From Eden to exile : unraveling mysteries of the Bible

267 Pages·2007·5.61 MB·English

by  Cline

Copyright © 2007 Eric H. Cline. Afterword copyright © 2012 Eric H. Cline. All rights reserved.
Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without permission is prohibited.
The Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible,
copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of
Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission. In addition, some material in this book
previously appeared in oral and/or written form by the present author and appears here with the
permission of Modern Scholar/Recorded Books (www.modernscholar.com).
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Cline, Eric H.
From Eden to exile : unraveling mysteries of the Bible / by Eric H. Cline. – 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-42621224-6
1. Bible. O.T.–Evidences, authority, etc. 2. Bible. O.T.–History of Biblical events. 3. Bible. O.T.–
Antiquities. 4. Bible. O.T.–Criticism, interpretation, etc. 5. Judaism–History–To 70 A.D. 6. Jews–
History–To 70 A.D. I. Title.
BS1180.C64 2006
221.6’7–dc22
2007003122
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Interior Design: Cameron Zotter
v3.1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Map
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1: The Garden of Eden
CHAPTER 2: Noah’s Ark
CHAPTER 3: Sodom and Gomorrah
CHAPTER 4: Moses and the Exodus
CHAPTER 5: Joshua and the Battle of Jericho
CHAPTER 6: The Ark of the Covenant
CHAPTER 7: The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel
EPILOGUE
AFTERWORD
Further Reading
Acknowledgments
Illustration Credits
Notes
About the Author

INTRODUCTION
“The greatest challenge for anyone trying to ‘solve’ a Biblical mystery is that
the Bible interweaves the historical and the theological, the mystical and the
verifiable—often in one sentence.”
—Molly Dewsnap Meinhardt, Biblical Archaeology Society
There are many mysteries in the Bible. Some cannot be explained and
must remain as mysteries or even miracles—at least for now, if not
forever. Other mysteries can be discussed rationally within a historical
and archaeological framework. A number of these, including the Garden
of Eden, Noah’s ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses and the Exodus,
Joshua and the Battle of Jericho, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Ten
Lost Tribes, are of great interest to many people. It is on these seven
mysteries that we will concentrate here.
While doing the research for this book, I became amazed and, frankly,
appalled by the amount of pseudoscientific nonsense that has been
published on these topics, especially on the Internet but also in book
form. The vast majority of this work has not been produced by
professional scholars but rather by amateur enthusiasts, some of whom
we will meet in the following chapters. These enthusiasts—most of
whom are self-trained and self-employed, and some of whom publish
only, or primarily, on the Internet—all work outside of academia. As
such, they are not held to the same standards of rigor, peer review, and
scrutiny as professional scholars employed by colleges, universities, and
other institutions of higher learning. Indeed, the work of such
enthusiasts frequently meets the criteria of “junk science,” especially
when it, as Ron W. Pritchett has explained, “advocates a cause, pays
little attention to the investigative process, ignores contrary evidence,
and advertises a high moral purpose.”
Quite frequently, the public embraces such enthusiasts, for they are
entertaining and passionate, for the most part. And, unfortunately, when
it comes right down to it, it seems that a good but erroneous story
trumps good but boring data every time: The enthusiast might be
completely wrong, but he or she is frequently a charismatic storyteller
who never lets the facts get in the way of a good story. As a result, such
stories frequently reach a larger audience than the more detailed and
often dry work of the archaeologists, ancient historians, and biblical
scholars. On television shows or in media articles devoted to these
stories, real scholars are often reduced to the role of mere commentators
and “nattering nabobs of negativism,” to use the words of former Vice
President Spiro Agnew and William Safire in a new context. Frequently,
these experts come off as spoilsports—“an effete corps of impudent
snobs”—refuting the exciting nonsense being spewed by those who have
no formal training in history or archaeology and who are, as they say,
taking on the establishment.
That is not to say that the work of such enthusiasts is always without
merit or completely flawed. Some of them may have good evidence or
logical clues that they are following, but then come to faulty or
erroneous conclusions. Sometimes they are simply guilty of wishful
thinking or of reading too much into the evidence. Other times they are
guilty of setting off on their investigations with an a priori set of
assumptions, such as the infallibility of the Bible, which does not inspire
confidence in the impartiality of their investigations. They frequently do
not seem to know, or care, that there are larger debates within the fields
of biblical studies, ancient history, and archaeology that will (or should)
affect their studies, ranging from biblical criticism and source theory to
the validity and accuracy of radiocarbon dating.
The materials written and published by some scholars on these topics
can also be problematic, especially the most fervent of the evangelical
biblical maximalists, who see the Hebrew Bible as infallible, and the
biblical minimalists, who see the Hebrew Bible as a late (that is, Persian
or Hellenistic) fabrication. Some biblical maximalists—particularly those
working outside of mainstream academia—seem to be closer to the
enthusiasts in setting out with their own a priori set of assumptions,
which are often stated outright in the mission or message statements on
their Web sites. Others dilute their good and careful analysis of
archaeological material and ancient literary sources with uncritical
thinking or blatant proselytizing. In addition, both the maximalist and
minimalist camps harbor individuals who abuse and occasionally distort
the information.
Thus, one of the reasons I have written this book is to sound both a
word of warning and a call to arms, because I believe that the general
public deserves—and wants—better. It is high time that professional
archaeologists, ancient historians, and mainstream biblical scholars take
back their fields from the amateur enthusiasts, pseudoscientists,
uninformed documentary filmmakers, and overzealous biblical
maximalists and minimalists who have had, for the most part, free rein
to do what they wish, without any regard to scientific method or an
unbiased investigation for the truth. In return, though, we as academics
owe it to the general public to deal with these mysteries in a serious way
and to publish our findings. Even if our investigations come up empty, it
is frequently the journey—including the benchmarks established and
information imparted along the way—that is most valuable and
sometimes even more interesting than the end result.
I will say right up front, however, that what I cannot do is solve all of
these mysteries—nobody who adheres to the facts can do that. All that I
can do is unravel some of the threads that make up these mysteries,
present the current state of our evidence and what professional scholars
are thinking about these topics today, highlight the most likely situation,
and provide enough information so that the reader will be able to better
assess future claims made by another author or a television program. But
I doubt that alone is enough reason for anyone to want to read on. So
are there other reasons to explore these topics? The answer, I believe, is
a resounding “yes.”
For one thing, these mysteries are not ancient history. They are still
very much around today, showing up every few weeks or months in
newspaper headlines and as references in stories about all kinds of
otherwise unrelated events. Sodom and Gomorrah, Armageddon, the
walls of Jericho, Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, the Tower of Babel
—references to these topics constantly appear in media around the
world, and not just in tabloids sold at supermarket checkout stands. To
know a little about these topics is to be culturally literate; to know more
about them is to have an informed opinion.
Moreover, these topics still resonate and are both used and abused in
connection with current events. Plenty of people read the Bible as
history—even though we cannot correlate and confirm its specific details
until the events of the first millennium (as we shall see in chapter 7)
B.C.
—and they use these biblical narratives to frame today’s headlines,
especially news from the modern Middle East. Did Joshua really fight
the Battle of Jericho and drive the Canaanites out of the land, as stated
in the biblical account of the Israelite conquest of Canaan? If so, who
was there first and to whom does the land really belong today? The
Palestinians, via their ostensible ancestors, the Canaanites and Jebusites,
or the Israelis, via their ostensible ancestors, the invading Israelites? The
debate over who has first rights to the Holy Land may be completely
moot if Professor Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University is correct
about the original Israelites and their role in Canaan. His “Invisible
Israelites” model, which we will touch upon in chapter 5, suggests that
long ago the Israelites and the Canaanites once occupied the land at the
same time because they were the same people. This would mean that
there was never an Israelite conquest of Canaan—and that, in turn,
means that the current cycle of violence in modern Israel and Palestine
is less like two nations at war and more like a sibling rivalry or a family
reunion gone bad.
Similarly, does it matter whether the Ark of the Covenant is located in
a cave on a mountain in Jordan or underneath the Temple Mount in
modern-day Jerusalem or even in a church treasury in Aksum, Ethiopia?
It matters very much to political and religious authorities. And what
about the Ten Lost Tribes? Does it matter that the Lemba in Africa or the
B’nai Menashe in India claim to be members of the lost tribes of Israel?
It certainly does, especially when we consider that the emigration and
airlifting of Ethiopian Falasha Jews to Israel from 1977 to 1991 occurred
in part because of a similar possibility. The biblical stories become real
when people adopt them as their own, regardless of their historical
accuracy.
Therefore, in the following pages, I will investigate the seven
intriguing mysteries of the Bible mentioned earlier. I will put each of
them into their proper historical and archaeological contexts and
describe what many archaeologists, ancient historians, and biblical
scholars are currently thinking. I will be exploring these mysteries