8 ms·

In Search of King David’s Lost Empire

40 points by diodorus 6y ago

badrabbit 6y ago
https://outline.com/uPscMz https://outline.com/uPscMz
sam_goody 6y ago
yawn Choose your opinions, present them as fact. Back them up with nothing. I worked on a dig in Israel. It was interesting. Among other things I learnt about archeology, history, facts, opinions, and bias, is that that most what is in popular press is grounded in belief, not fact. And that Finklestein is not respected by his peers. This article doesn't make me think any higher of him.
- mxcrossb 6y ago
  It almost seems like every one of the personalities mentioned in the article are disrespected by their peers! As an outsider I found it very fun, but I suspect that someone with inside experience like yourself would find it quite tedious.
- mcphage 6y ago
  What is the current archaeological consensus about David and his kingdom?
  - simonh 6y ago
    I think the article explains this quite well. There is no consensus.
    - mcphage 6y ago
      That is what the article explains, but I was responding to someone who was dismissing the article, so I was wondering if they had a different take.
  - InfiniteRand 6y ago
    In my educated layman guage of the field, I think midway between the minimalist and maximalists is still most respected with recent findings giving momentum to the maximalists but the maximalists are getting more inclined to over reaching claims which will likely undermine their position in the next generation or two
- bobthechef 6y ago
  So a case of "I am not in acquainted with this field, so I'll believe it, but boy did that other journalist completely mischaracterize MY field"? Based on what I hear, many biblical scholars (like many in other fields) are looking to be "edgy" by denying this or that claim and then build entire stories out of thin air based on the consequences of that denial. Meaning, a lot of the biblical scholarship that tries to be "original" ends up suppressing the best explanations in some way simply to get proverbial clicks. Like Reza Aslan.
  - ithkuil 6y ago
    Gell-Mann Amnesia effect?
- coliveira 6y ago
  Finklestein's peers are mostly paid to establish the truth of biblical stories. That's why they don't like him.
  - Alex3917 6y ago
    If you look at all the religious megaliths we have today, like the Vatican or whatever, the reasons those exist is because they were built using several hundred or even thousand years of accrued wealth. (And a significant amount of 'reappropriated' building materials.) If the second temple really was built in 586 BCE, does it make any sense whatsoever that that could have been built with only 3 generations or so of accrued intergenerational wealth? That just doesn't seem plausible. Even assuming the bible is 100% made up, common sense suggests the longer biblical timeline is probably closer to the truth. If they'd instead stumbled into Dubai-style wealth from these copper mines or whatever only a few decades earlier, surely that would have been written down somewhere.
    - bjourne 6y ago
      But to be fair, the Second temple wasn't that impressive until Herod expanded it in the 1st century bc.
      - Alex3917 6y ago
        Good point, forgot about that heh.
    - coliveira 6y ago
      You're assuming that veracity of stories about the grandiosity of Salomon's temple. There is no evidence to demonstrate that there was a fantastic, wealthy temple built by Solomon. If there was one, it could have been a simple temple fit to a small town built by the new rulers of the Israelite tribes.
      - Alex3917 6y ago
        > You're assuming that veracity of stories about the grandiosity of Salomon's temple. I was talking about the temple mount, which you can still visit today. Didn't realize it wasn't finished until 500 years later though, so not sure to what extent my argument still holds.
- wl 6y ago
  Levantine archeologists and philologists have recommended many of Finklestein's works to me. Some adopt his low chronology while others don't. But he seems to be respected enough—even among those who disagree with him—in that sliver of academia I'm familiar with. I'd imagine the situation may be different in environments where the the historicity of the Biblical account concerning the United Monarchy is of political or religious importance.
empath75 6y ago
Biblical archeology is hopelessly compromised as a field. The people most interested in pursuing it and funding it are the people least interested in discovering the truth, rather than confirming their own beliefs.
- NateEag 6y ago
  I think if that were true there would not be enough controversy in the field to write an article like this. I know the Old Testament reasonably well and I think the majority of the researchers the article quotes deny a literal reading of it in one way or another.
  - Jedd 6y ago
    > I know the Old Testament reasonably well and I think the majority of the researchers the article quotes deny a literal reading of it in one way or another. I suspect that still aligns with GP's point -- people are generally partisan on this subject, one way or another.
    - NateEag 6y ago
      Being partisan does not guarantee you are dishonest. Everyone has biases, but that doesn't mean we're all incapable of feeling or finding truth. The GP said clearly that the field is broken due to everyone preferring to shore up their worldviews rather than follow the evidence. People disagreeing with the Biblical narrative sounds like the opposite to me.
      - NateEag 6y ago
        s/feeling/seeking/
      - Jedd 6y ago
        Agree that partisan does not correlate to honesty. I think the claim, and I agree with it, is that partisanship will affect where you look, how you look, and what you do with contradictory information. Are you suggesting disagreement with 'the biblical narrative' indicates partisanship, or the lack of? (Or, rather, referring back to original wording - an indication of shoring up a worldview?)
InfiniteRand 6y ago
When you deal with ancient history you’re going to end up with at least some imaginings to connect the data points into a narrative of some sort. That narrative will almost certainly be wrong in some significant way given the future discoveries not yet seen. Moreover measuring which imagining is more true requires speculative criteria building speculation on top of speculation. I get religious belief, I am very religious, but to hold that an assortment of artifacts, which are still being discovered, unevenly spread by luck and chance, to hold that that proves or disproves a narrative is a leap of faith. But aside from all that, there’s a common pattern in historical research when there is a looming central question at the center of a field, historiography swings one way heavily, then swings the other way as the excesses of the previous generation are denounced, then there is an attempt to meet in the middle, again denouncing past excesses, then the middle is seen as too wish-washy and full of false equivalence and historiography swings hard in one direction again. For other examples of this see the history of the Cold War, history of world war 2, history of the US Civil War etc.
MintelIE 6y ago
There doesn't seem to be much of anything actually substantiating King David's existence. Has this changed as of late? I know it's very important to modern-day Israeli historiography.
- aryehof 6y ago
  Actually it is rather more important to Christianity. Jesus as the Messiah is predicated on his lineage from King David. This is why the New Testament commences with proving Jesus's direct lineage from King David. Without it, Jesus is not the Messiah, and Christianity is baseless.
  - wl 6y ago
    Cyrus was the Messiah, too, but nobody pretends he was descended from King David. In any case, Jesus fails most of the Messianic criteria of Second Temple Judaism. Early Christians had to significantly revise their concept of Messiah to get Jesus to fit. Indeed, the NT makes light of the fact that Jesus was not the Messiah the Jews were expecting, although it implies they were wrong. In any case, the basis of Christianity is that Jesus was God incarnate, died for the sins of the world, rose from the dead, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. Some early Christian polemic about interpretation of then-centries-old prophesy isn't core to that. It's a problem for fundamentalism, but that's an entirely separate issue.
  - MintelIE 6y ago
    I don't agree. It seems that Israeli archaeology is focused on the premise of being there first, above all else. It doesn't seem that Christians are heavily involved in Israel's archaeological program either.
Jedd 6y ago
> In the long war over how to reconcile the Bible with historical fact, the story of David stands at ground zero. I'd suggest the historicity of Jesus is a more profound question. Absent David, you could still try to lay claim to significant tracts of the various interpretations. For decades I'd assumed the historical record (outside the bible) was exhaustive, clear, and undisputed -- but beyond the deity aspect, there's some genuine doubt over the historical Jesus. [0] Apropos TFA - I can recommend Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou's excellent BBC 3-episode series from 2011 called 'Bible's Buried Secrets', though I think there was a similar named US series at some point. In any case, one episode is dedicated to the question of 'Did King David's empire exist?' - I won't spoil the surprise of her conclusions. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zp3j3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zp3j3
wisemanwillhear 6y ago
There is an interesting book I read in college that address the timeline problem called "Centuries of Darkness: A Challenge to the Conventional Chronology of Old World Archaeology" by Peter James. He makes an argument for why the timelines of some of the ancient cultures in that region are messed up. https://books.google.com/books/about/Centuries_of_Darkness.html?id=WhEaAAAAYAAJ&source=kp_book_description https://books.google.com/books/about/Centuries_of_Darkness.h...

40 points by diodorus 6y ago

https://outline.com/uPscMz https://outline.com/uPscMz

yawn Choose your opinions, present them as fact. Back them up with nothing. I worked on a dig in Israel. It was interesting. Among other things I learnt about archeology, history, facts, opinions, and bias, is that that most what is in popular press is grounded in belief, not fact. And that Finklestein is not respected by his peers. This article doesn't make me think any higher of him.

mxcrossb 6y ago
It almost seems like every one of the personalities mentioned in the article are disrespected by their peers! As an outsider I found it very fun, but I suspect that someone with inside experience like yourself would find it quite tedious.
mcphage 6y ago
What is the current archaeological consensus about David and his kingdom?
- simonh 6y ago
  I think the article explains this quite well. There is no consensus.
  - mcphage 6y ago
    That is what the article explains, but I was responding to someone who was dismissing the article, so I was wondering if they had a different take.
- InfiniteRand 6y ago
  In my educated layman guage of the field, I think midway between the minimalist and maximalists is still most respected with recent findings giving momentum to the maximalists but the maximalists are getting more inclined to over reaching claims which will likely undermine their position in the next generation or two
bobthechef 6y ago
So a case of "I am not in acquainted with this field, so I'll believe it, but boy did that other journalist completely mischaracterize MY field"? Based on what I hear, many biblical scholars (like many in other fields) are looking to be "edgy" by denying this or that claim and then build entire stories out of thin air based on the consequences of that denial. Meaning, a lot of the biblical scholarship that tries to be "original" ends up suppressing the best explanations in some way simply to get proverbial clicks. Like Reza Aslan.
- ithkuil 6y ago
  Gell-Mann Amnesia effect?
coliveira 6y ago
Finklestein's peers are mostly paid to establish the truth of biblical stories. That's why they don't like him.
- Alex3917 6y ago
  If you look at all the religious megaliths we have today, like the Vatican or whatever, the reasons those exist is because they were built using several hundred or even thousand years of accrued wealth. (And a significant amount of 'reappropriated' building materials.) If the second temple really was built in 586 BCE, does it make any sense whatsoever that that could have been built with only 3 generations or so of accrued intergenerational wealth? That just doesn't seem plausible. Even assuming the bible is 100% made up, common sense suggests the longer biblical timeline is probably closer to the truth. If they'd instead stumbled into Dubai-style wealth from these copper mines or whatever only a few decades earlier, surely that would have been written down somewhere.
  - bjourne 6y ago
    But to be fair, the Second temple wasn't that impressive until Herod expanded it in the 1st century bc.
    - Alex3917 6y ago
      Good point, forgot about that heh.
  - coliveira 6y ago
    You're assuming that veracity of stories about the grandiosity of Salomon's temple. There is no evidence to demonstrate that there was a fantastic, wealthy temple built by Solomon. If there was one, it could have been a simple temple fit to a small town built by the new rulers of the Israelite tribes.
    - Alex3917 6y ago
      > You're assuming that veracity of stories about the grandiosity of Salomon's temple. I was talking about the temple mount, which you can still visit today. Didn't realize it wasn't finished until 500 years later though, so not sure to what extent my argument still holds.
wl 6y ago
Levantine archeologists and philologists have recommended many of Finklestein's works to me. Some adopt his low chronology while others don't. But he seems to be respected enough—even among those who disagree with him—in that sliver of academia I'm familiar with. I'd imagine the situation may be different in environments where the the historicity of the Biblical account concerning the United Monarchy is of political or religious importance.

empath75 6y ago

Biblical archeology is hopelessly compromised as a field. The people most interested in pursuing it and funding it are the people least interested in discovering the truth, rather than confirming their own beliefs.

NateEag 6y ago
I think if that were true there would not be enough controversy in the field to write an article like this. I know the Old Testament reasonably well and I think the majority of the researchers the article quotes deny a literal reading of it in one way or another.
- Jedd 6y ago
  > I know the Old Testament reasonably well and I think the majority of the researchers the article quotes deny a literal reading of it in one way or another. I suspect that still aligns with GP's point -- people are generally partisan on this subject, one way or another.
  - NateEag 6y ago
    Being partisan does not guarantee you are dishonest. Everyone has biases, but that doesn't mean we're all incapable of feeling or finding truth. The GP said clearly that the field is broken due to everyone preferring to shore up their worldviews rather than follow the evidence. People disagreeing with the Biblical narrative sounds like the opposite to me.
    - NateEag 6y ago
      s/feeling/seeking/
    - Jedd 6y ago
      Agree that partisan does not correlate to honesty. I think the claim, and I agree with it, is that partisanship will affect where you look, how you look, and what you do with contradictory information. Are you suggesting disagreement with 'the biblical narrative' indicates partisanship, or the lack of? (Or, rather, referring back to original wording - an indication of shoring up a worldview?)

InfiniteRand 6y ago

When you deal with ancient history you’re going to end up with at least some imaginings to connect the data points into a narrative of some sort. That narrative will almost certainly be wrong in some significant way given the future discoveries not yet seen. Moreover measuring which imagining is more true requires speculative criteria building speculation on top of speculation. I get religious belief, I am very religious, but to hold that an assortment of artifacts, which are still being discovered, unevenly spread by luck and chance, to hold that that proves or disproves a narrative is a leap of faith. But aside from all that, there’s a common pattern in historical research when there is a looming central question at the center of a field, historiography swings one way heavily, then swings the other way as the excesses of the previous generation are denounced, then there is an attempt to meet in the middle, again denouncing past excesses, then the middle is seen as too wish-washy and full of false equivalence and historiography swings hard in one direction again. For other examples of this see the history of the Cold War, history of world war 2, history of the US Civil War etc.

MintelIE 6y ago

There doesn't seem to be much of anything actually substantiating King David's existence. Has this changed as of late? I know it's very important to modern-day Israeli historiography.

aryehof 6y ago
Actually it is rather more important to Christianity. Jesus as the Messiah is predicated on his lineage from King David. This is why the New Testament commences with proving Jesus's direct lineage from King David. Without it, Jesus is not the Messiah, and Christianity is baseless.
- wl 6y ago
  Cyrus was the Messiah, too, but nobody pretends he was descended from King David. In any case, Jesus fails most of the Messianic criteria of Second Temple Judaism. Early Christians had to significantly revise their concept of Messiah to get Jesus to fit. Indeed, the NT makes light of the fact that Jesus was not the Messiah the Jews were expecting, although it implies they were wrong. In any case, the basis of Christianity is that Jesus was God incarnate, died for the sins of the world, rose from the dead, and will come again to judge the living and the dead. Some early Christian polemic about interpretation of then-centries-old prophesy isn't core to that. It's a problem for fundamentalism, but that's an entirely separate issue.
- MintelIE 6y ago
  I don't agree. It seems that Israeli archaeology is focused on the premise of being there first, above all else. It doesn't seem that Christians are heavily involved in Israel's archaeological program either.

Jedd 6y ago

> In the long war over how to reconcile the Bible with historical fact, the story of David stands at ground zero. I'd suggest the historicity of Jesus is a more profound question. Absent David, you could still try to lay claim to significant tracts of the various interpretations. For decades I'd assumed the historical record (outside the bible) was exhaustive, clear, and undisputed -- but beyond the deity aspect, there's some genuine doubt over the historical Jesus. [0] Apropos TFA - I can recommend Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou's excellent BBC 3-episode series from 2011 called 'Bible's Buried Secrets', though I think there was a similar named US series at some point. In any case, one episode is dedicated to the question of 'Did King David's empire exist?' - I won't spoil the surprise of her conclusions. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zp3j3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00zp3j3

wisemanwillhear 6y ago

There is an interesting book I read in college that address the timeline problem called "Centuries of Darkness: A Challenge to the Conventional Chronology of Old World Archaeology" by Peter James. He makes an argument for why the timelines of some of the ancient cultures in that region are messed up. https://books.google.com/books/about/Centuries_of_Darkness.html?id=WhEaAAAAYAAJ&source=kp_book_description https://books.google.com/books/about/Centuries_of_Darkness.h...