Biblical Archaeology_A Very Short Introduction Read online

  Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction

  Very Short introductions available now:

  AFRICAN HISTORY

  John Parker and Richard Rathbone

  AMERICAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND ELECTIONS

  L. Sandy Maisel

  THE AMERICAN PRESIDENCY

  Charles O. Jones

  ANARCHISM Colin Ward

  ANCIENT EGYPT Ian Shaw

  ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas

  ANCIENT WARFARE

  Harry Sidebottom

  ANGLICANISM Mark Chapman

  THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair

  ANIMAL RIGHTS David DeGrazia

  ANTISEMITISM Steven Beller

  THE APOCRYPHAL GOSPELS

  Paul Foster

  AQUINAS Fergus Kerr

  ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn

  ARCHITECTURE Andrew Ballantyne

  ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes

  ART HISTORY Dana Arnold

  ART THEORY Cynthia Freeland

  ATHEISM Julian Baggini

  AUGUSTINE Henry Chadwick

  AUTISM Uta Frith

  BARTHES Jonathan Culler

  BESTSELLERS John Sutherland

  THE BIBLE John Riches

  BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

  Eric H. Cline

  BIOGRAPHY Hermione Lee

  THE BOOK OF MORMON

  Terryl L. Givens

  THE BRAIN Michael O’Shea

  BRITISH POLITICS Anthony Wright

  BUDDHA Michael Carrithers

  BUDDHISM Damien Keown

  BUDDHIST ETHICS Damien Keown

  CAPITALISM James Fulcher

  CATHOLICISM Gerald O’Collins

  THE CELTS Barry Cunliffe

  CHAOS Leonard Smith

  CHOICE THEORY

  Michael Allingham

  CHRISTIAN ART Beth Williamson

  CHRISTIANITY Linda Woodhead

  CITIZENSHIP Richard Bellamy

  CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY

  Helen Morales

  CLASSICS

  Mary Beard and John Henderson

  CLAUSEWITZ Michael Howard

  THE COLD WAR Robert McMahon

  COMMUNISM Leslie Holmes

  CONSCIOUSNESS Susan Blackmore

  CONTEMPORARY ART

  Julian Stallabrass

  CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY

  Simon Critchley

  COSMOLOGY Peter Coles

  THE CRUSADES Christopher Tyerman

  CRYPTOGRAPHY

  Fred Piper and Sean Murphy

  DADA AND SURREALISM

  David Hopkins

  DARWIN Jonathan Howard

  THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

  Timothy Lim

  DEMOCRACY Bernard Crick

  DESCARTES Tom Sorell

  DESERTS Nick Middleton

  DESIGN John Heskett

  DINOSAURS David Norman

  DOCUMENTARY FILM

  Patricia Aufderheide

  DREAMING J. Allan Hobson

  DRUGS Leslie Iversen

  THE EARTH Martin Redfern

  ECONOMICS Partha Dasgupta

  EGYPTIAN MYTH Geraldine Pinch

  EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN

  Paul Langford

  THE ELEMENTS Philip Ball

  EMOTION Dylan Evans

  EMPIRE Stephen Howe

  ENGELS Terrell Carver

  ETHICS Simon Blackburn

  THE EUROPEAN UNION

  John Pinder and Simon Usherwood

  EVOLUTION

  Brian and Deborah Charlesworth

  EXISTENTIALISM Thomas Flynn

  FASCISM Kevin Passmore

  FEMINISM Margaret Walters

  THE FIRST WORLD WAR

  Michael Howard

  FOSSILS Keith Thomson

  FOUCAULT Gary Gutting

  FREE SPEECH Nigel Warburton

  FREE WILL Thomas Pink

  THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

  William Doyle

  FREUD Anthony Storr

  FUNDAMENTALISM Malise Ruthven

  GALAXIES John Gribbin

  GALILEO Stillman Drake

  GAME THEORY Ken Binmore

  GANDHI Bhikhu Parekh

  GEOGRAPHY

  John Matthews and David Herbert

  GEOPOLITICS Klaus Dodds

  GERMAN LITERATURE

  Nicholas Boyle

  GLOBAL CATASTROPHES

  Bill McGuire

  GLOBAL WARMING Mark Maslin

  GLOBALIZATION Manfred Steger

  THE GREAT DEPRESSION AND THE NEW DEAL

  Eric Rauchway

  HABERMAS James Gordon Finlayson

  HEGEL Peter Singer

  HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood

  HIEROGLYPHS Penelope Wilson

  HINDUISM Kim Knott

  HISTORY John H. Arnold

  THE HISTORY OF ASTRONOMY

  Michael Hoskin

  THE HISTORY OF LIFE

  Michael Benton

  THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE

  William Bynum

  THE HISTORY OF TIME

  Leofranc Holford-Strevens

  HIV/AIDS Alan Whiteside

  HOBBES Richard Tuck

  HUMAN EVOLUTION

  Bernard Wood

  HUMAN RIGHTS Andrew Clapham

  HUME A. J. Ayer

  IDEOLOGY Michael Freeden

  INDIAN PHILOSOPHY Sue Hamilton

  INTELLIGENCE Ian J. Deary

  INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION

  Khalid Koser

  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

  Paul Wilkinson

  ISLAM Malise Ruthven

  JOURNALISM Ian Hargreaves

  JUDAISM Norman Solomon

  JUNG Anthony Stevens

  KABBALAH Joseph Dan

  KAFKA Ritchie Robertson

  KANT Roger Scruton

  KIERKEGAARD Patrick Gardiner

  THE KORAN Michael Cook

  LAW Raymond Wacks

  LINCOLN Allen C. Guelzo

  LINGUISTICS Peter Matthews

  LITERARY THEORY Jonathan Culler

  LOCKE John Dunn

  LOGIC Graham Priest

  MACHIAVELLI Quentin Skinner

  THE MARQUIS DE SADE John Phillips

  MARX Peter Singer

  MATHEMATICS Timothy Gowers

  THE MEANING OF LIFE

  Terry Eagleton

  MEDICAL ETHICS Tony Hope

  MEDIEVAL BRITAIN

  John Gillingham and Ralph A. Griffiths

  MEMORY Jonathan Foster

  MODERN ART David Cottington

  MODERN CHINA Rana Mitter

  MODERN IRELAND Senia Paýeta

  MODERN JAPAN

  Christopher Goto-Jones

  MOLECULES Philip Ball

  MORMONISM

  Richard Lyman Bushman

  MUSIC Nicholas Cook

  MYTH Robert A. Segal

  NATIONALISM Steven Grosby

  NELSON MANDELA Elleke Boehmer

  THE NEW TESTAMENT AS LITERATURE

  Kyle Keefer

  NEWTON Robert Iliffe

  NIETZSCHE Michael Tanner

  NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN

  Christopher Harvie and H. C. G. Matthew

  THE NORMAN CONQUEST

  George Garnett

  NORTHERN IRELAND

  Marc Mulholland

  NOTHING Frank Close

  NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  Joseph M. Siracusa

  THE OLD TESTAMENT

  Michael D. Coogan

  PARTICLE PHYSICS Frank Close

  PAUL E. P. Sanders

  PHILOSOPHY Edward Craig

  PHILOSOPHY OF LAW

  Raymond Wacks

  PHILOSOPHYO
F SCIENCE

  Samir Okasha

  PHOTOGRAPHY Steve Edwards

  PLATO Julia Annas

  POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

  David Miller

  POLITICS Kenneth Minogue

  POSTCOLONIALISM Robert Young

  POSTMODERNIS

  Christopher Butler

  POSTSTRUCTURALISM

  Catherine Belsey

  PREHISTORY Chris Gosden

  PRESOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY

  Catherine Osborne

  PSYCHIATRY Tom Burns

  PSYCHOLOGY

  Gillian Butler and Freda McManus

  PURITANISM Francis J. Bremer

  THE QUAKERS Pink Dandelion

  QUANTUM THEORY

  John Polkinghorne

  RACISM Ali Rattansi

  THE REAGAN REVOLUTION GilTroy

  THE REFORMATION Peter Marshall

  RELATIVITY Russeil Stannard

  RELIGION IN AMERICA

  Timothy Beal

  THE RENAISSANCE JerryBrotton

  RENAISSANCE ART

  Geraldine A. Johnson

  ROMAN BRITAIN Peter Salway

  THE ROMAN EMPIRE

  Christopher Kelly

  ROUSSEAU Robert Wokler

  RUSSELL A. C. Grayling

  RUSSIAN LITERATURE

  Catriona Kelly

  THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

  S. A. Smith

  SCHIZOPHRENIA

  Chris Frith and Eve Johnstone

  SCHOPENHAUER

  Christopher Janaway

  SCIENCE AND RELIGION

  Thomas Dixon

  SCOTLAND Rab Houston

  SEXUALITY Véronique Mottier

  SHAKESPEARE Germaine Greer

  SIKHISM Eleanor Nesbitt

  SOCIAL AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

  John Monaghan and Peter Just

  SOCIALISM Michael Newman

  SOCIOLOGY Steve Bruce

  SOCRATES C. C. W. Taylor

  SOVIET UNION Stephen Lovell

  THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR

  Helen Graham

  SPINOZA Roger Scruton

  STATISTICS David J. Hand

  STUART BRITAIN John Morrill

  SUPERCONDUCTIVITY

  Stephen Blundell

  TERRORISM Charles Townshend

  THEOLOGY David F. Ford

  TRAGEDY Adrian Poole

  THE TUDORS John Guy

  TWENTIETH-CENTURY BRITAIN

  Kenneth O. Morgan

  THE UNITED NATIONS

  Jussi M. Hanhimäki

  THE VIKINGS Julian Richards

  WITTGENSTEIN A. C. Grayling

  WORLD MUSIC Philip Bohlman

  THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION

  Amrita Narlikar

  WRITING And SCRIPT

  Andrew Robinson

  Available soon:

  EPIDEMIOLOGY Saracci Rodolfo

  FORENSIC SCIENCE

  James Fraser

  INFORMATION

  Luciano Floridi

  ISLAMIC HISTORY

  Adam Silverstein

  NEOLIBERALISM

  Manfred Steger and Ravi K. Roy

  PRIVARY Raymond Wacks

  For more information visit our web sites

  www.oup.co.uk/general/vsi/

  www.oup.com/us

  BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY

  A Very Short Introduction

  Eric H. Cline

  Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education.

  Oxford New York

  Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto

  With offices in

  Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam

  Copyright © 2009 by Eric H. Cline

  Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.

  198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

  www.oup.com

  Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

  Cline, Eric H.

  Biblical archaeology : a very short introduction / Eric H. Cline.

  p. cm.

  Summary: “Archaeologist Cline discusses the origins of biblical archaeology as a discipline and what first prompted explorers to go in search of sites that would ‘prove’ the Bible. He surveys some of the sites, including Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer, Lachish, Masada, and Jerusalem. Separate chapters deal with the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, frauds and forgeries, and future prospects.”—Provided by publisher

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-0-19-534263-5 (pbk.)

  1. Bible—Antiquities. I. Title

  BS621.C55 2009

  220.9’3—dc22

  2009006525

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  Printed in Great Britain

  by Ashford Colour Press Ltd., Gosport, Hants.

  on acid-free paper

  To my family and my fellow archaeologists

  Acknowledgments

  This book owes its existence solely to the efforts and editing of Nancy Toff, to whom I owe a huge debt. I also owe a large debt of gratitude to my students at George Washington University, upon whom I tried out much of this material in my classes over the course of the past eight years, usually without warning them in advance. Grateful thanks are due to Felicity Cobbing, Israel Finkelstein, David Ussishkin, and Shelley Wachsmann for their assistance in procuring or providing some of the illustrations; to Leah Burrows for her bibliographical research assistance; and to Martin J. Cline, Felicity Cobbing, David Farber, Norma Franklin, Jim West, Assaf Yasur-Landau, and several anonymous readers for their helpful critiques, insights, and editorial suggestions regarding earlier sections or entire drafts of this book.

  Contents

  List of illustrations

  Introduction

  Part I The evolution of the discipline

  1 The nineteenth century: the earliest explorers

  2 Before the Great War: from theology to stratigraphy

  3 The interwar period: square holes in round tells

  4 After 1948: biblical veracity and nationalism

  5 Beyond the Six-Day War: new surveys and strategies

  6 The 1990s and beyond: from nihilism to the present

  Part II Archaeology and the Bible

  7 From Noah and the Flood to Joshua and the Israelites

  8 From David and Solomon to Nebuchadnezzar and the Neo-Babylonians

  9 From the Silver Amulet Scrolls to the Dead Sea Scrolls

  10 From Herod the Great to Jesus of Nazareth

  11 From the Galilee Boat to the Megiddo Prison Mosaic

  12 Fabulous finds or fantastic forgeries?

  Epilogue

  References

  Further reading

  Index

  List of Illustrations

  1 Map of Israel and Judah from 930 to 720 BCE

  2 Captain Charles Warren and Yakub es Shellaby

  Palestine Exploration Fund, London; photo by H.H. Phillips

  3 Stratigraphic levels at Tel Kabri in Israel

  Eric H. Cline

  4 Reproduction of the Gezer Calendar

  Eric H. Cline

  5 Overhead of Areas Kand Qat Megiddo, end of the 2008 season

  Sky View Photography Ltd

  6 Yigael Yadin and others at Megiddo in January 1960

  David Ussishkin

  7 Israel Finkelstein at the Megiddo excavations in northern Israel

  Eric H. Cline

  8 The Stepped Stone Structure in Jerusalem

  Eric H. Clin
e

  9 The Dead Sea Scrolls caves

  Eric H. Cline

  10 The Galilee Boat on display in the Yigal Allon Museum

  Shelley Wachsmann

  Introduction

  The field of biblical archaeology is flourishing today, with popular interest at an all-time high. Millions of viewers watch television documentaries on the Exodus, the Ark of the Covenant, and the so-called Lost Tomb of Jesus. Major publishing houses have published competing Bible atlases, and the popularizing magazine Biblical Archaeology Review reaches a large audience. And every year at Easter, Charlton Heston appears on television as Moses in Cecil B. DeMille’s classic movie The Ten Commandments, raising his arms high to part the waters of the Red Sea so that the Hebrews may cross to safety.

  Biblical archaeology is a subset of the larger field of Syro-Palestinian archaeology—which is conducted throughout the region encompassed by modern Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria. Specifically, it is archaeology that sheds light on the stories, descriptions, and discussions in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament from the early second millennium BCE, the time of Abraham and the Patriarchs, through the Roman period in the early first millennium CE.

  Despite the fact that biblical archaeologists began their excavations in the Holy Land more than a hundred years ago—with a Bible in one hand and a trowel in the other—major questions still remain unanswered, including whether there was really an exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt and the extent of David and Solomon’s empires. Other unresolved issues involve the specific details of daily life during the period of the Divided Kingdoms, after the time of Solomon, and the difference between Canaanite and Israelite material culture during the Early Iron Age.

  1. Israel and Judah from 930 to 720 BCE.

  Most biblical archaeologists do not deliberately set out to either prove or disprove elements of the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament through archaeology. Instead, they investigate the material culture of the lands and time periods mentioned in the Bible, and the people, places, and events discussed in those ancient texts, in order to bring them to life and to reconstruct the culture and history of the region. This is particularly evident in New Testament archaeology, where the excavation of cities like Caesarea, Capernaum, and Sepphoris has shed light on the social, religious, and geographic situation in the time before, during, and after the life of Jesus.

  However, biblical archaeology has generally provided more relevant information that can be correlated with the narratives of the Hebrew Bible than with those of the New Testament. There are several reasons for this disparity. The events depicted in the Hebrew Bible occurred over a much longer time period than those depicted in the New Testament—over millennia rather than over approximately two hundred years. Moreover, the stories and events described in the Hebrew Bible occurred throughout a much larger geographic area than those of the New Testament. The entire Middle East and North Africa provide the backdrop for the stories of the Hebrews, whereas the drama of the early Christians played out mainly in Syro-Palestine and to a lesser extent in ancient Greece and Italy.