Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? by William G. Dever

Author:William G. Dever
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Israel, Ancient, Jews - History - 586 B.C.-70 A.D, Social Science, Old Testament, Jewish, History & Culture, History, Jews - Historiography, General, Religion, Bible, Palestine - Antiquities, Palestine, Biblical Studies, Antiquities & Archaeology, Jews, archaeology, Middle East
ISBN: 9780802844163
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Published: 2003-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

But since they have adopted precisely this philosophy of history and knowledge, it should not surprise us when the biblical revisionists claim that the Bible’s ancient Israel is invented.

However, for those of us who disagree, questions remain. What did happen in Canaan on the Late Bronze-Iron I horizon as new peoples emerged? Was there any early Israel? And can we, with our modern critical methods, improve on the understanding of the Bible’s writers and editors?

Israeli and American Archaeologists

I turn now from representative biblical scholars, who specialize in texts, to archaeologists, who “write history from things.”

Lapp

Paul W. Lapp was a student first of Albright and then of Wright. When he died in 1970 at the age of 37, he was considered America’s most brilliant (if somewhat erratic) young biblical and Syro-Palestinian archaeologist. In 1967 he published a site-by-site survey of the archaeological evidence on the Late Bronze/Iron I horizon. Unfortunately, it appeared in an obscure church-related journal, and it was never widely read. Because of Lapp’s authority as the ranking American archaeologist of his time, however, his article did have some impact on biblicists. By and large Lapp supported the “conquest” model of his mentors. Thus he declared that

The stratigraphic evidence … outside the coastal cities and the Plain of Jezreel, points strongly to the thoroughgoing destruction of nearly all important cities in the last half of the 13th century. (1967: 295)

Needless to say, no reputable archaeologist would make such a statement today. The “destruction horizon” is much more complex.

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