"The Truth About Solomon's Temple" Israel Finkelstein

well you guys wanted the war you'll have it now you ready am Fi this is the usual thing you know between us we know each other for many years and we are good friends the story of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon allow me to read I feel I mean still be okay don't worry it will be a little bit funnier now the story of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon is one of the greatest epics of Western civilization the young shepherd kills the giant Goliath with a single slingshot at once saving Israel from the Philistines and becoming our culture main metaphor for the weak overcoming the mighty he then flees from the rage of soul the first tragic king of Israel who commits suicide on a battlefield conquering Jerusalem David embarks on an unprecedented campaign of territorial expansion and establishes a great Empire and he receives an exceptional unconditional promise from God his dynasty will halt in Jerusalem forever David's sullen success of Solomon has likewise captivated Western literary and religious imagination his wisdom is the standard by which all others are rated his wealth and opulence was reportedly so great it became the ideal countless later Kings attempted to achieve no wonder the David and Solomon have always been revealed in Western tradition from Constantine to Charlemagne from the David throne of the kings of England through the coronation of the Franks at Rennes to the crown and Solomon of the atonium kings of Germany David and Solomon supply the greatest monarchs or the world with the model of kingship pious wise courageous but at the same time capable of moral weakness no King hope for a better deal clever rich and the lover of Gina Lollobrigida but is this great is this great epic historically reliable what if David and Solomon well as some scholars now contend legendary characters with no more historical substance than King Arthur or Helen of Troy let me start from the end this lecture presents the view from the center against the conservative or maximalists camp I will argue that much of the David and Solomon narrative in the Bible cannot be read as a straightforward historical testimony and that their Kingdom was far by far more modest than traditionally perceived and against the minimalist I will contain the David and Solomon our historical figures the founders of the Jerusalem Judea dynasty part 1 the conventional theory the quest for the United Monarchy the glamorous Empire of David and Solomon has been the most spectacular venture of Biblical Archaeology the obvious place to start the search was of course Jerusalem yet Rosslyn proved to be a hard not to crack the nature of the site made it difficult to peel away the layers of later centuries and the Temple Mount has always been out of reach for archaeologists therefore the search for the great United Monarchy of David and Solomon was diverted to other sites first the foremost among them Megiddo integers real valley Megiddo well I'm citing Saddam Hussein here you know Megiddo is Megiddo is specifically mentioned in 1 Kings 9:15 as having been built by Solomon starting over a century ago Megiddo has become the focus of the endeavor to make flesh and bones of the great soleimani Kingdom strategically located on the international highway that connected Egypt and Mesopotamia Megiddo has been excavated by no less than four expeditions and has yielded more biblical monuments than any other site in the biblical lens walls gates palaces water systems etc the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago excavation at Megiddo was the most comprehensive dig in the history of biblical archaeology close to the surface of the mound the excavators on earth two sets of large public buildings each divided into three a is separated by two sets of stone pillars and props based on the Megiddo Solomon linkage in 1 Kings 9:15 and on the mention in 1 Kings 919 of solomon's cities of chariots and horses PLO guy one of the directors of the dig identified these buildings now being reinvestigated by our team as stables and attributed them to King Solomon the stables paradigm became the ultimate world and the mirror for the great achievements of Solomon for almost 30 years to come the change I should say revolution came with the excavation of Eagle iodine at Kotzur in the north in the 1950s yet did notice the similarity between the six chamber city gate that he uncovered at Herzl and the one that the University of Chicago's team unearthed at Megiddo turning to 1 Kings 9:15 which says in a quote and this is important and this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon levy to build of the Lord in his own house and demillo and the walls of Jerusalem and hatov and Megiddo and gazelle unquote while turning to this verse he hadn't decided to dig a sir not in the field but rather in the old report of the British excavations in the beginning of the 20th century indeed he discovered a similar city gate there hiding in the plain of what had been described as a Maccabean castle ostensibly a perfect match between text and archaeology Hadean did not hesitate anymore and described the three gates as blueprint architecture of the Solomonic era he hadn't proceeded to carry out soundings at Megiddo and revised the stratigraphy and historical interpretation of the Oriental Institute stream according to him Solomonic Megiddo is represented not only by the city gate but also by two beautiful palaces built of ashlar blocks one discovered by the University of Chicago's team in the 20s and the other partially traced by him in the 60s and almost fully excavated by us in recent years both were found under the city of the stables under the city of the stables two more finds at Megiddo seem to support your Dean's interpretation the major city before the city of the palaces one which still features Canaanite material culture was destroyed by a terrible fire in the next city built on top of the palaces featured the famous tables yet Dean's interpretation seemed to fit the biblical testimony perfectly one Canaanite Megiddo was devastated by David to the palaces represent the Golden Age of King Solomon their destruction by fire should be attributed to the campaign of Pharaoh Shishak to the Land of Israel which is mentioned on the walls of the temple of Amun in Karnak Upper Egypt and in 1 Kings 14 and clean the stables which come after the palaces day to the early 9th century to the days of King Ahab who is reported to have faced the great Assyrian King Salman Ansar 3rd in Syria with a huge force of 2,000 Cheerios no wonder that yet Dean's interpretation became the standard theory on the United Monarchy part oh why the conventional theory is wrong yeah Dean's theory was haunted by severe problems from the outset first the city gate at Megiddo seems to have been built later than the gates at Hazor and Giza simply it connects to a wall which runs over the two palaces second similarly city gates have been discovered at other places in the country among them sites that date too late monarchic times that is to say today say 8th century after Solomon and side sites built outside the borders of the great United Monarchy even according to the maximalist view no less important all three pillars of your dean's theory do not withstand a thorough scrutiny here is the most crucial citation from your Dean and I quote our decision to attribute the layer to Solomon was based primarily on the 1 Kings passage the stratigraphy and the pottery but when in addition we found in the stratum a six-chambered 2 tower gate connected to a casemate wall identical in plan and measurement to the gate at Megiddo at Megiddo we felt sure we had successfully identified Solomon's City unquote we need to deal then with stratigraphy cone ology and the biblical passage as we all know stratigraphy provides us only with relative ecology there is what early and what's late unfortunately I have not seen yet any wall with the tag label giving the name of the king who constructed it the same holds true for all pots unlike the bottles of our own time they do not carry a label here archaeologists have committed the ultimate mistake some of them will tell you that the Solomonic strata at Megiddo Hazor and Gezer we're dated according to the well-defined family of vessels that I mentioned yesterday the red slipped and burnished which dates to the 10th century and here is a citation again excuse me from the American scholar William Deever and I quote the pot away from this destruction layer included distinctive forms of red sleep and hand burnished pottery which have always been dated to the late 10th century the son commonly accepted ceramic grounds not on naive acceptance of the Bible story we dated the guests at Wallin gate to the 10th century BC unquote well the opposite is true how does Divya know the date of this pottery family well it was dated to the 10th century because it was found in the so called Solomonic strata and how does people know that this strata were constructed by Solomon from the pie from the Bible a classic circular argumentation so we are back to square one yet the in static Afyon chronology tells us nothing when it comes to absolute chronology in order to reach a date we need a find that would anchor the ecology of Israel to the well dated monarchs of Egypt and Assyria the problem is that there is no such anchor for the 10th century in fact there is no such anchor between the mid 12th and the late 8th century over 4 centuries in the Iron Age the fragment of the shawshank first or Shishak arm sorry these are the famous infamous red slip burnished pottery well they a department of the shawshank first silly found in the 1920s at Megiddo could have given us an ankle but it was uncovered out of context and the same was true for the measure still from the ball in Moab in today's Jordan and the hostile inscription from Tel Dan in northern Israel this means that the connection between the remains in the on the ground and the historical sequence is established according to one's interpretation of the biblical material hence yeah Dean steel we rested on the biblical verse one King ran fifteen and nothing but the biblical verse I repeat the entire reconstruction of the great Solomonic state by Edina and others has been based on single on a single biblical verse and even if you are told otherwise I will show you how it all connects back to this verse so let me let us take a look at this verse there is no question that the material in the Book of Kings was put in writing not earlier than the late 7th century three centuries after Solomon what the description did they did I'm sorry the description of the United Monarchy draws a picture of an ideally golden age and that it is wrapped into a logical and ideological goal of the times of the authors we have said that several times in this gathering now is it possible that despite all this the author did know about Solomon's building activities in the laws the natural answer would be that it that he could have consulted with the Solomonic archive in Jerusalem but over a century of archaeological investigations in Judah failed to reveal any meaningful scribal activity before the late 8th century the idea of a Solomonic archive is therefore no more than a wishful thinking if this is the case how should we understand 1 Kings 9:15 I would argue that the author referred to the three most important cities of the Northern Kingdom in the eighth century Megiddo Hazor and Gezer in order to convey his pan Israelite notion that a great Solomon ruled from Jerusalem over the entire country including the lens of Northern Kingdom to sum up this part of my presentation I am grateful for amihai mazaa for providing me with this wonderful picture III can that's enough for today I can go yeah Dean started off in pottery tell us nothing at all and the biblical verse tell us nothing about the days of Solomon as far as I can judge the conventional chronology rests on some what simplistic reading of the biblical texts magnified by wishful thinking and that is only the beginning of the bad news the conventional Theory raises several historical and archaeological problems here are just a few examples the rise of territorial states in the Levant was an outcome of the westward expansion of the Assyrian Empire in the early 9th century indeed extra biblical sources leave little doubt that all major states in the region Damascus Moab Amon and northern Israel emerged in the ninth century it is extremely difficult to envision a great empire ruled from the marginal region of the judah-ite lands a century before this process to affiliating the destruction of the Megiddo palaces with the campaign of fire or Shishak leaves us with no destruction layers in the north for the well-documented assault of hostile king of damascus on the northern kingdom in the mid 90s entry and most annoying of all over a century of archaeological explorations in Jerusalem the capital of the glamorous biblical United Monarchy failed to reveal evidence for any meaningful 10th century building activity the famous stepped stone structure usually presented as the most important United Monarchy remain was probably built later pottery which dates to the 9th century according to my interpretation if not later was found between its courses a few walls recently unearthed on the ridge of the City of David above this structure have been interpreted by the excavator Eilat Mazar as the remains of a Palace of King David yet all that can be said about them for sure is that they predate the Roman period if one wishes to speculate about their day totally found in a field that may belong to them may hinge at the 9th or even early 8th century BC date the common pretext for the absence of 10th century remains in Jerusalem that they were educated by later activity should be brushed aside monumental fortifications from both the middle bones and late monarchy times again n century did survive later occupations to make a long story short 10th century Jerusalem of the time of David and Solomon was no more than a small remote Highlands village not the exquisitely decorated capital of a great Empire partly an alternative theory so much for the negative evidence more straightforward Clues come from two sides related to the great Omar a dynasty of Omri and Ahab in the north the dynasty which ruled over the northern kingdom in the 9th century Somalia in the highlands its capital and just drilling the valley where the wicked Jezebel was killed and thrown to the dogs from the window of a Paris Oslo blocks uncovered in the foundations of one of the so called Solomonic palaces at Megiddo Kelly unique Masons marks found in one other building in Israel the ninth century Palace of Omri and Ahab at Samaria I should stress that we are not speaking about the sides or two strata but about two buildings these Mason's marks are so distinctive that they must have been executed by the same group of Mason's but one palace was dated to the 10th century and the other to the ninth century there are only two alternatives here either to push the Megiddo building ahead to the ninth century all to pull the Somalia Palace back to the 10th century the answer to the riddle lies in the biblical sauce on the building of Samaria by King hombre of Israel this source must be reliable since it is supported by Assyrian text that relate to the Northern Kingdom as beat Omri there is to say the house of only the typical genre of calling a state after the founder of its capital therefore there is hardly a doubt that down dating Megiddo is the only option the recent Anglo Israeli excavations at Israel located less than 10 miles to the east of Megiddo revealed equally surprising results the destruction layer of the Royal compound they're dated to the mid 19th century yielded a rich collection of vessels identical to a Megiddo assemblage which was conventionally been dated to the late 10th century again we need either to push the Megiddo assemblage or to pull the Jews in one since the just real compound is architectonical II identical to that of Samaria it must date to the 9th century in this case - there's only one option then down dating the Megiddo palaces to the 9th century so far I have dealt with the additional ecology and biblical exegesis can we add to these circumstantial considerations and more accurate model method and sowing the answer is positive and it comes form the exact sciences in recent years samples from iron age strata from several sites in Israel have been subjected to a do carbon that is carbon-14 dating procedures the results of a large number of readings from doe on the Mediterranean coast tell haddad on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee Megiddo and York Nam in the Jezreel Valley Terre Haute South of Bachan cuts off in the north and all site near Echo were found to be lower by almost a century than expected according to the conventional chronology pay attention the blue look for the blue squares no blue squares a comprehensive study by the Weizmann Institute and the University of Arizona Laboratories has placed the transition from the iron one to the i-12 traditionally dated to circa 1000 or 980 BC by Mossad amihai Moscow where they placed it silca 900 BC I would opt for a somewhat earlier date as you see in the picture in the late eighth century destruction layers which have been conventionally dated to the late 10th century provide dates then in the mid to late 9th century BC Roger carbon is also radio carbon is also a tricky business hence a team work of archaeologists and physicists is obligatory I have therefore cooperated on this issue with professor Li as apposite key of the Department of Physics at Tel Aviv according to Poisson scheme the data available so far and a quote unambiguously support the local knowledge hypothesis the probability that the high chronology hypothesis is correct is well below 1% and very happy with this number a set of readings from Telegraph Hoff provided by Mossad was interpreted as supporting the conventional dating yet the Terre Haute data can be interpreted as adhering to both dating systems high and low as you can see now but when put on the broader stratigraphic background The Telegraph data in fact support the local knowledge II for the iron age strata my chronology circumstantially by comparing the pottery assemblage it indicates that the Megiddo palaces should be placed between 900 and 835 980 35 the radiocarbon results fit what I have said before the date of the Solomonic monuments should be lowered by 75 to 100 years chapter four why the arguments raised against the alternative dating are wrong as every new idea this one too faced opposition from scholars belonging to the conservative school yet with each additional point raised against the local knowledge II it became evident that my opponents have no real ammunition here are a few examples 1 the density of strata argument if the date of 10th century strata is lowered to the 9th century too many layers are left in northern Israel for the relatively short period of time until the second take over in 732 there are several answers to these arguments and they are all on the wall on the screen - I love this one this is what I call the how can you accept the biblical testimony and reject another argument but simply the question is how can one reject the historicity of the biblical testimony on the building activities of Solomon at a same time accept the historicity of the verses on the construction of Samaria by Omri in this case - there are two answers first accepting the historicity of one verse and ejecting another is exactly the nature of two centuries of biblical scholarship second as I have mentioned earlier the biblical description of the Solomonic state is idealized with many references to realities of much later times in Israelite history the description of the Umayyad state is minimal negative but far more accurate historically the fact that the Assyrians called the Northern Kingdom beta Murray the house of only referring to the capital which was in turn called after the founder leaves little doubt as to the identity of the builder of the first palace at Somalia several scholars mainly William Deever suggested that the local knowledge camp is still in a minority Finkelstein stands alone he says the truth is that I am far from being troubled by the idea of standing alone to defend a case which also I believe is supported by the evidence but in order to set the record straight I am presenting two lists of scholars who came out in print in favor or against my system half Mazar on both sides looking can you explain this looking looking at the dream team on my side I can looking at the dream team on my side which includes half Mazar I can only hope to always be able to stand similarly alone and one more very meaningful note on this issue all the factions are from right to left all the factions are from right to left incidentally Deaver himself has recently started his long cold voyage of defection in fact with Mazda halfway down and Deaver defecting that additional chronology has gone down I knew that after the earliest life stuff you know before I have to amuse you chapter five and the last one I'll be on time back to history what is the meaning of all these four biblical historical studies the mention of the house of David in the Tilton Steeley from this ninth century leaves no doubt the David and Solomon where historical figures and there is good reason to accept that many of the David stories in the book of Samuel mainly the heroic tales and the description of his life as a bandit on the fringe of the Judean Highlands contain genuine early historical memories which were transmitted orally and put into writing not before the late 8th century and thus absorbed later realities on the way down but the great biblical story of the United Monarchy is left with no material evidence in the 10th century places such as Megiddo in the north still featured Canaanite material culture the kingdom of David and Solomon was no more than a poor marginal chiefdom small state let's call it centered around a humble village in Jerusalem the beautiful Megiddo palaces until recently the symbol of Solomonic splendor date to the time of the on Wright dynasty of the northern kingdom almost a century later than Solomon they were probably constructed by King Ahab this should come as no surprise contemporary monarchs psalmanazar third of Assyria Mesha of mod and has the hell of Damascus all the text to attest to the great power of nine century BC Israel the biblical story about the reign of the um right princess Italia in Jerusalem which is widely considered to be a reliable historical testimony indicates that the omurice dominated the marginal powerless judah to the south the great powerful and glamorous Israelite state was the northern King the wicked the great powerful and glamorous is a light state was the northern kingdom the wicked kingdom in the eyes of the biblical historian not the small and poor territory dominated by 10th century Jerusalem if there was a United Monarchy it was that of the alright dynasty and it was ruled from Samaria if these are the facts on the ground what is the origin of the biblical tale of an illustrious United Monarchy in order to answer this question we need to remember that the biblical narrative of the ancient history of Israel was put in writing in the late 7th century in the days of King Josiah who is described in the Book of Kings as the most righteous monarch of the lineage of David the history known as the deuteronomistic history intended to serve Josiah's agenda of centralization of cult in Jerusalem and territorial expansion into lengths of vanquished the length of vanquished Israel it is not difficult to identify the landscapes and customs of late monarchic times the time of the compilation of the texts and the immediate past as the stage setting behind the biblical tale of the United Monarchy the stories of solomon cities of chariots and horsemen must reflect the memory of the great horse breeding and training facility of the northern kingdom in the 8th century King Hiram of Tyre must be identified with the only Hiram there only Hiram known from reliable extra biblical text the contemporary of piglet the lesser third in the late 8th century the story of the trade relations with him was intended to equal the grandeur of Solomon to death of the great monarchs of the Northern Kingdom the lavish visit of solomon's trading partner the queen of sheba in jerusalem no doubt reflects the participation of late 8th and 7th century judah in the lucrative Abhiyan trade the same holds true for the description of the trade expeditions to land the fowl that set off from a Cheon gabber on the gulf of aqaba a site which was not inhabited before late monarchic times as I have mentioned the early David stories in the book of Samuel may contain earlier even 10th century traditions but they too were put into writing much later and well then inserted into the big history of Israel in the 7th century at that stage they absorbed the realities and ideology of the time the armor of Goliath for instance which resembles that of a Greek hoplite of the seventh or sixth century BC and not an early Aegean warrior she'll probably be understood against the background of the service of Greek mercenaries in the army of 7th century Egypt that was a time when tiny Judah faced mighty Egypt and the victory of David over the giant Goliath described as a Greek hoplite and thus symbolizing the power of Egypt could have depicted the hopes of Judah in josiah's time but why was it so important to project these late monarchic images back into the early history of Israel the tale of a glamorous United Monarchy had an obvious meaning for the people of Judah in the days of the compilation of the texts in a time when the Northern Kingdom was no more than a memory and the mighty Assyrian army had faded away a new David the pious Josiah came to the throne in Jerusalem in content on restoring the glory of his distant ancestors he was about to replay the history of Israel by cleansing Judah from the abominations of the nations and undoing the sins of the past he could stop the cycle of idolatry and calamity which characterized the history of ancient Israel he could react the United Monarchy the way it should have been in his own ideology of course before it went astray so Josiah embarked on reestablishing in a United Monarchy he was about to regain the territories of the now destroyed northern kingdom and wolf on Jerusalem overall Israelite area and all Israelite people the description of the glamour was United Monarchy served these goals all these may seem as somewhat belittling the stature of the historical David and Solomon but in same time in the same breath we gain a glimpse into the grandeur of the Northern Kingdom the first true great Israelite state and no less important we are given a glimpse into the fascinating world of late monarchic Judah

Channel: IISHJvid

Views: 108,912

Keywords: Jerusalem (City/Town/Village), Israel Finkelstein (Author), Solomon (Monarch), Solomon's Temple (Structure), Jewish History (Literature Subject), Archaeology (Interest), The Bible (Religious Text), Torah

Id: 8iSb0rPgH5U

Length: 36min 18sec (2178 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 20 2015