New Directions: How Archaeology Illuminates the Bible

COPYRIGHT LAWRENCE E. STAGER; ILLUSTRATION BY C.S. ALEXANDER, AS IN LIFE IN BIBLICAL ISRAEL, ILL. 10; COURTESY OF HARVARD MUSEUM OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

New Directions in Biblical Archaeology

Biblical archaeology has changed significantly over the past five decades. In this series developed specially for BAR’s 50th anniversary, leading scholars offer their perspectives on how the field has evolved and what the future may hold. In this essay, archaeologist Jennie Ebeling discusses how the field’s early emphasis on confirming the biblical narrative has gradually given way to a more sophisticated approach that prioritizes learning about the lives of ordinary people in the biblical world.

I am what many would call a “biblical archaeologist.” But you might be surprised to find out that I do not spend my time trying to prove the Bible. Like most of my colleagues, I do not view the relationship between the Bible and archaeology in nearly the same way as the discipline’s founders did a century or even 50 years ago. For these early biblical archaeologists, archaeology was a source of tangible remains of the “biblical world” and a means by which the people and the events described in the Bible could be validated.

Consider the perspective of William F. Albright, widely considered the father of biblical archaeology (see Why Is Biblical Archaeology So Focused on the Old Testament?). He and his contemporaries sincerely believed that archaeology had proved many key biblical events: the Patriarchs, Moses and the Exodus, the Conquest of Canaan, and more. Most archaeologists and biblical scholars working today would refute Albright’s assertions and argue that the point of archaeology is not to confirm the historicity of the Bible. Instead, archaeology provides context for the biblical narrative and offers a wealth of information about the lives of those who lived in ancient Israel and Judah during the Iron Age (c. 1200–586 BCE), when parts of the Hebrew Bible were first being written down. No longer a handmaiden of biblical studies, archaeology has shaped our understanding of the biblical world in ways that Albright and other archaeologists who were active a century ago could not have imagined.

Although some biblical archaeologists continue to debate major historical questions, such as the size and nature of David and Solomon’s kingdom, most scholars now take a different approach. Instead of trying to shed light on when and where certain events described in the Bible took place, their approach is more archaeological: reconstructing aspects of the lives of people in the past through their material remains. This can be seen in the relatively recent shift in focus to women, children, and non-elites whose lives differed in many respects from those of the biblical writers. As it turns out, the Bible is a useful source of information about many aspects of daily life during the Iron Age.

One example comes from the Hebrew Bible’s descriptions of food culture and technology. While the biblical writers themselves probably did not operate handstones, grinding slabs, pestles, and mortars (all evidence suggests these food preparation tools were primarily used by women in domestic contexts), they occasionally mention them because they were familiar with their physical characteristics (Judges 9:53; 2 Samuel 11:21), knew their value as household items (Deuteronomy 24:6), and lived with the familiar sounds of grain grinding (Jeremiah 25:10; Ecclesiastes 12:4).

Given how conservative such ancient technologies were, it doesn’t matter so much if the men who wrote these passages lived in the eighth century, the fifth century, or even later. Of course, some aspects of daily life changed for those who lived in Israel and Judah during this tumultuous time. But essential daily life activities that involved the clay and stone artifacts and installations that are preserved in huge quantities in Bronze and Iron Age contexts did not change dramatically during this period. In short, archaeologists use the Bible—along with extrabiblical texts, artistic representations, ethnographic information, and other sources of information—to interpret what we uncover through survey and excavation.

No archaeological evidence for commercial bakeries and mills has been identified in Iron Age Israel and Judah, and grinding stones and ovens tend to be found in domestic contexts. Household archaeology approaches, which focus on the household as a physical as well as a social unit, have been adopted by archaeologists interested in reconstructing everyday activities such as cooking and baking, spinning and weaving, small-scale metalworking, and more. But the material culture found in these spaces provides evidence not only for the “mundane” activities of daily life: It offers a window onto how people began to think and act as part of a single social group or identity. We can see this in the food and drink prepared and consumed in the household. For example, could the paucity of pig remains in houses in Judah (when compared to the animal bone remains in houses in neighboring Philistia) reflect the taboo against eating pork commanded in Deuteronomy 14:8 and Leviticus 11:7 and thus indicate that those who lived in these houses were Israelites? Although there could be other explanations for this pattern, the biblical evidence strengthens the argument that residents had an aversion to consuming pork.

Similarly, some archaeologists have argued that the form and layout of Iron Age houses should be viewed as an expression of Israelite identity. Pillared houses, also known as “four-room houses,” have their origins in earlier Late Bronze Age houses and may have developed as an adaptation to agrarian life in the central highland villages of the early Israelite period (c. 1200–1000 BCE). The fact that this house type persisted into the period of the monarchy (c. 1000–586 BCE) in both urban and rural settings might suggest that pillared houses signaled group identity. Indeed, the biblical writers understood the household as the fundamental unit of Israelite society, as seen in the use of the expressions bet ’ab (“house of the father”) to denote a multigenerational family, its structures, and property in multiple passages, and bet ’em (“house of the mother”) in situations where women are active agents (Genesis 24:28; Ruth 1:8; Song of Songs 3:4; 8:2).

OURTESY OF THE LAWRENCE T. GERATY
AND DOUGLAS R. CLARK
CENTER FOR NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY AT LA SIERRA UNIVERSITY

COURTESY OF THE BADÈ MUSEUM, PACIFIC SCHOOL OF RELIGION

The household was where every individual—from members of the royal family to the everyday people who made up most of Israelite society—learned the traditions and norms of the group. Judges 17, which focuses on the bet ’ab of a man named Micah (not to be confused with the biblical prophet of the same name) in the period before the establishment of the monarchy, describes another important activity performed in the context of the household: worship. Although the biblical writers generally condemned cultic activities that did not take place in the tabernacle, Jerusalem Temple, and other spaces where YHWH, the patron deity of biblical Israel, was officially to be served, they did describe situations in which men, women, and even children participated in ritual activities.

ERICH LESSING / ART RESOURCE, NY

According to Judges 17, Micah commissioned several images (figurines?), created cultic equipment (an ephod and teraphim), and hired a Levite priest to perform rituals in a shrine he establishes on his property called a bet ’elohim (“house of God”). Although the identifications of ephod and teraphim are obscure, archaeologists have uncovered a wealth of specialized cultic equipment in Iron Age houses that bear witness to a variety of ritual activities. These include figurines and amulets, miniature shrines, altars, and stands for placing offerings and burning incense, and special vessels, such as ring-shaped pottery kernoi, that may have been used to pour libations. Although these objects are sometimes found in spaces created specifically for religious practice—so-called “cult corners”—they are often found in areas where cooking, baking, and other daily life activities took place. This suggests that women may have been responsible for some of the ritual activities performed in household contexts.

ISRAEL FINKELSTEIN / TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY

Given my interest in bread and baking in the Iron Age, I am fascinated by passages in Jeremiah that describe a family ritual that involves the preparation of special cakes for the Queen of Heaven, likely the Canaanite Astarte or Mesopotamian Ishtar. In the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem, writes the prophet, “the children gather wood, the fathers kindle fire, and the women knead dough, to make cakes for the Queen of Heaven, and they pour out drink offerings to other gods …” (Jeremiah 7:17–18). The cakes, called kawwanim (cognate to Akkadian kamanu, a type of baked good offered to Ishtar), were marked with the image of the goddess according to Jeremiah 44:19. Although Jeremiah clearly condemns these activities, the women who speak in this passage are convinced that making offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out libations to her had ensured the success of their community:

Instead, we will do everything that we have vowed, make offerings to the Queen of Heaven and pour out libations to her, just as we and our ancestors, the kings and our officials, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. We used to have plenty of food and prospered and saw no misfortune.

(Jeremiah 44:17)

Similar motivations may explain the household rituals that involved the use of specialized objects such as those uncovered by archaeologists in Iron Age houses.

Archaeological discoveries have transformed our understanding of life in ancient Israel. Although biblical archaeology first developed as a means of proving the veracity of biblical accounts, it should now be considered a primary source of information about the people who lived in the Iron Age. No longer restricted to the information provided by the biblical writers—who did not intend to write a manual of daily life and probably knew relatively little about some of the activities they describe—we have at our disposal an ever-increasing body of data that can inform on matters related to Israelite subsistence, technology, identity, ritual, and much more. While such studies do not necessarily answer the kinds of historical questions that motivated Albright and his contemporaries, anthropological approaches like these help us reconstruct a fuller picture of life in ancient Israel in all its complexity and vitality.