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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg or e who wrote (18110)	7/13/2001 7:21:42 AM
From: thames_sider	Respond to of 82486

Did you even read my link? Archaeologists have poured over its dusty ruins since the 19th century, unearthing evidence of at least 23 levels of occupation. The ruins have revealed a history of prosperity, decline and conquest. news.bbc.co.uk i.e., it was invaded multiple times. Small surprise if we can date one or two of these to within +- 50 years of the 'date' given in the bible - more surprising if we couldn't. Even this date in turn is based presumably on tracing back rather dubious genealogies... Never mind people living to improbable lengths, ancient genealogies tend to be suspect. Check the ancestry of the Japanese emperors... that's well recorded, much by contemporaries - a public family going back thousands of years... but starts with (I think it is) a sun-god. Multiple conquests. So what if a cemetery was in use at particular times... the city was occupied before and afterwards. It's a very, very ancient city in what was a key strategic area... there would have been a number of sieges, fast and slow (and if a city's on fire, you leave fast) and probably more than a few earthquakes. And plenty of scarabs. when attacked city walls fall inward, not outward. They're also easily made to fall outwards during siege - sapping, snagging (hook the top of the wall & pull) and external undermining do just this. They fall inwards when attacked by catapult, ballista or cannon... none common in the Bronze Age. Archeologists also found that in one part of the city, large piles of bricks were found at the base of both the inner and outer walls, indicating a sudden collapse of the fortifications. Exactly such as would occur if they were undermined - and one area would indicate a sapping tunnel: dig underneath, then fire the supports, the tunnel collapses and down comes the wall. Common ancient technique, especially good against a relatively small adobe wall. And of course the walls would then fall outwards if there's an earthen bank on the inside... Incidentally, why doesn't this article date the collapse? And why would an earthquake have been so selective? And where was the destruction of the city and its walls - entire - as in the bible? Velikovsky-style retrofits and guesses are not proof. Lastly, the research I linked to was current in 1999... is your source (unlinked) more recent? Here's some commentary on Wood, by what appears an unbiassed source - if anything, pro-bible... biblemysteries.com Dr. Wood on the other hand has suggested in a widely quoted paper in the prestigious Biblical Archaeological Review (16:2 1990), that Dame Kathleen Kenyon was wrong in her assessment of the site and that the town which she dated to the Middle Bronze Age should in fact be dated to the late Bronze Age. Thus it would confirm the Biblical account exactly. The end of the Late Bronze Age being dated by conventional chronology at 1400 BC. His argument involved four separate pieces of evidence which he claimed were either not known or ignored by Kenyon. 1) The Pottery. Wood suggests that Kenyon both misinterpreted the type of pottery not found and ignored the pottery that was found. This is not the place to go deeper into the argument but it has to be noted that the position of Wood were rebutted by the foremost living expert on Jericho, Piotr Bienkowski in a later edition of the Biblical Archaeological Review (16:5 1990). (I will put Wood's complete argument in the library when we have the relevant permissions). 2) The Scarabs. John Garstang had found a small series of scarabs in his excavation of the cemetery at Jericho. They covered the period from the XIIIth to the XVIIIth dynasty and then ended. A very small sample (only four scarabs) were from the XVIIIth dynasty and two were from Amenhotep III (conventional date c 1386-1349 BC ). Wood from this meager evidence surmises that the cemetery was in use until the end of the Late Bronze Age. Others have suggested that scarabs because of their value were often kept for long periods of time as keepsakes and that they are, for that reason alone, not very reliable markers or time. 3) A carbon 14 dating sample which was taken from the final destruction layer of the city and dated 1400 BC plus or minus 40 years. The location of the find has been disputed and it is very dangerous to accept just one carbon dating sample anywhere at any time. 4) The Stratigraphy. Perhaps Wood's strongest argument. ... Wood's conclusion is that the 20 phases must have taken a substantially longer period of time and therefore accepting Kenyon's date for the beginning of the series the logical conclusion is that it must have lasted until 1400 BC, his date for the conquest. Our conclusion however is much more logical. The Middle Bronze Age is the age of the Judges and that very satisfactorily answers the questions of both the time period and the constant changing of the site. Well, how nice. 100 years at the time was four full generations... in an unstable time - as this was - and in an earthquake zone, building - ambitiously - with mud-brick, so it's not surprising to see prequent patching and reworking. And why pick starting date from one and the end-date from another if not to fit a pre-conceived ideal? There is of course a larger question for both Livingston and Wood. If the problems between the archaeology and the Biblical account were restricted to just Ai and Jericho, then one would have to take great pause. The problem however is much wider. Practically none of the sites in Israel show that there were any cities of substance during the Late Bronze Age and worse those that did exist were not destroyed in the way the Biblical account describes. Hence both Livingston and Wood have an immense task in re-evaluating practically every archaeological site in the Holy Land. A task which we think is admirable in its objective but futile in the long run. In other words, even with the desire to 'prove' the bible, it's futile <g> Still, I know your mind is fixed on this. Any and all evidence to the contrary must be rejected, because the bible is God's Word. BTW, how do you account for dinosaur bones, and other fossils, and indeed the fossils and works of prehistoric hominids?