Queries & Comments

012

Do Archaeologists Reject Miracles?

To the Editor:

One thing truly perplexes me about archaeology and archaeologists.

Do all Biblical archaeologists start from a humanistic (i.e., natural) viewpoint as regards Biblical events? In other words, “If the evidence makes it humanly impossible, it didn’t happen.”

What prompts me to ask is in relation to the Israelite conquest of Canaan. Those archaeologists who will at least grant the possibility of the conquest still devise elaborate and complex theories as to how an unskilled, ragtag Israelite army could subdue a whole train of strongly fortified Canaanite cities. Do all archaeologists automatically rule out the Biblical (and simplest) answer, namely, that God helped? What better way for God to show his glory and establish his kingship?

Please understand it is interesting to read the latest evidence or lack of evidence as to any Biblical event, but I am curious as to whether Biblical archaeology requires a humanistic, anti-supernatural philosophical base.

Joseph A. Callaway^a replies:

Let me say first that your inquiry is relevant and fair. I believe the best way to resolve perplexing issues among those of us who study the Bible is to discuss them openly and honestly.

You begin with a question about “all archaeologists,” as though they are all cut from the same cloth. My observation is that we are quite individualistic in our thinking and even appearance, and I doubt that you would find any significant issue on which “all archaeologists” would agree. So when I respond to your questions, I speak for myself and for nobody else, as I assume you are doing in writing your letter.

Now, you ask, do I “start from a humanistic (i.e., natural) viewpoint as regards Biblical events?” I’m sure you are aware that in some religious circles the term “humanistic” is a kind of derogatory code word, but in its traditional meaning, I suppose it pretty well characterizes the starting point for me in archaeology. In 15 seasons of excavating in the Holy Land, I have yet to excavate a town or city not built with human hands according to plans conceived in human minds. In 1961 and 1962 I excavated in the city of David and Solomon, just south of the Temple area. It was not the New Jerusalem of the book of Revelation. And I have in a storeroom some 15 feet from the desk on which I am writing this letter several shelves of field record books, thousands of artifact drawings and photographs, and plans of houses, villages, and cities, and all are records of what the people of Biblical times left behind. This is what I start with in archaeology, so I suppose I begin with a humanistic viewpoint. Again, you say, if the evidence from archaeology makes an event related in the Bible humanly impossible, would I say the event didn’t happen? I suppose you want a yes or no answer. But many questions cannot be answered yes or no.

If I have to give you an answer in one-eighth of a second, it is “yes and no.” Perhaps you feel that is evading the issue. No, it is not evading the issue. It simply takes the issue out of the one-eighth-of-a-second time frame and gives me a chance to say what I want to say.

I said “yes and no” because I am sure the humanly impossible Biblical event is not something made up, but I am also persuaded that it must not have happened the way I thought it did. My “no” is aimed at my understanding of the event, not at the Bible. Actually, negative archaeological evidence on the event is pressing me to redirect my thinking about it. It took me a while to reach this conclusion because, like many people, my ideas about the Bible were as sacred as the Bible. If my ideas were threatened, the Bible was threatened, and if there had to be blood on the door the Bible would go before my ideas about it were surrendered.

But I learned one day that the Bible can’t be boxed up in the narrow limits of my understanding. Archaeology helped me to perceive this, and it did so by redirecting my thinking about events such as the conquest, to which you refer. In fact, the great contribution that archaeology has made to me in Bible study has been the relocation of my perspectives, not the confirmation of ideas I had already.

We would welcome additional replies from other scholars to Mr. Vander Kooi’s letter.—Ed.

No Biblical History Before 1000 B.C.?

To the Editor:

I have a question with regard to the article on the Ebla tablets (“Ur and Jerusalem Not Mentioned in Ebla Tablets, Say Ebla Expedition Scholars,” BAR 09:06) by Professor James D. Muhly.

First, the paragraph that reads as follows:

“According to the Italian lecturers, the world of the Ebla tablets is the world of the mid-third millennium B.C., while the Old Testament is based in the first millennium B.C. The Italians cite the very influential recent work of such scholars as Thomas L. Thompson and John Van Setters who find nothing earlier than the first millennium B.C. in the composition of the books of the Old Testament, including the book of Genesis. The Italian lecturers believe that this view will come to dominate Biblical scholarship. They stress that this development is taking place quite apart from anything connected with Ebla.”

The italicized language above seems ambiguous to me. If it is saying that the compositions which we have reflecting the Old Testament do not, as compositions, predate the first 014millennium B.C., the statement is not shocking. If they are suggesting that the stories, particularly of pre-Davidic times, do not precede the first millennium B.C., then I would be most interested in reading the things they have to say and the reasons for their conclusions. Would it be possible for you to enlighten me on this, and in the latter such event above, to provide me with information about the name of the “influential recent work” of such scholars as Thomas L. Thompson and John Van Seters and where I may purchase a copy of it.

James D. Muhly replies:

The question is a profound one that cannot be answered in detail by a brief reply.

To put things as simply as possible, the point being made concerns the nature of historical scholarship and the standards to be applied to the evidence utilized in any reconstruction of the historical past. Reliable history, it is claimed, can only be reconstructed on the basis of written sources contemporary with the events described therein, or at least written down within the living memory of the participants in those events. The main distinction is that between contemporary historical sources and later literary traditions.

From this point of view, the historical books of the Old Testament, dealing with the history of the Jewish people prior to the time of the United Monarchy and the intervention of Assyria, represent later literary traditions composed perhaps as late as the sixth century B.C. and written to serve religious or nationalistic interests. As such they cannot be considered as reliable historical accounts. It is not so much that they were committed to writing at a time much later than the events they purport to describe, but that they cannot be shown to have been based upon any authentic historical traditions.

If this be accepted, then there is no point in trying to reconstruct a historical milieu for figures such as Abraham or Joseph, since they are properly to be seen not as historical characters but as individuals outside history. Why worry about the proper historical background in which to place the patriarchal narratives when those narratives have nothing to do with history?

It should be obvious that such a scholarly position views the Bible only as a potential historical source, not as a religious book or as a divinely inspired body of writings. To do otherwise, it is argued, would be to shift from history to theology.

There are other scholars, of course, who believe that it is possible to uphold the most rigorous standards of source criticism and still write a history of Israel prior to c. 1000 B.C. This is done by interpreting the Biblical accounts within the context of contemporary Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Anatolian historical texts and in the light of the abundant archaeological evidence derived from the excavation of sites capable of being identified with places mentioned in the Biblical accounts. This, in brief, is the position of W. F. Albright and his followers.

In reply, Thompson and Van Seters would argue that, prior to 1000 B.C., we have yet to be able to make a direct correlation between any Biblical character or event and anything recorded in extra-Biblical sources. They would insist that, in spite of the numerous parallels with Biblical customs and institutions recorded in the texts from Mari, Nuzi and Ugarit, we cannot find Biblical history recorded in a single extra-Biblical historical source from the third or second millennia B.C. Thus, only by assuming the historicity of the Biblical narratives is it possible to write Biblical history.

It is their attitude to archaeology that most aroused the ire of many Biblical scholars today against Thompson and Van Seters. The evidence derived from archaeology is usually regarded as the most important recent contributor to Biblical scholarship, one that has most dramatically changed our attitude toward the historical value of books such as Genesis, Exodus, Joshua and Judges. Thompson and Van Seters, on the other hand, would argue that only by prior assumptions regarding the historical narrative of these books can archaeological evidence properly be related to that narrative. An assumption is made as to the historical credibility of the patriarchal narratives so that archaeological evidence from a particular period can be related to those narratives. Archaeological evidence is then adduced in support of the historicity of the Biblical narrative, and the Biblical scholar finds himself in the circular argument within which he has been trapped for the past 50 years.

The point here is that history cannot be written from archaeological evidence alone and that, without direct written historical evidence for Biblical history, there is little to be gained from archaeology regardless of how detailed the archaeological record might prove to be. This attitude would have it that archaeology can, at best, only illuminate what is already known from written sources so that archaeology can properly be described as a handmaiden of history. Since prior to c. 1000 B.C. we have only later literary traditions and no 094contemporary history, archaeology and archaeological evidence cannot make up for the missing historical record. Only contemporary written accounts could ever give us a historical Exodus and Conquest, not archaeological destruction levels dated on ceramic evidence to the end of the Late Bronze Age.

The following books and articles by Thompson and Van Seters contain their arguments in detail: Thomas L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (Tübingen, 1974) (published in the German series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenchaft, Vol. 133); J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1975); J. Van Seters, In Search of History: Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1983); J. Van Seters, “Recent Studies on the Pentateuch: A Crisis in Method,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 99 (1979) pp. 663–673; T. L. Thompson, “The Background of the Patriarchs,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 9 (1978), pp. 243.

For an article rejecting the extreme position of Van Seters and Thompson, see Nahum M. Sarna, “Abraham in History,” BAR 03:04.—Ed.

Pocahontas Married John Rolfe

To the Editor:

James Fleming’s article, “Putting the Bible on the Map,” BAR 09:06, refers to Pocahontas as the wife of John Smith. She supposedly saved John Smith’s life, but she married John Rolfe in 1614.

To the Editor:

Whether or not Pocahontas actually saved Smith from having his brains dashed out upon order of her father, Powhatan, he did not reward the young lady by marrying her.

Dr. Fleming is surely well versed in Biblical history, but he should perhaps undertake a bit of checking into American history.

The error was BAR’s, not Dr. Fleming’s.—Ed.

Did Claude Schaeffer Accept Velikovsky’s Thesis?

To the Editor:

In response to Peter C. Craigie’s statement, “ … Almost all scholars agree that Psalm 29’s background is Baal worship … ” (“The Tablets from Ugarit and Their Importance for Biblical Studies,” BAR 09:05), this would not necessarily be true if we accept the revised chronology of the late Immanuel Velikovsky.

Velikovsky, who enjoyed the respect and friendship of Claude Schaeffer, felt that 600 “ghost” years have crept into Egyptian history, which has a direct bearing on all mid-eastern chronology, including that of Ugarit. If this is true, the Psalms are contemporary with the Ugarit tablets. If so, who borrowed from whose religion?

To the Editor:

In his posthumously published book Stargazers and Gravediggers, Immanuel Velikovsky writes about his meetings with Claude Schaeffer and about Schaeffer’s interest in Velikovsky’s book Ages in Chaos: he claims that Schaeffer and the book were inseparable, although Schaeffer was not entirely convinced. Did Schaeffer eventually come to think that Velikovsky may have been right?

Mme. Schaeffer replies:

My late husband wrote definitely to Professor Velikovsky that he did not think Velikovsky’s theories were right. All those centuries Immanuel Velikovsky wanted to wipe out are accounted for. A serious scientific review like BAR should not take up these unscientific theories.

BAR Fails to Cite Shiloh Article

To the Editor:

“Scholars’ Corner,” BAR 09:05, contains a good and interesting survey by Valerie M. Fargo entitled: “Is the Solomonic Gate at Megiddo Really Solomonic?” In the endnotes to the article, the author cites the publications of the Megiddo Expedition and articles by Yadin and Ussishkin. In her article, Dr. Fargo presents a well summarized survey of the main points preferred by the opposing sides in this controversy, and after evaluating the different opinions, she, justifiably, comes out in support of Yadin’s chronological and stratigraphical solutions.

I have had the opportunity to study the subject discussed herein on a number of different occasions in the past: while serving as Yadin’s assistant in the excavations at Megiddo which were conducted on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University, and while conducting my own research, the results of which have been published in “The Proto-Aeolic Capital and Israelite Ashlar Masonry,” Qedem 11, Monographs of the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1979. The conclusions on the subject are identical to 096those expressed by Dr. Fargo in BAR. Since I suppose that the intention of the BAR article was to awaken your readers’ interest to a specific problem, I find myself obligated to refer your readers to the article which I have published about exactly the same subject four years ago, entitled “Solomon’s Gate at Megiddo as Recorded by Its Excavator, R. Lamon, Chicago,” Levant XII (1980), pp. 69–76, especially Plates VII and XB. This article followed an investigation of this subject which was made by me in 1976 in the archives of the Oriental Institute in Chicago. The photographs which accompany Dr. Fargo’s article in BAR were published for the first time in that article. The photograph which you printed is an especially good example of one of the “proofs” for the conclusions argued in that article, which I “dug up” in the archives of the Oriental Institute.

The BAR article offers it once again as proof for the same conclusion. Along with this photograph, I published additional data which seemed to support this conclusion, including the plan of the Megiddo Gate from the Solomonic Period which was prepared for publication in the Megiddo Expedition’s reports but which in the end was never published by them, and excerpts from the held diary kept by the gate’s excavator, Lamon, which confirm the chronological stratigraphical interpretation expressed by Yadin, Fargo, and myself.

To my regret, for reasons that are unclear to me, these details were not mentioned in the BAR article. Moreover, the Levant article received no credit for the way in which it was used: See for example Y. Yadin, “A Rejoinder,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 239 (1980), pp. 19–23, wherein it was given proper credit for details brought up by the author. In my modest opinion, the correct use of this data would have made an important contribution to the BAR article, both as a support for the author’s opinion and as a fuller explanation of the problem for the interested reader.

Dr. Fargo’s manuscript originally contained the following passage after the statement that Yigael Yadin’s excavation points strongly to two phases of use for the Megiddo city gate:

“The earlier complex was attributed to Solomon and the later one to the ninth-eighth centuries, probably to Ahab. This reconstruction is one which the Chicago excavators considered for some time but eventually rejected, as Shiloh discovered when studying their field notes now stored in Chicago.⁴”

At that point in Dr. Fargo’s manuscript, she cited Dr. Shiloh’s Levant article. The last sentence quoted above was deleted from Dr. Fargo’s article at a late stage in the editorial process, and neither Dr. Fargo nor BAR noticed that, as a result of the deletion, the footnote citing Dr. Shiloh’s article also fell out. We apologize for the omission.—Ed.

More on the Height of the Ancient Israelites

To the Editor:

May I offer a footnote to the discussion of the height of Professor Callaway’s friend, Ahilud, and his Israelite contemporaries (“A Visit with Ahilud,” BAR 09:05, Queries & Comments, BAR 10:01)?

Geneticists and physical anthropologists tell us that stature has a heritability rate of .8 (a bit over 60 percent). But genetic heritage is not the only factor determining stature. One might say that heritability defines the outside limits, while such things as nutrition and the general health of a population govern the outcome within those limits. Frankish peasants of c. 900 A.D. and French peasants under the ancien regime averaged about five feet tall. The population of France today is much taller. Americans conscripted into military service from the Civil War through the Korean War increased in height from war to war. Japanese born since World War II tend to be taller than their recent ancestors.

Smaller size seems to be adaptive in the face of a limited food supply. More small than large people can survive on a given quantity of food. Thus Professor Callaway’s observations about the subsistence farming practices of Ahilud and his neighbors are consistent with the inferences he draws from the apparent head clearances in the excavated houses. As he recognizes, an adequate sample of skeletal remains would be more conclusive, but the convergence of these data is impressive.

Both Saul (1 Samuel 9:1) and Charlemagne (who was six feet tall) may have been fortunate to have been born into prominent families who could afford to feed them!

Do Archaeologists Reject Miracles?

To the Editor:

One thing truly perplexes me about archaeology and archaeologists.

Do all Biblical archaeologists start from a humanistic (i.e., natural) viewpoint as regards Biblical events? In other words, “If the evidence makes it humanly impossible, it didn’t happen.”