Biblical Archaeology and Identity: Israel Finkelstein and his Rivals
By Shimon Amit – The Bible and Interpretation – May 2016
O artigo de Shimon Amit mapeia os aspectos sociopolíticos e retóricos do discurso sobre a arqueologia da Palestina no Israel atual. O autor procura mostrar que a investigação e as interpretações teóricas sobre o tema não podem ser separadas de identidades e tendências sociopolíticas. O artigo aborda especialmente os trabalhos de Israel Finkelstein, Yosef Garfinkel e Eilat Mazar.
O artigo é uma síntese de um texto maior publicado pelo autor em HPS Science, em 26 de fevereiro de 2016: Israel vs. Judah: The Socio-Political Aspects of Biblical Archaeology in Contemporary Israel.
Shimon Amit é o editor do site HPS Science.
The article traces the sociopolitical and rhetorical aspects of the discourse in biblical archaeology in contemporary Israel. Through the article I will show that research and theoretical interpretations cannot be separated from identities and socio-political biases. Generally, Zionist archaeologists are much less skeptical towards the Bible than Palestinian archaeologists, pro-Palestinian minimalists or Israeli post-Zionists. Since the 1990s, a new school from Tel Aviv University has been developing and promoting a new paradigm of Low Chronology, which denies the existence of a United Monarchy in the days of the Judahite Kings David and Solomon. Despite the success of the new paradigm, a conservative school, whose prominent representatives come from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, challenges the new paradigm and tries to protect or update the old paradigm of High Chronology. The most controversial excavation sites today are the City of David site and the ancient city excavated at Khirbet Qeiyafa. The article analyzes the struggle between the schools about the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, as it reflects in articles, books, lectures, presentations, interviews and heated debates in the media.