Syro-Palestinian Archaeology

[Ishtar]

Min, Isis also wears a crescent moon on her head. See my avatar pic and then look at her head. Isis, imho, is the Egyptian form of the Babylonian Ishtar and here she's sitting on the Ark of the Covenant. That, in a nutshell, is my thesis! A picture paints a thousand words, as they say!

I'm re-reading Frank Moore Cross's book "Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic" in an effort to get some sort of scholarly handle on the whole Exodus thing. I don't know what you think of him - whether you think he's any good?

I'm trying establish how Exodus is dated and the various influences in putting it together.

[Ishtar]

On re-reading Richard Elliot Friedman's "The Bible with Sources Revealed", I think that we’d gain a lot in our understanding about who the Jews really were (and thus the root of their mythology) if we could solve the riddle of El and Yahweh.

Here’s why:

Some of the stories used as sources for the Pentateuch (first five books of the Bible) come from the writer known as J and he calls God ‘Yahweh’ all the way through.

But the writer known as E (whose writings are also used as source material for the Pentateuch) calls God by the Canaanite name for God: ‘El’ or ‘Elohim’ , until he reveals himself to Moses as ‘Yahweh’.

(The writer J lived in the southern kingdom of Judah, while the writer E lived in the northern kingdom of Israel, which was invaded by the Assyrians in 722 BC. It was only after that another writer, known as R or the Redactor, brought J and E’s stories together.)

This is pivotal, as Friedman says:

“This line of evidence is frequently described as a matter of terminology, namely, that different sources use different names for God. But that is not correct. The point is not that sources have different names for God. The point is that the different sources [J and E] have different ideas of when the name of God Yahweh (YHWH) was revealed to human beings.

According to J, God was known as Yahweh to the earliest generations of humans. Referring to a generation before the Flood, the writer J says explicitly in Genesis 4.26.

“Then it was begun to invoke the name YHWH”.

The use of YHWH [as God’s name] may go back even earlier according to J, because Eve used it when she names Cain. (Gen 4:1).

But in E ...it is stated just as explicitly that YHWH does not reveal this name until the generation of Moses. .....

[In addition], the J source never uses the word of Elohim for God.

Could it be that J (from Judah, and probably Jerusalem) didn’t want anyone to know that the God of the Israelites had once been a Canaanite god, and thus a pagan god? And that the ‘Israelites’ were really the very pagan Canaanites who they despised?

And maybe that's why there's inconography of El riding on a bull and Yahweh riding on a bull.

[Minimalist]

Min, Isis also wears a crescent moon on her head. See my avatar pic and then look at her head. Isis, imho, is the Egyptian form of the Babylonian Ishtar and here she's sitting on the Ark of the Covenant. That, in a nutshell, is my thesis! A picture paints a thousand words, as they say!

I'm re-reading Frank Moore Cross's book "Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic" in an effort to get some sort of scholarly handle on the whole Exodus thing. I don't know what you think of him - whether you think he's any good?

I'm trying establish how Exodus is dated and the various influences in putting it together.

I've never read a book by Cross but he is a highly respected source as a linguist. He is frequently cited as an authority.

Archaeologists and Egyptologists have studied this problem for nearly 200 years now, beginning with Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in the 1790's. In all that time, to repeat what Cline said, they have not found a single shred of evidence that the Exodus ever happened.

The New Kingdom starting with Ahmose I and running straight through to Rameses III (c 1550 to 1150 BC) had Egypt at the peak of her power and influence. At no time was she "laid low" by a series of catastrophes. The Amarna letters, dating from the reign of Akenaten, give a detailed glimpse of the diplomatic and political structure of Canaan in the middle of that time and do not make a single mention of any "Israelites."

Amihai Mazar reports extensive digging at Kadesh Barnea in the Sinai where the "Israelites" were supposed to have sojourned for 38 of the 40 years in the desert. They found NOTHING from the Late Bronze Age...only an Iron Age fort which is far too late for the story. Arch once argued that the very fact that there was no evidence proved that the story was true (in true Archian logic!) because what evidence could one expect to find from a bunch of slaves! Well....even allowing for the ridiculous exaggeration of numbers in the OT, which is a common failing of ancient texts, a group of a couple of thousand people would leave garbage piles and campfires and broken pots and bodies. The tale claims that the whole generation which had "sinned" was to die before entering Canaan. Where are the bodies? The Sinai is just as dry as Egypt and bodies buried in the sands of Egypt, even the lower classes, were naturally mummified. How come they never found a single grave?

The bible tale specifically tells the "Israelites" to avoid the northern route out of Egypt because of the Philistines. Really? The Philistines did not get to Canaan until 1150-ish, BC. It's unlikely that they would have been a real powerhouse for a while after that. Further, 'god' had just vanquished the Egyptians but the Philistines were too tough for him?

Then we get into the so called Conquest story. But again, real archaeology has shown that many of the sites named in the bible as scenes of "Joshua's" triumphs were not even occupied during the LBA. Ai, once of Joshua's most grisly massacres in the OT, had not been occupied for 12 centuries! Dever gives a virtual travelogue of these places and finds only a handful which have destruction layers and the timing of these is not consistent.

Finkelstein points out that some of the places mentioned did not exist until the Iron Age...i.e., they were in existence at the time the bible was written but not before.

So, the issue is not, as Arch will screech till he is blue in the face, that there is an "absence of evidence." There is plenty of evidence and none of it supports the OT stories. What is missing is evidence that any of it happened.[/i]

[Minimalist]

I always found the "P" writings to be the most significant in the whole documentary hypothesis. They are late, c 450 BC which, coincidentally is right around the end time for that seal which was just found.

Moreover, they are principally concerned with cementing the primacy of the priests with their rituals and such. Perhaps they did more than that? Perhaps they restructured the whole OT to put themselves at the center of things? Hard to tell but that seal, with it's representation of pagan images is suggestive of a much less tightly controlled culture than the Fundies would have us believe.

[Ishtar]

So, the issue is not, as Arch will screech till he is blue in the face, that there is an "absence of evidence." There is plenty of evidence and none of it supports the OT stories. What is missing is evidence that any of it happened.[/i]

There's an absence of evidence because how can there be any freaking evidence for something that never happened?

[Minimalist]

Right.

[Ishtar]

I always found the "P" writings to be the most significant in the whole documentary hypothesis. They are late, c 450 BC which, coincidentally is right around the end time for that seal which was just found.

Friedman thinks P was earlier, but there may have been a rethink since he published?

In critical scholarship, there are two main views of when it was composed.

One view is that P was the latest of the sources, composed in the sixth or fifth century BC.

The other view is that P was composed not long after J and E were combined [c 700 BC] - specifically, that it was composed by the Jerusalem priesthood as an alternative to the history told in J and E.

Linguistic evidence now supports the latter view and virtually rules out the later date for P.

Those pesky linguists get in everywhere, don't they?

[Minimalist]

The fifth century BC would include 450.

[Ishtar]

I always found the "P" writings to be the most significant in the whole documentary hypothesis. They are late, c 450 BC which, coincidentally is right around the end time for that seal which was just found.

Moreover, they are principally concerned with cementing the primacy of the priests with their rituals and such. Perhaps they did more than that? Perhaps they restructured the whole OT to put themselves at the center of things? Hard to tell but that seal, with it's representation of pagan images is suggestive of a much less tightly controlled culture than the Fundies would have us believe.

From Freidman:

The Tabernacle is mentioned more than 200 times in P. It receives more attention than any other subject. It is the only permiitted site of the sacrifice. It is the place where the major ceremonies and laws must be carried out. It is the place where all the revelation takes place after Sinai. But it is never so much as mentioned by J or D, and only three times by E.

And from Cross on how he believes the Priestly revisionists rewrote the original account of the crossing of the Red (Reed) Sea in Exodus 15, known as the Song of the Sea (dated 12-11th century BC), which does not mention anything about Israelites crossing it, or a parting of the waves for them to do so.

It is only later writings that do: Deuteronomy (7th century BC), Exodus 14.

Cross says:

There is little doubt ... that the Priestly traditionists knew the Song of the Sea. ... Contrary to late tradition the sea is not split so that Israel marches through the sea on dry ground while towering walls of water rose to their right and left.

Cross goes on to make a good linguistic and mythological case for the whole story of Yahweh's great victory over the Reed Sea being developed from the Canaanite myth of Ba'al's victory over Sea (Yamm, the Canaanite baddie).

[Ishtar]

Min, have you got a picture of that seal?

[kbs2244]

An interesting find.
A seal of a family of hereditary “servants to the temple” that has a Babylonish symbol in it.
There was a lot of symbolism in the decorating of First Temple, but the Moon was not among them, that I can recall.
At 2500 years old it would be about 500 BC. After the return from Babylon and the rebuilding of the Temple.
But if you read the later in time OT prophets, they were complaining all the time about how there was a “falling away” from the “pure,” monotheistic worship.
Malachi, in particular, really complains about it, and it’s consequences.
This may be evidence of what he was complaining about.

Ishter: There is a PIC of the seal in the Jerslam Post story that the News thread links you to.

[Minimalist]

There's a photo in the original story from the Jerusalem Post.

[Minimalist]

It was the priests doing the complaining (which incidentally they always did.... in fact, priests today have the same line of crap) so the fact that a pagan symbol shows up on the insignia of a priestly family is facinating.

[kbs2244]

Actually, Malachi was complaining about the conduct of the Priests.
It is only a 3 chapter book.
In the first he complains about how the Priests have “profaned” the temple by their behavior, and in the third he foretells the “coming of the Lord to cleanse it.”
In between he complains about the behavior of the common people in following the lead of the priests.

The prophets were rarely Priests. They were most often "rasied up" from the common people.

[kbs2244]

The Temaec’s were not priests. They were “servants at the temple.”
That meant they did the drudge work of carrying firewood, carrying off the remains of the sacrifices, etc.
The priests were supposed to have an intermediary role between god and the people. It was a hereditary role for the family of Aaron.
The Temaec’s were not of that family.