Introduction
"History as a weapon is an abuse of history. The high purpose of history is not the presentation of self or the vindication of identity but the recognition of complexity and the search of knowledge". These were the words of Arthur M. Schlesinger 1 on the subject. This is how it should be, but it is not how it usually is.
One should remember George Orwell's '1984' with Big Brother manipulating past history at will, and claiming that whoever controls the present controls the past too. But, then, it was only fiction. The execution of that theory was left to the Soviets, luckily without the success of Big Brother. One recalls the replacing the pages of the Soviet Encyclopedia in the 30's and 40's of the last century, and the famous picture of the members of the first Politbureau, which was retouched so many times that only Lenin and Stalin remained on it. It seems that only Lenin's timely death saved him from being erased too.
Notwithstanding the objections of liberal historians, the manipulation of history is going on in all parts of the world. It does not mean that there are only deliberate and malicious manipulations. It should always be taken into account that different people have different viewpoints on the same event. They may have different angles and different conclusions. One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
Probably only exceptionally capable historians are be able to discover the real history of Central Europe and the Balkans amidst the opposing claims and counterclaims of the parties in the area. The situation in the supposedly more advanced and liberal countries of Western Europe is not much better. Ask a Dane about Schleswig-Holstein or southern Sweden and be surprised at the sudden emotional intensity of a usually placid people. One might get similar reaction asking a German about Alsace – Lorraine, (or Elsass and Lotharingien, according to him) or an Austrian about South Tirol, or an Irishmen about the 6 counties of Ulster. Of course, ask a Swede, a Frenchmen, an Italian or an Ulster Protestant and exactly opposite histories will be heard with similar emotions.
The examples shown above are results of comparatively recent conflicts, allowing for more intense feelings. However, in recent times, archaeology and ancient history became emotional and actual battlefields, not less than the history of the last millenium.2 Thus, in recent years the Hungarians discovered that the Sumerians of 5500 years ago were their blood-brothers; while the white supremacy warriors discovered that the originators of the first Chinese civilization were no others than the Tocharians, who lived in what is now Chinese Turkestan, had blue eyes, and blonde hair, wore Celtic tartans and spoke a western Indo-European language, belonging to the so-called 'centum' group and not to the eastern Indo-Iranian part of the family of languages, the so-called 'satem' group.
However, the battle for the remote past is most intensive in the Middle East.
Most of the archaeologists in Israel make efforts to extend the ideological base of their existence there. The other sides of the conflict do the opposite:
they attempt to eliminate all traces to actual or imagined reference of Jewish existence in Middle East, both in the present and in the misty past.
So, when an Italian archaeological expedition discovered about 20,000 clay tablets in the archives of a North Syrian ancient city, called Ebla, and found that the tablets which originated from the last third of the third millenium BC. were written in a North Semitic dialect, akin to Hebrew, with a galore of Biblical names and names of biblical towns, they had to retract the publication of their findings under pressure from the Syrian authorities.3
Similarly, when the Saudis discovered on the shores of the Red Sea a column with archaic Hebrew inscription, they carefully removed the column. Probably, the most amazing story of this archaeological battle comes from Egypt. In the late 70's and early 80's a tomb of two officials of Pharaoh Djoser was shown. An inscription on the tomb told that the two officials "collected grain for a 7 years famine". There was no mention of Joseph or the Hebrews on the inscription, but to be on the safe side, the Egyptian authorities closed the site and so it remains until today.
Another archaeological battle involving the Egyptian authorities concerns the possible age of the Sphinx. A few years ago a new book4appeared claiming that the Sphinx was created much earlier than the estimated date of the 1st Dynasty, e.g. before the start of the Egyptian civilization. The claim was based on the facts that the lower part of the Sphinx, which is normally covered by sand, was eroded by water as opposed to the upper part which was eroded by wind-blown sand, and the area where the Sphinx is located had no
rainfall at all since 8000 BC., ipso facto, the Sphinx should be older than that. The Egyptian government violently opposes these findings as it
would place the creation of the Sphinx even before the predynastic period, diminishing the Egyptian government's claim for the cultural continuity of Egyptian history.
This short excursion into the politics of history and archaeology was presented in order so the reader could see what can be done, and what is being done all the time, and judge for himself the claim of this book that it has no agenda to prove or disprove anything. The only purpose of this book is to present the stories of the Patriarchs, as were described in the book of
Genesis, between the story of the Deluge and the return of Jacob from Harran to Canaan., and evaluate them in view of the latest archaeological discoveries. Indeed, this book is in the form of a secular commentary to that part of the Old Testament, with proven archaeological facts replacing theological arguments or findings of previous commentaries, written by past sages.
It must be equivocally stated here that it seems to be an impossible task to find absolute proofs for the events and persons described in those chapters of the Bible. Even, if we could find contemporary documents with the names Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it would not create an absolute proof that the
document contains the name of the Patriarch and not someone else having the same name. Thomas L. Thompson5 wrote that if we find the name David in the registers of England of the mid-19th century, it would not mean that David Copperfield was a historical person. It would only mean that Charles Dickens gave a common name to a character in his book.
The example given above by Thomas L. Thompson is what is called 'parallelism', and it is always a questionable practice to use it as a proof. The use of the name David is not a good example, as that name was in constant use in Britain, especially in the Celtic areas, like Wales and Scotland. However, when the question is put slightly differently, a very different answer is received.
When the priests who assumedly wrote the mythological stories of the Bible, or collected them from old folktales, and included the story of barren Sarah offering her handmaid, Hagar, to her husband as her replacement, it might have been incredible and unbelievable at that time. The custom did not exist in the second half of the first millenium BC, neither in Israel nor anywhere else in the Fertile Crescent. So, as far as the priests were concerned, the Sarah and Hagar story was about as historic as the story of St. George and the Dragon.
Now, at a much later date, in fact about twenty years ago, some archive is unearthed where a legal document, a marriage contract in fact, was found, originating at that mythical period, showing without doubt that replacing a barren wife with her handmaiden was a common practice. Now, we have a case of parallelism with parallels rather more complex than the name David, and the alternatives have to be tested.
Either there is a random coincidence of conditions or indeed, the mythological stories refer to some archaic practice, which was in common use at the time of the creation of the story. The answer to this riddle is obvious. The story of Sarah and Hagar is much nearer to a reflection to an actual event than it was before, even though no marriage contract was found mentioning Sarah and Abraham by name, and lining out the conditions.
The discoveries of the period after World War II. put a new light on the Biblical stories and helped to create a narrative in which they could be presented and proven by factual proofs, as opposed to theological arguments. Which point brings us to the crux of the matter.
The Old Testament is a large complex of books that can be viewed from many angles; from that of theology, history, archaeology and mythology. Even a political angle is possible, if one accepts the view of some experts who claim that there were internal political considerations influencing the structure and the contents of the Old Testament. Of course, if one is a believer then the Old Testament was at least inspired by divinity. Therefore, any commentary has to accept that fact and not the results of new archaeological discoveries.
Indeed, there is a possible conflict between the attitude of the two parties. The first party is that of the believers, who see in the books of the Bible uncontroversial proof of divine direction, without a need of scientific proof, as the belief in divine origin is proof in itself. The second party is that of the scientists who see in the books of the Bible a collection of mythological stories, whose authenticity must be corroborated by historical evidence. In this respect, there is no difference between the stories told by the books of the Bible, and those told by other epics, like the books of Homer, the Rig
Veda, and others. Once this basic difference can be overcome, it is found that there are not many differences between contents of the relevant parts of the Bible and the findings of this book.
The books of the Bible, especially the relevant parts of them, have two types of narratives: the first is of theological nature and the second is historical. The two parts of narratives are intertwined. When we examine, for instance, the story of the Deluge, then we have the description of some actual happening, which might or might not be based on actual historical event and we are given the cause of that happening and its outcome. The story of the Deluge itself, the rains, the flooding and the search for dry land is supposed to be a description of some historical event and we might attempt to search for it, and indeed this is what generations of archaeologist were doing. The cause of the Deluge:
transgression of the people and its outcome: a Divine promise not to punish the people again, are matters of belief, and we are not supposed to find any corroborating evidence.
There are, however, other theological narratives in the Old Testament, especially in those parts, which are under examination in this book: the period of the Patriarchs, and we expect that they should have some corroborating evidence. The meaning here is to the basic story of all monotheistic religions: the rejection by Abraham the common religion of his period, which was a complex ritual of idolatry and accepting the principle of monotheism and receiving a covenant. This was a religious revolution, on which the religion of half of present mankind is based. It was a major religious event, and we expect to find some contemporary evidence of its occurrence.
It is thought that Abraham was born in the 23rd century BC. We have actual documentary proof of the existence of the first monotheistic religion, Judaism, about fifteen hundred years after that revolution. If this is the only proof of that religious revolution, then it is a case of 'post hoc, propter hoc'. There are of course, many mentions in the Bible of that religious revolution but they are in those parts that are under examination. So the circumcision, which is the outward sign of that covenant, is mentioned first in Genesis 17 and has a major part in the destruction of Shechem, as described in Genesis 34. Both are part of the examined chapters and have no historical corroboration. Still, surprisingly enough, there are some tenuous but plausible historical data that point to a religious upheaval in that area and in that period indicated by the relevant chapters of the Genesis.
When one checks the purely historical parts of those chapters of the Old Testament which are analyzed in this book, there are three possible results:
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There were some instances where the biblical stories were corroborated by archaeological or historical data. Corroborative proof does not mean that a contemporary newspaper was found from the town of Hebron, reporting a real-estate transaction between Ephron the Hittite and Abraham. It only means that the transaction of the sale of the Cave of Machpela, which became the burial cave of the family, was done according to Hittite laws. Similarly, it can be shown that when Sarah, who was barren, offered her handmaiden to her husband to take her place, it was a common practice at that part of the world at that time. One cannot expect to have a better proof from that far-away period.
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There were other elements with contradictions between the biblical narrative and the findings of the book. It must be pointed out that the contradictions are not with the original text of the Old Testament, but with later interpretations. The original text was written in Hebrew, translated to Aramaic, then to Greek and finally to some European language. So, when in one of the translations the town from where Abraham started his journey is named Ur of the Chaldeans, then it obviously points to the southern Sumerian city of Ur, where in the first millenium BC. the Chaldeans were the rulers. However, Ur of the Chaldeans is not written in the Old Testament. What was written is Ur of the Kasdim, which is not Chaldean. When people wrote the interpretations of the Old Testament, they were not aware that there was another Ur, in northern Mesopotamia, about 600 miles north of the first Ur and the Old Testament meant the northern Ur. It is a moot point because it completely changes the whole narrative and explains many things that previously caused serious contradictions in the understanding.
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There are biblical stories not receiving attention in the analysis of the book as no archaeological or historical evidence was found which could prove or disprove them. Judging from the large amount of new data garnered in the last 50 years, and the pace at which further data is collected, it seems to be only a question of time, until the amount of new data will require a new analysis.
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The most meaningful difference between the results of the current historical analysis and the conventional interpretation is in the general narrative, rather than in the individual stories. This part is exactly the point that might cause the greatest controversy, if indeed there will be a controversy.
A historical narrative is a framework of a story which is similar to that well-known puzzle-game for children, where children have to connect dots with a straight line in a specific order, until some meaningful picture emerges out of the meaningless jumble of dots on the page.
When we attempt to create a historical narrative of a recent occurrence, we suffer from a multitude of data, which simply makes it impossible to connect them into a unique picture. The multitude of data compels the researcher to make some adjustments, by eliminating some data or by compressing others
into a single dot. In simple terms, they have to make a value judgment as to the validity and applicability of the data. The result is that any resulting picture will be highly subjective, as others will not necessarily accept value judgment of one historian. This is also the reason why each period rewrites the histories of previous ages.
Analyzing data of 4000 – 4500 years ago meets the opposing problem. The number of data points is insufficient to connect the dots and create a meaningful picture. Therefore, one should add non-historical data, mythological, anthropological, etc. to complement them. This again raises the point of subjective value judgment and removes the stamp of objectivity from the resulting picture.
This book added a great number of reliable dots to the jumble on the page. They are still insufficient to create a meaningful picture by themselves, but much less additional non-historical data is necessary to do so. However, incorporating the new data into the narrative, creates a new picture rather different from the previous pictures.
Hopefully, further archaeological discoveries will add new dots on the page and the picture will prove the present narrative without additional, subjective, additions.
NOTES:
| 1 |
Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Disuniting of America, W.W.Norton, New York,1998, p.77 |
| 2 |
Mark Pluciennik, A Periolous but Necessary Search: Archaeology and European Identities
Reprint of a paper submitted to the Conference on Archaeology, Ethnicity and Nationalism, 1996
p. 1/19:" My uncontroversial starting point is that archaeology is always
open to overtly political , and is always produced in particular conditions – personal, social, cultural and economic.
These conditions include the academic and scientific millieu of the production of
knowledge and of claims of understanding the past |
| 3 |
Prof. Paolo Matthiae of Rome University was in charge of the excavations. Prof. Giovanni
Pettinato of the same University was the epigraphist working on the tablets. Their report
Was published in Biblical Archaeologist, May 1976 and in public lectures at the University
of Michigan in November 1976.
The Syrian government was extremely irate when they learned that the Ebla tablets
brought to light evidences relating to the Patriarchs. They demanded to remove the original translator from the project, and so it was done. In addition, it was then 'arranged' for the translator to recant some of his original translations, stating that he had been in
error. The recantation was published in Biblical Archaeological Review, May – June, 1980
It seems that the Syrians themselves drafted the text of the recantation, as it is doubtful
that an Italian Professor of Epigraphy would express himself as:
"These allegations [linking the Ebla tablets with the Bible] were propagated by
Zionist-American centers to be exploited for atrocious purposes aimed at proving the
Expansionist and colonialistic views of the Zionist leaders", Ibid, p.49 |
| 4 |
Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval, The Message of the Sphinx, Three Rivers Press, New York, 1966 , pp. 18 - 21
Marvin Harris, Cannibals and Kings, Vintage Books, New York also treated the subject,
1991, p.30 and by an article in World History Bulletin, Spring 1996,Redating the Sphinx |
| 5 |
Thomas L. Thompson, The Mythic Past, Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel,
Basic Books, New York, 1999
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