Books in Brief

010

Comprehensive Text

Archaeology of the Land of the Bible

Amihai Mazar

(New York: Doubleday, 1990) 602 pp., 8 tables, 11 maps, 256 illustrations, $30.00

Teachers of Biblical archaeology have been looking for an updated, comprehensive textbook to use in their introductory courses. Amihai Mazar’s book fills this gap and is highly welcomed. It is also befitting that its publication falls during the 100th anniversary of Sir William Flinders Petrie’s excavations at Tell el-Hesi, an event that marked the beginning of what is known today as Biblical archaeology.

In the preface to Archaeology of the Land of the Bible, Mazar states that “the purpose of this volume [is] to present a comprehensive, updated and as objective as possible picture of the archaeological research of Palestine relating to the Old Testament period” (p. xv), and there is no question that he has done what he aimed to do.

When reviewing such a book of basics, we have to remember that it cannot cover everything that needs to be covered. Some matters must be dealt with in an abbreviated manner with the hope that the topic will be better covered in more specialized books or in classroom lectures.

Some authors might have chosen different topics, or a different order of presentation, but I personally prefer the choices made by Mazar. He presents Biblical history from the domestication of plants and animals in about 10,000 B.C.E.^a to the destruction of the Solomonic Temple in the sixth century B.C.E.

When dealing with Biblical archaeology, several approaches can be taken. It is possible to deal with the subject in the order of the books of the Bible, as done by Gaalyah Cornfeld and David Noel Freedman in Archaeology of the Bible: Book by Book (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1976). However, I consider this an artificial and unsatisfactory approach because it is not the way in which Biblical history unfolded.

Another approach is by topics—such as architecture, weights and measurements, etc. as in Shalom M. Paul and William G. Dever’s Biblical Archaeology (New York Quadrangle/The New York Times Book Co., 1974). With this approach, however, Biblical history is not treated in the order in which it unfolded, so this approach is good only for more advanced students studying the material culture of Biblical times after having been introduced to the basics of Biblical history.

Another, more common, approach is the chronological one taken by Kathleen M. Kenyon in Archaeology in the Holy Land (New York: Norton, 4th ed., 1979) or in Kenyon’s The Bible and Recent Archaeology (Atlanta: John Knox, 1987), revised by P. R. S. Moorey. The same approach was taken by William Foxwell Albright in The Archaeology of Palestine, originally published in 1949, and by Yohanan Aharoni in The Archaeology of the Land of Israel, translated into English by Anson F. Rainey (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1982). These books are classics that now badly need revision. Unfortunately, their authors are dead, and so the task falls on others who can produce new volumes.

One recent book, reviewed here by me,^b is Henry O. Thompson’s Biblical Archaeology: The World, the Mediterranean, the Bible (New York: Paragon House Publishers, 1987). The problem with Thompson’s book is that over half of it is devoted to methodology, while only less than half deals with Biblical archaeology—first from a topical point of view, then book-by-book. Because it covers through the Roman period, Thompson’s Biblical Archaeology adds 700 years of history that uses space that could have been devoted to an in-depth treatment of the earlier periods. Although Thompson’s book was a welcome addition to available texts, Mazar’s new volume is a better alternative.

Mazar’s approach is chronological, with a further breakdown into topics. Although Aharoni and Kenyon start their presentations in the Paleolithic period and Albright starts his in the Mesozoic Age, Mazar’s chronology begins later, in the Neolithic Age (around 10,000 B.C.E.). In the chapters that follow, Mazar deals chronologically and topically with the Chalcolithic, Early Bronze, the EB IV/MB I period, Middle and Late Bronze and the Iron Age (which he divides into three periods). The topics in each chapter are chosen for their relevance to the period under discussion. For example, in chapter 8, “The Days of The Judges Iron I (ca. 1200–1000 B.C.E.),” some of the subdivisions are “The Last Phase of Egyptian Control in Canaan,” “The Settlement of the Philistines and Other Sea Peoples,” “The Material Culture of the Israelite Tribes in the Period of the Judges,” “The Canaanites and the Emergence of the Phoenician Culture,” and “Writing in Iron 070Age I.” When discussing the southern kingdom of the Divided Monarchy (chapter 6), he includes regional and site descriptions of Jerusalem, Lachish and the northern Negev, as well as valuable subsections on topics such as lmlk seal impressions.

The first chapter and the last two chapters are topical rather than chronological. The first, introductory chapter covers—in brief scope—the geography and history of Biblical archaeology and the methodology of digging and recording. In this chapter, Mazar also raises many questions and issues facing the profession, such as the question of how to define the field. The last two chapters consider “General Aspects of the Israelite Material Culture” and “Israel’s Neighbors and the Assyrian and Babylonian Dominations.” With these discussions Mazar provides context for the chronological presentation.

A generous bibliography follows every chapter. The author’s familiarity with the literature of the field is evident in his coverage of environmental and economic factors as well as historical events. As promised in the preface, Mazar presents different opinions and points of view and, after discussing their merits, suggests one to follow.

I think very highly of Mazar’s new book, of its structure, the number and quality of illustrations, the helpful tables and charts and the way the author organizes his information. However, future editions should correct some technical problems: page 146, note 11 mentions Stager as author, but the citation is incomplete, no title is given; map 6.1, page 177, the white dot in the legend should be black; the tenth line from the top, page 512, a word is missing where it should read “In the [seventh] century B.C.E.”; and the lines are not sharp enough on some maps (1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 8.21). Adding chronological tables would enable comparisons between periods and cultures.

Mazar is very meticulous about giving the reasons for dating a period, but I question whether a beginning student can follow these discussions. Too much space is sometimes devoted to problems of chronology and dating without the accompaniment of some basic explanations. One case of excessively abbreviated treatment is the discussion of the great Mesopotamian site of Mari; nothing is said about Mari’s famous archive.

A few other problems follow Mazar talks about eleven, rather than ten, standing stones at Gezer (p. 231) and about a basin in “The High Place,” but he does not mention the theory of this place being a site for covenant making or renewal. In discussing the Patriarchs (p. 225), he does not mention the theory of dating the Patriarchal Age in EB IV/MB I. Also, whether it is right or wrong, the theory that the Habiru may have been the Hebrews should be mentioned. No mention is made of Israel Finklestein’s theory about the pastoralization of urban society at the end of the MB period or of his suggestion about Late Bronze isolated temples belonging to pastoralists.

At times Mazar’s terms need explanation. An example is favissa on page 321. A glossary would have been helpful. The Balaam inscription (mentioned on p. 330) needs some more explanation or description, as do the Izbet Sartah ostracon and the Gezer Calendar, which get only a short mention in Table 8 (p. 520). In discussing literacy, he should have said more about the papyrus discovered in the Muraba’at cave, the only papyrus found from the time of the Monarchy (p. 515).

These critical remarks are not intended to detract from the value and importance of Mazar’s text or from the clarity of its presentation. Archaeology of the Land of the Bible is going to have a place on the shelf of every student interested in Biblical history.

Comprehensive Text

Archaeology of the Land of the Bible

Amihai Mazar

(New York: Doubleday, 1990) 602 pp., 8 tables, 11 maps, 256 illustrations, $30.00