First Evidence of a Cult in Judah at Time of King David

[Adsos Letter]

ScienceDaily (May 8, 2012)

— Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, the Yigal Yadin Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, announced May 8 the discovery of objects that for the first time shed light on how a cult was organized in Judah at the time of King David. During recent archaeological excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fortified city in Judah adjacent to the Valley of Elah, Garfinkel and colleagues uncovered rich assemblages of pottery, stone and metal tools, and many art and cult objects. These include three large rooms that served as cultic shrines, which in their architecture and finds correspond to the biblical description of a cult at the time of King David.

This discovery is extraordinary as it is the first time that shrines from the time of early biblical kings were uncovered. Because these shrines pre-date the construction of Solomon's temple in Jerusalem by 30 to 40 years, they provide the first physical evidence of a cult in the time of King David, with significant implications for the fields of archaeology, history, biblical and religion studies.

~"snip"~

The biblical tradition presents the people of Israel as conducting a cult different from all other nations of the ancient Near East by being monotheistic and an-iconic (banning human or animal figures). However, it is not clear when these practices were formulated, if indeed during the time of the monarchy (10-6th centuries BC), or only later, in the Persian or Hellenistic eras.

The absence of cultic images of humans or animals in the three shrines provides evidence that the inhabitants of the place practiced a different cult than that of the Canaanites or the Philistines, observing a ban on graven images.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120508103803.html
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Interesting article; not nearly long enough, but makes reference to Footsteps of King David in the Valley of Elah, which covers five years of excavations.

[intaglio]

1. I always find it amusing about this sort of archaology

that they confidently say "time of King David" when there is no evidence of a King David outside the Bible except one (heavily disputed) pot sherd with letters that possibly transliterate as "Dwd". It is like trying to date items in the UK with reference to "King Arthur".

[dimbear]

2. Yahoo's ANE group has lots of things to say about this....

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ANE-2/messages

That's a great group in general....

Note it's not at all certain that this settlement is Judean. Garfinkel is a well known maximalist, take with salt.

In particular, check out the famed ostracon. Which you can see in all its glory at wikisource. It's about as interpretable as the Voynich manuscript.

Fun.

[Adsos Letter]

4. Thanks for the link.

[tanyev]

3. marking to read later