RBL 10/2014 Israel Finkelstein The Forgotten Kingdom: The Archaeology and History of Northern Israel Ancient Near Eastern Monographs 5 Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013. Pp. xii + 197. Paper. $24.95. ISBN 9781589839106. Daniel Pioske Union Theological Seminary New York, New York Israel Finkelstein s bold new work on the northern kingdom of Israel seeks to recover the history of a region that has long lingered, he contends, in the shadow of Judah (1). Originating in a series of lectures delivered at the Collège de France in February 2012 and first published in French as Le Royaume biblique oubliè (Paris: Collège de France, 2013), this volume is composed of seven chapters that cover a period stretching from the Late Bronze II III period until the end of the Iron IIB era (ca. 1350 BCE 720 BCE). The introduction to Finkelstein s work advances a number of pivotal arguments for the historical reconstructions in what follows. First, stories about the northern kingdom now located in the Hebrew Bible descend from the oral tales and texts of refugees who fled south to Judah in the late eighth century BCE in order to escape Assyrian aggression (3). Because these northern traditions were woven into a literary work written initially by late Iron Age Jerusalemite scribes, stories recounted about Israel in the Hebrew Bible carry a distinct Judahite, pro-davidic ideology that often undermines the original claims of these northern accounts (2 4). To offset such distortions the historian must turn to the archaeological record. Through the data gathered by way of excavations and surveys, the historian is able to reconstruct an archaeology-based, Judahite ideology free history of Israel that circumvents the interpretive difficulties posed by the biblical text (5). When
combined with ancient Near Eastern texts and genuine, nonpropagandistic biblical references, this approach enables the historian to reach a more balanced reconstruction of the history of ancient Israel in general and the two Hebrew kingdoms in particular (5). The focus of chapter 1 is the Shechem polity of the Late Bronze Age and the Canaanite city-states of the late Iron I period. The intent of this chapter is to offer the reader an understanding of the settlement patterns and territorial processes that would set the stage for the rise of the northern kingdom in the Iron IIA era. Here the reverberations of Finkelstein s Low Chronology begin to be felt. In dating the end of the Iron I period to the last decades of the tenth century BCE, Finkelstein maintains that a number of northern sites Megiddo, Tel Kinneret, Tel Rehov recovered from Late Bronze Age devastations and arose during this time to become a new political system of Canaanite city-states that he terms New Canaan (28 32). This system was brought to an end only gradually in the tenth century BCE, most likely by raids carried out by highland populations (34 35). Chapter 2 centers on the house of Saul and what is considered to be the first appearance of a north Israelite territorial entity. Significant about the plateau stretching from Gibeon to Bethel in the Benjamin Hills, Finkelstein contends, is both the unexpected presence of numerous late Iron I/early Iron IIA casemate fortifications in this region and the suddenness with which they were abandoned. Finkelstein associates the materialization of these fortifications with vague biblical memories of the Saulides (47 49); their abandonment is the outcome of the campaign of Pharoah Sheshonq I (41 44). Having expanded into the Jezreel Valley and threatened Egyptian interests in doing so, the Gibeon/Gibeah polity of the house of Saul, Finkelstein maintains, was targeted for destruction by Egypt. The battle of Mount Gilboa (1 Sam 30 31) reflects this campaign, only Saul is not a casualty of the Philistines, as the biblical story is told, but of Sheshonq I (54). The biblical reference to tribute sent to Sheshonq I by the later Rehoboam of Judah (1 Kgs 14:24 25) is fraudulent, and biblical chronology of the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon are confused and suspect. The house of Saul (Saul and Eshbaal) and Sheshonq I are actually contemporaries (51); Jeroboam I is likely installed at Tirzah under Sheshonq s orders (61). Chapters 3 and 4 describe the days of the Tirzah polity and the Omride dynasty, or a period spanning from circa 931 BCE to circa 842 BCE. For its part, the capital at Tirzah (Tell el-far ah [North]) is notable for its absence of monumental architecture and fortifications. This small center was likely the domain of a typical strongman leader of the time who ruled over a highland region that spanned from the Benjmain Hills north to the Jezreel Valley, as well as a modest section of the Transjordan (78). The first appearance of a regional power in Israel emerged with the Omrides. Archaeologically, this regime is
visible through distinct monumental building activities (for summary see 103 4) not only in Samaria and Jezreel but throughout the region: Hazor X, Gezer VIII, En Gev, and the fortress at Har Adir, Finkelstein contends, are fashioned by this ruling house, as are the Transjordan sites of Khirbet el-mudeyine eth-themed (Jahaz), Khirbet Atarus (Ataroth), and Tell er-rumeith. The Omrides built a kingdom that stretched from the Mediterranean coast to a wide swath of the Transjordan, and they perhaps made incursions into Aramean territory farther to the north. The only power capable of halting their momentum was Hazael of Damascus. Chapter 5 details the final century of the northern kingdom s existence after the new order imposed by Hazael s activities. Weakened by the campaigns of Adad-nirari III of Assyria, Damascus lost its grip on the southern Levant at the beginning of the eighth century BCE, and Israel entered into a period of unparalleled prosperity and territorial gains. During the forty-one-year reign of Jeroboam II (788 747 BCE) Israel reached its largest size, reorganized its cult, benefited from lucrative trade networks, and developed advanced administrative bureaucracies that required advances in scribal activity. The northern kingdom nevertheless began to decline during the last years of Jeroboam II s reign and came to a catastrophic end at the hands of the Assyrians in 722 720 BCE. Chapters 6 and 7 and the conclusion to Finkelstein s volume offer short reflections on the broader implications of his historical reconstructions, particularly as they pertain to traditions in the Hebrew Bible. Chapter 6 reviews two charter myths of the northern kingdom: the Jacob cycle (Gen 25 36) and the exodus traditions. Although the Jacob cycle was first written down in the eighth century BCE, Finkelstein argues, its origin should be located in the late Iron I period (tenth century BCE), when identities in the core territory of the northern kingdom were shaped (144). The exodus traditions also reflect tenth-century BCE memories, but those connected to the experience of Shoshenq I s invasion into the southern Levant (145 47). Chapter 7 then considers why a Judahite literary work would include stories taken over from northern refugees, particularly when certain stories elevated Israel at Judah s expense. Finkelstein concludes that the presence of these texts attests to the need of southern Judahite writers to cater to the large northern population that now resided in Judah s territory after the destruction of the northern kingdom (157). To those acquainted with Finkelstein s publications, many of the ideas put forward in this volume will be familiar. The most significant contribution of this work resides therefore in its grand synthesis of various arguments championed by Finkelstein in the past three decades. When brought together in one volume, the encyclopedic knowledge Finkelstein possesses of the archaeological record of northern Israel is on full display. In reading through Finkelstein s discussions of the material culture of the region one has the sense of
watching a master craftsman at work, tracing and retracing ideas that have been developed over a lifetime (see the personal perspective of 10 11). The results of this effort are daring proposals surrounding the history of the northern kingdom. Finkelstein s historical reconstructions are provocative, combative, uncompromising. Finkelstein finds no evidence for scribal activity before the eighth century BCE in either Israel or Judah, so references to a time previous to this era in the biblical narrative must be predicated on nebulous oral traditions or memories that found their way to Jerusalem only after many centuries (3, 35, 47, 144). Saul s demise comes at the hands of Sheshonq I and not the Philistines, who are incapable of assembling a force strong enough to reach Beth-Shean in the late Iron I era (60 61). The newly discovered fortification at Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Elah Valley was erected by Saulides and destroyed by Sheshonq I (56 59). The united monarchy is a literary construct (9), and the house of David exerts little, if any, influence in the region until the late eighth century BCE. If petty Jerusalem chiefs did take control of former Saulide territory to Jerusalem s immediate north in an earlier era, they did so only as vassals under a short-lived Egyptian domination (60 n. 7). Tenth-century BCE Jerusalem is a small, poor highlands settlement (43) of little consequence, and building activities once associated with Solomon in the region are actually those of the Omrides (9). The problem with biblical references that suggest otherwise is that the tales of the northern kingdom now found in the Hebrew Bible are poorly told and ideologically twisted (159). The tone is assured, even defiant, but questions remain. Epigraphic evidence from the Iron I IIA periods in the southern Levant is certainly modest, but linear alphabetic inscriptions from the region do attest to scribal activity being present throughout these centuries in the southern Levant. 1 The fact that the epigraphic data recovered from this period are located only on durable surfaces (arrowheads, potsherds, rocks) should give the historian pause when making broad historical judgments about the character and quantity of writing during this time, particularly when many texts were likely composed on a material that disintegrated and disappeared from the archaeological record (papyrus). 2 Rather astonishing about Finkelstein s work, then, is that such sweeping 1. Christopher Rollston, Scribal Education in Ancient Israel: The Old Hebrew Epigraphic Evidence, BASOR 344 (2006): 47 74; idem, Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010); Ryan Byrne, The Refuge of Scribalism in Iron I Palestine, BASOR 345 (2007): 1 31; Seth Sanders, The Invention of Hebrew (Champagne: University of Illinois Press, 2009). 2. The first appearance of West Semitic royal inscriptions in the late ninth century BCE does not demonstrate the absence of scribal activity in the region previous to this time, as Finkelstein maintains (115), but only indicates that there was an impulse in the region during this era to imitate existing Assyrian imperial forms of discourse. Finkelstein s argument is also rather confusing in light of his own
historical claims about the sources and composition of the Hebrew Bible are made about a scribal process that remains at least partially hidden to us. Other doubts persist. Biblical chronology for the tenth century BCE is certainly equivocal, but it is also difficult to discern Finkelstein s own reckoning of this time frame. The Early Iron IIA begins in the last decades of the tenth century BCE (8) and then in the beginning of the second half of the tenth century BCE because of allowances made for Finkelstein s dating of the campaign of Sheshonq I (63 64). When one turns to other publications, the picture appears even more complex, with the Iron I era in the western Jezreel Valley ending, for example, sometime in the first half of tenth century BCE. 3 Finkelstein s views on tenth-century Jerusalem will find some supporters, but it also finds an impressive number of knowledgeable opponents as well. 4 At the very least, the different understandings of the archaeology of Iron I/IIA Jerusalem suggest that an interpretation of its material culture is not as self-evident as Finkelstein s rhetoric suggests. For this reason, some engagement with the textual claims about Jerusalem s stature in the tenth century BCE is warranted. The Amarna letters of the Late Bronze Age, for example, have shown us that in the case of Jerusalem the relationship between archaeological evidence and the authority the location once exerted is not always commensurate. 5 Nuance and subtlety are, however, not hallmarks of this volume. Archaeology is objective and balanced, and (biblical) texts are ideological (3 4). The result of this interpretive stance is a history that is rather colorless and heavy-handed, reduced to the scale of powerful individuals who sweep through the region. Sheshonq I, Hazael, and Tiglathacknowledgment of a possible bureaucratic apparatus being present at Tirzah in the early Iron IIA period due to the amount of seal impressions recovered from this site (73). 3. Israel Finkelstein and Eli Piasetzky, The Iron I/IIA Transition in the Levant: A Reply to Mazar and Bronk Ramsey and a New Perspective, Radiocarbon 52:4 (2010): 1678 79. 4. E.g., Nadav Na aman, The Contribution of the Amarna Letters to the Debate on Jerusalem s Political Position in the Tenth Century B.C.E., BASOR 304 (1996): 17 28; Jane Cahill, Jerusalem at the Time of the Monarchy: The Archaeological Evidence, in Jerusalem in Bible and Archaeology, ed. A. Vaughn and A. Killebrew (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 13 80; Amihai Mazar, Jerusalem in the 10th Century B.C.E.: The Glass Half Full, in Essays on Ancient Israel in Its Near Eastern Context: A Tribute to Nadav Na'aman, ed. Y. Amit et al. (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2006), 255 72; idem, Archaeology and the Biblical Narrative: The Case of the United Monarchy, in One God One Cult One Nation, ed. R. Kratz and H. Spieckermann, BZAW 405 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 29 58; Avraham Faust, The Large Stone Structure in Jerusalem: A Reexamination. ZDPV 126 (2010): 116 30; Alon De Groot and Hannah Bernick-Greenberg, Excavations at the City of David 1978 1985 Directed by Yigal Shiloh. Vol. VIIA. Area E: Stratigraphy and Architecture, Qedem 53 (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 2012), 149 54. 5. Israel Finkelstein, The Rise of Jerusalem and Judah: The Missing Link, Levant 35 (2001): 106 7.
pileser III are the true heroes of this story, and nearly every biblical text about the time before Israel s downfall is influenced by them in some way. The strong emphases throughout this volume on the rise of the nation-state and the influence of worldhistorical figures situate Finkelstein s work well within the methodological bounds of much earlier histories of ancient Israel. The story told is often quite similar to those rehearsed before; only the characters are different. All of this makes the reader wish for some discussion of Finkelstein s hermeneutical commitments, of how he navigates the difficulties inherent to representing an ancient past and how he confronts the interpretive complexities that arise between archaeological data and the referential claims of texts from antiquity. Dismissing biblical stories of the northern kingdom as ideologically twisted and then adhering closely to them in situating Saul s death at Gilboa (54) or Jeroboam s capital at Tirzah (72 76) arouses more suspicion than confidence in Finkelstein s interpretive approach. The lack of discussion surrounding key terms compounds these misgivings. There are historical memories (1), vague memories (5), genuine memories (35), strong memories (53), and other types as well, but what memory means for the historian and how one distinguishes between its different permutations is never stated, nor is their epistemological status and historical significance ever clarified for the reader. In a work whose title bears the concept of forgetting, the historical motivations and implications of this phenomenon is never examined. These points are not to take away from the rich insights into the material culture of northern Israel that abides within Finkelstein s work. Numerous maps, images, and charts found throughout this volume give soul to the world Finkelstein brings to life. There is much to be learned from Finkelstein the archaeologist in this book. With Finkelstein the historian, however, the reader must tread carefully.