Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Let's have a look at the evidence quoted here and see if it supports 
Walter's conclusion. We have mentions of a place Tadmor "in the 
archives of the kings of Kanes, Mari, Emar and Assyria, the 11th-9th 
centuries BCE" and in the book of Chronicles, whose date we are 
seeking to narrow down. We have archaeological evidence for a 1st 
century BCE city of Palmyra. We have an identification between the two 
dated to the late 1st century CE (Josephus) which is not necessarily 
at all reliable.

Now if there are no artefacts of any sort at Palmyra from before 1st 
century BCE, this must be a different place from the Tadmor mentioned 
in the 11th-9th century archives, for even passing caravans would have 
left some pottery and other remains, surely. Or perhaps no-one has yet 
looked in exactly the right place. So we must conclude that the 
location of Tadmor is unknown. It may have been very close to Palmyra, 
but in an as yet unexcavated spot (not necessarily a big mound - 
Solomon's city, if it ever existed, may not have lasted long, and 
other settlements may have been transitory); or it may have been 
somewhere completely different. But as we know that Tadmor existed in 
the 11th-9th centuries but we don't know where it was, we have no 
argument for dating Chronicles late.

Indeed the evidence, that the name Tadmor was used in 11th-9th 
centuries but not later, actually points to Chronicles being earlier 
rather than later. Now Chronicles in its final form cannot be 11th-9th 
century. But 1 Kings 9 may well date back to this period, and the 
unknown name "Tadmor" in 9:18 may have been copied faithfully by the 
Chronicler while becoming corrupted later in Kings. In fact "Tadmor" 
is the reading of the Qere, of many MSS and of many ancient versions 
in 1 Kings 9:18, where the BHS text is "Tamar". Very likely late 
copyists changed the unknown "Tadmor" into the better known "Tamar".

Peter Kirk

PS to Walter: Can you clarify "The earliest artifact bearing a date is 
from 44 BCE"? I assume this is a reference to coins, inscriptions etc. 
But are you saying also that there are no artefacts datable e.g. by 
their style to an earlier period? Is there any pottery etc of an 
earlier period? Of course, even if there is nothing, this is argument 
from silence, which is very dangerous in archaeology.


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Tadmor
Author:  <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com> at Internet 
Date:    27/02/2000 20:54


Jason's request is reasonable, others on this list may have the same 
reservations, so here's an excerpt from a manuscript I did last year. One 
can obtain the work cited and check for one's self if my Point Of View has 
misinterpreted the author's words:

Second Chronicles mentions that King Solomon was not only famous for 
building the temple of Solomon, but also great chariot cities like Hazor, 
Megiddo and Gezer and the great trading city of Tadmor in the wilderness (2 
Chr. 8:4). Josephus understood Tadmor to be Palmyra. Although scholars have 
found mention of Tadmor in the archives of the kings of Kanes, Mari, Emar 
and Assyria, the 11th-9th centuries BCE (p.307, Vol.6, "Tadmor," David Noel 
Freedman, Ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Doubleday, 1992), excavations at 
Palmyra have failed to indicate any kind of a presence there, from those 
periods, archaeologically. The earliest artifact bearing a date is from 44 
BCE. Millar has concluded that on the basis of the excavations, that 
Tadmor/Palmyra was probably founded in the early first century BCE and by 
the second half of that century had acquired enough of a renown for its 
wealth, as a great trade city, so as to attract a raiding party of Marc 
Anthony's troops in 41 BCE seeking plunder:

"...Palmyra as an urban centre was a new creation, which did not go back 
beyond the first century BC. The place had certainly existed and had been 
referred to centuries before. But there is nothing in the archaeological 
record to show that there was any settled occupation of the site through the 
Hellenistic period...Suggestions of a phase of urban development in Palmyra 
before the disturbances of the late Hellenistic period can only be 
speculation. Inscriptional evidence does, however, now suggest, by the 
reconstruction of a family tree, that the foundation of the first temple of 
Allat went back to the earlier first century BC. We cannot at any rate 
construct a picture of a Persian or early Hellenistic Tadmor from the fact 
that the Chronicler took the city Tamar which Solomon built to be Tadmor in 
the desert (II Chronicles 8.4). It is only Josephus who expands on this brief 
allusion to give one of the best pictures of Palmyra- but as it was in the 
first century AD." (p.320, Fergus Millar, The Roman Near East, 31 
B.C.-A.D.337, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1993)

In order for Tadmor to have attracted the Chronicler's attention it must 
have been a great and important city, worthy of being ascribed to Solomon's 
prodigious building reputation. It would appear then, that based on the 
archaeological evidence found at Tadmor, that 2 Chronicles 2:8, and thus 
perhaps Chronicles itself, must have been written some time during the 1st 
century BCE, probably in the second half of that century, 50 BCE or later.

All the best,

Walter

Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld
Walldorf by Heidelberg
Baden-Wurttemburg
Germany


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