Jewish History 17: 7796, 2003. c 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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Review Essay

The invention of ancient Palestinians: Silencing of the history of ancient Israel

TERRY FENTON & BUSTENAY ODED
University of Haifa, Israel

As stated in its Introduction, the purpose of this book is: rst, to explain how it is that the Bible has been misunderstood as history (p. 5); second, to read the Bible in a new way in order to present a clear and accurate idea of the kind of historical knowledge we have about ancient Palestine (p. 6); and, third, to understand the historical contexts in which the text was written and in which the tradition was formed . . . and to seek a context more appropriate (p. 6). The questions Thompson proposes to answer are: how should we replace na ve readings of the Bible as history in order to recover the voice of our texts (p. 21)? What is the reality to which the text implicitly refers: to what extent do the biblical stories deal with a historical past? Since one needs evidence (p. 144), do the biblical texts give us evidence that we can use in our own reconstruction of the past (p. 200)? These questions should create a leitmotif of our discussion (p. 21). The method of the book is to portray a new history of Palestines people and their distant beginnings on the basis of archaeological and linguistic research undertaken over the past fty years (p. 103). Thompson is convinced that we need an alternative perspective for writing history and that coherence has to be achieved on the basis of reliable sources and interpretation (p. 144). Thompsons hypotheses are encapsulated in the following passage on p. 190: In writing about the historical developments of Palestine between 1250 and 586, all of the traditional answers given for the origins and development of Israel have had to be discarded . . . No ethnically
A critical review of Thomas L. Thompson, The Mythic Past. Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (Basic Books, London, 1999). The title of this review echoes that of K. W. Whitelams book, The Invention of Ancient Israel: Silencing of the Palestinian History (London/New York: Routledge, 1996).

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coherent Israelite nation ever existed at all. No political, ethnic or historical bond existed between the state that was called Israel or the house of Omri and the town of Jerusalem and the state of Judah. In history, neither Jerusalem nor Judah ever shared an identity with Israel before the rule of the Hasmoneans in the Hellenistic period. In short, the only historical Israel to speak of is the people of the small highland state, which, having lost its political autonomy in the last quarter of the eighth century, has been consistently ignored by historians and Bible scholars alike . . . They are referred to in the stories of Ezra 4 as enemies of Benjamin and Judah . . . given a sectarian identity as Samaritans by historians . . . It is not the Israel that we nd in our biblical narratives. It is historical Israel. The conclusion drawn from Thompsons investigation is that today we no longer have a history of Israel . . . Our history of biblical tradition has come topsy-turvy (p. xv). All books on the History of Ancient Israel composed by traditional scholars and old-fashioned archaeologists should be discarded. On reading these revolutionary ideas, presented in an assertive manner, often without serious argumentation (or, indeed, references to what might be regarded as such in previous works of this ilk) one cannot but wonder what sort of book this is. Do we have here a serious historical reconstruction or an invented past more fantastic than the mythical one it is intended to replace? Is the new history of Palestines peoples and their distant beginnings (p. 103), which is radically dierent from the Bibles plot and purpose (p. 179), true scholarship or some strangely motivated other genre of writing? The fragmentary nature of the sources relating to ancient Israel makes it possible to suggest various theories concerning principal historical issues, such as origins, settlement in Canaan, the united monarchy, exile and return. The archaeological material is susceptible of dierent and even diametrically opposed interpretations. This has long been the concern of serious Biblical scholarship. Recently, some scholars have taken an ultra-sceptical stance with regard to the Old Testament sources and thereby earned the label minimalists.1 According to them Israel is a product of post-exilic imagination, a ction invented with the aim of providing the Persian province of Yehud with an identity. Archaeology undermines rather than supports the biblical traditions. What distinguishes this oering is the intolerable accumulation of aws that pervades the entire work. Ill-founded arguments, discrepancies, improper reinterpretations of evidence and idiosyncratic treatment of texts, are commonplace. Thompson indulges in eisegesis rather

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than exegesis. He discredits evidence that does not conform with (or clearly refutes) his misconceptions, because the ancient texts fail to give us the evidence we need according to our way of understanding the past (pp. 1011). His treatment of extra-biblical contemporary documents oers no thorough discussion or serious analysis but arbitrarily asserts that historical inscriptions, of a genre familiar throughout the ancient Near East, are story-telling, literary metaphor, and so forth. This, because, of course, they mention contemporary personages familiar from the Bible and thus conrm their historicity and to some degree that of the Biblical narrative (to what degree is the stu of serious scholarship). Does such a work merit critical review? For the sake of students and interested laymen, at least, responses are called for. Now the problem with all multi-assertive, improperly argued books is that fully detailed refutation requires, ideally, a volume of equal or even greater length which Heaven forfend. Instead, we attempt to illustrate the aws referred to and to evaluate the tenability of the authors views by rst, pointing out major faults which vitiate his entire approach, second, devoting a specic discussion to the events of 701 BCE, discussed on pp. 185187, with remarks on partially associated issues, and, third, addressing selected specimens from various parts of the book which may be regarded as typical. A few comments of a general nature will then be added. The rst serious fault is the lack of references despite Thompsons own statement We can only write what we have evidence for (pp. 103 104). But the evidence must be shown. Or does the author assume that the reader cannot fail to realize that he, the author, is in full command of that evidence, of which his interpretation is infallible, and therefore his conclusions may be accepted with complete condence without, in this case, the normal need to produce the data. Thus, the only historical group known to refer to themselves as Canaanites were Jewish merchants of North Africa in the fourth century CE (p. 81). No reference is given to substantiate this assertion in a discussion of importance concerning the term Canaanite/Canaan (but cf. KAI 116: 3 and the commentary, including Augustines very clear statement that the country folk of his homeland regarded themselves as Canaanites not to mention quite a few second millennium texts which distinguish between Canaanites, Egyptians, Ugaritians and so forth). Frequent use is made of phrases such as it is clear, we have much reason to believe/assume (thrice), there is enough evidence, archaeological surveys . . . and estimates . . . suggest . . . , can often be suggested

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this group all on one page (p. 214). The absence of all reference constitutes an eloquent silence. Serious scholarship determines that the Hebrew Scriptures contain a multi-layered literature, a conglomerate of literary genres, and of theological-ideological views. Dierent authors, in various places and at dierent times, composed the biblical corpus including the Pentateuch. One cannot, therefore, neglect linguistic and philological analysis for dating the texts and consequently for a soundly based approach to the history of ancient Israel.2 Thompson, however, following a forever recurring, but never successful tendency, discards the J E D P sources, which reect diachronic development of biblical language and ideas before the exile and after. He oers us a literary study without linguistic, or for that matter, text-critical exegesis, which allows him to locate all the material discussed in a period which is too late and too short (this applies also to the prophetic literature and other parts of the biblical corpus). There is scant discussion of issues such as how the Jews of the Hellenistic period could have written the Song of Deborah, the stories about Saul and the account of Zedekiahs reign, to say nothing of that of the campaign of Shishak. It might seem that Thompson is either oblivious of diachronic variation in Hebrew or impatient with studies that place the description of that variation on a rm basis. With his usual unsubstantiated generalizations the author dismisses much previous research in the elds of philology, biblical archaeology, Assyriology, and ancient Near Eastern civilizations the very foundations on which he claims to rear his new edice. This is especially conspicuous in cases of similarities between biblical texts and extra-biblical records, archaeological data relating to historical episodes, typological phenomena, terms, names, cultic and legal practices and procedures that lend support to Biblical accounts of pre-exilic events.3 Thompson admits that ancient inscriptions have often been found, which refer to one or other character or narrative which we otherwise know only from the Bible, but adds: Yet, even here, a conrmation of the biblical narrative, which would allow us to read it as if it were history, is still elusive (p. 10). His tendency to downplay contemporary evidence is unsatisfactory. This blanket evaluation is based on dubious readings of specic texts, probably not in their original script and language. Thus, If the Merneptah stele expresses any real history (p. 79) then Israel is just a name the spouse (sic ) of Canaan. Israel can be anything but historical Israel.4 Again, with respect to the Moabite Stone, Thompson maintains that Omri is not an historical person It is clear that the reference to Omri in the Mesha stele is

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literary, not historical, it is a well-known pattern of story-telling built on eponymous ancestors (p. 13). Now this is perverse. On any common sense reading, this is a typically boastful ancient near eastern royal display inscription concerned with historical events. Or are all the Egyptian, Assyrian, Hittite royal inscriptions literary story-telling? Supposing there do exist patterns of story-telling built on eponymous ancestors, do they appear on display inscriptions? On this inscription? Are there no records of conquest or re-conquest which are not built on eponymous ancestor story-telling patterns? Why must the historical references be ctive? Because Mesha believes in Chemosh? Accepts priestly or prophetic oracles? Exaggerates? This inscription refers to specic historical events: it lists the victories of Mesha over specic foes, his building activities and other benefactions on behalf of his people. This is his claim to honour and glory. It is a typical conquest and building inscription. This is its raison d etre. The statement that there can be little hope of establishing possible links between the Bible and early archaeological materials is simply wrong.5 Thompson confuses biblical description of the past with the biblical view of the past, the historical events with the theological interpretation (cf. pp. 34, 44).6 Narratives containing miracles and divine intervention are not necessarily devoid of historical information (cf. II Kings 19: 35 37). True, the biblical descriptions cannot be accepted as an accurate representation of the historical past. Nevertheless, the simple fact is that it is impossible to write the history of ancient Palestine/Israel (esp. during the Iron Age) without critical use of the Old Testament as a source of information. Thompson does not present clear criteria for determining which of the Bibles many stories of origin are to be read as if they were narratives about events of the past, and which are to be discarded as mere story (p. 35). If the criteria are extra-biblical references and archaeological ndings then Thompson is selective and biased in judging what is true evidence and what is forgery, metaphor, propaganda, etc. His categorical assertion that Jerusalem is not known to have been occupied during the 10th century and that Jerusalems dominance over Judea is unlikely to have developed at any period earlier than the seventh century and perhaps not before the middle of that century . . . Only after Lachish had been destroyed by the Assyrians in 701 does Jerusalem develop the political or economic structure and capacity of a city (p. 164) is just one example. Our second illustration relates to the campaign of Sennacherib against Hezekiah king of Judah and similar issues.7 Thompsons treatment of the events of 701 BCE is a parade example of false historical

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reconstruction resulting from a lack of careful scrutiny of the relevant sources.

Jerusalem and Lachish Historically, the Assyrians campaign does not seem to be directed against Jerusalem (p. 186). Thompson argues that at least till 701 the land of Judah was fragmented into several autonomous small regional Palestinian city-states/patronates. Lachish was the strongest and most important Palestinian city-state owing to its production of, and trade in, olive oil. The Assyrians supported Jerusalem against Lachish in order to reorganize the olive production through Jerusalem. Hezekiah, king of Jerusalem, played a major role in this reorganization (p. 187). The fall of Lachish created the opportunity for Hezekiah to spread his hegemony over territories in the land of Judah. Thus, with support from Assyria, Jerusalem had nally become the regional capital of Judah and was allowed to expand and become the regional center of trade(see also p. 164). What evidence does Thompson have to substantiate his claim that Lachish is the town most likely to have established a system of fortied police posts in the highlands and the Northern Negev (p. 167)? Why do we read in Assyrian texts about the king of Jerusalem/Judah and not about a king of Lachish? Thompsons interpretation of the entire event that took place in 701 stands in complete contradiction to whatever evidence we have. Sennacherib in his annals explicitly designates Hezekiah the Judaean (Ha-za-qi-a- u Ia- u-da-ai ), and not the Jerusalemite. Tiglath-pileser III had already designated Ahaz as the Judean. On one of Sennacheribs bull inscriptions we read, I defeated the extensive region of Judah, its obstinate strong king, Hezekiah I brought to submission.8 Sennacherib tells us that Hezekiah did not submit to my yoke, 46 of his strong walled cities, as well as the small cities in their neighborhoods . . . . I besieged and took . . . himself, like a caged bird, I shut up in Jerusalem his royal city . . . . Jerusalem, the capital of 46 cities (cf. Jos. 15: 2163) ruled by Hezekiah, is mentioned in Sennacheribs annals, while Lachish is not there referred to at all. If the kingdom of Hezekiah was limited to Jerusalem and its vicinity how may one understand the statement of Sennacherib: Cities of his, which I had despoiled, to Mitinti, king of Ashdod, Padi king of Ekron, and Silli-bel king of Gaza, I gave. And (thus) I diminished his land (Ann. III, 3134). Why did the inhabitants of the city of Ekron take Padi, king of Ekron, as a prisoner to Jerusalem, and not to Lachish or

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Ashkelon? The reader can nd a satisfactory answer in II Kings 18: 8 and not in Thompsons mythology. According to archaeological ndings many fortied places in Judah were destroyed by Sennacherib in this campaign, including Lachish. Scholars agree that the Assyrian relief from Nineveh depicting the conquest of Lakisu refers to the fortied town of Lachish (II Chronicles 11: 9). Lachish, not Jerusalem. This is not because Lachish was the strongest autonomous city-state in the region, but because the Assyrian king did not take Jerusalem (for one reason or another) or dethrone its king. Lachish was apparently the city second in importance to Jerusalem. According to archaeological ndings many fortied places in Judah were destroyed by Sennacherib in this campaign, including Lachish. There are many examples of reliefs depicting the siege and conquest of cities which were not capitals (e.g., Ashtaroth and Gezer). Who were the kings of Lachish and of the other Palestinian city-states in the land of Judah during Iron Age I-II? Is it by chance that states and kings mentioned in the Bible are to be found also in extra-biblical records (e.g., Israel/Samaria, Judah, the city-states of Philistia, Tyre, Damascus; Omri, Ahab, Ahaz, Pekah, Hazael, Rezin, etc.), but not city-states and their kings which allegedly existed in addition to Jerusalem and Samaria (in the Galilee, the Valley of Jezreel, the hill-country of Judah, the Negev, etc.)? Thompsons assertion that Lachish was never rebuilt (p. 187) is incredible (the Lachish ostraca and excavation reports).9 That the primary task of the campaign was to stabilize the region by reorganizing its olive industry (p. 187) would require detailed information which we do not, perhaps never can, possess. If olive oil from Palestine was so important for the Assyrian empire, why does it not appear in the lists of taxes and booty from Israel, Judah, and the cities of Philistia? Olive oil was an important export from Judah and the Land of Israel (Ezek. 27: 17; Deut. 8: 8; I Kings 5: 25; the Samaria Ostraca) and Ekron. Hosea mentions consignments of oil to Egypt, not to Assyria (12: 2). There is no written or archaeological evidence that Lachish was a center of olive oil production and export as early as the LB period (p. 163).

Canaan, Israel, Judah and Palestine It is, further, entirely misleading to write a new history of Palestine during Iron Age I-II by articially transposing to that period the citystate system of the Late Bronze Age (as reected in the El-Amarna archive and Jos. 12). Signicant changes occurred during the transition from Bronze to Iron (12th11th centuries) as Thompson admits

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(pp. 154156).10 There is no more mention of Canaan (except as an archaism), of many of the old city-states, of Egyptian rule.11 Archaeology reveals that LB cities such as Dan, Hazor, Aphek, and Lachish suered major damage during the 13th century. Hundreds of new villages and hamlets appeared in the hill-country founded by non-urban settlers, there were movements of peoples from east to west in the central hill-country of Canaan, and there were changes in material culture (e.g., the almost complete absence of pig bones in Iron Age I). Nevertheless, archaeology cannot determine the ethnic origin of those who inhabited the new and rebuilt settlements in the hill-country. Thompson claims, the highlanders seem clearly to have come from people displaced from the lowlands. It is unlikely that large numbers of nomadic pastoralists would have entered this region (p. 160) on what basis? There is no real evidence that all or most of the settlers of the many small sites were Canaanites from the cities and not a mixed population, a signicant proportion of them (pastoralists and nomads) from the east who settled in the course of the 13th11th centuries.12 The path of cohesion and consolidation towards territorial-national entities (Aramaean states, Israel and Judah, the Trans-Jordanian kingdoms) during the period of the transition and afterwards is uncharted (so long as we discard the biblical traditions). The increase of settlements in the highlands is relevant to the emergence of early Israel in Canaan as told in the Bible. Only scholars who dismiss the conquest (in one way or the other) of Canaan by the Israelite tribes, who deny the period of the Judges, who consider the united monarchy and its dissolution a myth, and who discard any ethnicnational-religious connections between Israel and Judah are obliged to transfer the political, demographic, and ethnic picture of 14th 13th century Canaan to 12th10th century Palestine. The critical questions are these: if historical Israel and Judah were Canaanite in origin, why did they develop traditions denying it? Why and how did they adopt the name Israel? Why did they develop traditions denying their true origins? Whence the conviction that they were outsiders?13 If the Exodus is a ction made up in the Hellenistic period, what is its purpose? Slavery in Egypt and the Exodus are not explained in the Bible in terms of divine punishment and repentance (Thompsons general explanation for the Hellenistic creation of the bulk of Genesis 2 Kings). Unfortunately, no extra-biblical written information is known that can shed light on the course of events in the 12th10th centuries. Archaeology cannot explain the demise of the Canaanite cities and the

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increase of the small settlements in the highlands. But what we do have (from the 9th century on) is a picture that diers completely from the situation of the Late Bronze Age. There is no evidence for the existence of the kingdoms of Hazor, Megiddo, Beth-Shan, Shechem, Ashtaroth, Acco, Dor, Gezer, Hebron, Lachish, Maresha, Beer-sheba, Arad, Heshbon, and Dibon. We hear about ethnic/national kingdoms in Israel and Judah, of the Philistine city-states, kingdoms in Transjordania.14 The lack of written evidence from the 12th11th centuries exacerbates the diculty of bridging the gap between the Israel of Merneptah and that of Shalmaneser III and Mesha. Nevertheless, we have evidence, biblical and extra-biblical, in the light of which we can connect, politically and ethnically, the Galilee and the Valley of Jezreel, the coast from Acco to Mesad Hashaviahu, the Negev and Elath with either the northern kingdom of Israel or the kingdom of Judah (e.g., the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III, the Tel Dan Aramaic inscription). Why limit the territories of the kingdom of Israel to the central hill-country of Samaria when it is clear that kings of Israel controlled territories northward (Tiglath-pileser III, Tell Dan inscription) and eastward (the Moabite Stone). The (Israelite) tribe of Gad dwelt there from of old (Moabite Stone). Moreover, if there is insucient (epigraphic) evidence from the 12th10th centuries, especially from the 10th century (pp. 9, 200), and we do not know how the inhabitants of Palestine understood themselves and what kind of ethnic label they use to describe themselves,15 (the archaeological data are not unequivocal) how can one be sure that they were not Israelites, that there was no connection between the ethnic group (not toponym!) called Israel in the Merneptah stele and the Israel of Shalmaneser III and Mesha? Does the mere fact that the Bible states that Hazor was destroyed by the Israelite tribes determine that the 13th century destruction of Hazor was the work of some other other group?16 And why use, systematically and deliberately, the anachronistic designations (for the Late Bronze and Iron Age I-II) Palestine and Palestinian (the Palestinian states of Israel and Judah) instead of Canaan, Canaanite or (proto-) Israelite people(s), Israel and Judah in accord with the epigraphic material of that time? The toponym Palestine simply did not exist at this early period as an equivalent to the Land of Canaan or the territories that included Judah, Israel, Ammon, Moab and Edom. It is rst attested, roughly in the latter sense, in Herodotus. The reviewers are not aware of one case in which Sargon II is designated, in the scholarly publications, as the king of Kurdistan, Sharduri as the Armenian king, Sheba as the queen of Yemen or Saudi-Arabia, or Yaudi as the Turkish

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state of Samal. Yahweh, the god of Palestine (passim ) sound as ridiculous as Marduk, the god of Iraq, Teshub, the god of Turkey, Chemosh, the god of Jordan. The use of the toponym Palestine for the Bronze and Iron Ages instead of Canaan and Eretz-Israel (1 Sam. 13: 19; Ezek. 27: 17) is quite legitimate and technically convenient as long as it is free of any implicit support for revisionist historical theorizing (or modern reference). Regrettably, this is not the case with scholars such as Whitelam and Thompson who deny the existence of pre-exilic Israel as an ethnic-national entity.17 Ironically, their declared objective is to present a clear and accurate idea of the kind of historical knowledge we have about ancient Palestine (p. 6).

Homeland and Exile In connection with the military activity of the Assyrian army against Hezekiah king of Judah (not against a mythic king of Lachish), Sennacherib claims that he deported 200,150 people, a clearly propagandistic exaggeration. Deportations from several places in Judah did take place during the third campaign of Sennacherib (in accordance with the systematic imperial policy of mass deportation), as conrmed by the Lachish reliefs, and the interpolated and ideologically elaborated speech of the Rab-shakeh (II Kings 18: 32). Thompson argues that when the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian empires deported peoples, they convinced them that the Great King, the emperor, was a saviour sent to free them by order of their forgotten god(s) from their evil local despot, and to take them back to their forgotten homeland. The deportees to the cities of Samaria understood themselves as people who had always lived in the region (p. 215). Hence, the constant feature of imperial propaganda turned homeland into land of slavery and exile into homeland and the original abode of the deportees ancestral gods (pp. 210225). Cyrus in 538 BCE and other Persian kings transferred peoples from Babylonia and other places to southern Palestine, convincing the deportees that they were going back to their old homeland. Those who were transferred to the new Persian colony came to understand themselves as exiles who had returned to their original home (p. 215). Thus, by means of imperial propaganda, the historical transfers of indigenous Mesopotamians to Judah became the biblical myths of Exile and Restoration.18 Moreover, the Jews during the Persian Empire invented a myth of the empty land in order to legitimize and justify the possession of lands of the Palestinian indigenous inhabitants (pp. 217225). On p. 214 Thompson asserts, we have

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no proven connection between any of the known deportations and a corresponding return, and we have much reason to assume that such connections are rather the results of interpretation and understanding. Here we have a ne illustration of arbitrary conjecture, a lack of philological analysis of the relevant texts (such as the legendary Edict of Cyrus), of a cavalier attitude to former discussions and a skewing of the historical records in an eort to discredit the biblical record as a historical source. There is not one text, as far as the reviewers are aware (alas, no references in Thompson), which might suggest the imperial conquerors seek to convince deportees that they are being freed from their slavery in exile and being taken back to their old homeland and to sacred places of their forgotten gods. On what Assyrian records (the Bible, of course, is unreliable according to Thompson, e.g., II Kings 17) does Thompson rely when he claims that the invention of new ancestor gods was an Assyrian imperial policy that helped create religious ties between societies around regional and local deities (p. 169)? The Assyrian records speak about deportees fear of the great Assyrian king and gods, but not about forgotten ancestral gods.19 The examples that Thompson presents in order to buttress the idea of persuasive interpretation (p. 192) as part of the imperial propaganda are misinterpreted or irrelevant. There is no evidence that Pharaoh Ahmose deported foreigners to lower Egypt claiming that he was returning them to their homeland, saving them from the hated Hyksos. Thompsons argument that the Hyksos were indigenous Egyptians (139143) appears to be contradicted by the epigraphic and archaeological evidence and not to be a view of Egyptologists.20 Who is the Assyrian general who deported the entire population of another town, while telling the people that he was returning them to their original home, the original lands from which long ago they had been uprooted by their oppressor (p. 212)? Here is a further example amongst many where the relevant text is not quoted and probably misinterpreted. Sargon II built Dur Sharrukin and explicitly stated that he settled his new capital with peoples from conquered territories. The Rab-shakeh21 does not claim to be a saviour. He issues an ultimatum to the inhabitants of Jerusalem to choose life by surrendering or death by resisting the Assyrian army (cf. Jer.21: 810). He speaks explicitly about deportation to a land like your own land, not about restoring them to their homeland. If the deportees were convinced by the imperial propaganda that they were returning to their original home, how may one explain the fact that settlements in Babylonia were called after the names of places whence the deportees had been taken, such as al Iahudu (the city of

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Judah)?22 Just to perpetuate the memory of their place of slavery? There is no neo-Babylonian inscription that supports a theory of exile as homeland. Nebuchadnezzar II states, I made that country (i.e., Lebanon) happy . . . All its scattered inhabitants I led back to their settlements.23 There is nothing here to support the contention that the scattered inhabitants were in fact deportees from conquered territories. Nebuchadnezzar explicitly claims that he brought deportees to Babylon and forced them to work on the building of the Etemenanki.24 This is the opposite of the kind of imperial propaganda of which Thompson speaks. The inscription of Nabunaid tells of his widespread soldiers/artisans (ummaniya rap sati ) in the service of the empire, from the border of Egypt to the Persian Gulf, who were brought to Harran to restore the ancient temple of Sin and of the removal of Babylonian gods to Harran.25 Thompsons interpretation of this text is wildly awry (p. 193). There is nothing in it to substantiate the claim that deportees from Babylon, Syria, and Egypt were brought to Harran to rebuild the city and establish a new temple for Sin, or that Nabunaid spoke of his project as a restoration of their homeland to citizens returned from exile. He renewed their forgotten traditions and brought all of their old gods back to their homes. Indeed, a ne imaginative story, but not history. Further inadequately supported assertions, misrepresentations of texts, contradictions and assorted errors (apart from typographical)26 abound, of which we note the following: p. 11 In the Deir Alla inscription, Balaam is a seer of ancient Moab. Moab is not mentioned in the inscription and its language is not Moabite. There is nothing in this inscription to connect it with Moab (unless one accepts the Bible as literally true!) pp. 1213 Bit Humri. Further to what was said above on the Moabite Stone, Thompsons treatment of Omri is also at odds with the Assyrian sources. He avers that Bit Humri is a highland patronate (i.e., not a kingdom stretching from the hill- country of Ephraim in the south up to Dan in the north), whose legendary founder was named Omri. Is Hazael a ctional founder of the Bit Hazaeli mentioned in the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III?27 Clearly, Hazael, a son of a nobody, is a historical personality, and he was not the founder of the kingdom of Damascus but a usurper (alas, exactly as it is told in the Bible and in the inscriptions of Shalmaneser III) who established a dynasty.28 Bit Hazael was not a small (contra Thompson, p. 11) but a large and powerful state.29 Ahab the Israelite supplied 2000 chariots at the battle of Qarqar (according to the Assyrian account), somewhat

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beyond the capacity of a highland patronage, even if Shalmaneser exaggerates. Mesha, further, talks of Omri, King of Israel, not of Beth Omri. p. 19 The story of the Tower of Babel reiterates the paired and nearly indistinguishable stories of the destructions of Samaria and Jerusalem we nd in II Kings 17 and 25. There is no description of the destruction of Samaria. There is not the slightest similarity between the description of the conquest of Samaria and the conquest and destruction of Jerusalem. There is no reason whatsoever to associate the Tower of Babel story with these texts a fortiori to claim it reiterates them. p. 23 The lists of kings for the states of Israel and of Judah are hypothetical, and if there were gaps in the writers sources, they were lled by fantasy . . . What harm an extra Jeroboam? The kings of Israel and Judah mentioned in the Bible coincide chronologically with the same kings in extra-biblical sources. According to what criterion should one decide which king is historical and which is not? What is hypothetical in the phenomenon of two kings with the same name, especially from the same kingdom? What harm an extra Shalmaneser? (there were ve: How many of Englands Edwards and Georges are the result of fantastic gap-lling?). pp. 4041 six legendary enemies of old Israel: the formulaic number of the legendary peoples of Canaan is seven, not six: seven nations greater and mightier than you (Deut. 7: 1, and see also Jos. 3: 10; 24: 11) although the various lists do dier. p. 79 In the Books of II Samuel and I Kings, biblical Israel controls the whole of the south Levant between Egypt and the Euphrates, a region that, with the help of Judah, Israel holds until the story of its destruction in II Kings 17. What version of the Bible does Thompson use? p. 80 The term Philistine . . . rst appears in the form of peleset in a thirteenth-century BCE Egyptian text. pl/rst (Heb. Peleshet ) appears for the rst time in the inscriptions of Ramesses III 12th century.30 Herodotus lived in the 5th century BCE (not 6th century: pp. 7, 235, for the same mistake). p. 90 The Table of Nations of Genesis 10 arranges the nations geographically according to the three great continents known to the ancient Near East. Shem, Ham and Japhet reect in turn Asia, Africa and Europe (see also pp. 24, 40). This is anachronistic. Madai is not in Europe; Canaan, Dedan, Babylon, Ashur, Lydia, Caphtor, Arwad, and Hamath are not in Africa. According to the text, the nations are

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classied after their families, after their tongues, in their lands, after their nations. In Genesis 17: 5, Abraham is called aber-hamon, the father of many nations. Aber hamon ? Wherever did he get this one from? Abraham as the father of Palestine is the central plot motif in the stories collected in Genesis 1236. Abraham is not presented as the father of Palestine/Canaan, or of Hebron, Sodom, Shalem (Jerusalem?), Gerar, or Beer-sheba. On the contrary, the stress is on the status of Abraham as a ger, a foreigner in Canaan. His homeland is Mesopotamia (Gen. 12: 1; 23: 4; 24: 34 and see also 34: 2123, 29, Jer. 35 :7). The central plot motif is Abraham as the ancestor of the tribes of Israel. Thompson employs the toponym Palestine apparently on the principle that Palestine must be substituted whenever Israel does not refer to the northern kingdom. pp. 155157 It is probably wrong to call the Sea Peoples refugees. They were invaders (see the relevant Egyptian reliefs) who forced their way towards the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. On p. 156 Thompson claims that their integration had been gradual and peaceful (how does he know?), but on p. 157 he maintains that in general, there is no doubt that the encounters with the refugees were hostile. Generally peaceful or generally hostile? p. 157 Because of the drought and the economic crises in the Aegean and Anatolia the Egyptians allowed refugees to immigrate into the Delta and the Nile valley. This claim contradicts the Egyptian documents, e.g., the relief of Ramesses III. For Thompson, Egyptian records mention intensive ghting, including sea battles but are merely monumental, propaganda. This is to take a cavalier attitude not only to the Egyptian texts, but to the entire evidence for the incursions of the Sea Peoples throughout the Levant. p. 171 In Edom, the patron is called both Qaus and Yahweh. In which Edomite inscription(s)?31 p. 180 It was left to Phoenicia, and especially the great city of Tyre, to compete with Damascus in an eort to ll the political vacuum left by the Egyptians. What extra-biblical documents does Thompson have about Damascus and Tyre during the 12th10th centuries in relation to Galilee, Jezreel, and the territories left by the Egyptians (cf. Jud. 18: 28; II Sam. 8: 10; Ps. 60: 2)? There is no evidence that Jezreel was a factor of conict between Tyre and Damascus (see also p. 182). p. 181 What evidence has Thompson to substantiate his claim that during the 10th9th centuries Amurru, Hebron, Gezer, Lachish, Beer-sheba, and Arad were small autonomous towns?

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p. 182 Contrary to Thompsons claim there is no evidence that Tiglath-pileser III fought against Ammon, Moab, and Edom. . . . as an Assyrian vassal Hosheas Samaria is given control over the Jezreel . . . Israel nally gains undisputed control over the Jezreel for the rst time in 731 BCE. It is agreed among scholars that Tiglathpileser III organized Galilee and Jezreel as a province; its administrative center was Megiddo. p. 184 Israel a relatively small state centered in Samaria, supported the Assyrians . . . against Damascus in 733 BCE hoping to gain its reward in the Jezreel. This claim contradicts the Assyrian documents as well as the biblical story.32 Sargon II deported part of Samarias population as slaves a misleading remark concerning the Assyrian policy of Assyrian mass deportation. There is no evidence in the inscriptions of Sargon II that he enslaved the deportees. Generally, deportees were not enslaved by the Assyrians. One or two exceptional cases do not constitute a rule.33 On p. 192 Thompson writes, The deportees received land and a renewal of prosperity from the Assyrians upon resettlement . . . but on p. 212 there is a note on the frequent use of enslavement of the deportees by the imperial powers. p. 194 Jerusalem had been subject to practices of population transference since the eighth century and there is no reason to believe that its experiences were substantially dierent from those of its northern neighbour Samaria. There is information that the Assyrians deported not from Jerusalem but only from the territories under their rule (thus on p. 213). There is no evidence that the Assyrians deported to Jerusalem, built it anew, or turned it into an Assyrian province (contrast Samaria). The Babylonians did not restore Jerusalem or resettle deportees there and probably did not establish a Babylonian province with Jerusalem as its capital. pp. 203205 With regard to the notorious Tell Dan inscription Thompson writes Nothing in the inscription itself required that the word or name bytdwd be directly linked to Jerusalem and to Judah. It might well refer to a place much closer to Tel Dan . . . Dwd is not the name of a god, but it could be a divine title and be translated the Beloved . . . In the Mesha Stele, it seems to be used as a divine title for Yahweh, the ancient deity of Palestine . . . That is, byt.dwd :Temple of the beloved . . . It tells us nothing, as such, of a person David as the founder of that patronate in an earlier period . . . David is an eponymous hero. Thus The House of David that is eternal is no dynasty of a person called David, but rather the temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem. Lastly, other scholars have found indications that have

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led them to argue that the inscriptions are forgeries. For Thompson bytdwd may be anything but the House of David because, before this discovery, he had committed himself to the view that David, King of Judah, did not exist. It is now clear, however, that the inscription talks of the king of Israel and the [king] of the House of David and refers to the hostilities described in 2 Kings 9 (though it has a dierent view of who killed the two kings). Thompsons conjectures are therefore impossible, as a careful scrutiny of recent publications concerning this matter conrms.34 The mention of the House of David in this Aramaic inscription establishes David as a historical gure and the designation House of David as an element of the political terminology of the ninth century. Apropos of Yahweh, the ancient deity of Palestine mentioned above, one should ask whether it is an accident that the theophoric component Yau is typical of Israelite/Judean names (even in exile) but non-existent in Canaanite, Phoenician, Philistine, Transjordanian names?35 p. 212 Elam is not Afghanistan. p. 215 Jerusalem accepted Samarias Pentateuch and many other story traditions. Why not vice versa, or perhaps both versions derived from a common original Palestinian version (Urtext) and developed independently during the Hellenistic period? Moreover, if there was no historical ethnic-national-religious connection between historical Israel and Jerusalem/Judah, and if the enemies of Judah and Benjamin are those autochthonous inhabitants of the defunct kingdom of Samaria/Israel (p. 190), why did the inhabitants of Jerusalem/Yehud (deported by the Persians according to Thompson) adopt the name Israel and the Torah from their ethnically and religiously unrelated enemies? p. 218 It was not Shalmaneser V who deported Israelites to Halah and settled people from the Syrian(?) town of Hamath in Samaria but Sargon II. If one attempts to take an overall view of this often complicated and confusing book it will be found that, apart from much fairly diuse material which does not appear to lead to any clear or compelling results, it advances, essentially, two main theses. First, a ctitious history of an ancient Israel was created in the Persian or in the Persian and partly in the Hellenistic period (there is some ambivalence here). The purpose of this history was to justify the occupation of territory in which diverse elements of population were forcibly settled by the sovereigns of powerful empires seeking to achieve unity and suppress rebellion by

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shifting populations throughout the lands they controlled. Accordingly, the multi-national deportees to Judea/Yehud, had an ideology and an ancient God thrust upon them. From passage to passage, however, it is unclear whether the fault of creating false history is partly that of the victims. Second, the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures were not really interested in history at all! Their real interests were philosophical and theological. It is a way of critical reection. It is learning and discourse (p. 249). The purpose of these writers has simply been misunderstood especially by modern scholarship. After Thompsons deconstruction of Israels history, it would seem, therefore, that the false edice was not, after all, the construction of the biblical writers themselves. It is the creation of the traditional biblical scholar (and, should we add, of some two millennia of confused readers?). It would seem somewhat dicult to reconcile these two theses. But the labour that would be entailed is, perhaps, unnecessary. For it appears that this book, itself, is not what it purports to be. It contains in itself a hidden agenda, hidden, probably, at least to some extent, from the author himself. It seems to be not so much a work of scholarship as deance, which is evident throughout. The integration of biblical and historical study with social-scientic disciplines is to be welcomed, but, as Thompson puts it, ights of fantasy hardly ever make good history (p. 202). Whatever the merits or demerits of revisionist/minimalist scholars, this book is a defective product which contributes nothing either to their position or to biblical scholarship. The view of history it presents, to use the authors infelicitous expression, has come topsy-turvy (cf. p. xv). Let us return, therefore, to the records of the divine Pharoah Merneptah, of the Assyrian hero king Shalmaneser III, and to the pious Moabite king Mesha, who referred to Israel without inverted commas and who had never heard of the Palestinian peoples. Real scholarship begins from here. ADAJ ANET BAR CAH IEJ JANES JAOS JBL JSOT Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan Ancient Near Eastern Texts Biblical Archaeological Review Cambridge Ancient History Israel Exploration Journal Journal of the American Near Eastern Society Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Biblical Literature Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

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Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Supplements Kanaan aische und aram aische Inschriften Revue d assyriologie et d arch eologie orientale State Archives of Assyria State Archives of Assyria Bulletin Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament Tel Aviv Vetus Testamentum

Notes
1. See the bibliography in the book under review, on pp. xviixix, esthe books of Davies, Garbini, Lemche, Whitelam. For an incisive critique see the review by B. A. Levene and A. Malamat, Israel Exploration Journal 46 (1996), 284 288; B. Halpern, Erasing History: The Minimalist Assault on Ancient Israel, Bible Review 11 (1995), 2635, 47; A. Rainey, JAOS 115 (1995), 101104; W. G. Dever, Archaeology, Ideology, and the Quest for an Ancient or Biblical Israel, Near Eastern Archaeology 61 (1998), 3952; idem, Currents in Research: Biblical Studies 8 (2000), 91116 with bibliography; I. W. Provan, Ideologies, Literary and Critical: Reections on Recent Writing on the History of Israel, JBL 114 (1995), 586606; Reid, Bibliotheca Sacra 155 (1998), 394; L. L. Grabbe, SJOT 14 (2000), 117139. One cannot avoid the impression that some of the scholars dubbed minimalist investigate the past with an eye on contemporary issues. This would apply particularly to the books of Whitelam and Thompson. 2. See A. Hurvitz, VT 47 (1997), 301315; id., Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies. Division A (Jerusalem, 1999), 2133; S. Japhet, ibid. 45* An unbiased analysis of this literature points to a long process of development and change . . . The Persian period cannot bear the burden of being the origin of biblical history; Z. Talshir, Henoch 1999, 240242; G. A. Rendsburg, JANES 12 (1980), 6580. 3. See e.g., researches on Mari and the Bible, especially those of A. Malamat and the collection of articles in RA 92 (1998) with bibliography. On Egypt and the Bible see the studies of K. A. Kitchen, e.g., in S. Ahituv and E. D. Oren (eds.), The Origin of Early Israel Current Debate (London, 1998), 65131, with bibliography and J. K. Homeier, Israel and Egypt (New York, 1997). For typical covenant features and formulae see M. Weinfeld, JANES 22 (1993), 135 139. For the genealogical lists see G. A. Rendsburg, VT 40 (1990), 185206. For the period of the monarchy see e.g., H. Tadmor, The Inscriptions of Tiglathpileser III (Jerusalem, 1994). Thompson himself uses the Bible to present an accurate history of Palestine noting, e.g., that the Philistines adopted Dagon and Baal Zebub (p. 157); that Tiglath-pileser III conquered Hazor (213); that the Galilee was a buer territory between Damascus and Samaria (179182). See also p. 188 concerning the deportation in 597 BCE and the Babylonian conquest in 586/7. 4. For Israel in the Merneptah stele as a socioethnic entity (because the name is followed by the determinative for people) alongside political city-states

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5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18.

within Canaan, see M. G. Hasel, Domination and Resistance (Leiden, 1998), appendix. For archaeology and the Bible see e.g., the articles published in BAR 1998 2000, (especially of W. G. Dever), with bibliography; the archaeological data from Lachish, Jerusalem, Arad and Hazor. For this distinction within the Solomonic traditions see H. M. Nieman, TA 27(2000), 6174. For details see e.g., CAH III/2, second edition 1991, 109111, 355370; Machinist, Hebrew Studies 41 (2000), 151168 with bibliography. D. D. Luckenbill, The Annals of Sennacherib (Chicago, 1924): 77: 21; also 86: 15. D. Ussishkin, Lachish, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 4, 124125. Thompson speaks of a collapse of trade, a major recession in agriculture, and a sharp fall of the sea level from 1250 to 1050 BCE, of refugees and immigrations. Archaeological data are mute and subjected to various and contradictory interpretations. Hence archaeology cannot be taken as a decisive factor in reconstructing history: see, e.g., E. Beloch-Smith and B. A. Nakhai, Near Eastern Archaeology 62 (1999), 115: The Iron I began as an era of discontinuity and ended much the same way. In the last years of the LBA, huge population movements took place throughout western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean. These migrations disrupted traditional ways of life in many regions and introduced new peoples to the southern Levant. On the transitional period see the discussions in S. Gitin et al., eds., Mediterranean Peoples in Transition: 13th to Early 10th Centuries BCE (Jerusalem, 1998). For a similar change in the political landscape in Syria during the transition from Bronze to Iron see H. Sader, in G. Bunnens, ed., Essays on Syria in the Iron Age [Ancient Near Eastern Studies Suppl. 7 ], (Louvain, 2000), 6176. In fact, the entire theory of the displacement of urban communities can be traced, via the works of G. E Mendenhall, to attempts to account for the collapse of Mycenaean civilization (slave revolts and so forth) shortly before the period concerned. On the question of why the view of outside origins become dominant in biblical tradition see Machinist Outsiders or Insiders in L. J. Silberstein and R. L. Cohen, The Other in Jewish Thought and History (New York, 1994), 3560. For Iron Age I settlements in Transjordan see K. Praag, in Ahituv and Oren, op.cit. (above, n. 3), 56, on the formation of political and ethno-national entities during the transition period; L. G. Herr, ADAJ 38 (1994), 147172; BelochSmith and Nakhai, ocit., (above, n. 8), 62. See K. W. Whitelam, in Sh. Ahituv and E. D. Oren, eds., above n. 3, 56. A. Ben Tor, IEJ 48 (1998), 137. See above n. 1. For the same approach, R. Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel [JSOTS 148], (Sheeld, 1992), 8287, 114, 120. According to Berquist the biblical tradition, including the Pentateuch, is a work of ction composed with the active help of the Persian authorities, with the aim of supplying the mixed ethnic population of the province of Yehud with a common history, J. Berquist, Judaism in Persias Shadow: A Social and Historical Approach (Minneapolis, 1995).

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19. S. Paul, JBL 88 (1969), 7374. 20. The non-Egyptian origin of the Hyksos is attested by the onomasticon, by Canaanite gods in the Hyksos pantheon, by burial rites and architectural evidence. 21. The speech of the Rab-shakeh is a Judean composition but it faithfully reects Assyrian propaganda and psychological warfare. Cf. e.g., 2 Kings 18: 31 with citations from an Assyrian document in CAH III/1 (revised edition), 421. On SAA V, 210 as an example of Assyrian propaganda see W. Gallagher, SAAB VII/2 (1994), 5765. 22. For the city of Judah in Babylonia see F. Joann` es and A. Lemaire, Transeuphrat` ene 17 (1999), 1734. 23. ANET, 307. 24. D. L. Smith-Christopher, in J. M. Scott, ed., Exile: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Conceptions (Leiden, 1997), 24. 25. S. Langdon, Die neobabylonischen K onigsinschriften (Leipzig, 1911), 220. 26. E.g., on 405, not 01 but 701; 22, should be I Sam.15: 32; 99 not Siranicus but Granicus; not Ashurbanipal II but Ashurnasirpal II. 27. Tadmor, op.cit. (above, n. 3) 296. See also Amos 1: 4 which refers to the house of Hazael and the palaces of (his son) Ben-Hadad. Zakur the king of Hamath and Laash mentions Bar- hadad bar Hazael (KAI no. 202). 28. For further examples of Bit-PN named after historical leaders and founders of kingdoms, see H. Sader in: G. Bunnens, ocit. (note 11), 72. 29. See the stele of Zakur king of Hamath and Laash, and the inscriptions of Tiglath-pileser III (Tadmor, ibid. 187). 30. W. Helck, Die Beziehungen Agyptens zu Vorderasien im 3.und.2 Jahrtausend v.Chr. (Wiesbaden, 1962), 243. 31. There is no Edomite name with Yau as a theophoric component. The Bedouin Shasu in the Egyptian records are not exactly Edomites. See R. Giveon, Les B edouins Shosu des documents Egyptiens (Leiden, 1971). 32. For details see Tadmor, op.cit. (above, n.3), 279282. 33. See B. Oded, Mass Deportations and Deportees in the Neo-Assyrian Empire (Wiesbaden, 1979), 109115. 34. They are too many to be listed here. See G. N. Knopper, JBL 116 (1997), 39; A. Lemaire, JSOT 81 (1998), 314; N. Naaman, JSOT 82 (1999), 1011; J. E. Emerton, VT 50 (2000), 2737. 35. Ilu/Yaubidi from Hamath is an enigmatic and intriguing exception but it cannot serve as evidence that Yahweh was worshipped in Palestine/Syria by many peoples. See R. Zadok, The Jews in Babylonia during the Chaldean and Achaemenian periods (Haifa, 1979), 722; S. Dalley, VT 40 (1990), 2132; Z. Zevit, VT 41 (1991), 363366. To claim that the Assyrian documents point to the geographical spread of the worship of Yahweh among many peoples is misleading (176). The name of the king of Ashkelon is Sidqa (Si-id-qa-a ) and not Sidqia (wrongly spelled in ANET, 287).