What
can really be put to the test, archaeologically, is that very distinctive
biblical situation of the Conquest of Palestine by the Israelites, with so many
towns and cities affected, but in different ways (e.g. complete destruction and
burning, in some cases, or peaceful settlement). For me the unequivocal meeting
place of archaeology and the Old Testament is the activity of the nomadic (some
dispute this) Middle Bronze I (MBI) people upon the previous Early Bronze III
(EBIII) civilisation. I refer to both their destructive work and places of
settlement. Dr. John Osgood provides maps in his article showing how well MBI
correlates with Israel: http://creation.com/the-times-of-the-judges-the-archaeology-exodus-to-conquest
And
no less an authority than Dr Rudolph Cohen (former Director of the Israel Antiquities Authority), a conventionalist,
has come around to the conclusion that MBI = Israelites, subsequent to his
writing in the July1983 edition of Biblical Archaeology
Review an
article headed “The Mysterious MBI People”.
But
not only Dr. Cohen.
Dr.
David Down tells (http://creation.com/the-story-of-jericho):
“While we were working on the dig at Ein Hatzeva, I was
visited by Yigal Israel who was site supervisor of the Israeli team. I asked
him if he accepted Dr Cohen’s views about the MBI people. He replied, ‘Yes, of
course. We all do down here.’ I remarked that the archaeologists in the north
do not accept that view. He replied, ‘They do not know what they are talking
about. They have not excavated in the south’.”
However,
that neat and cosy equation (MBI = Israelites), whilst being a wonderful
starting point for a biblico-historical correlation, still requires an added
dimension. I came to realise that only after reading Professor W. Stiebing’s penetrating
criticism of the MBI Conquest model, which, he argued, whilst it nicely accommodated
much of the biblical data, failed to account for all of it. {Actually this is
only to be expected from what I have argued in “Bible Bending Pharaonic Egypt”,
about the need to tuck up Middle kingdom into Early kingdom, with a corresponding
archaeological tuck}. Stiebing’s comments led me to write in 2004 “Comparing One Dimensional Biblical Stratigraphic Models
with Multi-Dimensional Models” (http://www.specialtyinterests.net/full_dimensional_archaeology.html#scm
see section: Stiebing's
Criticism of the MBI),
which today may need a fair degree of tweaking.
Damien Mackey.
