RE: Made in Alexandria: The Origin of the Yahweh Cult
April 1, 2013 at 10:37 pm
(This post was last modified: April 1, 2013 at 10:53 pm by Minimalist.)
Quote:As you know the prism you like was found in the royal palace in the ruins of Nineveh. Would you tell me what has been found in the royal palaces of the listed people? Your correct response is, What palaces?
You want to compare the Assyrian Empire to "Israel" and the even poorer "Judah?"
Because they DID build palaces but to think that they would rival Nineveh is setting the bar a tad high. "Palace" in this case meaning a place for the king and his immediate retinue to have a place to crash and party for a while before moving on. Samaria, built by the Omride Dynasty, hardly deserves the sobriquet of "city" either. A lot of archaeological texts I have read seem to prefer the term "Administrative Center" meaning a palace, some storehouses, maybe a stable and a defensive palisade where the local populace could take refuge in case of an attack....by an army with no capability for serious siege operations.
It is true that there is a serious lack of monumental inscriptions by the 9th century Israelites. We do have some ostraca with general bookkeeping entries and some odds and ends which is consistent with Finkelstein's observations about the growth of literacy in primitive states. Does not help us a lot, though.
Hezekiah, a century or so later did have some monumental inscriptions and the likelihood is that he had a "palace" but there is no indication of any temple. I do not find that at all surprising as even the OT itself tells us that the Canaanites worshiped at "high places." The only thing which claims that Hezekiah's countrymen were not merely Canaanites is the OT and we both agree on the reliability of that piece of shit.
Quote:Question for you: Taking into account all the known physical evidence what is your theory as to who wrote it and when and what do you believe its contents represent?
That would take a book.
