For the last couple decades archaeologists have been arguing over whether Jerusalem was the kingly capital of David and Solomon, as the Bible reports, or just a backwater home of a couple of tribal chiefs who had good PR, as the lack of certain archaeological evidence might suggest. Andrew Vaughn, the executive director of the American Schools of Oriental Research–the main organization of archaeologists working in Israel and the surrounding region, brought a new perspective to the dispute in a talk to the Madison Biblical Archaeology Society last weekend.
Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar is right in the middle of the dispute. She has excavated a building in the City of David, the oldest area of Jerusalem, that she suggests may have been the palace that David built, as described in the Bible. Vaughn said that work by others in the area suggests that the large building was built a century or two earlier, by the Jebusites, who were conquered by David. But David may have used the building because diagnostic pottery from his time, the tenth century, was also found but not in a way that would confirm he built it.
The Size Issue
Vaughn says the more interesting question is why Jerusalem was such a small city during the period of David and Solomon, as far as can be determined archaeologically. He doesn’t buy the argument that David and Solomon were minor leaders. An inscription found at Tel Dan about 20 years ago refers to “the House of David,” in a manner that clearly indicates his regional influence.
But our concern about the small size of Jerusalem may have more to do with our modern expectations than whether the administrative center of a newly united kingdom had to have a certain geographical circumference. Vaughn points to Washington, D.C., as a moderen example. Like Jerusalem, the U.S. capitol’s location between the north and the south was a political decision.
Up until the Civil War, Washington was a very small city. But then when it no longer had to be concerned about overshadowing Richmond to the south, and rather had to be concerned about defending itself from southern aggression, it grew quickly. “So what we see is this natural growth which is really consistent with the biblical text,” said Vaughn. “It’s just not consistent with what we’re used to thinking because we had this notion that a capital city needed to be large.”
An interview with Vaughn speaking about Jerusalem in the time of David and Solomon is featured this week on the Book & the Spade radio program.
Archaeology Meetings
The Madison Biblical Archaeology Society was started 45 years ago by UW-Madison professor Menahem Mansoor and has hosted many of the top names in Biblical Archaeology over the years, including Kathleen Kenyon and Yigal Yadin.
At Sunday afternoon’s meeting, long-time members were recalling the 1975 visit of Frank Moore Cross for an exhibition Mansoor arranged called The Book & The Spade. Cross, who died last week, was an expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls but commonly relied on photographs of the scrolls. When he came to Madison he finally saw first hand one of the centerpiece texts of his research, which Mansoor had arranged to have sent from Jerusalem to include in the exhibition.
Afterwards several of the members were walking with Cross to the parking ramp and it was suggested that they should celebrate the exhibition with some ice cream. So they trooped into the Burger King on the corner and chatted with the pre-eminent Hebrew scholar further about his epigraphical research.
Information on upcoming meetings of the Madison Biblical Archaeology Society is posted on the MBAS website.