Who
Destroyed
Canaanite
Hazor?
amnon Ben-tor
Joshua turned back at that time and took Hazor, and struck its king
with the sword, for Hazor was formerly the head of all those kingdoms.
And they struck all the people who were in it with the edge of the sword,
utterly destroying them … Then he burnt Hazor with fire.
JOSHUA 11:10–11
DuBy tAl/AlBAtross
F ACT OR FICTION ? H ISTORY OR
theology? It is commonly recognized
that interest in the Biblical account
of the Israelite settlement in Canaan
was, to a large extent, responsible for
the rise of “Biblical archaeology.” It is
no wonder, then, that one of the first
sites to be investigated archaeologically
was Jericho (in 1868 and 1907–1909).
The main aim of the excavation was to
uncover the walls of the city that “came
tumbling down,” which, in due course,
were indeed “found.” These controversial walls were later dated to the Middle
Bronze Age (c. 1550 B.C.E.), centuries
before the Israelites entered the land.
This “discovery” finds a nice parallel in another excavation motivated by a
desire to prove a story. Homer’s account
of the Trojan War and the settlement of
the Greeks in Asia Minor brought German amateur archaeologist Heinrich
Schliemann to Troy in 1871, where he
discovered “the treasures of Priam.” In
fact these treasures belonged to a city
more than a millennium earlier than
Homer’s Troy.
In the early days of archaeology in the
HAZOR
Kadesh
Jerusalem
Mt. Hermon
Hazor
Jordan River
Sidon
Tyre
Acco
Mt. Carmel
CA N
AAN
MEDITERRANEAN SEA
DEAD
SEA
r
ive
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Nil
EGYPT
0
100 mi
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pREVIouS pAGES: “THE HEAD oF ALL THoSE KINGDomS.” As relected in the Book of Joshua (11:10), Hazor
was one of the mightiest of the Canaanite city-states in
the period before the Israelite settlement. Located north of
the Sea of Galilee, the site boasted an impressive upper
city on the oblong tell and a lower city spread out below
(not shown in the photo on p. 26). Is it possible that the
Israelites conquered Hazor and burned this large city?
Land of Israel, excavations at other sites connected
with the Biblical account of Joshua’s conquests soon
followed the excavation of Jericho—among them
Tell el-Hesi (in 1890, then identified with Lachish),
‘Ai (in 1933), Bethel (in 1934) and others.
However, of all the sites mentioned in the Book
of Joshua as having been conquered by the Israelites, none is as important, with a destruction as
significant, as Hazor, a large Canaanite site north of
the Sea of Galilee. The culmination of the conquest
and the final blow to the Canaanites was the Israelite victory over the coalition of Canaanite kings led
by Jabin, king of Hazor (Joshua 11:1–4), which was
followed by the slaying of Jabin and the burning of
his city. As a result of this victory, “Joshua took all
this land … the mountains of Israel and its lowlands
from Mt. Halak and the ascent to Seir, even as far
as Baal Gad in the Valley of Lebanon below Mt.
Hermon” (Joshua 11:16–17).
Hazor was first investigated by British archaeologist John Garstang in 1928. Large-scale excavations
were undertaken by Israel’s then-leading archaeologist Yigael Yadin in 1955–1958 and 1968. It is certainly no accident that Yadin appointed Yohanan
Aharoni as a key member of the excavation team,
since he and Aharoni held opposing views regarding the process of the Israelite conquest and settlement. Yadin was an ardent supporter of the
28
so-called Albright school (named for its founder,
the great American Biblical scholar William Foxwell Albright), which tallies more or less with the
conquest account reflected in the Book of Joshua.
Aharoni was a keen supporter of the Alt school
(later known as the Alt-Noth school after German
scholar Albrecht Alt and his student Martin Noth),
which saw the process basically as the one reflected
in the Book of Judges: a slow, peaceful infiltration
first, followed by a second stage in which the Israelites expanded into more fruitful plains and valleys that were still occupied by the Canaanite cities.
At the outset of the excavation, the two protagonists, Yadin and Aharoni, agreed that Hazor
should be a testing ground, both historically and
archaeologically, for the opposing theories. When
the excavations were concluded, the stratigraphic
picture was straightforward: The last Canaanite city
(Stratum XIII) was violently destroyed and, after a
short occupational hiatus, a new settlement (Stratum XII), confined to Hazor’s acropolis, was discovered. This new settlement was poor in nature
and was most probably of a seminomadic character.
The many pits, which are a common feature of this
new settlement, were clearly dug into the destruction layer of the last Canaanite city. The pottery
found in these pits, as well as the pottery associated with the flimsy architectural remnants of this
new settlement, was identical to the ceramic repertoire of the tiny Iron Age settlements Aharoni had
found in his archaeological survey in the Upper
Galilee.1 Aharoni had attributed these settlements
to the early, peaceful phase of the Israelite settlement, which, as a follower of the Alt school, he
saw as belonging to a period preceding the downfall of Hazor. Yet the results of Yadin’s excavations
(just like those of the renewed excavations under
my direction) clearly showed that this new (Israelite) settlement, poor in nature, followed the fall of
Canaanite Hazor.
Bear in mind, however, that the sequence of
Stratum XIII (the last Canaanite occupation level)
followed by Stratum XII (the first Israelite settlement) can be observed only on Hazor’s acropolis,
since the earliest Israelite occupation of Hazor was
confined to that part of the site. Moreover, even on
the acropolis, this sequence could be tested only
on a very limited scale: Yadin’s excavations barely
reached remnants of Stratum XIII on the acropolis, as they underlie the thick accumulation of six
Iron Age strata (X–V). These Iron Age strata, spanning some 200 years, were dated by Yadin to the
period between King Solomon (c. 970–930 B.C.E.),
who rebuilt Hazor after the last Canaanite city was
destroyed, and Pekah, king of Israel, during whose
HAZOR
N
ro
lA
g.
*the excavations, named the selz Foundation Hazor Excavations in
memory of yigael yadin, are sponsored by the institute of Archaeology
of the Hebrew university and the israel Exploration society and take
place within the Hazor National Park.
isrAEl goVErNmENt PrEss oFFiCE
reign Hazor was finally destroyed by the Assyrians
(in 732 B.C.E.). The remains of the Iron Age strata
include fortifications, a citadel, storage facilities,
dwellings and a water system, all of which were
the focus of Yadin’s excavations on Hazor’s acropolis (in Areas A, B, G and L).
Yadin’s investigation of the last Canaanite city
at Hazor (Stratum XIII on the acropolis) revealed
a temple (most of which underlies the tenth-century six-chamber city gate) and a corner of a huge
building Yadin termed “the palace.” In addition,
a test trench (“Trench 500”) exposed what Yadin
identified as a Middle Bronze Age city wall. All
three major finds (the temple, the “palace” and the
“city wall”) are located in the center of the acropolis (Area A). A stretch of fortifications some 100
feet long, which Yadin dated to the Middle Bronze
Age, was exposed on the eastern flank of the acropolis (Area G).
Neither Yadin nor Aharoni considered their
conclusions final; both expressed hope that
future excavations would help to clarify the picture. “With all the problems still outstanding,”
Yadin wrote, “we can sum up with the encouraging note that the excavations [carried out in the 1950s and also
in 1968] have cleared away
many apparent obstacles created by earlier wrong data and
have opened new avenues to
a fresh examination of these
vital and important problems from archaeological,
historical and biblical
aspects.”2
The excavation of
Hazor was resumed in
1990 under my direction,
recently joined by fellow
Hebrew University archaeologist Sharon Zuckerman
as codirector.*
With the conclusion of the
23rd season of the renewed
excavations in August 2012, it is
perhaps time to consider new data
we have uncovered and re-address the
question formulated in the title of this
article: Who was responsible for the massive destruction of Canaanite Hazor?
The renewed excavations drastically changed
oppoSING VIEWS. Yigael Yadin (right) directed excavations at Tel Hazor in 1955–1958 and 1968 with
the assistance of senior staf member Yohanan
Aharoni (left). The two great archaeologists
belonged to diferent schools of thought when
it came to the Israelite settlement in Canaan.
Yadin, a follower of the Albright school, believed
the Israelites conquered Canaan as recorded in
the Book of Joshua. Aharoni, however, followed
the Alt-Noth school in seeing the settlement as
a slow, peaceful process relected in the Book of
Judges. The men saw Hazor as a testing ground
for their theories. Iron Age I (Early Israelite) pottery
from the excavation, such as this decorated storage
vessel (left), proved that the early phase of Israelite
settlement followed the destruction of Hazor, supporting
Yadin’s argument.
the analysis that had been based on
Yadin’s limited exposure of remnants
from the last Canaanite city (Stratum XIII) on Hazor’s acropolis. In the
middle of the acropolis, a large building,
which we named the “Ceremonial Palace,” was
exposed. Its walls, made of mudbricks placed on
stone foundations, are 6–10 feet thick and are preserved to a height of approximately 6.5 feet. A large
29
2
3
1
4
sky-BAllooN
2
3
Area M
Area A
1
AFtEr ruHAmA BoNFil
4
30
Ya ’s Excavations Bronze Age
Yadin’s Excavations Iron Age
Renewed Excavations Bronze Age
Area G
THE CANAANITE CITY. Yadin’s excavations on the bottleshaped acropolis of Tel Hazor only scratched the surface of the last Canaanite city in the Late Bronze Age
(Stratum XIII) because he spent much of his time digging
through the thick Iron Age layers of the later Israelite city
(Strata X–V). The Iron Age six-chamber gate (1) can be
seen prominently at the center of the recent aerial photo
above and on the plan at left. He did, however, uncover
remains of a Canaanite temple (2), most of which underlies the six-chamber gate. He also uncovered the northeastern corner of a structure (3)—that he identiied as a
palace but the renewed excavations identiied as a temple—and remnants of a city wall (4), all in Area A of the
upper city (see plan). In Area G at the northeast corner
of the tell, Yadin also exposed 100 feet of fortiications,
including a thick stone wall and a deep fosse (a ditch or
moat), which he dated to the middle Bronze Age.
pebble-paved courtyard, measuring close to 10,700
square feet, extends to the east of the building. The
rich assemblage of finds—including two unique
bronze statues, one of a deity, the other of a king;
a basalt statue of a deity, the largest ever found in
the country; a decorated jewelry box; an assortment
of weapons; a faience ceremonial rhyton (drinking
cup) in the shape of a lion’s head—recovered on the
palace floors attests to the importance of this palace
and the violent fire that destroyed it sometime in
the 13th century B.C.E. The fire that consumed the
palace was extremely intense: It melted clay vessels and vitrified the mudbricks, indicating that the
HAZOR
N
A
B
C
C
A
N
B
sky-BAllooN
SEAT oF poWER. under the direction of Amnon BenTor since 1990, the renewed excavations of Hazor have
revealed much more of the Canaanite city in both the
upper and lower cities. In the middle of the acropolis,
excavators uncovered a large building that they termed
the “Ceremonial palace” (see A and B in photo at right
and reconstruction drawing above it). The mudbrick walls
on stone foundations were 6–10 feet thick and still stood
about 6.5 feet tall. Extending east of the palace is a
10,700-square-foot pebble-paved courtyard (C).
destruction other than the Book of Joshua, the only
way to go about answering the question of who
destroyed Hazor is to consider all those peoples
who were around at the time, examining whether
any of them can be regarded as a possible candidate for the city’s destroyer.
The Babylonians were too far away and too
weak at the time, so we can eliminate them
m.t. ruBiAto
temperature of the fire was around 1,300 degrees
Celsius (2,372 degrees Fahrenheit), twice the temperature of a regular fire. The combination of three
factors explains this extraordinary phenomenon: a
very large amount of wood used to construct the
roof and the floor of the building; close to 1,000 gallons of olive oil stored in several huge pithoi (storage jars) found in two of the building’s rooms; and
the strong winds prevailing in the region, especially
in the afternoon. Such an unusual fire is certainly
something to be remembered for generations and
could explain the reference to Hazor as the only
site set on fire by the Israelites (Joshua 11:13).
We also discovered a fragment of what was
probably an Egyptian offering table associated
with a cultic installation on the northern slope of
Hazor (in Area M). It was covered by the rubble of
a mudbrick wall that fell during the destruction of
the last Canaanite city. Unfortunately only a small
part of the original inscription carved on the object
remains, but even the few preserved hieroglyphic
signs are enough to tell us that the object was most
probably dedicated by the high priest Rahotep, who
served under Pharaoh Ramesses II, and should
probably be dated “to as late as the third decade
of Ramesses II’s reign [c. 1250 B.C.E.],” to quote
the scholar who studied it.3 Since there would be
no point for anyone to set up an offering table in
a city that is already in ruins, it follows that Hazor
was still a thriving city during the first half of the
13th century B.C.E., worthy of a visit by such a distinguished Egyptian. The date of the city’s destruction must therefore be no earlier than the middle
of the 13th century B.C.E.
Having settled the issue of the date of Canaanite
Hazor’s final destruction as accurately as possible
at the present time, let us turn to the identity of
its destroyers.
Hazor was not destroyed by an accidental fire,
an earthquake or any other natural catastrophe.
The destruction was clearly the result of human
activity, as indicated by the large number of statues
of deities and rulers that were intentionally disfigured by cutting off their heads and hands.4
Since we have no record mentioning the
31
HAZOR
g. lAroN
g. lAroN
pALACE TREASuRES. A rich assemblage of inds discovered in the ceremonial palace hints at the importance
of the structure. The objects included luxury items such
as a decorated jewelry box with bone inlay (above)
that held various beads, faience seals and gold jewelry
(above right), unique bronze statues such as the one of
a Canaanite ruler at left, and a faience lion-head rhyton
(drinking cup; far right).
32
immediately. Egyptians returning from the Battle
of Kadesh are often considered a prime candidate.5
This well-documented battle on the banks of the
Orontes River in southern Syria was an indecisive
struggle between the army of Pharaoh Ramesses II
(Ramesses the Great) and the Hittite forces led by
Muwatallis. The two sides ultimately agreed to a
truce, leaving Kadesh under Hittite control, but
Ramesses boastfully considered it a great Egyptian
victory, setting up numerous (exaggerated) celebratory reliefs. In fact, the battle was a costly draw.
Could Ramesses II have destroyed Hazor? Not
only is the destruction of Hazor completely absent
from the many inscriptions of Ramesses II but the
Egyptian troops would not have gone anywhere
near Hazor on their march back from Kadesh to
Egypt. Egyptologist Kenneth A. Kitchen has convincingly shown that the Egyptian army returned home
along the Lebanese coast (see map on p. 28), via
Sidon, Tyre and Acco before bypassing Mt. Carmel,
HAZOR
g. lAroN
m. grAyEVski
traveling on to the Jezreel Valley, and from there
along the southern part of the Via Maris (the “Way
of the Sea”), all the way back to Egypt.6 The Egyptians can therefore be dismissed from the list of candidates responsible for Hazor’s destruction.
Next on the list of possibles are the Sea Peoples,
seafaring warriors from the Aegean that included
the Philistines.7 Hazor is situated too far inland,
however, to be a site of interest to the Sea Peoples, whose activity was restricted mainly to coastal
areas. Furthermore, among the millions of potsherds
uncovered at Hazor during the many years of excavation in various areas of the site, not one sherd
typical of the Sea Peoples has ever been found.
We can also reject the other Canaanite city-states
as having been responsible for Hazor’s destruction,
for not one of them could challenge Hazor, “the head
of all those kingdoms.” Even if Hazor was in decline
at the time of the city’s destruction (see below), so
were all other neighboring Canaanite cities.
Finally, another candidate has recently been
added to the list of possible agents responsible
for the violent end of Canaanite Hazor. This new
suggestion is that it was not an outsider but an
enemy from within the city.8 Based on her observation that the only structures violently destroyed
at Hazor were those of a public nature—temples
and palaces—while private dwellings show no sign
of having been destroyed, my codirector Sharon
Zuckerman has concluded that Hazor’s destruction
resulted from an uprising of the local population
against the ruling classes. In her words, the fall of
Hazor came “as a result of social, political, cultural
and ideological circumstances … stressing the role
of internal socio-economic and ideological factors
rather than external agents.”9 This theory seems to
be a revival of George E. Mendenhall’s approach,
according to which the entire process of the settlement of the Israelites in Canaan was actually
the result of an egalitarian revolution within the
Canaanite society.10
As for Hazor, the following arguments refute this
theory:
(1) The archaeological data from Hazor does
not unequivocally support Zuckerman. Her basic
observation is based almost entirely on a single
(!) dwelling uncovered in her excavation of Area
A-210, located in the Lower City of Hazor.11 As a
matter of fact, the number of private dwellings
thus far uncovered from the last Canaanite city
at Hazor is extremely small. These include a few
remnants in Areas C and F in the Lower City, but
they suffered severely from erosion and repeated
modern agricultural plowing due to their proximity
to the surface of the site. It is impossible to conclude whether they ended in fire or not.12 Basing
33
HAZOR
H. sHAFir
H. sHAFir
A BRuTAL BLAZE brought an end to the ceremonial palace (above) and much of Canaanite Hazor. The ire was
so violent that it reached 2,370 degrees Fahrenheit, melting clay vessels (see photo at left) and heating mudbricks
into glass. Three factors contributed to the inferno’s
intensity: the large amount of wood construction, especially in the palace roof and loor; nearly 1,000 gallons
of highly combustible olive oil stored in pithoi (storage
jars) in the building; and the high winds common in the
region. Such an immense conlagration may explain why
Hazor is the only site remembered in the Book of Joshua
as having been set on ire. The photo above shows the
ashy remains of the ceremonial palace as well as some
broken pithoi (in the foreground) that may have contributed to the blaze.
34
the entire scenario of Hazor’s destruction on a single dwelling exposed by Zuckerman in Area A-210
seems a bit far-fetched.
(2) Furthermore, the main targets for destruction
of any city—whether by locals or by an external
agent—are always the symbols of religion, power
and government. Private houses are usually left
intact; if destroyed, these are isolated cases. For
instance, nobody doubts that Israelite Hazor was
conquered by an external agent (the Assyrians in
HAZOR
HIGH pRIEST oF pHARAoH. Beneath the collapsed
rubble of a mudbrick wall that fell during the destruction of the last Canaanite city, Hazor’s excavators uncovered this small fragment of a likely ofering table. The
few preserved Egyptian hieroglyphs suggest that the
table was dedicated by Rahotep, high priest of pharaoh
Ramesses II, as late as 1250 B.C.E. Hazor must have still
been thriving at that time, so the city could not have
been destroyed before the mid-13th century B.C.E.
g. lAroN
DISFIGuRED DEITIES and mutilated rulers leave no doubt
that Canaanite Hazor was destroyed intentionally rather
than by a natural disaster or accidental ire. Cutting the
heads and hands of of almost all statues sent a clear
message that the old rulers and their gods were now
powerless and obsolete. This locally made ivory head of
an Egyptian king (blackened by the ire that destroyed the
palace) was among the casualties of the city’s destruction,
making it unlikely that Egyptians destroyed Hazor.
H. sHAFir
732 B.C.E.), yet evidence for a violent destruction
of the last phase of the city is only sporadically
found. A good example is the situation in Yadin’s
Area B, where the citadel (Stratum V) was indeed
destroyed by fire, but only one of the six private
dwellings in the immediate vicinity was destroyed
by fire. The others were left untouched.13 The same
phenomenon was also observed in the renewed
excavations by our expedition.14
(3) If the city was destroyed by its local inhabitants, how does one explain the fact that Hazor was
deserted and remained uninhabited for a period
of approximately 200 years after its destruction?
The local population still had houses (which stood
undestroyed), land and families to support. If they
won the battle, why leave town?15
(4) Clashes within the city, sometimes resulting
in the overthrow of the local ruler, are well known
in antiquity. But these clashes were always confined
to the upper classes, either within a royal family
or among the military elite. The very idea that the
masses could have instigated a revolt against the
ruling class of Hazor is an anachronism. No similar
revolt is known anywhere in the ancient Near East;
such an act would have been considered almost
sacrilege by the people. The king was regarded
by his subjects as ruling by the grace of God. Any
questioning—let alone considering his overthrow—
was unthinkable.
If we can eliminate the Egyptians, the Sea Peoples, rival Canaanite city-states and even the local
population of the city as being responsible for the
fall of Hazor, who then are we left with?
The differences between the Alt and Albright
schools with regard to the process of the early Israelites’ settlement in Canaan (outlined above) were
discussed with much passion at the time but are of
35
HAZOR
sky-BAllooN
little consequence for the issue at hand. Both sides
eventually agreed that Hazor was indeed destroyed
by the early Israelites.16 Even Martin Noth, the
greatest exponent of Alt’s school of thought, admits
to a link between the capture of Hazor and Joshua
11:10.17 Both sides thus agree on the “who”—the
early Israelites—but still differ with regard to the
“how”—the nature of the process by which the
early Israelites took possession of, and eventually
settled in, the Land of Canaan.
An array of publications by various scholars over
the years, trying to determine who was responsible
for the downfall of Hazor, indicates a tendency to
attribute the site’s destruction to anyone except the
ones specifically mentioned in the Bible as having
done so.18
As clearly shown by the famous Merneptah
Stele,*19 dated to the last decade of the 13th century B.C.E., the Israelites were present in Canaan
at this time. They must have arrived some time
before their encounter with Merneptah, the Egyptian pharaoh. Some prefer to call this group “protoIsraelites,” but there is no reason for this. If the
term “Israel” was good enough for Pharaoh Merneptah to designate this particular group of people,
it should be good enough for us. Indeed, those
Israelites were still largely a seminomadic society, and their national identity was not exactly the
same as that of Israel in the ninth century B.C.E.
A lot of changes occurred during the three centuries separating their presence in the region in
the 13th century B.C.E. from the foundation of the
Kingdom of Israel. Certain groups from among
the local population must have been absorbed into
Israel, while others left. The same is true for other
36
REBEL DWELLING? Hazor excavation codirector Sharon
Zuckerman believes that the enemy came from within
the Canaanite city. Based on this undestroyed private
dwelling in the lower city and the contrasting devastation
wrought in the upper city, Zuckerman concludes that the
local population revolted against the ruling class, damaging all signs of their power and elite status. Excavator
Amnon Ben-Tor disagrees, however, pointing out that
elite symbols and structures were always the targets of
outside conquerors as well, and that there isn’t enough
evidence to support Zuckerman’s claim about the lower
city’s private dwellings. He also notes that in antiquity
the lower classes would have considered it unthinkable
to challenge a ruler’s authority. Finally, he asks, if the
locals took control of the city, why were their homes left
abandoned for the next two centuries?
national groups: The Americans of today are certainly different from those two centuries ago, and
even more so the Israelis of today are very different
from those who were in the country just 65 years
ago when the State of Israel was founded. Such
changes do not justify considering the Israelites of
Merneptah and the inhabitants of the Kingdom of
Israel as two different peoples.
Biblical historiography, in particular the books of
Joshua–Kings, cannot be considered a completely
accurate account of the events described in them,
because they are motivated by a theological and—to
some extent—a political agenda. They do contain a
considerable number of true historical nuclei, however, and the account of the downfall of the last
Canaanite city of Hazor is very probably one of them.
C O N T I N U E S O N PA G E 5 8
*see Hershel shanks, “When Did Ancient israel Begin?” BAR, January/
February 2012; “Part ii: the Development of israelite religion,” Bible
Review, october 1992; Anson F. rainey, “rainey’s Challenge,” BAR,
November/December 1991.
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58
Qumranites labeled the Pharisees “seekers
after smooth things” (dorshe ha-halaqot
instead of dorshe ha-halakhot, “seekers
after the law”). The Pharisees made the
keeping of the law easier so that more
people could achieve holiness. I believe
this is what made the Pharisees popular.
What they sought to achieve with their
rather lenient interpretation of the law
was the sanctification and holiness of the
whole nation.
So far this argument is based solely on
textual interpretation. But there is also
an archaeological aspect to it. Yonatan
Adler recently discussed the “Interface of
Archaeology and Texts” in BAR.* He took
the Jewish stone vessels used in the land
of Israel (and only there) from the time of
Herod until Bar Kokhba (and only during
this time) as a key example of the way in
which texts can provide a more accurate
understanding of archaeological finds from
the same time. Archaeology alone can only
describe the sudden appearance of stone
vessels in the first century B.C.E. (with the
nearly parallel spread of Jewish ritual baths,
synagogues and other changes within the
material culture). Texts such as John 2:6
and rabbinic discussions help us understand these finds as related to Jewish ritual
purity. But what caused the Jewish people
suddenly to change their attitude toward
purity? The available textual evidence mentions the Pharisees as a new group gaining
influence at that time who, together with
their scribes, taught the people of Israel
how to live a life that pleases God. They
were concerned with pots and pans and
the tithing of kitchen herbs (see Matthew
23:23) not to make life in conformity with
the Torah harder, but to make it more
widely accessible. They pursued a halakhic
praxis that allowed all of Israel to participate in obedience to the law for the benefit
of all. This is why stone vessels became so
prominent for a short while. The Pharisees
encouraged their use, and the people liked
what they had to say. In those days, the
Pharisees were the “good guys.”
Roland Deines is professor of New Testament at the University of Nottingham in
the United Kingdom.
1 The
Pharisees are addressed as “hypocrites”
in the woes against them, see Matthew
23:13,15,23,25,27,29; and also Luke 11:40, 18:9–14.
*yonatan Adler, Archaeological Views: “At the interface of
Archaeology and texts,” BAR, November/December 2012.
2 Mishna Sota 3:4; b. T. Sota 22b; y. T. Sota 3:4
(19a); ARN A37/B45.
3 It is noteworthy that a similar scenario can
also be seen in the Nahum pesher from Qumran.
Here two Jewish groups that are antagonist to
each other but both—seen from the perspective of the scroll author—wrong with regard to
their teaching are described as fighting over the
“simple ones of Ephraim” (4Q Pesher Nahum
III, 5, see also II, 8–9), which is obviously the
same group as the Matthean “crowd.” The rival
factions are addressed using only the ciphered
names “Ephraim” and “Manasse,” and there are
good reasons to assume that the names stand
for the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who lead
the crowds—from the perspective of the Qumranites—astray. If we take this text at face value
for a moment, then the Pharisees are more
successful in their hold over the people than the
Sadducees, and the Qumranites can only wait
and hope that their deception will become obvious at the end of time (which the Qumranites
thought as being near).
Hazor
continued from page 36
Left with the early Israelites as the only
viable agent responsible for the destruction of Hazor, one may wonder how it
was possible for such a ragtag group of
people to bring down a mighty city like
Hazor. We need only look at analogous
instances of ancient states, and even
empires, being overwhelmed by “uncivilized” tribes—for example, the destruction of the Roman Empire by Germanic
tribes and the Arab conquest of Byzantine Palestine.*20
As for Canaan, after some 300 years
under oppressive Egyptian rule, it was
drained of most of its resources. Egyptian
documents tell us about constant military raids, during which the pharaoh’s
army lived off the land; what was not
consumed or taken as tax was burned.
Huge numbers of sheep, cattle and slaves
were taken to Egypt as well. The various
Canaanite cities were divided and poor.
Most of them were not fortified, and even
Canaanite Hazor’s fortifications probably
went partially out of use.21 The constant
disputes among the Canaanite city-states
are clearly reflected in the 14th-century
Amarna letters,** which also inform us of
the meager number of warriors kept by
the Canaanite rulers: Requests for military
*see yigael yadin, “is the Biblical Account of the israelite
Conquest of Canaan Historically reliable?” BAR, march/
April 1982.
**see Nadav Na’aman, “the trowel and the text,” BAR,
January/February 2009; Carolyn r. Higginbotham, “the
Egyptianizing of Canaan,” BAR, may/June 1998.
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3
assistance from neighbors often mention
no more than 10 to 50 men. The decline
in the 13th–12th centuries B.C.E. of all the
major powers that had previously ruled
the region has been documented and discussed thoroughly.22
Seizing the opportunity—while the
cat was away, the mice filled the power
vacuum and settled all over the region at
the end of the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200
B.C.E.): the Greeks in western Asia Minor,
the Sea Peoples in the eastern Mediterranean, the Arameans in Syria, the Arabs in
the Arabian peninsula—and the Israelites
in Canaan.
Canaan of the 13th–12th centuries
B.C E. was “ripe for the taking,” and the
early Israelites were in the right place at
the right time. None of the other potential
destroyers of Hazor can be held responsible. The early Israelites were in the
region at the time, and they are the only
ones who have a record of doing the deed.
They should therefore be credited with
having brought down Canaanite Hazor. a
1 Yohanan
Aharoni, The Settlement of the Israelite Tribes in Upper Galilee (Hebrew) (Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, 1957).
2 Yigael Yadin, Hazor, The Schweich Lecture
Series 1970 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972),
p. 109.
3 J. Allen, “A Hieroglyphic Fragment from
Hazor,” Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar
(2001), p. 15. See also Kenneth A. Kitchen, “An
Egyptian inscribed Fragment from Late Bronze
Age Hazor,” Israel Exploration Journal 53
(2003), p. 24.
4 Amnon Ben-Tor, “The Sad Fate of Statues of
Hazor,” in Seymour Gitin, George E. Wright and
J.P. Desel, eds., Confronting the Past: Archaeological and Historical Essays on Ancient Israel in
Honor of William, G. Dever (Winona Lake, IN:
Eisenbrauns, 2006), pp. 3–16.
5 Chr. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, “Hazor—A City
Between the Major Powers,” Scandinavian Journal of Old Testament 16 (2001), pp. 104–122.
6 Kenneth A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions Translated & Annotated, vol. II (London:
Blackwell, 1996), pp. 13–14, 20–21, map 11. The
same description of the route usually taken by
the Egyptians has also been defined by H. Jacob
Katzenstein, The History of Tyre from the Beginning of the Second Millennium B.C.E. Until the
Fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 538 B.C.E.
(Jerusalem: Shocken Institute, 1973), p. 53.
7 Volkmar Fritz, “Das Ende der Spätbronzezeitlische
Stadt Hazor Stratum XIII und die Biblische
Überlieferung in Josua 11 und Ricter 4,” Ugarit
Forschungen, vol. 5 (1973), pp. 123–139.
8 Sharon Zuckerman, “Anatomy of a Destruction:
Crisis Architecture, Termination Rituals and the
Fall of Canaanite Hazor,” Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 20 (2007) pp. 3–32.
9 Sharon Zuckerman, “Anatomy of a Destruction,” p. 3.
10 George E. Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation,
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59
the Origins of the Biblical Tradition (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins, 1973).
11 Sharon Zuckerman, “The Lower City of
Hazor (Notes and News),” Israel Exploration
Journal 58 (2008), pp. 234–236.
12 Yadin’s conclusion that “the end of stratum
IA [in Areas C and F] came about as a result
of fire, as indicated by the ashes found in the
less exposed areas excavated in Areas H and
K,” speaks for itself. Yadin, Hazor, The Schweich
Series, p. 37.
13 Yigael Yadin et al., Hazor vol. II (Jerusalem, 1960), pp. 49–50, 58, 63; Yadin et al. in
Amnon Ben-Tor and S. Geva, eds., Hazor, vol.
III–IV, 1957–1958, Text (Jerusalem: IES, 1989),
pp. 105–111.
14 Amnon Ben-Tor, Doron Ben-Ami, D. Sandhaus, Hazor: 1990–2009, vol. VI (Jerusalem:
IES, Hebrew Univ., 2012), pp. 306–344.
15 Nadav Na’aman, “Hazor in the FourteenthThirteenth Centuries B.C.E., in the Light of
Historical and Archaeological Research,” Eretz
Israel vol. 30 (Jerusalem 2011), p. 337.
16 Yohanan Aharoni, The Archaeology of the
Land of Israel (Philadelphia:Westminster Press,
1982), p. 178; M. Weippert, The Settlement of the
Israelite Tribes in Palestine (London: AllensonBreckinridge, 1971), p. 135; Yigael Yadin, “The
Transition from a Semi-Nomadic to a Sedentary Society in the Twelfth Century B.C.E.,”
in Frank M. Cross, ed., Symposia, Celebrating
the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Founding
TEACHERS:
Do You Have the
of the American Schools of Oriental Research,
1900–1975 (Cambridge, MA: ASOR, 1979), pp.
57–68.
17 “In short, in the case of Jericho and ‘Ai one
may speak of aetiological traditions, while in the
case of Hazor one may not.” Martin Noth, “Der
Beitrag der Archäologie zur Geschichte Israels,”
Supplements to the Vetus Testamentum vol. 7
(1959), p. 275.
18 Yadin, “The Transition from a Semi-Nomadic
to a Sedentary Society in the Twelfth Century
B.C.E.,” p. 66. As Frank Cross has observed: “I
find it bemusing that given the widespread evidence of destruction in Canaan at the end of the
Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron
Age, some scholars are inclined to attribute the
violence to various peoples, to almost anyone—
except Israel.” As Cross also notes: “Nomads
are not merely pastoralists but also warriors.”
(Frank Moore Cross, From Epic to Canon [Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1998], p. 70.)
19 J. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts
Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton:
Princeton Univ. Press, 1955), pp. 376–378; M.G.
Hasel, “Israel in the Merneptah Stela,” Bulletin
of the American Schools of Oriental Research 206
(1994), pp. 45–61.
20 Abraham Malamat, “Israelite Conduct of War
in the Conquest of Canaan According to the
Biblical Tradition,” in Cross, ed., Symposia, pp.
35–55.
21 Yigael Yadin et al., Hazor vol. III–IV, pp. 170,
264, 297; Amnon Ben-Tor, R. Bonfil and Alan
Paris, eds., Hazor, 1968, vol. V (Jerusalem: IES,
Hebrew Univ., 1997), p. 382.
22 A. Ward and M. Sharp-Joukowsky, eds., The
Crisis Years: The 12th Century B.C. (Dubuque:
Kendall/Hunt, 1992).
TOOLS
to teach about the
Ancient
Middle East?
the
Oriental
institute
Award winn ng
CURRICULUM
GUIDES
& on ne teache esources
Q&C
continued from page 11
with an epsilon where there should be an
eta, and the “ hode” is perhaps a misspelling
of the Greek word for “hither/here,” an initial
omicron where there should be an omega.
The “hooked” rho in the christogram
device suggests a date well into the Byzantine period.
Wet-sIFtING
Wet-Sifting: It’s in the Details
The article in the March/April issue of
BAR was very interesting (“Wet-Sift the
Megiddo Dumps!”). However, being a
novice I would like to know more details
about “wet-sifting.”
BILL WISE
CLANCY, MONTANA
o u ic
60
e u
u u /e uc on
Wet-sifting is a process whereby buckets of
dirt from an excavation or construction site
are emptied onto a framed screen and rinsed
with running water. The dirt falls through
the screen and artifacts remain on the surface of the screen. Wet-sifting is described as
being similar to panning for gold.—Ed.
PotPoUrrI
Beware of Circular Argument
in Forger Insight
Phil Norton’s letter to the editor (“Forgers
Use Cost-Benefit Analysis,” March/April
2013) is valid up to a point. However,
don’t lose sight of a certain circularity
of his argumentation: The more unlikely
seeming a hypothetical forger’s creative
strategy is, the more he is thereby proved
to be a potential master forger, and the
more suspicious we should be. The circularity is brought out, I think, if (as a mental experiment) we progressively escalate
the degree of unlikelihood, imputed mastery and resulting suspicion. By the syllogisms implicit in Norton’s approach, no
degree of unlikelihood can ever carry any
net probative weight whatsoever.
WILLIAM P. WADBROOK
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR
GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY
FAIRFAX, VIRGINIA
Desert Queen Appears in Photo
In your March/April issue (Strata: “New
Online Access to Records from British
Mandate Palestine”) you published a
1921 photograph taken in Jerusalem that
includes Winston Churchill and his wife;
Herbert Samuel, British Commissioner
for Palestine; the Emir Abdullah of Transjordan; and, in the front row amidst Arab
officers, an elegant British woman. This
is undoubtedly Gertrude Bell, a single
woman who had an extraordinary life as
an explorer, excavator/archaeologist and
mapmaker in the Middle East, obtaining
the loyalty and friendship of Arab leaders,
and with her connections and information
assisted T.E. Lawrence. After World War I
she played a major role, through her
friendship with Faisal I of Iraq, in creating a modern Middle East.
There is an excellent book by Janet
Wallach titled Desert Queen,* about this
extraordinary woman.
JUDITH OELFKE SMITH
FORT WORTH, TEXAS
*see also a review by Julia m. Asher-greve of Gertrude
Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by georgina
Howell (BAR, July/August 2008).
J U LY / A U G U S T 2 0 1 3