The Book of Genesis - Myth or History? The Old Testament is a large complex of books, containing theological, legal, historical, mythological and even poetical elements; it is also the Holy Book, or at least one of the Holy Books, to about one-half of humanity. How would one define the Old Testament if one disregards it being Holy, and as such it is beyond human critics. When one reads the Old Testament in the original, and sticks to the parts of history and poetry, one finds that it is very readable and there are parts, especially those of the prophets, where the contents are expressed in beautiful poetry. As a literary work, and I mean it in the secular sense, it is at least on the level with the large epic works of the first millenium BC, like the poems of Homer or Hesiod, the Hymns of the Rig-Veda, or the Avesta of the Iranians. In my opinion and purely in the literary sense, it surpasses all possible epic works of early history. But how would one define the Old Testament in the light of the question of the title of the chapter? There are parts of the Old Testament, which are easily defined. Those books which deal with the events of the first millenium, like the books of Kings, Chronicles, and those of the Prophets, are more or less accepted as histories in the form of "annales" (chronicles). The books of Joshua, Judges and Samuel seem to be on the border of history and mythology, while the historical parts of the first five books are generally deemed as rather a collection of mythological tales, and do not represent real history, This study examines the first part of the Book of Genesis, the first of the books of the Old Testament, which describes the earliest parts of Jewish history, the story of creation, the Garden of Eden, the expulsion and the story of the Patriarchs. If we want to express this period in the terms of our modern chronology, then this study covers about 3500 years, from the first quarter of the 6th millenium BC. until the last quarter of the 3rd millenium. There seems to be no way to estimate the period when it was actually written. However, judging from clues and also by comparing it to other large epic works, it seems to be certain that before finalizing it in a written format, it was orally transmitted for a long time from fathers to sons. Modern critical scholars have recognized four authors for the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, designated J (the Yahwist or, in German, Jahwist source) E (the Elohist source) P (the Priestly source) D (the Deuteronomist source, whose contribution to the Pentateuch is confined to the Book of Deuteronomy)
So the subject of this study is the first part of the first book of the Old Testament, the Genesis, which is generally accepted as pure mythology. However, when reading those chapters, one can see that they are in two distinct parts. The first part is the opening chapters of the book, until the appearance of Abraham, and the second part is the story of a family, from Abraham to Jacob. The first part is read like a collection of short stories, similar to the short stories of other mythologies, while in the second part there is a story, with a continuation and a plot. In addition, from the moment that the first humans appear on the scene, from the story of the Garden of Eden, there is a string of clues which tie the stories together, both chronologically and geographically. Exactly in this sense of continuity and purpose which makes the story of the Genesis unique among the various Middle Eastern and European stories of similar contents. Philemon and Baucis, Deucalion, Utnapishtim, Ziusudra or Atrahasis, to mention only a few of Noah's counterpart in the Middle East, saved humanity like Noah did, but they were heroes of a single story, without precursors and without continuation. Here there is a sense of continuation, a belonging and a plot. Robert Graves1 who was an expert of Mediterranean mythology, categorized the types of myths, as follows: 1. Philosophical allegory 2. Aetiological explanation of myths no longer understood 3. Satire or parody 4. Sentimental fable 5. Embroidered history 6. Minstrel romance 7. Political propaganda 8. Moral legend 9. Humorous anecdote 10. Theatrical melodrama 11 Heroic saga 12 Realistic fiction The points above clearly explain the difference between the mythological stories in the accepted sense and the Old Testament. Graves' categories are suitable to characterize a short story, without connections, but they are unsuitable to describe a huge complex and interlocking story like the Old Testament. Where would one put the story of the Patriarchs? In category 4 or 5 or 11 or even 12? One cannot fit the Old Testament, or even a small part of it, like the beginning of the Book of Genesis, into a narrow straightjacket of the categories of Robert Graves. It is a long and continuous story, passing through three very long generations; it does not fit into any of the categories above. When one examines the story of the Patriarchs and attempts to figure out what they represent, one can reach a number of possible choices:
It seems that none of the above fits the structure of the Old Testament. Even if one accepts that it is mythology, at least partially so, one has to admit that it is a huge edifice of stories, wonderfully coordinated. How many times, the Covenant of Abraham is mentioned in the text of the Old Testament? How many times the bondage in Egypt and the miraculous escape from there? The books of the Bible are interconnected with innumerable references, which at least points to some conscious coordination and editing. Despite all that, there does not seem to be much doubt that the Book of Genesis and many others belong to the world of myths. The direct purpose of this study is to find some historical coordination to the story under investigation. The secondary purpose is of a general nature; with extreme importance to this study, but not only to this particular study, which is whether mythological stories can have some historical contents, and if yes, in what measure? This brings us to the main question: What are myths in a general sense? There are many views and only a few can be detailed here. There are views, according to which mythological stories are collective memories expressed in a stylized format, e.g. if the code of the stylized format is known then one can deduce the underlying historical facts from the mythological stories. Sometimes, mythical tales there are not even stylized stories but plain facts. Richard Heinberg 2 showed that the northern Klamath tribe told stories about the creation of the Crater lake which happened about 10,000 years ago, and of Dreamtime stories told by Australian aborigines featuring animals extinct since some 10,000 – 15,000 years. There seems to be no doubt that these stories and many others, are indeed collective memories of actual events that happened many millennia ago. Robert Graves, himself, thought that at least some of the Greek myths had solid historical foundations.3 According to Graves all those mythical stories about Zeus and other Greek gods seducing or raping nymphs to the bitter opposition of Hera, were really memories of chieftains of roving Greek bands marrying or raping the local priestesses of the Great Goddess. As theGreek chieftains saw themselves, they were the reincarnations of their gods, and the local priestesses were embodiments of the Great Goddess, as nymphs of a spring or a sacred grove, the mythological framework was ready-made as retained memory of actual happening. There are about as many explanations about the meaning of myths, as there are observers remarking on it. Most of the observes seem to think on the lines of Robert Graves, e.g. that myths seem to reflect some long-ago occurrence, existing only in the collective subconscious, which is the proper expression of mythical tales. The specific language of the observers explaining this phenomenon comes, of course, from the jargon of their own profession. Karl Jung, the eminent Swiss psychologist, claimed that the fantasies of the collective subconscious, meaning the tales of myths, stem from actual experiences of ancient ancestors. In his view, the study of the development of prehistory should be a considerable importance to the understanding of myths, and certainly the understanding of the mythical code may open the way to better understanding of prehistoric times. On the opposing side of Robert Graves, Karl Jung, Mirce Eliade and Levy-Strauss, all of them accepted the basic idea that myths are signs of collective memories of old and long-forgotten events, stands Joseph Campbell, who spent a lifetime analyzing myths and channeling away from being manifestations of collective memories. In one of his books4 he claimed the following, in direct confrontation to the scientists quoted above: "Thorough the inhabited world, in all times and under every circumstance, the myths of man have flourished, and they have been the living inspiration for whatever else may have appeared out of the activities of the human body and mind. It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into human cultural manifestations." Expressing in simple, and more easily understandable terms, Joseph Campbell thought that myths are not generated by collective experiences at the dawn of history, or even before that, but they are results of human need for something occult and unexplainable, and those needs are generated by human body and soul. There is, therefore, a disagreement between scholars as for the real meaning of myths, although those scholars who tend to see in myths some measure of expression of ancient collective memories, seem to be the majority. This study, which attempts to match mythological stories, appearing in the book of Genesis, with archaeological and historical data, might be a valid empirical test for this question. There is another aspect of mythology, which should be taken into account. If mythology is indeed an expression of past experiences, then the value of the stories is in transferring the information of the past to later generations. That transfer was in the form of storytelling, at least in early historical times, before the general spread of writing, which was very late indeed. If a story was written on a clay tablet, or on a piece of parchment, and stored in some royal archive, it does not mean that ordinary people had access to it. It did not happen so even in very modern time, probably not earlier than the last two centuries. So, even if the myths were written down, they were transferred orally between generations by storytellers or by priests. According to Ignatius Donelly5, myths and legends were meant to be transmitted orally and were distorted by civilization: "…scepticism becomes the synonym for intelligence, men no longer repeat, they doubt, they dissect, they sneer, they invent. If the myths survive the treatment, the poets take it up and make it their stock-in-trade; they decode it in a masquerade of frippery and finery, and the poor barbarian legend survives at last, if it survives at all, like the conflagration of Ovid, or King Arthur in Tennyson." Myths are different in ancient environment, when storytellers tell them to entranced listeners, from what they became in the environment of Sunday schools. Gilbert Murray6 wrote in his "Five Stages of Greek Religion" about primitive peasants in remote, mountainous areas of Greece, who wait with excitement for the announcement "Christos Aneste" (Christ has risen) and the answer "Alethos Aneste" (He has verily risen), as without the young king returning from death, there will not be a harvest, and the dead world will not revive. The story is ageless, or at least goes back to the earliest times of transition to agriculture; the bearer of the story is changing, from Dionysos to Christ. For us, the stories of the Genesis might or might not have historical truths, but for those who heard those stories in ancient times, they were God's truth without any doubt. As they are now for believers. The primary aim of this study is to find archaeological and historical corroboration to the biblical stories, provided of course that the mythological stories indeed have some historical foundations. There are a number of comments to be added here. There are two geographic areas where archaeological or historical evidences might be found. There are, however, innumerable difficulties in examining those territories.
These, and other factors, caused that out of the 6000 sites surveyed in Palestine, less than 200 were excavated and out of the estimated 500,000 documents less than 10 % were published.7 The cause is not always political. Palestine was always, and still is, a densely populated country. There are limitations of conducting excavations in built-up areas. Israel is not unique in that respect, The same applies to the city of Rome and other Roman sites all over Europe. Historical documents can be found in archives, as in Tel-el-Amarna, Ugarit, Ebla, Nuzi, Mari, Emar and other north-Syrian and eastern Turkish sites. The excavations showed many parallel settings to the biblical stories; they provide wonderful geographical, cultural, linguistic and religious backdrop to the stories, but no direct testimonies.8 However, even without the conditions and difficulties listed above, there is practically no possibility finding direct documentary proof for personae or events of more than 4000 years ago. In fact, it is doubtful that apart of the Egyptian and Mesopotamian inscriptions and royal archives, there are any documentary evidences at all for events before the 1st millenium BC. After all, the Patriarchs, if they were real persons, did not belong to the coterie of rulers and below the rulers not many people left documentary evidences. It seems that the most of what one can expect to find from a period over 4000 years ago, is conjectural, but it seems to be quite sufficient to present the stories of the Patriarchs in an acceptable historical light. Indeed, there is much more information about the cultural and religious background of the assumed period of the Patriarchs, than for others, much later events, chronologically speaking, like the period of the founding of Rome or the dark age of Greece. The attitude of scholars to mythological stories can be ambiguous. A scholar can accept in general, that mythological stories may have historical contents, while denying that to some particular story. As the stories of the Patriarchs are among the most prominent and widely known mythological tales, attracting attention from many quarters and because of various reasons; it is obvious that there are many pros and cons about the historicity of the Old Testament. Mike Furey9 has written about it in his discussion about the quest for the historical Abraham and it is worth while to quote it. "It is commonly accepted among scholars that the Bible we hold in our hands was the product of some priest-politicians around 500 – 300 BC, who were trying to legitimize their authority base. I reject this view. I do not reject it because of blind devotion to the Bible, but because it is not supportable by the facts, as I have studied them since 1979. If it were true that God used a group of fifth century priests to edit old fables and weave them together to unify a political state called Israel under Yahwism, that would be more miraculous than what I believe as an evangelist." Mike Furey was certainly right and he could have added much more. At the time when the alleged editing took place, there were many unknown elements. When the story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah was included, sand and brimstone covered that area of the destruction for about 2000 years. Nobody could have known then that 2500 years later the names of the destroyed towns will be found on the tablets of Ebla, as important trading partners. If they indeed did nothing else but linking existing legends into one book, they surely would have left out elements which were non-existent or unknown in their own time. As far as for the opinions of the scholars, who were involved in archaeological research of the area and the period of the Old Testament, the views are spread over a wide range of opinions. There are the enthusiastic advocates of the full historicity of the Bible, then those who claim "yes but" and finally those who no less enthusiastically define the Old Testament as unproven and unprovable mythological legends. The very large numbers of scholars who spent lifetimes on these problems do not allow fully to adjudicate the claims. There are literally thousands of books, which appeared on the subject, with many more appearing each year. There is no sign that this flood of books is going to end soon. Add to all these the large number of periodicals, full of articles about the Bible, dissecting it from the viewpoints of history, archaeology, linguistics, theology and others. To give justice to all viewpoints, only a few extreme opinions are quoted here from both ends of the scale. Among the most outspoken for the historicity of the Old Testament in general and for the Patriarchal stories in particular, was Nelson Glueck.10 "As a matter of fact…it may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever contradicted a Biblical reference. Scores of archaeological findings have been made which conform,in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical description has often led to amazing discoveries. They form tessarae in the vast mosaic of the Bible's almost incredibly correct historical memory." Indeed, when one reads some of the books and articles about the Patriarchal era, one has a curious impression that the knowledge from earlier periods seem to be more full and comprehensive than from much later age. Actually, this impression exists not for Biblical archaeology alone, but for other parts of the Middle East too.11 According to Arthur C. Custance, not long ago we knew more about the customs and habits of people in and about the time of Abraham than we knew about England in the dark ages. The quotations above might contain some enthusiastic exaggeration, induced, no doubt, by religious motivation, but by and large, most of those who attempted to decipher the biblical stories came to the conclusion that they have strong historical basis.12 One interesting article among those who accepted the historicity of the Bible and who attempted to define the task of archaeology in the research is that of W. G. Dever13 who wrote: "Nowhere in the Bible do we have more than a passing hint about what the people looked like, what they wore and ate, what their houses and furniture was like, what went on in the streets and plazas of the average town, how agriculture and trade were conducted, how people wrote and kept records, how they went about their daily chores and entertained themselves, how long they lived and what they died of and how they were buried. These are precisely the details archaeology can supply." On the other end of the scale there are many, not less convincing, arguments. Robert Coote of the San Francisco Theological Seminary stated, that "…the period of the Patriarchs….as devised by the writers of the Scriptures…never existed". Niels Peter Lemche, a professor at the University of Copenhagen flatly categorized the stories of the Patriarchs as "…fiction written around the middle of the first millenium BC." to establish a pedigree for Israel after the Babylonian exile. There was a cover story in 1998 in the evangelical magazine Christianity Today about the archaeology and the Bible and in that story it was stated that: "Not one shred of direct evidence has been found for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob or the 400-plus years the children of Israel sojourned in Egypt."14 Probably the strongest condemnation of the historicity of the Old Testament came from Professor Thomas L. Thompson15 of Copenhagen University in 1992: "If we reflect on how easy it is to challenge the historicity of not only David or Solomon, but the events in the reigns of Hezekiah or Josiah…the every substance of any historical project that attempts to write the history of the late second or early first millenium BC in Palestine on the basis of a direct integration of biblical and extra biblical sources…must appear not only dubious but wholly ludicrous." Judging from the findings of this study, as it will unfold in the following chapters, it can be stated, that there is a general historical accuracy, especially in the period after King Solomon, after the separation of the united kingdom into southern and northern parts. To this period, there was much corroborative evidence found in non-biblical sources, in contemporary Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian archives. Indeed, it is not only the corroborative evidences that add to the historicity of the Old Testament. Hebrew was a written language since about 1300 BC. When Israel has reached the stage of monarchy it was a literal society, and as such the events of the kingdom were recorded in a chronicle, of which at least some books became later parts of the canon of the Bible. We know from the books of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles that there were scribes who were in charge of maintaining the chronicles of the kingdoms. We also know of scribes who wrote down the speeches of the prophets. A short time ago a clay stopper was found with the name Baruch etched on it. Baruch was the scribe who wrote down the prophecies of the Prophet Hezekiel. Probably, the scribes belonged to the priesthood. Fustel de Coulanges wrote in his book: The Ancient City16 that when Pausanias visited Greece in the 2nd century AD, he could access the chronicles of the cities he visited. The chronicles were written and carefully maintained by the local priesthood for hundreds of years. As the chronicles were counted as religious documents, they had to be accurate and unalterable. It is true that chronicles might have had involuntary errors, because of search for the marvelous and the faith in the greatness of the Gods, but voluntary falsehoods was something which nobody at that time could have thought of. They believed that all events came from God and as such they were sacred. If people accuse the ancient priesthood of editing sacred chronicles and changing them at will to fit them to some temporary need, then these people commit a terrible anachronism. This act might be possible in modern and cynical age, it might have even be possible in later republican Rome, which was not less cynical than the present, but it is implausible for the fifth or sixth century BC, when still everything revolved around tradition and religion. As for the period of the united monarchy or the period of the Judges, there was little corroborative evidence found. Indeed, there was a time when there was doubt about the historicity of the united monarchy, especially the persons of David and Solomon. Since then a number of independent non-biblical, supporting evidence was found, but not too many. The first mention of the name Israel is on the famous Merneptah Stele. It was set up by Pharaoh Merneptah who ruled after Ramses II. The Stele is from the year 1207 BC.; it records a victorious campaign in Canaan. Among others it notes: "Israel is laid waste. Its seed is not." The stele and text are obvious. In 1207 BC, about 3200 years ago there was a political entity, called Israel, and it was important enough to be recorded on a victory monument. It was not the only one. In 1993, Abraham Biran of Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and Joseph Naveh of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem announced that they found an inscription bearing the phrases "House of David" and "King of Israel". The inscription – dated 9th century BC, only a century after David's reign was found at Tel-Dan, in the north of Israel. It described a victory by a neighboring king over Israel. The skeptics' claim, that King David might never have existed, became hard to defend. In addition to the inscription at Tel-Dan, there is the famous Mesha Stele. A French scholar reported the new discovery in 1994 in the Biblical Archaeological Review after a long research on the famous stele. The Mesha stele, also known as the Moabite Stone, is the most extensive inscription ever recovered from ancient Palestine. Found in 1868 at the remains of biblical Dibon, the basalt stone is in the Louvre today. Mr. Lemaire spent seven years studying the stele, and he concluded that "House of David" appears on the stone. So, after this discovery, there are two 9th century references to the dynasty of King David. There is another important discovery. It is important in the view of some of the claims stating that the Jewish priesthood fabricated the whole Old Testament after the Babylonian exile. The most eminent exposer of this theory is John van Seters, of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.17 In 1979 an Israeli archaeologist Gabriel Barkay found two tiny silver scrolls inside a Jerusalem tomb. They were dated at around 600 BC, before the destruction of Solomon's Temple. The scrolls were carefully unrolled and a blessing from the Book of Numbers was found etched on their surface. That meant that parts of the Old Testament were copied before they were written, according to John van Seters. Only a few of the new discoveries in Israel were included here. However, archaeology and discoveries is a continuing affair. As it was stated before, out of 6000 possible archaeological sites, less than 200 were excavated. The story of the Patriarchs has evolved not only in Israel, but also in northern Syria and southwestern Turkey. It can be assumed that future excavations will add to the already considerable amount of material. But even if no new excavations will be undertaken in the near future, out of political or security considerations, the material gained by previous excavations, which still waits for decipherment and translation, is sure to add to our knowledge of the period. But even today, the already known facts are sufficient to provide a narrative, based upon a seamless combination of biblical and non-biblical evidences. Kenneth Kitchen, an Egyptologist of the University of Liverpool, published in 1994 a detailed article in the Biblical Archaeological Review in which he wrote that the biblical stories about Abraham are eminently plausible. Drawing on non-biblical records, he argued that everything from the quoted price of slaves to the style of warfare to the laws of inheritance, and many others, in Abraham's days is consistent with Bible accounts.18 Despite all that wealth of evidence, we can expect additional findings to round up the narrative, but it is most unlikely that we shall ever have direct evidence of the Patriarchs and of their doings. There is a number of reasons for this opinion.
About later periods, and the lack of corroborative information between the tales of the Bible and the non-biblical, mainly Egyptian, sources, there are a number of points to which I intend to draw attention, without expressing any personal views in the matter. Since the days of Manetho, the Egyptian priest, who drew up the chronology of the Egyptian dynasties, in the 3rd century BC, there is a gaping discrepancy between the Egyptian records and the stories of the Bible. In simple terms, either the list of Manetho is too long, or the Bible chronology is too short. The discrepancy exists not only with the Bible, but the Bible provides the single comprehensive book of history at that time. Not a single country in the Near East, neither Egypt, nor Mesopotamia nor any other has a book of history, which tells the story of their country in chronological order. So, as there are no other comprehensive books of history, only collections of laws, hymns, epic tales, etc., no gap can be found. It is a subject that occupies scholars at least since the early years of the 20th century. There are the famous, and controversial, books of Emmanuel Velikovsky and a later book of David M. Rohl.20 Velikovsky based his research upon astronomical events and on changes in the length of the year, following the astronomical catastrophes. David M. Rohl has chosen a much simpler and much less controversial method to explain the gap in the chronologies. He accepted the list of dynasties compiled by Manetho, but claimed that there were dynasties that ruled concurrently in different parts of Egypt, not consecutively as claimed by Manetho. This approach has shortened considerable the Egyptian chronology. Using his method, many biblical tales, which until then were relegated to legends, returned to being historical facts. Previously the Bible told stories about Egypt or other parts of the world, which must have had some signs in Egyptian records, and the Egyptian records had no knowledge of them. On the other hand, the Egyptian records told about wars and conquests in Canaan, with local rulers in historical times, of which there was no mention in the Bible. No wonder that some Bible experts relegated the Bible among the mythical tales. The possible shift in the respective chronologies is one of the problems. The second problem is that of names, Each Egyptian ruler had a number of names, each name being used for different occasions. It is possible that the stories of the Bible record one name but not that which the Egyptian records have used. The same can apply to the corresponding records too. There is a possibility that the names David and Solomon were not private names but titles, which later turned into private names. Goliath, the Philistine warrior, was told in the Bible to have been slain by David and by Elhanan. Similarly, it is still not certain whether the given name of Solomon was not Adonijahu. It is entirely possible, even probable, that the given names were different from the names taken as rulers. It was a common practice at that time and there is no reason why this practice was not in use in Israel too. David Rohl brings in his book a beautiful example for the possibility of using names that were different from that used by the Bible. In the Amarna archives a few tablets were found, with letters from Canaanite rulers about matters common to them and to the Pharaoh, who was then Akhenaton, the religious reformer. Among the letters, there were a number from a ruler called Labayu. This name is unknown in the biblical records. However, when reading the contents of the letters, it seems to be clear that Labayu is really King Saul, the first king of Israel. What are the clues, which brought David Rohl to this conclusion. William Foxwell Albright studied one of the letters, EA 252, in 1943. He concluded that the letter was originally written in idiomatically pure Hebrew and then translated into Akkadian, the diplomatic language of the time. It seems that Labayu was not very popular with the Pharaoh. In another letter, the ruler of Damascus, Aziru, warns the Pharaoh: "Are we to act like Labayu when he was giving the land of Shechem to the Habiru." For long, this letter was placed in the period of the Israeli conquest, but no Labayu and no Aziru were found in the neighborhood and no Habiru who were given Shechem. According to David Rohl, Labayu is King Saul, who is called in the letter "the Great Lion of Yahu". His bodyguards were indeed called "levaim" – lions (I Samuel 24 and Psalms 57.4): My soul is among lions And I lie among them that are set on fire, Even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows. As far as Aziru is concerned, no Damascene ruler with this name was found. However, at the time of King Saul there was a Damascene ruler, called Hadad-Ezer. Aziru is the Akkadian form of Ezer, so if Labayu is King Saul, then Aziru is Hadad-ezer and the Habiru to whom Saul had given Shechem were the insurgent rebels led by David. In tablet no. EA 256 – now in British Museum – Mutbaal writes to the Pharaoh that he is east of the river Jordan and he remained faithful to the Pharaoh. After the death of King Saul and his son, Yonathan, at the hands of the Philistines on the slopes of the Gilboa, the last remaining son of Saul, Ishbaal, has fled across the Jordan to Pella to escape David and his army. That was the time when David, and his commander, Joab, started his conquest of the whole country. The name Mutbaal , which appears on the letter, is the Canaanite form of Ishbaal, Saul's remaining son. This short example above was brought here to show that the lack of corroboration of biblical and non-biblical sources might be the result of both chronological shifts and the use of different names for different purposes. The same applies to names of peoples. The Old Testament is sometimes accused that it placed Hittites in ancient Palestine and it is an anachronism. It is true that the heyday of the Hittite Empire was in the 2nd millenium BC, but according to the theories of Colin Renfrew21 there were Indo-European tribes who were natives of Anatolia and south-eastern Turkey. This theory later received further enhancement, as it is clearly shown in Chapter 4 of this study. It is entirely possible that the use of the name was indeed anachronistic, but only the name and not the substance. South of the Black Sea, there were a number of Indo-European tribes, without much difference between them. As they settled in different areas, without much contact between them, they developed different dialects and eventually different languages. However, their basic culture remained similar to each other, They became known in historic times, as Hittites, Luwian, Palaic and Lycian. There were other similar tribes to the east of them, who later became the historical Armenians, Medes, Persians and Parthians. The western part of this family of languages, became known territorially as Hittites, Mitannis (Hurrians) or Chaldeans. Today, we tend to draw lines on maps and color them in different color. For lack of better method, we do the same for biblical times too. It is very doubtful that people in biblical times looked on lines and colors on maps. It is entirely possible that families, clans or even whole tribes went wandering looking for better life. Some of them settled as lords of manors in the hill-country of Palestine and called themselves Hittites.22 As an added supporting evidence to this theory is the fact that in the second millenium BC there were rulers of city states, in Palestine and in east of the Jordan, who had Indo-European names. When David conquered Jerusalem at the very end of the 2nd millenium BC, Jerusalem was a Jebusite city. The Jebusites were a Hittite-Hurrian tribe, who later became mixed with Semitic, Amorite, people. The last ruler of Jerusalem was called Abdi-Heba , a mixed Semitic-Hurrian name. His letters are also in the Amarna archive, complaining bitterly that the Habiru are nearing and no help is in sight. Until the complaints ceased. The only time when Jerusalem was conquered is the conquest of David. In summary, this study accepts that mythological stories can contain historical elements, but also proves that this particular myth, the book of Genesis, has many corroborative evidence, based on non-biblical archaeological and historical sources. There is one more point, which should be addressed not from the side of archaeology but from the side of commonsense. There are experts who claim that the whole of the Israeli history before the Babylonian exile was fabricated by an interested priesthood, which after returning from the exile, wanted to create a base of legitimacy and did it by creating a legendary history, based upon falsification. Based upon modern, cynical approach, this view may have some credibility. It can even be assumed that this approach can pass the 'cui bono' test, meaning that the priesthood had a direct interest in the falsification. However, there is one big problem here: the finished product, the false history, cannot pass the simplest test of commonsense. If I want to create a noble pedigree for myself, I certainly would not include among my ancestors people, who were slaves for more than 400 years. I certainly would not include the seamiest stories of the Old Testament. The stories of David, Bat Sheba and Urriyah the Hittite , or that of Nadab and his vineyard, are certainly not the most enlightening stories in the Old Testament, to be included into anybody's pedigree. If invent the story of David, why invent Urriyah too? Manufacturing pedigrees for individuals and peoples is a very common occurrence. However, nobody in his right mind would invent an ancestor who was hanged for theft. The same rational is should be true for nations too. When the Romanians wanted to create a national pedigree by which to cover their being in the past a nomadic pastoral people on the Balkans, they claimed descent from the Roman legions. They left the Roman slaves alone. There is a second moot point here. There are a number of details in the tales of the Old Testament with perfect fit to the archaeological data discovered in modern times. If the omniscient priesthood, wishing to create a new history on which to base their rule, indeed wrote the tales of the Bible, how could they know the small details which we only now know after the discoveries in the excavations of Ebla, Nuzi, Emar, Mari, Ugarit and Tel-el-Amarna. One of the most consistent critics of the acceptance of the Old Testament as a historical document is Thomas L. Thompson23 . He accepts the fact that there was a historical Israel, after all, there is an Egyptian document, the Merneptah Stele to prove it. However, in his opinion, the historical Israel has no resemblance to the Israel, as reflected in the Old Testament. No King Saul, King David and Salomon and no united monarchy. What remained were two small states, Israel and Judah, and unimportant ones at that. The history of Israel, as described in the Old Testament was the creation of a number of priests in the Maccabean period, who: "…knew precious little about the immediate past and next to nothing about the distant past. But they were good poets and skilled story-tellers."24 If so, then the Bible is an epic poem, similar to the poems of Homer, who was also composing epic poetry about a barely known past. It might be entirely correct to claim that neither Homer nor the compilers of the Old Testament knew the details of the distant past. After all, scientific study of the past has started only in the middle of the 19th century AD and we are aware that despite the efforts, our knowledge about the past is woefully short. Still, there are many differences between Homer and the compilers of the Bible, or the creators according to Thompson. Homer lived and wrote in the Iron Age about an event, the siege of Troy, which occurred in the Late Bronze Age. He knew that in his own age fights are usually face-to-face, with spears or swords. He also knew that in the Bronze Age, the heroes used battle chariots for fighting, but did not know the exact details. So, in his poems the heroes use the chariots as battle taxis, to arrive at the place of the battle, alight from the chariot and fight in proper Iron Age manner. The Old Testament has a number of inconsistencies and anachronisms, but not too many in relations to the huge amount of material. There is also an amazing fit between the most mythical stories of the Old Testament, the Book of Genesis, and there seems to be a solid historical foundation to most of them. So, there are two possibilities. Either, the stories were there, and the compilers incorporated them into the canon of the Bible, or that the creators of Bible had an uncanny inspiration to hit on the exact details, so their work would fit to historical data which was lost thousands of years before their time, and rediscovered only in the most modern times. It should be pointed out that Ebla, for instance, was destroyed at the end of the 3rd millenium BC, about 1500 years before the creation of the new identity and discovered only in the sixties and seventies of the 20th century AD. When they manufactured the imaginary story of King David, as the experts claim, they added a few stories to add color to it, Among others they added the story of Bat- Sheba and Urriyah the Hittite. At that time, and today too, there are two Hebrew names with identical meanings: Urriel is one and Urriyah is the second. The first means 'El is my light' and the second 'Yahu is my light'. How could they know then that anybody who is Hittite can only be called Urriyah and never Urriel. Did they know the contents of the clay tablets, buried at the Tel of Ebla for more than 1500 years? In my opinion, any respectable scholar wishing to join the chorus of denial, should pass first the test of commonsense. |
