An Introduction to
Archaeology and Tanakh
Rabbi Chaim
JachterMay 29, 2018
There
have been extensive archaeological excavations conducted in the Middle East
during the past two hundred years. There are some who seek to marshal evidence
from these discoveries to disprove the authenticity of the Tanakh.
Orthodox scholars, such as Rabbi Amnon Bazak, have presented a cogent
response to such criticism.
Many
of the stunning discoveries made in that time corroborate the narrative of the
Tanakh, such as the discovery of the tunnel dug by Hezekiah to bring water to
Jerusalem,[1] which is now an enormously
popular site visited each year by thousands.
Another
example is the Sennacherib Prism displayed at the British Museum. It is a
chronicle of many of Sennacherib’s military victories, including his campaign
in Judah, as is recorded in Kings.[2]
Interestingly,
Sennacherib boasts only that he set siege to Jerusalem and that he trapped
Hezekiah “like a bird in a cage”[3]. In this case – unlike other
recordings of his military campaigns – Sennacherib does not specifically
mention that he conquered Jerusalem. This fits with the Tanakh record of
Sennacherib setting siege to Jerusalem, but failing to conquer it.[4] Sennarcherib’s failure to
record the miracle of the great plague in which 185,000 Assyrian soldiers were
smitten by an angel – which is recorded in Tanakh[5] – is not surprising since in
the ancient world, it was unusual for kings to record their defeats and
failures. Sennacherib, following this pattern, would record only that he
surrounded Jerusalem, but would not record his miraculous defeat.[6]
Excavations
of Tanakh sites in Israel are an exciting and ongoing enterprise. For
example, in the summer of 2015, an archaeological team from Bar Ilan University
discovered the enormous gate to the city of Gath.[7] In the fall of 2015, a
team from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem unearthed the seal of King
Hezekiah,[8] in 2016 an artifact was
unearthed which corroborates the Biblical account[9]of King Hezekiah’s campaign to
eliminate idolatry[10] and a 3,000-year-old King
David era seal was discovered by the Temple Mount Sifting Project.[11]
Critics,
however, draw conclusions negating the veracity of the Tanakh text based on
the lack of archaeological evidence for certain events.
A first response to such assertions is to note the highly precarious
approach of drawing conclusions from absence of evidence. This is
particularly true in archaeology where little from the ancient world has been
preserved and precious little of what has been preserved has been excavated.
Many
situations validate the peril of drawing conclusions from the absence of archaeological
evidence. The December 2010 issue of National Geographic magazine
featured an article entitled “Kings of Controversy” by Richard Draper noting
that until the 1993 discovery of an ancient stele[12]inscribed with “House of David”,
there was no non-biblical evidence that David actually existed.
Similarly, the Temple Mount Sifting Project has revealed evidence of a
time period whose “historical credibility” archaeologists had questioned for
years. With these findings, however, “the existence of the House of David
came to be accepted as historical fact by the vast majority of scholars.”[13] Rabbi Amnon Bazak cites
Ben Gurion University archaeologist Dr. Zipora Talshir who describes the
intellectually dishonest reaction of militant secularists to the discovered
evidence of King David’s existence:
The
appearance of the House of David as a consolidated political concept
represented a real problem for deniers of Ancient Israel. They went to great
lengths to try to rid themselves of this most inconvenient evidence. Davis
proposed impossible alternative readings, which no self-respecting scholar
would dare to mention; Lemke, despairing of any other solution, decided that
the inscription was a forgery. No other scholar in the academic world has cast
the slightest doubt on the reliability of the inscription, the circumstances of
its discovery, or its epigraphic identity. There is nothing problematic about
this inscription, other than the fact that it deals a mortal blow to a priori
claims against the history of the House of David. [14]
Another
instance of a faulty conclusion that “undermined” the authenticity of the Torah
was made regarding the domestication of camels in the ancient Near East.
Militantly secular archaeologists had argued that the absence of evidence of
domesticated camels in the Near East prior to the twelfth century BCE “proved”
the inaccuracy of the book of Genesis, which describes the use of camels during
the time of the Patriarchs (approximately seventeenth century BCE).
However, later archaeological findings demonstrate that camels were
domesticated as early as the end of the third millennium B.C.E., but that
widespread domestication did not occur until the twelfth century B.C.E.
Rabbi Bazak writes:
This
finding sits well with the biblical account, in which camels did not play a
central role, and their numbers were relatively small, until the time of the
Judges. In the story of Avraham’s servant and Rivka, the Torah mentions ‘ten of
his master’s camels’ (Bereishit 24:10); in the gifts that Yaakov offers Esav,
we find ‘thirty milk camels with their young’ (ibid. 32:16); and in the account
of the sale of Yosef we find a “caravan of Yishme’elim came from the Gil’ad,
with their camels carrying gum balm and ladanum” (ibid. 37:25). We may
therefore conclude that camels were not common, and were used mainly to carry
expensive merchandise. The camels that Avraham’s servant brought with him
apparently represented a factor in the estimation of the avaricious Lavan
(ibid., 30-31). In other narratives in the Torah, camels are absent: in the
descent of Yosef’s brothers to Egypt we find only donkeys (ibid. 42:26-27, and
elsewhere); in the spoils seized from Midian we find ‘sixty-one thousand asses’
(Bamidbar 31:34), but no mention of any camels. In contrast, from the period of
the Judges onwards we find a great many camels. In the war of the children of
Gad and the children of Reuven against the Hagri’im, we find: ‘And they
captured their cattle, [and] of their camels fifty thousand’ (Divrei Ha-yamim
I, 21). Iyov, at the end of his life, had six thousand camels (Iyov 42:12). [15]
Thus,
findings that seemed at first to conflict with the Tanakh account end by
confirming it.
Rabbi
Amnon Bazak offers a fairly comprehensive review of the archaeological record
in regard to Tanakh.[16] He states that there is no
archaeological evidence that contradicts the Torah.[17] In turn, he writes there are
“many findings that do conform to the biblical narratives from the time of
the Avot(forefathers), and indicate that these narratives were
indeed written with a profound familiarity with the period.” He notes the
same regarding the era of enslavement and subsequent exodus from Egypt.[18]
In
regards to excavations that appear, on a superficial level, to contradict
Tanakh texts, the conflicts emerge from either insufficient or inaccurate
archaeology or from a flawed understanding of Tanakh. An example of the
first variety of error is the conclusion of some archaeologists that the battle
of Ai described in the book of Joshua did not occur, a conclusion based on excavations
at Ai showing that the city was not inhabited at the time of Joshua’s entry
into the land of Yisrael.[19] Others, however,
argue that the wrong area had been excavated. They claim to have found
the correct location of Ai, which, when subsequently excavated, yielded
evidence that it was in fact inhabited during the time of Yehoshua’s conquest.[20]
Rabbi
Bazak deals persuasively with the sensitive issues regarding the periods of
Joshua, the Judges, King David and King Solomon. He combines his
trademark, superior analysis of Tanakh with extensive knowledge of archaeology
to provide an extraordinary treatment of the conflict. Rabbi Bazak
concludes his discussions by noting:
Our
review has also revealed the transience of some central theories in the world
of archaeology. The Merneptah Stele is a proof of utmost significance as
to the existence at that time of an entity known as ‘Israel’, and “had it not
been discovered, quite coincidentally, the research on this subject would be in
a completely different situation to what it is today.”[21]
Had
the Dan Stele inscription not been discovered some twenty years ago, many
scholars today would probably still deny the existence of David and Shlomo,
arguing that “no findings to concretely confirm their existence have yet been
discovered.” The amount of material that has been excavated and studied
is extremely small, relative to what remains, and we must also take into
consideration the fact that in the most important regions, such as the City of
David and the Temple Mount, excavations are highly problematic if not
altogether impossible.
However,
archaeology has contributed, and will continue to contribute greatly to our
understanding and appreciation of Tanakh. A walk through the sites where
the stories of the Tanakh took place, or standing before archaeological
findings from that period, is a powerful and moving experience.
Archaeological research also influences and deepens our understanding of
different parts of Tanakh. Without the discoveries on the ground, it is
doubtful whether we would make the proper differentiation, for instance,
between the descriptions of settlement in Sefer Yehoshua and those in Sefer
Shoftim. In addition, archaeological findings have shed light on the
events described in the text, such as the campaign of Shishak and the war
against Mesha, king of Moav. It seems reasonable to assume that further
discoveries with ramifications for this sphere of research still await us, and
will continue to interest all those who hold the Tanakh dear.[22]
Excerpted
from Rabbi Jachter’s book Reason to
Believe: Rational Explanations of Orthodox Jewish Faith
[1] II Kings 20:20.
[2] II Kings18:13.
[3] The discovery of Sennacherib’s
words sheds light on Isaiah’s words, “As flying birds, so will Hashem protect
Jerusalem; He will deliver it as He protects it, He will rescue it as He passes
over” (Is. 31:5).
[4] II Kings 19.
[5] II Kings19:35.
[6] Also on display at the British
Museum are very large bas-reliefs of Sennacherib’s conquest of Lakhish found on
a palace wall of Sennacherib (Sennacherib’s conquest of Lakhish is mentioned in
II Kings 18:13-14). The fact that Sennacherib set up an eight foot by
eighty foot depiction of his conquest of Lakhish and did not set up a mural of
a conquest of Jerusalem, the capital city of Judah and seat of the Jewish
Temple, also indicates that he did not conquer Jerusalem.
[7] http://www.timesofisrael.com/archaeologists-unearth-the-gate-to-goliaths-hometown/.
This report also mentions that evidence was found of a massive earthquake in
the eighth century B.C.E., which might be the earthquake described in Amos 1:1.
[9] Kings II 18:3-4.
[11] http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Rare-3000-year-old-King-David-era-seal-discovered-by-Temple-Mount-Sifting-Project-419024.
[12] A stele is an ancient
monument; this stele is commonly referred to as the Tel Dan Stele. This
artifact of monumental importance is displayed at the Israel Museum in
Jerusalem. There is a possible contradiction, though, between the Tel Dan
Stele and the Tanakh. The Stele indicates that the Aramean king killed
both the Israelite king Jehoram son of Ahab and the Judean king, Ahaziah son of
Jehoram. II Kings 9:14-27 records that the Aramean king only wounded Jehoram
and that Jehu subsequently killed Jehoram and Ahaziah. However, one could
explain that since the wounding of Jehoram by the king of Aram drew Ahaziah to
visit him ( II Kings 8:29) creating the opportunity for Jehu to kill both
Jehoram and Ahaziah, the king of Aram took the credit for killing them.
[14] Ibid.
[15] http://etzion.org.il/en/shiur-6c-tanakh-and-archaeology. In
the same lecture, Rabbi Bazak further notes that the militant secularists of the
“minimalist school” of archaeology continued to write that the reference to
camels in Genesis is anachronistic. In response he cites Kenneth Kitchen,
a well-respected scholar of biblical archaeology and Professor Emeritus at
Liverpool University, to the effect that “camels are not anachronistic in the
early second millennium (Middle Bronze Age).”
[16] Shiurim 6a through
6i on Yeshivat Har Etzion’s virtual Beit Midrash (www.etzion.org/vbm).
[17] Regarding geological evidence
for the Flood Dr. Gerald Schroeder (Genesis and the Big Bang 28)
writes: “Any ’proof’ for or against the occurrence of the biblical Flood of
Noah’s time is weak. In Genesis we are told that the downpour lasted only
forty days and the resulting flood persisted for only 150 days. Sediments
from so brief a period would probably not be extensive and, therefore, firm
archaeological evidence may never be found.”
[18] Shiurim 6d and 6e
on Yeshivat Har Etzion’s virtual Beit Midrash (www.etzion.org/vbm).
[19] Encyclopedia Judaica II,
471-472.
[20] For further discussion of Ai
and the archaeological record see Rabbi Amnon Bazak’s Ad HaYom haZeh,
available in English at http://etzion.org.il/en/shiur-6ftanakh-and-archaeology-continued-%D6%A0yehoshua-and-conquest-land.
[21]This quote is from J. Hoffman,
“Historia, Mythos v’Politika,” in Y.L. Levine and A. Mazar, HaPulmus al
HaEmet veHistoria BeMikra, Jerusalem, 5761, 31-32.
The
words of this author reflect his/her own opinions and do not necessarily
represent the official position of the Orthodox Union.