Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Walter Mattfeld" <mattfeld AT mail.pjsnet.com>]

Greg wrote:

Since when is a tomb not a structure? It was an expensive vaulted brick
tomb, partially aboveground (mausoleum), with local pottery and imported
goods, in the sanctuary grounds of the Temple of Baal Shamin. Not exactly
the thing you'd expect to find in a nomadic encampment.

Greg, a single tomb is not a city. There's a pretty fancy and substantial
tomb of the Tobaids in Jordan, with no accompanying city (Arak el-Emir).

<The 2nd millennium Kueltepe-Kanis and Mari references are in
<business contracts and such, to people being from the place, as
<their home - even when they traveled and did business abroad - which is
<not what you would expect from a nomadic encampment.

Why can't nomads engage in business contracts ?

<Tiglath Pileser I boasted of bringing its plunder to Ashur circa 1110 BCE
<- sounds like more than tents and baskets.

The nomadic arabs were not without wealth, at times they acted as middlemen,
and brigands, and could have had loot that the Assyrians seized in a
surprise attack on their encampments.

<Boehme and Schottroff (Palmyrenische Grabreliefs, 1979) seem to think
<there may have been an occupation gap, but ending in the Achaemenid
<period. They find a Palmyrene name in Polybius for a commander under the
<Seleucid Antiochus III, circa 217 BCE. The Temple of Bel seems to have
<been built on top of a cleared-away tell.

Speculation is endless in biblical studies, but only archaeology confirms.
There are no structures suggesting a city before the 1st century BCE.
Mention of the area doesn't necessarily equate to its being a city, it could
be a nomadic encampment, famed for its springs. As regards "speculations"
about a Tell being under the Bel-Shamin Temple, it remains just that,
speculation. Only further excavations will reveal whether or not the mound
possesses any clues to an Iron Age city of Solomon's world.  You speak of
the Tell mound being cleared for the Hellenistic city. This makes no sense
to me. Tell mounds are layer after layer of destroyed cities rebuilt upon
each other. In Assyrian times I recall new fortresses being built by
creating a new articifical tell mound to put the fort upon. In either event,
there should be debris to date that mound, WITHIN the mound itself.

<All in all, I think Tadmor is a poor choice of a city to use to date a
<text from, since there is so much uncertainty. Better the Hellenistic
<cities with definite foundation dates.

You may be right. I have had "another read" of Chronicles after all the
objections and note that mention is made of funds raised to create Solomon's
temple by David. Mention is made of quantities of gold in shekels, followed
by "10,000 darics" (1 Chron 29:7). Evidently the narrator thought the
audience would be familiar with darics as a monetary device. They are gold
coins issued by the Persians, and named after Darius I (522-486 BCE). This
would suggest Chronicles might be a Persian era creation. I guess it
wouldn't make any sense for a narrator writing in the 1st century BCE to
mention "darics" to that audience, they would be more familiar with Greek
"drachmas."