The Bible's Buried Secrets - Ep. 1 Did King David's empire exist

there is one figure in the Hebrew Bible who divides the pinion like no other too many he's a simple shepherd boy who defeated a giant but for modern Israelis David is a founding father a hero whose star adorns their national flag the Hebrew Scriptures describe how he United the tribes of Israel into one nation and made Jerusalem his capital but the accounts of King David in the Hebrew Bible once considered a timeless record it's built on shifting sands modern archaeology is challenging the historical accuracy of the Bible and this has huge implications for the region and the world there's very little evidence for the empire of King David in Jerusalem around it the most excavated piece of land on the face of the earth still a century and a half revealed very little but for many Israelis archaeology is also a way to prove their claim to this land if anything we've ever found in Israel this really sheds light on King David and on this first Empire in Jerusalem in a country is fought over and contested as Israel David's legacy as set out in the Bible is ammunition in an ideological war but some scholars are questioning the Bible's version of events they claim David's Kingdom may not have been bossed all United can we even talk about an historical David at all in this series I want to show how buried in the pages of the Bible a secrets which challenged the beliefs of millions in by examining the evidence for and against one of its most famous and important stories is the biblical accounts of King David true and what are the consequences if it isn't I'm in Jerusalem at City of David the place many people believe to be the site of Dave as ancient capital it's a popular tourist attraction there's also a place of pilgrimage for lots of Jews and Christians who want to explore their religious and cultural roots here's what we're going to do take a look down in the valley the ancient walls the walls of the city in the time of King David can you see that my name is Francesca Sava Kapoor Lou I'm an academic working in the field of biblical studies but on this tool I'm taking a back seat King David came here how long ago anybody 3,000 3,000 years ago is when King the guides at the City of David confidently delivered information about the archaeological discoveries and explain their relevance to the stories of the Bible it's a loss of The Book of Psalms was written right here but as a biblical scholar who studied this period in depth I think there's something very odd going on evidence presented here as historical fact I know to be ambiguous my academic experience tells me there's far more to the story of David the meets the eye closer examination could turn this legendary figure and his many achievements to dust the story goes that David brought together two tribal regions Israel in the north and Judah in the south this new empire was the first to unite fully all the territories of the Israelites it was an unprecedented achievement the fulfillment of a divine promise believed to go back centuries to the time of Moses when the Israelites were slaves in Egypt the Bible says David's Empire flourished in the 10th century BC but the dream was shattered it lasted just two generations Davis round was split into separate kingdoms each was swallowed up by larger empires frequent attempts to wrestle back control and land from foreign rulers were short-lived it wasn't until the 20th century 3,000 years later that Israel became an extensive fully fledged state once again symbolically the reign of David has since the calm of Golden Age a source of inspiration but it's also become much more than that in the modern context Dave as United Kingdom has come to play a huge role in legitimizing the very existence of the Jewish state but can we trust that the biblical account of King David is historically accurate some of the oldest written fragments of the Bible are kept here in Jerusalem at the shrine of the book these religious texts and the stories they tell including that of King David are venerated as a record of divine truth they are incontestable but as an historian I'm trained to take a more objective view for me these texts cannot be untouchable their archives to be analyzed dispassionately like any other this approach often unearth evidence that directly contradicts the Bible so might this also be the case for David I want to examine the best evidence for and against the biblical story of David his United Kingdom and the existence of David himself and to begin I'm going to visit the biblical home of a very famous giant the rich farmlands just inland from the coast of modern Israel have been highly prized for millennia the Egyptians controlled this area for centuries but shortly before the biblical era of David a new power took over the Philistines migrated by boat from the West probably from what is now Cyprus they quickly established a permanent presence in territory along the coast the Philistines play a pivotal role in the biblical account of the life of David it's the threat of first iron expansionism that prompts the ancient Israelites to elect their first King Saul and Saul was desperate attempt to defeat the Philistine army is the backdrop to that most iconic of encounters the battle between David and Goliath the young shepherd boy bravely accepts Goliath challenged to a duel and with one throw of his sling brings down the Philistines greatest warrior it's a fantastic tale of a brave underdog who battles against the odds to win an unlikely victory this legend has become a universal archetype it it resonates across cultures but at the heart of this myth is a real people the Philistines and remarkably we have plenty of evidence for them the Philistines were an urban people they built large cities including this one at TELUS avi a site which archeologists identify as Goliath's hometown cat I'm looking for evidence here that the Philistines were as dominant a force in the region as the Bible suggests it's also a rare chance for me to get my hands dirty so it's a very careful and process each area is mapped into much smaller squares tying that to their map essentially of the site and which is called a top plan so there's bits of pop and bits of bone and other things come up so you know exactly where they've come from Professor Aaron Mayer has been leading excavations at teller Safiye for the past 14 years one of his recent finds contradicts the biblical caricature of the Philistines as barbarians okay this beautiful little figure in it it's a depiction of the Egyptian goddess Bastet who is a cat-like goddess and this is a very very nice example of the multiplicity of cultural influences that we see in the Philistine culture and now if we compare them to the Israelite sites we find very very few foreign influences the Israelites at this time are much more insular the archaeology here overturns the Bible's picture of the Philistines as uncultured but the Bible also paints them as violent towards David's people does Aaron believe this stereotype to be true in the beginning the Philistines have the advantage and they would have the economic interests to expand eastwards into the foothills and then perhaps into the the central hills the Israelites would want to keep this territory there so that's probably the the underlying mechanism behind these confrontations this story of David and Goliath is probably hinting in that direction David's arch-rivals may have been unfairly maligned as thugs but it's clear that beneath the rhetoric the Philistines were a threat they were well organized and they had the means to protect and possibly even advance their own territory such fines don't necessarily make the bible account true but they do make the story of david more plausible the Empire of the Philistines was real enough but can we say the same thing about David's Kingdom that his conquests and state-building leave behind similar signs of a major Empire proving the historical reliability of the biblical story of david has always rested on finding evidence for his mighty empire and it was in the 1950s not long after the creation of the modern state of israel that the search for signs of a Davidic Kingdom took on a new urgency during this period archaeology became more closely linked to a growing sense of National Jewish identity many early archaeologists believe the Bible to be a reliable record of the past and assumed that hard evidence for David's ancient Israelite Kingdom lay just beneath the earth but finding it was never going to be easy the Bible dates David's Empire to about the 10th century which is about 3,000 years ago so our colleges were faced with the challenge of numerous layers and excavations lots of civilizations and societies not just Israelite but Greek compersion and Roman Arabic Jewish and Christian all built on top of each other the 10th century evidence if it existed at all had to be carefully sifted from everything else excavations of big mounds or tells dominated this period they were looking for traces of David's Empire inscriptions palaces luxury goods and monumental structures any signs of a central authority gradually material remains emerged which appeared to confirm the Bible's account it was a Golden Age of Biblical Archaeology and one of its biggest stars was the charismatic Israeli archaeologist he Galya Deane in the mid-1950s Kadeem made a crucial connection an apparently rock-solid theory a touchstone for understanding Israel's ancient past one of the most important archaeological sites to be excavated in the 20th century was the ancient fortified city of Megiddo in northern Israel ancient Megiddo size and splendor is a vote by this model at the site's museum and it's clues in the design of this city's fortifications which triggered your Dean's groundbreaking theory your Dean found evidence he believes supported a familiar verse in the Bible in the Book of Kings the passage tells of David son and successor King Solomon and his building exploits a number of sites including this one at Megiddo in northern Israel it mentions the three biblical cities of hatzor megiddo and gezer cities which Solomon rebuilt to extend David's Empire yeah Dean focused on a particular feature of these fortified cities their gates these are the remains of the entrance into Megiddo and this is one of the chambers inside its gate chambers like these were vital defensive structures should enemy forces break in they were easily contained and killed in these tight spaces your Dean realized there was something striking about these gates they have six inner chambers up to this point gates with two or four chambers were much more common then while digging at the ancient city of hutsul he found a gate of the exact same design yeah Dean immediately realized that this could be evidence of a centralized Solomonic building plan he'd identified two out of three cities the question was would gather the third place mentioned in King's match the same design Gaza had also been excavated so yeah Dean went to check its archeological records to his surprise and excitement he found that Gaza - had a 16-bit gate in all the three cities mentioned in the Bible as rebuilt by Solomon I repeat Gaza Megiddo so identical plat identical fortifications and gates we're fun for many this was the Eureka moment the archeology appeared to fit the biblical account perfectly the Empire of David and Solomon was real your Dean's conclusions held sway for decades and many still accept his interpretations your Dean's findings and more recent discoveries at sites like tellus Fe seem to amount a compelling case for the existence of Philistine and Davidic empires yet more evidence that the Bible story of David could be true but your Dean's neat conclusions in fact his whole approach to biblical archaeology were challenged and some will say overturned in the modern era it came with a reassessment of the motives behind the long tradition of archaeology in the Holy Land Jews and Christians it was claimed Doug with a trowel in one hand and a Bible in the other Galia Dean was more than just an archaeologist he was also the former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force I think that it is very dangerous as a result he was closely associated with the hopes and dreams of the modern Jewish state yeah Dean died in 1984 so we'll never know to what extent that colored his interpretations but in his wake came a new generation of archaeologists with a very different approach one that would expose serious cracks in your deans theory yes Ralph Finkelstein is co-director of excavations here at Megiddo and one of those trying to steer archaeology in a new direction it's entry in the late 8th century around 7:00 Arthur B Finkelstein like you Dean believed strongly in the legitimacy of a contemporary Jewish homeland but he's wary of archaeology which is - ready to rubber-stamp the biblical version of Israel's past so your Dean started from a point where he accepts the biblical texts the biblical testimony is fully historical so he can go to the faith and say well this building is from the time of Solomon because the Bible says that Solomon was active at Megiddo however you do not get a vessel here saying I was made by Solomon or made by David and the same goes for the worlds that we see around us so we are Dean in fact according to his own testimony came to his conclusions without using any modern and sophisticated archaeological techniques so we need to check they didn't theory afresh when Finkelstein and his colleagues we examined your deans evidence at Megiddo they found there were flaws in how the site had been dated floors which seriously undermined the biblical account of David in Solomon's Empire we found a group of pottery vessels here at Megiddo in a palace which had been dated by add into the 10th century BC now 10 miles from here to the east there's another side geez Lee where more recent excavations revealed the same style of pottery in a royal compound which dates to the 9th century BC now this is very peculiar because if the pottery is the same it needs to date to the same period of time written records from Assyria support the dating of royal buildings that Jezreel to the more recent 9th century so Finkelstein reasoned the Megiddo palace must also date to the 9th century Judean had got his dating wrong by almost a hundred years and that meant David successor Solomon could not be responsible for the pastor's here at Megiddo he would have died decades earlier to be certain Finkelstein also tested other sites which traditionally had been linked to Davis conquests and Solomon's monumental building and there too he found the same story they weren't 10th century but the more recent 9th century grain seeds lentils like this and olive pits were sent to other carbon dating they came from layers in places such as dildo on the coast and home in the Jordan Valley layers which have traditionally been associated with the kingdom of David and Solomon the results were really surprising because they were in the 9th century about one century later than the time of David and Solomon so can we be sure about this dating I mean how reliable is carbon dating well other carbon dating does not provide you with the year the uncertainty for the ninth century is only between twenty and thirty years which is good enough to show you that the Adina's dating was wrong Finkelstein's findings have had far-reaching implications they cast serious doubt on the reliability of the Bible we have no chases of Empire no monumental buildings no palaces no destruction layers no signs that could be taken as evidence of King David's epic nation-building of course the possibility always remained that something would one day be unearthed but Finkelstein himself has shown that the chances of this happening remained highly unlikely to conquer towns and build an empire David would have needed an army of thousands from his power base here in the south Judah but how populated was the region to measure levels of population in this area Finkelstein set up large-scale surface surveys he harnessed great armies of students and had them scouring the land painstakingly looking for the smallest signs of human settlement the fragments of every kind spread over hundreds of square miles they built up a more accurate picture of 10th century Judah the territory of David these meticulous surveys revealed that settlement numbers were meager perhaps just 20 villages in total not enough to form even the smallest of armies the expansive military conquests attributed to David's army would have been impossible in theory he could probably only have counted on rounding up a couple hundred people at most what Finkelstein found was that society at this time was made up of shepherds and stock raisers living in small farmsteads they were bound together not by nationhood but by kinship family clan and tribe Finkelstein appeared to have shattered the biblical image of a vast Davidic Empire Judah Davis power base had no major urban centres and the biblical projects are tributed to his son Solomon never took place King David he concluded simply wouldn't have had the manpower to build and run an empire the biblical story of King David's major successes simply could not be true and this view has become increasingly accepted in scholarly circles since the 1990s with implications beyond the ivory towers it throws into question the achievements of a national hero an inspiration for the modern State of Israel but the thing about this part of the world is that there's always some archaeologists busy digging away and you never know what they might turn up well in 2007 something did turn up and it threatened to overturn many of Finkelstein's ideas it was a find that promised to breathe new life into the biblical story of David for David to have ruled an empire in the 10th century he had to have major cities yet a war the significant site excavated in Israel ancient settlements like Megiddo have sought and gather none had revealed certain evidence of complex urban life from the time of David but in the summer of 2007 a dramatic discovery was made at a little-known site Kubik Piazza here was a fortified wall town west of Jerusalem in what was ancient Judah and it lay just beneath the surface this site was overlooked for decades but close examination suggests it's a key discovery it's been constantly dated to the time of King David and it's said to be the first fortified city from that period and the key thing is it's in a pristine condition if it stands up the evidence here would undermine Finkelstein's claimed that ancient Judah Davis base was a rural backwater head archaeologists Yossi Garfinkel has offered to show me some of the key features of this relatively new but highly significant site but hey I thought that's fantastic thank you how long have you been doing this is the fourth season so tell me a little bit about what we've got here then as you can see the architecture is penetrating to the surface so here does after excavating five or ten centimeters we are already in the 10th century BC in the time of King David and this is a quite outstanding because most of the other biblical sites like cut saw Megiddo Jerusalem and other site if you want to go to the 10th century you need some time to excavate ten other layers before we reaching this specific one so this is really a perfect situation it's like biblical Pompeii what stands out is this discovery large city gates a good indicator some would say of Empire this gateway is real monumental architecture isn't it this is really a huge surprise to find such a stone this is at least six seven or eight ton and it's absolutely clear the busiest fortifications cannot be built just by the few people who lived in this city there was a need to organize a much larger community for villages and maybe towns around all this required engineering and a lot of manpower and I'm sure that it's reflecting centralized authority and not just the community who lived here and I'm sure that King David when he came from Jerusalem II entered the city through this gate on the face of it this is really compelling evidence and it certainly challenges a lot of my own ideas about this period in theory if a defensive frontier city like this was an operation then perhaps it was a part of a larger more complex urban society here but kia makes it more plausible that manpower existed to build and run a vast fortified Kingdom so this might boost the credibility of the biblical account of David but where was the central authority which would have commanded fortress cities such as this Yossi believes it must have been David's fabled capital Jerusalem if such an organized power base could be found there it would go a long way to confirming the biblical account but is there any 10th century archaeological evidence in Jerusalem to prove this the figure of King David is inextricably linked to the history and identity of Jerusalem his name appears wherever you look for many the idea that David never ruled a kingdom from here is unthinkable yet the likely extent of Jerusalem in the tenth century is one of the greatest mysteries and controversies in biblical archaeology but a recent discovery that the City of David archeological Park has raised hopes among some the evidence connecting David to monumental building in Jerusalem has finally been found Juran Spielman represents the organization running the park which seeks to highlight the ancient jewish heritage of jerusalem drun believes they have uncovered vital clues of a royal palace and he holds the view that pottery sherds found here laid the structure to the 10th century what motivated the recent excavations here the excavations here are motivated by one line in the Bible after the young King David conquers this city the City of David and creates it as the head of the Jewish Empire in Israel the Philistines don't give them time to rest the Bible tells us that the Philistines came and marched upon David in the city david says then leaves his palace and goes down into his fortress from that one line we surmised that his palace must have been on top of the city and he went down to a fortress beneath it this is the top of the City of David just beyond me that's where my office is stand and underneath my office in fact we found what may be the offices of King David this is the largest structure dating to david ever found in the entire country this was built not by a small chieftain of a tribe the only way this could have been built was by complex economy where you had workers artisans architects people defending the place and the people making the money so how is the structure dated when we remove pottery from within these walls we have pottery that many archaeologists date to the 10th century BC exactly the to the time of King David if anything we've ever found in Israel this really sheds light on King David and on this first Empire in Jerusalem on the face of it this is a significant find if true it would undermine us Ralph Finkelstein's claim that there was no Empire of David in the 10th century but is the dating of this structure entirely accurate repeated excavations have mixed up the pottery remains making the dating of the structure here highly contentious I meet up with yet Ralf Finkelstein again to gauge his response to the evidence for David's Palace what I find it very difficult to accept first and foremost because I do not think that you can use the Bible as a guide to the topography of ancient Jerusalem you cannot walk with the biblical text in the City of David and they read about David or anybody else going down going up and looking for a way up all the way down what do you think the structure is well first of all it's very difficult to say whether this is one building or several structures things are kind of mixed there probably as far as I can judge from the very little evidence of pottery that could be found there it was built in the 9th century BC not in the 10th century BC the piece of land behind us the City of David is the most excavated on the face of the earth as far as I can judge still a century and a half of excavations revealed very little in the way of the 10th century BC drawing firm conclusions about this structure is hard because pottery shares from different eras have been mixed up but on balance what pottery there is points to this being from the ninth not the 10th century despite the best efforts of some archeologists conclusive evidence for David's glorious capital has simply failed to materialize and from what I've seen this is just another example of David's many achievements as described in the Bible that doesn't appear to stand up to archaeological inquiry so where does that leave us there's no evidence of a Davidic Empire in the 10th century at the cities the Bible says David's son Solomon rebuilt and Davis great wars of conquest are highly unlikely given the low population numbers true there's the impressive 10th century fortress city at cubic yeah ah it could be Israelite and may in theory have been built to defend a central administrative center a capital city like Jerusalem but no evidence has yet been found to suggest that Jerusalem was the center of an empire in the 10th century so the Bibles came indeed modern Israel's claim that David United the northern southern tribes into a fabulous Empire ruled from a stronghold in Jerusalem remains just that a claim nothing more without evidence for a United Kingdom the historical reliability of the biblical story of David looks threadbare it leaves just one part of the story standing the existence of David himself but can we even be sure of that the Israel Museum contains many highly prized treasures but I've come to see one which is key to the debate about David for decades archaeologists have searched in vain for written evidence of David most scholars agree that the Hebrew Bible alone could never prove his existence an external reference had to be found to establish David as a historical figure the Galea Deen found nothing in the 50s and 60s neither to the next wave of archaeologists in the 70s and 80s but then in 1993 a breakthrough a stealer or stone slab with fragments of writing that mentioned David known as the Tel Dan inscription it was found in the hilltop settlement of Dan near the border with Lebanon in what was then the ancient Northern Kingdom of Israel the inscription is dated to the early 8th century and it lists the past conquests of a king of Damascus it's an impressive find a public statement of an ancient kings power but made all the more important by one small but crucial detail it mentions David the roll call of the defeated appears to include one a has aya a king the inscription tells us belonging to a royal dynasty the house of David finally it seemed we had an archaeological reference to him a tangible sign of his existence it was a crucial discovery but like so many finds initially its authenticity was contested some questions the translation others even claimed it was a forgery most people now accept the tailed an inscription is genuine but they're still disagreement about its significance does it offer definitive evidence of King David I'm not so sure it does the tailed an inscription was written about a century and a half after the period of david enough time perhaps for a fictional story of a legendary founding figure to develop but other scholars disagree for them the tailed and stealer is a solid marker of a real person they also believe that the biblical account relating to David is simply too detailed to be entirely made up I'm going to meet one such person the eminent American academic Baruch Halpern he's on vacation here in Jerusalem so I've invited him out for dinner where else but the King David hotel Kamber ook say for certain that king david really existed so why is Tel Dan and the inscription bound there why is it so important until that Stella was uncovered it was possible to claim that David was an invention on the order of King Arthur a legendary figure invented Lea the reality is that tell then established that David did exist was a person was the founder of dynasty but that doesn't tell us what he was or what he did so how do we find out who he was and what he did we're thrown back on two kinds of evidence biblical narratives and archaeology each is subject to doubt to skepticism each is constructed into history somehow and bridging that gap is the historical imagination of the scholar let's talk about David in the Bible he's not a one-dimensional character at all do you think that might tell us something about the historicity of David all the traditions dealing with him it's the right question he ain't no plaster see he murders a bunch of people on his way to the throne all the people he murders he has alibis for so the text is defending him against the accusation that he murders these people that already tells you that he must be authentic you don't get that kind of defense that kind of alibi of fictional characters so where are the biblical writers getting their information from are they drawing on archival material other sources some of it is derived from memory oral memory some of it has to be from documents payrolls the names of Sol's grandchildren for example that's not something they're getting orally I don't think I mean a surgical evidence for Judah being having attained statehood in the 10th century and my natural assumption is to be skeptical yeah that's the difference between your historical imagination in mind did David it live the David that exists in popular imagination that David with David and Goliath ah that David doesn't exist that's a fictional character but the politician David the guy you couldn't trust as far as you could throw him he existed you can't stab your enemies in the back he's an old say and he did me he stabbed his I miss in the front and his friends in the back Baruch has been charming company I share his taste in fine dining but I remain skeptical about the biblical account of David for me it could still be a legendary story the fact I keep coming back to is that we have very little if any evidence from the biblical period of David we've got the tail Dan inscription but even that was written a hundred and fifty years after his reign as an historian I expect more tangible evidence a king as mighty as David should have left behind clearer signs of his power some scholars anxious to defend the biblical record claimed that the evidence of his empire has simply not yet been found but I don't buy the argument because for me there are clear signs from mighty king of Israel who did leave a mark in the archaeological record remarkably is evidence from just a few generations after the period of the biblical David and there are no ambiguities about the existence of this flesh-and-blood king the Louvre in Paris is home to an ancient inscription the Mesha stele er it was first discovered in the 19th century in what was the ancient kingdom of Moab now modern Jordan the inscription describes the military successes of a king of Israel called Omri in the early 9th century just a few decades after the biblical era of David and it was seen from this inscription that he gave the poor Moabites quite a beating it reads Omri king of israel humbled Moab many days according to the inscription Israelite occupation of Moab continued under Omri son with the building of new strongholds in myrrh white territory so this evidence from outside the Bible not only names but also describes in some detail the expansionist policies of an Israelite King just a few generations after David by contrast the best written evidence for David is the fleeting mention of a house of David on the tale dance dealer Omri sounds like a far more credible figure of history a king who had the power and status to make his mark and unlike King David Omri really did leave his footprint in the archaeological record and it's still visible centuries later I'm back in Israel heading north to a site I've always wanted to visit it's a place called Samaria capital of the ancient Northern Kingdom of Israel and honorée's power base but getting there means crossing the green line with a military escort into the occupied West Bank Oh this region's always been very desirable the land is rich and fertile but as a result it's always been fought over as well Omri wasn't the last person to have to use military might to hold it in his own control we've got a lot of Jewish settler communities living long side-by-side not altogether comfortably of course with Palestinian Muslims it's a fraught tense place it was Omri who first put this place on the map by building his capital here and unlike Jerusalem from the same period this was no one-horse town Samaria was a huge elaborate City so much of my research as an academic has been taken up with this particular part of the world this was once a a important potent powerful Capitol my love of the ancient Israelites and Judah Heights really comes alive here this is this is where my kings were what is astonishing about this place is that amongst the layers of later civilizations fragments of honorees original city walls and foundations can still be seen and studied Omri is said to have come to power through a coup d'etat and quickly extended his lands into a mini Empire certainly settlements in the north grew trade boomed population rose in honorees time elaborate administrative centers were built and unlike David's empire we can see the evidence the largest was this vast compound they had to build a huge podium here as a platform for the palace complex it would have required massive filling and leveling operations another key indicator of Empire is trade in luxury goods and Samaria doesn't disappoint 500 ivory fragments including 200 decorated pieces were found here further evidence that Omri ruled over an advanced state it's pretty clear to me that if an expansionist and mighty king like Omri could leave such an obvious choice than the archaeological record then King David about whom the Bible makes even bigger claims should also have left a clear visible footprint the visible extent of omni's Empire and the scant evidence for David's proves to me that we can't just take the Bible's account of David at face value so is the story too exaggerated to be historically reliable I've looked at all the significant evidence for and against the biblical story of David as a record of history and it's not a convincing picture the historical David may or may not have existed the jury's still out on that but the lack of evidence of his great United Kingdom in contrast to the wealth of information about Omri makes the very existence of his Empire questionable if the story of David is laid out by the Bible is not reliable it does beg a key and unavoidable question why was this great story written what purpose does it fulfill for once there is a clue in what the Bible says or rather and what it doesn't say isn't it odd that there's virtually nothing about Omri and his achievements well on within the Bible but blink and you're missing just one fleeting passage not exactly a great write-up why is the biblical account so silent when it comes to a significant historical figure like Omri and yet so lavishly attentive to david for whom there's so little evidence the answer may help us get to the bottom of what the story of david is really all about to understand what's really going on with a story of David we have to recognize that the Bible's not a history book it's religious literature shaped by ideological and political factors this can result in a biased account to see how easily buyers can find its way into a nation's archive I've come to the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem to look at some historic maps of ancient Israel some of the maps reveal a great deal about the interests and motives of the people who drew them this maps from 1927 but interestingly a lot of the place names are glossed with little details about biblical story so for example here King David ruled we're told there's also an elephant here and camels so there's clearly some intention to make this look like an exotic place somewhere different somewhere unusual and this same kind of spin is there in the Bible story of David the triumphs of the Great Northern King Omri are barely mentioned later kings of the north all get a bad press and their achievements are downplayed that would suggest to me that the biblical authors are anxious to promote their own version of events they claim the territories of the northern tribes of Israel and the southern tribes of Judah were united under David according to the Bible they were lands of the same chosen people for Omri in the northern kings are comprehensively stitched up by the biblical authors this anti northern spin tells me that Judah and Israel were far less United than the Bible is prepared to admit I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that I don't believe that Israel and Judah were ever united under a Davidic King at all and once we accept that Israel in the north and Judah in the South were independent rival kingdoms it becomes easier to identify which region controlled the writing of the Hebrew Bible Judah and this explains why the story of David was written the way it was in the ninth and eighth centuries the North Israel had the upper hand then in the 7th century it was the southern kingdom Judah in the ascendancy and is at this time that founding stories about origins and identity begin to take shape it's a story filter through the experiences of Judah their conflict with Israel and the rise of their holy capital Jerusalem but a sacred capital of a holy nation needs divinely ordained leadership and for a king to have been truly chosen by God he needed land and lineage a vast empire and a line of descent David may not have achieved these great heights of power but the dynasty bearing his name had survived and just a few generations later he became the perfect model for the biblical writers who molded him into a charismatic king who united all the tribes of Israel he was immortalized as ruler over one people in one land living under one God with one temple in Jerusalem my search has shown me that the events of David life as described in the Bible probably never took place but in some ways that shouldn't matter it's the meaning of the story of David which has proved so resilient even now it's a source of hope and solidarity for modern Israelis and the Jewish faith it's incredible that a 3,000 year old story should continue to play such a pivotal role in the identity politics of a modern state like Israel but I sense dangers here both to archaeology and to Israel's identity I mean I do talk about a quality clinic elegy but not like that about okay Yonatan Mizrahi is an archaeologist who shares my fears he believes that the objectivity of some archaeology has been compromised by nationalist attempts to reinforce ancient claims to this land now I must say that uh I'm Levi Lee I think a lot of Faerie reasons why she live in historical even traditional even religious season and but I don't see archaeology as a way to prove the belonging of the very people to the plant or to use it as a claim for sovereignty in any future a political agreement so if archaeology can't prove or disprove the existence of a historical figure what can it do and what should it do the archaeology is about culture of how people lived what was it daily life what was the relationship for example between men and women okay what would the relationship between the people that lived in Jerusalem and other cities accepting past cultures according to my understanding is a very important tool to accepting present cultures and here we are living next to different cultures and I am strongly believe that if people can follow this kind of understanding it will be easier for them to accept the differences among society today this may still be a promised land for the Jewish people but the use of science to try and prove ancient divine rights to this territory is a dangerous exercise as I've seen the results can backfire and undermine those very claims religion speaks to the mysterious and unexplained part of us whereas politics deals with the here and now perhaps they should remain a part for the sake of all the people of this land next week I look at monotheism did the people of the Bible believe in one God or in many gods more on our history of cartography here on BBC HD tomorrow with maps power plunder and possession at 9:00 and coming up tonight we're heading to Albert Square next for EastEnders you

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Keywords: the bible's buried secrets, episode 1, king david, bbc

Id: UhiABi6vw3A

Length: 59min 3sec (3543 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 27 2011