Damien
F. Mackey
Major biblical characters
and events (Abraham; Joseph; Moses; Exodus; Conquest) have served to bring into
a far neater alignment, and radically to shorten, the ancient Dynasties; the
Archaeological Ages; and the Stone Ages, formerly all stretched out in an
“Indian file”.
The final challenge will be
to tackle the evolutionary-based Geological (and Ice) Ages, these urgently needing
to be brought into some sort of cohesion with the data of the early chapters of
the Book of Genesis. My effort here will be most basic, exploratory and
tentative.
Introduction
The Geological (and Ice) Ages were introduced into
the discussion in Part Four of this series: https://www.academia.edu/20069259/_Why_this_mountain_Part_Four_Was_Noah_Prehistoric_
In the
case of the data provided in the Book of Genesis, with which this particular
series is concerned, one is required to revise, for instance, the conventional
Stone Ages; Archaeological Ages; the astronomically-based (Sothic) dating
system; and the subsequent arrangement and sequence of dynasties.
Throughout
this series I have had cause to praise, and make heavy use of, Dr. John
Osgood’s sterling efforts to revise the Stone Ages.
He seems
to me to have been a bit of a lone hand in doing this.
Dr. Osgood,
a Creationist, does also have a little bit to say about the Geological Ages.
The latter (including the Ice Ages), an area that is crying out for a proper
biblical co-ordination, is the subject of many Creationist articles. However,
the general Creationist belief in a
global Flood that erased all previous traces, permanently - which I think
is actually un-biblical - tends to vitiate these well-intentioned efforts.
Such, at least, is my estimation of it.
[End of
quote]
One might expect that major biblical events, such
as the Exodus and the Fall of Jericho, and more especially the great Noachic Flood,
would have had such a notable impact upon their environs as to have left some
substantial evidential imprints, thereby enabling for a better co-ordination of
the stratigraphical and or/geological data. Even a conventional scholar such as
professor Emmanuel Anati, who figures so prominently in this series, had
appreciated - what I also firmly hold - that the Joshuan Conquest must have
occurred during the Early Bronze III [EB III] era in Palestine. I re-visited it
in my:
Comparing a One Dimensional Biblico-Stratigraphical Model
with a Multi-Dimensional One
a complex article
that I consider to be right in principle, thought it may continue to require
modifications. Regarding Anati and Jericho, I wrote:
…. According to an intriguing detail
of supporting evidence as gleaned by Anati from the Book of Joshua, EBIII
Jericho … qualifies for the city destroyed by the Israelites (Mountain of God, p. 280, emphasis added):
With regard to the correspondence
between archaeology and biblical descriptions, if the latter is reliable in
terms of historical reconstruction, then the following passage may prove to be
particularly significant:
‘Rahab let them down from the window
by a rope, for her house was against the city wall itself’ (Jos 2:15). Which of
the archaeological layers that have been excavated might correspond to this
description? ...
This ... description can only refer to
a form of urban planning and surrounding wall from the Early Bronze Age....
There were no windows that looked
towards the outside of the walls, during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages,
either at Jericho or at any other site in the Syro-palestinian region.
[End
of quote]
However, whilst it was fully apparent that EBIII
satisfied the basic details here for Jericho, that particular level of the
Archaeological Ages does not appear to have the capacity within it - at least
as conventionally understood - to satisfy all
of the biblical Conquest data. This has been made clear by the probing research
of professor W. Stiebing. Here follows what I wrote about this anomaly in that
same stratigraphical article:
The Exodus/Conquest Era
Everything changes (by way of contrast
with the conventional scenario) when the Conquest is located earlier, to the
Canaanite EBIII stage, with the conquerors being the MBI people whom, according
to [Dr. David] Down, more and more experts archaeological experts are calling
the ‘Israelites’. Even conventional scholar, Stiebing, who rejects an MBI
conquest of EBIII as the time of Joshua, admits that this version of the
Conquest does have arguments in its favour. Let us firstly,
then, read about Stiebing’s important distinctions between EBIII and MBI (“New Archaeological Dates for the Israelite
Conquest”, C and AH, Vol. X, pt.1, Jan., 1988, pp. 5-7):
Several scholars believe that
agreement between archaeology and the Bible can be achieved if the conquest is
placed at the end of the Early Bronze Age. The latter part of the Early Bronze
Age was an era of widespread urbanization in Palestine (including the Negev)
and Transjordan. But almost every one of the flourishing Palestinian cities was
destroyed at the end of the … EB III period. The succeeding era ... MBI was
characterized by a non-urban pastoral society. The change from EB III to MB I
has often been seen as a total cultural break. The urban culture of EB III was
succeeded by an era in which there were no true cities in Palestine, only small
villages consisting of a few flimsy, poorly built structures. Pottery types and
other artifacts were very different in the two periods.
The Early Bronze practice of multiple burials
in large caves was replaced by single or double burials in smaller tombs, and
the differences between the tomb styles and burial practices during the MB I
period might indicate that they belonged to non-sedentary groups with a tribal
social structure. This view that the EB III culture was almost totally
destroyed and replaced by that of invading semi-nomadic tribes has led some
scholars to place the Israelite conquest of Canaan at this point in the
archaeological history of Palestine.
[End
of quote]
Stiebing now points to what he
considers to be certain advantages of this interpretation:
An EB III exodus and conquest would solve
some problems. Both Ai and Jericho were large, walled cities during EB III and
were destroyed at the end of that era. And the widespread destruction of cities
and the changes in material culture which took place at the end of EB III could
be credited to the invading Israelites. The almost total cultural break between
EB III and MB I could indicate that the Israelites conquered virtually all of
Palestine and massacred most of the Canaanite population, just as the Bible
says.
[End
of quote]
Such a scenario, Stiebing goes on to
tell, has recently been strengthened by the testimony of experts.
Firstly by Dr. Cohen:
This view has been bolstered in recent
years by Israeli archaeologist Rudolph Cohen’s claim that the spread of the MB
I culture into Palestine follows the pattern which the Bible gives for the
invading Israelites. Cohen argues that the MB I culture first appeared in
northern Sinai and the southern Negev, spread through Transjordan, then across
the Jordan into the southern hill country, and finally into northern Palestine.
....
Secondly, by Professor Anati:
Emmanuel Anati, professor of
paleo-ethnology at the University of Lecce, in Italy, furthermore has found an
EB III/MB I holy mountain which he claims is Mount Sinai. Anati discovered a
great concentration of rock art (much of it with what seem to be religious
themes) at Har Karkom, a mountain in the southern Negev of Israel. He also
found standing stones and altars, suggesting that this mountain had been a
place of religious pilgrimage. All in all, he feels it fits the Bible's
description of Mount Sinai quite well. The largest number of habitation sites
near Har Karkom and the greatest volume of rock art there belong to the Early
Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age I. There
seems to have been little activity at this site during the Middle Bronze II,
Late Bronze, and Iron Ages.
.... So, if Har Karkom was Mount Sinai (as
Anati believes), then the Exodus must have begun during the Early Bronze Age
and the conquest must have taken place at the end of EB III.
[End
of quotes]
So far so good.
But now professor Stiebing proceeds to point out
what he perceives to be the inadequacies of this particular model (as espoused
by the likes of Dr. D. Courville and by Stan Vaninger).
My article continues:
(i)
General
The general stratigraphical problem of
the Courville/Vaninger model - and indeed the complexities of stratigraphy -
is/are well explained by Stiebing (op. cit., pp. 11-12), who had
previously noted this model’s strong points:
This theory, however, contains a major
inconsistency in dealing with cultural breaks in Palestinian archaeology. On
the one hand, the break between EB III and MB I is seen as evidence for the
invasion of a new population group. But the equally complete and dramatic
change from MB I to MB IIA .... is supposedly due only to the Israelites'
settling down and becoming more urbane.
Vaninger tries to remove this
inconsistency by minimizing the cultural discontinuity between MB I and MB IIA
and by arguing that population growth, climatic change, new pottery-making
techniques, and influence from the north through trade account for the
differences between the two periods.
.... But he rejects the opinion of
archaeologists who have argued for continuity between EB III and MB I on much
the same grounds - that the changes reflect socio-cultural fluctuations between
periods of urban settlement and eras of pastoralism and small villages, rather
than invasions by new groups of people. .... Vaninger justifies his different
treatment of the two periods of cultural change by noting that major
destructions mark the end of EB III towns while no destruction levels delineate
the end off MB I.... However, climatic changes and internal strife can lead to
widespread destruction, abandonment and urbanization, and a reversion to
pastoral life.
The EB III destructions do not
necessarily prove that an invasion took place.
On the other hand, since during the MB
I period there were only small semi-nomadic encampments or villages in
Palestine, rather than cities, destruction levels should not be expected. If
invaders had arrived in strength at the end of MB I they would have had little
reason to burn and destroy the undefended villages they found, especially since
most of the MB I settlements were in the Negev, an area in which the MB IIA
population chose not to settle. So destruction layers at the end of EB III do
not prove that an invasion occurred then, nor does the lack of destruction
levels at the end of MB I prove there was no invasion at that time. The changes
between MB I and MB IIA are comparable to those between EB III and MB I. If
such changes signal the appearance of new population groups at the end of EB
III, then the abrupt change from MB I pastoralism to the new urban culture of
MB IIA should also be credited to invaders.
Stiebing continues:
... excavations have shown that
Beth-shean, Dor, and Beth-shemesh were not occupied in EB III ..., and thus
could not have survived the Israelite conquest as the Book of Judges claims.
... Shiloh and Gaza present
major problems for theories of an EB III conquest. Shiloh was one of the
centers of Israelite activity during the period of the Judges (Joshua 18:1-10;
Judges 21:12,19; etc.) and Gaza was a Philistine city which plays an important
role in the stories about Samson (Judges 13-16). Yet Shiloh (Khirbet Seilun)
was occupied for the first time in MB IIB (which begins just before the time of
Saul, according to the Courville/Vaninger chronology), while Gaza (Tell Harube)
was not occupied until the Late Bronze Age (which equals the Divided Monarchy
in their system)....
[End of quote]
The conclusion that I personally would draw from
this apparent anomaly, so well identified by professor Stiebing, is that, due
to the academic obsession with a simple linearity
in ancient history, in palaeontology - when the actuality can often prove to be
more complex than this - the textbook presentation of the Archaeological Ages
is one that is defective and artificial: a model that does not have within it
the capacity to cope with a scenario so eminently testable as is the Joshuan Conquest.
It is clear from Stiebing’s analysis that we have here ‘two’ archaeological
scenarios that fit (but neither one fully) the Conquest, and that it is only by
a combination of these ‘two’ that we can begin to arrive at a complete picture.
In similar fashion, convention’s generally linear
arrangement of Egypt’s ancient kingdoms and dynasties allows for only a
skeletal reconstruction of the patriarchal times - these becoming properly
fleshed out when the ancient kingdoms and dynasties are brought into alignment.
I paved the way for a new understanding in:
Egypt’s Old and Middle Kingdoms Far Closer in Time than
Conventionally Thought
No comments:
Post a Comment