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> In these periods, our evidence will always be patchy That's not the case for well established civilizations in the Middle East. We know a lot of archeologica
by coliveira 6y ago
> In these periods, our evidence will always be patchy
That's not the case for well established civilizations in the Middle East. We know a lot of archeological information about big cities and empires of the time. The "empire" of David and Solomon is just not one of these historical cases. The only place that mentions a wealthy empire run at David's time are the stories conceived by Israelites hundreds of years later.
- yyyk 6y agoTake a super-ultra-maximalist version of Solomon's reign and draw it on a map. The "Empire" we get is small compared to known ME empires, and half of that size is because such a version could go up to Tadmor (Palmyra). If we apply a more realistic (IMHO) version, we get something tiny by Imperial standards. In the same token, even a straight reading of the text should never give us the term "Empire" regarding David. His Kingdom fights against the very close neighbours and often wins, but is prone to drought and civil war. Even winning fights against close neighbours isn't much of an indication of Empire - when the US wants something from Mexico, it doesn't have to fight for it. So I agree with you, but I think half of the exaggeration is due to more modern readings and (in this case) strawmen invented by people looking for something to knock down - the only person referring to "David's Empire" in the linked text is... Finklestein.