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SETTLEMENT: ARCHAEOLOGY

As the discipline of Palestinian archaeology developed in the 1920s-1930s, at least in the guise of “biblical archaeology,” it inevitably became embroiled in a historiographical and theological controversy that had long been crucial in biblical studies: Is there any historical evidence for the biblical “Exodus” or “conquest of Canaan”?

Conventional Models

In the formative period two classic “models” advanced by biblical scholars to explain Israelite origins began to be subjected to archaeological testing: (1) The first envisioned the “peaceful infiltration” of pastoral nomads, first forwarded by Albrecht Alt, Martin Noth, and other Continental scholars. (2) The “invasion hypothesis” was based largely on the book of Joshua and was advocated by the “Baltimore school” of William F. Albright, John Bright, G. Ernest Wright, and others. The first model accorded reasonably well with the “nomadic ideal” of some strands of the patriarchal narratives, but it turned out to be naïve ethnographically and never found any archaeological confirmation, since pastoral nomads characteristically leave few traces in the archaeological record. The second model relied on a rather literalistic and exclusive reading of Joshua, as well as positivist notions of archaeological “proofs” of historiographical (not to mention theological) issues that were current at the time.

By the 1960s-1970s, as Palestinian archaeology began to mature as a professional and largely secular discipline, it became apparent that neither traditional model of Israelite origins could be sustained in the light of the growing body of archaeological evidence. By the 1980s, e.g., the “invasion” model had been almost completely discredited by the fact that Jericho, {Ai, and Gibeon — all central to the Conquest accounts in Joshua — had been shown not to have had any occupation in the mid-late 13th century b.c.e., which the narratives would have required as a historical setting. To sum matters up, of the 16 Canaanite sites claimed to have been destroyed by Joshua’s forces, a number have been identified and/or excavated, but only two — Bethel and Hazor — have produced any possible evidence for an “Israelite destruction,” and even that is debatable.

In the 1960s-1970s, two American biblical scholars, George E. Mendenhall and Norman K. Gottwald, put forward versions of a “peasants’ revolt” model, in which “Israel” was seen as emerging out of the collapse of Late Bronze Age Canaanite society in the 13th-12th centuries. The picture was of various groups of peoples “displaced” both geographically and ideologically, and in process of developing a new ethnic and religio-cultural identity in the Early Iron Age. The emphasis on indigenous rather than foreign derivation turned out to be prescient. But little real archaeological evidence of “peasants’ wars” in the Late Bronze/Iron I period was forthcoming then or subsequently, and in any case the model was too Marxist to attract wide support.

New Models

By the 1980s, a wealth of new archaeological data had begun to accumulate, which required more sophisticated attempts at explanatory models. Much of the new data came from surface surveys carried out by Israeli archaeologists in the occupied West Bank — “Judea” and “Samaria,” the heartland of early Israel. These data were first synthesized and presented in English by Israel Finkelstein in 1988 in The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement. This volume described some 300 late 13th-11th century (or Iron I) small unwalled villages, most of which were in the hill country extending from the lower Galilee to the northern Negeb, located not on the ruins of destroyed Canaanite cities but founded de novo. The ceramic repertoire was still recognizably in the Late Bronze Age tradition, but absent were either imported wares or Philistine bichrome pottery. On the other hand, elements of cultural discontinuity were seen in new technologies, including extensive hillside terracing; the widespread use of plastered cisterns and stone-lined silos; the gradual introduction of iron implements; and the development of an innovative “four-room” courtyard house well suited to the needs of a family-based agricultural society and economy.

The most significant implication of the new data was that there had been a large-scale shift in settlement type and pattern with the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age — a move, as it were, from declining urban sites and life-styles to the “hill country frontier,” and perhaps to a new cultural and ethnic identity (as Mendenhall and Gottwald thought). It has been estimated that in the Samarian and Judean hill country the population grew from ca. 12 thousand in the 13th century to ca. 40 thousand in the 12th century, then to ca. 75 thousand by the late 11th century — a demographic change that cannot be attributed to natural birthrates, but must reflect a major influx of new population elements. The only questions then concerned the origins and hopefully the ethnic identity of these newcomers.

The marked ceramic continuity with the Late Bronze Age repertoire suggested to nearly all archaeologists indigenous (i.e., “Canaanite”) origins for the hill country settlers. Finkelstein, however, saw them as mostly local pastoral nomads in the process of sedentarization; his fellow surveyor Adam Zertal agreed on nomadic origins, but argued strongly for a movement of peoples from Transjordan (along the lines of the old Alt-Noth hypothesis).

In a series of studies, William G. Dever proposed that the hill country settlers had comprised a motley collection of urban dropouts, displaced peasant farmers, refugees from various strata of decaying Canaanite society, a few local pastoral nomads (such as the “Shasu” of Egyptian texts), and perhaps even some newcomers from Egypt. “Early Israel” would then have made up one element within an exceedingly complex multiethnic society in 13th-12th century Canaan, including Canaanites, Egyptians, “Sea Peoples”/Philistines, and others (all not only textually documented, but ethnically identifiable in the archaeological remains). Dever suggested connecting the distinctive hill country Iron I material culture assemblage with the “Israel” of Pharaoh Merneptah’s well-known Victory stela (ca. 1207), but to separate the group involved from biblical Israel by designating them “Proto-Israelites.” Finkelstein initially agreed, but by the early 1990s he had come to question any ethnic identification whatsoever. Despite such disagreements, today all archaeologists and most biblical scholars are agreed upon some variation of an “indigenous origin” or “symbiosis” model for the Iron I peoples of central Canaan. Yet it must be asked: If these are not Merneptah’s “Israelites,” where are they? And who were the authentic progenitors of the “Israel” that all would agree had emerged by the early Monarchy in the 10th-9th centuries?

The “minimalist” position would be that of Finkelstein currently, along with the minority “revisionist” biblical schools of Philip R. Davies, Niels P. Lemche, Thomas L. Thompson, and Keith W. Whitelam. The “maximalist” position, if there is one, would have to espouse some sort of large-scale military conquest by incoming Israelites from Transjordan, or even ultimately from Egypt, for which there is simply no archaeological evidence. The present treatment has tried to outline a middle-ground position, representing a growing consensus of scholars of several different schools, including virtually all archaeologists.

Toward a Theological Rationalization?

There remains only the problem created for biblical history and theology by the newer archaeological formulations, namely how to account for the fundamental and persistent stories of “exodus from Egypt” and “conquest of Canaan,” if the earliest Israelites had originally been elements of Late Bronze Age Canaanite society. Most archaeologists have simply ignored the biblical traditions as unhistorical, or else have offered halfhearted and theologically naïve rationalizations. A more sophisticated attempt to reconcile the two sources of data for history writing (i.e., texts and artifacts) might see the biblical stories as originating from within the clan traditions of the “house of Joseph.” Elements of these small groups, later identified with the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, may actually have come out of Egypt. When they told their “story,” it was one of miraculous liberation from bondage and victory over the enemies of Yahweh. And in time, because these southern groups had a disproportionate influence on the shaping of the literary traditions in the OT in their final form, this version of distant origins became the story of “all Israel.” Thus the Exodus and Conquest narratives must be taken seriously, at least as a sort of “Passover Haggadah,” true theologically if not historically, and therefore preserved and even celebrated today.

See Conquest: Biblical Narrrative.

Bibliography. R. B. Coote and K. W. Whitelam, The Emergence of Early Israel in Historical Perspective (Sheffield, 1987); W. G. Dever, “Archaeology and the Emergence of Early Israel,” in Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation, ed. J. R. Bartlett (London, 1997), 20-50; “Ceramics, Ethnicity, and the Question of Israel’s Origins,” BA 58 (1995): 200-213; “The Identity of Early Israel,” JSOT 72 (1996): 3-24; I. Finkelstein, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem, 1988); “Pots and People Revisited: Ethnic Boundaries in the Iron Age I,” in The Archaeology of Israel, ed. N. A. Silberman and D. Small (Sheffield, 1997), 216-37; Finkelstein and N. Naʿaman, eds., From Nomadism to Monarchy: Archaeological and Historical Aspects of Early Israel (Washington, 1994); V. Fritz, “Conquest of Settlement? The Early Iron Age in Palestine,” BA 50 (1987): 84-100; N. K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh (Maryknoll, 1979); G. E. Mendenhall, “The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine,” BA 25 (1962): 66-87 (repr. BA Reader 3, ed. E. F. Campbell and D. N. Freedman [Garden City, 1970], 100-120); L. E. Stager, “The Archaeology of the Family in Ancient Israel,” BASOR 260 (1985): 1-35.

William G. Dever

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SETTLEMENT: ARCHAEOLOGY

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)