Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Well, Ian, I don't have time to keep all of this going. Just one point
below:

-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Hutchesson [mailto:mc2499 AT mclink.it]
Sent: 04 December 2000 12:10
To: Peter Kirk; Biblical Hebrew
Subject: Re: Question Concerning Inspiration (Peter)

<snip>

>I don't know about your analysis of the temple mount, but there has been
the
>suggestion that parts of the city was raized (contra Kenyon) in a period of
>reconstruction.
>
>PK: My tentative hypothesis is that there was a significant city and
>fortifications on the site of the temple mount in the 10th century, but
that
>no evidence remains, or is accessible, because it was all destroyed or
>buried 900 years later, in Herod's time. I know I can't prove it, but you
>can't disprove it, and so you can't prove your claim that Jerusalem was
>insignificant at this time.

This is a hypothesis of convenience: as there is nowhere else for the city
that you assume must have been to have been it must have been by default
there. The problem is and I think I've explained it before. You take no
notice of the form of the terrain. Much of the temple mount at the southern
end has been built up to have the large platform we have today. Before then
it was relatively steep and not particularly conducive to town planning.

PK: Don't forget that even on your dating the books of Kings were written
before Herod's remodelling work on Jerusalem, and suggest that Solomon's
temple and palace were built on this northern hill. They would hardly have
suggested a site which was impossible to build on, more likely they would
have described one already occupied by buildings or ruins. And the records
suggest that there was at least a temple there before Herod's time. So this
area cannot have been all that impossible to build on. Also, steep hills are
by no means always rejected as sites for cities; fortified ones were often
deliberately built on steep crags. Basically we don't know what the
topography was before Herod's time, except that it was not perfectly flat,
so we certainly cannot rule out a city having been built here.

<snip>

Peter Kirk