Customer Reviews

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

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In a thought provoking application of archaeological findings to the Biblical texts, Finkelstein & Silberman arrive at striking conclusions, some better-reasoned than others. The bottom line of "David & Solomon" is that the two were rather insignificant tribal chieftans ruling from a backwater hilltop village called Jerusalem, and that Saul was a somewhat more significant chieftan in the north country who became a big enough nuisance to Egypt that, with the help of Philistine mercenaries, they devastated his kingdom. David either helped in this devastation, or stood idly by while Saul was destroyed, but he definitely profited by Saul's misfortune.

Finklestein & Silberman credit the broad outline of David's and Saul's careers, but not the detail. They demonstrate that the political, economic, and social conditions of David's times correspond perfectly with the conditions described in the story of David's outlaw youth, and that Northern Israel was devastated about the time Saul and Jonathan would have been killed on Mount Gilboa. If the background of the Saul and David stories therefore correspond quite closely to archaeological findings, why should the detail be rejected out of hand? Given allowance for the "good old days" effect and the political need to cast David in the best light possible while casting Saul in the worst light possible, why can't the stories be considered at least as accurate as Herodotus, the "Father of History"? The scholarship of the 1960's posited that the story of David in Samuel consisted of an "early source" which was quite accurate overwritten by a "late source" which was concerned with polemic and apologetic. Current scholarship posits a multi-layered text similar to that described by Finkelstein & Silberman. As to the story of Solomon: They make an excellent case for the accomplishments of the Omrid dynasty and of Hezekiah and Mannassah being retrojected to the reign of Solomon.

The authors' greatest misstep comes in the chapter entitled "Challenging Goliath." They characterize the Philistine giant's armor as that of a 7th Century Greek hoplite. The giant's panoply might well correspond to the panoply of a Greek warrior from the Heroic Age, but not a hoplite. Hoplites were not individual warriors, but soldiers who fought in rank and in unison. Heroic Age Greek warriors engaged in single combat. Hoplites wore solid cuirasses, not mail. They carried only one thrusting spear, not two javelins. A hoplite's helmet was so constructed as to withstand a sling bullet to the forehead. On the other hand, the boar's tooth helmet of the Heroic Age would not. The hoplon (shield), from which the hoplite derived his name, was not carried by a shield bearer, but by the individual soldier. Hoplite warfare was in its infancy in the 7th Century, and hoplites weren't exported as mercenaries in any significant number until after the Peloponnesian War. Notice I didn't name the Philistine giant. "The Early Source," aka the earliest stratum of Samuel, didn't either, a datum overlooked or ignored by Finkelstein and Silberman. "The Late Source" aka later strata of Samuel, added in the detail of Goliath's name. There is absolutely no difficulty with the basic story of David gaining fame by killing a huge Philistine champion in single combat.

Finkelstein & Silberman's Classical Greek fixation does not end with hoplites. In Appendix 6, they try manfully to make David's Pelethites into Greek Peltasts. Peltasts didn't come onto the scene until the Peloponnesian War, long after David's time. There is a much simpler and more widely accepted explanation: they were Philistines.

Despite the missteps, the book was very good. The authors did an excellent job of comparing current archaeological findings with the Biblical text. I would like to have seen the authors spend a little more time comparing those findings to current textual criticism of the Biblical text.

A FOOTNOTE: Since writing this review, I have come across evidence suggesting that Greek mercenaries were exported to Egypt around the time of David & Goliath. Barry Strauss, in his new book "The Trojan War, A New History," reports the finding of an Egyptian painting from the 1300-1200's BCE which depicts a battle scene that includes two Greek warriors wearing boar's tooth helmets. This tends to confirm my argument that Goliath was more likely to have been a Heroic Age Greek warrior than he was to have been a Classical Age Greek hoplite.

Authors Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman first caught my attention with their book 'The Bible Unearthed'. That book presented new discoveries and ways of looking at previous discoveries in the area of archaeological research and the origins of the Bible. This is one of the latest contributions of major scholars to the continuing quest for clarity and understanding of the development and meaning of the biblical texts. 'We believe that a reassessment of finds from earlier excavations and the continuing discoveries by new digs have made it clear that scholars must now approach the problems of biblical origins and ancient Israelite society from a completely new perspective.

This book follows some of their speculations and continues their methods of treading between the more fundamentalist 'the Bible is history and the only history' camp and the minimalist 'the Bible has nothing to do with history' camp. There is historical content and influence on the text of the Bible, according to Finkelstein and Silberman, but the Bible is not nor was ever intended to be a historical textbook of the sort we have today. This is particularly important when dealing with the greatest of Biblical kings, David and Solomon.

'Our challenge will be to provide a new perspective on the David and Solomon story by presenting the flood of new archaeological information about the rise and development of the ancient society in which the biblical tale was formed. We will attempt to separate history from myth; old memories from later elaboration; facts from royal propaganda to trace the evolution of the David and Solomon narrative from its ancient origins to the final compilation of the biblical accounts.'

In this vein, the authors trace the biblical narrative of David and Solomon, and then combine it with what is known from archaeological and extra-biblical textual evidence. They look at issues of psychology and politics, institutional and cultural development, and later influences and growths from the earlier narrative strands.

I found the appendices to be particularly valuable in this volume. Finkelstein and Silberman discuss the recent Tel Dan discovery, a controversial rendering of an inscription that is the earliest mention of David outside of the Bible (the inscription refers to a king of the House of David who dies with the king of Israel, most likely the kings Jeroram and Ahaziah) - the authors state that this discovery deals a serious blow to the minimalist idea. Other appendices look at Jerusalem more specifically, other cities that would have been part of Solomon's kingdom, and more.

This is a text written in a popular, accessible style - thus, footnotes/endnotes are scarce. However, there is a good index, and an excellent bibliography/selected readings section that is categorised by chapter and topic.

Finkelstein has a position at Tel Aviv University, as director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Archaeological Institute, and is currently working on excavations at Tel Meggido (better known to modern readers as Armageddon). Silberman is director of historical interpretation for the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation in Belgium. Both are frequent contributors to major scholarly and popular archaeology magazines and journals, and each has published a number of noted books in the field of Syro-Palestinian archaeology.

I actually talked with Israel Finkelstein prior to his publication of this book and I remember being very concerned.

In order to do proper biblical analysis, I think the application of two skill sets is most preferable:

1) An appreciation of the curated material that the Bible gives...or text analysis and

2) An appreciation of the extra biblical material including not only archeologicial findings but other preserved historical writings and traditions.

The reason I was concerned about this book when I talked with Finkelstein was because he didn't then give me the feeling that he was familiar with, let alone, respectful of the process of text analysis.

Traditional text analysis tells us that the Old Testament of the Bible was composed by five basic authors:

1) A J author, so called because he (she, according to Harold Bloom) consistently refers to god as Yahweh (or Jahweh/Jehovah as rendered by the original German text critics) throughout his tale of creation and exodus;

2) An E author, so called because he supposedly hailed from Ephraim or Israel, the northern Yahweh worshiping Iron Age Canaanite community and called his god Elohim (at least until he revealed his name to Moses at the opening of Exodus);

3) A P author so called because his textual emandations focused on matters of concern to Priests;

4) A D author connected with Deuteronomy and Samuel 1 and 2 and Kings 1 and 2...the Bible's so called Deuteronomistic history; and

5) An R author so called because he made the final redactions necssary to bring these materials together as a complete account.

However, it is significant to point out that even these materials have been deemed to be predated under text analysis by other biblical materials most notably including:

1) Exodus 15...the Song of the Sea, dated by text analysis to around 13 to 12 hundred BCE;

2) Deuteronomy 33...the Blessing of Moses, dated by text analysis to around the time of the Song of the Sea;

3) Judges 5...the Song of Deborah, dated between the Song of the Sea and the Blessing of Moses and

4) The Blessing of Jacob...at the end of Genesis dated to around the time of King David.

As can be seen from the foregoing discussion, a text analysis, properly utilized could reveal much in terms of understanding the Bible's origins.

That's why I was very pleased to see that in his finished work, Finkelstein produced a product showing respect for not only the archeological field work he has been so connected with but also the text analysis that can be so helpful in rendering competent opinions on biblical origins.

Needless to say, what Finkelstein says about biblical origins does carry great evidentiary support. As a couple of for instances:

1) The David and Solomon monarchies were little more than country hill chiefdoms. This account, as he correctly points out, squares not only with the archeological evidence showing little growth in Jerusalem until some two hundred years following the time of David and Solomon, it also squares with other text evidence and text analysis he didn't even quote from. Again, citing the Song of Deborah, it is noteworthy to find that the tribe of Judah (David's tribe) is not even mentioned and when it is mentioned in older biblical text material (the Blessing of Moses) the notice is not very abbreviated...consistent with Finkelstein's claim of the humble origins of David and Solomon. This also squares with text analysis provided by Mark Smith in his The Early History of God wherein Smith makes the case that the early biblical representations of the miraculous origins of Yahweh worship were themselves later emandations from the times of Hezekiah and Josiah...again in accord with points made by Finkelstein in this book.

2) Judah and Israel were in reality two separate kingdoms for which a claim of mythic original unity was only made after the fall of Israel to Sargon II under King Hoshea in 721 BCE. Here again, a review of the Song of Deborah notably shows the absence of Judah as joining under the forces of Barak. And here again, Mark Smith's book would again easily harmonize with the Finkelstein thesis that a joint ancient Israel and Judah under David and Solomon was merely a later created myth of origins.

Admittedly, and particularly as to the second for instance just mentioned, there remains the notice in the Blessing of Moses which seemingly unites Judah with the Israelite tribes as part of a common entity. And admittedly there is also the scholarship of Richard Friedman (author of: Who wrote the Bible, The Hidden Book in the Bible, among others) whose text analysis fails to easily and fully harmonize with all the dating and all the suppositions made by Finkelstein.

However, these discrepancies serve like this book itself, not to hinder but to further one of the most fascinating of inquiries: the historical bonafides of the Bible itself.

Finkelstein & Silberman's "David and Solomon" is a very, very interesting survey of archaeological findings that support or refute various biblical traditions, biblical scholarship, and provocative commentary. However, as was true in "The Bible Unearthed," I occasionally found myself spending a little time trying to tell whether the text is what Finkelstein & Silberman believe or whether it is a summary of the biblical account.

My principal disappointment was that although Finkelstein & Silberman mentioned the copper mines at Timna, 15 miles north of the northernmost tip of the Gulf of Aqaba, they did not mention the religious significance of the mines. The mines were operated by Midianites under the supervision of Egyptian troops until the troops were withdrawn by Pharaoh Rameses VI in 1141 BCE. After the Egyptians left, the Midianites destroyed the temple where they had been forced to worship the Egyptian goddess, Hathor and replaced it with a red and yellow cloth tent where they began the first recorded worship of Yahweh. It was from Timna that Yahweh-worship migrated to Canaan and played a major role in Saul's establishment of the monarchy, the monarchy which was seized by David after a long string of most serendipitous murders .

That the biblical accounts of David and Solomon contain details that could only have been written long after David and Solomon were said to have reigned does not indicate that they were not eleventh- and tenth-century "kings" (more like heads of tribal federations than what we, today, would think of as kings). That details were added to the stories of David and Solomon hundreds of years later to make those stories serve the needs of the theocracies that replaced the monarchy does not change the centuries in which David and Solomon lived.

Having read "The Bible Unearthed," I can say that this is a more-than-worthy follow-up. I am now something like 80% convinced that Finkelstein's redatings are correct; his hypothesis of the development of the Davidic tradition is compelling. While I don't agree with a few of his assertions (such as the idea that the term "seren" must be a seventh-century interpolation), the overall quality of the book is 5-stars. It is very well-researched; there is an extensive bibliography at the end. Also interesting- in contrast to those who consider Finkelstein and Silberman to be "minimalists"- is their critique of real minimalists like Davies and Thompson. Highly recommended.

The authors have put together research from a variety of disciplines to explore the Biblical stories of David and Solomon. They clearly present their findings.

While I was aware that the stories were spread over a number of books, I was not aware that the presentation changed. I presume that the story I learned in Sunday School was the one in Chronicles.

Like the Biblical record of Jesus, the records of David and Solomon were written at minimum 100 years after the events. I had never thought to question "why" they were written. The authors suggest that texts were written to elevate the Davidic successors, or Judah. If this is so, the intended audience would have a cultural ethic that would admire the cave living Robin Hood/bandit, the keeping of wives and concubines, the story of Bathsheba and her husband's fate. These are hardly the values of today's Judeo-Christian ethic.

The book discusses the influence of David and Solomon on art and on governmental theories. It's a stretch to say that this book "traces" them, which I believe would require a separate book (or multi-volume set). I think the material given on this is just enough for the scope of this volume.

The power of this book is its citation of the Biblical text, side by side with maps and research findings. Each chapter begins with a chart capsulizing the story, the historical period and the archeaologic findings. This clearly tells the reader what will be developed in the chapter, and the promise is fulfilled.

The writers and the book designers are in sych, (so often books are rushed and maps appear pages beyond their narrative) and very clear maps and tables appear along side the narrative they illustrate.

One area that the author's present without comment is that the Queen of Sheba is from Yemen. If you ask, most American Blacks will tell you she was from Ethiopia. (The eastern most part of this African region is separated from Yemen by a narrow straight.) Reseachers who have ignored the oral traditions of Thomas Jefferson's progeny have had to deal with recent DNA testing. Has forensic research verified the location of Sheba in Yemen?

This was an excellent book. It's brings together the work of thousands of people from many disciplines. I hope in a few years there is a update.

It is so refreshing to read a book like this! For too long, biblical romantics have fantasized that archaeology would `verify' the history constructed by the biblical text itself; the narrative account. More recently, "revisionists" have argued that the biblical text is so divorced from history so as to be nothing more than an ideologically grounded fiction! Finkelstein and Silberman show, through a clear and readable account, just how far archaeology has come in demonstrating that the history out of which the Bible arose - in this case, the stories of David & Solomon - is different from the account given in the biblical text, while simultaneously revealing that the actual history behind the text; the stories of the two great heroes and many of the details of the books of Samuel and Kings--were not just "made up" by later writers. As such, archaeology is disproving both the biblical literalists (who think that history must reflect what the Bible says, and who therefore distort archaeology and history to their own ends) and those who dismiss the Bible as having no historical veracity at all.

This book is a must read for anyone - religious or not - who wants to understand the relationship between the biblical text and our growing understanding of what actually happened in the ancient Near East between 1000 BCE and the time of Christ.

The authors show how the two kingdoms - Israel and Judah - developed differently; how the writers of the stories of David & Solomon were responding to contemporary conditions and problems. Yet they also incorporated authentic details, remembered from earlier times, into what became the biblical text. Finkelstein and Silberman allow the reader to follow the development of the stories of David and Solomon, from the 9th and 8th centuries BCE down through the time of Christ and the early church; showing how the roles of David and Solomon have changed over the centuries. They even allude to the way David and Solomon are depicted in mediaeval art and the role their stories have played in modern politics and revolutions.

A Finkelstein book will be controversial; let's establish that up front. And because there exists very literal archaeological evidence outside the Bible story of Judah's first kings, speculation will be a natural result of any such study. We know absolutely nothing from history about Saul and precious little about David and Solomon; in fact, the evidence is so sparse that a few scholars still doubt the existence of all three.

Finkelstein and Silberman don't doubt, but neither are they able to provide 342 pages of historical analysis. Instead, they trace the legends of these early kings through a thousand years of Hebrew writings, both in and out of the Bible. The earliest folklore and Bible verses about David show him as a bandit leader of a small gang of traveling raiders. Later authors portrayed David as a poet and a founder of a great dynasty, as well as a sinner. Solomon's reputation, as well, grew over time into a shrewd trader and wise sage.

How many of these writings are based on fact, and how many on legend? The authors' scholarly research and field experience will make you reconsider.

Since Biblical history is not my main forte, I came onto this book rather late. Nonetheless, it is still timely, and probably will remain so for a number of years into the future. Then I read the reviews, and found myself in full agreement with those by Reina concerning text analysis, Dekle concerning the assertion that Goliath was actually a Greek Hoplite, and Messick who actually liked the book better than I.

The authors are not the first researchers and writers to develop the thesis that although David and Solomon may have been historical characters, they were certainly not the powerful kings as described in the Bible. First and foremost they are religious examples presented to provide lessons to the faithful, and whether they are historical or mythological is rather of no consequence. The authors neither prove nor disprove the existence of David and Solomon as historical characters, but their discussion and presentation of evidence is certainly compelling to all who have some interest in the Old Testament.

The contention that Goliath was a Greek hoplite was hopelessly in error, and actually jarring to someone well-versed in Greek history. Dekle authoritatively discussed this situation in his fine review.

But the greatest problem for me was the lack of end notes listing sources and further points for clarification or discussion. The footnotes were few and explanatory, and left me desperately wanting sources for further research. The Bibliography was good as it stood, but unhelpful in tracking down points made in the text for verification or further details. Usualy such omissions mean that the text is weakly supported, if at all, by other works, and I certainly hope this was not the case. Nonetheless, the lack of end notes is a significant defect for a scholarly work.

All in all, I recommend this work to all those interested in the Bible as history, but wish to stress that a lack of historical verification does not negate or even diminish the message in any way.

Finkelstein etal are honest and not afraid of saying the truth regardless of who it may offend.