The Legacy of Solomon
Page 47
‘Concerning the Exodus,’ Selim explained, ‘the real problem is not there, it’s whether Solomon himself ever existed, never mind the Exodus. In any case you’ll see all calculations based on biblical references are irrational.’
‘So you’re saying that biblical calculations are fictive.’
‘In a nutshell, yes! On the other hand Egyptian references provide solid reference points and these do not match with biblical data. For example the victory stela of the Pharaoh Merneptah, which dates from about 1207 BC, says that Israel is laid waste, his seed is not it appears to make reference to a victory over Israel by the Egyptian army, but archaeological evidence relating to this period of time in Israel has only discovered insignificant unwalled villages in the region that was then Canaan. The stela probably refers to a minor victory over Assyrian forces or simply a skirmish with the local tribes of the region.’
‘That’s interesting.’
‘Of course, as there is a considerable number of Egyptian texts dating from the time of the New Kingdom, but none speak of an Exodus, there is not the least evidence relating to the 600,000 Israelite warriors mentioned by the Bible at Mount Sinai and archaeological exploration of the Negev has not uncovered the least sign of a city or settlements that could have conquered or destroyed by Joshua.’
They arrived in Eilat where they were resting after their journey from Petra by the pool of the Hilton Hotel. Laura had taken a chaise longue to catch the last rays of the sun as it fell over the harsh red-brown mountains of the Sinai Desert, a frightening mass of rocks strewn haphazardly by an angry God. The men had installed themselves at a shaded table and where the sipped their cold drinks and talked.
‘You see Mr O’Connelly,’ explained Selim, ‘the presence of settlements in the hill-country between Lower Galilee and the Negev started around 1000BC, and archaeological exploration shows that in most cases they were new.’
‘New?’
‘I mean they weren’t built on the sites of pre-existing villages.”
‘I see, who were these settlers?’
‘They were the Canaanites.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘Well we have certain texts – the Amarna letters from Palestine and a few Egyptian texts. These together with archaeological data show the early Israelite community was very mixed. They were different peoples from the Canaanite city states that supposedly conquered together with other tribes and various nomads.’
‘Then what about Abraham, the founder of Israel?’
‘We have to start at the beginning – that is in the time of Ramesses III around 1200BC – Canaan was invaded by the Philistines, called the Sea Peoples by the Egyptians. As far as we can work out they came from Anatolia and the Aegean and brought Iron Age technology with them. According to Ramesses they were invincible and destroyed everything on their path and only Egypt was powerful enough to resist them. It was they who brought the Late Bronze Age to an end.
These Sea Peoples settled along the coastline of present day Gaza and the remains of their Iron Age pottery confirms this. They then spread out inland destroying and settling Late Bronze Age villages they found, becoming the hereditary enemies of the Israelites. They in turn were crushed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar when he invaded Canaan in 736BC.
‘So you see Pat, Abraham could not have fought the Philistines as the events do not fit together. Genesis was written around the middle of the 6th century BC, that is to say six hundred years after the arrival of the Philistines. So Abraham was inserted into the story by scribes at a time when the people of Israel did not exist as a specific people.’
‘So the Bible is pure fiction?’
‘Let us say it is a mixture of myths and legends, written to glorify the ancient nation of Israel. There are many points of historic fact but as far as we archaeologists are concerned there is an extraordinary confusion of dates and events,’ Selim said with an apologetic smile.
‘Who exactly invented Abraham then?’
‘The first thing we should do is fix the birth of Israel.’
Selim went on to tell them the first known reference to Israel – outside of the Bible story – occurred in the so-called Armana Letters, which dated from about 1400 BC. These letters were discovered in 1887 by an Egyptian peasant woman and contained a request from the governor of Jerusalem to the Pharaoh for help against the Habiru, thought to be a reference to the Hebrew invasion of Canaan.’
The question for historians and archaeologists was who were the Habiru, were they the founders of Israel? Where did they come from how did they build their home in the land of Canaan? The only clue is given in the Bible itself, which tells of how the Hebrews left the city of Ur in Mesopotamia and were led by Abraham on their long journey to Canaan.
It then tells of how God made a covenant with Abraham’s people, promising him that in return for their obedience to his will, Abraham’s descendants would rule over the land.
This covenant was passed on to Abraham’s son Isaac, and then to his son Jacob, who was to be called Israel. The Bible continues, telling the story of how Jacob had twelve sons, and one of whom, Joseph, became a Minister of the Pharaoh. Jacob at his son’s beckoning then left Canaan to live in Egypt together with his extended tribal family composed of some hundreds of men women and children.
Initially they were welcomed by the Egyptians, but as their numbers grew the welcome turned to resentment and the people of Israel were made into slaves. It was not until another leader appeared could the people of Israel leave Egypt for the Promised Land; Canaan, where they defeated the Canaanites and took over their land.
‘How does the Hebrew invasion of Canaan fit in with the archaeologist’s point of view?’ asked O’Connelly.
‘Ah my friend, unfortunately, there is not a shred of evidence outside the Bible to corroborate these claims,’ replied Selim.
‘So you see Pat,’ said Shlomo, ‘before the Hebrews dominated the region, the population was probably made up of a groups of tribes formed by Semite-speaking groups of pastoral nomads, not unlike those we saw today at the Wadi Rum, without the Toyotas of course. Archaeological shows that in the eleventh or twelfth century BC, a great number of new settlements appeared in the hill country of central Canaan.’
‘What precisely do you mean by settlements?’
‘Small villages and the likes, nothing important.’
‘I see, so other than Bible sources there’s nothing that indicates the existence of a Hebrew kingdom.’
‘Right, and whilst we’re on the subject of the Bible we should remember one important point. There are no surviving biblical texts that date before the third century BC.’
‘So was it invented in one stroke?’
‘No, it’s much more complicated than that, the texts used to compile the Bible as we know it were drawn from other written sources that existed at that time. It was a process that repeated itself, writing and re-writing by scribes, whose work was controlled by the high priest and rulers. So they always re-arranged it to suit their political agenda.’
‘Like today in Israel!’
They all laughed.
‘It’s a long tradition, if we look at ancient Greek texts, such as that of the earliest Herodotus, which date from the fifth century BC, before the compilation of the Bible I just mentioned, he wrote of some very strange things, almost like today’s science fiction, because in those times distances were vast almost interplanetary. His descriptions were based legends and travellers’ tales. Biblical texts were no doubt compiled in the same fashion, but more down to earth, no monsters, but lots of burning bushes and voices.’
‘But Shlomo you mentioned before written records, I mean Egyptian or Assyrian?
‘Yes, the problem was that after the Assyrians had disappeared with their written cuneiform language any surviving texts, tablets for example were indecipherable and not only that if they had been available they were far away from ancient Jerusalem.’
‘Remember Pat, very few people coul
d read or write in their own language, forgetting distant and forgotten civilisations,’ said Selim. ‘From here, Eilat to Alexandria is just an hour’s flight, or a couple of days by car, but imagine we have to walk to Sharm el-Sheik tomorrow? Over rocky, parched, mountainous paths and with the constant threat of danger from unfriendly nomads. Time and distance had a totally different meaning in the past, especially the distant past.’
‘So going back to King David and Solomon?’
‘As I said we do have texts from many contemporary neighbouring civilisations, those that fought for control of that region, the Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, but not one of them even mentions the name of David or Solomon, or even the existence of a Hebrew kingdom of any importance.’
‘You say importance?’
‘Well, there were certainly small tribal grouping of very local importance, but certainly not on the scale as described in the Bible.’
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David and Solomon