historia

Jim West continua hoje sua resenha do documentário The Bible Unearthed: The Making of a Religion, que classifiquei no sumário do blog sob o marcador, etiqueta, rótulo ou “label” se quiser, arqueologia.

O primeiro episódio tratou dos patriarcas. Neste segundo episódio o assunto é o êxodo. Não perca de jeito nenhum o post The Bible Unearthed: The DVD- A 4 Part Review– Part 2 [Obs.: blog apagado – 22.03.2008].

Livius – articles on ancient history

Sobre a inscrição de Behistun, da qual falei no post anterior, leia também no site Livius – articles on ancient history, de Jona Lendering, an expert on Antiquity and lectures in Mediterranean history at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, na seção Achaemenid Royal Inscriptions.

BDTNS – Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts

The Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts (or BDTNS, its acronym in Spanish) is a searchable electronic corpus of Neo-Sumerian administrative cuneiform tablets dated to the 21st century B.C. During this period, the kings of the Third Dynasty of Ur built an empire in Mesopotamia managed by a complex bureaucracy that produced an unprecedented volume of written documentation. It is estimated that museums and private collections all over the world hold at least 120,000 cuneiform tablets from this period, to which should be added an indeterminate number of documents kept in the Iraq Museum. Consequently, BDTNS was conceived by Manuel Molina (CSIC) in order to manage this enormous amount of documentation (…) The work on BDTNS began, therefore, in 1996 at the Instituto de Filología (now Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo y Oriente Próximo) of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid. Six years later, in 2002, it appeared online.

George Mendenhall falou a OpEdNews sobre as origens de Israel. Leia primeiro aqui, para ficar ciente de quem é George Mendenhall – caso você ainda não o conheça – e depois leia a primeira parte da entrevista feita por Burton H. Wolfe sob o título The Common Origin of and Split Between Arabs and Jews – Part One of an Interview with Professor George E. Mendenhall.

Kevin A. Wilson participou do encontro anual da EABS – European Association of Biblical Studies – que aconteceu neste ano de 2006 em Budapeste, na Hungria, entre os dias 6 e 9 de agosto. Em seu biblioblog Blue Cord ele relata alguns pontos do Encontro, entre eles as discussões do grupo que forma o European Seminar in Historical Methodology. O Seminário vem acontecendo, de uns anos para cá dentro dos encontros da EABS, como relato no item 2 de um artigo sobre o tema, que pode ser visto aqui.

Ele relata:

The seminar was started by Phillip Davies, and it includes Rainer Albertz, Thomas Thompson, and Niels Peter Lemche (although the latter two were not able to attend this year). It is somewhat unfair to refer to this as a minimalist-only camp, however, as it also includes Marc Zvi Brettler and Joseph Blenkinsopp. Papers for the seminar were circulated in advance, so most of the time was spent in discussion.

Algumas indicações presentes em seu relato:

The first paper was by Blenkinsopp. It was on the Midianite hypothesis for the origins of Yahwism. The difference with his paper, however, was that he proposed that Yahwism came in through Judah, whereas most see it as coming in through Israel(…) The second paper was by Brettler, who argues that the stories of David not killing Saul when he had the chance have little historical basis (…) The third paper was by Davies, who argued that even if the Tel Dan inscription does refer to the house of David, it doesn’t tell us anything of importance (…) The final paper was given by Lester Grabbe on historical information about David and Solomon (…) Since my book [The Campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I into Palestine. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005] is the latest work on Shoshenq, they wanted me to talk for a few minutes about my research.

Ainda sobre Davi e Salomão de Finkelstein e Silberman.

Graças a Jim Davila, no PaleoJudaica.com, leio:

Old Testament dispute continues: Was King David Judaism’s King Arthur? [link desaparecido!]

Tem gente incomodada com Finkelstein e Silberman por causa do livro sobre Davi e Salomão

 

Old Testament dispute continues. Was King David Judaism’s King Arthur?

Some scholars are busily debunking the Bible’s account of the great King David, asking: Was he really all that great? Was he largely legendary, Judaism’s version of Britain’s legendary King Arthur or totally fictional?

These matters are crucial not only for Jews but for Christians, since Jesus’ biblical identity as the messiah stems from David’s family line.

Skepticism about the Hebrew Bible’s history was promoted to popular audiences in “The Bible Unearthed” (2001) by Tel Aviv University archaeologist Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman. Their most recent book focuses on “David and Solomon” (Free Press).

Though some scholars claimed David never existed, in 1993 archaeologists discovered a stone inscription from 835 B.C. that mentions “the house of David.” The authors say that established the existence of a dynastic founder named David and that shortly after his 10th-century era a line of kings “traced their legitimacy back to David.”

However, Finkelstein considers the Bible seriously distorted propaganda. He treats David as a minor bandit chieftain and Jerusalem as a hamlet, not an imperial capital. Supposedly, biblical authors concocted the grander David centuries afterward. The book also implies that his successor, Solomon, didn’t build the Temple.

Finkelstein notes that archaeologists haven’t found monumental buildings from David’s era in Jerusalem. He dismisses links of David and Solomon with buildings unearthed at biblical Megiddo and Hazor. Ordinary readers might not grasp that this depends upon a disputed “low chronology” which would shift dates a century, just after these kings.

In the July-August issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Michael Coogan of Stonehill College, editor of The New Oxford Annotated Bible, contends that Finkelstein and Silberman “move from the hypothetical to the improbable to the absurd.”

Finkelstein’s revised chronology is “not accepted by the majority of archaeologists and biblical scholars,” Coogan asserts, citing four scholarly anthologies from the past three years.

Coogan also thinks “David and Solomon” downplays the significance of the Amarna tablets, which include correspondence to Egypt’s pharaoh from a 14th-century Jerusalem king. Even if archaeological remains at Jerusalem are lacking, he writes, the tablets indicate that long before David, Jerusalem was the region’s chief city-state, with a court and sophisticated scribes.

Discovery of ancient remains in Jerusalem is problematic due to the repeated reconstruction throughout the centuries and the modern inaccessibility of many sites.

Nonetheless, perhaps David’s palace has been found. So claims Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar. Finkelstein denies this, claiming Mazar inaccurately dated pottery from the site. “Here, for the time being, matters rest,” summarizes Hillel Halkin in the July-August Commentary magazine.

Jerusalem feuds aside, skepticism about David seems to be countered by recent discoveries in the biblical land of Edom (present-day southwest Jordan), also described in Biblical Archaeology Review by field experts Thomas Levy and Mohammad Najjar. Levy is a University of California, San Diego, archaeologist and Najjar directs excavations for Jordan’s Department of Antiquities.

According to the Hebrew Bible, Edom had kings before Israel (Genesis 36:31), barred Moses’ wandering Israelites (Numbers 20:14-21) and later warred with King David (2 Samuel 8:13-14, 1 Kings 11:15-16).

Until now, many scholars have said that’s all bogus because there was no archaeological evidence for a state in Edom until long after David’s day. Finkelstein and Silberman typified such skepticism in “Bible Unearthed,” which said Edom achieved kingship and statehood only in the seventh century B.C.

But Levy and Najjar say lack of evidence is never conclusive, and in this case previous archaeologists dug in the wrong place. They’ve now excavated a major fortress that — to their surprise — is dated by radiocarbon tests in David’s era. An adjacent copper mill goes back another one to two centuries, closer to Moses’ time.

Biblical references have gained “new plausibility,” they conclude.

Fonte: Richard N. Ostling – The Associated Press: Aug 4, 2006

O Quinquagésimo Segundo Congresso Internacional de Assiriologia será realizado em Münster, Alemanha, de 17 a 21 de julho de 2006. O tema: Krieg und Frieden im Alten Vorderasien. Veja o programa, os participantes, as palestras.

O local do Congresso é o Institut für Altorientalische Philologie und Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde da Westfälische Wilhelms-Universtität, de Münster.

Aproveite e visite a homepage do Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale – Congresso Internacional de Assiriologia -, que lista os congressos já realizados e futuros.

A visita a esta página é um bom passo para se conhecer o mundo da assiriologia.

Chuck Jones nos dá ciência, na lista de discussão ANE-2, de interessante site sobre a história da Antiga Mesopotâmia, atual Iraque. Criado com propósitos educativos, o site Ancient Mesopotamia: This History, Our History vale uma cuidadosa visita. O material usado foi escolhido entre os artefatos arqueológicos da coleção do Museu Mesopotâmico do Instituto Oriental da Universidade de Chicago, USA.

Você se lembra de Thomas L. Thompson, não?

Da tese sobre os patriarcas? Da Escola de Copenhague? É sim. Então leia no biblioblog do Jim [Obs.: blog apagado: 22.03.2008] o seguinte post:

Thomas Thompson In The News