Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

I previously sent this only to Yitzhak by mistake.

I am wondering; I beleive that Jerusalem actually existed for a long time,
as a fortress; and that the archeological evidence shows that but just does
not show that there was a city there.

But if I knew it was mentioned in the Amarna letters, I've forgotten.
Where and in what context is Jerusalem mentioned in the Amarna letters?

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra AT austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>
To: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
Cc: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 03, 2005 1:48 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Josiah's book of the Law


> Karl Randolph wrote:
> > Dora:
> >
> > More accurately, you don't believe the evidence that was
> > presented.
> >
> > Karl W. Randolph.
>
> No, Karl.  The evidence that was presented was: "it was customary in
> ancient times
> to place documents in the foundations of buildings as is done even to
> the present day."
> There are several issues in using this as "evidence" for the
> suggestion that "the Book
> of the Law that Josiah's priests discovered had been placed in the
> cornerstone of the
> Temple by Solomon."  Firstly, while this is a possible historical
> scenario, it is still
> not proven that Josiah did indeed find a book.  I think Dr. Fried has
> stated before on
> this list that she believes that other descriptions of what Josiah did
> are not historical.
> However, I understand that this is in debate with amongst others Nadav
Naaman.
> Secondly, even if Josiah did indeed find a book, it wasn't necessarily
> Solomon who
> placed it there.  It could be Joash, or it could be someone else.
> Third, even if Josiah
> did find a book, and regardless of whether it was Solomon or someone
> else, it is not
> necessarily the canonical Masoretic Torah.  In fact, it would appear
> that the account
> refers to only a small part, consisting of Deuteronomic law, even if
> the account is not
> historical.
>
> Dora stated: "no evidence Solomon built the temple!"  There are
> actually a few issues
> here: 1) Did the Temple exist before Solomon? 2) Did the Temple exist
> after Solomon?
> 3) Did Solomon do any building work on the Temple? 4) Did Solomon
> exist?  I think
> there is no independent evidence for the answer to any of those
> questions.  However,
> in light of the fact that during the Amarna times, there is also no
> archaeological
> presence attested (so much so that some scholars have suggested looking
for the
> Amarna Jerusalem elsewhere), it is possible that Jerusalem was for a
> very long time
> the "capital" of a semi-nomadic population and that whatever early
> attestations of it
> exist are buried on the Temple Mount where they are today not
> accessible.  So it is
> not negative evidence, but it is inconclusive.  In any case, the above
> assertion (that
> kings buried ancient documents in Temple foundations) cannot be used to
prove
> that Solomon built the Temple.  I mean, I don't see how the two are
> related in any
> way.
>
> Yitzhak Sapir
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