The city of Hebron

The city of Hebron presents a unique problem to the Biblical archaeologist. Ancient Hebron, located a few miles west of the Dead Sea and about 20 miles south of Jerusalem, figures prominently in the Jewish Bible, mentioned more than 70 times. Hebron is known to be one of the oldest cities in the world. Josephus Flavius, the noted first century CE Jewish historian, stated that in his time Hebron was already 2,300 years old!1

The city with its rolling hills and vineyards is closely identified with the Patriarch Abraham. When Abraham's wife, Sarah, died, he purchased a burial site for her in Hebron.2 The tomb was located inside a cave that has been known through the ages as the Cave of the Patriarchs. Jewish tradition reveals that Adam and Eve are also buried there. Subsequent to Sarah, all the patriarchs and matriarchs -- Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rebecca, and Leah were all buried there. Only Rachel, the second wife of Jacob, was buried elsewhere, in Bethlehem. During the reign of King Herod (first century, BCE) the Cave of the Patriarchs was completely enclosed by a fortress-like structure, still standing today.

The Bible tells us that during the journey of the Israelites through the wilderness to the Promised Land, Moses sent 12 men to spy out the land of Canaan. The last city the spies investigated was the city of Hebron. Outside the city was a valley in which grapes grew in huge clusters. The spies cut down one of the large clusters and carried it back to the camp of the Israelites.3

After the death of Moses, Joshua led the Children of Israel in a series of battles for the conquest of Canaan. The king of Hebron played a prominent role in the failed battle against Joshua.4 Years later, Hebron served as the capital city for the newly anointed king, David. For seven and a half years, Hebron was the political center of Israel, until the conquest of Jerusalem.5 Jerusalem then became the new capital, but reverence for Hebron, with its unique spiritual and historical legacy, was maintained, and remains so to this very day.

A number of noted historians and archaeologists jumped on the Bible-bashing bandwagon and boldly claimed that Hebron was uninhabited during the Late Bronze age (1550-1250 BCE), when the incident of the spies occurred and was likewise uninhabited during Early Iron age (1250-1000 BCE), during which time Joshua conquered Canaan.7

It is known that ancient cities would move about, changing their location as the necessity arose. Ancient Dibon, in modern-day Jordan, is a classic example. Evidence of ancient inhabitation was found in two distinct nearby locations. At one time, the city was built high atop a lofty mound. After an enemy invasion, the rubble made it difficult to build atop the ruins, so the city was relocated at the base of the mound. That city too was invaded, due in large part to its vulnerable location. It was then decided to relocate to the top of the mound again.

One of the more famous set of ancient inscriptions is known as the Egyptian Amarna Letters.

There are ten surviving correspondences13 between king Shuwardata and Akhenaten. Shuwardata was the king of the Hebron district, as he himself states in letter EA#281.

If there are correspondences between the king of Hebron and a Late Bronze Age pharaoh, Akhenaten, then Hebron must have been in existence at that time.

Some of the hieroglyphics [in Medinat Hebu, Egypt] record various trade routes that were used by the Egyptian military. A few of those routes were in the land of Canaan, and one in particular ran south to north, paralleling the western coast of the Dead Sea. It lists the cities, in their proper order, that were along the route. One of those cities is Hebron.15

If Hebron was listed in the early Iron Age as a city off a main trade route, it must have surely existed at that time.

Chadwick, who is presently a senior research fellow at Jerusalem's William F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research, revealed that Hammond had indeed found evidence of Late Bronze occupation in six different areas of Tel Hebron!

During a new expedition in 1998, Israeli archaeologist Yuval Peleg found more than 50 burials with grave goods dating to the Late Bronze Age. Concerning Early Iron Age evidence of occupation, a great amount of pottery has recently been found, much of it in the conventional Israelite collared-rim style, typical of the Early Iron Age. The architecture and plastering techniques of the strata containing the collared-rim pottery was conventional Early Iron Age construction.17

As mentioned earlier, Hebron was one of the cities visited by the twelve spies sent out by Moses. According to the Bible, when the spies returned to Moses, they claimed ...the people who live in the land, are strong, and the cities have great walls, and moreover we saw the children of giants there... we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so were we in their sight.18

What led the Israelites spies to think that the land was inhabited by giants? Archaeology can supply the answer.

The city wall and guard towers of Late Bronze Hebron were constructed entirely of huge stone blocks, some more than six feet in length weighing more than 10 tons each. These are called cyclopean stones, from the word Cyclops, the name of the mythological Greek giant. A tower that guarded the city gate, though most of its height was torn down, still stands 20 feet high. The original tower was probably about 60 feet in height. We can only imagine how high the city walls of Hebron were. We can also imagine what must have passed through the minds of the 12 spies of Moses when they first saw the mighty walls of Hebron. Surely, the walls were protecting the city from giants!

The evidence is incontrovertible. To say that no Late Bronze/Early Iron Age artifacts were to be found in Hebron is simply untrue. Yet, if there is so much evidence that Hebron was indeed inhabited during the era of the conquest, why do some archaeologists and historians still continue to claim there is no such evidence?

The present spokesman for the "non-inhabited Hebron" camp is Israeli archaeologist, Dr. Avi Ofer. He himself discovered pottery shards from the Late Bronze Age.20 Brushing it off as a quirky find, something that came from someplace else and did not originate where he found it, he vocally claims that the city was not inhabited during that era.

Why would an archaeologist negate his own findings? Dr. Ofer is not only an archaeologist; he is also a leader in the Peace Now movement in Israel. This left-wing political organization believes in peace at any cost, favoring to give as much land as necessary to the Palestinians in return for promises of good behavior. Hebron, of course, is much contested in the current Middle East debate. Ofer admits that its importance is great, yet favors ceding it to, what he believes is, the soon-to-be country of Palestine.
If the historical Jewish conquest of Hebron is discounted, then the Jewish claim to the area is not valid.

Lest you wonder how a scientist can recant the significance of his own discovery, it is important to understand that archaeology is not the exact science that laymen assume it to be. It is an interpretive art based on logic, deduction, and intuition. Tangible finds such as inscriptions, pottery, foundations of buildings, evidence of destruction must be given life and meaning in order to fit into an historical, social, religious, and economic context. This interpretation is where the true expertise of the archaeologist comes into play. But, like any interpretive art, it can be subject to political, social and religious pressures and prejudices from outside and from within academic circles. Adam Mikaya wrote in Biblical Archaeological Review,22 "As anyone who has made his living in academia knows, (archaeology) is a political jungle... Indeed, the higher stakes only intensify the political animosities."

And, Hebron is a perfect case in point. Before the finding of concrete evidence, Hebron was flaunted as contrary to the Biblical narrative of an Israelite conquest of Canaan. With the discovery of artifacts in recent years, Hebron now boasts of incontrovertible evidence of the Israelite conquest. But we mustn't hold our collective breath waiting for the anti-Biblicists to admit their mistake. In the words of Jonathan Swift, "There's none so blind as they that won't see."23

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3. Philistines, but Less and Less Philistine
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13phil.html?_r=1&n=Top/News/World/Countries%20and%20Territories/Cyprus&oref=slogin
Extracts Only:
Archaeologists have applied more polish to the long-tarnished reputation of the Philistines.

Recent excavations have raised the estimation of Philistines.

In recent years, excavations in Israel established that the Philistines had fine pottery, handsome architecture and cosmopolitan tastes. If anything, they were more refined than the shepherds and farmers in the nearby hills, the Israelites, who slandered them in biblical chapter and verse and rendered their name a synonym for boorish, uncultured people.

Archaeologists have now found that not only were Philistines cultured, they were also literate when they arrived, presumably from the region of the Aegean Sea, and settled the coast of ancient Palestine around 1200 B. C.

At the ruins of a Philistine seaport at Ashkelon in Israel, excavators examined 19 ceramic pieces and determined that their painted inscriptions represent a form of writing. Some of the pots and storage jars were inscribed elsewhere, probably in Cyprus and Crete, and taken to Ashkelon by early settlers. Of special importance, one of the jars was made from local clay, meaning Philistine scribes were presumably at work in their new home.

The discovery is reported in the current issue of The Israel Exploration Journal by two Harvard professors, Frank Moore Cross Jr. and Lawrence E. Stager. Dr. Cross is an authority on ancient Middle Eastern languages and scripts. Dr. Stager, an archaeologist, is director of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, a Harvard project.

"Perhaps it is not too bold to propose," they wrote, "that the inscription is written in a form of Cypro-Minoan script utilized and modified by the Philistines - in short, that we are dealing with the Old Philistine script."

The two researchers and other scholars said it was not surprising that the Ashkelon inscriptions were in an Aegean type of writing. The biblical Philistines are assumed to have been a group of the mysterious Sea Peoples who probably originated in the Greek islands and migrated to several places on the far eastern shores of the Mediterranean.