David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (40 page)

* Two personal seals of officials of the Judahite king Uzziah (785–733
BCE
) were discovered in the nineteenth century, but they are isolated examples of official writing in Judah, probably heavily influenced by the extensive literacy in the court of Uzziah’s contemporary King Jereboam II of the northern kingdom (784–748
BCE
).

* Israeli archaeologist Adam Zertal has attempted to reconstruct the settlement pattern of the seventh century
BCE
(to differentiate from the eighth) in northern Samaria according to a few pottery types and has argued for a significant decline in the number of sites after the fall of the north. Yet most of these types can also be found in the eighth century
BCE
. His main—probably only—criterion was a type of decorated bowl that he linked to the Cuthean deportees who were settled by the Assyrians in the region. Without dealing with the question if this identification is valid, the presence or absence of a single pottery type in survey sites (some of which produce a limited number of sherds) can be random and misleading. We believe that Zertal’s interpretation of the situation in the seventh century is therefore based on very shaky grounds.

*
RELEASSED FROM IMPRISONMENT IN BABYLON IN
561
BCE.

* For more detail about the stratigraphy and archaeological arguments concerning the dismantling of shrines in Judah in this period, see Appendix 5.

* The distinctly Assyrian-era description of Solomon’s time could equally fit the conditions in Judah during the reign of Josiah (639–609
BCE
), during which (as we will see in the next chapter) the Deuteronomistic History was compiled. Yet the decidedly negative image of Solomon in 1 Kings 11, reflecting the distinctive ideology of Deuteronomy, seems to be a critique of an
already-existing
description of Solomon’s cosmopolitan reign.

* For more details on the debate over the historical reliability of the great Solomonic building activities, see Appendix 3.

* The role of Israel in the eighth-century horse business is elsewhere recorded in the biblical tradition, though with a decidedly negative twist. The eighth-century prophet Amos refers to the horses of Israel (4: 10), and Isaiah—who prophesied in the days of Jeroboam II—condemns “those who go down to Egypt for help and rely on horses, who trust in chariots because they are many and in horsemen because they are very strong” (31: 1). The northern prophet Hosea, who also lived in the eighth century
BCE
, seems to hint at the special horse relationship between Israel and Assyria in declaring that “Assyria shall not save us, we will not ride upon horses” (14: 3). And the horse business with Egypt is condemned by Deuteronomy 17: 16: “Only he must not multiply horses for himself, or cause the people to return to Egypt in order to multiply horses.” We will see at the end of this chapter that the Solomonic tradition would also eventually be subject to this criticism.

* Beyond the Solomonic tradition, Sheba figures prominently in the oracles of the seventh-and sixth-century
BCE
Judahite prophets. Isaiah predicts that a “multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense” (60: 6). Jeremiah angrily asks, “To what purpose does frankincense come to me from Sheba?” (6: 20) and Ezekiel charges Tyre that the “traders of Sheba and Raamah traded with you; they exchanged for your wares the best of all kinds of spices, and all precious stones, and gold” (27: 22).

* The only extrabiblical support for the existence of a historical Hiram in the time of Solomon comes from the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who quotes the (now lost) works of Dius and Menander of Ephesus, two Hellenistic historians of the second century
BCE
. The Israeli historian Doron Mendels has labeled the works of these second-century historians “creative historiographies,” which were drawn from existing sources. In the second century
BCE
the Bible was already known to Hellenistic writers and could have been the source for much of their information, including the legendary association of the two kings.

† For more detail on the reasons for these redatings, see Appendix 4.

* An alternative biblical tradition (Amos 9: 7 and Jeremiah 47: 4) suggests that the Philistines came from Caphtor, a geographical name usually associated with Crete.

† Egyptian texts mention at least two more groups of Sea People—the Sikila and the Sherdani—who settled on the coast of Canaan.

* It is noteworthy that Herodotus (II: 159) mentions that Pharaoh Necho II dedicated in the temple of Apollo in Didyma on the western coast of Asia Minor—not far from Priene—the armor in which he won battles in the Levant.

†
INCLUDING COREGENCIES

* Jeremiah (44: 1; 46: 14) speaks about Judahites who lived in the Delta of the Nile. They too could have been in close contact with Greek mercenaries and merchants who established trading colonies there. For more evidence on Greek mercenaries and their possible connection to the David story, see Appendix 6 on the description of Cheretites and Pelethiles as David’s royal bodyguard.

† It is noteworthy that the name Goliath has been compared etymologically to the Lydian (that is, west Asia Minor) name Alyattes. The historical Alyattes, king of Lydia (c. 610–560
BCE
), was the great-grandson of Gyges—the monarch who is said to have sent hoplite troops to help Psammetichus I of Egypt.

* Identified with the mound of Beitin, the ancient site lies under modern village structures and has not been systematically excavated. Investigations carried out there beginning in the 1930s revealed extensive Bronze and Iron Age remains.

* The second book of Chronicles reports that Josiah was killed at Megiddo in a
battle
against Necho, but one should prefer the close-to-contemporary testimony of the book of Kings over the much later, fourth-century
BCE
account of Chronicles.

* For an estimate of the numbers of exiles, see Appendix 7.

† The prophet Ezekiel, who belonged to the exiled community, reckoned the dates of his oracles by the years of Jehoiachin’s exile (1: 2; 33: 21; 40: 1)—apparently an alternative royal dating formula that suggests continuing allegiance to the exiled king.

* His Davidic lineage is noted in 1 Chronicles 3: 19. His name, meaning “seed of Babylon” in Akkadian, is an indication of how assimilated to Babylonian society the Judahite elite—and even the Davidic aristocracy—had become in just a few decades of exile.

† See Appendix 7 for more details on the numbers of returning Judahite exiles and the size and status of the province of Yehud in the post-exilic period.

* Biblical scholars, such as Hugh Williamson of Oxford University, noted that on many central issues the author of Chronicles presents a different view from that expressed in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. It seems that Chronicles and Ezra-Nehemiah—though written roughly in the same period—promote different ideologies, though they are not in total opposition to each other. Their authors belonged to the same community of postexilic Jerusalem, but they express different outlooks on Israelite history and on the needs of their own community.

* The name changes again in the Hellenistic period, with the Greek “Ioudaia” and the Latinized “Judea” of the Roman period. These replace the Aramaic “Yehud” of the Persian period, which in turn had replaced the original Hebrew “Yehudah,” or Judah.

†
INCLUDING COREGENCIES

* The identity and date of the author of Zechariah 9–14 (Deutero-Zechariah) is debated. Dates for its various chapters range between the seventh and fourth centuries
BCE
.

^*
The Bible specifically attributes the building of the capital Samaria to Omri, Ahab’s father (1 Kings 16:24). This is supported by extrabiblical evidence: the Assyrians referred to the northern kingdom as the house of Omri, acknowledging the fact that he was the founder of the capital of Israel.

^*
One type of these impressions carries, in addition to the name of the province, a personal name and the title “the governor.” The personal names are identified by most scholars as governors of the province of Yehud on behalf of the Persian empire.

†
INCLUDING COREGENCIES

†
INCLUDING COREGENCIES

†
INCLUDING COREGENCIES

* For a brief history of the early archaeological search for David and Solomon and a review of the early theories, see Appendixes 2 and 3.