[CPProt.net] Archeologist unearths biblical controversy

[MusSecNetworkCulPropProtNet]

Archeologist unearths biblical controversy
Artifacts from Iron Age fortress confirm Old Testament dates of Edomite
kingdom

By MICHAEL VALPY

UPDATED AT 12:34 PM EST 	Tuesday, Jan 25, 2005

Canadian archeologist Russell Adams's interest is in Bronze Age and Iron Age
copper production. He never intended to walk into archeology's vicious
debate over the historical accuracy of the Old Testament -- a conflict
likened by one historian to a pack of feral canines at each other's throats.

Yet by coincidence, Prof. Adams of Hamilton's McMaster University says, he
and an international team of colleagues fit into place a significant piece
of the puzzle of human history in the Middle East -- unearthing information
that points to the existence of the Bible's vilified Kingdom of Edom at
precisely the time the Bible says it existed, and contradicting widespread
academic belief that it did not come into being until 200 years later.

Their findings mean that those scholars convinced that the Hebrew Old
Testament is at best a compendium of revisionist, fragmented history, mixed
with folklore and theology, and at worst a piece of outright propaganda,
likely will have to apply the brakes to their thinking.

Because, if the little bit of the Old Testament's narrative that Prof. Adams
and his colleagues have looked at is true, other bits could be true as well.

References to the Kingdom of Edom -- almost none of them complimentary --
are woven through the Old Testament. It existed in what is today southern
Jordan, next door to Israel, and the relationship between the biblical
Edomites and Israelites was one of unrelenting hostility and warfare.

The team led by Prof. Adams, Thomas Levy of the University of California at
San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities was
investigating copper mining and smelting at a site called Khirbat en-Nahas,
by far the largest copper-production site in the region.

They applied high-precision radiocarbon-dating methods to some of their
finds, and as they say in the British journal Antiquities, "The results were
spectacular."

They firmly established that occupation of the site began in the 11th
century BC and a monumental fortress was built in the 10th century BC,
supporting the argument for existence of an Edomite state at least 200 years
earlier than had been assumed.

What is particularly exciting about their find is that it implies the
existence of an Edomite state at the time the Bible says King David and his
son Solomon ruled over a powerful united kingdom of Israel and Judah.

It is the historical accuracy -- the very existence of this united kingdom
and the might and splendour of David and Solomon, as well as the existence
of surrounding kingdoms -- that lies at the heart of the archeological
dispute.

Those scholars known as minimalists argue that what is known as "state
formation" -- the emergence of regional governments and kings -- did not
take place in the area until the imperialistic expansion of the Assyrian
empire in the 8th century BC, so David and Solomon, rather than being mighty
monarchs, were mere petty chieftains.

And because everything that takes place in the Middle East inevitably is
political, the minimalist argument is seen as weakening modern Israel's
claim to Palestine.

In the biblical narrative, the Edomites are the descendents of Esau, whose
blessing from his father, Isaac, was stolen by his younger brother, Jacob,
ancestor of the Israelites. (Fans of the British satirical-comedy group
Beyond the Fringe will recall how Jacob pulled off the theft by presenting
himself as the hirsute Esau to their blind father, saying in an aside: "My
brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man.")

The Edomites are lambasted in the Bible for refusing to let the Israelites
rest on their land as they flee Egypt. God declares obscurely: "Over Edom
will I cast out my shoe." The Israelites grumble enviously that there were
kings of Edom before there were kings of Israel -- a highly significant
passage because it implies that state formation occurred in Edom before it
happened in Israel.

Finally, there is the biblical account of David's war against the Edomites,
in which David and his general, Joab, kill 18,000 Edomites and establish
military control over them by "putting garrisons throughout all Edom."

Irish scholar John Bartlett, one of the world's great experts on the
Edomites, dates the battle at 990 to 980 BC, precisely when Prof. Adams and
his colleagues date the fortress.

Says Prof. Adams: "This battle between the Israelites and the Edomites,
although not possible to document, is typical of the sort of border
conflicts between Iron Age states. And the evidence of our new dates at
least proves that it may, in fact, be possible to place the Edomites in the
10th century [BC] or earlier, which now supports the chronology of the
biblical accounts.

"It is intriguing that at Khirbat en-Nahas, our large Iron Age fort is dated
to just this period, suggesting conflict as a central concern even at a
remote copper-production site."

He concludes: "We're not out to prove the Bible right or wrong. We're not
trying to be controversial. We're just trying to be good anthropologists and
scientists, and tell the story of our archeological site."