Month: September 2024

2024-09-28

Are Historical Sources “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”?

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ancient Literature, Biblical Studies, Historical Methods and Historiography, History and Biography
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In a recent post I praised Douglas Campbell for drawing attention to the laziness (if not “dishonesty”) of rebutting an argument with the blanket “I am not persuaded” line. In this post I come to blame him for rejecting a genuinely critical reading of source material. It is with the very essence of critical reading that he objects:

Descartes suggested, in a classic argument widely influential in the modern period, that everything is in effect guilty until proved innocent. The result was, rather famously, the reduction of all certain knowledge to the conviction that his mental processes at least guaranteed his existence. In other words, he used radical doubt as a fundamental method. Everything must be doubted until it can be demonstrated indubitably to be true. (16)

Now Descartes’ method (shorn of the extremism with which Campbell presents it) does serve well enough in everyday life and especially in the legalistic professions and scientific research enterprises. But it is possible to take issue with it on a philosophical level, as demonstrated by Wittgenstein. But is there not a valid comparison here? We know that Newtonian physics “fails” at the subatomic particle level; but we do not reject the fundamentals of Newtonian physics when taking care climbing ladders or driving a car.

Campbell wrote — and note the pejorative language in which he couches Descartes’ scepticism:

But the Cartesian method has struggled to get anywhere significant and has, moreover, been subjected to ferocious critique, not least from Wittgenstein, who pointed out (characteristically indirectly) that the use of language implies participation in a broader linguistic community, which is in turn difficult to detach from a complex broader reality that cannot be doubted in the first instance without lapsing into utter incoherence. So Descartes’s key initial claims are in fact delusional. Unfortunately, however, the critical method, which played such a significant role in the rise of the modern university, has had a long dalliance with Cartesianism, so the latter tends to live on, haunting the corridors of the academy like a restless shade. It allowed figures like Kant to reject tradition out of hand and to argue from simpler and more certain first principles, although Kant too struggled to develop his principles with the certainty and extension that he really sought. It is not a completely crass oversimplification to suggest, then, that many modern Pauline scholars, shaped in part by the traditions at work in the modern university, seem to assume, at least at times, that the “critical” assessment of evidence simply involves the application of doubt in a generic way, ultimately in the manner of Descartes. It is a posture of comprehensive skepticism. One must be unconvinced until one is convinced of something’s probity on certain grounds. But I would suggest that when practiced in this generic and universal manner, this is an invalid and self-defeating methodology and a false understanding of criticism.’ (16)

Campbell had faulted as “posturing” the “I am not persuaded” rejoinder as a substitute for critical engagement. He faults Cartesian scepticism with the same label — “posturing”.

I doubt that I would be excused from jury service if I tried to opt out by explaining that Wittgenstein tells me that my particular semantic world may not be capable of deliberating in a truly objective manner the information conveyed to me as it is coded in semantic variations other than mine. Newtonian physics is still valid, its quantum companion notwithstanding.

Campbell then proceeds to justify another misguided “howler”:

We will rely on slender snippets of evidence in what follows, because that is all that we have — occasional and fragmentary remains of conversations that took place millennia ago. But we do have evidence, and it will not do to dismiss parts of the following reconstruction with a generic claim that “this is insufficient” or “there is still not enough evidence.” If this is the evidence that we have and it explains the data in the best existing fashion, then the correct scientific conclusion must be to endorse it and not to complain that we need more data that unfortunately does not exist. (18)

That may sound like a correct scientific approach but it is not. A scientific hypothesis must rely on multiple datasets. A single experiment is never sufficient. An experiment, a survey, must of necessity be repeated in different places with different samples to be sure of the results. The medical profession will not rely on a single survey of data to recommend a particular program to treat a physical condition.

The scientific method does not build on “slender snippets of evidence” if there is no other choice. If the evidence is inadequate to answer a particular question, or on which to base a certain line of inquiry, then it is the question and the line of inquiry that must be changed.

I frequently encounter the following kinds of statements in by biblical scholars in their works relating to early Christianity or Judaism:

We historians confront a supposed event in the past, as in some text or object, as though to “try it in court,” in order to reach a verdict to establish the truth of the matter. And the principles we can best employ are those used in the practice of law:

(1) The accused is presumed (not judged) innocent unless proven guilty.
(2) The preponderance of the evidence (anything over 50%) is decisive.
(3) The verdict rendered is considered proven beyond reasonable doubt (not absolute).

(Dever 140f — Old Testament scholar arguing against fundamentalist readings of the Bible)

and arguing the case for accepting the overall integrity of the canonical text of New Testament writings…

As in a court of law, the evidence deserves to be judged innocent of being an interpolation until proven guilty. This proof must be able to stand up before the jury of scholarship, which must decide whether “guilt” has been established beyond a reasonable doubt. If there is reasonable doubt about the extraneousness of the accused data then it should not remain any longer under a cloud of suspicion. In that case the verdict must be acquittal in order to protect the innocent. If scholarship does not follow such a “rule of law,” serious injustice will be done to much innocent data.

(Wisse 170)

Livy (Wikipedia image)

Sometimes the biblical scholar will cite a (“nonbiblical”) historian for support:

Unless there is good reason for believing otherwise, one will assume that a given detail in the work of a particular historian is factual. This method places the burden of proof squarely on the person who would doubt the reliability of a given portion of the text. The alternative is to presume the text unreliable unless convincing evidence can be brought forward in support of it. While many critical scholars of the Gospels adopt this latter method, it is wholly unjustified by the normal canons of historiography. Scholars who would consistently implement such a method when studying other ancient historical writings would find the corroborative data so insufficient that the vast majority of accepted history would have to be jettisoned.29 In the words of the historian G. J. Renier:

We may find . . . an event is known to us solely through an authority based entirely upon the statements of witnesses who are no longer available. Most of the works of Livy, the first books of the history of the Franks by Gregory of Tours, belong to this category. Since there is no other way of knowing the story they tell us, we must provisionally accept their version. This brings us back full sail to accepted history as the starting point of all historical investigation.30

30. Renier, History, pp.90–91.

(Blomberg 304)

Although Blomberg cites a 1982 reprint of the classical historian’s (Renier’s) work, the original publication date stands at 1950. That is important for a reason I will explain.

But first, note the muddled metaphor in the above quotations. In a court of law it is not the witness who is “presumed innocent until proven guilty” but the one charged with a crime. Witnesses are cross examined to test their claims. Though the witness swears an oath to tell the truth their testimony is never accepted at face value. Their claims must be tested. Yet the above comparisons of the historical method confuse witnesses (sources) with the person who is on trial and seeking to prove his innocence.

In response to Dever above: In a court of law it is the one accused and on trial who is presumed innocent: it is the claims of the witnesses, the sources — not the accused — that must be tested.

In response to Wisse above: It is not the “evidence” that “deserves to be judged innocent”. It is the evidence that is tested for authenticity, relevance and reliability to determine the guilt or innocence of the one on trial.

Finally, in response to Blomberg: The Renier method of accepting the testimony of Livy for believing in the historicity of events for which there is no other evidence may have been par for the course among classicists in 1950, but by 1983 that naive approach was well and truly debunked by a series of lectures delivered by the classicist historian Moses Finley:

For reasons that are rooted in our intellectual history, ancient historians are often seduced into [accepting as historically factual] statements in the literary or documentary sources … unless they can be disproved (to the satisfaction of the individual historian). This proposition derives from the privileged position of Greek and Latin, and it is especially unacceptable for the early periods of both Greek and Roman history…

(Finley 21)

Renier referred to Livy as an example of a historian whose word he felt he had no choice but to follow. Finley pointed out the cruel truth, however:

Yet a Livy or a Plutarch cheerfully repeated pages upon pages of earlier accounts over which they neither had nor sought any control. . . .

Where did they find their information? No matter how many older statements we can either document or posit – irrespective of possible reliability – we eventually reach a void. But ancient writers, like historians ever since, could not tolerate a void, and they filled it in one way or another, ultimately by pure invention.

The ability of the ancients to invent and their capacity to believe are persistently underestimated. How else could they have filled the blatant gaps in their knowledge once erudite antiquarians had observed that centuries had elapsed between the destruction of Troy and the ‘foundation’ of Rome, other than by inventing an Alban king-list to bridge the gap? Or how could they contest an existing account other than by offering an alternative, for example, to provide ideological support for, or hostility to, a particular ethnic group, such as Etruscans or Sabines, who played a major role in early Roman history? No wonder that, even in the hopelessly fragmentary state of the surviving material on early Rome, there is a bewildering variety of versions, a variety that continued to increase and multiply as late as the early Principate. Presumably no one today believes the Alban king-list to be anything but a fiction, but any suggestion that there is insufficient ground to give credence to the Roman king-list is greeted with outraged cries of ‘hyper-criticism’ …. (8f)

There was a time — it is long past — when classicists would reconstruct ancient history from their Greek and Latin sources as naively as many biblical scholars continue today to reconstruct the origins of Judaism and Christianity from the texts in the Bible. Finley added:

I suspect that Ogilvie’s slip [naive readings of ancient historians] reflects , no doubt unconsciously, the widespread sentiment that any thing written in Greek or Latin is somehow privileged, exempt from the normal canons of evaluation. (10)

Classicists have long since moved on. Perhaps it’s time for more biblical scholars to follow them.

Blomberg, Craig L. The Historical Reliability of the Gospels. 2nd edition. Nottingham: IVP Academic, 2007.

Campbell, Douglas A. Framing Paul: An Epistolary Biography. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing, 2014.

Dever, William G. “Christian Fundamentalism, Faith, and Archaeology.” In Misusing Scripture: What Are Evangelicals Doing with the Bible?, edited by Mark Elliott, Kenneth Atkinson, and Robert Rezetko, 131–52. Routledge, 2023.

Finley, M. I. Ancient History: Evidence and Models. London: Chatto & Windus, 1985. [Chapter 2 was part of a series of J. H. Gray Lectures at the Faculty of Classics of the University of Cambridge]

Wisse, Frederik W. “Textual Limits to Redactional Theory in the Pauline Corpus.” In Gospel Origins & Christian Beginnings : In Honor of James M. Robinson, edited by James E. Goehring, Charles W. Hedrick, and Jack T. Sanders, 167–78. Sonoma, Calif. : Polebridge Press, 1990.

2024-09-21

The Conquest of Canaan: Observations of a Philologist

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Archaeology
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What follows is what I originally planned as the second part of the previous post. My aim is to contribute towards expanding public awareness of material that is otherwise sheltered within cloisters of academic publications and paywalls.

The information here covers the evidence for the Hebrew language being indigenous to Canaan. That means that the Hebrew language was not introduced into Canaan by Israelites or anyone else entering the land as newcomers. Linguistic evidence supports the view that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged from people indigenous to the land of Canaan. The roots of the Hebrew language are found in the Bronze Age, centuries before the emergence of Israel as a distinct political entity.

Think for a moment of other cases where newcomers have occupied land through mass migration. The Anglo-Saxon and Norman invasions of England made their mark in linguistic changes as evidenced in early literary sources. Yet, as philologist Felice Israel remarks, there is no comparable linguistic evidence to be found in the wake of the supposed entry of Israelites into Canaan after their acclaimed exodus from Egypt.

I was led to the evidence for Hebrew origins by a reference in a major 2008 volume on the archaeological finds relating to the religious ideas of Israel’s Syrian neighbours:

Recently, the results of a long study conducted by F. Israel on the general cultural aspects (primarily linguistic), whether innovative or conservative, related to the conquest of Palestine by the tribes of Israel, have been published.352

352 F. Israel, “La conquête de Canaan: observations d’un philologue,” in Antiquités sémitiques IV, Paris 1999, pp. 63-77. I wish to express my gratitude to my colleague F. Israel, who discussed with me the issues presented here.

(Mander, 97)

I immediately requested a copy of Felice Israel’s presentation, (translation = “The Conquest of Canaan: Observations of a Philologist”) from the ever-helpful librarians at the Queensland State Library.

The philologist begins with Israel Finkelstein’s archaeological reconstruction (published 1988) of the emergence of Israel in Canaan and selects the linguistic sources surrounding this period. Finkelstein had identified two phases of settlement expansion of the people who would later be identified in the historical record as consisting of the kingdom of Israel. Where did these settlers come from?

The vast majority of the people who settled in the hill country and in Transjordan during the Iron I period, must have been indigenous . . . . (Finkelstein, 348)

They had “dropped out” of earlier Bronze Age city-state networks that suffered collapse — Shiloh constructions were violently destroyed in the middle Bronze Age and sharp population decline followed. The first phase of the new settlement begins around 1200-1150 BCE (Early Iron Age) with former pastoralists beginning to settle down (left map):

. . . . These people had dropped out of the framework of permanent settlement back in the 16th century BCE and lived in pastoralist groups during the Late Bronze period. While they might have been active all over the country, their presence would have been felt most keenly in the sparsely inhabited ‘frontier zones’ that were suitable for pasturage — the Transjordanian plateau, the Jordan Valley, the desert fringe and the hill country. They had traversed these areas as part of a seasonal pattern of transhumance and established economic relations with the sedentary inhabitants, especially those resident in the few centers existing in these marginal regions, e.g., Shechem and Bethel. (ibid)


— Left map (Finkelstein, 325): first phase of settlement, ca 1200-1150 BCE;
— Centre map (ibid, 329): second phase of settlement expansion, ca 1000-950 BCE “when the last Canaanite enclaves in the Jezreel Valley were subdued and when the Philistines were repulsed from certain areas”;
— Notice the comparative emptiness of what was later Judah: the reason being that this area at the time was very rocky and covered in dense coppice (ibid, 326, 339)
— Right map (added for comparative reference) from Coogan, 6.

So the archaeologist concludes that the population increase in the region destined to become the land of Israel “must have been indigenous”.

The Philologist’s Sources for Assessing Hebrew Origins

Top: Clay liver model (Landsberger 207); vase inscription with owner’s name (Yadin, Pl. CLXXX); Bottom: Lexical list (Tadmor, pl. 13); Letter fragment (Horowitz, 165); Multiplication table prism (Horowitz, 192)

Now for the philologist to present her evidence. This consists of . . .

— two inscribed liver models
— a legal document
— a new fragment of a known lexical list
— a vase inscription from the 15th-16th centuries with the name of the owner
— an administrative tablet containing a list of proper names
— a letter
— a mathematical text

— Tell Taanak: letters and name lists
— Shechem: a letter and a contract
— Megiddo: a fragment of the seventh tablet of Gilgamesh
— Gezer: a letter recognized as being from the Amarna period
— Tell el-Hesi: a letter

— Finally, among the various inscriptions from Aphek, the glossary no. 8151 … reveals the evolution of the diphthong ay > ê in the noun yênu, “wine,” as well as the preservation of the monosyllabic nominal form in the noun dušbu, “honey” …

These documents are compared with the Egyptian Amarna archive that contains copies of correspondence with Canaanite city states

(Israel, 65-68 — all quoted text from Felice Israel is my translation)

Felice Israel identifies in these sources specific features that become precursors of the two languages that will, following internal evolution, become Hebrew and Phoenicia. (68) (I have copied the technical information below.*)

The definition in Is. 19:18, according to which the language of Canaan and Hebrew are one and the same language, is thus confirmed. (68 – my highlighting in all quotations)

The above relates to the Bronze Age. We next come to the transition addressed by Finkelstein (above) — the end of the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age, the period of transition of settlement especially in the region that later became known as Samaria/Israel. In this period we see both changes and continuities in the languages of Canaan. But before I list the details of those points and for the benefit of readers less interested in delving into the technicalities, here is the conclusion to the philologist’s observation:

At the end of this brief essay, let us take stock of the results. In examining the linguistic documentation from the Bronze Age as a substrate up to that of the first millennium, a few facts have emerged:

. . . . In the Middle [and] Late Bronze Age . . . the first manifestations of the Canaanite linguistic type can be detected. These early manifestations, due to their specificity compared to other Semitic languages, both synchronically and diachronically, compel the specialist to recognize Hebrew as an indigenous language of Palestine, already attested before the events conventionally called the “conquest.” Consequently, for the philologist, the hypothesis of a conquest by a group of external origin is not confirmed. (77)

Changes and continuities in the languages of Canaan from Late Bronze to Early Iron Age (ca 1500-1100 BCE)

(I have omitted the footnotes that far exceed the length of the main text)

  1. Dialectal Fragmentation: The distribution of the different Canaanite dialects89 in the first millennium is as follows: on the northern coast of the Levant, various Phoenician dialects are noted, while on the southern coast appears the dialect we have elsewhere called “coastal Canaanite,” which was spoken in the Philistine region.90 In the interior of Palestine, however, we find the Hebrew of the kingdoms of Samaria and Judah, Moabite, the Ammonite dialect, and that of the Edomites.
  2. Onomastic Innovations: The disappearance of the Hurrian component in Syro-Palestinian onomastics is observed. This component was well present in the documentation of the substrate or, according to traditional terminology, at the time of the “conquest.“91 To the data noted by R. S. Hess92, we can add Hurrian-derived anthroponyms mentioned especially in CAT 4.635 as coming from Ashdod.
  3. Religious Innovations: The emergence of national or ethnic states is accompanied by the rise of the national god figure93. The history of some of these deities, such as Kamosh or Qaus, has been reconstructed, but for YHWH, as revealed by an investigation conducted by R. S. Hess94, all ancient95 or recent96 attempts to find an attestation of the name outside the Old Testament have been unsuccessful. The only testimony of continuity is the heavenly nature97 of his theophanies, which brings him closer to the figure of Hadad. R. Zadok98 has highlighted the frequency of texts that mention this deity in relation to Palestine.
  4. Preservation of the Hurrian Substrate: Regarding phonetic conservation, F. W. Bush’s hypothesis99 suggests that the double pronunciation of the bgdkpt consonants in Hebrew and Aramaic is due to the influence of the Hurrian substrate. This influence is not necessarily direct, as it reached Hebrew through contact with Aramaic. For now, it can only be noted that the Hurrian substrate/adstrate, which fully exerts its influence in Ugarit, Nuzi, and Emar, has never been thoroughly studied in the documentation of the first millennium. From an onomastic perspective, few proper names of Hurrian etymology100 have persisted in Old Testament documentation. The most famous of these are Uriah101, the husband of Bathsheba, sent by David to a certain death, and the judge Shamgar ben Anat102. In the lexicon, one of the few preserved Hurrian elements is the term siryôn and the variant siryôn, “cuirass”103.
  5. Conservation of Egyptian Onomastic Elements: In the onomastic documentation of post-exilic Hebrew, Egyptian etymology104 seems characteristic of priestly proper names.105
  6. Conservation of Egyptian Lexical Elements: A series of lemmas, which abundantly testify, through their etymology, to the ancient Egyptian presence in the province of Canaan, have been preserved in the Hebrew lexicon. These words can refer to chemical substances, such as neter, “natron”; plants, such as šittâ, “acacia” or gōme’, “papyrus”; semi-precious stones, such as lešem, “carnelian”, aḥlamâ, “jasper”, or šenhabbîm, “ivory”; certain boats, such as ṣî, “type of ship”; or finally, scribal tools like ṭabba‘at, “seal-stamp” or qeset, “scribe’s case.”
  7. Conservation of Egyptian Administrative Practices: The scribes of the two Israelite kingdoms106 employed and preserved a numerical notation system of a hieratic type107, rather than a Phoenician-Aramaic type. This is confirmed by the presence in the lexicon of measurement unit names such as lōg, hîn, and ʾêpâ, all of Egyptian etymology.

(That last point, #7, relates to the experience of Canaan under Egyptian hegemony in the Late Bronze era.)

—o0o—

* Common precursors of the two languages Hebrew and Phoenicia that indicate they are both indigenous and related.

(I have omitted the footnotes that far exceed the length of the main text)

  1. The phonetic evolution ā > ō 43: it is attested not only on the coast but also inland, in Galilee and Samaria, extending beyond the Jordan to Pella44. The shift from the etymological ā to ō is foreign to Aramaic45. Moreover, already in the Amarna documentation, it does not appear in regions that, in the first millennium, will be linguistically occupied by Aramaic. This phonetic evolution is absent from both Amorite46 and Ugaritic47.
  2. Application of the Barth-Ginsberg law48: This law49—yiqtal(u) imperfective < Proto-Semitic yaqtal(u)—also applies in Ugaritic50 but not in Amorite51; in Aramaic, it will apply much later than in Hebrew52.
  3. The independent personal pronoun of the first person singular anōkî53: The personal pronoun anōkî is a characteristic of Proto-Canaanite54, which is not attested in Ugaritic55 or Amorite56. It anticipates the Hebrew, Phoenician57, and Moabite58 forms.
  4. The suffix of the perfect first person singular -ti59: This element is also considered a Proto-Canaanite characteristic60. It differs from Ugaritic61 but anticipates the usage in Hebrew, Phoenician62, and Moabite.63
  5. The independent pronoun ninu64 and the first person plural66 suffix65 pronoun -nu: The appearance of the independent first person plural pronoun ninu is ambiguous because there may be interference between a Canaanite form, which can be reconstructed with a good probability based solely on Hebrew but not Phoenician67, and the usual Akkadian form68. Regarding this, see the analogous spellings attested in the Giblite dossier: da-na-nu-u16 and ni-nu-u16 in EA 362 = LA 168:16, 27. On the other hand, the use of -nu as the suffix of the first person plural perfect69 or as a suffix pronoun70 is a Canaanite characteristic because it anticipates Hebrew usage and differs from the Amorite71 and Ugaritic72 form -na and, at a different time, from the similar Aramaic form -na.73
  6. The beginning of the pronominalization of the noun ašar74: This transformation of the term75 ašar, “place”76, into a relative pronoun, is not of the Amorite type77 but constitutes an innovation that will be common to Canaanite dialects such as Hebrew78, Moabite79, and Edomite80.
  7. The modal system81: It seems to anticipate the modal system of Biblical Hebrew. The cohortative form yaqtula anticipates, for example, the Hebrew cohortative in an obvious way.82
  8. The use of the internal passive83: It actually anticipates the reduction to only seven verbal conjugations, which will be typical of standard Hebrew and Phoenician.84

Coogan, Michael D., ed. The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Finkelstein, Israel. The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1988.

Horowitz, Wayne. “A Combined Multiplication Table on a Prism Fragment from Hazor.” Israel Exploration Journal 47, no. 3/4 (1997): 190–97.

Horowitz, Wayne, and Aaron Shaffer. “A Fragment of a Letter from Hazor.” Israel Exploration Journal 42, no. 3/4 (1992): 165–67.

Israel, Felice. “La Conquête de Canaan: Observations d’un Philologue.” In Guerre et conquête dans le Proche-Orient ancien: actes de la table ronde du 14 novembre 1998, edited by Laïla Nehmé and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 63–77. Antiquités sémitiques. Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient, 1999.

Landsberger, B., and H. Tadmor. “Fragments of Clay Liver Models from Hazor.” Israel Exploration Journal 14, no. 4 (1964): 201–18.

Mander, Pietro. “Les Dieux et Le Culte à Ébla.” In Mythologie et Religion des Sémites Occidentaux. Volume 1, Ébla, Mari, edited by Gregorio del Olmo Lete, 1–160. Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta. Leuven: Peeters, 2008.

Tadmor, Hayim. “A Lexicographical Text from Hazor.” Israel Exploration Journal 27, no. 2/3 (1977): 98–102.

Yadin, Yigael, Yohanan Aharoni, Ruth Amiran, Trude Dothan, Immanuel Dunayevsky, and Jean Perrot. Hazor II: An Account of the Second Season of Excavations, 1956. Jerusalem : Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1960. http://archive.org/details/hazoriiaccountof0000jame.

2024-09-19

Problems Dating Israel’s Exodus and Conquest of Canaan

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, Old Testament
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I use two sources for this post. The first is a widely used text for advanced studies (seminaries and universities) in the “biblical history of Israel”. The second is a research conference paper by a specialist in the Middle Bronze Age Levant.

Let’s get our bearings with respect to the various ages that will be referenced in what follows:

Ancient Times From the emergence of cities and the beginning of writing to Alexander the Great—i.e., the first three thousand years of recorded history. This was the era of the ancient empires of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah appeared toward the end of Ancient Times, during the Iron Age.

Early Bronze Age 3200 to 2000 B.C.E.
Middle Bronze Age 2000 to 1550 B.C.E.
Late Bronze Age 1550 to 1200 B.C.E.
Iron Age 1200 to 330 B.C.E.

Miller, J. Maxwell, and John H. Hayes. A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. 2nd Ed. Louisville, Ky. London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. p. 2

Under the heading Questionable Correlations between Archaeology and the Bible Miller and Hayes explain the problem with early attempts to line up the Bible’s accounts of Israel’s origins with archaeology:

During the early years of archaeological research and throughout most of the twentieth century many archaeologists and biblical scholars attempted to cor­relate the constantly increasing archaeological evidence with an essentially uncritical reading of the biblical account of Israel’s origins. This approach has been largely abandoned in recent years, for two reasons. First, both the biblical story and the archaeological evidence had to be used selectively, and often given strained interpretations as well, in order to achieve even a loose correlation. Second, an increasing number of biblical scholars and archaeologists have come to view the biblical account of Israel’s origins as idealistic and not historically trustworthy. It will be instructive to review some of the proposed correlations between the biblical account and archaeology that linger on in the public media but do not represent the current thinking in most scholarly circles. (p. 51)

The first of the “proposed correlations . . . lingering on in public media” they discuss is:

The Amorite Hypothesis

In the Early Bronze Age we have strong city states flourishing in the Fertile Crescent until towards 2000 B.C.E. when we find “a breakdown of this urban phase . . . followed by a period of largely nomadic and seminomadic society”.

Mesopotamian texts around this time or shortly before the “urban breakdown” phase mention Amurru (the Amorites). During the Middle Bronze Age there is said to be a “resurgence” of urban centres along with Amorite rulers of major Mesopotamian cities.
The hypothesis formulated in the 1930s was that Amorite migrations into the Levant had been responsible for the “urban breakdown” and it was the Amorites who were responsible for the waves of nomadic or seminomadic movements. The patriarchs of Genesis, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who were said to have arrived from Ur of the Chaldees and who moved around the region of Canaan were understood against this background. The biblical patriarchs belonged to this “(semi)nomadic” time.

The hypothesis matched one selection of the Bible’s chronology:

And it came to pass in the four hundred and eightieth year after the children of Israel were come out of the land of Egypt, in the fourth year of Solomon’s reign over Israel, in the month Zif, which is the second month, that he began to build the house of the Lord. — 1 Kings 6:1

Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years. — Exodus 12:40

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
(Absence of strong city states allows easy movement between Mesopotamia and Egypt; customs of the time were supposed to match those depicted in the Bible’s patriarchal narratives)
 ca 1900 to 1800 B.C.E.
Hyksos rule in Egypt
// Israelites enter Egypt		 ca 1700 to 1550 B.C.E.
400 + years —–> Exodus // conquest of Canaan ca 1100 B.C.E.
Solomon’s temple ca 980  B.C.E.

Miller and Hayes point out that “there are serious problems” with the above hypothesis, noting:

A frontal assault on this view was carried out by T. L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (BZAW133; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974); and John Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975).  (p. 52)

  1. There is no consensus among archaeologists that the Amorites were responsible for the urban changes between the Early and Middle Bronze Ages.
  2. A timeline of biblical chronology using the genealogical data (Genesis 15:16, 46:8-11 and Exodus 6:18-20) requires four generations (Jacob-Levi-Amram-Moses) with each generation averaging 100 years.
  3. The earliest extra-biblical reference to Israel is the Merneptah stele of ca 1200 B.C.E. announcing that Egypt had defeated “Israel” in Canaan so that they “were no more”.
  4. The parallels between biblical names and customs, on the one hand, and those known from Middle and Late Bronze Mesopotamian texts, on the other, become less impressive when one takes into account that the sorts of names and customs involved were not confined to the second millen­nium b.c.e. but were apparently characteristic of the first millennium as well. This renders the parallels relatively useless for pinpointing any particular period as “the patriarchal age.” (p. 53)
  5. Biblical “traditions” associate the patriarchs with Iron Age Arameans (Deuteronomy 26:5) and other Iron Age people (Moabites, Edomites, Philistines) — never with the Bronze Age Amorites.

The Exodus and Natural Catastrophes

Quora image

Immanuel Velikovsky argued for catastrophes on earth resulting from earth’s close encounter with a mammoth comet, specifically resulting in the pulling of the waters of the Red Sea apart and returning them in a tidal wave to drown Pharaoh’s army. The Egyptian plagues and subsequent “long day” of Joshua were likewise the ripples from cosmic phenomena in dance.

Others have bucked the trend to date the volcanic eruption of Thera to around 1600 B.C.E. by marking it around 1450 B.C.E. Ash was responsible for the plagues and geological shifts produced massive waves destroying the Egyptian army pursuing Israel.

Bryant G. Wood and Piotr Bienkowski argue — behind the paywall of the Biblical Archaeological Review — over just how early in the Bronze Age an earthquake brought down the walls of Joshua’s Jericho. (When Miller and Hayes wryly comment on Wood’s argument, “apparently in perfect timing for the seventh day of the Israelite march around the walls”, I assumed they were being cynical. But no, a reading of Wood’s article does make it clear that the “earthquake” presumably struck after the Israelites had marched around the walls seven days!)

Theories of this sort attempt to give naturalistic and scientifically acceptable explanations for the more fantastic and miraculous biblical claims. In our opin­ion, however, these theories presuppose such hypothetical scenarios, such a catastrophic view of history, and such marvelous correlations of coincidental factors that they create more credibility problems of their own than the ones they are intended to solve. (p. 53)

The Ramesside Period as the Setting of the Exodus

Ramesses II — Wikimedia commons

The famous Ramses/Ramesses name featured eleven times throughout the nineteenth and twentieth dynasties of Egypt — from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age. And since in Exodus 1:11 we read . . .

So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh

. . . and since that bland “statement of fact” has, for some, a “ring of authenticity”, the Exodus is best dated during the reign of one of the Ramesses. The great Ramesses II is the one of choice. He began his long reign around 1300 B.C.E. One detail in favour of this time slot is that it would allow the Israelites to reach Canaan in time for the above mentioned Merneptah stele inscription to record that “Israel is no more” after an Egyptian campaign.

Hayes and Miller again draw readers’ attentions to the drawbacks of this hypothesized date:

For one thing, we would expect Israelite storytellers to be familiar with and to use Mesopotamian and Egyptian names and customs in their narratives. Another problem with this proposed correlation between Egyptian history and the bib­lical narrative is that it does not square very well with biblical chronology. The Nineteenth and Twentieth dynasties ruled from the end of the fourteenth cen­tury until after the beginning of the eleventh century. Yet biblical chronology seems to place the exodus already in the fifteenth century. (p. 54)

Transjordanian Occupational Gap

It was once believed that there had been a significant gap of more than half a millennium in settlement in the region east of the Jordan River prior to the thirteenth century. From the 1200s B.C.E. renewed settlements and the rise of the kingdoms of Edom and Moab were witnessed. Given that the Biblical account of the wandering Israelites encountering the kingdoms of Edom and Moab on their way to Canaan, it followed that the Exodus and conquest of Canaan could not have happened before the 1200s B.C.E.

This line of argumentation was combined with, if not inspired by, the identification of Pharaoh Ramesses II as the pharaoh of the exodus (see above).

But there is a but…

More recent archaeological exploration in the Moabite and Edomite regions of southern Transjordan has discredited the idea of a sharp occupational gap prior to the thirteenth century. (p. 55)

Thirteenth-Century Destructions

West of the Jordan River, in the land of Canaan, there is evidence of “widespread city destructions” toward the end of the Late Bronze Age. Here is the accompanying map from the Miller and Hayes volume (p. 56):

Again, M&H list the problems with this hypothesis:

  1. Late Bronze Age city destructions “were part of a general pattern throughout the ancient world”. We cannot know if the destructions occurred simultaneously or even with the onslaught of a common enemy. We do not know if warfare was responsible in most cases.
  2. With the exceptions of Lachish and Hazor, the cities destroyed in this period are not the ones listed in the biblical account of the conquest.
  3. Most of the sites that are identified with cities that the biblical account does associate with the conquest, on the other hand, have produced little or no archaeological indication even of having been occupied during the Late Bronze Age, much less of having been destroyed at the end of the period. Prominent among such “conquest cities” are Arad (present-day Tell Arad), Heshbon (Tell Hisban), Jericho (Tell es-Sultan), Ai (et-Tell), and Gibeon (el-Jib). (p. 55)

The Search for a Distinctively Israelite Material Culture

If only distinctive cultural remains could identify “Israelites” in distinction from other ethnic groups in the land! Some scholars have focussed on “collared-rim jars and four-room houses”:

The collared-rim jars; the four-room house: room 1 is a narrow courtyard, rooms 2, 3 and 4 are separated by pillars – room 3 likely being unroofed. People likely slept in the upper storey, animals below. – (Images from Dever, Rise of Ancient Israel)

Yet there is nothing intrinsically “Israelite” about either of these features, and in fact they show up in the regions of ancient Ammon and Moab, east of the Jor­dan River, as well as in the areas generally associated with Israelite settlement. Apparently these items belonged to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Palestine and therefore cannot be used to isolate particular sites, geo­graphical areas, or historical periods as “Israelite.” (p. 57)

And as for pig bones? Surely the absence of pigs would indicate Israelite settlement, yes?

From the foregoing discussion, it is clear that no human behavioral evidence exists to indicate that pig avoidance was unique to any particular group in the ancient Near East. The fact that complex variables affect the choice to raise swine have confounded attempts to find an origin to the pig prohibition. Lots of people, for lots of reasons, were not eating pork. The bald fact is that there is no date before the Hellenistic period when we can assert with any confidence, based on archaeological and textual evidence, that the religious injunction which enjoined Jews from eating pork was actually followed by them alone as a measure of social distinction. (Hesse & Wapnish, p. 261 — referenced by Miller and Hayes — See also the post: The “Late” Origins of Judaism – The Archaeological Evidence)

The Conquest of Canaan: Observations of a Philologist . . . 

Continued in the next post . . . .

Miller, J. Maxwell, and John H. Hayes. A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. 2nd ed. Louisville, Ky. London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.

Hesse, Brian, and Paula Wapnish. “Can Pig Remains Be Used for Ethnic Diagnosis in the Ancient Near East?” In The Archaeology of Israel: Constructing the Past, Interpreting the Present, edited by Neil Asher Silberman and David B. Small, 238–70. Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997.

Shanks, Hershel, William G. Dever, P. Kyle McCarter Jr, and Bruce Halpern. The Rise of Ancient Israel. Lectures Presented at a Symposium Sponsored by the Resident Associate Program, Smithsonian Institution. Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013.

2024-09-18

If the whitefellas had just asked

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Politics & Society
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I am currently reading Edenglassie, a novel by Melissa Lucashenko, because it was introduced to me at the Brisbane Writers’ Festival a few months ago and because I am always delving into historical records relating to the aboriginal people, especially those around where I live.

I recall that many years back, probably like most other white people here, occasionally noticing a few black people in a city park, assuming they were drunk and sensing them to be almost like an alien threat to decency.  Here is an excerpt from Edenglassie — an old aboriginal woman, Eddie, is in hospital telling a naive white person, Dartmouth, what it used to be like back when whites first settled here:

“And there was always blackfellas camped near the Valley [a part of the city ofBrisbane], right up till the war, they was never shifted off. A lot of that crowd ended up in Spring Hill and Paddington later on, stone’s throw from the city. The Beehives, the Johnsons and the Wallabys. You ask Aunty Deb Beehive, her old father and uncles used to all corroboree at Spring Hill in the seventies. We’d hear em often when we was over that side of the river, clapsticks and all. And card games at Victoria Park, oh my! Biggest card games all us Murries had. No, we was a part of Brisbane alright, we was always in the thick of things.’

‘And this, ah, crowd – the fringe dwellers at Spring Hill. Where were they from?’ Dartmouth asked, . . . . 

Granny Eddie peered at him. Not just an idiot, but blurry too.
‘From?’ 

‘Yes, originally. Before they were in the Valley.’

‘They weren’t from anywhere. They was always there.”

“Dartmouth adjusted his glasses, flushing. ‘Ah, yes. Of course. Of course, they were.’

‘They call us mob fringe dwellers,’ Eddie added, ‘but Goories ain’t no fringe, you whitefellas is the fringe! We always lived on our own Countries and then the dagai come and plonked themselves down next to us. Or on top of us, if they felt like it! Beehive and Wallaby mob always been in the Valley, long before John Oxley came up the damn river! Fringe dwellers my dot! That word makes me proper wild!’

Dartmouth changed tack.

‘Okay, roger that, no fringe dwellers. Do you know much about the convict era, Eddie? Or the Petrie family?’ he probed delicately. ‘They say Tom Petrie* grew up with the local tribe?’ 

‘Oh, he did, he did!’ Eddie sat up, enthused. ‘Well, he had to. He was . . . the only white jarjum here for years and years. He learnt the lingo from a baby, a few different lingos in fact. And he was the only one to ask. Ever.’ Granny’s forefinger was raised in admonition of all other colonists.

‘Ask?’ . . . .

“Yep. He was raised with the Yagara mob, so when he grew up and got married, he knew to ask where to select his land, he got permission off of Old Man Dalapai, see. Tom was a man of culture. They say he went through the Bora ceremonies and all … my grandad knew him. And Tom’s father, old Grandfather Andrew Petrie, he saved the Bunya Pines from the logging, Grandad Charlie reckoned. Cos he knew how much them trees mean to the blackfellas.’

‘So, it’s true the Petries were friendly with the Brisbane tribe?’ Dartmouth prompted, mentally deleting his stockwhips in favour of Granny’s narrative. ‘And Tom was actually initiated?’

‘Oh, yes,’ answered Granny. ‘Initiation means ya part of the tribe, well and truly,’ she said, answering the second part of Dartmouth’s question. Suddenly growing tired, she felt the nagging ache in her neck starting up again. ‘The Petries were decent people, educated people. If everyone had been like them things could have been different alright. If the whitefellas had just asked.”

Lucashenko, Melissa. Edenglassie. St Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, 2023. http://www.librarything.com/work/31046772/book/265015661. (pp 80-82)

* Tom Petrie was a historical person. For a fascinating education in aboriginal life “as it really was” an absolute “must read” is Tom Petrie’s reminiscences of early Queensland. Tom Petrie as a boy mixed with the local aboriginals, learning more than one of their languages (as a rule they were multilingual), and was highly respected by them all. And when older he really did ask them for land to settle before completing legal paperwork with the white authorities.

(I was prompted to write this post when I received an email notifying me that work I had once assisted with for the preservation of aboriginal languages was cited in Australian academic libraries and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.)

2024-09-17

Seeking a Plausible Origin for the Seducing Serpent in the Garden of Eden

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Biblical Studies, Old Testament
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I intend in this post to throw an idea into the ring for consideration. I have very little with which to defend the idea but I find it of interest. I have nothing stronger than that as my motive for posting it here:

that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was an allusion to the seduction of Greek wisdom

Early last year I posted — solely for the purpose of showing that the idea was not unknown among scholars — a summary of one academic proposal that Plato at one point was ultimately drawing upon the biblical Garden of Eden story of “the fall”. I still have strong reservations about the case made in that article and for that reason I have from time to time returned to have another look at the relevant sources to see if more cogent sense can be made of the comparisons or if the notion should be dropped entirely. Now I would like to propose a more plausible and cogent case for the reverse: that the biblical authors were drawing upon Plato. (The idea that the Hebrew Bible drew upon Greek literature is a minority view among scholars but nonetheless a reputable one that has been published in academic sources: see Niels Peter Lemche, Mandell and Freedman, Jan-Wim Wessellius, Philippe Wajdenbaum, Russell Gmirkin, and related posts etc)

For the significance of the serpent to Greeks in general and Athenians in particular, see the post
The Ambiguity of the Serpent: Greek versus Biblical

It is impressive to note how ophidian or anguine symbolism permeates Greek and Roman legends and myths, shaping Hellenistic culture. (Charlesworth, 127)

Yes, the serpent was a positive image among the Greeks of the classical and hellenistic eras of their chief god Zeus, but I will offer a more specific literary connection.

Evangelia Dafni attempted to argue that Plato’s panegyric of Socrates was indebted to some extent to the serpent who tempted Eve (see first link above). A key weakness in the argument, I believe, was its failure to provide a clear motive for the borrowing. If there was borrowing from the Hebrews it seemed to fail to add anything extra to the understanding of Plato’s text.

But notice how different everything looks in reverse. A potentially new depth of meaning is indeed added to the Genesis narrative by inverting Dafni’s suggestion.

Socrates can justly be considered the paragon of Greek wisdom. One might say that Socrates was the midwife at the birth of Greek philosophy, epitomized by Plato and Aristotle and their offshoots. In his dialogue The Symposium Socrates is directly compared with a viper whose bite is compared with Socrates overpowering his interlocutor by his unassailable questioning and speech. Socrates is depicted as being in a class of his own above all other mortals because of his wisdom as Eden’s serpent is wise above all the beasts of the earth. Socrates offers the wisdom of the gods. If one who had not met Socrates felt no disgrace or shame about his person, after an encounter with Socrates he would indeed be overwhelmed with shame of his former state of ignorance — as Adam and Eve were not ashamed of their nakedness until after they succumbed to the serpent’s temptation. What Socrates offers with his words is described as full of beauty, desirability and wisdom.

At this point, let’s recall the passage in Genesis:

2:25 And the two were naked, both Adam and his wife, and were not ashamed.

3:1 Now the serpent was more φρονιμώτατος [LXX = discerning, prudent, wise] than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Let’s back up a little and start at the beginning.

Socrates is telling his companions a story of his encounter with the prophetess Diotima of Mantineia (punning names that could be translated literally as “Fear-God of Prophet-ville” – Rouse, 97) who educated him about the nature of love and immortality. Interestingly (perhaps, for me at any rate) Socrates deems the act of sexual intercourse between a man and woman as generating a form of immortality:

“To the mortal creature, generation is a sort of eternity and immortality,” she replied; “and . . . . we needs must yearn for immortality no less than for good . . . .”

All this she taught me at various times . . . . (Symposium, 206e-207a)

The discussion extends to addressing various ways humans can be thought of as immortal (“continually becoming a new person”), not unlike (this is my own comparison here, not that of Socrates) the common ancient image (as ancient as the epic of Gilgamesh) of the serpent regularly shedding its old skin in a process of “eternal” renewal.

I was astonished at her words, and said: “Is this really true, O thou wise Diotima?”

And she answered with all the authority of an accomplished sophist: “Of that, Socrates, you may be assured; — think only of the ambition of men, and you will wonder at the senselessness of their ways, unless you consider how they are stirred by the love of an immortality of fame. They are ready to . . . undergo any sort of toil, and even to die, for the sake of leaving behind them a name which shall be eternal. (208c)

Socrates proceeds to report Diotima’s elucidation of what is truly beautiful, “passing from view to view of beautiful things” until the one learning wisdom finally grasps true beauty and no longer is content with the inferior beauty of the physical world. Diotima concludes:

“Do consider,” she said, “beholding beauty with the eye of the mind, [one] will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities . . . and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if any man ever is.” (212a)

After Socrates’ speech in which the words of a divinely inspired prophet were presenting the ultimate in beauty that could ever be desired by mortals for the sake of an immortal name, who should rudely interrupt the occasion but a drunken Alcibiades. Alcibiades was a “man of the world”, a famed political figure, conscious of his beauty but also one who was enamoured of Socrates, both intellectually and physically.

Bust of Silenus (The MET) and Marsyas the satyr (ChatGPT image): “He is exactly like the busts of Silenus, which are set up in the statuaries, shops, holding pipes and flutes in their mouths; and they are made to open in the middle, and have images of gods inside them.“

In Plato’s dialogue each guest had been expected to deliver some kind of ode to “love”. Alcibiades, arriving late, instead will tell all what Socrates himself can be likened to — in similes. Socrates is like the ugly Silenus, grotesque on the outside but cut him open and inside you will find images of the gods. Or he is like the entrancing satyr Marsyas who invented the music of the flute and “bewitched men by the power of his mouth”. The only difference, Alcibiades explains, is that Socrates can enchant and stir a longing for the divine merely by the means of his speech:

The only difference … is that you [=Socrates] do the very same without instruments by bare words! . . .
When one hears you . . . we are overwhelmed and entranced. (215c-d)

Alcibiades brings in another simile with which to liken Socrates and his words: the serpent, specifically the persuasive power of the serpent!

Besides, I share the plight of the man who was bitten by the snake. . . . I have been bitten by a more painful viper, and in the most painful spot where one could be bitten — the heart, or soul, or whatever it should be called — stung and bitten by his discourses in philosophy, which hang on more cruelly than a viper when they seize on a young and not ungifted soul, and make it do and say whatever they will. (217e-218a)

Alcibiades

Eve is not bitten by the serpent, of course, but she and Adam do for the first time feel shame as a consequence of listening to him. Shame was the bite Alcibiades said he felt after his time with Socrates. Alcibiades had attempted to seduce Socrates sexually but found him unmoved. Socrates gently chastised him by pointing out that he was trying to exchange what was beautiful to one’s physical eyes and pleasures (bronze) for the true beauty of wisdom (gold) – with the result that Alcibiades felt deep shame for his attempts to attain sexual favour with Socrates:

And there is one experience I have in presence of this man alone, such as nobody would expect in me; and that is, to be made to feel ashamed [αἰσχύνομαι, a form of the same word in LXX Gen 2:25]; he alone can make me feel it. . . I cannot contradict him . . . and, whenever I see him, I am ashamed . . . . (216b-c)

It is at that point where Alcibiades begins to describe his vain attempt to seduce Socrates and its humiliating aftermath.

Socrates was a man like no other:

There are many more quite wonderful things that one could find to praise in Socrates: but . . . it is his not being like any other man in the world, ancient or modern, that is worthy of all wonder. . . .

When you agree to listen to the talk of Socrates . . . you will find his words first full of sense, as no others are . . . (221c-222a)

But, Alcibiades warns, beware of being seduced by his wisdom to the extent that you are stirred to a desire for sexual gratification (an  exchange of false beauty for true) and one feel shame as a consequence:

That is a warning to you . . . not to be deceived by this man . . . . (222b)

There we have it. In one episode in Plato’s dialogues we have a blend of a person “more wise” than any other mortal, one likened to a serpent, one whose speech is overpoweringly persuasive, who promises a form of immortality, who displays all that is truly beautiful and to be desired, yet who leaves the ignorant feeling shame over their former condition — specifically in relation to sexual desire.

Much more could be written but I have introduced them in earlier posts. We have seen Russell Gmirkin’s observation that it was Plato who portrayed an idyllic origin scene where animals and humans could converse with one another. I linked above to a similar discussion by Evangelia Dafni who drew attention to Plato’s comparison of Socrates with the serpent — although I believe this post brings an explanation for a possible borrowing from Plato to the Bible. If we ride with the possibility of a Hellenistic origin for the biblical literature, we may see in the serpent’s temptation of Adam and Eve a rebuke to the Greek philosophy that would have stood opposed to the wisdom that must come from an obedience to the commands of God. The image of the serpent as a religious icon had been familiar enough in the Levant for millennia and was most prominent anew in the Hellenistic world with its associations with Zeus, Athena and a host of other Greek associations (compare, for example, the golden fleece in a tree guarded by a serpent) — and even as a fit simile for the shame-inducing yet enlightening and immortality promising wisdom of Socrates.

By no means do I expect the above thoughts to seduce an innocent to partake of the wisdom of a Hellenistic origin of the Hebrew Bible. I present the above thoughts as an observation of some interest to those already persuaded on other grounds for the stories of Genesis being being formed from the raw material of Greek literature, Plato in particular.

Charlesworth, James H. The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized. New Haven Conn.: Yale University Press, 2010.

Dafni, Evangelia G. “Genesis 2–3 and Alcibiades’s Speech in Plato’s Symposium: A Cultural Critical Reading.” HTS Teologiese Studies 71, no. 1 (2015).

Rouse, W. H. D. Great Dialogues of Plato – The Republic – Apology – Crito – Phaedo – Ion – Meno – Symposium. Mentor Books, 1956.

Translations of Plato are a mix of those by Jowett, Fowler and Rouse (above) — with constant reference to the Greek text at the Perseus Digital Library

2024-09-12

Meet the Prophets of Israel’s Predecessors

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by Neil Godfrey

Filed under: Ancient Religious Cultures
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I was recently somewhat startled to learn that the Elijahs, the Isaiahs, the Ezekiels and Jeremiahs of the Bible were familiar characters in diverse ancient Near Eastern cultures long before biblical Israel appeared on the scene. I am talking about ancient Syria 900 years before the emergence of the kingdom of Israel in the archaeological record. The following information comes entirely from Jean-Marie Durand’s discussion of the Amorite religion in Syria as documented in the Mari archives. The scholarly world has known about it at least since 1948. So why has it taken me so long to learn about this class of religious persons outside the Bible? Prophets could be “anybody” who felt a call from a deity and, as in the Bible, these prophets would take their message to their rulers — a habit well known among the Bible’s prophets. Sometimes the prophets would perform symbolic acts just as we read about some of the Bible’s prophets. Very often the prophecies would be written down and stored in official archives.

(map image from World History Encyclopeida)

Note how familiar to the Biblical tropes it all sounds.

Indeed, at those times, people diligently sought to divine the intentions of the gods, who were thought to be deeply concerned with what was happening in this world. They wanted to know both how the gods reacted to human plans and what they expected, in turn, from human actions. In this sense, the gods behaved just like the human king, without whose authorization no initiative could be taken . . . .

Humans therefore had to inform themselves to avoid certain actions or, conversely, to be encouraged in them. However, the beliefs of the time admitted that the gods could take the initiative to send messages and warn humans, both to help and to admonish them. The contact between the spheres of the divine and the human took various forms, and an ongoing dialogue was established in several ways.

(Durand, p 431 – translation)

Certain persons felt called by a deity and would convey the messages from that god in the first person voice of god so that there could be “no doubt” that the prophet was not misinterpreting the words given him or her.

There were various kinds of prophets, including groups of full time “professionals” as well as lone figures from the lay community, men and women.

A king would sometimes take the initiative and seek the advice of a prophet (or of the god speaking through the prophet). Other times a prophet would approach the court and convey a message to the king through intermediaries.

The Calling

One text speaks of “prophets” – nabûm – as a profession, using a cognate of the same word for prophet that we find in the Hebrew Bible – nābî. The meaning is related to being named or being called.

When I arrived at Asmad, I gathered the nabûm of the Bedouins (= Bensim’alites) and took the omens for the king’s well-being.

These could only be technicians in whose presence, or thanks to whom, investigations into the future were conducted. These people also gave precise advice on conduct to the king. They thus played exactly the role one would expect from the diviner-bârûm or the prophet-âpilum. It is difficult to avoid concluding that, whatever the differences between the Old Babylonian nabûm and the Hebrew nābî’, the denomination already existed as early as the 18th century BCE and referred to someone who gave a discourse about the future.

(Durand, 434 – trans)

Recall how biblical prophets would speak of themselves being overwhelmed by God’s calling them to a difficult mission. If an ancient city-state king in Syria commissioned a servant to fulfil a duty (such as being sent to administer a neighbouring population) the act could be compared with a deity calling a prophet. Note this letter describing such a commission from the king:

My Lord has assigned me to a (too) great task; I do not have the strength (for it): (it is) like a god “calling” a human. Now, I, worm of the foundations, my Lord has touched my chin [touching by the king was a mark of transferring his power or person to another], which is characteristic of his divinity, and he has sent me among men. 

. . . . It was genuinely believed that there was a personal contact between the god and the one he “called,” before sending him back (on a mission) to the humans. The individual had to literally feel summoned by the god (nabûm) at a certain point; the mission granted to him was therefore not “fixed for all eternity,” but represented a “historical event.”

The very expression in this letter “sent me back among the humans” allows us to understand why the terms “message” or “mission” were commonly used to refer to the prophetic message itself. This “prophetic mission” is emphasized in more than one text.

(Durand 435f – trans)

Being sent on a mission with a message from the god was not always said to be given to a prophet, but sometimes simply to a “man of (the) god”:

There are several documents where someone, who has no specific prophetic or religious title otherwise, arrives at the royal official’s place carrying a divine message. The most spectacular example has been known for a long time: it is . . . the Revelation of Dagan of Terqa. The god had said to Malik-Dagan: . . .

“Now, go! You are my messenger!”

The individual is defined only as “man of Šakkâ,” not as a priest, nor a prophet, and he did not seem predestined by his functions to serve as an intermediary between Dagan and the king of Mari. Another purely secular individual, a “free man’s wife,” proclaims: . . . 

“Dagan has sent me.”

(Durand 436 trans)

Protocol among kings was that a gift (items of clothing or jewellery) be given to a messenger who arrived from another kingdom. The same protocol applied to a messenger from a god.

Two Types of Prophet

There were two types of prophet: the forthrightly eloquent and the “maddies”, or more technically, the muhhûm. The word derives from a verb indicating an extreme form of madness, or “completely mad”, one might say.

As Saul turned to leave Samuel, God changed Saul’s heart, and all these signs were fulfilled that day. 10 When he and his servant arrived at Gibeah, a procession of prophets met him; the Spirit of God came powerfully upon him, and he joined in their prophesying. 11 When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked each other, “What is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?” — 1 Samuel 10:9-11

These muhhûm would suddenly be taken over by a fit of “enthusiasm” and stand up in the temple to cry out, or in the middle of the performing of a sacrifice would in the presence of many witnesses enter a trance and vehemently proclaim a message. There is evidence that their hair was like a “tangled mane” so we can picture them as “more or less wild and unkempt beings”. They could engage in primitive behaviour such as tearing apart an animal with hands or teeth and devouring it at the city gate to convey, say, in pantomime that the god would “devour” (send a plague) just as the prophet had devoured the animal. These muhhûm, prone to trances and behaviour of “possessed ones” could form groups. We are reminded of the Bible’s account of Saul being caught up among groups of prophets who were in trance-like state as they prophesied.

The other kind of prophet, the âpilum, could present long lyrical speeches often of high literary quality. An âpilum could be sent for by the king and ordered to find out the will of the god on a matter of policy the king was considering. The âpilum was recognized as a legitimate messenger of the god who could call on the god to find out his or her will.

Perhaps the king wanted a firm commitment from the god regarding the successes to come. The âpilum . . . may only be a simple visitor who transmitted a question from the king. He had access to the deities of the major religious centres of his kingdom and also served as a messenger between them. In the absence of the king from his capital, it is to the highest authority of the state that he reports, and it is this authority that is responsible for transmitting the information. He thus has the rank of an ambassador, and his message indeed deals with decisive matters, such as peace with one of the major powers of the time. . . . Nowhere do we see a muhhûm being entrusted with such missions and having such a regular place near the king.

(Durand, 446 – trans)

During times of war such a prophet was able to cross in and out of opposing armies lines in safety. Presumably his person was considered sacrosanct and he could serve as an intermediary between the warring parties.

The same kinds of prophets would make it clear that it was a particular deity who had raised a king to the throne, and therefore the king had a special responsibility to safeguard the temple and demands of that god. For a king to neglect the will of the god who raised him to power would be to risk divine punishment. In this situation, the prophet (âpilum) would take the initiative to visit the king and report his shortcomings. One such prophecy is recorded:

The respondent of Marduk stood at the gate of Eme-Dagan and did not cease to cry out amid the assembly of the entire country: ‘You went to the emperor of Elam to establish peaceful relations. In making peace, you handed over to the emperor of Elam treasures that belonged to Marduk and the city of Babylon. You depleted silos and warehouses that belonged to me, without returning the favors I bestowed. And now you want to go to Ekallâtum? He who has spent a treasure that belonged to me must not ask me for its interest.’”

In this situation the prophet cries out like a wild “muhhûm” but in fact his speech is “longer and more complex” that that of the one possessed.

Many of the prophecies recorded were exhortations to the king to continue in his policies of ruling well and piously. Others were long lists of tirades predicting the doom of neighbouring kingdoms.

When Samuel had all Israel come forward by tribes, the tribe of Benjamin was taken by lot. Then he brought forward the tribe of Benjamin, clan by clan, and Matri’s clan was taken. Finally Saul son of Kish was taken.” — 1 Samuel 10:20f

There were other types of positions that we might think of as related to prophets, such as “seers”. Seers would be tasked with casting lots to acquire a yes/no answer at appropriate times and places such as whether or not to accept a treaty, to besiege a city, and so forth.

Authenticating the message

In the texts that use the formulation “He stood up and…” or “He had a trance” …, the prophet does not specify that he is sent by the deity: the latter indeed speaks directly, in the first person, through his mouth; the assistants observe the event; the evident manifestations of the ecstatic phenomenon are sufficient. . . . Some ecstasies must have taken place far away or without witnesses, and those to whom the divine words were reported had not witnessed them. This is the example of Malik-Dagan named messenger by Dagan in the solitude of a dream . .  . Another text specifies:

Now I have written down the oracle he delivered to me, and I sent him to my Lord. However, the oracle, he did not deliver it to me in secret; it was during the assembly of the Elders that he delivered his oracle.

(Durand, 437f – trans)

In cases where the prophet did not deliver the message in person to the king, the message would be written down and delivered by a court official:

Quite often, however, the prophet . . . does not go directly to the king but passes through an intermediary. Only these situations would have led to the drafting of a tablet, while those where the king was directly addressed did not leave written records. . . .

When the man “mandated by the god” does not plan to deliver the message to the king himself, he goes to the legal authority to entrust him with it, possibly emphasizing the responsibility incurred in case of failure to convey the information. An official specifies:

“This man repeated this dream to me and placed (all) responsibility on me, saying: ‘Write to the king!’ That is why I have written to my Lord.”

(Durand, 438 – trans)

The official relaying the message to the king was only fulfilling his job responsibility of keeping the king informed of all important news, including messages from the gods.

Several times, we notice that the royal official before whom the bearers of prophecies present themselves imposes witnesses on them. This was likely a means of ensuring that the message was transmitted to the king accurately and that the official had no personal interest in what was being demanded of the king. It is a safeguard for the official, not for the prophet, whose speech is in some way fixed ne varietur. This procedure is particularly illustrated during the claims made by Addu of Kalassu against the territory of Alahtum …. But the motivations for the operation become clear when we see that a … scribe, sent to record the respondent’s words, does so in the presence of witnesses so that the expression on the tablet cannot be contested.

(Durand, 439 – trans)

When sending a message to the royal court the prophet would include some personal token such as a lock of hair or a cord attached to an identifying seal. It was up to the king to decide whether to follow up the delivered message. Sometimes practical wisdom outweighed any hints a prophetic message might have against a proposed action.

In any case, the sincerity of the prophet is never questioned, even if the stakes are politically very significant. Such suspicions are the product of modern mentalities. “False prophets” are prophets of false gods, not “simulators.”

(Durand, 480 – trans)

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There was a diverse range of both prophetic messages and literary forms.

Types of messages

Threats against foreign countries Continue reading “Meet the Prophets of Israel’s Predecessors”

2024-09-10

Christian Origins: Let’s Not Discount the Indian Connection

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by Neil Godfrey

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We are so accustomed to viewing Christian origins within an exclusively Western orb. In our minds we have the images of a Roman Empire that stops abruptly at the Parthian border:

Image from https://www.worldhistory.org/image/15518/the-provinces-of-the-roman-empire-under-augustus/

But what if we were to shift Italy a little further west with a view to imagining where Palestine and Egypt were positioned in the grand scheme of things?

Image from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Roman_trade_relations

Now try to register this newly emerging possibility:

Some economic historians now estimate that such was the scale of the Red Sea trade at this period [early imperial Rome] that the customs taxes raised by Roman officials on the trade coming through the Red Sea would alone have covered around one-third of the entire revenues that the Roman Empire required to administer its global conquests and maintain its legions, from Scotland to the borders of Persia and from the Sahara to the banks of the Rhine and Danube. . . . 

Indeed according to some recent calculations, customs taxes on trade with India may have generated as much as one-third of the entire income of the Roman exchequer. . . . [A more cautious estimate by Andrew Wilson in his 2014 Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy essay is that the quarter tax on the Red Sea ships amounted to a third of the annual cost of the army.]

Dalrymple, William. The Golden Road (pp. 6, 55, 318). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Compare this map of locations of Roman coin hoards:

The map shows Roman coin hoards: none are found east of the Pamirs or the Oxus. But there is a notable concentration of Roman gold all around the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, as well as at Aden and on the coast of the Red Sea. Dalrymple, William. The Golden Road (p. 484). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

It all began with Mark Antony’s defeat at the Battle of Actium and the establishment of Octavian’s/Augustus’s new imperial order. With the regular trade winds to and from India to the Red Sea a one way journey would take forty days:

Indian traders heading west used to arrive with the trade winds in early summer and ride the summer monsoon home in August; with the winds behind you, the journey from the mouth of the Red Sea to Gujarat could take as little as forty days, though if you missed the winds the round trip might take as long as a year, and cause you to take a prolonged holiday on the Nile.

Dalrymple, William. The Golden Road (p. 5). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

And just as in more recent times we know Christian missionaries travelled with traders into South America and Africa, so did Buddhist monks travel to Roman ruled regions.

Hermann Detering broached the hypothesis that Buddhism was a significant player in the development of Christianity. I suspect few others have explored his arguments with much serious attention.

I wonder if a reconfiguration of our mental (and cultural) maps might encourage us to examine his thesis more closely. In my visits to different countries in south-east Asia I would always visit places of religious note and one scene always struck me: Buddha walking on water to his disciples just as Jesus…. as per these earlier posts:

https://vridar.org/2018/04/25/crossing-the-water-comparing-buddhist-and-christian-imagery/
https://vridar.org/2019/03/12/stories-of-walking-on-water-looking-for-sources/

But setting aside the question of Christian origins, the place of India in the history of the world in the past 2500 years is most definitely worth a major re-think: Please DO take a moment to listen to this podcast…..

Historian William Dalrymple on India’s Golden Road


The guest being interviewed in that podcast talks of several places I have visited — and his interview makes me want to return and re-explore those places.

How I would love to be on a committee today planning the history curriculum for school students. So much has been learned since I was in a classroom — the wide diversities of lifestyles and social organizations in prehistoric periods; how climate changes impacted civilizations; … and even the place of India as a fulcrum in world history — sending mathematical advances to the West and literature to the East. You will not regret taking the time to listen to the 50 or so minutes of that interview (pending your reading of the book in question).

Dalrymple, William. The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2024.