“No actual remains of Solomonic Jerusalem have survived,” Dr. Kathleen Kenyon wrote shortly before her death in 1978.1 Most scholars would agree with famous British archaeologist even today. I believe she is wrong. A major Solomonic monument is visible in Jerusalem today for all to see. Indeed, virtually every visitor to Jerusalem does see it, […]
Major Philistine City Survived by Absorbing Other Cultures The Philistines were the chief adversary of Biblical Israel in the 12th and 11th centuries B.C.E. They were also the conquerors of the Canaanite cities of the southern coastal plain. At the beginning of the first millennium B.C.E., however, the Philistine cities were destroyed and the Philistines […]
Overview Life in the Land (Joshua and Judges), Christine Hayes, Open Yale Courses (Transcription), 2006. Prophets and Kings (1 and 2 Samuel), Christine Hayes, Open Yale Courses (Transcription), 2006. Response to Catastrophe (1 and 2 Kings), Christine Hayes, Open Yale Courses (Transcription), 2006. Biblical History- From Joshua to Samuel, c. 1200-1000 BCE, Steven Feldman, COJS. […]
Visitors to Jerusalem understandably are often confused by the jumbled and disconnected layers of the past that exist side by side with the teeming modern city. Jerusalem at the time of the First Temple—the Jerusalem of the Bible, the Jerusalem of Solomon, the Jerusalem whose Temple was destroyed in 586 B.C. and whose residents were […]
Where They Came From, How They Settled Down and the Place They Worshiped In The accumulated evidence from recent excavations at Miqne and other sites and current research on the material culture of the Philistines and other Sea Peoples make the time ripe for a reassessment of the initial appearance and settlement in Canaan of […]
Were they Egyptian lackeys or invading conquerors? Archaeology has brought the Philistines to life more vividly than perhaps any other Biblical people save the Israelites and the Egyptians. We now know that the Philistines were one of the Sea Peoples that also included the Tjeker, the Denyen (or Danuna), the Shardana and the Weshesh. At […]
The Sea Peoples are unappreciated. This is in part because the most famous of them, the Philistines, received such bad press in the Bible. But the other Sea Peoples—among them the Shardana, Sikila, Lukka and the Danuna—have also been treated poorly, even by scholars, who often blame them for causing the widespread disorder and destruction […]
A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence The story of the Israelite conquest of Jericho (Joshua 2–6) is one of the best known and best loved in the entire Bible. The vivid description of faith and victory has been a source of inspiration for countless generations of Bible readers. But did it really happen as […]
How they lived, worked and worshiped for five hundred years The first joint American-Israeli archaeological expedition was conceived on a hot summer’s afternoon in 1980. Seymour Gitin, director of the William F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, and Ernest Frerichs, the Albright president, were having tea with Hebrew University professor Trude Dothan at her home […]
Why Some Tribes Answered the Call and Others Did Not The Song of Deborah (Judges 5) is one of the most powerful pieces of poetry in the entire Bible. A prose version repeats the same story, with many variations, in Judges 4. The account tells of the deliverer (Judge) Deborah and her reluctant general Barak, […]