well as his wisdom, are they not
written in the Book of the Acts of Solomon? 1 Kings 11:41
Now the rest of all the acts of Asa, all his power, all that he did, and the cities that he built,
are they not written in the Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah? 1 Kings 15:23

3
The scrolls or books of the Torah are named by their first words. The fifth scroll begins with the expression ‫ֵאֶלּה‬
‫שׁה‬
ֶ ֹ ‫שׁר ִדֶּבּר מ‬
ֶ ‫ַהְדָּבִרים ֲא‬, ēlleh haddĕbārīm ĕšer dibber mōšeh, “These are the words that Moses spoke….” The word
Deuteronomy is from the Greek name Deuteronomion, “second law.”
4
 The rest of the deeds of Hezekiah, all his power, how he made the pool and the conduit and
brought water into the city, are they not written in the ‫ ֵסֶפר ִדְּבֵרי ַהיִָּמים ְלַמְלֵכי יְהוָּדה‬, sēper
dibrēy hayyāmīm lĕmalkēy yĕhûdāh “Book of the Annals of the Kings of Judah?” 2 Kings
20:20
The Deuteronomic Historian is the only author in the Tanakh who references these documents.
Inscribed seals first appear in Israel and in Judah in the 8th CBCE. “It is clear that writing spread
only in the eighth century – in the first half of the century in Israel and in the second half in Judah.”4
These are most likely specious sources created to lend credibility to the Deuteronomic Historian’s
recounting of cultural memory in the guise of history.
Thomas Römer believes that the DtrH is likely the result of a series of three editings marked by
three endings of the manuscript. The first would have been written not long after Josiah, then edited
after the Babylonian conquest, and once more after the murder of Gedeliah, the governor appointed
by the King of Babylon.5 The first ending would be the summation of the rule of Josiah.
The king commanded all the people, “Keep the passover to the Lord your God as prescribed
in this book of the covenant.” No such passover had been kept since the days of the judges
who judged Israel, even during all the days of the kings of Israel and of the kings of Judah;
but in the eighteenth year of King Josiah this passover was kept to the Lord in Jerusalem.
Moreover Josiah put away the mediums, wizards, teraphim, idols, and all the abominations
that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, so that he established the words of
the law that were written in the book that the priest Hilkiah had found in the house of the
Lord. Before him there was no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all his heart,
with all his soul, and with all his might, according to all the law of Moses; nor did any like
him arise after him. (2 Kings 23:21-25 NRSV)
Chronicles and Ezra Nehemiah
Prior to the emergence of text criticism in the 19th CCE Ezra was considered to be the author of
the books of Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah. From the emergence of text criticism to the middle
of the 20th century authorship was assigned to one or more persons identified as the Chronicler.
Some scholars maintain that position, others have noted important differences in the ideology
expressed in Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah and propose two separate editorial traditions. Yet
others have pointed out differences in Ezra and Nehemiah that suggest separate authorship there
as well. Ezra-Nehemiah is focused upon the temple elite and Chronicles on the relationships among
the tribes and their smaller units. Ezra distinguishes sharply between the descendants of those who
returned from Babylon and those who had remained in Judah and Nehemiah is more inclusive.
The works are probably written toward the end of the Persian period in the later part of the 4th
CBCE.

4
Israel Finkelstein, “Jerusalem and Judah 600–200 BCE: Implications for Understanding Pentateuchal Texts,” in Peter
Dubovsky´, Dominik Markl, and Jean-Pierre Sonnet, eds., The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Torah, p. 6
5
Thomas Römer, “The Current Discussion on the so-called Deuteronomistic History: Literary Criticism and
Theological Consequences,” p. 55.
5
 Chronicles
Both the Deuteronomic historian and the author of Chronicles seek a cause to explain the effect of
the Babylonian destruction of the temple and the exile. For the Deuteronomic historian the primary
fault lies with the kings’ failure to enforce the purity of the Yahwistic cult. For the author of
Chronicles that failure is compounded by the peoples’ persistent return to more inclusionary cultic
practice.
The first eight chapters of 1 Chronicles are devoted to genealogies of the tribes of Israel beginning
with Adam and organized by tribe. The author includes all of the tribes but otherwise devotes little
attention to the Kingdom of Israel and does not mention the Assyrian exile of Israel. The author is
writing approximately four centuries after the end of the Kingdom of Israel and perhaps two
centuries after the beginning of the return from Babylon. Genealogies are not so much an ancestral
record as they are a description of contemporary relationships among familial and tribal units.
Following the genealogies, the author proclaims the effect for which the remainder of the work
will describe the cause and then lists returnees living in Jerusalem.
So, all Israel was enrolled by genealogies; and these are written in the Book of the Kings
of Israel. And Judah was taken into exile in Babylon because of their unfaithfulness. Now
the first to live again in their possessions in their towns were Israelites, priests, Levites,
and temple servants. (1 Chronicles 9:1,2 NRSV)
Then the author begins his description of the kings with the reign of Saul.
So, Saul died for his unfaithfulness; he was unfaithful to the YHWH in that he did not keep
the command of the YHWH; moreover, he had consulted a medium, seeking guidance, and
did not seek guidance from the Lord. Therefore, the YHWH put him to death and turned
the kingdom over to David son of Jesse. (1 Chronicles 10:13,14 NRSV)
The author praises David and Solomon with no criticism. Bathsheba is only mentioned in the
genealogy as the mother of four of David’s children, including Solomon. Solomon’s foreign wives
are not mentioned. Several of the kings are praised for destroying the places in the countryside
with unacceptable cultic imagery. Jehoram is condemned because “He walked in the way of the
kings of Israel, as the house of Ahab had done; for the daughter of Ahab was his wife. He did what
was evil in the sight of the Lord. (2 Chronicles 21:6) While she is not mentioned, Jehoram’s wife
is also the daughter of Jezebel. The persistent return of the people to inappropriate cultic practice
is what the author of Chronicles judges to be the cause of the Babylonian exile.
As did the DtrH, the author cites further sources. And also, as with the DtrH, these sources are not
known.
Now the rest of the acts of Solomon, from first to last, are they not written in the history of
the prophet Nathan, and in the prophecy of Ahijah the Shilonite,6 and in the visions of the
seer Iddo concerning Jeroboam son of Nebat? (2 Chronicles 9:29)
Ezra-Nehemiah
The Masoretic tradition regarded Ezra and Nehemiah as one book and called it Ezra, Esdras in the
Septuagint. The division into two books occurred at the time of Origen in the 4th CCE and was

6
‫ֲאִחיָּה‬, ăḥīyāh, “my brother is Yah” (cf. 1 Kings 11:29)
6
transferred to the Vulgate as I Esdras and II Esdras. In the 15th CCE Hebrew manuscripts began
this practice also.
The Babylonian tradition places Ezra and Chronicles as the last books of the Ketuvim. The
Palestinian tradition reflected in the Leningrad and Aleppo codices places Chronicles as the first
book of the Ketuvim and Ezra as the last. In the Protestant and Roman Catholic traditions Ezra-
Nehemiah is placed among the historical books after Chronicles because the first sentence in Ezra
is identical to the last sentence in Chronicles. 7 The Greek tradition has two versions II Esdras is a
translation of all of Ezra-Nehemiah with chapters 1-10 being Ezra and 11-23 Nehemiah. I Esdras
is only Ezra and the pericope of Nehemiah 8:1-12 that describes Ezra’s reading of the law. There
are 12 instances of Ezra’s name in Nehemiah, the first seven of which are in that pericope and the
remaining five are in lists. The only instance of the name Nehemiah in Ezra is in a list of men who
returned from Babylon in the first wave with Zerubbabel under Cyrus. This is clearly not Nehemiah
the governor.
In Ezra, the returnees from Babylon and their religious elite (priests, Levites, and prophets)
constitute the nucleus preserved by YHWH from destruction from which Israel as a whole
is expected to regenerate. Both this view of the repatriates as the sole legitimate remnant
and its ideological consequences are challenged in Nehemiah. These differences are
perceptible not only when the first-person narrative sections in Ezra and Nehemiah are
compared (the so-called Ezra and Nehemiah memoirs) but also in the third-person narration
segments. These positions are consistent throughout Ezra and Nehemiah, leading to the
conclusion that the two books were composed and/or edited by two distinct authors who
expressed contrasting views on the theological importance of the Babylonian exile.8
Storytelling
One of the more interesting lines of research is the question of whether or not the authors of certain
of the writings regarded them as fiction. Jonah was most clearly a work of fiction and intended as
such. He was swallowed in the Mediterranean by a big fish, lived three days in the fish, was spit
up thousands of miles away on the banks of the Tigris river at Nineveh, which would require an
extraordinarily fast circumnavigation of Africa. The point of the short book of Jonah seems to be
at its very end.
But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes,
angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which
you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished
in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are
more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from
their left, and also many animals?” (Jonah 4:9-11 NRSV)

7
“In the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, in order that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be
accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia so that he sent a herald throughout all his kingdom,
and also in a written edict declared:…” (Ezra1:
8
Nissim Amzallag, “The Authorship of Ezra and Nehemiah in Light of Differences in Their Ideological Background,”
Journal of Biblical Literature (Volume: 137, Issue: 2)
7
The book is post-exilic and humanizes the actions of an Assyrian king. The Assyrians had ended
the Kingdom of Israel and dominated the Kingdom of Judah from the end of the 8th CBCE until
their defeat by the Babylonians in the 7th CBCE.
Ruth is also a brief book about the actions of a dutiful daughter-in-law. And again, the point of the
story seems to be found in the last paragraph.
So, Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the Lord made her
conceive, and she bore a son. Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the Lord, who
has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He
shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law
who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.” Then Naomi took the
child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse. The women of the neighborhood
gave him a name, saying, “A son has been born to Naomi.” They named him Obed; he
became the father of Jesse, the father of David.
Now these are the descendants of Perez: Perez became the father of Hezron, Hezron of
Ram, Ram of Amminadab, Amminadab of Nahshon, Nahshon of Salmon, Salmon of Boaz,
Boaz of Obed, Obed of Jesse, and Jesse of David. (Ruth 4:13-18 NRSV)
According to the Deuteronomic code “No Ammonite or Moabite or any of their descendants may
enter the assembly of the Lord, not even in the tenth generation. (Deuteronomy 23:3). Since Ruth
was a Moabite this rule would have prevented David and the next seven Kings of Judah from
entering the assembly. This appears to be a post-exilic work of fiction dedicated to proclaiming an
inclusive view of the religion as opposed to the Deuteronomic exclusivism established by Ezra.
Adele Berlin categorizes Ruth and Jonah as fictional storytelling, a category that implies that both
the author and the audience recognized the story as fiction. The books of Esther and Judith differ
by offering a wealth of dates, proper names of people and places, and descriptions of events that
provide a realistic backdrop. However, even cursory inspection discovers that the details do not
match any documented historical reality and “… to judge a story’s historicity by its degree of
realism is to mistake verisimilitude for historicity. Verisimilitude is the literary term for the illusion
of reality. Just because a story sounds real does not mean that it is.”9
Cultural Memory and Oral Tradition
When scholars began to recognize that, in many cases, centuries had passed between the event and
the written record they hypothesized that an oral tradition accurately transmitted the information.
Many groups have oral traditions that often goes back a considerable distance in time. There are
two different kinds of information that are commonly refered to as an oral tradition. One kind is
the customary activities and behaviors of the group. These traditions may include a vast array of
practices that define how the group organizes its life. It will include marriage and inheritance,
culinary, dress, cosmetic and other practices. These traditions may persist for very long periods of
time changing, if at all, very slowly. Sometimes exotic items are incorporated fully in the tradition
and sometimes the items remain identified as exotic. Sometimes items of cosmetics, diet, and dress
became cultural identity markers as well. Animal bones excavated in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon
show that some villages kept and ate pigs and some did not. The temporal and spacial distribution

9
Berlin, Adele. “The Book of Esther and Ancient Storytelling.” Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 120, no. 1, 2001,
p. 4.
8
predates any possibility that this reflects Jewish practice. Sometimes, as with the Sikh, distinctive
dress is chosen, sometimes it is imposed. Often these practices have explanations that are simply
post-facto rationalizations. “There will not be a man’s article on a woman and a man will not wear
a mantle for a woman for it is a. ‫תוֲֹעַבת‬, tô‘ăbat, “unclean act,” of YHWH….” (Deuteronomy 22:5)
has been a defense of school requirements that women must not wear pants. Of course no ancient
Israelites wore pants. Pants were invented by Central Asian peoples who rode horses. Archaeology
of burials suggests that there was no dimorphism expressed in clothing or weapons between the
women and men of Central Asian groups, such as the Scythians. They had the same social status.
Prior to a woman’s decision to marry she often rode in hunting and warrior bands with other
women. The Greeks called these women Amazons and the Greeks thus regarded the wearing of
pants as effeminite.
These kinds of traditions, legal and practical, form a corpus into which the child in the group is
introduced and the behavior that results is deeply ingrained. In Judaism this is called ‫ַהָלָכה‬, halākāh,
from the verb ‫ָהַלְך‬, hālak, “walk” and usually translated as “the way.”
These traditions, or cultural memories, differ from those that seek to explain historic events by
positing a cause and effect. The recitation and analysis of past causes to explain later events follows
a different pattern that often differs dramatically from historical reality. Military histories, in
particular, are notorious examples of arguing that the winning side was morally superior and thus
should have won.
Typically there is no way to test the historical accuracy, as opposed to the cultural memory, of the
ancient tradition that has little data associated with it. There are a number of cases, however, where
it is clear that the oral tradition has incorporated more recent material.
Roland de Vaux was the French Dominican priest who was the head of the École Biblique in
Jerusalem. He was not trained as an archaeologist but worked on site with a number of
archaeologists. In the late 1940’s Bedouin were selling scraps of inscribed parchment and de Vaux
was instrumental in tracing the source to the caves near Qumran that held the Dead Sea Scrolls.
De Vaux was the director of the excavation of Qumran.
The following anecdote is an account transmitted orally among archaeologists who were part of
the American School of Oriental Research (ASOR) in Jordanian Jerusalem. I heard it from my
advisor who was a part of ASOR while he was a PhD candidate. I cannot verify the story. Once
while de Vaux was camped with a Bedouin group near Petra, a shaikh of the tribe, pointing to the
mountain named Umm al-Biyara, “mother of cisterns,” remarked that a King of Judah had thrown
10,000 of has ancestors from the top of the mountain. De Vaux pressed the shaikh on how he knew
this and was told that the tale had been part of his tribes oral tradition for generations. De Vaux
was astonished and pleased because it demonstrated an oral tradition independent of the report in
Chronicles.
Amaziah took courage, and led out his people; he went to the Valley of Salt, and struck
down ten thousand men of Seir. The people of Judah captured another ten thousand alive,
took them to the top of Sela, and threw them down from the top of Sela, so that all of them
were dashed to pieces. (2 Chronicles 25:11,12)
Nelson Glueck had investigated Umm el-Biyara and in 1933 published that he believed it to be the
biblical Sela. There were several brief excavations the last in the 1960’s by Crystal-M Bennett.
There is a small Edomite settlement that dates from the 7th CBCE.

9
It turned out that during World War II an RAF pilot crash landed in the tribal territory with a
broken arm. The tribe cared for him until his arm was sufficiently healed and then returned him to
British forces. During the course of his sojourn, the pilot recounted the story reported in Chronicles
and the tribe incorporated it into their oral tradition.
De Vaux held that it was necessary for the Tanakh to be true for the New Testament to be true and
therefore the veracity of Christianity depended upon the veracity of the Tanakh.
Archaeology and Geography
Stratigraphic archaeology and absolute chronology
The geography of many of the early stories is, in fact, that of the period of the author of the written
record. Israel Finkelstein has pointed out that the sites in the Sinai mentioned in the Exodus story
were active during the Assyrian period and did not exist at the presumed period of the Exodus.
Moses is said to have needed to find a way to skirt the Kingdom of Edom hundreds of years before
such a kingdom existed.
Archaeological excavation proceeds by digging and isolating layer by layer. The most durable and
plentiful of the artifacts is pottery. Its physical fragility guarantees its abundance and its chemical
stability its durability. Pottery styles in a region change over time and strata in the excavation are
assigned relative dates based upon the pottery style. The relative dates are expressed in an
archaeological sequence such as Iron IA, followed by IB and then IIA, and so on. This dating is
relative, not absolute, and while change in style across a region may be gradual, strata from
different sites with the same relative date should also be contemporary.
Among the first ways attempted to provide a chronology for events mentioned in the Tanakh were
to link archaeological events documented in Judah and Israel to events mentioned in Egyptian,
Assyrian, and Babylonian inscriptions. The inscriptions would mention a military campaign and
archaeologists would attempt to find a reference to such in the Tanakh and a destruction level at a
site. However, there were also undocumented campaigns by groups, such as Aram, centered on
Damascus, that left no records and sometimes local authorities avoided damage by paying tribute.
Egyptian campaigns in the Late Kingdom were often for the primary purpose of collecting tribute.
Willard Libby, a graduate of Analy High School in Sebastopol, developed radiocarbon dating (14C)
in the late 1940’s at the University of Chicago. There is a huge literature on the efforts to refine
the ability of the technique to provide increasingly accurate results. In the beginning the process
was lengthy, required relatively large samples, and very expensive so it was of little practical use
to archaeology. Now it has gotten much less expensive, requires miniscule samples, and is much
less expensive. Professional labs charge between $300 and $600 depending upon the accuracy
sought by the researcher and the size of the sample. The test determines the amount of time that
has passed since the death of the organic matter of the sample. Thus for archaeological purposes
the preferred samples are short lived. For the Levant the typical samples are grains and seeds.
Olive pits are among the most frequent.
The “Solomonic” cities
When Yigael Yadin reexamined the archaeology of the University of Chicago at Megiddo, he
assigned the time of the construction of the massive six-chambered city gate to the period of
Solomon because of the text, “This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon
conscripted to build the house of the Lord and his own house, the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem,

10
Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer.” (1 Kings 9:15 NRSV) And when Hazor and Gezer showed similar
defensive architecture he announced that archaeology had verified the biblical text. This
determination was almost universally accepted. Solomon, after all, was credited with being a great
builder. The primary exceptions were some Israeli archaeologists who pointed out that the pottery
associated with the gate constructions was identical to pottery at other sites that were dated a
century later.10
From 1925 through 1939, a University of Chicago project peeled off layers of the tel, dumping
entire cities into landfills, where once-valuable artifacts were now entirely out of context. That’s
where Finkelstein found the remains of an ashlar palace, so-called because the stones are regular,
beveled and finely cut as opposed to the more usual irregular “rubble” used to make buildings of
the time. The palace was said to have been commissioned by Solomon in the mid-10th century
B.C.11
However, the stones held a “mason’s mark,” an engraved branding pattern, identical to those on
ashlar blocks at the later 9th CBCE palace built by Omri and Ahab at Samaria, the capital of the
Kingdom of Israel. The four Omride kings, Omri, Ahab, Ahaziah, and Joram, ruled form about
884 to 842 BCE.12 In terms of relative chronology, that is, the ceramic-based phases of the Iron
Age, this period falls in the late Iron IIA. A Bayesian model based on the large number of
radiocarbon results from many sites in Israel puts the late Iron IIA at circa 880–760 BCE.13
Hebron
Sites such as Hazor, Gezer, Megiddo, Lachish, Samaria, and Jericho are tells, that is they are hills
made up of the debris of occupation. They are quite obvious and typically not suitable for
agriculture. The frequently have bits of architecture visible. This, along with the fact that they are
mentioned in the Tanakh, made them logical and suitable projects for archaeologists. Sites in
locations such as the Judean hills south of Jerusalem were not tells and were frequently under
cultivation and have little, if any visible architectural remains. It took quite an effort to determine
which of the hills surrounding the modern city of Hebron hosted the ancient city. While the
occupational debris at Megiddo is 70 feet tall above the plain, in the units that I was responsible
for at Hebron the remains of 4,000 years of occupation were only a little over six feet from surface
to bedrock. In addition the units were in an olive grove with trees extimated at being 2,000 years
old. The owner of the orchard, a kindly old Hajj who brought me freshly squeezed grape juice
many days, routinely inspected our dirt looking for tree roots. There would have been
compensation and a heavy fine had he found one. We excavated well outside the drip line of the
trees.

10
Ussishkin David, ‘The So-Called “Solomonic” City-gate at Megiddo’
Ussishkin, David. “Was the ‘Solomonic’ City Gate at Megiddo Built by King Solomon?” Bulletin of the American
Schools of Oriental Research, no. 239, 1980, pp. 1–18.
11
Pamela Weintraub, Rewriting Tel Megiddo's Violent History, Discover, September 30, 2015.
12
Finkelstein, Israel, The forgotten kingdom : the archaeology and history of Northern Israel, Society of Biblical
Literature, 2013
13
Israel Finkelstein and Eliezer Piasetzky, “Radiocarbon Dating the Iron Age in the Levant: A Bayesian Model for
Six Ceramic Phases and Six Transitions,” Antiquity 84 (2010) p. 83
11
There were also political issues. The city of Hebron contains a structure, built first by Herod, that
is believed to mark the burial place of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, and Leah. We were
forbidden from excavating within one kilometer of the building. There is a structure on the high
point of the site that is considered by some orthodox groups to be the site of the tombs of Ruth and
Jesse. Some have claimed that Adam and Eve are buried at Hebron. And at least an Arabic tradition
claims that the clay from which Adam was fashioned was from the Hebron hills. Neither the
government of Jordan nor the local Muslim authorities were interested in our finding historic
materials that would support Israeli claims of precedence in the area. The Tanakh mentions no
other major cities in what had been Judah so there were no other archaeological projects nearby.
It was close enough to the armistice line that there was a UN observation post just outside of the
city on a high point.
Hebron is mentioned 87 times in the Tanakh. It is the location where Abraham buys a burial cave
from Efron the Hittite.(Genesis 23)14 Joshua assigned Hebron to Caleb of the tribe of Judah (Joshua
14:13-14). Following the death of Saul, David went to Hebron to be annointed King of Judah (S
Samuel 2:1-4). Absalom went to Hebron to declare himself king when he revolted against David
(2 Samuel 15:7-12).
The hill that marked the site of the ancient city was heavily terraced and planted in grapes and
olives. In the summer of 1966 I began my archaeological career as a senior staff member of the
American Expedition to Hebron directed by Philip Hammond. I was responsible for excavating 95
square meters on the opposite side of the hill from where elements of the city wall had been found
in an earlier season. Hammond hoped that I would find the wall on that side of the site. That did
not happen. I supervised the excavation of a terrace that housed an olive grove. From the size of
the trees it was guessed that the terrace dated to the Hellenistic period. That was pretty much
confirmed by a plastered basin located near the surface of one of the excavation units. In the
innermost unit on the terrace was found a wall almost a meter wide and running the full five meters
of the excavation unit. There were a great number of hard packed floors. The dominant pottery
from the lower levels was Iron Age. It was in one of those levels that a Ramses II scarab was
found. It was not found in a clean context. A workman pulled it out of an improbable level.
Hammond thought that it was a fake placed by the workman as a joke and kept is as a registered
piece simply to provide something of interest for the Department of Antiquities in the artifact
division. It was limestone and very clean.. The local antiquities shops had numerous of these for
sale to tourists.
The stratigraphy of the outer portion of the terrace where the remains of the cyclopean wall were
hoped to be was complex. It represented material excavated from the inner section and deposited
in in the outer section as the terrace was constructed. All of the artifacts were obviously in a
secondary context and there were huge quantities of Iron II.

14
The identification of Efron and his father Zohar as Hittites helps to refine the time of authorship of the story. The
names are West Semitic, not Hittite. The Bronze Age Hittites were an empire in Anatolia and they were never as far
south as Hebron. After the fall of the empire some Neo-Hittite states existed in northeran Syria. Those states became
absorbed in the emerging Mesopotamian empires. By the 7th CBCE the Babylonian referred to much of the population
of the northern Levant as ‘Hittite.’ John Van Seters, “The Terms ‘Amorite’ and ‘Hittite’ in the Old Testament.” Vetus
Testamentum, vol. 22, no. 1, 1972, p. 67.
12
In the winter of 1966-67 I conducted a triage of all of the Hebron pottery from the 1964 through
1966 seasons, six tons, as Hammond was about to move from Princeton Seminary to Brandeis
University. There was modest amounts of Middle Bronze II in the collection, almost no Late
Bronze, and large amounts of IR II. David Ussishkin has argued persuasively that walls previously
identified as Middle Bronze in both Jerusalem and Hebron are Iron Age. I believe that he is
correct.15
Jerusalem
Following the Six Day War Israeli archaeologists gained jurisdiction from Jordan to the territory
that had been the old city of Jerusalem and most of the Judean highlands and were able to conduct
site surveys. There were 34 Iron IIA sites in the highlands south of Jerusalem and 21 sites in the
Shephelah around the year 800 BCE. Based upon the survey and excavations in Jerusalem it is
estamated that the population of Judah in the 9th CBCE was around 5,000 with about 1,000 in
Jerusalem.16 The villages are small agricultural communities and there is none of the hierarchial
site distribution by size that marks the level of organization found in emergent states.
These data confirmed what had been suspected by a small number of archaeologists and biblical
scholars that the United Monarchy of David and Solomon was a fiction to support the late 7th
CBCE ambitions of Josiah. Jerusalem was not a logical location for the capital of such an enterprise
and since David was said to have conquered it, it had no deep cultural history. If Jerusalem was
simply the capital of Judah there were simply insufficient resources in the 10th CBCE, the
traditional dating of David and Solomon, to support the building plan claimed for Solomon at
Jerusalem as described in 1 Kings 6.
The 10th CBCE is Iron I and Iron IIA in archaeological sequence. The only area of Jerusalem in
which Iron I and IIA pottery has been found in situ is in excavations in the hill south of Temple
Mount called the City of David. This would suggest that Jerusalem was a relatively small village
of about 1,000 during the period of David and Solomon. No remains of any stone structure, much
less the kind of monumental archetecture described in the Tanakh has ever been found for the 10th
CBCE.17
All cities are difficult places in which to conduct archaeological research. Jerusalem is complicated
by the existence of culturally sensitive sites; but so is Rome and Mexico City.
The second calif, Umar ibn al-Khattab, came to Jerusalem in 637 at the end of the seige. The
Patriarch, Sophronius, concluded the treaty with the calif and conducted him on a tour. They were
in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre when the time for prayer arrived. Sophronius invited Umar to
pray in the church but Umar declined believing that wherever he prayed, his followers might turn
the location into a mosque and requested a neutral location. Sophronius suggested Temple Mount
where the Second Temple had been destroyed over five centuries earlier and the ruin of that

15
David Ussishkin, “Was Jerusalem a fortified stronghold in the Middle Bronze Age? – an alternative view, Levant,
48:2, pp. 148-150.
16
Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman (2001). The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient
Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. United States: Free Press. ISBN 978-0-684-86912-4.
17
Israel Finkelstein & Neil Asher Silberman. The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and
the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. Simon & Schuster, (2002) pp. 128–29.
13
destruction remained. Umar complied and also ordered that the site be cleared of the debris. A
wooden mosque was erected on the site later became the locus of the Dome of the Rock and Al
Aqsa.
The First Temple, Solomon’s is described in 1 Kings 6 but there is absolutely no archaeological
evidence of it. No one questions the Babylonian destruction and conflagration of parts of the city.
Archaeological evidence suggests that it was limited to the area around Temple Mount and the
City of David. A Second Temple was built late in the 6th and early 5th CBCE. There is evidence of
Hasmonean building and massive Herodian construction in the current wall around the platform
that surrounds Temple Mount. There has been no direct excavation of Temple Mount. However,
the Waqf that controls Temple Mount destroyed crusader period structured labled Solomon’s
stables and also excavated to replace an electrical cable and dump that resulted had been sifted
with no 10th CBCE artifacts found. Jerusalem has been fairly thoroughly excavated considering
the urban density. Charles Warren, a British officer, made a topographic map of the city in the 19th
century and conducted illegal tunneling explorations near Temple Mount. Monasteries in the city
excavated in their basements. The largest excavation currently is in the ridge just to the south of
Temple Mount known as the City of David. It has revealed a likely two-story administrative
building dating from the late 7th CBCE, probably destroyed by the Babylonians, and more recent
materials. There is much evidence in Jerusalem of the Roman period, a fair amount of earlier
periods, but almost no artifacts of the 10th CBCE, the period of David and Solomon. “Jerusalem
of the tenth century B.C. is an archeological void. ‘I can take a shoebox and put inside everything
we have from that period,’ Yuval Gadot, an archeologist from Tel Aviv University, said.”18
Aftermath of the fall of the Kingdom of Israel
Political, military, and economic circumstances led to widespread distribution of people from the
Kingdoms of Israel and Judah between the eighth and the fifth centuries BCE. Israel was far larger
than Judah and occupied an area of rich resources. In addition, Israel was astride a major route of
international trade. The Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains to the north. And the Dead Sea to
the south funneled trade through Israel and its neighbor, Aram-Damascus. Israel and Aram-
Damascus were occasional allies and occasional rivals.
In 853 BCE the Assyrian emperor Shalmaneser III defeated the army of an alliance of eleven kings
led by the King of Aram-Damascus. Shalmaneser erected a victory monument that listed the forces
that opposed him. Granted that such monuments are propaganda and probably overstate the size
of the defeated forces, King Ahab of Israel is said to have come with two thousand chariots and
ten thousand soldiers.
The 9th CBCE also saw the emergence of the polity of Aram-Damascus. Most of what is known
of this entity is from Assyrian sources and the Tanakh. Aram-Damascus reached its peak late in
the century under Hazael who defeated Kings Jehoram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah at Ramoth-
Giliad, repelled two attacks by Assyrians, seized Israelite territory and defeated the Philistine city
of Gath. There was almost constant warfare between Israel and Aram-Damascus with Israel

18
Ruth Margalit, “In Search of King David’s Lost Empire,” The New Yorker, June 29, 2020 Issue

14
ultimately becoming a vassal of Aram-Damascus.19 Moab liberated itself from Israelite
domination.
In the 8th CBCE Rezin of Aram-Damascus had been a tributary of Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria.
In 732 BCE he and Pekah, King of Israel, invited Ahaz, King of Judah, to join them in revolting
against Assyria. Ahaz declined and they decided to attack Ahaz. He appealed to Tiglath-Pileser III
for aid and “The king of Assyria listened to him; the king of Assyria marched up against Damascus,
and took it, carrying its people captive to Kir; then he killed Rezin.” (2 Kings 16:9) Tiglath-Pileser
III annexed Aram-Damascus and made Israel a tributary state.
Hoshea murdered Pekah and became King of Israel. He is reported to have made an overture to
Egypt with a promise of tribute. The Assyrians invaded in 728 BCE and after a long seige took
Samaria in 722 ending the Kingdom of Israel.
Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria; for three years he
besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea the king of Assyria captured Samaria; he carried
the Israelites away to Assyria. He placed them in Halah, on the Habor, the river of Gozan,
and in the cities of the Medes. (2 Kings 17:5,6)
Following the defeat of Samaria there is archaeological evidence of a significant immigration to
Jerusalem from Israel. It is thought by many scholars that the immigrants brought with them
elements of the governmental organization, the notion of a monarchial history, and elements of the
cult as practiced in Samaria, the capital of the Kingdom of Israel. The city of Jerusalem grew
significantly in this period.
In the late eighth century the number of sites grew to 122 in the highlands and 276 in the Shephelah
and the population of Jerusalem grew from about 1,000 to 10,000.20 The increase is most likely
associated with people moving from the Kingdom of Israel at the time of its collapse.
Israel Finkelstein believes that this is the period that provided the resources that permitted the
construction of the First Temple, probably during the reign of Josiah.
Tel Arad and Tel Moẓa
Two Iron Age temples have been located just outside of Jerusalem and in the Negev and there is
one also on Elephantine Island in the Nile at the site of a Jewish colony of Persian army reservists.
The excavators at both sites in Israel compare the features of the temples to that of Solomon’s in
Jerusalem. The comparison is, of course, to the literary description written during the exile after
the destruction of the temple.
The hilltop at Tel Arad in the Negev was marked by a small village in the 10th CBCE and with an
Israelite fortress beginning in the 9th CBCE. It was excavated in the 1960’s and early 1970’s by
Yohanan Aharoni. All of the earlier reporting on the fortress and the temple in it dated its
foundation to Solomon. However, the most recent 14C studies of the Iron Age in Israel date it to a

19
The anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, so that he gave them repeatedly into the hand of King Hazael of
Aram, then into the hand of Ben-hadad son of Hazael. (2 Kings 13:3). The name of the king who succeeded Hazael
was Rezin. The kings had the title Ben Hadad, more likely Aramaic Bar Hadad, ‘son of the god Hadad,’
20
Finkelstein, Israel. “The Settlement History of Jerusalem In The Eighth And Seventh Centuries BC.” Revue Biblique
(1946-), vol. 115, no. 4, 2008, pp. 503ff., 510. pp. 499–515. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44090908. Accessed 31
Jan. 2021.
15
later period.21 Most likely the temple was built and used in the 7th CBCE and was decommissioned
just prior to the Babylonian destruction of the site. It was not destroyed but rather, important cultic
components were buried. Some of these components are shown in the photographs below. The site
is currently a National Park and many of the elements are restored. The temple is built on an east-
west axis. In the photograph on the left the ‫ִמזְֵבַח‬, mizbēaḥ, “sacrificial altar” is shown on the right
side of the courtyard. To the upper left is the ‫ֵהיָכל‬, haykol, “assembly room” and beyond it the‫ְדִּביר‬,
dĕbīr, “holy of holies.” That is what is pictured on the right with two the ‫ַחָמִּנים‬, ḥammānīm, incense
burners. These incense burners were laid on their sides and buried in the decommissioning.
Residue from the burners showed that frankincense had been burned in the one and cannabis in
the other.22

The principal excavator of the site, Yohanan Aharoni, assigned the construction to the period of
Solomon well before the excavation reached the level of the initial construction. It seems clear that
the assignment was based upon his observation that the plan was similar to that described of the
Firstst Temple in Jerusalem. 23
Salvage archaeology in advance of the building of a highway began at Tel Moẓa in 1993. The site
is located at the convergence of two watersheds and is a prime agricultural center that has been
occupied since the pre-pottery neolithic about 9,000 BCE. The site is mentioned in Joshua as being
part of the terrritory of Benjamin (Joshua 18:26). Beginning in 2012 and continuing through the
presence the archaeological focus has been on a temple architectural complex.24

21
Herzog, Zeʾev, et al. “The Israelite Fortress at Arad.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no.
254, 1984, pp. 1–34.
Israel Finkelstein and Eli Piasetzky, “Radiocarbon dating the Iron Age in the Levant: a Bayesian model for six ceramic
phases and six transitions.”
22
Eran Arie, Baruch Rosen and Dvory Namdar, “Cannabis and Frankincense at the Judahite Shrine of Arad”
23
Ussishkin, David. “The Date of the Judaean Shrine at Arad.” Israel Exploration Journal, vol. 38, no. 3, 1988, pp.
142–157.
24
2,750-Year-Old Temple, Rare Artifacts Found in Israel, Tel Moza Expedition Project
16
Based upon the pottery found, including ritual vessels, the building was first constructed in the
early 9th CBCE and continued in use until early in the 6th CBCE. As the temple at Tel Arad and
the description of the First Temple it, it follows the basic archetectual pattern of Iron Age Syrian
temples. The one exception is that the haykol, “assembly room,” at Tel Arad is a broad room and
those of the First Temple and Tel Moẓa are long rooms.
The most striking feature of this temple is that it is only seven kilometers from Temple Mount in
Jerusalem. The excavators believe that it is contemporary with the First Temple but if Finkelstein
is correct in the dating of the First Temple then the Tel Moẓa temple is two centuries earlier.
Diaspora and Exile
The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah existed in a period and place dominated by major political,
military, and economic powers. There was no such thing as a nation state; borders were fungible;
and identity was based upon cultural affinity. Often the term ‘empire’ is used to describe a
confederation of polities, dominated by one, with local governing mechanisms. It is usually the
case that the primary motive for empire building is economic. Long distance, down-the-line,
exchange became important throughout the Iron Age. The success of such trade depends upon
security and those entities that became empires expanded to provide trade route security. Tribute
from member polities funded the enterprise and provided for extravagance in the upper eschelons.
The dominant polities developed spheres of influence and often competed with one another over

17
polities that lay near the borders of those spheres. The loyalty of vassal states was marked by the
payment of tribute and failure to pay usually resulted in a punishing military campaign. The
dominant states also acted to eliminate the growth of potential rival states.
When Solomon discovered that Jeraboam was planning a revolt he sought to kill him and Jeraboam
fled to Egypt where he was protected by the pharaoh Shoshenq I, Shishak in the Tanakh.25 The
LXX adds that Shoshenq gave his daughter, Ano, as a wife to Jeraboam. Jereboam’s wife is
mentioned in the Masoretic text in a later passage but is not named.
The Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I conducted a campaign in the south Levant in the 10th CBCE.
The DtrH dates it to the fifth year of Rehoboam but that is probably simply to follow the DrtH’s
narrative of using foreign powers to punish kings who fail. Shoshenq is thought to have ruled from
943 to 922 BCE and the date of the campaign is not known from Egyptian sources. There seems
to be three probable objectives of the campaign. The campaign into the Negev seems to have halted
the formation of a polity that could have interfered with Egyptian intrests in trade from Arabia and
the Red Sea. A campaign in the hill country centering on Gibeon was probably for a similar
purpose. And the campaign in the Jezreel valley was to secure the trade route. The 11th and 10th
CBCE in that area had shown increased military activity among Canaanite city-states marked by
the destruction levels in those cities. It is not clear whether Shoshenq is the author of the destruction
or the pacifier.The Kingdom of Israel expanded into previous Canaanite areas following
Shoshenq’s campaign and it is entirely possible that Shoshenq installed Jeraboam at Shechem as
an Egyptian ally.
No cities of the southern hill country of Judah appear in the campaign list of those inscribed at
Karnak. From what is known now of the archaeology of Judah and Jerusalem, it would seem that
the Judean polity at the time was simply too small and unimportant to deserve his attention. 1
Kings, however, reports his removing the temple treasure, “In the fifth year of King Rehoboam,
Shishak king of Egypt attacked Jerusalem. He carried off the treasures of the temple of the Lord
and the treasures of the royal palace. He took everything, including all the gold shields Solomon
had made.” (1 Kings 14:25, 26) It provides a simple, however improbable, explanation of the lack
of evidence of the significant riches of Solomon.26
In addition to the deportations with the fall of the Kingdom of Israel there were other population
movements as well. As noted above the population of Jerusalem and Judah increased dramatically.
The Assyrian campaign was long, from 728 to 722 BCE providing a long opportunity. The seige
of Samaria began in 725 BCE so there was a fair period in which officials of the city could leave.
The Kingdom of Judah became a tributary state of Assyria and began a period, with one exception,
of economic growth. It was a part of the Assyrian economic sphere and played a key role in
maintaining secure trade routes. The exception was when Hezekiah failed to pay tribute to the
Assyrians. The Assyrian king, Sennacherib, invaded and destroyed several cities. Friezes found in
the excavation of Sennacherib’s palace illustrate the siege of Lachish. While Sennaccherib was at
Lachish, Hezekiah sent an apology and promise to pay whatever was demanded. Sennacherib

25
1 Kings 11:26-40
26
Finkelstein, Israel. "The Campaign of Shoshenq I to Palestine: A Guide to the 10 Th Century BCE Polity."
Zeitschrift Des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (1953-) 118, no. 2 (2002): 109-35. Accessed March 8, 2021.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/27931693.
18
levied a sufficently heavy fine that Hezekiah is said to have stripped the temple to meet the
demand. The Kingdom of Judah then became again a prosperous tributary state.27
Beginning in 626 BCE the Medes and Babylonians began a revolt against Assyria. In 612 BCE
Nineveh, the Assyrian capital fell and remnants of the Assyrian army went to the Harran, a city in
Turkey near the Syrian border.
In 609 BCE the Pharaoh Necho II marched up the coast with his army to aid the Assyrians. The
Philistine cities were commonly allies of Egypt and he would not have passed through Judah.
Based on the battle that took place later at Carchemish it is clear that his intent was to aid Assyria
against the Babylonian coalition. Necho II was the third pharaoh of the twenty-sixth dynasty, a
dynasty descended from the twenty-fourth which was founded by a coalition of groups native to
the Nile delta. The twenty-fifth dynasty originated in Nubia, southern Egypt and northern Sudan.
The Assyrians had helped Necho I expel the Nubians and found the twenty-sixth dynasty. Necho
II was moving to aid the dynasty that had created the basis for his grandfather’s rule.
Then one of the most enigmatic events described in the Tanakh is described. In 2 Chronicles
35:20–27 Josiah approached to attack and Necho sent messengers to say that he was not moving
against Josiah but against his enemy. Josiah disquised himself and engaged on the plain of
Megiddo. There is no description of a battle just the note that Josiah was shot by archers and was
transported in his chariot to Jerusalem where he died. There is much written explaining what Josiah
was doing that is completely without foundation. Some say that he was defending his territory but
Necho had passed completely by Judah. Approximately a century prior to Josiah’s reign Assyria
annexed Kingdom of Israel and divided it into the Province of Samaria in the south and the
Province of Megiddo in the north. Megiddo is 90 kilometers north of Jerusalem. Others say that
he was an ally of the Babylonians but there is nothing to support that although he may have already
become a tributary since Babylon had already taken all of the southern parts of the Assyrian
domain. It would remain the case, however, that it is inconceivable that Judah could have mounted
a force that could compete with the forces under Necho’s control.
A structural analysis of Chronicles demonstrates that the author had a copy of Kings. Many of the
accounts in Chronicles follow the account in Kings but frequently the author of Chronicles
embellishes with material that cannot be separately sourced. In the case of Josiah’s death the
account in 2 Kings 23:29 is much more terse.
‫שׁיָּהוּ ִלְקָראתוֹ ַויְִמיֵתהוּ ִבְּמגִדּוֹ ִכְּרא ֹתוֹ‬
ִ ‫ְבּיָָמיו ָעָלה ַפְרע ֹה ְנכ ֹה ֶמֶלְך ִמְצַריִם ַעל־ֶמֶלְך ַאּשׁוּר ַעל־ְנַהר־ְפָּרת ַויֵֶּלְך ַהֶמֶּלְך י ֹא‬
bĕyāmāyw ‘ālāh par‘ōh nĕkōh melek miṣrayim ‘al-melek ’ššûr ‘al-nĕhar-pĕrāt wayyalek
hammelek yōšīyāhū lĕqĕrā’tū wayĕmītahū bimĕgiddō kir’otō
‘In his days Pharaoh Necho, king of Egypt, went to the king of Assyria by the river Euphrates.
And King Josiah went to meet him and he (Necho) killed him (Josiah) when he saw him.’
There are three verbs in the Masoretic text whose translation make the influence of the the account
in chronicles clear. The Kings account makes no mention of military action.
During his time Pharaoh N’khoh king of Egypt went up toward the Euphrates River to
attack the king of Ashur. King Yoshiyahu went out to oppose him; but at Megiddo, Pharaoh
spotted Yoshiyahu and killed him. (2 Kings 23:29 CJB)

27
2 Kings 18,19
19
 In his days Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt went to the aid of the king of Assyria, to the River
Euphrates; and King Josiah went against him. And Pharaoh Necho killed him at Megiddo
when he confronted him. (2 Kings 23: 29 NKJV)
The verb ‫ָעָלה‬, ‘ālah, is a very common verb occuring 888 times in the Tanakh. It means ‘to go up,
climb, ascend.’ Unless context is provided it has neither hostile nor beneficial implication. The
CJB translates as “to attack” ‫ִלְקָראתוֹ‬, lĕqĕrā’tū, it is the infinitive of the verb ‫ָקָרא‬, qārā’, and means
‘to meet.’ The NKJV translates it as “went against him.” The verb in various forms occurs 100
times and again, without context, has no hostile implication. The verb root for ‫ִכְּרא ֹתוֹ‬, kir’otō, ‫ָראָה‬,
rā’āhʼ, is simply the verb for ‘see.’ The CJB “spotted” is value laden. And there is no question
that Necho was not intending to attack the king of Ashur but rather, the Babylonians.
All explanations of the event are speculation given the lack of data and the apparent irrationality
of Josiah’s action. One suggestion has been that Josiah was a vassal of Necho and was summoned
to the meeting and, for unknown reason, executed.2829
The Assyrian and Egyptian forces marched on the Babylonian garrison at Harran but failed to take
the city. They fell back to Carchemish where the combined Babylonian allies under the crown
prince Nebuchadnezzar defeated them in 605 BCE. With the death of Josiah, his son, Jehoahaz
was named king but was confined by Necho at Ribla far to the north of Judah. Necho paused at
Jerusalem on his return to Egypt, exacted a tribute and named another of Josiah’s sons, Eliakim,
king, changing his name to Jehoiakim, and taking Jehoahaz with him back to Egypt.30
With the death of his father that same year Nebuchadnezzar returned to Babylon where he spent
several years securing his northern and eastern borders. The accession of a new king often was the
opportunity for revolt in the form of failure to pay the tribute. It was typically basically an
invitation to one of the other great powers to intervene. Nebuchadnessar launched an unsuccessful
campaign to invade Egypt in 601 BCE. 2 Kings 24:1 says that Jehoiakim was loyal for three years
and then rebelled. He died in 598 BCE and was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin.
In the seventh year [598/597], the month of Kislîmu, the king of Akkad mustered his
troops, marched to the Hatti-land, and besieged the city of Judah and on the second day of
the month of Addarunote he seized the city and captured the king [Jehoiachin] He
appointed there a king of his own choice, [Jehoiachin's uncle Mattaniah became king of
Judah and changed his name to Zedekiah] received its heavy tribute and sent to Babylon.31
Jehoiachin and others were taken to Babylon where, at some point, Jehoiachin died. And once
again the gold vessels that Solomon had made were carried off.

28
Talshir, Zipora. “The Three Deaths of Josiah and the Strata of Biblical Historiography (2 Kings XXIII 29-30; 2
Chronicles XXXV 20-5; 1 Esdras I 23-31).” Vetus Testamentum, vol. 46, no. 2, 1996, pp. 213–236.
29
It is probably knowledge of this event that led the author of the Book of Revelation to write And they assembled
them at the place that in Hebrew is called Harmagedon. (16:16), ‫ַהר ְמִגדּוֹ‬, har mĕgiddō, ‘mount megiddo.’
30
2 Kings 23:30-35
31
No 24 WA21946, The Babylonian Chronicles, The British Museum,
https://www.livius.org/sources/content/mesopotamian-chronicles-content/abc-5-jerusalem-chronicle/
Cf. 2 Kings 24:13-17.
20
In 591 BCE Pharaoh Psamtik II, grandson of Necho II, campaigned in Judah in an attempt to
forment rebellion. He withdrew but, of course, Zedekiah rebeled. Psamtik sent an army to help
defend Jerusalem but the Egyptian army withdrew without engaging the Babylonians. The long
siege that ended with the breach of the city and the destruction of the temple and other buildings
in the part of the city called the City of David.
In the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month—which was the nineteenth year of
King Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon—Nebuzaradan, the captain of the bodyguard, a
servant of the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem. He burned the house of the Lord, the
king’s house, and all the houses of Jerusalem; every great house he burned down. All the
army of the Chaldeans who were with the captain of the guard broke down the walls around
Jerusalem. Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard carried into exile the rest of the people
who were left in the city and the deserters who had defected to the king of Babylon—all
the rest of the population. But the captain of the guard left some of the poorest people of
the land to be vinedressers and tillers of the soil. (2 Kings 25:8-12)
The level of destruction of Jerusalem reported in 2 Kings is not confirmed in archaeological
excavation. Destruction and burning are easily detected in excavation and seems to be confied to
areas near Temple Mount and the Gihon Spring. With the exception of one location there is little
sign of conflagration or an assemblage of broken vessels on floors on the Western Hills.32
Jeremiah is a contemporary of these events and seems to be a part of the pro-Babylon party in
Judah. Jeremiah is likely the author of the book that bears his name and he preaches that the
Babylonian campaign is warrented based upon the failures of the kings and people to follow the
proper cultic practice. He writes to those in Babylon
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile
from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they
produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your
daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not
decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the
Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jeremiah 29:4-7 NRSV)
When Jeremiah was found, bound in chains and awaiting exile, by a captain of the Babylonian
guard, he was freed and given permission to go to Babylon if he wished, or not. “So the captain of
the guard gave him an allowance of food and a present, and let him go. Then Jeremiah went to
Gedaliah son of Ahikam at Mizpah, and stayed with him among the people who were left in the
land.”(Jeremiah 40:5,6 NRSV) Gedaliah was the person appointed by Nebuchadnezzar as
governor of the Babylonian province of Judah. When Gedaliah was murdered, Jeremiah advised
the murderers to remain in Judah and they fled to Egypt, taking Jeremiah with them, against his
will. Jeremiah is the only source for the number of people taken into exile and since he was
contemporary and an apologist for the Babylonians, his numbers may be of at least the right
magnitude.

32
Israel Finkelstein, “Jerusalem and Judah 600–200 BCE; Implications for Understanding Pentateuchal Texts,” in
The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Torah, edited by Peter Dubovsky´, Dominik Markl,and Jean-Pierre Sonnet,
p. 7.
21
 This is the number of the people whom Nebuchadrezzar took into exile: in the seventh year
[598 BCE], three thousand twenty-three Judeans; 29 in the eighteenth year of
Nebuchadrezzar [587 BCE] he took into exile from Jerusalem eight hundred thirty-two
persons; 30 in the twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar [582 BCE], Nebuzaradan the
captain of the guard took into exile of the Judeans seven hundred forty-five persons; all the
persons were four thousand six hundred. (Jeremiah 52:28-30)
Jeremiah is probably counting adult males and his numbers probably translate to perhaps 20,000
persons all together. It is impossible to know well the total population of Judah at the time.
Estimates based on peacetime demographics are impossible. From the days of Hezekiah on there
had been military campaigns in the area. Those campaigns surely displaced many people. Israelites
had been displaced by the Assyrians. The distinction between Israelites and Judeans was probably
fading. The Judean, and probably Israelite, villages that Jeremiah found when taken to the delta of
Egypt were probably founded by those displaced. Others would have fled to areas to the south of
Judah. Estimates of the total population vary between 100,000 and 200,000. Given the numbers
available to us, perhaps 80% to 90% of the population remained, probably mainly in rural villages.
The larger cities woud have suffered the most during the campaigns.
Archaeologists call this the Neo-Babylonian period and until very recent decades it was given little
attention in Judah. Other events and times were deemed more interesting. Also, given the number
of military campaigns in a relatively short period of time it is often difficult to determine who was
responsible for what. And both archaeology and military campaigns have almost always focused
upon the urban centers and not the sparse remains from rural, hard to detect, villages.
A bit more is known about those who were sent into exile in Mesopotamia. As with the Assyrian
displacement of Israelites those from Judah were sent to villages in the Tigris and Euphrates
valleys where they were allocated land and some number of the elite settled in Babylon. When
Amel-Marduk succeeded his father Nebuchadnezzar, he released “Ya’u-kīnu, king of the land of
Yahudu”, Jehoiakhin, from prison, granted him a position of privilege, and provided him with
daily provisions. The large size of the provisions suggests that he was responsible for a retinue.33
The displacements were certainly a disaster for many people and were not restricted to Israelites
and Judeans. The purpose was political and since the displacement moved a particular local
population to a particular destination, it did not destroy cultural identity. The increasing size of the
economic domain fostered the use of a single language. Throughout the Assyrian, Babylonian, and
Persian Empires the administrative language of their domains was Aramaic. There was no
interference with cultural or cultic practices.
The temple in Jerusalem was constructed by the state for the purpose of centralizing cultic and
political authority in one location. The Book of Deuteronomy that was found while Josiah was
repairing the temple, or was written while Josiah was building the temple, forbade sacrafice any
place but that temple. Thus, in Mesopotamia no sacrafice could be conducted and that was the only
function of the kohănim. The sōferīm34, “scribes” become much more important as they were the
authors and custodians of the written and oral traditions.

33
Babylonian Ration List: King Jehoiakhin in Exile, 592/1 BCE
34
The word does not appear in the Masoretic Text. It is probably a loan word from Assyrian where šâpiru means
“writer”
22
In Babylon and the villages beliefs and practices began to take form that we would recognize from
contemporary perspective as Judaism. Scholars typically to not use the term ‘Judiasm’ to refer to
the beliefs and practices of the group prior to Ezra. When I taught the course Judiasm and
Christianity in the Formative Period, it began with Ezra.
Local religious expression had changed in Mesopotamia as well. There was lessening emphasis on
temple sacrafice and adoration of images. The major celebration of the year was a festival honoring
the chief god of the pantheon Marduk and the goddess Ishtar held on the 14th and 15th of the month
of Adar. Since these were clearly foreign gods, Jews could not participate in a festival honoring
them. However, thanks to the story recounted in the Book of Esther, they could celebrate, on
exactly the same dates, a festival in honor of Mordecai and Esther, Purim.35 A study of contracts
written on clay tablets found in Babylon reveals that many persons with Yah prefix and suffix
names were doing very well in Babylonian society.
Cyrus of Persia invaded and defeated the Babylonian army in 539 BCE. After that there was little
resistance and he was invited by the elite of Babylon to enter the city in 538 BCE, the Persian
empire inheriting the Babylonian empire. He is thought to have issued a decree permitting
displaced persons to return to their place of origin. The Israelite population had been displaced for
nearly two centuries and the Judean for fifty years. The Judeans permitted to return were the
grandchildren and great grandchildren of those who had been initially exiled. Those living in the
villages had farming conditions superior to those of Judah and those in Babylon were living in the
largest city in the world. One wonders what incentive might have caused these people to return to
the still ruined homeland of their grandfathers.
It has been difficult to establish the dates in which Nehemiah and Ezra were active in Jerusalem.
Ezra is said to have come to Jerusalem in the seventh year of the reign of King Artaxerxes.36
However there are two Persian kings with that name Artaxerxes I ruled from 464 to 424 BCE and
Artaxerxes II from 404 to 358 BCE. Nehemiah is said to come to Jerusalem in the twentieth year
of Artaxerxes.37 There is a letter from the elders of the Jewish community at Elephantine in Egypt
dated to 407 BCE that mention Delaiah and Shlemiah, the sons of Sanbalat who was the Governor
of Samaria hostile to Nehemiah. This would seem to fix Nehemiah’s Artaxerxes as the first and
therefore Nehemiah’s Governorship of Judah to 445 to 432 BCE. Eliasib is the High Priest of
Nehemiah38 but Ezra “went to the chamber of Jehohanan son of Eliashib, where he spent the
night.”39 The most traditional date for Ezra’s arrival has been the seventh year of Artaxerxes I, 458
BCE. Because of the problems of seeing Ezra and Nehemiah as contemporaries There are a number
of scholars who suggest 398 BCE.
Israel Finkelstein points out that there is very little evidence of occupation during the Persian
period. The southwestern hill seems unoccupied from the early sixth century to the second century
BCE. Occupation during the Persian period seems restricted to the central portion of the City of

35
Robert Drews, Coursebook: Judaism, Christianity And Islam, To The Beginnings Of Modern Civilization, Chapter
four
36
Ezra 7:7-9
37
Nehemiah 2:1
38
Nehemiah 12:10,22 and 3:1, 20-21,13:28 and Cf. p. 7 above.
39
Ezra 10:6
23
David ridge. In many excavation units Iron II sherds on bedrock had Hellenistic period sherds in
the immediately above level. Based upon the distribution of archaeological finds the population of
the city is probably a total of about 400. There is also no evidence of the wall that Nehemiah is
said to have built.40 The book of 2 Chronicles had detailed lists of retournees from Babylon and
the villages to which they returned. Finkelstein has noted that many of those villages were not
occupied in the Persian period but were in the Hellenistic.41
There is masonry in the Temple Mount platform that is Hasmonean and a massive amount that is
Herodian. It is unclear what resources the Hasmoneans had at various times to construct public
buildings. Herod was a close ally of the Roman imperial family and his building campaign
demonstrates that serious subsidies from Rome must have been received. Most likely during the
Hasmonean and Herodian periods a substantial structure was erected on Temple Mount. It
functioned, as had the First Temple, primarily as a political symbol.
While Ezra is said to have arrived in Jerusalem with the Torah, similarly Hillel came from
Mesopotamia to Jerusalem and founded a school devoted to the study of Torah. What Hillel
brought was Judism without the temple but with the Torah. During this period as well we have the
development of the Babylonian Talmud. While the construction of the temples is unclear, the
destruction by the Babylonians is well documented. In each case the temple was a symbol of
political identity that was treated as such by occupying forces. During the first Jewish-Roman war
both the Pharasees and the Christians left the city, the Pharasees to Jamnia on the coast where they
founded the center that was the nurturing ground for almost all of the Judaisms that exist today.
Judaism flourishes in Torah, not in temple.

40
Israel Finkelstein, Jerusalem in the Persian (and Early Hellenistic) Period and the Wall of Nehemiah, Journal for
the Study of the Old Testament Vol 32.4 (2008): 501-520
41
I. Finkelstein, The Expansion of Judah in II Chronicles: Territorial Legitimation for the Hasmoneans? Zeitschrift
für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 127 (2015), pp. 669–695.
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https://www.bibleodyssey.org/tools/map-gallery/i/map-israel-and-judah

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