from: Israel
Finkelstein / Neil A. Silberman: The Bible
unearthed. Archeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and
the Origin of Its Sacred Texts; The Free Press, a division
of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2001; German edition has
got the title "No trombones before Jericho" (orig. German:
"Keine Posaunen vor Jericho"): edition C.H.Beck oHG,
Munich 2002;
Here in this analysis is used the German version "Keine
Posaunen vor Jericho" of DTV, Munich 2004, second edition
of 2005. All page indications refer to the German version.
I hope the page numbers are not very different.
The different conquest theories, and nothing
helps with it
Since the 1920s up to 1967 war actions in Israel Palestine
are blocking any excavation activity in the West Bank
[these are wars on the base of the book "The Jewish State"
of Herzl with the hope for a big Jewish Empire from Nile
to Euphrates according to 1st Moses book 15,18].
By this block archeology is looking for the origin of
Israeli identity on the wrong spots for decades (p.121).
Occupation
theory of Albrecht Alt: "Peaceful infiltration" has not
stayed peaceful
In the 1920s Albrecht Alt is giving the theory that the
occupation had been of Bedouin's migration from the Arab
desert, and the Israelites had been one of many groups
(p.116). Until the 1970s traditional "science" is
believing the theory of a "peaceful infiltration" of
Albrecht Alt. But:
-- but the reasons for this infiltration are not clear
-- Alt states that the Jews had also cleared land
(eliminated forests) and begun with agriculture
-- Alt states that Jews had settled down by the time and
had constructed villages
-- by growing infiltration there had been fights with the
Canaanites how they are described in the book of Judges
(p.117).
[Conclusion: According to Albrecht Alt the book of Joshua
is not right, but the book of Judged with it's wars and
mass murders shall be right].
The occupation theory in
combination with Egypt sources: the societies of Apiru
and Shasu
Egypt sources state that there were two outsider groups of
Canaanite society, the Apiru and the Shasu (p.117).
Apiru
(also Hapiru, or Habiru)
The Apiru are presented in a very negative sense in Egypt
sources (Amarna letters etc.). They are expelled people
driven to the margin of the society, parts of the
population which are expelled by war, hunger or heavy
taxes or by another reason, and they are defamed in the
Egypt sources or are presented as thieves or
soldiers for hire, or also as foreign workers (p.117).
When there is an alliance with the Apiru, so this is the
most negative alliance according to Egypt sources (p.118).
Scholars make a connection between the Apiru and the name
"Ibri" or "Hebrew". The scholars are stating for some time
that Apiru would be the oldest Israelites (p.118).
But new source research in other regions gives another
state of facts: The term "Apiru" was known in all Middle
and Mid East for centuries and probably was a sociological
name for a social class or profession sector. The
derivation from Apiru to Hebrew remains nothing more than
a hypothesis and is very unlikely (p.118),
[and could be possible only when the Jews had been
scattered in whole Mid and Middle East].
Shasu in Egypt sources
Shasu are mentioned
in a papyrus report in the time of Ramses III. The report
says that Shasu Bedouins are robbed a total tent camp with
all cattle and possessions. So, Shasu are probably nomads
with sheep and goats in the frontier region between Canaan
and East Bank in the desert and in the highlands. Shasu
also had the custom migrating down to eastern Nile delta
crossing the Egypt fortress lines (p.118).
[But Moses never had been possible
because with 600,000 Jews under suspicion of conspiracy
Egypt never had let them go].
The new conquest theory in the
1970s by George Mendenhall and Norman Gottwald
There had been no wars between
shepherds and farmers - thesis of an exodus from the
cities to the forests because of high taxes
The contradictions in the theory of
Albrecht Alt with its thesis of infiltration by Israelis
and the following wars with Canaanites only get a new
scientific answer in the 1970s. Archaeologists find out
that wars between foreign Israeli shepherds and native
Canaanite farmers are not believable. Science states that
both groups knew each other and accepted each other
(p.119).
Bible researcher George Mendenhall and
later Bible historian and sociologist Norman Gottwald are
stating according to Egypt documents (above all in
reference to the Amarna texts):
-- that the Israelites were the rebels
who had to take their flight from the Canaanite towns to
the empty highlands
-- that in the late Bronze Age tensions
and inequality grew in Canaan
-- that the elite in the towns
controlled the country, wealth and commerce
-- that the farmers had no rights and
had to pay more and more taxes
-- that many farmers had gone to exile,
eventually some had converted into Apiru, other had
migrated to the forests in the uncontrollable highlands
-- that there had been a great
solidarity between the discriminated who had taken their
flight, and they had formed a new social class, the
"Israelites" (p.119)
-- Norman Gottwald means that the core
of the ideology would have been brought from the Echnaton
revolution in Egypt to Canaan, brought by a little
revolutionary group from Egypt having formed bigger
groups in Canaan
-- by this social revolution had begun
and would have been the origin of an Israelite identity
(p.120).
[This would be very good when Israelites
had worked out their national consciousness by a social
revolution and would live with this philosophy].
But: For Gottwald's thesis is missing
any archaeological finding. And the findings of the
reconstructed towns after the big fires are contradicting
Gottwald's thesis that people had taken their flight from
the towns into the forests. There had to be more
similarities in respect of the construction style and
architecture (p.120).
