The following in an passage from Dever's lecture:
"Tonight, I must to write about the age of Solomon, but former I do that, I must to set it up by signifying you no matter which about a school of European biblical contribution," Dever whispered. "These species grasp themselves revisionists because they are rewriting the history of ancient Israel, but for instance they completion, display is no history. They grasp themselves revisionists. I grasp them nihilists."
According to Dever, the revisionist scholars withdraw that an Israelite related monarchy, to the same degree the biblical mess that flourished under Solomon, ever existed. Dever contested this hold on, arguing that the archaeological data confirms the verve of a centralized Israelite discussion in 10th century Palestine.
According to a "hip, minuscule story" in 1 Kings 9:15-17, the Egyptian pharaoh attacked and not working the civil of Gezer, Dever whispered. The pharaoh in addition to gave the civil as a display to his child for instance she connubial Solomon. The passage in addition to states that Solomon secured or refortified four sites: Hazor, Megiddo, Gezer and Jerusalem.
"Wouldn't it be hip if we had archaeological data from individuals sites for an quick stage? In good physical shape, we do," Dever whispered. "And what do you picture the revisionists make of this evidence? They lone give the brush-off it, because it is vexing for their theories."
Dever reported that excavations, for the most part at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, confess bare "giant architecture" that cannot be explained weakness quotation to a centralized supervision. The architecture of each of these cities is habituated to landscape for basis antagonistic tiptoe, but all the cities acquaint with the identical structural patterns, such as six-chambered gates, twofold or casemate wall systems, alike palace structures and Phoenician brickwork (according to 1 Kings, Solomon utilized Phoenician craftsmen in his stock projects).
These architectural structures can be impossible to the 10th century B.C., Dever whispered, with quotation to stratigraphy, terracotta typology and ancient Egyptian chronology. This scheme is aided by the get hold of of pulling down levels, crammed with wreck and presentation data of fires "so great that it melted the sandstone and it flowed down to the same degree lava." According to Dever, the pulling down can be attributed to the antagonistic invasions of the Egyptian Pharaoh Sheshonq, that is, the biblical Shishak (1 Kings 14 and 2 History 12).
"At one time, display stood a giant Egyptian lettering at the site of Megiddo celebrating the pulling down by Shishak," Dever whispered. Shishak was the preliminary pharaoh in the 22nd Egyptian firm, and archaeological data shows that he raided Palestine in the belated 10th century B.C. In the midst of the wreck of pulling down, archaeologists likewise confess discovered the hand-burnished pottery be included of the 10th century. According to Dever, this implies that the giant architecture that Shishak and his air force not working "obligation confess been built a social group or so until that time -- and that sitting room us distinct in the essence of the directive of Solomon."
"Of course, the revisionists argue that, besides, you've never found whatsoever from the 10th century, nobody giant in Jerusalem.' That's true, because we never were trustworthy to burrow [in Jerusalem]," Dever whispered. Jerusalem was the fourth civil that Solomon refortified, and it was the center of his mess. Despite the lack of make contact with to the archaeological data that lies underside modern Jerusalem, Dever argued that biblical descriptions of Solomon's Ridge resemble other 10th-century temples in the Medium East.
"All the descriptions in the Hebrew Bible," Dever whispered, "make good spice up in the light of what we know about ancient architecture."
Revisionist scholars likewise ride that a centralized discussion can not confess existed in 10th century Israel because literacy was not large, and the knowledge of reading and writing is obligation for the assign of a mess. Archaeological data to the same degree the Gezer calendar, all the same, has made known that even in environmental areas descendants boys were learning to read due to the 10th century and until that time, Dever whispered.
To read the thesis in its full-blown as published in the Baptist Impetus, report happening.
To learn senior about Southwestern Seminary's shout in biblical archaeology, investigate http://www.swbts.edu/ or http://www.gezerproject.org/.
Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Tribute
Northern Baptist Seminary
