T EXT AND ARCHAEOLOGY IN A P ERIOD OF GREAT D ECLINE: THE C ONTRIBUTION OF THE AMARNA L ETTERS

TO THE D EBATE ON THE HISTORICITY OF N EHEMI AH' S WALL

Nadav Na'aman

Nehem iah's Wall in Recent Archaeological Research

There is a huge disciplinary difference between the scientific analysis of textual evidence and the examination of archaeological data. This is why a comparison between the accounts of texts and the results of archaeo­logical excavations is always complicated. The comparison is particu­larly complicated in periods of decline of urban culture, such as the tenth century and the Persian period. There are no primary written sources for the two periods, and the Bible, the single written text available for com­parison with the results of the archaeological excavations, suffers from

well-known limitations. In view of the many problems involved in using the Bible as a histori-

cal source, archaeology plays a major role in the study of these periods and in the evaluation of the biblical text. Thus, for example, the archaeo­logical excavations conducted at Jerusalem serve as the key to evaluating the biblical descriptions of the histories of David and Solomon . Many biblical descriptions of their operations in Jerusalem have been dismissed (correctly or incorrectly) as non-historical, because they did not fi t the results of the excavations . Similarly, doubts have recently been cast on the authenticity of some descriptions in the books ofEzra and Nehemiah, with the claim that they contradict the results of the excavations con­

ducted in the C ity of David (Finkelstein 2008a, 2008b ). No wall dated to the Pers ian period, and very few remains from this

period, have been found in the many excavations conducted in Jerusa­lem. Based on this and other negative evidence, Finkelstein (2008a) has rejected the authenticity of the detailed description of Nehemiah 's building of a city wall. In his opinion, the maximal size of the Persian

NA' AMAN Text and Archaeology 2 1

and ~ar~y Heljenistic settlement was ca. 20- 25 clunams and the estimated p~pu atton . o ~roun.cl 4.00 to . 500 people. The number of s ites w ith at chaeo logtcal t e~11atns m ~he unmecliate environs of Jerusalem is ver st~1a l ~, and there ts ~ drasttc demographic depletion in the area of th~ p10vmc.e of Ye.hucl 111 the Persian period (Finkelstein 2008a 504- 7) Accorclmg to Fmkelstein ' · ,

The find s indicate that in. the Persian and early Hellenistic eriods Jeru­salem was ~ small unfortified village that stretched over an ~rea of c 20 dunams, With a population ?fa few hundred people- that is, not m~lch 11101 e t.han I 00 adult me~J. ~Ius population- and the depleted population of the Jelusalem countrys ide 111 particular and the enti re territory ofYehud in ~enel ~1--:-cou ld not have supported a major reconstruction effort of the IUlllec hon II fort ifications of the city. (Finkelstein 2008a, 5 14)

jh.e e~rlie~t Second Temple city wall unearthed in the excavations in etusa em~~ elated to the Hasmonean period, and many buildings as well

as subst.anttal quantities of pottery and other artifacts uncovere'ct in the excavations, are also elated to this period. In light of this Fink I t . (2008a 51 0 14) . 1 , e s em

N I '. - p10poses t 1at the description of the building of

e 1emtah 's wall was ·' tt · 1 . . Wtt en m t 1e second century 8 c E c1 msptrecl by tl · · · · an was . . 1e c~nstructwn of the Hasmonean city-wall.

. Befme cltscu~smg th~ problems involved with the archaeo logical data ples.entecl bf Fmkelstel~l , let me briefly present an important written s~~nce over ooked by Fmkelstein . A letter addressed by Yedaniah tl p11ests and all the Jews of Elephantine to Bagavah f ' le in tl 4

07 . ' ya, governor o Judah

le year 8.C.E., mclucles the fo llowing passage:

Moreover, before this, at the time that this evil was done to us a lett . sent to our lord [i e 8 1 ] , e1 we

11 : ., agava 1ya , and to Jehohanan the High Priest and his

~o e~gue~ the pnests who are in Jerusalem, and to Avastana the brother of nam anc the nobles of the Jews. A letter they did not seiJd tiS (P ·t

2003, 128) · Ol en

The original .le.tt~r was sel_lt . b~ tl~e community of Elephantine to the he~ds ~f the Jehgtat~ s and ctv tlmstttutions of Jerusalem, with the request to mtet vene ~n their behalf to the Persian authorities of the "S t . Beym~d tl~e ~tver" (eber nari). The picture of an established cit ..,:i:I~f~ local u~stttutwns that emerges from this late fi fth-century B ( E I tt . ~ta~td~l:n marked contrast to the image of Jerusalem as "a sm~J[ u;tf~rt~~ 0

; ~~ ag1 e tld1at stretched over an area of c. 20 clunams, with a population

a 1ew mn red people."

22 The Historian and the Bible

The Amarna Letters versus the Archaeological Research

Like the tenth century and the early Pers ian period, Amarna was also a time of great decline in urban culture. However, unlike the textu~l situ­ation in the tenth and fifth centuries B.C.E., for the Amarna penod we have the evidence of both the archaeological excavations and surveys and of primary written texts. Here the correlation of text and archaeology in a period of great decline can be put to the documentary test: and the conclusions drawn from the comparison might be carefully applied to the

other two periods. In what follows I will examine the evidence of the Amarna letters sent

from some important Canaanite cities vis-a-vis the results of ar~l.laeo­logical excavations conducted at these sites. Of c~urse, our abtht~ to compare the picture arising from the documents wtth the one obtamed from the archaeological excavations depends to a large extent on the scope of the excavations at these sites. Only major cities which have been excavated extensively can serve as research benchmarks. Other cities no matter how important, cannot supply the archaeological data nece;sary for the investigation. In comparing the archaeological fit:ding with the textual evidence I shall confine my remarks to the four avatlable sites in south and central Canaan, two in the highlands (Jerusalem and

Shechem), and two in the lowlands (Gez~r and Lachish). , . I start with Jerusalem. Seven long, detatled letters sent by Abdt-Heba,

king of Jerusalem, were found in the Amarna archive (EA 285--:291) (~or a detailed discussion of the letters, see Na 'aman forthcommg, wtth earlier literature). The letters are of unusual literary quality and diplo­matic wit, indicating the presence of a first-rate scribe in t~1e city. The king of Jerusalem sat in a "house"- namely, a palace~and m one of the letters he describes an incident that occurred between hnn and the Egyp­tian garrison, apparently counting fifty men, which l:ad b~~n stationed temporarily in the city. High-ranking Egyptian offi.ctals.vtstted Jen~sa­lem and 'Abdi-Heba sent the pharaoh caravans wtth tnbute and gtfts, inc1~1ding slaves of both sexes and a good deal of silver: He \\~as ac~used by Shuwardata, the king of Gath, of trying to expand mto ht~ tern tory, and was compared to Lab'ayu, the ruler ofShechem, who ternfied many Canaanite rulers . ' Abdi-Heba' s principal rival was Milkilu, the king of Gezer, whose kingdom adjoined that of Jerusalem on its weste_rn bord~r. The pich1re arising from the letters suggests a kingdom ofsubstanttal strength, with a capital city at its heart, enjoying a solid e~onomy and dominating a territory that spread to the foot of the mountam range.

NA' AMAN Text and Archaeology 23

Reading the documents, one would expect the excavations in Jeru­salem to. reveal a big, thriving c ity in the Late Bronze Age, but these expecta~wn~ were t?tally d~shed (see Na 'aman 1996). A big, fortified C~naamte ctty was m fact dtscovered at the site, but it dated only to the M t.ddle BI:onze III. From the Late Bronze Age were left only some ummpr~sstve :-valls and not a great amount of pottery vessels, including a few sheids of Imports from Cyprus, all of them found in the upper part of the .. eastern s lope of the City of David. So poor was the finding from that peuo? that. some scholars doubted the identification of the Urusalim mei_lhoned m the A marna letters w ith the c ity of Jerusalem (Franken and Stemer 1992). But of course there is no doubt about it. The discrepancy betw~en the documents and the ar.chaeolog ical finding can mainly be explamed b~ the state of preservation of the settlement strata from the Amarna pe~·wd, as the city was inhabited continuously through thousands of years. ~tven that the bedrock at the site is very high and there is little a~cu~nulatton of stra t~ on top of it, every new settlement damaged the pi evwus ~trata , espectally thos~ from the c ity's periods of decline. Many o~tl~e anctent ~truc~ures at th~ stte, especia lly those that were skimpy and ~I agtle to be.g~n with, had dtsappe~red .entirely, and only a few poor ' emnants SUI vtved from the Canaamte c tty tha t stood on the site during the Late Bronze Age. ·

The ~mai_-na letters show that s.hechem was the most important city in the cent! a! htll country, commandmg an extensive territory that spread in the east as ~ar as the Jordan River and in the west and north to the foot of the mountam range. Lab 'ayu and his sons, the rulers ofShechem regu­l~rly cla~hed with the nearby lowland rulers, while striking allianc~s with dtstant ~mgdoms at.ld extending their sphere of influence well beyond the mountam boundan es. The rulers of Shechem are mentioned in docu­ment~ sent~~ other rulers in the. country, and it appears that during the ~matna peuod Shechem was a strong kingdom with considerable mfluenc~ over t!1e neighbouring kingdoms (see Finkelstein and Na'aman 2005, w tth em· Iter literature).

. The d.ocumet!ts .create the impression that the rulers ofShechem occu­pted a big.flounshmg centre ~rom which they launched their campaigns and to ~luch they retun_1ed with their booty. Yet the archaeological evi­dence t ~v~als t~1at the ctty was essentially a medium-sized royal strong­l~old ? mit m Mtddle Bronze II~, which also included a splendid temple. It r emam~d largely uncl~ange~ 111 the Late Bronze Age, without any big new stt uctur.es (for dtscusswns, see Bull 1960; Toombs and Wright 1961, 30- 34, Campbell and Ross 1963 12- 18· Wright 1965 95- 101 123- 27· St · 1999 228 3 · · '. ' · · .' ' T , a get , - 4, Fmkelstem 2006, w tth ear Iter ltterature ) .

he assemblage of pottery and other fi ndings from the site was also

,

24 The Historian and the Bible

sparse and scattered. 'It is only the textual .eviden~e which te.lls us that this site was one of the principal and most mfluenttal centres 111 Canaan in the fourteenth century.

Only some thirty settlements, mostly small and poor, have been found in the surveys conducted in the mountain region between the Jezreel Valley and the Beersheba Valley. If we had to rely exclusively on the archaeological evidence from Shechem and Jerusalem, w~ would have assumed that Shechem alone had a local ruler, whose terntory encom­passed the northern part of the hill country, while most ofl~ighlands were essentially no-man' s-land. The picture oftwo rulers ofc1ty-states, who during the A marna period wielded considerable influence over develop­ments throughout the country, rests entirely on the Amarna letters and has little support in the archaeological research. .

Moving on to the lowlands, the pichtre is sometimes not unltke that of the mountain region. The A marna letters show that Gezer was one of the most important kingdoms in Canaan, and that its rulers had leading parts in the conflicts that took place during the Amarna period. Three kings ruled Gezer during this time, of whom the most prominent, Milkilu, formed alliances with rulers in the territory ranging from Pihilu, a king­dom in the northern Gilead, to Gath, a city in the Shephelah to the south of Gezer. Gezer's location on the country's main south-to-north route, and on the main road from the Shephelah to the highlands, gave its rulers a key position in the relationships in the south and middle of Cana~n . Moreover, Gezer was not far from Jaffa, one of the centres ofEgypt1an power in the land. There were also smaller kingdoms in the vicinity of Gezer, which Jived in the shadow of their powerful neighbour. The rulers of Gezer paid tribute and sent offerings to Egypt, and a letter sent from Egypt to Milkilu (EA 369) orders him to prepare a gift of fort~ tall, good-looking women in return for precious metals and valuable artifacts sent him from Egypt (for Jetter EA 369, see Moran 1992, 366; Na 'a man 2002, 77- 78). The overall pichtre arising from the correspondence is of a strong and flourishing kingdom that maintained connections with other city-states near and far. .

Gezer was excavated in the early stage of archaeological research, and again in the sixties and seventies of the twentieth cenhtry . The excava­tions unearthed some buildings from the Late Bronze Age, but no monu­mental struchtres, in contrast to the big, fortified, thriving ~ity of the Middle Bronze III (for the Late Bronze Age in Gezer, see Dever l 993a, 502- 3; 2003, 263- 66, with earlier literahtre). William Dever ascribed the so-called "outer" wall to the Late Bronze Age, and argued that the city was fortified at that time (Dever 1986; 1993b; 2003, 264- 66, with earlier Jiterahtre). Yet this is unlikely, and there can be no doubt that

NA 'AMAN Text and Archaeo/og)' 25

tl~is wa ll was b~tilt during Iron Age II, while in the Late Bronze Age the Cl.ly was t.tnforttfied (Kempinski 1976, 2 12- 13; Ussishkin 1990, 74- 77; Fmkelste111 198 1; 1994, with earlier literature; Yanai 1994, 283- 87). ? nly a few structures, some burials and pottery, including vessels unported from Egyp~ and Cyprus, were found. If our knowledge of the place were based entrrely on the archaeological fi nding, we would have concluded that Gezer was, at most, an unimportant city-state, and no-one would hav~ th~ught that it w.as one of the principal kingdoms in the array of Canaanrte crly-states dunng the A marna period.

The. leiters ~f the thre~ n~lers of Lachish are short and do not yield much mformatron. The crty rs mentioned twice by 'Abdi-Heba, king of Jerusalem. On one occasion Lachish is mentioned side by side with Gezer and Ashkelon, the two most important kingdoms in south Canaan and another time in reference to the murder of its ruler Zimredda. It ha~ been commonly accepted that during the Late Bronze Age Lachish was the most important city in the southern Shephelah, and one wou ld have expected to fi nd evidence to support it in the extensive excavations conducted at the site.

Ye~ the excavations have shown that the city 's heyday began only in the thrrteenth century (Level VI), no doubt under the Egyptian aegis (for the results of the excav~ti01~s, see Tufnell, Inge and Harding 1940; Tufnell et. al. 1958; Uss1shkm 1993, 899- 900; Barkay and Ussishkin 20?4, 344- 51 ). Fi~1dings from the fourteenth century (Level VII) were qu.tte meagre, ma mly a modest-sized temple built in the moat of the M1ddle Bronze forti~cations, containing rich offerings to the local deity. !fowever, modest-srzed temples are known from large and small cities 1 ~1 Canaan, and. do not indicate the political status of the place. In addi­~lon , several pnvate structures were found, as were many tombs contain­mg funerary objects, including vessels imported from Cyprus and the Aegean world . The city of Lachish was unwa lled throughout the Late Bronze Age, and no public buildings from the time of Amarna have been found. We may state with certa inty that, without the histori cal documen­tation, scholars would have assumed that Late Bronze Lachish became a ~1 importan~ city-state only in the thirteenth century, doubtless under d.1rect Egyptian rul~, ~nd ~hat. earlier it had been either an unimportant City-state: or a p.ro.vmcl.al c1ty 111 the territory of a neighbouring kingdom.

There IS a st~·1kmg discrepancy between the testimony of the Amarna letters concernmg Jerusalem, Shechem, Gezer and Lachish, and that of th~ archaeological excavations conducted at these four sites. To illustrate th1s we nee~ on I~ ponder what kind of picture the archaeologists wou ld have conce ~vecl 1f the settlement strata and the fi ndings dated to the Amarna penod were associated with a time for which we had 110 written

26 The Historian and the Bible

documentation. In th~t case the archaeologists would have concluded that in the entire mountain region between the Jezreel Valley and the Beersheba Valley there was only one ruling centre which controlled the northern part of the hill country, with the rest being a kind ofno-man' s­land. Jerusalem would have been thought of as a village in a sparsely inhabited highland region. Sites such as Gezer and Lachish would have been defined as either unimportant city-states, or as provincial towns in the territories of the neighbouring kingdoms. Some scholars would probably have supposed that at that time the enorm?us, stro~1g and prosperous kingdom of Hazor ruled over most of the mner reg10ns of Canaan, and that all the thriving cities in this vast area were secondary

centres in its territory. How can we explain the discrepancy between the documentary and

archaeological evidence? Following the utter destruction of the pros~er­ous Middle Bronze Ill urban culture, the country underwent a senous decline, and this is indicated in the excavations and surveys of the Late Bronze Age I- II. When the urban culture is at a low ebb, structures of lesser strength and quality are built, often on the foundations of solid structures from an earlier time. In multi-strata tells, these poor structures are easily obliterated by later building operations. This is especi~lly true of highland sites, where the bedrock is high and .late c.on~truct10n an.d levelling can remove almost all traces of the ear her bmldmgs at~d artt­facts. Archaeological research can identify the fragmented remams and establish their date and function, but often the erosion and obliteration of much of the evidence by later operations, the fragmented state of pres­ervation of the structures and the dispersal of the artefacts serve to hinder

the reconstruction of the ancient reality. I do not mean to disparage the importance of archaeology, which can

shed light not only on aspects of the material culture, but also on other significant areas, such as the economy and society, import~ ~nd export.s, religion and the cult, among others. But in regard to t~e. polt~tc~l s~tup 1~1 a broader territory, the relative status and power of ctttes v1s-a-v1s then· neighbours, or their relationship with the dominant political ~ower ~n the region, archaeology is severely limited. I suggest that exclustve reliance on it can give rise to a distorted picture of the ancient reality. To restate, this is certainly true in reference to such times of decline as the four­teenth century, and this conclusion may well be applied to the central hill country in the tenth century and the Persian period, which, were both times of great decline. However, in the absence of primary v:'ritten sources from these times, and the well-known limitations of the Btble­which is the single written source available for the study of these periods-it cannot be put to the documentary test.

NA 'AMAN Text and Archaeology 27

Nehemiah's Wall as a Case Study for the Limitations of the Archaeological Research

What is the probability of discovering parts of Nehemiah's wall in the e~cavations at Jerusalem? Before discussing this issue I must deal briefly wtth the problem of the scope ofthe wall described in Neh 3. Almost all scholars assume that th~ wall surrounded only the City of David, though a few I:ave ar~ued that tt surrounded both the Western Hill and the City ofDav1d (for hterature, see Ussishkin 2006, 147- 48). The latter position wa~ recently defended by Ussishkin (2006), on the basis of the archaeo­l?gtcal r~~earch of Jerusalem. Underlying his discussion is his assump­tiOn that the corpus of archaeological data should be the starting-point for tl:e ~tudy of Jerusalem, its borders, history, and material cul ture in the btbhcal per_iod. This source of information should take preference, :vhenever posstble, over the written sources, which are largely biased, 111complete, and open to different interpretations" (Ussishkin 2006 147-48). The assumption. that the archaeological evidence should alwa;s take preference to the wntten text is refuted by the discussion of the Amarna let~ers.versus the archaeological research presented above. Moreover, the a~·ttfictal ~ontrast p~sed between the biblica l data, which are "open to d1fferent mte~-pretattons," and the results of archaeological research, is d?ubtful,. as 111 mat~y cases the archaeological data are also open to ?tf~erent mt~rpretat10ns. Instead, each set of data should be investigated 111 tts own nght and their results should be carefully compared and if possible, integrated. '

Ussis.hkin (2006, 153- 59) examined the results of the archaeological e~cavahon.s conducted along the western slope of the City of David. Smce no c~ty wall was discovered there, he concluded that "a city wall was not bml.t al,?ng th.e w~stern slope of the city of David during the First Temple Penod (UsSIShkm 2006, 153). Iron Age Jerusalem was fortified for the first time when the wall surrounding the Western Hill was bui lt­namely, in the late eighth century B.C.E. Since there was no Iron Age wall along the western slope of the City of David, and Nehemiah restored the destroyed Iron Age city wall, he concluded that Nehemiah' s wall st~rrot~n?ed both the ~estern Hill and the City of David.

Uss1shkm s reconstructiOn suffers from many flaws. First, no Middle Bronze .Age w~ll was found along the western slope of the city of David. Accordmg to hts reasoning that "not found" = "never existed," he should have concluded that the Middle Bronze city was left unfortified on the westen~ side of the city. Second, all Syro-Palestinian capital cities and all the .maJor.Judahite. cities (e.~. Beth-shemesh, Lachish, Tel Beersheba) wete fortified durmg the mnth century B.C.E. The assumption that

28 The Historian and the Bible

Jerusalem alone was tcft unfortified until the late eighth century B. C. E. is highly unlikely. Third, according to 2 Kgs 14:13, following his victory in the battle of Beth-shemesh, King Joash of Israel conquered Jerusalem, "and he made a breach of four hundred cubits in the wall of Jerusalem, from the Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate." Also, when Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah ben Remaliah advanced on Jerusalem, " they besieged Ahaz, but they were not able to attack" (2 Kgs 16:5; see Isa 7: I). The two accounts show that Jerusalem was fortified from the early eighth century onwards. Moreover, the Ephraim Gate was located on the west­ern side of the city, so it is clear that a wa ll was erected there in the early eighth century B.C.E. Fourth, Neh 3 :8b reads as fo llows: "and they left out Jerusalem as far as the broad wall." As noted by Williamson (1985, 205), "Taking the words at face value, the clause will offer further evidence for the view that Nehemiah's wall cut inside part of the pre­exilic city." According to Neh 12:38- 39, the second procession marched on the wall, "above the Tower of Ovens to the Broad Wall; and above the Gate of Ephraim." The "Broad Wall" can safely be identified as the "wall outside it," whose construction is attributed to Hezekiah according to 2 Chr 32:5 (Na'aman 2007, 44- 45). Thus the description of the build­ing ofNehemiah's wall suggests that the "Broad Wall" surrounding the Western Hill was left out of the fortifications built by Nehemiah.

In sum, Jerusalem was fortifi ed along its western side in the early eighth century, probably earlier, and there is no obstacle to the assump­tion that Nehemiah's wall surrounded the City of David. The Western Hill remained unfortified and deserted in the Persian and early Helle­nistic period, and was first fortified in the Hasmonean period.

Taking into account the relatively small number of people who constructed the City of David 's wall, and the short duration of construc­tion (fifty-two days [Neh 6: 15)), the wall must have been thin, more an enclosure than a city wall. On three sides it was built on the foundations of the First Temple city wall, so the likelihood of the survival of these upper courses on top of the early wall is nil. I agree with the scholars who- on the basis of the description in the book of Nehemiah- have suggested that on the eastern side Nehemiah deviated from the line of the early wall and constructed a new wall near the easternmost buildings of the city (Williamson 1977, 82; 1985, 200, 208; Blenkinsopp 1989, 231-32, 237; Eshel 2000, 339). This must have been a thin, fragmentary wall, rising on top of a steep slope. Such a thin wall could hardly,Survive the erosion and extensive building operations conducted on that slope at a later time. Hence a discovery of the enclosure wall built by Nehemiah in the City of David is very unlikely, and it is not surprising that it has not been found.

NA ' AMAN Text and Archaeology 29

What ~onclusions can be drawn from this discussion? In my opinion ~he most lmportan~ lesson learned from the analysis of the A marna letter~ ~~ tl~at arc.haeologls.ts sho.uld be much more cautious in drawing con­e USI~ns fJOm ne~atlve evidence. This is particularly true of the old city of Jelusalem, which was built on terraces and set·tled c:o. tl I f . 1 · . . L' 1 10usanc s o ~ems, eac 1 new City erectmg Its foundations on the bedrock and destroy-1~1~. what I a~ under~1ea~h. The obvious limitation of archaeology in ' ·ellods of gleat decl~ne IS bad news for historians and biblical scholars, sm~e. on many o~caswns they are left with only the biblical text difficult as. It ~~ for the !ustorical research. But it is better to continue a'nal zin th.ls pwblel.natlc source an~ e~tr~cting the information that it ma:con~ tal.n th.an blm?I~ to tl:ust a diSCiplme that occasiona lly cannot provide the SCientific basis It clauns for the historical research.

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SECONDARY SOURCES ALSO D ESERVE TO BE HISTORICALLY EVALUATED:

THE CASE OF TI-IE UNITED MONARCHY

Rainer Albertz

In his recent book, Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? (2007), Lester Grabbe, to whom I wish to convey my warmest greetings with this essay, has drawn a fascinating outline of how a reconstruction of Israe l' s history from the twelfth to sixth centuries B.C. E., one that fully meets the requirements of strict historical standards, could work. Remembering the heated debate between so-called minimal­ists and maximalists of recent decades, I very much appreciate this attempt; it is an important step forward. I would also ' like to take the opportunity to thank Lester Grabbe for his constant efforts in bringing both "parties" into a critical dialogue on the panel of the European Seminar in Historical Methodology (ESHM), and his friendly invitat ion to me to participate. I consider the ESHM to be an important venture, forcing all of us to reconsider the material basis and methodical approach of our historical reconstructions. I hope he will enjoy the present contribution to those discussions.

Remaining Methodological Questions

Grabbe (2007, 3- 36) has greatly clarified, probably more than any other historian of ancient Israel, the methodological questions of historio­graphy. I will mention here only the question of the status of sources. Like many others, Grabbe distinguishes fundamentally between primary and secondary sources:

Primary sources are those contemporary (or nearly so) with the events they describe and usually have some other direct connection (eyewitness report, compilation from eyewitness reports or other good sources, prox­imity to the events or those involved in the events). Secondary sources are those further removed in time and space from the original events. (Grabbe 2007, 220)

r/ tf. , ) 111 ,~ r'J ir/

,

THE HISTORIAN AND THE BIBLE

Essays in Honour of Lester L. Grabbe

edited by

Philip R. Davies and

Diana V. Edelman

t& t clark

N EW Y O R K • L ONDON

'l.£) 10