A similar reception has greeted other archaeologists whose efforts have led them to the brink of what may well be decisive discoveries concerning the biblical period. While momentous First-Temple-era finds were uncovered in Jerusalem in the two decades beginning in 1967, archaeological efforts since 1987 have avoided work that might lead to better understanding of the content and meaning of biblical history. Instead, research has focused on either pre- or post-biblical sites, whereas not one major biblical-era excavationhas been undertaken in Jerusalem. This is despite the fact that significant evidence has emerged pointing to where archaeologists might find major biblical-era constructions, such as the wall Solomon built around Jerusalem and the actual palace of King David. Yet no efforts have been launched in these or other similar cases.

Under these circumstances, it is little wonder that scholars such as Finkelstein and Herzog can declare Jerusalem at the time of David and Solomon to be “no more than a poor village,” and elicit little response. The evidence needed to refute this claim may well be within reach. Some of the sites that could be explored in the hope of putting this claim to rest are well known. And yet they are systematically ignored, while attention and funding are lavished on projects of little interest to the non-specialist.

 

What is the appropriate response to the new archaeology?

The first step is to recognize just how fragile are the conclusions which Finkelstein and his school have produced. Traditional biblical archaeology, while far from perfect, has the advantage of corroborative evidence in the form of the biblical text itself. Given two plausible interpretations of an archaeological find, one that matches the biblical account and one that does not, it is reasonable to prefer the biblical reading. This is not because the biblical text is assumed to be accurate in all cases. It is because the two sources—the find and the text—lend support to each other. This way of looking at the Bible is no different from the way historians treat the testimony of any other ancient text that appears to shed light on archaeological finds.

The new archaeology, by contrast, is extremely limited in what it can tell us with confidence, a fact that stems directly from its principled refusal to credit the biblical narrative as a legitimate corroborative source. Thus a stone wall discovered in a dig may be incontrovertibly determined to be a stone wall, but nearly every meaningful conclusion about it—that it is part of a palace and not a citadel; that it was built in the ninth century B.C.E. and not in the seventh; that it was destroyed by one invading king and not another; or even that it was built by one people and not another—is a matter of interpretation. These conclusions are sometimes based on extrapolation from similar examples, or on deduction from theories concerning political or cultural conditions that are themselves highly speculative. Unlike the conclusions produced in the experimental sciences, “purely” archaeological histories are thus based on mountains of guesswork and creative gap-filling. If archaeology is ever going to produce a more reliable history, it needs the input of historical documents. And when one dismisses the most detailed document that exists concerning the biblical period, the result is to set archaeology on a path of unconstrained conjecture.

This is especially important with regard to the new theories concerning the kingdom of David and Solomon. The crucial fact is that there have been no new discoveries in the field of archaeology that cast doubt on the authenticity of the massive structures and fortifications that have until now been attributed to the united kingdom. Moreover, the finds that have turned up in recent years only lend support to the biblical story. Perhaps the most stunning archaeological discovery in the last decade was the first extra-biblical reference to David, an inscription found at Tel Dan in 1993, describing a battle fought against a king of the “house of David.” Trapped by their own paradigm, the more extreme skeptics went as far as dismissing the simple reading of the text, concocting alternate readings that relieved them of having to admit that the “house of David” ever existed. But for the vast majority of scholars (including Finkelstein), this discovery was taken as conclusive evidence that, at the very least, a king named David lived and reigned, and founded a dynasty somewhere in the ancient Near East. And although Finkelstein may stand firm in his minimalist reading, maintaining that David and Solomon were nonetheless “little more than hill country chieftains,” for most of his colleagues the Tel Dan inscription offered significant support for the historicity of the unified Israelite kingdom depicted in the Bible.

But the most important lesson from the Tel Dan discovery, and others like it, is that there is still a great deal of biblical history that remains buried, waiting to be found. Indeed, if the pace of biblical-era discoveries has slowed dramatically in recent years, it is not because archaeologists have come out of biblical-era excavations empty-handed, but because they essentially called off the search. In this regard, the apathy of mainstream researchers dovetails with the aims of the revisionists: The former stop looking for biblical-era remains, and the latter seize upon the lack of new discoveries to conclude that “after seventy years of digging,” anything that has not yet been discovered never will be. But in reality, underneath the surface in hundreds of sites around the Near East, there remains a vast archive of Jewish history, which seven decades of biblical archaeology—regardless of the scholars’ exhausted cries to the contrary—have only begun to tap.

 

The claims of the new archaeology are dramatic, but weak, while the prospects for finding decisive evidence to refute them remain quite good. To realize that potential, what is needed is something that is simple, yet extraordinarily challenging in the current intellectual climate: The leading biblical archaeologists, whether from Israel or abroad, should return to their calling as it was practiced by the founders of their craft. This means carrying out excavations in Israel and elsewhere, whose purpose is to elucidate the history of the biblical era—a period which is not yet well understood, but which continues to exert a profound influence on the mind and spirit of mankind.

In addition, mainstream scholars must take upon themselves the difficult yet crucial task of weaving the research into a coherent history, rather than just presenting detailed exhibits of the data. This kind of writing, of which Albright’s From the Stone Age to Christianity (1940) remains the classic text, is the most important vehicle for imparting historical knowledge. Though it may well be unreasonable to expect every specialist in the field to paint on a canvas as broad as Albright’s, there is no reason why such writing should not be held up as a model. Only ambitious efforts of this kind, aimed at intelligent lay readers and not just specialists, can prevent the narrative proposed by the new archaeology from becoming an unchallenged orthodoxy.

The broader public, and not only scholars, has a role to play as well. For many years following the establishment of Israel, archaeology was something of a national pastime, turning the whole country into a classroom for the study of ancient Jewish history, and offering the public a direct encounter with the stones with which its own past was built. Private foundations, universities, and government agencies joined in the effort, while thousands of volunteers and scholars took part in the search. All this came in response to a profound need on the part of the Israeli public, and of the wider Jewish and Christian public around the world, to discover ancient Israel. A redoubled effort of this sort would reflect the conviction that fifty years into the Israeli experiment, this need has not waned.

David Hazony, for the Editors

October 15, 2003