Israel: Ancient Kingdom or Late Invention?

ISRAEL—ANCIENT KINGDOM

OR LATE INVENTION?

ARCHAEOLOGY, ANCIENT

CIVILIZATIONS, AND THE BIBLE

DANIEL I. BLOCK

Wheaton College

Abstract

The aim of the short introductory essay is to set the context for the formal essays that follow. Generally the essays represent an evangelical response to a tendency in some circles to dismiss the Old Testament as virtually worthless for reconstructing the history of early Israel. Specifically the essays represent revised and updated versions of papers delivered at a conference in Louisville in January, 2004.

The Editor

Daniel I. Block is the Gunther H. Knoedler Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College Graduate School. A frequent essayist at scholarly conventions and contributor to scholarly journals, he has written major commentaries on Ezekiel (2 volumes in the New International Commentary on the Old Testament, 1997, 1998) and Judges and Ruth (New American Commentary, 2000). His concern to interpret the Old Testament as an ancient Near Eastern document is reflected in these works, but even more so in his monograph, The Gods of the Nations: Studies in Ancient Near Eastern National Theology (2nd ed., 2000), and in essays like Divine Abandonment: Ezekiel's Adaptation of an Ancient Near Eastern Motif (in Perspectives on Ezekiel: Theology and Anthropology, 2000) and What has Delphi to do with Samaria? Ambiguity and Delusion in Israelite Prophecy (in Writing and Ancient Near Eastern Society: Papers in Honour of Alan R. Millard, 2005).

Is the Bible a reliable source for reconstructing ancient historical events, particularly those involving ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the smaller states between them at the eastern end of the Mediterranean? Many do not realize how modern this question is. One hundred and fifty years ago the Bible was the primary source for recovering the history of ancient Israel and its neighbors. Prior to the nineteenth century, besides the Scriptures historians had few resources to which they could appeal. To be sure, they were aware of the fifth century BC. Greek historians Thucydides (471–399 BC)¹ and Herodotus (484–425 BC).² However, the former's interests were too narrowly focused on the Peloponnesian War inside Hellas, and in a sense the latter's interests were too broad to worry about the history of a small community of Jews a few miles northwest of the Dead Sea.

Herodotus, known widely as the father of history, was very interested in the major players of ancient history like the Persians and Egyptians, but also some minor players like the Scythians. His work displays some interest in the Assyrians and Babylonians, but it seems totally unaware of the specific history that Christians and Jews have treasured for three millennia. The Greek historian comes tantalizingly close in an account of how Sennacherib's invasion of Egypt ended miraculously (from the Egyptians' point of view) with mice swarming the Assyrian camp (Herodotus refers to the invaders as the Arabian army) at Pelusium at night and chewing up their quivers and bowstrings and the leather handles of their shields. Not surprisingly, for lack of weapons the results were disastrous for the Assyrians, who were forced into a hasty retreat (Histories 2.141). One may perhaps be excused for wondering if this is not a garbled version of the event described in 2 Kgs 19:35–37.

Prior to the nineteenth century the only written resources available to historians of ancient Israel were the Bible and derivative texts, like the apocryphal writings and the works of Josephus.³ Travelers and pilgrims to the Middle East were aware of ruins in the region that dated to biblical times, but they had little if any comprehension of their significance for interpreting the history of Israel.

The discovery of the Rosetta Stone (dated 196 BC) in 1799 during Napoleon's military expedition in Egypt, and the decipherment of its trilingual text (hieroglyphic Egyptian, demotic and Greek) by J. F. Champollion in 1822 opened wide the doors to indigenous Egyptian history.⁴ For the first time historians had access to ancient interpretations of the monuments and other artifacts that were scattered throughout the land. Within twenty-five years the windows had been opened to what would become the literary resources of ancient Mesopotamia. In 1846 Sir Henry Rawlinson published the results of his work on the tri-lingual Behistun Inscription carved in the side of a mountain in Persia on the old caravan road from Ecbatana to Babylon. Written in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian to commemorate the victory of Darius I (521–486 BC), the decipherment of the Akkadian cuneiform was the key to interpreting thousands of tablets and monumental texts from ancient Babylonia, Assyria and into the land of the Hittites.⁵ With these two developments voices from the ancient world that had been silent for two millennia and more could speak once more, calling historians to explore the world of the Bible with an ever expanding pool of resources.

Literary and monumental records may provide invaluable resources for reconstructing the political history of the ancient Near East, but in the past two decades historians have paid a great deal of attention to every day life, not only of the court, but also of ordinary people. Adopting a more broadly defined social scientific method, scholars have discovered that resources available for unlocking the secrets of the ancient world are available in many forms: pottery, the ashes of ancient fires, the layout of cities, the architecture of buildings, the tools and weapons found at grave-sites, the sculptures of animals, people and gods, and many more. These developments are potentially important for understanding the Old Testament because, to a large extent, the Hebrew Scriptures are preoccupied with the lives and the well-being of ordinary people—which is part of the reason their names do not surface in the archaeological record. Abraham was no great ancient Near Eastern monarch, but an ordinary man with a divine rather than a political agenda; David, the eighth child in a family from the insignificant little village of Bethlehem, was called from herding his father's sheep to shepherd a nation; Amos was a farmer, conscripted by God to preach to the people of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. This is not to say that the Old Testament is not concerned about the courts of kings or the ministry of priests. This interest is obvious, but unlike the pervasive trajectory of official records from Egypt and Mesopotamia, the life and work of kings and other leaders is evaluated, not on the basis of military accomplishments or architectural achievements, but on how they seek the interests of ordinary people. The most pointed and foundational text on the exercise of rule in the entire Old Testament charges kings not to adopt the self-aggrandizing style of their counterparts elsewhere, but to read the Torah for themselves, to live out the principles of covenant righteousness, and to guard against their hearts being raised above their fellow citizens (Deut 17:14–20).

The effects on the scholarly world and the public in general of recent advances in methods of investigation and analysis on the one hand, and the communication of the achievements of these enterprises, on the other are mixed. Many believers assess these activities and their results primarily for their apologetic and polemical value. The reason for engaging in biblical archaeology is to amass weapons that can be deployed against an increasingly skeptical and irreligious culture to prove the Bible to be historically accurate and scientifically correct in the finest details. These people often dismiss scholars as lacking in faith or any positive interest in religion, whose aim is to marshal the findings of science for the opposite reasons. Their goal is to debunk the reliability of the biblical record and to dismiss it as a flawed relic of a by-gone day when life was simple, and people's approach to life was simplistic. Whereas the first group focuses on evidence that proves the Bible to be true, the second focuses on evidence that proves the Bible to be false.

Within scholarly circles the poles of debates swirling over the place of Israel in history are represented by labels like maximalist and minimalist.⁶ Both terms are often used disparagingly of others by those who are involved in the discussions. While the detractors accuse maximalists of a naïve approach to Scripture and an uncritical acceptance of the information it purports to communicate, contemporary scholars in this camp represent the long history of scholarly investigation into the origins and history of Israel. Following in the train of W. F. Albright and John Bright, maximalists assume the Old Testament does in fact speak of historical realities. When seeking to reconstruct the history of ancient Israel they readily refer to the biblical record as a valid and valuable source for their reconstruction. On the one hand, they recognize that archaeological discoveries may force modern readers to question long held opinions on the meaning of biblical statements, but on the other they assume that the traditions recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures have their origins in real historical events. Accordingly, when all the data are in, a biblical history of Israel will exhibit a close correspondence with the real history of Israel.⁷

Minimalists operate from a fundamentally different perspective. A century ago skeptics questioned the historical value of the first chapters of Genesis (were Adam and Eve historical figures?). However, most assumed that the stories of the Patriarchs, the exodus of Israel from Egypt, the conquest and settlement of the land of Canaan, the united monarchy under David and Solomon, the divided history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the conquest of these states by Assyria and Babylon respectively, represent a solid historical core, even if the accounts have been embellished by historians who were more interested in theology than in history per se. During our lifetime we have witnessed the successive dismissal of almost all of these records. The minimalism has developed incrementally; it seems that every decade more and more branches of this tree have been stripped. The first doubts arose over the historicity of the patriarchal narratives, then people began to wonder if Moses was a real figure from the past, if the Israelites actually came as a group from Egypt and seized the land of Canaan, then the historicity of David, and finally the end of the nations of Israel and Judah themselves. Some have argued that the history of Israel begins with the post-exilic community around Jerusalem, who created the traditions in order to give account for themselves and their distinctive religious notions and practices within their ancient Near Eastern context. Where there is tension between the biblical and extra-biblical records, the latter are not only preferred as evidence but the apparent contractions are also exploited expressly to undermine the former.⁸

Many of us know people who represent extreme views on both sides. On the one hand, paying no attention to literary conventions and genres, some appeal to the genealogies in Genesis to date the age of the earth, or to Lev 11:19 and Deut 14:18 to argue that bats are birds. On the other hand, despite the discovery of a 9th century BC Aramaic inscription that contained the expression, byt dwd, house of David, some would deny that the David of the books of Samuel ever lived. Where then does the truth lie? Is the story of Israel as told in the Hebrew Scriptures basically factual or is it fictional? Would ancient Egyptians and Hittites and Assyrians have recognized the picture of Israel that is painted in the biblical record?

Thankfully, as is the case on most issues, there is room for a more respectful middle way. A high view of Scripture will not make the Scriptures say any more than they want to say—the problem that plagues many Christians—, but nor will it refuse to let the Scriptures say what they want to say—a common problem among cynics. Perhaps if we adopt a more realistic stance and pay closer attention to the literary nature and the intentions of the biblical texts on the one hand, and to the fragmentary nature of the archaeological record, on the other, we may find room for modesty in both the conclusions we draw and the style with which we discuss those conclusions.

What then can an understanding of the world around ancient Israel contribute to our understanding of this nation, whose history is recounted in the Old Testament with a detail that finds no equal in the ancient world? Was the Israel that we find there an ancient kingdom or a late invention? With the enthusiastic support of Dean Daniel Akin, members of the Old Testament department of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky hosted a conference to explore the significance of archaeological discoveries of the past century for the interpretation of the Bible and our understanding of the nation of Israel. To guide those who gathered in their reflection on this matter, they invited more than a dozen scholars to present papers on the links between the sacred literature of the Old Testament and the documents and artifacts that archaeologists' spades have unearthed. The participants in the program all shared two qualities: they are widely recognized by the broader academic community for their expertise on their assigned subject, and they share a high evangelical respect for the Scriptures. At the same time, readers of this volume will observe that the scholars represented here do not set out to prove the Bible. Their goals are more modest. Their aim is to situate the texts of the Old Testament in their historical and cultural contexts, and to demonstrate how awareness of the extra-biblical world can open new doors into the collection of books we hold to be sacred. With one exception, all the papers presented at the conference have been assembled and are here presented in updated and revised form for the first time. And one essay has been added. John Monson has provided a helpful appeal to consider the geographic, historical, cultural and literary contexts out of which biblical texts have emerged and to which they originally spoke in the establishment of the authoritative meaning of biblical texts as Scripture.

Through this volume readers will be introduced not only to critical issues facing all interpreters of Scripture, but also to more than a dozen leading evangelical scholars whose writings are read far beyond the boundaries of evangelical Christianity. All of the contributors to this volume are actively engaged in discussions with non-evangelicals in their respective professional societies. The anchor for the conference in Louisville was Professor Alan Millard, a leading Assyriologist from the University of Liverpool in England. Professor Millard presented three papers of general interest providing perspective on the value and the limitations of the available extra-biblical data for understanding the history of the nation whom the Hebrew Scriptures call Israel. All three papers are included in this volume, distributed according to the chronological location of the primary subject of investigation. The remaining essays are organized logically and chronologically, beginning with studies that focus on methodology and the use of ancient evidence in reconstructing the history of Israel, and then followed successively by essays relating to the times of the patriarchs, the exodus and conquest, the united monarchy, the divided kingdom, and the exilic and post-exilic periods. Readers will notice that the subjects of these essays span the entire region geographically and politically. In this remarkable collection they will be introduced to ancient Egyptians, Hittites, Assyrians, Luwians, Canaanites, Moabites and Ammonites. The volume concludes with an essay on how awareness of the literature and culture of the ancient Near East may assist us in interpreting a specific text, the Decalogue.

According to Deut 26:19, in his grace Yahweh determined to set Israel high above all the nations that he had made for his praise and fame and honor. Yahweh's mission for his chosen people was that they should be a light for these nations (Isa 42:6; cp. 49:6; 60:3). This goal was to be accomplished, not by removing them from the international context in which they lived, but by placing them geographically in the heart of the nations, between the superpowers that anchored the fertile crescent, Egypt to the south and a succession of Mesopotamian empires to the north and east. The essays in this volume demonstrate how the shape and texture and color of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, were affected by the world in which Israel lived. The aim of this volume is to open the doors and to invite the readers to enter that world, and discover new depths of meaning in the sacred Scriptures of Israel and the church. We present this collection to the public for their enjoyment, their intellectual stimulation, and their inspiration.

¹ History of the Peloponnesian War, A. D. Godley, trans. (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920–25).

² The Histories, C. F. Smith, trans. (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928).

³ Jewish Antiquities. For Greek text and translation of this nine-volume work see H. St. J. Thackeray, trans. (LCL; Cambridge, MA: William Heinemann, 1967).

⁴ For a discussion of the discovery of the stone and its decipherment see W. D. Davies, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, in Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to Alphabet, introduction by J. T. Hooker (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1990), 119–28.

⁵ For a discussion of the decipherment of the inscription see C. B. F. Walker, Cuneiform, in ibid., 58–62.

⁶ To which Kenneth A. Kitchen adds the label factualist. According to Kitchen, the agenda of a factualist is neither to prove nor disprove any theory concerning the early history of Israel, but simply to examine the facts and let the data speak for themselves. See Kitchen Responds: I'm a Factualist, in BAR 31/4 (July/August, 2005): 51–53. His approach, which is characterized by a high assessment of the historical value of the Old Testament, is developed in full in his book, On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003).

⁷ The most eloquent defense and presentation of this perspective is represented in the recent publication of Iain Provan, V. Philips Long, and Tremper Longman III, A Biblical History of Israel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003).

⁸ The minimalist perspective is represented in published works like the following: N. P. Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (BSem 5; Sheffield: JSOT, 1988); G. Garbini, History and Ideology in Ancient Israel (New York: Crossroad, 1988); T. L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People from the Written and Archaeological Sources (SHANE 4; Leiden: Brill, 1991); P. R. Davies, In Search of Ancient Israel (JSOTSup 148; Sheffield: JSOT, 1992); G. W. Ahlström, The History of Ancient Palestine (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993); K. W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London: Routledge, 1996).

THE VALUE AND LIMITATIONS OF

THE BIBLE AND ARCHAEOLOGY

FOR UNDERSTANDING THE HISTORY

OF ISRAEL—SOME EXAMPLES

ALAN R. MILLARD

The University of Liverpool

Abstract

The author begins by acknowledging that efforts to use archaeology both to prove and disprove the Bible have often proved false. In this essay he presents examples from both biblical and archaeological sources that demonstrate the need for detailed research, careful evaluation, and caution in reaching conclusions. He begins by showing how misinterpretation of the archaeological evidence can lead to faulty conclusions and misinterpretation of biblical texts can yield mistaken deductions. As an illustration of the latter he examines Nebuchadnezzar's command to present an offering and incense to Daniel in Dan 2:46. In the past interpreters have often assumed the king was giving Daniel semi-divine stature, as in the Hellenistic Benefactor Cults. However, employing both textual and iconographic evidence from outside the Bible, the author shows that Nebuchadnezzar's actions demonstrate that he exalted Daniel to a quasi-royal position, rather than acknowledged him as divine. In the discussion that follows he shows how seemingly insignificant little artifacts like stamped jar handles and clay bullae may illuminate historical events such as King Ahaz's vassalage to Tiglath-Pilezer III referred to in 2 Kgs 16:7–10. He goes on to show that details in the biblical text that may seem inconsequential, like the titles of Assyrian and Babylonian officials, provide strong testimony to the accuracy of the biblical records. The paper concludes with a note of caution, emphasizing that both textual and archaeological evidence must be interpreted carefully. Neither provides a complete picture of ancient historical and cultural realities.

The Author

Alan Millard is Emeritus Rankin Professor of Hebrew & Ancient Semitic Languages, at the University of Liverpool. As a specialist in Assyriology he has written many technical essays and full length volumes on ancient texts, including the original translations of the Babylonian flood story (Atra-hasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood, 1969), the Tell Fekherye bilingual Aramaic and Akkadian statue inscription (La Statue de tell Fekherye et son inscription bilingue assyro-araméenne, 1982), and Eponyms of the Assyrian Empire 910–612 BC (1994). Professor Millard has also written popular works that provide lay readers with helpful background when reading the Bible, including The Bible B.C.:What Can Archaeology Prove (1977), and Discoveries from Bible Times (1997). His book Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus (2000) reflects his longstanding special interest in literacy in the ancient world.

Archaeology has often been used to prove the Bible is true, and then the proofs have sometimes been disproved. Equally, archaeology has often been used to disprove the Bible, and then those negative conclusions have sometimes been disproved. This raises the question of what can and what cannot be learned from archaeology. In this paper I shall offer some examples, from both biblical and archaeological sources, that I hope will demonstrate the need for detailed research, careful evaluation, and caution in reaching conclusions, and I will show the differences in the contributions each resource can make.

A False Conclusion

It is easy to jump to conclusions. That happened on one occasion early in the last century. Excavating at Gezer, R. A. S. Macalister unearthed a curiously shaped object of baked clay. It is a flat slab, in outline like the body of a fat violin, with a small knob for a head. Around the circumference and in lines down the center, there are small holes. Looking at it, I suspect Macalister had no idea what it was, but he decided it was vaguely reminiscent of a human female figure and labeled it Degenerated Ashtoreth Plaque in his excavation report of 1912.¹ Macalister's identification was carried into a German textbook on biblical archaeology, where it was reproduced as a primitive representation with the caption, Flat Idol of Astarte.² Meanwhile, a British scholar called it a Conventional Astarte-Plaque.³ The German volume became a standard handbook, which meant that many generations of students and pastors were taught that this was a Canaanite idol.

More extensive research could have led Macalister to a different, and correct explanation. Discovered from Mesopotamia to Egypt, dozens of examples of this kind of artifact made of stone or ivory and of the same design are now known. Two specimens carved in ivory were found in the Late Bronze Age treasure at Megiddo. Egyptian tombs have provided others complete with equipment needed for their use. What Macalister had unearthed were gaming-boards, with holes for pegs that the players moved according to now unknown rules. The Degenerated Ashtoreth Plaque from Gezer is, in fact, a poor-man's gaming-board, made of clay rather than ivory.⁴

This gaming-board illustrates how archaeological misinterpretation has distorted the picture of Canaanite religious practices that many students have received. The case demonstrates the need to examine any ancient artifact in the light of comparable examples. Common features may point to an identical purpose, and differences suggest variations in context. Here the use of clay rather than ivory indicates differences in the economic level of the people who owned the objects.

A Mistaken Deduction

The next example involves a mistaken deduction about a biblical text. Daniel 2:46 reports how the Babylonian king gave great honors to Daniel for telling him his dream and interpreting it: Then king Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. The last honor has been a stumbling block to commentators, since incense belongs to religious cultic practice. It was burned before a divine presence, usually in the form of a statue. Almost universally, interpreters assume that the king was treating Daniel as a god, a point made by Josephus already in the first century.⁵ This has been seen as an example of the Hellenistic Benefactor Cult, in which altars were erected and sacrifices made in the name of someone who had performed a noble deed for a person or a city. Others have suspected an ironic, if not humorous note in this description of a Babylonian potentate revering the exiled Jew and his God, perhaps prefiguring the prophecy of the dream itself. Embarrassed by the depiction of a human being, a devout monotheistic Jew, being treated as a divinity, Jerome and others since have supposed that the honors were offered to the Deity whom Daniel represented, rather than to the man himself.⁶ Of course, most of these interpreters have presupposed a second century BC date for the composition of the book of Daniel.⁷

In more recent decades the view that the narratives in the first six chapters have a strong Babylonian background has been gaining ground.⁸ If Nebuchadnezzar's action is viewed in that context, the difficulty it seems to present disappears. According to biblical texts falling prostrate before someone was a gesture of respect that was paid to a prophet, a king and a benefactor (1 Kgs 18:7; 2 Sam 9:6; Ruth 2:10), as well as to heavenly beings. The verb for paid him honor (s g d) is widely used with regard to deities. However, it does occur with respect to human beings in the Aramaic papyrus text of Ahiqar, used in the fifth century BC at Elephantine, where it describes Ahiqar's attitude to his master Esarhaddon (1.13). Significantly, the narrative part of Ahiqar is set in the context of the Assyrian court, and is written in a style of Aramaic that is more eastern than the language of the proverbs, which has a western flavor. In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus reported that when Persians meet in the streets, where the difference of rank is great, the inferior prostrates himself upon the ground and does reverence to the other (I. 134). The adventurer Xenophon reported that all prostrated themselves before the Persian pretender Cyrus.⁹ Discussing the status of the Persian kings, R. N. Frye wrote,

… [I]t would seem that for the Achaemenids even proskynesis did not signify the abject humility before a god, but rather the sign of respect towards royalty, for the nobility a bow with the kissing of one's hands as depicted on reliefs at Persepolis, or with knee bending, or even, in the case of supplications or requests, full prostration on the ground, especially for menials. In neither case was god worship intended.¹⁰

The offering made to Daniel was a min â, which can denote a sacrifice in a cultic setting. However, originally the word may have referred to a gift presented by an inferior to a superior (as in Gen 43:11). Therefore, in themselves the honor and the offering presented to Daniel do not demand that Nebuchadnezzar's actions be interpreted as cultic actions.

The question of the incense presented to Daniel deserves more attention. The instructions for making the sacred incense in Exod 30:34–38 end with a prohibition on any making the same incense for their own personal use, prescribing the most severe punishment for anyone who does. This text implies there were other types of incense that Israelites could use. This conclusion is supported by Prov 27:9, Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and Ps 45:8, All your robes are fragrant with myrrh, aloes, and cassia. The latter may refer to wafting the smoke of incense into clothes. Although there are no clear examples in the Bible, incense was evidently used in nonreligious ways throughout the ancient Near East. Long ago, W. F. Albright drew attention to the burning of incense as a means of freshening houses in ancient and recent times.¹¹ Among other examples that could be added, we note the small cuboid incense burners, made of pottery or stone, found at sites in Mesopotamia, the Levant, and southern Arabia from the third millennium BC onwards. It is as likely that these were made to serve a domestic purpose as that they were intended for cultic use.¹²

The second relief is from the Persian palace at Persepolis. Although nowadays there is some debate over the identity of the royal figures, scholars have long believed that the relief portrays Darius enthroned with his crown prince Xerxes beside him.¹³ Before the king stand two incense burners, perfuming the air between him and those receiving an audience. The shape of those burners is virtually identical to several silver examples unearthed in a Persian period tomb in Turkey. These are 11 inches (28 centimeters) high. Somewhat similar bronze ones have been found in tombs near Shechem and in Jordan.¹⁴ The presence of incense burners in tombs indicates that they were part of the furniture of important people in this life, and they were deposited in the tombs for use in the next life, like the other utensils placed there.

In his authoritative work, History of the Persian Empire, A. T. Olmstead deduced from the Persepolis sculpture that The use of frankincense … before the king's presence is one more hint that in Persia the monarch was reverenced as something more than human.¹⁵ There is no indication, either in Assyria or in Babylonia, that the king was treated as divine, or that individuals were deified in their lifetimes. Nor was this the case in Persia, as the citations given above make clear.¹⁶ Such concepts would have been alien to the thought of those times. Therefore, in Dan 2:46 the extravagant honor Nebuchadnezzar paid to Daniel should not be interpreted as offering him divine status, but as exalting him to a quasiroyal position. The people would have recognized the manner in which he elevated him. It resembled the actions of Belshazzar, who first offered and then granted to Daniel similar status some years later, on the night when Babylon fell to the forces of Persia.¹⁷

Texts and Physical Remains

In 732 BC the Assyrian forces of Tiglath-pileser III captured Damascus, according to the king's own inscriptions. According to Hebrew historians, at that time King Ahaz of Judah went to meet the Assyrian king, having become his vassal earlier in the hope that Tiglath-pileser would relieve Judah of the threat posed by the kings of Damascus and Israel. Only written records can inform us about these events and others like them. Even if ancient kings erected monuments in Assyria, Damascus, or Jerusalem, whether they bore pictures of a city being sacked or of one king kneeling before another, their exact import could only be known if they were accompanied by written text.

How might archaeology contribute to this piece of history? Damascus cannot be excavated because it is still an inhabited city and historic buildings stand on the sites of the ancient citadel and temple. It is difficult to imagine what could be found there that would relate to the meeting between Ahaz and his suzerain. So the question may be asked, What traces might remain in Judah that archaeologists could interpret as signs of Ahaz's submission to Assyria? Tiglath-pileser did not conquer that kingdom. There is nothing to suggest that Assyrian kings imposed their culture on their vassals; it was up to the subject kings to decide whether to copy Assyrian fashions, or not.¹⁸ The Assyrians required their vassals to pay an annual tribute. The Assyrian records show that when Menahem of Israel submitted to Tiglath-pileser he had to raise 1,000 talents of silver, which he obtained by requiring each wealthy man to contribute fifty shekels (2 Kgs 15:19–20). Neither the biblical nor the Assyrian records specify the tribute Ahaz had to pay, but he would certainly have had to send an annual levy to Assyria, which would have had a negative impact on the Judaean economy. As far as I am aware, excavations have not demonstrated any change in the material remains of the second half of the 8th century BC. However, based on written records, the destruction levels that excavators attribute to Sennacherib's campaign to crush Hezekiah's revolt in 701 BC contained large numbers of storage jars. Many of these jars had handles stamped by seals bearing the words royal property (lmlk), followed by the name of one of the towns: Ziph, Hebron, Memshat, or Sokoh. Scholars usually interpret these jars as containers prepared for provisioning Hezekiah's garrisons when he expected the Assyrian attack. The fact that they lie in debris of destruction set in Hezekiah's reign need not mean they were made only in the year or two before the towns were sacked. Although the greatest quantity of material derives from the occupation level of the latest period of habitation, it spans more than a few years. Therefore, I suggest that the jars stamped royal property were first made in the reign of Ahaz for collecting produce to be sent to Assyria, and that potters constructed them for as long as he and Hezekiah, his successor, paid tribute to Assyria. They could still have been used for collecting taxes when Hezekiah was preparing to face Assyria's attack.

Clay bullae that have come to light in Judah and elsewhere in recent years support this proposal. Bullae are small lumps of clay pressed over the cords sealing documents, packages, or jars, and then impressed with a seal. Except in very arid regions, the papyrus documents they sealed have decayed and are lost, but the bullae remain. If they had simply lain in the ground, they would be fragile, since they were simply unbaked clay. However, if the building where the papers were stored was burned, in the fire the bullae would hardened, which meant they would survive in better condition, though they would still be delicate.

More than 24,000 burnt bullae were excavated in an administrative building of the second century BC at Seleucia on the Tigris south of Baghdad.¹⁹ Bullae have also been found at Nineveh, most notably those bearing imprints of the Assyrian royal seal, and at other Assyrian period sites. While most bullae served to seal packages or boxes, a few bear imprints of papyrus fibres on the reverse.²⁰ Several groups of bullae have also been discovered in the Levant. Recently, an archaeological excavation at Tel Kedesh in Galilee uncovered more than 1,800 bullae, again from a Hellenistic level.²¹

Prior to 1966 archaeologists had uncovered only five pre-exilic Hebrew bullae, two in 1899–1900 at Tell el-Judeideh, one at Beth-Zur in 1931, and two at Lachish in 1936. Although all were published, they were not widely known or mentioned. In 1966 Yohanan Aharoni's work at Lachish produced a juglet containing seventeen bullae. In 1971 he found one more at Beer-Sheba. Another was unearthed at Tell el-Hesi in 1977. By promptly publishing all of these, this type of object gained much wider notice. The excavation and exhibition of 51 bullae by Yigal Shiloh in the City of David in Jerusalem in 1982 drew further attention to the existence of bullae. The British Museum bought one in 1965, but in 1975, 255 were put on sale in Jerusalem. Since that time hundreds more have reached the antiquities market. A catalogue of one private collection published in 2003 contains 516.²² The enormous increase in the number of bullae that have become available in recent years is probably due to an increasing consciousness of the past among modern Israelis and the realization among Palestinians and Israelis of the increasing market value of ancient Hebrew inscriptions of every sort.

In the past both antiquity hunters and archaeologists appear to have overlooked the value of these tiny pieces of clay. After all, they are usually less than two centimeters wide and very fragile if they are unbaked. As archaeological artifacts, bullae are significant because they indicate that a large number of written documents existed in ancient Judah. The fingerprints of these documents remain on the backs of the bullae in the form of imprints of papyrus fibers. They provide evidence that counters the opinion set out some years ago that most ancient Hebrew writing was in the form of short notes scribbled on ostraca, and that longer works were not written.²³ Clearly, documents, legal deeds, letters, and administrative papers were recorded on papyrus that required authentication by a seal. All that survives of them are the imprints on these bullae. The discovery of the group in the City of David excavations illustrates the situation well. A collection of papyri left in a room, perhaps in a basket, would decay or be burned, leaving only the bullae to show that an archive had been located there. The majority of bullae passing through the antiquities market evidently come from bigger archives.

The number of documents a collection of bullae, such as the 51 from Jerusalem, may represent is uncertain. Evidence from Egypt and Assyria suggests that in earlier times documents were sealed with a single seal, which seems also to have been the case in Jeremiah 32. However, the Samaria papyri, written in the fourth century BC, may have had as many as fourteen seals on one document.²⁴ At a maximum, each bulla could represent one document, in which case the total number of Hebrew bullae currently known accounts for more than 800 texts. This is as far as the physical evidence can take us. However, the inscriptions engraved on the seals that impressed the bullae also offer an enormous range of information about the society, administration, onomastics (personal names), literacy, and art of ancient Judah.

Many of the bullae seem to be associated with the time of Hezekiah. Included among these are impressions of the seals of his servants and one or two of servants of Ahaz. More remarkably, one bulla bears the imprint of a seal of Ahaz, (son of) Jehotham, king of Judah, and at least three bear the imprint of seals inscribed, Hezekiah (son of) Ahaz, king of Judah. Some doubt the authenticity of these bullae, which have been acquired on the antiquities market. Although I have not had the opportunity to examine many at first hand, photographs and information available to me suggest that they are genuine. They could be the relics of one or more archives stored in buildings burned by Sennacherib's soldiers rampaging through Judah. If this is correct, then these physical remains can be associated with an expansion of Judaean administration to collect the taxes needed for tribute to be paid to the Assyrians. While the great majority of the bullae are inscribed, even uninscribed exemplars attest to a considerable amount of writing in that period. But only the inscribed examples provide information precise enough to relate to historical events.

Although the inscribed objects may give greater precision, the evidence they provide may also be misinterpreted, a situation that can be corrected by more physical discoveries. A good example is the impression of the seal engraved, Eliakim, servant of Yawkin, which W. F. Albright identified long ago as the seal of a servant of Jehoiachin, the young king of Judah who was taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BC (2 Kgs 24:8–15; 2 Chr 36:9,10). The recovery of a duplicate impression in the ruins of Level III at Lachish, now recognized as the town Sennacherib's forces destroyed, proves that the seal belonged to an official active a century earlier.²⁵ By itself the inscription could not determine its date; the study of ancient Hebrew paleography (forms of script) is insufficiently precise for that.

Accurate Reports

The Hebrew Bible makes several references to Assyrian and Babylonian kings, which are all consistent with Assyrian and Babylonian records. Such references could have been possible if the authors of the Hebrew books lived in postexilic times, or even in the Hellenistic period, as some would claim today. But the Hebrew Bible also refers correctly to rulers of other states. The biblical texts mention the Egyptian pharaohs Shishak, Tirhakah, and Hophra, and probably also So, an abbreviation for Osorkon. They also refer to the ninth century BC king Mesha of Moab, a king one would expect generations living centuries later to have been less likely to know as a vassal who successfully threw off Israel's yoke. For Aram-Damascus, 2 Kgs 8:7–15 records the usurper Hazael's assassination of his predecessor Ben-Hadad, which is also reported in the inscriptions of Shalmaneser III of Assyria. If Jewish authors, living in the fifth century BC or later, created the biblical books, they did so on the basis of reliable information about these rulers. Remarkably, books written in Hellenistic times often make mistakes over ancient kings.²⁶

In addition to these major historical correlations, the agreement between biblical and extrabiblical records on incidental matters is even more significant. The discoveries of the past century and a half show that whenever an ancient document that has been unearthed refers to a person or event the Bible also mentions, despite differences in points of view and purpose, it tends to be consistent with the Hebrew writing. One example is the comment by Mesha, king of Moab, that men of Gad lived at the north of his realm, exactly where Num 32:34 places them. The Samaria Ostraca provide another example. In many cases the place names mentioned on these pottery fragments relate to the names of Israelite families settled in the region, as listed in Num 26:29–34 and Josh 17:2–3. The Samaria Ostraca are significant accidental survivors, discarded as rubbish in antiquity, but recovered in modern times. They surely represent only a small proportion of what was once written in Samaria and may have been written in other Israelite centers in the first half of the 8th century BC

A further example of incidental information that deserves notice is the variety of titles that royal officials bore. The account of Sennacherib's embassy to Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18, lists three Assyrian dignitaries:

These titles correspond exactly to the titles used of three of the principal officers throughout the span of the Assyrian empire: turt nu, rab ša r ši and rab š qê.²⁷ The same passage refers to three leading men who represent the king of Judah. These men bear the Hebrew titles, palace administrator ( šer l habbayit), secretary (s p r), and