Lecture 5: Solomon’s Jerusalem
I’m still having a hard time following everything because I am unclear on the chronology, even though I have been doing research on it for clarification. I just tried to jot down everything he is saying in lecture! So it might be somewhat confusing because I’m having a tough time linking it all together into a bigger picture.
Here’s what I gathered:
We are using text to show all of history about Solomon because we don’t have any archaeological proof that they existed. We can look at Solomon’s Prayer of Dedication: “I have indeed built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever.” In 1 Kings 8: still get idea of deity dwelling in a building but this changes over time, out of necessity. Used to be that God actually physically dwells in the temple. The temple is promised by God, Solomon built it, and the reason for the ark is to provide a physical house for God. King Solomon is famous for being wise and there are traditions that Solomon wrote a lot of the “wisdom” books. Ecclesiastes is so different from the rest of the Bible, it is a very wise book whereas Song of Songs is very provocative and is said to “soil the hands.” Soloman had 700 wives and 300 concubines in his harem, and that is why is he said to be the author of Song of Songs.
What remains of Solomon’s Jerusalem. No Palaces. We don’t have evidence for the first temple is because it got destroyed and Herod took out all the remains of the what was there prior when he rebuilt the temple. Is the absence of evidence, evidence of absence? David and Solomon did exist but they were not as opulent or important as the Bible says they are. That is the modern idea for some scholars. Others say that we should accept the only accounts we have of them (Bible). Mediggo is where every battle in ancient Israel took place and this is where the term Armageddon came from. We were then shown two different scholar’s ideas about the dating of the region, and each side is looking at the same evidence but formulating completely different ideas.
Jews and Muslims alike did not want scholars excavating Ophel but it did get excavated and some things were found. This is the one place we can be sure Jesus physically was was on the steps of the temple. They found a small inscription that shows that there was semitic writing on an inscription; it mentions water.
What Remains? No temple, no palaces, literary remains, fragmentary Archaeological evidence and a list of administrators in Solomon’s Palace. Scholars have argued that there might be evidence of the worship of other gods. There is also the idea that God had a wife? This idea went away once we went into a monotheistic way of thinking. Monotheism: we only worship one god. That is different from the idea that there IS only one god. There are two pillars at the front of the palace and maybe these pillars represent God and his wife. Maybe they are phallic symbols, or even just for decoration. The parts came from Lebanon’s cedar trees.
There are parallels for Solomon’s temple: the Tel Ta’yinat has a similar Room in the back, room in the front, and two pillars. Ain Dara has similar features too. All the gates we find leading into these places are very similar. The comparative archaeological evidence of Tel Ta’yinat and ‘Ain Dara and textual evidence (1 Kings 6) demonstrates that “Solomon’s Temple” (the first temple in Jerualem) was patterned after other Near Eastern temples in Syria and Turkey.
More About David’s Jerusalem
Here is what I gathered from today’s lecture!
Many scholars question whether or not David existed. While many stories were written about David and Solomon, there was no hard evidence. Then they found the Tel Dan Inscription which mentions “bait David” or House of David. (Bait means house in Arabic too). This doesn’t mean he existed, but it does mean that there was a house of David that was conquered. We then discussed Warren’s Shaft which was the shaft used to access waters of the Gihon Spring. Scholars are doubting the place was created by man…looks like it is a natural shaft. 1 Chronicles 11 indicates that Joab climbed up the shaft to get into the Jebusite city. Joab was the first who went up shaft and became chief of the army. See 2 Samuel and 2 Chronicles which is text that refers to physiological property in the city that wasn’t discovered until after the claim was made.The Saloam Channel is water from Gihon spring to southern end of the city. The Gihon spring is a siphonic spring, and Gihon means gushing. Average gush is about 40 minutes long and the average period between gushes is about 6-8 hours. But it is still not enough water for Jerusalem today. We then discussed the Anointing of Solomon. Names ending in “iah” means coming from the Divine name and names ending in “L” is also a reference to God. To make Solomon a new king, they rode him down on a donkey to the Gihon spring where he was anointed. Kings were anointed by riding in on a donkey past the spring, and Jesus Himself later did the same ritual when he rode into Jerusalem. In fact, the same phrase “gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey” is also used when Jesus rides into the city of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. This means he has to go through Kidron to the Gihon spring. Is it a humble text? Jesus is making a claim of royalty and Matthew shows this because it is direct reference to Zechariah. The “victorious” part was left out in Matthew’s text. The Hezekiah Tunnel Inscription is an account of the tunneling and expansion of the waterworks. The inscription was found in the tunnel on the wall. John 9:1-11 makes a reference to pool of Siloam where Jesus performs a miracle. The Ark of the Covenant was a portable Shrine for God; now they have conquered a land and they need a permanent place to put it so they make a temple. After the Ark of the Covenant goes into the temple, we don’t hear about it until the temple is destroyed, then we get more images of it. Up until the creation of the Ark of the Covenant, God had banned all kinds of gold and wood idols. But in Exodus 25, God asks them to make the Ark of the Covenant with a seat, and inscription of two cherubim. Cant touch it so there are two poles looped through. Shedu and Lammasu are cherubim guardians. Protectors or guardians to an entrance or throne or something. The Ark comes to Jerusalem and Uzzah dies when he accidentally touches the Ark in an effort to save it. David moves it out of town because people keep accidentally touching it and dying. But everyone who is near the covenant flourishes, so he brought it back into Jerusalem. David does an excited dance and his wife the queen is disgusted. David builds himself a huge beautiful palace and the Ark is still sitting in a tent. He has not built the temple yet! We will see in the next lecture how that comes to be. We got out early today, thank God, because I am so tired. Don’t think my brain can handle much more!
Lecture 3: Caananite Jerusalem and David’s Jerusalem
So I figured out the best way for me to take notes, and that is by outline. When I was writing on the slides, I was missing important information. I am giving a rough skeleton of the actual facts presented on the slides with their relevance and what i understood from the lecture. Even though I went to a Christian elementary and middle school, and I go to church occasionally, I am still having a hard time remembering who all of these people are and how it all fits together! So my task for this weekend is to seek more help. Anyways, just as Professor Cargill taught us in the beginning, we have to question everything. And it never really dawned on me that parts of the Bible contradict each other. In fact, I never really even noticed. I just read it for what it was and I wasn’t reading closely. I was probably zoning out in Bible study (I was like 5 years old) or just listening to the coolness of the stories without thinking about it. I’ve come to realize that I don’t take the Bible too literally. Yes, I’m Christian/Catholic. And yes I believe in God and that Jesus is the Messiah, but I can also look at these texts with a more objective and historical viewpoint. I used to be closed minded about this and think that the Bible was to be taken literally, but in recent years, I’ve decided that that route may be a little radical. Anyways, here are my notes from today!
Jerusalem before David
· Earliest Settlement
o Chalcolithic Period
o Continuous Settlement until today
· Main Settlement Factors
o Water: Gihon Spring
o Agriculture
o Communication and Trade
Bronze Age Jerusalem
· Try to back up biblical text with hard facts. Some claims are backed by evidence and others are not.
· We do have evidence of Bronze Age pottery from Jerusalem
Jerusalem in the Earliest Non-Biblical Texts
· Execration Texts
o ~ 1900 BCE
o Wrote the names of enemies on them and then smashed them. Idea of sympathetic magic.
o Include Rusalimmum: a reference to Jerusalem. Means that we have a literal reference to Jerusalem going back to 1900 BCE. Not only did it have people living there, but it was a big enough city to be worthy of a hate text
· Fortifications
o Wall found a wall and tower of a gate near Gihon
o Could be the “Fountain Gate” mentioned in the Bible.
o Pool Tower: to protect the Gihon Spring
§ May be the same pool tower (Tower of Siloam) as mentioned in Luke. Luke likes to make references to geographical and historical items. It makes his work seem more credible. He tries to incorporate historical context so you believe or understand more of the story.
· Amarna Letters
o ~1350 BCE
o Why would letters be written from Canaan to Egypt? From kings all over Canaan to Egypt saying we’re being oppressed, send help. Then Egypt sends help to them.
o The sacrificial table
§ Text from one of the letters: From King of Jerusalem to Pharoah
ú Consider Jerusalem and send me money so I can take on these other guys. Making deals with the strongest nation so that they can be protected from other countries
Earliest Biblical Account of Jerusalem
· “Abraham and Melchizedek”
o Letter from King Salem making a reference to Jerusalem
· Early Political History
o Joshua 10: There are kings mentioned in the Bible prior to David.
Textual Problem with the “Conquest”
· Joshua 10: Joshua obliterating the entire population of the town. We know that the Israelites wiped them out as God had commanded them
· Joshua 21: Not one of their enemies withstood them. All the promises were fulfilled.
· Joshua 24: Jebusites killed. Everyone had been wiped out.
· 3 accounts describing how everyone in the town had been killed
· BUT
· Joshua 15: Jebusites could not be driven out
· Judges 1: What Caananites? The book before said they wiped them all out
· Judges 8: Conquered Jerusalem
· Judges 21: Jebusites could not be driven out of Jerusalem
· Good question: What is going on here? Great for research paper
· This is why scholars think that the Bible was written by many authors.
How did the Israelites get there?
· Three scholarly ideas
o Conquest/Non-Conquest
§ What the Bible says, even though parts might be stretching the truth, is basically true
o Immigration
§ Israelites may have slowly immigrated into Israel. Once they moved in, they told great stories of how they got there. Yes the Israelites weren’t from there, they came there, and that is where stories came from
o Mixed Ethnic Origin
§ The people who came to be known as the Israelites were Caananites. They were always there in Caanan. They gradually came to be known as Israelites, but they had always been there.
§ Ezekiel 16: Hittites and Amorites were people who already lived in Caanan. Contradicts the Exodus narrative.
o Know these theories
“The Jebusite City”
· 2 Samuel: Jerusalem is so impenetrable that David could not take over.
· 2 Chronicles: David issues a warning. David becomes king and Joab becomes general.
Who is David? · David and Goliath · “A man after God’s own heart” · Can be so incredibly good and so evil at the same time · His army conquers part of Jerusalem and calls it the City of David Maps · Hill of Offense: Where Solomon built idols to other gods. Using Biblical text to perpetuate political gain. · The Millo o Area G: lots of excavations. Some kind of support above the Gihon spring for whatever was built on top. § House of Ahiel ú 4 room house. Evidence supporting a unique Israelite people. A very common design. ú House of Bullae: clay impressions that have hardened. Two people listed on Bullae are listed in the bible. One is Gemaryahu ben Shaphan. Seal found in context with name of someone found in the Bible. Is this a common name? Referred to as a place where scrbal activity could have taken place. House of a scribe? Also name of Ezariah. Is this enough evidence to say that the person in the Bible really existed? o Stepped Stone Structure…was is used to support the upper structure of David’s palace? The existence of David was controversial. A lot of Biblical scholars denied that David existed. David is never mentioned outside of the Bible until in Tel Dan, there was an inscription found that brags about all those who had been conquered. One of the people who were defeated were from the House of David. This doesn’t prove that David was existed. It does demonstrate that there were people who referred to themselves as the House of David.
Lecture 2: More on Sacred Space
First, Professor Cargill reviewed the importance of the dates associated with the Jewish Temple. It was rebuilt and destroyed many times and the dates and details are included in the lecture notes. He then discussed the construction of the temples and ziggurats. He explained that to avoid arguments of how they are to be made or look, the builders said that God Himself gave him the plans as a part of His own design. They were founded and given to His people by divine decree. He then discussed how sacred space is consecrated. Jerusalem also grabs and attracts stories to itself. Specific language in Genesis about the Garden of Eden could be about Jerusalem (Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, Euphrates) but because Jerusalem tends to attract more stories anyways, this could be a reason for it. Another example is that Mt. Moriah is said to be the site where Isaac was sacrificed. Time can also be seen as sacred, as well as space. The Sabbath day is one that should be kept holy and the religious practices that are tied to it should be practiced. After the temples were destroyed, the Jews began to partake in other rituals such as eating the proper foods, wearing the proper clothes, attending certain events. Space was no longer the only way in which they could be in a sacred state. Professor Cargill also talked more about Axis Mundi and its context within the books of Exodus, Chronicles and Matthew. Sacred spaces for each of the 3 religions includes The Temple Mount and The Western Wall for the Jews, The Holy Sepulcher for Christians, and The Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque for Muslims. He showed us that the Western Wall has cracks in which people can send or write down prayers and they will be put in the wall. The Tomb of Adam is said to be beneath the Holy Sepulcher. That’s so cool! Christians of all sects argue over time and space within the Sepulcher and so the only person with the key is Muslim to prevent arguments.
To be honest, these blogs were not my best. I am kind of confused and I feel scattered because I’m having a hard time conceptualizing and organizing all of this material. I see that some of it is explaining other parts but I am having a hard time staying on track and thinking through this chronologically and logically. I guess this is why I am not a history major!
My next blogs will be a lot better. I look forward to doing more of my own research to complement the lectures, hopefully enabling me to understand it more. Now…to find the sources!
Jerusalem as Sacred Space
Well, I finally figured out how to blog everything. It took 3 explanations and someone actually helping me in discussion to get it. But here it is! Hopefully it’s not too late. I’m excited for this class because I’d love to learn more about the history of the Middle East and the religions that are a central part of it. I’m Christian and Lebanese, more specifically Maronite, my great grandmother was born in Jerusalem before going back to Lebanon, my mom remarried a Jewish man and my roommate and best friend is Egyptian and Muslim. I want to know what the heck is going on around me and what happened throughout history. I’m glad to be doing these blogs because I feel like they are really going to help me remember stuff for the exams and for life, because repetition is the best way to drill it in. I’m not going to go into extreme detail because I feel like the slides and lectures posted are very thorough. I’m going to try to give give an overview and summary of the bigger picture.
Here is what I got from the first lecture:
Jerusalem is one of the holiest cities in the world, along with Mecca and Rome. A place becomes sacred because of the belief that something significant happened there or that something significant will happen there. It can also become sacred if someone important was born there. Once this is witnessed, crowds gather to see it and it eventually becomes an important site where everyone can go visit and see it. Jerusalem became sacred because of events that happened there, and also because of some geographical features. Jerusalem is surrounded by valleys and is perched on a hill, which is important for defense against attackers. It does not have any major trade routes running through it and it only has one small source of water, the Gihon spring. Jerusalem didn’t become significant until the people there figured out a way to irrigate and supply the city with water. Water is the #1 important thing to create or aid the development of any major city or civilization. Aside from physical reasons, water is also seen as sacred in many religions and groups, especially Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The Bible refers to water as sacred in Genesis, Ezekial, Revelation (no S!), and others. Sacred space, in general, must be founded and consecrated. Eliade refers to axis mundi, or the center of the world, as the most sacred. To show how space is created as sacred, examples of etiologies were given. An etiology is an attempt to explain some naturally occurring phenomenon with moral, ethical or moral values. The Tower of Babel is an example of an etiology because the existence of different languages around the world is explained by God scattering them, not by sociological or anthropological reasons. The example of Jacob’s ladder is given and this is important because the story suggests a promise of fertility to Jacob, and he then constructed and consecrated the space.
