In “Facts Underground” (Azure 22, Autumn 2005), David Hazony describes Eilat Mazar’s excavation as dealing a “death-blow to the revisionist camp (of historical and biblical scholarship), whose entire theory is predicated on the absence of evidence in Jerusalem from this period” (parentheses mine). Although I am not mentioned in the article, I can apparently be identified as one of the “revisionists.”

But the claim that Mazar’s excavation refutes my understanding of Palestine’s history and its relationship to the biblical narrative makes me doubt that Mazar has read what she apparently believes she has refuted. This is surprising and unfortunate, as I have described Jerusalem from the Late Bronze Age and continuing during the eleventh to ninth century b.c.e. as a regional market center, which dominated the Ayalon Valley (Early History of the Israelite People, 1992). On the basis of the very limited archaeological evidence that Mazar has published to support her “revision” of Jerusalem’s history, my 1992 historical sketch of Jerusalem during this period seems apparently confirmed by her excavations.

Apart from the question of Hazony’s understanding of my work (or of any other scholars implied by the term “revisionists”), Herzog, Finkelstein, and Silberman’s understanding of Jerusalem’s archaeological remains and history also seems poorly understood—particularly in the very inadequate effort to state clearly why these scholars question the historicity of the Bible’s stories about Saul, David, and Solomon. As Mazar is an archaeologist and the building uncovered apparently more than the ordinary, I would have preferred to read about what has been found and about how the field of archaeology has been changed by the work being undertaken. It is a great shame to see tabloid journalism dominate the early reports of what appears to be a very important excavation. What archaeological reasons does she have for suggesting the building may be a palace? Do associated finds suggest anything about the function of this large building or help date it? What does she have for dating the building? Which of the competing pottery chronologies is she following? Is the tenth century merely one possible dating among many, or is it the most likely dating of the building? How large is the margin of error in her dating? How early, for example, in the eleventh century could the building have originated?

Thomas L. Thompson
University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen

 

Scholars convinced that texts are to be read “subversively,” which is to say in conscious rejection of their simple meaning, often end up weaving tapestries of meaning that offer far more insight into their own beliefs, fears, or agendas than into the text they are reading. So it is with the Bible; and so it is, apparently, with my article.

I did not mention Thomas L. Thompson in my article because—oddly enough—I was not addressing his work. I was talking about archaeologists. It is they who have made a serious claim regarding the absence of significant archaeological evidence from tenth-century Jerusalem in order to argue it was not a serious city in Solomon’s time; and it is their theory which Mazar’s new discovery has overturned.

There are good reasons why this school has been far less influential than Finkelstein and his colleagues—and why I did not give them much attention in my article. The problem is not that they are not archaeologists (which, I insist, is no crime), but that they tend to distort or dismiss archaeological evidence when it does not suit their needs. Such was the case when, in 1993, archaeologists discovered the first-ever ancient reference to King David, on an inscription found at Tel Dan—the same phrase, beit David, the house of David, which appears in the Bible in numerous locations. Archaeologists familiar with ancient Israel, Finkelstein included, concede that we now have proof of a dynasty founded by a king named David. But the Copenhagen scholars, with Thompson at their lead, insist the inscription can be read in many ways, including a “Temple of Dwd” or a “House of the beloved”—or that perhaps it is even a forgery. Thompson’s book, subtitled Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel, offers an extensive list of recommended reading, but leaves off of it nearly every major work of biblical archaeology written in the last thirty years. Why? Perhaps because when he wrote the book, and no less so today, few if any major archaeologists endorsed his views.

Nor is this simply a disagreement among competing schools: The Copenhagen Bible scholars have their view, the archaeologists theirs. The Copenhagen School is the direct descendant of an approach advocated in the nineteenth century by Julius Wellhausen, which was based on two problematic assumptions: (i) That the Bible offers little in the way of actual history—that it is, as he put it, just a “glorified mirage”; and (ii) that one can nonetheless read between the lines of the text to draw conclusions about what “really” happened during the biblical period.

The first claim was discredited by the emergence of biblical archaeology in the twentieth century, which found vast amounts of corroborative evidence—from inscriptions to primitive settlements to entire cities—which affirmed the biblical accounts of an Israelite kingdom beginning around the time of Joshua and continuing until its destruction in 586 B.C.E. The second claim is problematic for other reasons. Counter-history, or the attempt to guess at what kind of events or political calculations led to the creation of a fictional work based mainly on reading the text itself, can be creative, exciting, and entertaining, and opens the possibility of endless academic agitation. Yet such readings are highly speculative.

On the question of whether the Bible’s depiction of David’s palace is sufficiently detailed to be useful in archaeological research, the answer seems straightforward. If Mazar was able to dig into the ground and find an enormous tenth-century B.C.E. construction based largely on clues from the biblical text, then ipso facto the Bible was a useful, even indispensable, tool—just as it has been when scholars have discovered cities like Hazor and Megiddo based on similarly brief texts. Methodologically she is following the classical path of biblical archaeology, which led to thousands of other discoveries.

We can only hope that her success will inspire others to follow in her path.

 

In reading Ethan Dor-Shav’s “Soul of Fire: A Theory of Biblical Man” (Azure 22, Autumn 2005), I marveled at the author’s ability to weave biblical verses into a metaphysical tapestry. It was refreshing to read that we no longer trail the Greeks in their claim for originality in developing a theory of the cosmos. Indeed, many Jewish writers have attempted to discover physics in the Bible, including Samuel Ibn Tibon in his little known book Ma’amar Yikavu Hamayim.

While Dor-Shav presents much evidence to support the notion that the term nefesh reflects the element of water in the ancient cosmic theory, there are instances where the term nefesh may not be clearly understood as water. The word nefesh as it is understood in related languages (Akkadian napisu, Aramaic nafsha and Arabic nafs) refers to the throat or the upper part of the respiratory system in the body.

In the following two cases it is hard to accept the word nefesh as water: “The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: The depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head” (Jonah 2:6); and “Save me, O God, for the waters are come unto my soul. I sink in deep mire where there is no standing; I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me” (Psalms 69:2-3). Considering the redundancy in the verses, the word nefesh clearly reflects a term other than water, supporting the notion that nefesh is not to be exclusively equated with the element of water.

Finally, Dor-Shav’s discussion of Sheol rightly points out that it is a place assumed to be everyone’s last station. But the contention that it is either cold or warm is hardly supported by the verses he adduces.

Bentsi Cohen
New York

 

The fact that nefesh is the animative faculty of human existence, and therefore related to the Water element (the animative power in the cosmos) should hardly be read as equating nefesh with H₂O. They are, obviously, two separate phenomena of creation. Water is water. You can drink it. Nefesh is a life force. Yet both share in the connection to flow, movement, and time.

Indeed, rather than contradicting the cosmic connection, both verses Bentsi Cohen quotes strongly reinforce it, since it is not a coincidence that both are so strongly water-related. Just as one never finds neshama verses in the context of water, only of fire and light, so one is bound to find nefesh verses in the context of deep waters and the abyss. The verses in Jonah and Psalms play on this theme by describing water encompassing the prophet or psalmist almost to the point of taking his life-force (or, indeed, of assimilating it).

Since this is not the place to elaborate upon the etymological comparisons with Akkadian and Arabic, I will only repeat a point I made in the article: Nefesh is intrinsically related to one’s blood flow. The throat is thus nefesh related because it is the precise point where this life was considered to leave the body during the act of slaughter. For instance, dam hanefesh, the blood of life, must be collected from a sacrificial animal directly from the cut throat.

 

In “Jews and the Challenge of Sovereignty” (Azure 23, Winter 2006), Michael B. Oren misrepresents Shalom Achshav’s policies. First, Shalom Achshav (Peace Now) advocates peace negotiations with Israel’s Arab neighbors as a way to supplement Israeli security, not to replace the Israel Defense Forces. It is not a pacifist group. It does not recoil from the appropriate use of arms. The founders of the organization came from the ranks of the IDF, and its current leaders do reserve duty. Shalom Achshav recognizes that there are times when Israel needs to defend itself militarily.

Second, contrary to Oren, Shalom Achshav has not advocated “a mediated solution in which Israeli sovereignty would dissolve into a borderless New Middle East.” Quite the opposite. Shalom Achshav has supported peace negotiations with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and the Palestinians in part because resolving territorial disputes helps to delineate recognized borders for the Jewish state and makes Israel easier to defend. It is the perpetuation of Israel’s occupation over the Green Line that has blurred dividing lines and left Israel without recognized, sovereign borders for so many years.

Debra DeLee
President and CEO, Americans for Peace Now
Washington, D.C.