Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Irene Riegner <iriegner AT concentric.net>]

Dear Lloyd,

The Amarna letters and the biblical texts (even with assumptions
about date of authorship) are good sources but how about the
archeological evidence---the economic indicators.  Why is Labayu
able to establish a kinglet during this period?  Apparently the
entire (eastern) Mediterranean was undergoing an economic
contraction.  Commerce had decreased and along with this, the urban
production of craft for export and the export of raw materials and
food stuffs.  Politically this contraction shows up in the loss of
strong control which Egypt had previously enjoyed over
Syro-Palestine and in more political maneuvering and fighting among
the Canaanite city-states (ie Akko, Hazor).  (We call this
"downsizing.")  The archeological evidence points to a major growth
in small settlements and thus in the population of the hill country
as well as a growth in  acreage devoted subsistence farming---and
brigandage (the hapiru??).  There is also a decrease in city
populations, but we cannot say that city people picked up their
baggage and moved to the hill country---it is possible they put
pressure on the country population to move further into the hill
country.  New settlements occurred in the more hospitable land first
and then, over centuries, gradually moved south into the less
hospitable Judaean hills.

It seems that until this point, kingship was limited to the coastal
area and shephilah rather than the hinterland.  It may be that the
population growth allowed the political development from the clan /
tribal level to a more broadly based one of kingship.

    Coote and Whitelam, The Emergence of Ancient Israel, is their
interpretation of the economic factors at work.  They fit the
economic developments of late bronze-early iron into the "long
duree"---into the economic patterns of the region since early
bronze.

But of course, you want to refer to articles closer to the
sources---the archeological data.

    Israel Finkelstein and Nadav Na'aman, ed., "From Nomadism to
Monarchy:  Archeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel.
Excellent attempt to integrate both textual and archeological
evidence---without privileging one over the other and without
seeking a one-to-one correspondence between biblical data and
archeological data.

More technical data:
    Israel Finkelstein, Zvi Lederman and Shlomo Bunimovitz,
"Highlands of Many Cultures:  The Southern Samaria Survey.

The Finkelstein books have lists of references.

regards

irene riegner