A 3000-YEAR TREND
The kingdom of David and his son Solomon, portrayed in the Bible as
powerful and glorious, has since the 1990s been regarded by top
archaeologists as myth!
Now, a new study, reported in the esteemed journal PLOS One (11/2023),
implies that Solomon's kingdom "may have existed after all."
Such a reversal is not a one-off. The Bible condemns idolatry and
predicted the demise of the ancient gods, and turned out correct.
The Bible proving correct over critics is a trend that's gone on for
3000 years!
THE PROBLEM
The Kingdom of David and Solomon around 1000 BCE, which the Bible
presents as great and glorious, has apparently left no archaeological
remains! Like the Nazi military base on the Moon it apparently never
existed!
Important in the debate is Gezer, a Canaanite city (Joshua 10:33) 30km
west of Jerusalem, which archaeologists have excavated since 1902.
After 1000 BCE an Egyptian Pharoah, according to the Bible, ousted the
Canaanites from Gezer and gave the city to Solomon as a dowry when he
married Pharoah's daughter. Solomon rebuilt Gezer, Megiddo and other
towns. (I Kings 9:15-17)
SIX-CHAMBERED GATES
Gezer Stratum 8 (eighth archaeological layer from the top) includes the
remains of a large administrative building, a casement wall, and
six-chambered city gate.
In the 1960s Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin noted six-chambered
gates at Gezer in southwest Israel, and also at Megiddo, Hazor and
other cities in northern Israel.
Yadin interpreted these Iron Age structures as indicating a powerful
state that included all Israel from north to south, and attributed
their construction to Solomon based on 1 Kings 9:15.
Gezer was destroyed apparently by Pharoah Shishak in the 10th century
BC. The invasion is historical, and also mentioned in I Kings 14:25-26.
However, in the 1990s Professor Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University
concluded from pottery studies and radiocarbon dating at Megiddo and
Hazor that the six-chambered city gates, as well as several palaces,
buildings and other structures, were built in the 9th century BCE, in
the reign of King Omri about a century after Solomon. Their destruction
was therefore wrought during an invasion by Hazael, king of Damascus,
about 830 BCE (Draper 2010) and not during the earlier invasion of
Pharoah Shishak.
This new understanding became popular, but left no evidence for the historicity of a powerful kingdom ruled by Solomon.
The First Nine Rulers of Israel and Judah (Dates provisional)
Israel
|
Judah
|
|
Solomon 971-931 BCE
|
|
Jeroboam
|
931-910
|
Rehoboam
|
931-914
|
Nadab
|
910-909 |
Abijah |
914-911 |
Baasha
|
909-986 |
Asa
|
911-871
|
Elah
|
986-985 |
Jehoshaphat |
872-849 |
Omri
|
885-874 |
Jehoram
|
848-842 |
Ahab
|
873-852 |
Ahaziah
|
842
|
Ahaziah
|
851-850 |
Athaliah
|
842-837 |
Jehoram
|
850-842 |
Jehoah
|
837-797 |
Archaeologists Finkelstein and Silberman (2006) write:
Finally, in the last few years, radiocarbon dating has hammered the
final nail into the coffin of the Solomonic mirage... Almost all the
samples produced dates lower, that is later, than the widely accepted
dates of the conquests of David and the united monarchy of King
Solomon... Thus the conventional view on the archaeology of the united
monarchy was wrong by almost a century.
David's existence was archaeologically confirmed in 1993 by the
discovery at Tel Dan in northern Israel of a black basalt stele
inscribed "House of David". But, according to Finkelstein, there
was no impressive kingdom: "Jerusalem was little more than a
hill-country village ... David himself a raggedy upstart..." (Draper
2010) It seemed that the Bible had mythologized minor local chieftains
into rulers of a great nation. There was no archaeology to suggest
otherwise.
NEW EVIDENCE
Recently the structures at Gezer have again been dated to the 10th
century BCE by a radiocarbon study of the Gezer ruins by researchers
from Lipscomb University (Tennessee) and the Israel Antiquities
Authority, and published in the journal PLOS One. The construction of
six-chambered gates were apparently not limited to Omri's reign, but
extended well over a century.
The researchers collected organic materials such as charred seeds from
various layers at Gezer spanning 1300 to 900 B.C.E to see whether
radiocarbon dated archaeological finds could be synchronized with
events mentioned in Egyptian and Assyrian records and the Bible.
For example, they found that the fiery devastation of Gezer Stratum 12,
wrought by Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah who boasted about it on the
famous Israel Stele (c.1208 BCE), is supported by radiocarbon samples
dated about 1200 BCE.
The new radiocarbon dates from Gezer Stratum 8 indicated it was built
in the first half of the 10th century BCE – in Solomon's lifetime.
In other words the pre-1990s view — that Pharoah Shishak destroyed
Gezer in the 10th century BCE — could be true again, implying that the
impressive archaeological remains at Gezer indicate the rule of a
powerful king a few decades earlier.
CONCLUSION:
The new study is not proof that Solomon ruled an empire as described in
the Bible, but it means that the biblical scenario cannot be ruled out.
The 3000-year trend has not definitely stopped.
REFERENCES:
Ariel David, 2023 Haaretz Newspaper
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2023-11-15/ty-article/david-and-solomons-biblical-kingdom-may-have-existed-after-all-new-study-suggests/
Draper, R. David and Solomon, National Geographic, December 2010, 66-90
Finkelstein, I. & Silberman, N.A. 2006 David And Solomon, Free Press, p. 281
Webster, L.C. et all, The chronology of Gezer from the end of the
Late Bronze Age to Iron Age II: A meeting point for radiocarbon,
archaeology, egyptology and the Bible, PLOS One, November 15,2023,
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0293119