Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com>]

Actually, in my travels yesterday, I found in, Israel Finkelstein, The
Philistines in the Bible, JOST 27.2 (2002) 131-67, the following:

An essential point, which has not been discussed sufficiently, is the
archaeology of the places that play a central role in the story. First comes
Shiloh, which is depicted as an important (at least regionally) sanctuary of
the early Israelites. Archaeology-both the Danish excavations in the
1920s and the renewed excavations in the 1980s-showed that the site
was an important centre in the Iron I and that it was destroyed in the late
Iron I (Kjaer 1930; Finkelstein, Bunimovitz and Lederman 1993: 20-31,
383-89). Albright (1929: 4) dated this destruction according to his
interpretation of biblical history in the days of the Judges to c. 1050 BCE.
Analyzing the rich pottery assemblage found in the destruction layer in
view of the Low Chronology system (Finkelstein 1996), the destruction of
Shiloh may be dated somewhat later, possibly in the tenth century BCE.
Archaeology also shows that Shiloh did not recover from this destruction.
The site was not inhabited in the ninth century, and there was only poor,
ephemeral activity there in the eighth and seventh centuries BCE
(Finkelstein,
Bunimovitz and Lederman 1993: 389).42 Therefore, the biblical
memory on the prominence of Shiloh in early Israelite history must echo
the importance of the site in the Iron I, no later than the tenth century
BCE.

Bunimovitz, S. and Z. Lederman, Beth-shemesh, Culture conflict on Judah's
frontier", BAR 1997, 23: 42-49, 75-77

Finkelstein, Bunimovitz and Lederman.  Shiloh:  the archeology of a Biblical
city (Tel Aviv:  Inst of Archeology)

Albright, 1929.  New Israelites and Pre-Israelite sites.  BASOR 35:  1-14.

I vunder vat it vill take to find Shiloh: the archeology of a Biblical City?
Monday I ended up at the Presbyterian seminary before I was through - public
library didn't have two books, UT didn't have two books, Episcopal seminary,
which has an excellent library, only had one of them.   I couldn't believe
the Presbyterian seminary was who did.

Anyway, this paragraph doesn't tell what they found at Shiloh, but my guess
is, signs of larger structures.  In addition to alot of nice jars.
Whatever it was convinced even Finkelstein, who appears to be not easily
convinced, that references to whatever was at Shiloh are old.   Nothing much
existed at Shiloh in the more recent times Finkelstein appears to think
provide the source material from which most biblical history was invented.
LIke in why is the man even bothering to excavate old towns?

I was actually reading the article because not only is it one of only four
recent articles on the Philistines and Sea Peoples, from my electronic
search, but he purports to know where the Cherethites and Phelethites came
from.

He believes they came from the 7th century, when people from the entire
Aegean region were still serving as mercenaries in the armies of superpowers
and local governments alike.  These included Cretans and Carians, among
others.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra AT austin.rr.com


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
To: "b-hebrew list" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 7:48 AM
Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] Please shed any light on meaning of "temple"
inthesepassages


> Dear Peter,
>
> > >
> > But not necessarly. If there was a mud-brick temple, could we tell the
> > difference from regular houses? And then what if the temple had been
> > made of wood? Nothing would have remained.
>
> Even mud-brick temples can be distinguished from ordinary houses
> by the fact that they are larger, being public buildings. They also
> may have cultic paraphernalia about.