P rofessor Finkelstein isolates the Patriarchal stories as a litmus test for what we can presently know about the historical relevance of the biblical traditions since (1) these stories with their compelling literary artistry and canonical status hold a special place in the Judeo-Christian tradition to which much of earlier scholarship was so closely attached, and (2) there is a long history of that scholarship, predominantly German and Anglo-American in origin, that can be invoked as a means of avoiding the repetition of past errors. He then reviews some failed attempts of the past at identifying the historical Abraham in the late-third to early-second millennia B.C.E. These include the now well-known proposals that Abraham was a nomad-immigrant-invader-donkey caravaneer of Amorite origin whose contemporaries instigated the sudden collapse of the Early Bronze Age urban system of the Levant, or that Abraham was a tent dweller who situated himself near major cities of the Middle Bronze period as portrayed in the Mari texts, or that Abraham and his relatives observed such social and legal practices as the provision of surrogate mothers and adopted slaves for childless parents that are preserved in the second-millennium tablets from Nuzi in northern Iraq. In these and other instances of an extraordinary claim on the part of some earlier scholars, Finkelstein reviews the subsequent scholarly critiques that followed, and that neutralized such claims.
Finkelstein then reverses direction somewhat by noting that other scholars long ago identified telling anachronisms in the Patriarchal stories that point to their much later compositional setting in the eighth to seventh centuries B.C.E.; the time of the late Judahite monarchy. He lists the late domestication of camels, the first-millennium prominence of the city of Gerar, the frequent mention of neighboring peoples and polities that did not exist as distinct political entities until the first millennium, such as the Arameans and Transjordanian groups like the Edomites, Moabites, and Ammonites, and references to cities and places that are attested or only existed within the context of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires of the first millennium. All these and more indicate for Finkelstein that a seventh-century background is the most likely one for the compilation of the early version of the Patriarchal narratives. These and similar details cannot be dismissed as mere incidentals and later editorial additions since they are central elements in the narrative plots and point to the date and message of the text as well as to its implied audience. For Finkelstein, the message is essentially one advocating Judah’s preeminence over the northern territories as articulated by seventh-century B.C.E. scribes. These writers produced the Bible’s historiographic narratives under the impetus of a Josianic ideological agenda of expansionism.
Having established the Patriarchal stories as his guiding model, Finkelstein then turns to the Exodus and Conquest stories. Here he notes that the geography and place-names mentioned in the Exodus and wanderings stories fit best within the seventh to sixth centuries B.C.E. or the Saite period in Egypt. The Conquest accounts in Joshua and Judges cannot be interpreted in a straightforward fashion from archaeological data that were invoked by scholars in the early- to mid-twentieth century in support of a military invasion of Israelites at the end of the Late Bronze Age. It now appears that (1) several sites mentioned in the Bible’s Conquest story described as being inhabited were not, or else were insignificant villages in the Late Bronze Age, (2) at the end of the Late Bronze period, Canaan’s urban system did not suddenly collapse, and, in any case, the elongated process was part of a much wider Mediterranean urban demise, (3) Egypt continued to control and dominate Canaan throughout the second half of the twelfth century, and, finally, (4) surveys indicate the peoples who (re-)emerged in Canaan in the early-twelfth century B.C.E. were indigenous groups transitioning once again, just as their ancestors had repeatedly done, from a nomadic mode of subsistence to a sedentary mode and back again. In summary, for Finkelstein, while some older traditions may have been preserved in the stories about the Patriarchs, the Exodus, the Conquest, and the Settlement, their overall themes, lessons, and realities have as their historical context for compilation, Judah of the seventh century.
When it comes to the biblical text’s historical relevance for reconstructing Israel’s earliest stages of history in the second millennium B.C.E. , whether on the basis of the Patriarchal stories, the Exodus story, or the Conquest and Settlement stories, Professor Mazar articulates a position in which old traditions from the second millennium were initially passed down orally and then written down in the first millennium. To be sure, many aspects of the accounts have been lost, distorted, or changed over time, and in other cases only generally coincide with what we know of the period. Furthermore, while some important elements evince direct correlations with the biblical traditions, others stand in direct contradiction to isolated biblical accounts. In any case, Mazar does not assume that the biblical stories themselves are necessarily historically accurate or that the human characters in them are historical figures.
Some of the older traditions that previous scholarship identified as having survived in the biblical traditions include the land of Canaan as an early, prosperous urban culture with pastoral clans living in between fortified cities, a shared Amorite stock of personal names, and the accessibility of international routes along the entirety of the Fertile Crescent. From his survey of proposals offered by previous scholars in support of second-millennium or Middle Bronze Age parallels with the Patriarchal stories, Mazar does not identify which of these specifically he would endorse. Instead, he turns to the Exodus, Conquest, and Settlement stories in the Hebrew Bible to illustrate the validity of his approach. For example, the West Semitic or Hyksos dynastic rule over Egypt, the major building projects of Pharaoh Ramesses II, and the migration of slaves from Egypt are all attested in the archaeological and historical record. Mazar would also argue that all three of these find their analogues in the biblical traditions of the book of Exodus. Furthermore, the mention of a people “Israel” in the land of Canaan preserved in Pharaoh Merneptah’s stele from the end of the thirteenth century B.C.E. most likely points to the waves of peoples attested in the archaeological record who settled in the hill country and in Transjordan at this time.
The Conquest narratives likewise preserve ancient memories of events that actually occurred, such as the conquest of populated sites like ‘Ai and Hazor in the book of Joshua. While the archaeological and historical evidence suggests a rather complicated process underlying these particular biblical traditions, for Mazar in the final analysis, they too represent memories of second-millennium events that were preserved orally for centuries and only subsequently written down and revised in later times. Nevertheless, Mazar recognizes that in some other cases, archaeology and the biblical traditions evince outright conflict. For example, several cities are described as having been destroyed or attacked in the Bible, but archaeology demonstrates that, in a number of cases, such cities either did not exist in the transitional phase between the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of Iron I (for example, Heshbon and Arad), or they remained intact and inhabited during this period never having suffered destruction (for example, Lachish). For Mazar, the conclusion to be drawn is that, while archaeology negates the Bible’s Conquest story as an historical event, it can shed some light on how ancient memories and their equally ancient oral interpretations found their way into the much later written work we know now as the book of Joshua. Various events and traditions about the distant past spanning this lengthy period of transition and turmoil have survived. These events and traditions are reflective of ancient local destructions and conflicts between Canaanite tribes and clans or between urban Canaanites and Israelites. They found their way into the collective memory of the later Israelites in the form of a telescoped reflection on that ancient past.