Biblical Hebrew Forum

[kwrandolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Dear Walter:

Is this a great list or what? First I get one who questions my claim
that David at about 1000 BC had iron (steel) weapons, now you
question my explanation for iron age villages starting at 1220 BC.

First of all, the cities built listed in Numbers were east of the
Jordan River, not the Canaanite hill country.

Secondly, how do you know that it was 1220-1150 BC that there was a
sudden burst of construction? Why not earlier? A couple centuries
later? To what are the dates correlated? Are the dates determined by
written documents listing the reigning monarch, or just the usual
pottery? How do you know that they were iron age? The other poster
(sorry, I don't mean to forget your name) indicated he doubted that
David had steel weapons precisely because a lack of iron implements
found in "iron age" villages.

The problem for historians is that the main document recording the
history of Israel has two main focuses: first and foremost, the
cultic life of the people, and secondly, the political life. Details
concerning daily life of the common people got very short shrift by
the writers. Therefore, with the lack of any contemporary written
explanation for the archeological findings, we are left with
speculation (and my detractors claim that I can speculate with the
best of them). To top it off, the most important physical artifacts,
even of the early iron age, may still have been leather, wood and
cloth, precisely those materials least like to survive in a tell for
us to excavate today.

Since we don't even have the dates firmly established, I at this
point will refrain from speculation.       ;-)

As I stated before, I believe the Exodus occurred 1450 ± 50 years BC.

Karl W. Randolph.