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Review Essay Review Essay ARCHAEOLOGY, ICONOGRAPHY, AND THE RECREATIONOFTHE PAST IN IRON AGE HOLY LANDS PAMELA BERGER Boston College Finkelstein, Israel, andNeil Asher Silberman. TheBible Unearthed: Archae- ology’s NewVision ofAncient Israeland theOrigins ofIts SacredTexts . New York:Free Press, 2001.Pp. x +385+29 guresand maps. $26.00 cloth. Schwartz, ReginaM. TheCurse ofCain: TheViolent Legacyof Monotheism . ChicagoIL andLondon: University ofChicago Press, 1997.Pp. xv + 211.$22.95 cloth, $14.00paper. van derToorn, Karel, ed. TheImage and theBook: Iconic Cults, Aniconism, and theRise ofBook Religion in Israeland theAncient NearEast .Louvain,Bel- gium:Peeters Press, 1997.Pp. 271 + 84illustrations. £ 24.95cloth. * hese aremomentous times in the archaeologyof Israel/ Palestine. T After decades ofexcavation, most archaeologistshave concluded that the stories aboutthe patriarchs were morelegend than history;the Israelites were never inEgypt;and Joshua didnot conquer the landand pass iton to the twelve tribes.Even morestartling tothe non-specialist, scholars areinterpreting the archaeologicalevidence tosuggest that the extensive kingdomof Davidand Solomon described in the Bibledid not exist; that the religionof Judah as well as Israel was notmonotheistic; andthat Iron Age Judahwas notaniconic, butactually hadstatues ofYHWH, andperhaps even of“ his Asherah”[female companion]. These conclusions arein partthe result ofarchaeological evidence andiconographic interpretations which now supplementtraditional text- orientatedapproaches to the history ofthe region. The new perspectives have provokedinternecine battles andhave becomepart of the regionalpolitical struggles. In the mid-nineties a critiquedeveloped by Keith W.Whitelam in TheInvention ofAncient Israel RELIGION and the ARTS 6:4(2002): 499-506. c KoninklijkeBrill NV,Leiden ° RELIGION and the ARTS charged that the monarchic traditionof David and Solomon outlined in the Biblegave rise, in the modernperiod, to an interpretationof history that excluded otherpeoples in the area.This interpretationin turn was usedto formulate a version ofthe pastthat stressed the uniqueness andsuperiority of Israel andthe inferiorityof the indigenouspeople (readPalestinians). Whitelam contendedthat Judeo-Christian“ biblical” archaeologists,bound by their own cultures andtraditions, concentrated only onthe history ofthe Jewish peoplerather than ona history of the regionas awhole.Their emphasis onproving the existence ofa remarkableIron Age monarchy in the tenth century BCE(the time ofDavid and Solomon) denied a space anda timeto the histories of others.1 The questionsraised by these new perspectives posea challenge tothe eldand have provokedsome angry encounters. Notonly have normally staidwestern scholars turneduncharacteristically vitriolic,but conicts between Palestinians andIsraelis have eruptedat archaeological symposia. In the midstof this rancor, TheBible Unearthed ,written bythe Israeli archaeologistIsrael Finkelstein in cooperationwith Neil Silberman,ap- pearsmeasured and judicious. Finkelstein is the headof the Tel Aviv University Institute ofArchaeology;Neil Silbermanis ahistoriantrained atthe Hebrew University ofJerusalem andcontributing editor for Ar- chaeology Magazine .Their bookpresents an overview ofthe archaeological evidence in Israel/Palestine fromthe late Bronze Age tothe early sixth century. Unlike many earlierarchaeologists, Finkelstein doesnot rely on diggingat a particularsite in orderto “ prove”the accuracy ofa partic- ularbiblical text. His methodologyis moreinclusive. He andhis team undertakesurveys ofthe land,broad surface excavations that aimat re- vealing as much as itwill yieldabout the variouscultures andpeoples who inhabitedit. And this means all ofthe peoples,not just the people ofIsrael. His interpretationsrest onan analysis ofinscriptions andarti- facts fromthe whole ofthe Near East, andhe incorporatesthe insights ofanthropologists, geographers, and economists –in short,of research in any eldthat he feels can contributeto a betterunderstanding of the past. Acase in pointis his studyof the biblicalaccount ofthe battleof Jericho. The notionof the historicity ofthe Joshuan conquests hadseen some supportamong scholars untilfairly recently. ButFinkelstein and his school have conrmed that the destructionimplicit in the conquest text never occurred.No evidence exists that Canaanitecities, locatedon the coastal plainand in the valleys, were destroyedat or near the time ofthe supposedconquest. Indeed, unlike the descriptionin the Bible,the 500.
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