Israel's historic roots and mythical past a myth

(1) Lesson of the Exodus Story

Date: Thu, 10 Jun 2004 11:13:01 EDT From: Hudsonmi@aol.com

Well, Peter, you've missed the point again, regarding the Exodus Story.  

Of course it was written late, after the resettlement under Nehemia and Ezra.
But let's look at its role. The key of the Exodus was to provide a myth
wrapping the laws of Leviticus, of which (to me at least), Lev. 25 is the most
important: Cancellation of debts and return of land to its ORIGINAL owners.  

Who were these "original" owners when Nehemia led the Babylonian Jews "back"
from Babylon under Persian King Cyrus.  

They were the "Palestinians" of their time. The law of "return" justified
their taking "back" the land.  

Sound familiar? You can read all the details in the excellent article by my
colleague and co-editor Prof. (and Rabbi) Baruch Levine in our volume
Urbanization and Land Use in the Ancient Near East (2000), available from CDL
Press in Baltimore. (The book originally was published by Harvard, but CDL is
now distributing it.) Baruch describes the law of return and how this led the
authors of the Torah to cast Jewish history in a way that would justify the
land (re-)appropriation.  

I think that Lev. 25 is great, to be sure. It is the last echo of the Sumerian
and Babylonian debt cancellations. The very word it uses -- d'ror -- is
cognate to Babylonian andurarum. (See my volume on Debt and Economic Renewal
in the Ancient Near East, CDL Press 2002 for an elaboration.) But there was
indeed a self-interested application of this excellent law, and some erstwhile
honest occupants no doubt were deprived of their land. Nehemiah's biography
indicates that much of this land already had been monopolized by large
latifundists, and there is no record of a moral outcry. I cite this example
only to show how even a land-grab can be associated with an ideal.

Michael Hudson

REPLY (Peter M):

Yes, the Exodus theme (from Egypt) is closely linked to the Return theme (from
Exile in Babylon). Jewish history and Jewish holy days are based on the Return theme.

Leviticus 25: 39-46 says that the "returnees" from Babylon should not enslave
those "whom I brought out of the land of Egypt" (v.42), but that "it is from
the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves" (v. 44).

"You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to
inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow
Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness" (v. 46).

(2) The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel,

by Thomas L. Thompson

http://home20.inet.tele.dk/otetens/IT_Israel/Thompson.html

The Mythic Past : Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel - Thomas L.
Thompson: - Amazon.com writes,

"One of the world's leading Biblical archaeologists concludes that the Old
Testament offers absolutely no credible historical data on the early history
of Israel. The Jewish people's historical claims to Israel, the small area
bordering the eastern Mediterranean, is not only the foundation for the modern
state of Israel, it also lies at the very heart of Judeo-Christian belief.
This is the first comprehensive overview and synthesis of the latest
archaeological research from the Middle East written for the general reader

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-reviews/0465006221/ref=pm_dp_ln_b_1/002-1100322-7469864

citat

From Kirkus Reviews

"Arguing that the Bible should be read as literature rather than history in
the modern sense, biblical archaeologist Thompson (Biblical Studies/Univ. of
Copenhagen) sweepingly reassesses the historical evidence for the existence of
ancient Israel. Bitter scholarly controversies, fueled by religious belief,
have raged for decades about the historical authenticity of such Bible stories
as the Garden of Eden, the Flood, and the flight from Egypt. These debates are
misconceived, argues Thompson: much of the Bible was never intended to be read
literally, or even to be understood as history as modern readers conceive it.
Instead, much of the Bible consists of tall stories and other types of
literature that, in ancient Jewish society as in other ancient cultures,
provided people with an understanding of a common past. Relying on
archaeological rather than biblical evidence, the author sketches the ancient
economy and society of the people of Palestine. Rather than the unified
``kingdom of Israel'' depicted in the Bible, he paints a picture of a
turbulent tribal Palestine, buffeted by drought, waves of immigrants from the
Aegean, and expansionist neighbors. Contrasting this evidence with biblical
narratives, shot through as they are with elements of the miraculous and the
fantastic, Thompson questions the historicity of such scriptural accounts as
the stories of the kingships of Saul, David, and Solomon and the Babylonian
exile. Thompson finds magnificent poetry in the Bible, brilliant epic
narratives and folktales, and great philosophical and moral writing that
raises important questions about the meaning of life and the name of God: ``it
is only as history that the Bible does not make sense.'' In rather heavyhanded
fashion, Thompson makes a good general point: that many biblical narratives
should not be read literally as history; but in his total reliance on
archaeology, he may overstate his case somewhat for the ahistoricity of the
Bible. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Book Description One of the world's leading Biblical archaeologists concludes
that the Old Testament offers absolutely no credible historical data on the
early history of Israel

The Jewish people's historical claims to Israel, the small area bordering the
eastern Mediterranean, is not only the foundation for the modern state of
Israel, it also lies at the very heart of Judeo-Christian belief.

The Bible in History will be the first comprehensive overview and synthesis of
the latest archaeological research from the Middle East written for the
general reader. Its often startling assertions will make for a powderkeg of a
book. Among the author's conclusions are these: There never was a "united
monarch" [Saul, David, Solomon] in history We can no longer talk about a time
of the Patriarchs The entire notion of "Israel" and its history is a literary
fiction.

The Bible in History provides refreshing new ways to read the Old Testament as
the great literature it was meant to be, and not as history. At the same time,
its conclusions about Jewish history are sure to prove incendiary in a
worldwide debate about one of the world's most seminal texts, and one of its
most bitterly contested regions.

About the Author Thomas L. Thompson is the author of the book Early History of
the Israelite People. He is the recipient of a National Endowment fellowship,
and has taught at Lawrence and Marquette universities in Wisconsin. He lives
in Denmark and currently teaches at the prestigious Biblical Studies program
of the University of Copenhagen.

(3) Thompson replies to Jerusalem Post review of his book The Bible in
History: How Writers Create A Past

A view from Copenhagen: Israel and the History of Palestine

By Thomas L. Thompson Professor of Old Testament, University of Copenhagen

http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/copenhagen.htm

The Bible in History: How Writers Create A Past, entered what had already been
a quarter-century long debate, one which William Dalrymple could accurately
describe as an "enjoyably ill-tempered exchange between fiercely hostile
academic enemies." Archaeology and theology have never been among the
academy's kindest fields of study. Nevertheless, the extraordinary criticism
that my new book and the works of scholars who have expressed a similar
perspective, have received, has been so ferocious that I fear discussions on
the history of Israel, have moved well beyond the "intemperate" debates that
Dalrymple had anticipated. Slander and libel have displaced the academic
interests of history and theology with a purpose that is far from innocent and
unreflective.

This unhappy conclusion was forced on me as I read a review of my book
published on December 24th, 1999 in The Jerusalem Post by Magen Broshi, the
former director of the Israel Department of Antiquities. As I had expected,
the review was negative. However, the very last statement of the review caught
my attention: "Is it possible he does not believe in anything? Apparently
there is a certain book that he does take seriously. A mutual acquaintance
told me that Thompson confided in him that he is a staunch believer in The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion." This open and unabashed accusation still
takes my breath away. I do realize that it follows well-established rules of
propaganda: The more outrageous the lie the better and, if repeated often
enough, it becomes fact. The irony of such a writer creating a past is not
lost on me.

Rumor and gossip, such as expressed in Gary Rendsburg's essay on McGill
University's home page, had long since prepared the ground for The Jerusalem
Post's Christmas message. Repetition now attempts to make it fact. I mention
only a few of the most egregious that I myself have experienced, but there
have been many, many more. At a conference in October, 1999 at Northwestern
University, in which I participated, William Dever did not accuse me directly
of anti-Semitism, but softened this judgement of my work with such adjectives
as 'anti-Israel', 'anti-Bible' and 'nihilistic'. Dever charged that I and my
colleagues "are no longer honest scholars." In early November, 1999, the
internet's Miqra engaged in airing an accusation by Hershel Shanks, the editor
of the magazine The Biblical Archaeology Review, of anti-Semitism against
Ze'ev Herzog, Niels Peter Lemche and myself. At the same time, the newspaper
Ha-Aretz, published Shank's attack on Ze'ev Herzog and like-minded scholars as
"anti-Zionist," "anti-Bible" and "anti-Israel." "At the extreme, they can even
be viewed as anti-Semitic."

Over the past year, this form of criticism has proven very effective, as a
recent cover story by Netty Gross in The Jerusalem Report on an
Israeli-Palestinian archaeological conference indicates. Here, Israel
Finkelstein and David Ussishkin, are accused of encouraging the arguments of
the Palestinian Authority's director of antiquities, Moain Sadek, who, in his
turn, is not only accused of using archaeology for political purposes, but,
borrowing a biblical trope, is accused of "treading a path that the
"Copenhagen school" walked in the early 1990s."

These Copenhagen "claims, she asserts, have no scholarly basis," as they have
been met by what she calls "mainstream scholarship" with "counter-accusations
of anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and even intellectual dishonesty on the scale
of holocaust denial". One recent example of such hysteria appears in the
Biblical Archaeological Review, in which Frank Cross is quoted as broaching an
issue that "is not talked about too much: they [the "minimalists"] are kept
alive by anti-Semitism. It bothers me." Whether Cross meant to join Broshi in
suggesting that I and my colleagues live by anti-Semitism or whether he meant
that anti-Semitic interests support our work, Hershel Shanks, by quoting this
venerable scholar, has succeeded once again in associating us with
anti-Semitism. These examples seem to be fairly representative of remarks that
have been made in a number of public forums dealing with history and
archaeology in recent years, such as the forum on the Bible and archaeology
held in May and June in Los Angeles. At one meeting, William Dever summarized
what he described as 7 "tenets" of the Copenhagen school. Among these are
three whose wording seems hardly to be explained by either mistake or
misreading: that there was no pre-history of ancient Israel, no early
Israelite states or capitals, including Jerusalem and that there was no
Judaism as a religion before about 135 CE. ...

The accusation of our being "anti-Semitic" and William Dever's charges in Los
Angeles that we deny the existence of Israel as an historical and political
reality or of early Judaism as a religious factor in Palestine's history, are
obviously cases of intentional misprision. This also seems true of the many
personal attacks on the integrity of our scholarship. ...

Thomas L. Thompson is a distinguished Professor of the Old Testament at the
University of Copenhagen

 

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