-Creationist-
Ok, right off the bat, we know this. I Sam. 8:5 tells us that kingship came to Israel because the people wanted it. We also know that with king comes higher taxes, a draft, military appropriations of private property, working for the government without pay, etc. Saul was the first king of Israel and built a fortress at Gibeah. This site has been excavated and one of the most noteworthy finds was that of slingshots. Judges 20:16 says that there were 700 expert slingers in Israel who "could sling a stone at a hair and not miss." This also coincides with David killing Goliath with a slingshot.
Please give the modern Arabic (or Hebrew) name of a site when you are speaking of an ancient site in which its location is disputed.
I assume you are refering to Tell el Ful?
(Though I have forgotten alot, I never-the-less know a good bit about the possible sites during the Judges period from my close studies in times past)
I can tell you that the Gibeah site (as well as the archaeology of Benjamin) presents me the the most difficulty in attempting to justify a fundamentalist view of scripture. (infact its the only genuine problem I have come across in matching Judges events in scripture with the archaeological record).
Your mention of a "fortress" clearly betrays your reference to Tell el Ful as Gibeon.
You gave no archaeological or chronological context at all to your claim. Anyway, the dating of the fortress could be as late as 950 BCE (this has nothing to do with Finkelsteins chronology either)though Albright dated it around 1025-infact it could be even later than 950 BCE with Finkelsteins "low chronology" (and Mazar has even been forced to agree with chronological revisions downward of 20 years for the period around late Iron 1/ early Iron 2, which means old dates of "1000BCE" are now no earlier than 980 BC!)
More recent excavations (though Im refering to decades old ones-which have nothing to do with Finkelstein). have also presented chronological schemes which show Tel el Ful to contradict later descriptions of Gieah's occupation history as outline in the Bible. (Im refering to periods long after Saul such as during the prophecy of Isaiah)
Even BEFORE all these recent developments (which arent all that recent-infact many of these "recent" discoveries were around 30-40 years ago), the old Albright chronology for Tel el Ful still saw a *MAJOR* contradiction with the biblical text; there was no destruction by fire c.1050, only abandonment!
Robinson felt that the ancient site for Gibeah was at a site called Jaba' (sp?) and so have some modern heavyweights such as J Maxwell Miller.
They arent fundamentalists (Miller sure the heck isnt anything of the sort), but all fundamentalists better hope they are on to something.
The alternative site hasnt been excavated much.
-Creationist-
At Saul's death, Samuel tells us that his armor was put in the temple of Ashtaroth ( a Canaanite fertility goddess) at Bethshan. Chronicles says that his head was put in the temple of Dagon, the Philistine corn god. This was once thought to be an error because it seemed unlikely that enemy peoples would have temples in the same place at the same time. Excavations, however, have shown there to be two temples at this site. They are separated by a hallway; one for Dagon, and the other for Ashtaroth.
You didnt give any archaeological period.
The standard archaeological chronology would place this (as based on Saul ruling from 1042 to 1110 BCE) in the latest part of Iron 1 , though lower chronological schemes (archaeological) would place this event earlier in Iron 1.
Maybe your discovery was during 400 BCE and thus it could support the view that the Biblical text was written c400 BCE.
Archaeology isnt just digging into the ground and finding something hat looks like it is "Biblical".One needs stratigraphical context.
-Creationist-
ONe of the key accomplishments of David's reign was the capture of Jerusalem. The Scriptures say that the Israelites entered the city by way of a tunnel that led to the Pool of Siloam. This was a problem because for a long time it was thought that the pool was outside the city walls at that time. In the 1960's, however, excavations determined that the walls did indeed extend beyond the pool.
"at that time"!!!!!!!!!
Im waiting for the evidence you have for this one!
Jerusalem during David time!
(excited like a dog in heat)
-Creationist-
We have some evidence of Solomon's Temple. It is a small ornament, a pomegranate, that sat on the end of a rod and bears the inscription "Belonging to the Temple of Yahweh." It was first seen in a shop in Jerusalem in 1979. It was verified in 1984. It has resided in the Israel Museum since 1988.
There are several issues related to the 1st Temple.
Any discovery is dramatic, for sure.
But its life was described as c967 to 587 BCE in the Bible.
All the discoveries have been on the extremely late end of this period. (back to the chronological context thingy again)
Infact, it must be pointed out that the ("Solomons")Temple might not have been built till 800 BCE (or even much later) based on evidence *OUTSIDE* the Bible.
True, the vast majority of scholars, archaeologists, historians, etc. let the Bible's bald historical recordings rule the day , but the honest fact is that there is no evidence Solomon founded the Temple and especially not as far back as the early-mid 10th century BCE.
-Creationist-
I Kings 9:16 tells us "For Pharoah king of Egypt had gone up and captured Gezer, and burned it with fire, and killed the Canaanites who lived in the city, and had given it as a dowry to his daughter, Solomon's wife." Why is this significant? Because in 1969 during an excavation of Gezer there was found a massive layer of ash that covered most of the mound. While sifting through the ash, Hevrew, Egyptian and Philistine artifacts were found, indicating that all three cultures had been there at the same time. This puzzled researchers, but the Bible tells us it was so.
The accounts of Egyptian (and Philistine) battles is Samuel/Kings is the greatest evidence for the early history of Israel.
However, there is a minority view (with several powerful supporters) that lowers the date of Iron II (used to be dated at 1000 BCE at its start) down about 70 years.That would place the Gezer destruction at a period closer to 900 BCE.
Even Mazar (the strongest dupporter of the old chronology) has been forced to compromise and lower the date of Iron II to 980 BC and some feel that is too high.
The date for the destruction of Gezer around 960 BCE is only hanging on by a thread.
If the chronology gets forced downwards even more (and the evidence might suggest such), then the solution for conservative Bible believers will be to assume the reign of Solomon was not literally "40 years" but actually closer to 25, thus lowering the Biblical chronology to fit the revised archaeological record. (this could also apply to Davids "40 year" reign and then there is the text-critical possibility that Saul only reigned 22 years as opposed to 32)
-Creationist-
The Bible tells us that the Assyrian Empire conquerd the Northern Kingdom (Israel)of Israel. We know a lot about the Assyrians because of 26000 tablets found in the palace of Ashurbanipal, the son of Esarhaddon who had taken Israel in 722 B.C. Every reference to an Assyrian king in the Old Testament had proven correct.
Yup, and the Assyrian (as well as Babylonian) astronomical dating has been used very good to correct chronological errors in the Bible's history.
That the advantage to having first hand sources (Assyrian) which make specific references to events and rulers (foreign and domestic) mentioned in 2nd hand reports (Biblical text).
-Creationist-
One of the most interesting finds is Sennacherib's record of the siege of Jerusalem. Isaiah foretold that he would be unable to take Jerusalem. However, Sennacherib found a way to make himself look good even in defeat:
quote
"As to Hezekia, the Jew, he did not submit to my yoke, I laid siege to 46 of his strong cities, walled forts, and to the countless small villages in their vicinity...I drove out of them 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, horses, mules, donkeys, camels, big and small cattle beyond counting and considered (them) booty. Himself, I made a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage."
Even more impressive is the Biblical descriptions of "good" Jewish (Judean kings) kings fighting off Assyrians when the archaeological record shows them surviving only after paying massive tribute.
Not to mention the Mesha inscription giving historical details that the Bible leave's out (the Bible only begins to allude to Moabs sweeping win). Even the fundamentalist Bible and Spade archaeological journal is frank about that.
Look at the differences between the Biblical description of Cyrus and the actual first hand inscriptions of Cyrus.(his relations to YHWH compared to his actual recorded worship practices)
-creationist-
2 Kings 25:27-30 tells us that Jehoiachin who was taken captive to Babylon was treated well in captivity. Records found in Babylon's famous Hanging Gardens show that Jehoiachin and his five sons were being given a monthly ration and place to live and were treated well. The name Belshazzar had once caused problems because there was not only no mention of him, but there was no room for him in the list of Babylonian kings. However, Nabodonius left a record that he appointed his son, Belshazzar, to reign a few years in his absence. This explains why Belshazzar could only make Daniel third highest ruler in the land.
Daniel is the book that presents the greatest difficulty to the foundation Christianity. There isnt any other Old testament book that even comes close to the major importance of Daniel not to mention the major problems.
Too bad you only touched on one that was solved nearly 100 years ago, and left all the others hanging.
Granted the biggest problem is the dispensationalist ignorance of the actual debate on the biggest (Daniel related) issue that Christianity faces (the prophecy that was probably fulfilled in 167 yet Christ used it to refer to propecies centering around the time just after his life).
The real debate(s) is(are) centers around:
1- whether the "490" days was fulfilled around 170 BCE or whether is was fulfilled around 70 AD.
2- the scholarly issues which decide when the Daniel prophecy was written and when the Gospel quotes were actually written.
The dispensationalist fantasy ignores this vital debate and then attempts to twist the scripture into somehow refering to 2000 AD or whatever.
Hank Hanegraaff believes the Daniel prophecy was fulfilled in 167 BCE and Christ's reference was simply a way of using references to Old Testament (and later) history to describe events that would happen in his own time. (his view is that Christ was simply saying the Temple would suffer a major catastrophy)
I dont know about this specific example.Its ify.
But the other N.T.prophecies he references back to the Old Testament quotations were amazing.
His The Apocalpyse Code book refered every New Testament prophecy back to its actual Old Testament context (which was related to actual history), and it sure shows a different context than dispensationalists present.
(I dont want this to turn into a debate on prophecy , because Daniel has tons of other issues to be resolved)
-Creationist-
There is much more, but this will do for now.
Thanks for trying, but it seems to me that you are reading un-critical fundamentalist claims.
Best to move beyond that and to study the archaeological data yourself. (well, I dont study raw-data myself, but refined scholarly works are about 100 steps closer to the raw-facts than fundi slop-scribbles)
There will be a trillion contradiction's when you simply jump on 1 attractive claim taken out of its total context.The Gibeah example is really telling;you didnt even bother to see if the site that fundamentalists used as "support" for later (albeit early Monarchy)Israelite history didnt contradict the earlier history of Judges(though it is true that this thread only required support for the post-Judges period).
(another example)
I have seen Joseph accuse me of rejecting Israelite history yet he boldly says that Rameses II was Pharaoh of the Exodus.That flys in the face of Biblical chronology and actually removes alot of early Israelite history in Palestine (history which I think happened).To make matters even more amusing, he places the Israelite Conquest so late (1220 BCE) that very few sites,where cities were attacked, were actually occupied!
(Including Davids early capitol of Hebron,and Saul's hometown of Gibeon! Talk about stealing Israelite history! )
Anyway, a critical look at the archaeological data will cause one to question popular fundi claims, but it will actually go much much further toward defending the Biblical text (since the popular& cheapo fundi-claims all over the net actually defeat their own purpose and infact would falsify the Biblical text in other areas).
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