THE REALITY IS THE TEXTS, from Genesis to Kings, were compiled during the Persian Period, which means more than five centuries after Solomon is supposed to have lived.’
‘When you use the word compiled it implies that texts were existing?’
‘Well the scribes who compiled the Bible had very little real historical information about the early history of their country available,’ explained Shlomo, ‘and in any case probably weren’t interested by it.’
‘Not interest by it?’
‘They had a political agenda if you like.’
‘You mean that they wrote it to suit their concept of Israel as a nation?’
‘That’s about it, they like those before them and after them, who wanted to justify their historically claims and justify their ambitions as a nation.’
‘That is what I believe they call the ‘minimalist’ position.’
‘Call it what you like, as far as I’m concerned that is the real evidence.’
O’Connelly shrugged his shoulders, it confirmed his research work that showed the minimalist position was nothing new, it went back to the 19th century and even further. Early archaeologists had been blinded by their acceptance of the Bible as historical fact. Later as science in general developed and more specifically archaeological science the question changed; ancient Israel’s origins and early its history could be explored and interpreted by archaeological evidence.
Scientific disciplines became more developed with the advent of new technologies in dating and the accumulation of scientifically collected archaeological evidence. Philologists were capable of deciphering ancient texts and inscriptions, which together with the data from other scientific disciplines helped archaeologists to piece together the historical facts.
In 1896, the first inscription referring to Israel was discovered by Egyptologists who dated it to the Pharaoh Merneptah who reigned from 1212 to 1262BC. More recent pieces of evidence included two stone fragments bearing an inscription ‘the house of David’ discovered at Tell Dan in 1994, which is less convincing than the Merneptah Stele, by its briefness, after all David was a common Jewish name.
‘I would think that the inscriptions discovered up to now are very, very few.’
‘Yes, these are mostly Assyrian and Babylonian references to minor kings in the small central Palestinian hill country.’ Shlomo explained. ‘These same sources confirm that the Assyrians destroyed Israel at the end of the eighth century BC and that the Babylonians later destroyed Judah at the beginning of the sixth century BC.’
‘The Bible mentions that!’
‘Yes, the Bible is a source of historical information, there’s no denying that, but it has to be interpreted alongside archaeological and epigraphical information.’
‘Now you’re talking about the maximalists?’
‘Yes, here in Israel Eva Mierberg, a German archaeologist, leads the traditional Christian archaeological faction that accepts the biblical texts as being the basis of Israel’s ancient history, they tended to contort all material evidence uncovered as proof of the Bible’s verity.’