·
Divided Kingdom, United Critics
Two archaeologists independently review Israel
Finkelstein's The Forgotten Kingdom in the
July/August 2014 issue of BAR
Reviews by William G. Dever and Aaron Burke
Israel
Finkelstein, The Forgotten Kingdom: The Archaeology and
History of Northern Israel, Society of Biblical Literature Ancient
Near East Monographs 5 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 210
pp., $39.95 (hardcover), $24.95 (paperback)
Learning More About
Israel? Or Israel?
William G. Dever
It is impossible to summarize Israel Finkelstein’s latest
book, The Forgotten Kingdom, in a brief review because its
numerous errors, misrepresentations, over-simplifications and contradictions
make it too unwieldy. Specialists will know these flaws, since all of
Finkelstein’s pivotal views have been published elsewhere. Here I can only
alert unwary BAR readers that this book is
not really about sound historical scholarship: It is all about theater.
Finkelstein is a magician, conjuring a “lost kingdom” by sleight-of-hand,
intending to convince readers that the illusion is real and expecting that they
will go away marveling at how clever the magician is. Finkelstein was once an
innovative scholar, pioneering new methods; now he has become a showman. A
tragic waste of talent, energy and charm—and a detriment to our discipline.
This book is such a good read, so drama-filled, so clever that it
took me—a specialist—a bit of time to see through it. For example, Finkelstein
reconstructs an early Israelite “sanctuary” at Shiloh (where he excavated) to
give it the necessary prominence in Israel’s formative period (pp. 23–27; 49,
50). He makes three arguments: (1) Although he now admits that he found no
archaeological evidence (as he claimed in his original excavation report on
Shiloh), the Bible’s “cultural memory” nevertheless requires that there must
have been such a cult-place there. (2) In Iron I (1200–1000 B.C.E.—Israel’s
formative period) there “was not a single house” at Shiloh, only public
buildings. (3) Shiloh was later destroyed, just as implied in the Hebrew Bible.
What are the facts?
(1) All of Finkelstein’s evidence of a “cult-place” at Shiloh is
circumstantial; he himself admits this.
(2) He interprets the well-known Iron I pillar-courtyard House A
at Shiloh that was originally excavated by a Danish expedition and later
reinvestigated by himself as a public building only because it contains “too
many” storejars (as many as 20). Yet his own Iron I house excavated at Megiddo
(o/K/10)—published explicitly as an “ordinary private house”—contained more
than 40 large storejars. And he can presume the absence of other private houses
at Shiloh only because few other areas have been excavated, and where they have
been excavated other houses are known.
(3) As for reliance on the Hebrew Bible’s “cultural memory” (the
latest fad in Biblical studies), Finkelstein has famously rejected this
“cultural memory” as unreliable. And he has castigated other archaeologists for
invoking it! Yet here (and elsewhere) he does not hesitate to appeal to
Biblical tradition when it suits his purposes. As for evidence of Shiloh’s
destruction c. 1050 B.C.E. at the hands of the Philistines, Finkelstein cites
not archaeological evidence, but only Jeremiah 7:12–14; 26:6–9, which he admits
refers rather to Shiloh’s destruction by the Assyrians in the late eighth
century B.C.E. (impossible even then, since the site was deserted). He himself
is driven to fall back on the Bible’s “cultural memory.”
In sum, Finkelstein’s “early cult center at Shiloh” is a fantasy,
a product of his imagination.
Fundamental to Finkelstein’s entire reconstruction of the history of the northern kingdom of Israel is a “Saulide polity,” from its center at Gibeon all the way up to the Jezreel Valley (pp. 37–43, 52–61).
Again, what are the facts? (1) The stratigraphy and chronology of
James Pritchard’s excavations at Gibeon (Tell el-Jib) are notoriously flawed,
so much so that the scant evidence for the Iron I period cannot be dated within
a margin of less than a century; it cannot be used for any historical
reconstruction (there are not even any stratum numbers in the excavation
reports). (2) Finkelstein’s only evidence for an administrative center at
Gibeon is the supposed plan of a casemate wall (Fig. 11:2, drawn up by a
student). Yet even a casual glance reveals nothing but a short stretch of a
broken single wall abutted by two ephemeral wall fragments. (3) With regard to
the claim that Saul ruled from a sort of capital at Gibeon, the only Biblical
references are to his having visited there once, and being remembered in
David’s day as having slaughtered its inhabitants, who were not even Israelites
(cf. 2 Samuel 21:1ff.).1
Finkelstein has simply invented out of whole cloth a “Saulide
polity at Gibeon.”
The real point of this book is to argue that the Biblical “United
Monarchy” of David and Solomon in the tenth century B.C.E. is a later fiction, concocted by
the southern, Judahite-biased Biblical writers. The real “Israelite state,”
according to Finkelstein, is the northern kingdom of Israel, and even this
arose only in the ninth century B.C.E., that is, in the days of the Omrides (as
Finkelstein has claimed for some 20 years).
Just look at what Finkelstein’s “Saulide polity” would actually
imply, using his own assumptions and assertions: (1) Saul was a Judahite, a
southerner of the tribe of Benjamin. (2) Gibeon was a southern site, only 6
miles from Jerusalem. (3) Saul is rightly regarded as a historical figure, a
king, dated correctly to the early tenth century B.C.E. at latest. (4) Saul’s
effective rule extended through Samaria (!) up to the Jezreel Valley in the
north. Thus there was a tenth-century kingdom that embraced both Judah and
Samaria, ruled from a Judahite capital. In other words, Finkelstein’s “Saulide
polity” is in fact much the same as the Bible’s “United Monarchy”—established
even before the time of David and Solomon. The irony is that this time Finkelstein has been so clever that
he has outwitted himself. With his imagined “Saulide polity,” his oft-repeated
claim that the northern kingdom of Israel is a late development, independent
from Judah, unrecognized until he discovered it, falls apart. So does this
book.
The other pillar on which Finkelstein’s rediscovered northern kingdom rests is his vaunted “low chronology,” in which he down-dates the previously accepted dates for the origins of Israel by as much as a hundred years. Yet this, too, is regarded by most mainstream archaeologists as without substantial foundations. First suggested some 20 years ago, Finkelstein has tirelessly championed his “low chronology” ever since. Here he presents it without so much as a single reference to its numerous critiques, some of them devastating (as Kletter 2004; Ben Tor and Ben Ami 1998; Dever 1997; Mazar 2007; Stager 2003; and others).2 In numerous publications over 20 years, Finkelstein has relentlessly reworked the stratigraphy and chronology of site after site, not only in Israel and the West Bank, but even in Jordan, in order to defend his “low chronology.”
The other pillar on which Finkelstein’s rediscovered northern kingdom rests is his vaunted “low chronology,” in which he down-dates the previously accepted dates for the origins of Israel by as much as a hundred years. Yet this, too, is regarded by most mainstream archaeologists as without substantial foundations. First suggested some 20 years ago, Finkelstein has tirelessly championed his “low chronology” ever since. Here he presents it without so much as a single reference to its numerous critiques, some of them devastating (as Kletter 2004; Ben Tor and Ben Ami 1998; Dever 1997; Mazar 2007; Stager 2003; and others).2 In numerous publications over 20 years, Finkelstein has relentlessly reworked the stratigraphy and chronology of site after site, not only in Israel and the West Bank, but even in Jordan, in order to defend his “low chronology.”
In fact, there has never been any unequivocal empirical evidence
in support of the “low chronology.” Only some carbon-14 dates offer any
evidence at all, and many other dates support the conventional chronology (as
at Tel Rehov, which Finkelstein never cites here). At best, the low chronology
is a possibility for a 40-year, not a 100-year, adjustment. Even this is not
probable, and it is certainly not proven.
Yet on this flimsy foundation Finkelstein rests his entire
elaborate reconstruction, with far-reaching implications for southern Levantine
and Israelite history. Set that scheme aside, and Finkelstein’s claim to have
discovered a “lost kingdom” disappears in smoke—a book without any rationale.
What’s going on here? It took me a while to figure it out. What
Finkelstein is doing is gradually distancing himself from the extremes of his
low chronology—without ever admitting he is doing so—and counting on the
likelihood that readers will not check his “facts.” Even he now realizes that a
Judahite state did exist in the tenth century B.C.E. and that it could have
extended its rule to the north. He cannot bring himself to admit that David and
Solomon were real tenth-century kings since he is on record as denying the
existence of any Judahite state before the eighth century B.C.E. (or lately,
the ninth century). So he does an end run around the impasse by distracting
attention to their predecessor Saul as king!
Ever since the discoveries at Khirbet Qeiyafa a decade ago, where
Judahite state-formation is clear by the early tenth centurya (and
Finkelstein accepts this early date), his “low chronology” has been
progressively undermined. It should be abandoned.3
In this book Finkelstein has not “discovered a lost kingdom”; he
has invented it. The careful reader will nevertheless gain some insights into
Israel—Israel Finkelstein, that is.
Minimizing David,
Maximizing Labayu
Aaron Burke
Israel Finkelstein’s The Forgotten Kingdom invites
us to reconsider the archaeology and history of the northern kingdom of Israel
in an effort to integrate the most recent textual and archaeological
approaches. It is an ambitious work that few would attempt—or be capable of.
Such an effort is commendable; this might be the first book-length treatment to
try to give us an archaeological and Biblical text-critical synthesis of
ancient Israel’s history.
Prior works on the archaeology of ancient Israel, which are now
more than 20 years old, largely sought to catalog archaeological finds without
rewriting or recasting the accepted historical narrative of the Bible for the
Iron Age. Such approaches are unsatisfying for a lack of rigorous engagement
with a wide range of methodologies common in Biblical studies. As he explains
in the introduction, Finkelstein instead seeks to use archaeology to provide a
sense of the historical development of the northern kingdom of Israel (the
“forgotten” kingdom of his title), which lost much of its identity to Judah in
the Biblical account. To do this, Finkelstein musters not only a wide
geographical scope of data, but he also takes a longer historical perspective.
He draws heavily on his own personal accomplishments, which are highlighted as
“the personal perspective”—not only his excavations and surveys but more
recently his “Exact Sciences” research initiative.
At the outset Finkelstein describes what we might call the
background of power in the northern highlands. This is an important starting
point for Finkelstein’s entire premise, namely the independent character of the
northern kingdom of Israel. The underlying goal is to articulate an
evolutionary trajectory for Iron Age political organization in the northern
highlands that is independent of the traditional understanding of the northern
kingdom’s relationship to a United Monarchy of Israel, as depicted in the
Biblical narrative, which is centered instead on Jerusalem. Finkelstein
reconstructs a so-called Shechem polity during the Late Bronze Age, which is
intended to reveal a long historical trajectory of political and socio-economic
developments that evolves into the Iron Age kingdom of Israel, long before the
appearance of the southern kingdom of Judah.
THE AMARNA LETTERS, a collection of more than 300 Late Bronze Age cuneiform tablets discovered at el-Amarna in Egypt, record the royal correspondence of mid-14th-century pharaohs Amenophis III and his son, Akhenaten, with local rulers of various Canaanite city-states. The letters frequently mention “the land of Shechem” and a character named Labayu, who led an insurgency against Egypt. Israel Finkelstein believes that Labayu ruled Shechem and its territory, which was a powerful polity of the northern highlands long before the southern kingdom of Judah existed. Reviewer Aaron Burke points out that the Amarna letters never explicitly identify Labayu as the ruler of Shechem. Thus this “central tenet” of Finkelstein’s argument collapses.
The Egyptian 14th-century B.C.E. Amarna letters, from a time when
Egypt controlled Canaan, play a central role in Finkelstein’s discussion. The
problem, however, as Finkelstein recognizes, is that although “the land of
Shechem” appears prominently in the Amarna correspondence, it is impossible to
identify it with any certainty as the central and strongest polity in the
northern highlands, particularly since neither Labayu, the leader of an
insurgency against Egyptian rule, nor his sons is ever identified as ruler of
Shechem and its territory. Consequently, this central tenet of Finkelstein’s
argument in support of the prominence of a polity in the northern highlands
(and all of Finkelstein’s speculation therefrom) does not follow from the
evidence he adduces. Indeed, it seems that Finkelstein’s Labayu tradition here
serves only as a surrogate to support the origin of the Iron Age northern
kingdom of Israel. Finkelstein simply uses Labayu to replace the role of the
United Monarchy in the tenth century as the origin of Israel (and Judah). This
reconstruction, while entirely plausible, does not replace the explanatory
framework provided by the Davidic tradition in the Bible. The fact is that we
know next to nothing about the northern highlands in the early Iron IIA, as
Finkelstein’s own review makes plain.
The textual record for this early period is very limited;
therefore, archaeological evidence and a wider regional perspective are
essential to the reconstruction Finkelstein is attempting here. Nevertheless,
his treatment remains entirely textual. Only passing references are made, for
example, to pre-Iron Age settlements at Judahite Shechem, Jerusalem and Hebron,
each of which experienced comparable, developmental trajectories as Shiloh, as
revealed in their archaeological records. Only Shiloh, which is never
identified as a Bronze Age polity and is important only as a cult center in
later Biblical tradition, receives any substantive discussion by Finkelstein.4
From the Iron Age I onward, Finkelstein’s discussion centers
largely on an acceptance of the lowest version of his famous “low chronology.”
For those who may not recognize immediately what is at stake here, to put it
simply, if one shifts the dates of archaeological phenomena later in time, one
will be required to identify different sets of events to which these phenomena
correlate. Consequently, if one cannot accept these dates, there is little
basis to accept most of the nuances of Finkelstein’s ensuing analysis.
Unfortunately, his chronology continues to rest exclusively on Megiddo, his own
site, with very limited acknowledgment of the results of his discussion with
Amihai Mazar, Bronk Ramsey and others from sites such as Rehov, Khirbet
en-Nahas and Tel Dor. This is strange since the book’s framework otherwise
concedes a less-than-fully-realized “low chronology.” Indeed, Finkelstein’s
positions in this book are sometimes tortuously maintained in the face of
contravening data.5
I conclude by turning to Finkelstein’s persistent minimizing of
the role played in the northern kingdom’s development by a historical David and
a United Monarchy, however short-lived it may have been. Finkelstein must do
this, however, to create a lacuna that can then be filled by the northern
kingdom of Israel, despite the absence of evidence for any such process
occurring in the northern highlands until the ninth century B.C.E. Since
Finkelstein is unable to demonstrate an unequivocal basis for the indigenous
origins of political power in the northern highlands, his central argument
fails.
Even if one adopts a more limited view of David’s accomplishments than the Bible gives him, he remains a foundational figure of the United Kingdom. Finkelstein’s analysis, both textual and archaeological, cannot be reconciled with a founding Biblical figure (David), whose existence is already corroborated by extra-Biblical inscriptional data, that is, the Tel Dan inscription.b This inscription evidences not only David’s existence but also the dynasty he established.
Even if one adopts a more limited view of David’s accomplishments than the Bible gives him, he remains a foundational figure of the United Kingdom. Finkelstein’s analysis, both textual and archaeological, cannot be reconciled with a founding Biblical figure (David), whose existence is already corroborated by extra-Biblical inscriptional data, that is, the Tel Dan inscription.b This inscription evidences not only David’s existence but also the dynasty he established.
Concededly, a clear fingerprint of David’s patrimonial kingdom may
be elusive, contrary to earlier scholarly expectations, but how is this any
less the case for what is lacking in the north to illustrate the legacy of
political legitimacy in the northern highlands, as Finkelstein asserts?
Finkelstein makes allowances in his reconstruction of an early Iron IIA polity
in the north, but he is unwilling to do that for the southern highlands. This is
a major weakness of his work.
Although Finkelstein’s greatest career achievement may be the
demonstration of the value of hard sciences to traditional Biblical
archaeology, in this book he wades deep into the morass of traditional
text-critical studies of the Bible only to demonstrate how unsatisfying the
results can be. The book is replete with speculative reconstructions that
depend on a series of assumptions about chronology and Biblical history that
cannot be substantiated. Thus his book lacks an articulated methodology. His
effort here to integrate Biblical text-studies with archaeology only reveals
both how difficult such an enterprise is and fundamentally how uncertain the
results will be. Most of all, it reminds us that we must take a more evenhanded
approach to the application of the assumptions and the allowances we make when
attempting historical reconstructions of the Biblical periods.
Reviewers
William G. Dever is
professor emeritus of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the
University of Arizona. Prior to that he served for four years as director of
the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem (now the Albright
Institute of Archaeological Research). A world-renowned archaeologist,
Professor Dever has dug at numerous sites in Jordan and Israel. He served as
director of the major excavations at Gezer from 1966 to 1971. His most recent
book, The Lives of Ordinary People in Ancient Israel, was
published in 2012 (Eerdmans).
Aaron Burke is
associate professor of the archaeology of the Levant and ancient Israel at the
University of California, Los Angeles. He is the codirector of the Jaffa
Cultural Heritage Project, which coordinates the research and preservation of
the archaeological site of Jaffa, and is the author of “Walled up to Heaven”: The Evolution of the Middle Bronze Age
Fortification Strategies in the Levant (Eisenbrauns, 2008).
Notes
Dever Notes
a. See
Yosef Garfinkel, Michael Hasel and Martin Klingbeil, “An Ending and a Beginning,”BAR,
November/December 2013; Christopher A. Rollston, “What’s the Oldest Hebrew Inscription?” and
Gerard Leval, “Ancient Inscription Refers to Birth of Israelite Monarchy,”BAR,
May/June 2012; Hershel Shanks, “Newly Discovered: A Fortified City from King David’s Time,” BAR, January/February 2009.
1. As
for Finkelstein’s additional claim that Gibeon ceased to be a district center
when it “paid tribute,” but was destroyed in the mid- to late tenth century
raid of Pharaoh Shoshenq, there is no archaeological evidence whatsoever for such
a “destruction.” And while Gibeon is mentioned in the Shoshenq list (no. 23),
there is no reference there (or in the Bible) to either tribute or a
destruction (the mention of tribute in 2 Kings 14:25, 26 refers only to
Jerusalem).
2. See
the following works, none cited by Finkelstein: Amnon Ben-Tor and Doron
Ben-Ami, “Hazor and the Archaeology of the Tenth Century B.C.E.,” Israel Exploration Journal 48 (1998), pp. 1–37;
William G. Dever, “Archaeology, Urbanism and the Rise of the Israelite State,”
in Walter E. Aufrecht, Neil A. Mirau and Steven W. Gauley, eds., Aspects of Urbanism in Antiquity, From Mesopotamia to Crete (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 172–193; Lawrence E. Stager, “The
Patrimonial Kingdom of Solomon,” in William G. Dever and Seymour Gitin,
eds., Symbiosis, Symbolism and the Power of the Past: Canaan, Ancient
Israel and Their Neighbors from the Late Bronze Age Through Roman Palaestina (Winona
Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003), pp. 63–74; Raz Kletter, “Chronology and United
Monarchy: A Methodological Review,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen
Palastina-Vereins120 (2004), pp. 13–54; Amihai Mazar, “The Spade and
the Text: The Interaction Between Archaeology and Israelite History,” in H.G.M.
Williamson, ed., Understanding the History of Ancient Israel (Oxford:
Oxford Univ. Press, 2007), pp. 143–171.
3. Among
the book’s many other distortions, I can list here only a few: (1) Finkelstein
claims carbon-14 dates have corrected the dates of Ramses III (p. 24). Actually
they are exactly the same. (2) Finkelstein claims Shechem was destroyed at the
end of the Late Bronze Age (p. 22). The excavators have emphasized that it was
not. (3) Finkelstein claims that Tell Keisan, Tel Kinrot, Tel Reḥov, Yokneam
and Dor were all “Canaanite city-states” (p. 30). But “city-state” is never
defined, and at least two that are so claimed are Phoenician, one is probably
Aramaic, and none would actually qualify as a city-state. (4) Finkelstein
claims that there are dozens, even hundreds, of carbon-14 dates supporting the
“low chronology” (p. 33); in the latest Megiddo report (Megiddo IV), there are three published for the pivotal
Stratum VA/IVB, and if anything they support the conventional chronology. (5)
Finkelstein claims that Jerusalem in the tenth century B.C.E. was a poor
village with no monumental architecture (p. 43). Even Finkelstein’s colleague
Nadav Na’aman disagrees with him, as nearly all archaeologists do. (6)
Finkelstein radically challenges conventional dates by putting the Iron I/IIA
transition in the second half of the tenth century B.C.E. (p. 64). That’s
scarcely later than most, and even earlier than Amihai Mazar’s “modified”
conventional chronology. Finkelstein claims that Hazor X was destroyed in the
late ninth century (840–800 B.C.E.), as confirmed by carbon-14 dates (pp. 75,
122). But no evidence is cited for this, and excavator Amnon Ben-Tor disagrees.
(8) Finkelstein claims that those scholars who see Jerusalem as an early state
capital are “desperate,” Bible-based people (p. 80). That tells us who is
really desperate. (9) For the view that the Field III city gate at Gezer dates
to the ninth century B.C.E., Finkelstein cites me (William G. Dever et al.,
“Further Excavations at Gezer, 1967–1971,” Biblical Archaeologist 34
[1971], p. 103). I never said anything of the sort—quite the opposite. (10)
Finkelstein says that Megiddo in the ninth century B.C.E. was “set aside for
breeding and training horses” for chariotry (pp. 113; 133–135). Some of his own
staff members (and others) dispute the famous “stables” in Megiddo IV. (11)
Finkelstein claims that Tel Masos near Beersheba was the center of a far-flung
“desert polity” in the tenth century B.C.E. (p. 126). But the relevant Stratum
II follows a massive destruction of the walled town, and the scant remains
consist of only a few tattered houses. There hardly seems any point in
continuing. Finkelstein simply does not care much about facts, as many have
long since concluded.
Burke Notes
b. “‘David’ Found at Dan,” BAR, March/April 1994; Yosef Garfinkel, “The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism,” BAR, May/June 2011.
4. While
Finkelstein acknowledges that Hazor, a major site in his analysis of the Iron
Age northern kingdom, was “probably the most important city-state in the north”
(p. 21), neither its Late Bronze Age nor Iron I phases are discussed,
presumably because it would complicate the highland-centered interpretive
framework he offers. The weakness of this analysis is the mistaken assumption
that chapter one establishes a Braudelian longue duréeperspective
(as explicitly stated but only in the concluding chapter), when in fact this
analysis does not meet those criteria.
5. For
example, at the start of one particular paragraph we are told that the
transition from Iron I to Iron IIA “should probably be fixed … in the beginning
of the second half of the tenth” century (i.e., 950 B.C.E.; p. 63). This is,
however, substantially later than Finkelstein’s low chronology start date of
920 B.C.E. by 30 years, or it is half the distance between the start date for
Iron IIA in the so-called Low Chronology date (920 B.C.E.) and that of the
Modified Conventional Chronology (980 B.C.E.). (Keep in mind that such
seemingly small decadal shifts in the chronology is what we are fundamentally
talking about, whether in connection with the shortening of David and Solomon’s
reigns as raised by the Biblical tradition—to less than the 40 years each
assigned to them—or in the shifting of the start dates of Iron IIA later.)
However, at the end of the same paragraph we are asked to accept that
Finkelstein would place the transition between 940/930 B.C.E. (a figure
seemingly grabbed out of thin air), conceding 10 to 20 years on the 920 date
for no explicitly stated reason (p. 94). Attentive readers will wonder what
they are missing, given that three different dates are suggested for the start
of the Iron IIA (i.e., 950, 940/930 and 920). The answer would be a litany of
relevant publications that are not discussed.
“Divided Kingdom, United Critics” was originally published in the July/August 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.