Excavations and surveys in Judah have found that in the 9th and 10th centuries...the time of any "David" or "Solomon" Jerusalem was a miserable little village of less than 1,000 people. Those surveys also showed that Judah was a poverty-stricken region of perhaps 20,000 people...mainly herders...with a few settlements scatttered across the landscape.
There is no way in hell such an insignificant region could have conquered any sort of empire. In fact, it wasn't until they obtained a measure of wealth and population under the auspices of the Assyrian Empire that they became targets for other nations. Before that, they weren't worth conquering.
Finkelstein goes into all this.
There is no way in hell such an insignificant region could have conquered any sort of empire. In fact, it wasn't until they obtained a measure of wealth and population under the auspices of the Assyrian Empire that they became targets for other nations. Before that, they weren't worth conquering.
Finkelstein goes into all this.
