Temple and Dynasty: Hezekiah, the Remaking of Judah and the Rise of the Pan-Israelite Ideology

Finkelstein, Israel; Silberman, Neil Asher

doi:10.1177/0309089206063428

Cited by 29 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Established between the late ninth and the mid-eighth centuries BCE on a hill 15 km from the Darb Ghazza, the road connecting the Gulf of Aqaba with Gaza, its function is still debated, as it has been identified as a fort, caravanserai, or cultic center. Whatever the real function of the site, what is significant is that Kuntillet 'Ajrud was visited 12 The cancellation of the sanctuaries at 'Arad and Beersheba has been attributed to the cultic reforms and centralizations of kings Hezekiah and Josiah (2 Kgs 18:4; 23:8), (e.g., Finkelstein and Silberman 2006), although this view is not universally accepted (see Edelman 2008).…”

Section: Early Contact Period: From the Tenth To The Mid-eighth Centumentioning

confidence: 99%

The Archaeology of Cult of Ancient Israel’s Southern Neighbors and the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis

Tebes

2021

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The Midianite-Kenite hypothesis, the idea that the pre-Israelite roots of Yahwism can be traced back to the areas south and southeast of Palestine, has a long pedigree in biblical scholarship. Analyses supporting this view generally agree in three main points. First, they assume that the influence of the southern cultic practices on Yahwism occurred during a restricted period of time, traditionally dated to the Early Iron Age. Second, they see the origins of Yahwism through the lenses of diffusionist perspectives, characterizing this process as a movement or migration of one or a few determined groups to Canaan. And third, adequate analyses of the archaeological evidence of the arid areas to the south of Palestine are few. In this article I will turn the interpretation of the epigraphic and archaeological evidence upside down. Instead of looking to the (mostly biblical) evidence on the origins of the cult of Yahweh and assuming its genesis lies in movements of people from the southern regions to Canaan in the Early Iron Age, I will focus attention on the history of the cultic practices in the Negev, southern Transjordan, and northern Hejaz during the entire Iron Age, and how this information is related to the religious practices known in Judah and Israel during the biblical period, shedding new light on the prehistory of the cult of Yahweh. I will evaluate the evidence not as a single, exceptional event, but as a long-term process within the several-millennia history of cultic practices and beliefs of the local peoples.

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Section: Early Contact Period: From the Tenth To The Mid-eighth Centumentioning

confidence: 99%

The Archaeology of Cult of Ancient Israel’s Southern Neighbors and the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis

Tebes

2021

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“…Finkelstein and Silberman, who claim that archaeological evidence of the destruction of countryside shrines mesh with the biblical account, interpret these activities as an effort to centralize religious authority in Jerusalem, which 'would have been aimed at strengthening the unifying elements of the state-the central authority of the king and the elite in the capital-and at weakening the old, somewhat autonomous, clan-based leadership in the Judahite countryside'. 88 Finkelstein and Silberman's hypothesis points to the same drive for change that led President Bourguiba to undermine the influence of the ulema and propagate new pro-development religious norms by the takeover of religious educational institutions in Tunisia.…”

Section: Tunisia and The Hebrew Prophetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Caught in the Crossfire? Economic Injustice and Prophetic Motivation in Eighth-Century Judah

Coomber¹

2011

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Prophetic complaints against landownership abuse that are attributed to eighth-century Judah pose an interpretive problem: their contextual ambiguity. Passages like as Isa. 5.8-10 decry land seizures but lack key socio-economic variables: motivations and the identities of perpetrators and victims. Faced with scarce archaeological and biblical evidence pertaining to landownership in the eighth century, several scholars have turned to the social sciences for clues. Marvin Chaney and D.N. Premnath have found interpretive value in cultural-evolutionary theory.Cultural-evolutionary theorists, like Gerhard Lenski and Timothy Earle, find that recurring patterns tend to emerge as agrarian societies experience rapid economic development and increased trade, including an abandonment of subsistence strategies, land consolidation, and a hoarding of the benefits amongst elites. While Chaney and Premnath have successfully used this model to explore economic abuses attributed to eighth-century Judah, when the region was absorbed into the Assyrian trade nexus, the effects of these recurring societal patterns on religious institutions have yet to be explored by biblical scholars.Religious practices and norms that support outmoded economic strategies tend to be overturned during these transitional periods to accommodate new economic goals. While some religious leaders are forced to choose between either honouring long-held traditions or capitulating to a new economic environment, others find that their place in society is rendered obsolete. rough considering these cultural-evolutionary patterns alongside Hezekiah's religious reforms, this paper explores the possibility that prophetic authors who condemned the displacement of farmers may have also been protesting their own displacement in an evolving Judean society.

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“…Assuming that the biblical narrative about a Saulide territorial entity in the highlands preserves a germ of history (which could have been brought to Judah by northern refugees after 720 BCE (Schniedewind 2004;Finkelstein and Silberman 2006;Deitrich 2007, 247-248)), this was probably too poor a village to serve as the hub of a territorial entity in the highlands even compared to 10th-century Jerusalem. 2.…”

Section: A New Identification For Tell El-fulmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tell el-Ful Revisited: The Assyrian and Hellenistic Periods (with a New Identification)

Finkelstein

2011

Palestine Exploration Quarterly

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This article deals with the settlement history of Tell el-Ful from the Iron Age until the Hellenistic period. The author rejects past theories that a great fortress was built at the site in the Iron I period and that the settlement was protected by a casemate wall in the Iron IIC. He also rejects the identification of Tell el-Ful as biblical Gibeah/Gibeah of Saul. The author proposes that the tower excavated by Albright and Lapp was first constructed in the Iron IIC as an Assyrian watchtower commanding the northern approach to Jerusalem, and that it was one link in a system of such forts around the capital of Judah. The author maintains that the building served as a Hellenistic fort in a later phase and suggests the possibility, however speculative, of identifying Tell el-Ful with Pharathon, mentioned as one of the forts constructed by Bacchides in Judea in the early 2nd century BCE, and with Perath/Parah of late-monarchic times.

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Temple and Dynasty: Hezekiah, the Remaking of Judah and the Rise of the Pan-Israelite Ideology

Cited by 29 publications

References 28 publications

The Archaeology of Cult of Ancient Israel’s Southern Neighbors and the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis

The Archaeology of Cult of Ancient Israel’s Southern Neighbors and the Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis

Caught in the Crossfire? Economic Injustice and Prophetic Motivation in Eighth-Century Judah

Tell el-Ful Revisited: The Assyrian and Hellenistic Periods (with a New Identification)

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