Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au>]

Ian Hutchesson wrote:

> [...] This of course means that the only testimony to such a beast as the 
> united
> monarchy is a collection of texts dated earliest to the DSS period.

Yes. But unless the DSS are autographs, then the texts go back beyond the DSS 
period.
Just how much is conjecture. In any case, the traditions are fairly old.

> [...] Would that "little" be functionally equivalent to "no"?

Nope. Little evidence, not "no" evidence.

> [...] George, there is no doubt that there was a city there with a similar 
> name
> at least from the time of the Amarna letters. There is however no signs of
> growth of that city when it allegedly became the centre of a large kingdom,
> much larger than anything seen in the area before or after (until the times
> of the Hasmoneans). In fact, there are no archaeological signs for the
> change of control of the city alleged at the time of David.

Does there need to be a cultural break? I think it's fairly well established 
that
"Israelite" and "Canaanite" culture are so similar as to be virtually
indistinguishable.

> This is a grave
> problem: there are clear signs of the arrival of the Philistines in
> Palestine. Perhaps there was in fact no signs of cultural difference
> between the Canaanites and the late of Egypt Hebrews.

May well be!

> [...] This is quite an understatement, "not... a thriving metropolis". It 
> was in
> fact tiny and doesn't seem to have gone through any substantial growth
> until the time of Hezekiah. This is a city whose life didn't seem to change
> much at all for some centuries after it became the centre of political
> power in the region.

No argument there. However, many people seem to overstate the case that 
Jerusalem was
small, somehow turning it into no town or settlement whatsoever. I don't 
think the
record allows such an interpretation of evidence, that the evidence we have 
is not
actually there. But it is there!

> [...] I thought this was a bunch of people who were escaped disenfranchized
> workers in the building industry in Egypt who spent their time upon arrival
> in Palestine conquering the local inhabitants, before the emergeance of the
> desire to have a king. At least that's the story. What makes you think they
> were "a primitive grouping of pastoralists-recently cum-agriculturalists"?

Well, for one, the laboriously slow development of settlements in southern 
Palestine
between 1200-900 BCE. It is a little faster in the north. The eventual 
increase in
farming technology (viz terrace farming) shows the switch.

> [...]
> If you can say that later writers were representing the earlier period with
> later traditions, what else was contributed by the later writers? Is it not
> arbitrary to say this or that was from a later period when there are no
> benchmarks to aid such a conclusion?

It is a working hypothesis.

> By this you seem to be putting forward the thesis that the united monarchy
> should be relegated to the literature that contains it. It doesn't need
> such evidence because it was only theoretical. I gather that that means
> "not reflecting anything that existed in the real world".

Not quite, but in the general direction. A Davidic ideology which owed its 
allegiance
to an old warlord in the hills and Negev, and his subsequent successors, does 
not need
to leave behind stone or clay artifacts for the archaeologist's trowel to 
strike. I'm
advocating that there was a real David with a real ideology behind him that 
he was
somehow the Chosen one of Yahweh, who imposed his rule on a wide area. Now, 
his power
over these areas was more de jure than de facto. His de facto power lay in 
the ability
to boss around small pockets of the local population, not to spread abroad a 
political
system of which he held the reign,.as well as the ability to build up a 
personal
following.

Like I said, though, this is a working hypothesis.

> >> >A bit like a five year old being
> >> >forced to wear a men's extra large jacket. You say, "We have only
> >> children's clothes
> >> >here - no evidence of adulthood."
> >>
> >> The analogy of course is not good. You have the knowledge from uniformity
> >> that children grow up to adulthood. There is nothing equivalent in what 
> >> you
> >> are applying your analogy to.
> >
> >I'm not sure I follow you. We know that Judah did eventually develop into
> a fully
> >fledged state in its own right. That is the equivalent: Judah (and Israel)
> did
> >eventually grow up into well developed states.
>
> The realm of a united monarchy is the still missing adult.

Oh, you've misunderstood me. Sorry, my fault. The adult is the fully fledged 
State of
Judah, verifiable by Assyrian and Babylonian records and archaeological 
excavations.
The adult is the eventual state that Judah inevitably grew up into, wearing 
the jacket
of well developed statehood. The child in the analogy is Judah and Israel in 
the 10th
century - certainly not grown up into a well developed, mature State. The 
United
Monarchy is the jacket which the Child was forced to wear - it was bound to 
be thrown
off as premature.

> No. I mean that "loosely connected tribes" is merely conjecture. There may
> have been tribes, but "loosely connected"?

Well, what I meant was not some kind of amphictiony (is that how you spell 
it?). I
meant a number of tribes which eventually interracted and came to have some 
contact
and perhaps interdependence with. I'm making the "connection" with economic 
and
geographical glue, not theological glue.

> Accounts that are admitted by you as not reflecting the real situation in
> Jerusalem of the era and having documentary support from texts datable to
> the second century BCE, would be like attempting to apply the Epic of
> Gilgamesh to a hypothetical reality, or Le Morte d'Arthur, or the Ramayana.
> One might attempt to find the speck of truth in those texts, but I doubt if
> any historian would go out on a limb and attempt to use them as history.

Like I said, Ian, it's just a hypothesis - not Law.

> >> >That of course, is if the United Monarchy existed. The problem is that 
> >> >the
> >> >evidence is silent. But silence of evidence does not mean evidence of
> silence.
> >>
> >> It does give scope for contemplating other alternatives, for there is no
> >> evidentially favoured position.
> >
> >Of course. I'm just putting forward one of the alternatives.
>
> The "alternative" you are putting forward has archaeological problems and
> though it's been around for millennia, it has only lost appeal to
> historians, whereas active hypotheses usually generate positive research to
> sustain them or fall into inactivity and loss of appeal. The appeal of the
> one you are putting forward doesn't seem to have anything to do with facts
> stimulated by the hypothesis. I think it's time for serious consideration
> of other hypotheses, given the lack of success over the millennia of the
> currently dominant one.

I don't think the archaeological record contradicts a Davidic ideology de 
jure.

Our differences, Ian, I think lie in methodology. You take the one footing 
which is
that the material is so late it couldn't shed anything meaningful on the 
period in
question, and this is borne out by the archaeological record which 
contradicts it. I'm
taking the footing that perhaps the literary material can be reinterpreted, 
not
discarded, by the archaeological material.

I wish we would be around in another 1000 years, Ian, to see how much more
archaeologists could assist in framing the picture. There's still a lot of 
digging to
be done. That's the big question mark which hangs over all our heads.

>                            ----o0o----
>
> You wrote in another post about my showing how archaeology and epigraphy
> have unveiled kingdoms (eg Ebla, Hatti) we otherwise would never have known
> anything about:
>
> >But Ian, these societies were already well developed at the time, with an
> already
> >existent infrastructure and political system which had been place for a
> long time.
> >In 1000 BCE, Israel and Judah didn't have a well developed political
> structure.
>
> Then why do you support such a hypothesis as the united monarchy at all? We
> are at best in the realms of conjecture.

No - what I'm suggesting is that with Ebla and co, there appears to have been 
a
pristine state formation - that is, the natural socio-economic forces unfurled
themselves into statehood. What I'm suggesting is that the United Monarchy 
did not
have such a pristine state formation. Rather, state formation was forced, 
steered more
by ideological factors than socio-economic factors. As such, the United 
Monarchy did
not have the socio-economic stability to continue, which is why it failed, 
and why
Israel and Judah took another century or two to form stable states.

> I am intrigued by some of the names of kings in the early period that
> suggest a lack of historicity. Beside names such as David ("beloved" or
> "general"?) and Solomon ("peace"), we come across names such as "Rehoboam"
> (related to the sea as in Rahab of Ps89 & Is51) and his son, Abijam ("my
> father is the sea"); what about the similarly structure name to Rehoboam,
> ie Jeroboam (regarding "contention" -- mere coincidence?), or Baasha
> ("stinky")? Do any of these reflect real people or are they simply names
> generated from Hebrew traditions?

Good question. The fact that there is a Jeroboam from the early 8th century 
in Israel
suggests that it was not a made up name, a perjorative title, or even a 
Pilgrim's
Progress type characterisation. Secondly, the connection between Rehoboam and 
Rahab
the Sea Monster is erroneous. Rehoboam is spelled with a heth, Rahab with a 
heh. So,
there's no problem on that front. Besides, even if it was there, what would it
connote? We have the similar name of Jeroboam in the north (two of them!), so 
such a
name would not be abnormal. Can't find anything of Baasha - nevertheless, you 
don't
know what he was like as a kid! :)
Very best again,
GEORGE ATHAS
Dept of Semitic Studies,
University of Sydney
- Email: gathas AT mail.usyd.edu.au
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