In the Footsteps of King David
Revelations from an Ancient Biblical City
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- € 28,99
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King David is a pivotal figure in the Bible, which provides stirring accounts of his deeds, including the slaying of the Philistine giant Goliath and the founding of his capital in Jerusalem. However, no certain archaeological finds from the period of his reign or of the united kingdom he ruled over have been uncovered until now.
In this first-hand and highly readable account, the excavators of Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Valley of Elah, where the Bible says David fought Goliath, reveal how seven years of exhaustive investigation have uncovered a city dating to the time of David the late 11th and early 10th century bc surrounded by massive fortifications with impressive gates, a clear urban plan and an abundance of finds that tell us much about the inhabitants, including a pottery sherd with the earliest known Hebrew inscription. The authors clearly describe the methods of the excavation and the evidence they discovered, as well as how we interpret it. But more than just a simple excavation report, this book also explains the significance of these discoveries and how they shed new light on Davids kingdom, as well as discussing the link between the Bible, archaeology and history. This topic is at the centre of a decades-long controversy, with some scholars disputing that the Bible contains a record of historical events and people, an approach that is convincingly challenged here.
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Was there a historical basis for the Bible's account of the life of King David? Garfinkel (Dance at the Dawn of Agriculture), head of Hebrew University's archaeology institute, and his colleagues Ganor and Hassel insist that there was, pointing to their discoveries while excavating the city of Khirbet Qeiyafa in Israel's Elah Valley. While this volume accessibly details what was found, it is unlikely to sway many skeptics: the authors conclude that their finds, which include olive pits used for radiometric dating of the site and other artifacts (such as stone and pottery vessels one boasting a rare inscription and Egyptian scarabs) dating back to when David supposedly lived, have "provided archaeological evidence corroborating historical memories from the time of King David." The parts of the book that are not detailing the archaeological findings summarize the sometimes-conflicting biblical tradition regarding David's life and past archaeological study of the region; much space is devoted to condemning biblical minimalism (the view that the Bible is not a legitimate source of historical information) in ways that even open-minded readers are unlikely to find persuasive, for example, calling scholars' questioning of the historicity of biblical writings about David "surprising" given his "centrality... in the biblical story." A less biased and more cautious approach to the authors' unquestionably remarkable finds would have served lay readers better.
