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

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.

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.