The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Ancient Israel

Susan Niditch

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781119139997, 9780470656778
• eBook ISBN: 9781118774021
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The Companion to Ancient Israel offers an innovative overview of ancient Israelite culture and history, richly informed by a variety of approaches and fields. Distinguished scholars provide original contributions that explore the tradition in all its complexity, multiplicity and diversity.

• A methodologically sophisticated overview of ancient Israelite culture that provides insights into  political and social history, culture, and methodology
• Explores what we can say about the cultures and history of the people of Israel and Judah, but also investigates how we know what we know
• Presents fresh insights, richly informed by a variety of approaches and fields
• Delves into 'religion as lived,' an approach that asks about the everyday lives of ordinary people and the material cultures that they construct and experience
• Each essay is an original contribution to the subject

PART I
Methodology: Questions, Concepts, Approaches, and Tools

A
Contextualizing Israelite Culture

CHAPTER 1
Archaeology
What It Can Teach Us

Elizabeth Bloch-Smith

Archaeological remains and biblical texts constitute independent witnesses to Israelite society. Physical remains offer extensive evidence for reconstructing “ancient Israel”; biblical texts form the basis for the literary construct “biblical Israel.” Typically, information derived from the two is harmonized to reconstruct the ancient society. However, studying the data sets independently reveals discrepancies between the two, prompting renewed study of both.

Physical remains are inclusive, generally not manipulated by subsequent peoples, and immeasurably greater in scope than literary accounts. In contrast to texts, which are limited by religious and royal perspectives and agendas, material remains are generated by diverse human groups including rich and poor, males and females, adults and children, and urban and rural populations. These physical manifestations of society, labeled “material culture,” enable reconstructing ancient Israelite society from the smallest constituent parts, phytoliths and pots, to integrated cultural systems (e.g., politics, religion and economy). Aspects of life such as daily work routines, the economic system, aesthetics, burial practices, tools and weapons, diet and health, while not the focus of biblical texts, are amply illustrated in the archaeological record.

Material remains permit absolute and relative dating, from specific features to general historical contexts. Unlike texts, for which dating remains a contentious issue, archaeology enables both synchronic and diachronic study of ancient Israel. Changes and developments in Israel including religious practices, which are a focus of the biblical text, are blurred by textual additions and revisions but remain distinct and differentiable in material remains. Archaeological studies enable biblicists to situate biblical Israel within the context of ancient Israel, to hear conversations and pronouncements of biblical authors and editors in their historical contexts.

Archaeology also suggests the period in which a text might have originated, if one accepts that the initial composition of a text derives meaning from historical reality. An argument for the importance of verisimilitude posits that texts written to convey Israel's history initially derived greater impact from known historical referents. By analogy, a text, either historical or satirical, set in the context of the Soviet-American Cold War would resonate for older Americans in a way that it does not for those now under 25. In today's American movies, the enemy is no longer a Soviet spy.

Introduction to Archaeological Methods of Excavation and Interpretation

Archaeology studies the lives and cultures of peoples of the past through retrieval and analysis of physical remains, in conjunction with written testimony, and in interaction with the natural environment. The process begins with a research agenda that determines where to survey and/or dig and the selection of excavation methods. For excavation, as opposed to survey, diachronic goals require smaller excavation areas dug down through multiple occupational phases, while synchronic goals necessitate greater horizontal exposure within a single occupational phase. Interest in detail, now down to the microscopic, forces a slow pace, while an interest in the “big picture” mandates faster excavation for the representative features. Most excavations pursue a combination of diachronic and synchronic goals, with different excavation methods for separate excavation areas. For ancient Israel, comparable to other ancient cultures, archaeological studies focus on single periods (synchronic) as well as developments over time (diachronic), on both the micro and the macro level.

Interpretation of the finds, undertaken both in the course of excavation and subsequently, constitutes the second step. The interpretive process, determining the specific use or function and symbolic value of material remains and architecture, entails several facets. To begin with, the archaeologist defines the research unit or context, such as a house/structure, the settlement, or the region. Archaeologists then look for patterned behavior within the defined unit, a repeating web of relationships among individual elements that establishes a general context and the place and meaning of specific items within that context. For example, a particular pot type that typically appears in a basement room of a house or the hold of a ship functions for storage or for transport. On a higher level of complexity, patterned behavior facilitates reconstructing regional practices or cultural systems (economic, political, social and religious).

A particular ornate column capital employed in elaborate buildings by nation-states both east and west of the Jordan River exemplifies a patterned behavior that conveys political meaning. The distinctively decorated capital signals internationally recognized elite status, probably royalty. At each level of complexity, from the individual item to the cultural system, the interpretation must account for both the range of available material remains and literary evidence.

Interpretation entails consideration of other ancient regional cultures, ancient texts and inscriptions, and ethnographic studies of comparable societies, keeping in mind that the comparative material derives from different cultural contexts. For ancient Israel, studies of contemporary, traditional Cypriot potters elucidate aspects of ancient pottery production. Our understanding of the biblical goddesses Asherah and Astarte draws on Ugaritic and Phoenician evidence; the Bible refers to them but omits details. Whereas archaeology provides the physical remains, texts and inscriptions add mental components – beliefs and thoughts – as well as otherwise unattainable information such as people's names and specific dates of events. Other ancient cultures and ethnographic studies offer alternative societal models, which may be helpful in evaluating Israelite evidence.

Finally, interpretation benefits from studying the natural world with its resources and constraints such as topography, geology, climate, flora, fauna and water sources. Roads, water availability, and native plants and animals directly affect and determine societal aspects such as settlement location, subsistence strategies, and beliefs and practices stemming from human interaction with the natural environment. Israel's location of sacred sites on elevated ground, purification rituals, sacrificial offerings and the timing and offerings of agricultural and herding festivals exemplify religious features dependent on natural factors.

The archaeological endeavor – excavation and interpretation – is not without limitations. Some limitations stem from the paucity of available evidence. For example, the relatively poorly attested Late Bronze Age and Persian period, preceding and following the Israelite kingdoms of the Iron Age, are less well known than periods with more extensive remains. The small percentage of existent sites that have been excavated and published provide an incomplete, but hopefully representative, picture. The tendency to focus on tells – cities, towns, forts – leaves villages, hamlets, farmsteads and isolated activity areas less well represented and understood. Absolute dating, establishing specific years, persists as an archaeological Achilles' heel. Artifact and epigraphic typologies, datable items such as a royal scarab, and scientific methods such as 14C (carbon fourteen) dating currently provide a time frame but cannot pinpoint a year or even a decade. Archaeologists largely depend on texts for absolute dates. Sennacherib's inscribed and graphic depiction on the Nineveh palace walls of conquering the site of Lachish in 701 BCE correlates with and dates the Lachish Stratum III destruction. However, most of the time, no such explicit correspondence exists between material remains and texts or inscriptions.

The interpretive process further complicates reconstructing Israelite society. First, archaeological remains must be patterned to allow for interpretation, which necessitates multiple occurrences to detect a pattern. The obvious limitation of this interpretive strategy is that it elucidates a general pattern that marginalizes variation and unique occurrences. We reconstruct group but not individual or small-group behaviors. Second, for all our efforts at objectivity, interpretation remains a subjective endeavor colored by a mindset shaped by contemporary culture. For example, our form of government, whether a tribal-based society, a monarchy, or a democracy, may prejudice our understanding and reconstruction of ancient societies and their political structures. Third, vague terminology and inexplicit weighting of physical remains and literary evidence in the interpretive process complicate societal reconstructions. What is the reconstructed entity Merneptah's “Israel” (see below): archaeologically attested “ancient Israel”; “biblical Israel” as a national entity; “biblical Israel” as a religious ethnos; or a harmonized biblical-archaeological Israel, either national or religious? This shortcoming may be remedied through explicit methodological statements and explication of terminology employed.

“Biblical Israel” of the Text and “Ancient Israel” of the Archaeological Remains

A difference of opinion exists among archaeologists regarding the role of Israel in the southern Levant. Characterizing the two extremes, ethnocentric Biblical Archaeologists consider Israel as central and unique, while Syro-Palestinian Archaeologists view Israel as one of several regional kingdoms. The former stress the uniqueness of ancient Israel and rely heavily on the Bible as history to bolster their position. This approach stems from biblical archaeology of the 1950s (a cultural-historical approach), in which the canonical text had primacy of place and archaeology served to elucidate and verify the Bible. For the latter, Syro-Palestinian Archaeologists, the Bible constitutes a critically important cultural artifact that enhances understanding of the general culture but more specifically of those who composed, edited and transmitted the texts. This is not to minimize but to qualify use of biblical texts. Syro-Palestinian Archaeologists recognize that biblical texts and inscriptions contribute information irretrievable from material culture alone such as intangible facets of culture, beliefs and mentalité (e.g., ancestral stories, metaphors, myths of origins or qualifications for priesthood) plus specific information otherwise lost (e.g., tax assessments). Without texts, we might not know that Israelite society was patriarchal, patrilineal, and patrimonial. Both avenues of study, with the Bible either central or supplemental to the archaeological endeavor, contribute to the emerging picture of ancient and biblical Israel. However, the cultural presuppositions of each group, with consequent selectivity of cited data, must be kept in mind when utilizing publications and considering societal reconstructions.

The first extrabiblical reference to Israel comes from Pharaoh Merneptah's mention at the end of the thirteenth century BCE of “Israel” on a stele celebrating his conquests (for Merneptah, see also John Huddlestun's essay in this volume). Accordingly, studies of early Israel begin with the Iron Age I rural settlement in the Cisjordanian highlands, the biblical Israelite heartland. Scholarly consensus dates the southern Levantine Iron Age from ca. 1200–586 BCE. The periodization essentially remains as established by William Foxwell Albright in the early twentieth century CE, though specific beginning and ending dates are debated and varying historical monikers are used.

The approximately 400-year period of the Iron Age is divided into Iron I and Iron II, with further subdivisions. Dates for the subdivisions, dependent on events in Israel's history and so insignificant for Philistines, Transjordanian nations, and the Phoenicians, reflect the history and bias of the discipline (see also J. David Schloen's essay in this volume). Current debates regarding periodization perpetuate the biblical Israelite perspective. The Iron Age traditionally begins with the eclipse of eastern Mediterranean empires ca. 1200 BCE (A. Mazar 295–6). Israel Finkelstein and Nadav Na'aman propose revising ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise
• Series
• Title page
• Copyright
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Editor's Introduction
• Part I: Methodology: Questions, Concepts, Approaches, and Tools
• Part II: Political History
• Part III: Themes in Israelite Culture
• Index
• EULA