posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:11 AM
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
Like what you see? Please hit my tip box below!
Jerusalem |
 |
 |
1 Comments:
I can't seem to find an email address to send you this tip, so will use this vehicle. My good friend Ralph Kostant blogs here in Los Angeles on matters of like interest. I thought that you might want to give his comments the wider circulation that they deserve. (see below)
Thanks again for your work, and, oh yes, Mazel Tov.
David
-----Israeli archaeologists have confirmed that an inscribed pottery shard, reliably dated by Carbon 14 testing of organic material found with it to the 10th century BCE--the time of King David-- is in fact written in Hebrew, making the shard the oldest known Hebrew inscription. Moreover, both the location where the shard was discovered --the Valley of Elah, well to the west of the Judaen hills--and the translation of the ancient Hebrew text bolster the case of the "traditionalist school" of Biblical archaeologists against the "revisionist school," who have challenged the authenticity of the Biblical account of the history of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. An account of the discovery and translation of the shard appears online in Science Daily, among other sites.
Another chapter now opens in a sometimes bitterly contested scholarly debate, which has raged at least since the birth of biblical criticism in the 19th century. As played out in the field of archaeology, the generation of traditional Biblical archaeologists, exemplified by Kathleen Kenyon and Yigdal Yadin, contended that their discoveries bolstered the historical accuracy of the Biblical narrative. Kenyon believed that she had discovered the ruins of the City of David in her Jerusalem dig. Yadin argued that his discovery of nearly identical six-chambered gates in the excavations of Gezer, Megiddo and Hazor authenticated the description of King Solomon's city building in First Kings 9:15:
“And this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon levied to build the house of the Lord and his own house and the Millo and the wall of Jerusalem and Hazor and Megiddo and Gezer.”
However, a later generation of Israeli archaeologists challenged the interpretations of Kenyon and Yadin, arguing that their predecessors were influenced by a pro-Bible and Zionist bias. These revisionists argued that the archaeological record actually proved the opposite of what the traditionalists had held. The discoveries at Jerusalem, Megiddo, Hazor and Gezer, according to the revisionists, belonged to a much later era, the 7th century BCE, long after the supposed time of Kings David and Solomon. In their book "The Bible Unearthed," Professors Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman insisted that if Kings David and Solomon existed at all in the 10th century BCE, they were "little more than hill country chieftains." There was no golden age of a united kingdom under Kings David and Solomon, no magnificent capital of Jerusalem or Temple of Solomon, and no extensive empire that split into two rival kingdoms, Judah and Israel, after the death of King Solomon. The Biblical narrative, from Genesis through the Books of Kings, according to "The Bible Unearthed," was a myth, the product of a propaganda campaign launched by King Josiah of Judah in the 7th century BCE to further his geopolitical goal of absorbing the rival northern Semitic Kingdom of Israel.
Readers who want to delve more into this debate, as it stood prior to the discovery of the Elah shard inscription, can read "God's Ghostwriters," a New York Times review of "The Bible Unearthed" by Phyllis Trible, Professor of Biblical Studies at the Wake Forest University Divinity School; and "Did David and Solomon Exist?", by Eric H. Cline, Chair of the Department of Classical and Semitic Languages and Literatures at The George Washington University.
The Elah shard strikes a blow for the traditionalists.
cut out parts to meet 4000 character limit....
Posted By The Kosher Hedgehog to The Hedgehog Blog at 1/11/2010 06:42:00 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home