David and Solomon’s kingdoms: Legend or History?

The David and Solomon’s kingdoms are no longer considered as historical by minimalist archaeologists. According to Israel Finkelstein and Neil Silberman, for example, authors of The BibleUnearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts, at the time of the kingdoms of David and Solomon, Jerusalem was populated by only a few hundred residents or less,which is insufficient for an empire stretching from the Euphrates to Eilath. They suggest that due to religious prejudice, the authors of the Bible suppressed the achievements of the Omrides. Some Biblical minimalists like Thomas L. Thompson go further, arguing that Jerusalem became a city and capable of being a state capital only in the mid-seventh century. Likewise, Finkelstein and others consider the claimed size of Solomon’s temple implausible. A review of methods and arguments used by these minimalists shows that they are impostors for writing history. The historical testimonies dated by a chronology anchored on absolute dates ( the backbone of history) are replaced by archaeological remains dated by carbon-14 ( the backbone of modern myths). The goal of these unfounded claims is clearly the charring of biblical accounts.

 One of the most fiercely debated issues in Biblical Archaeology today involves the historicity of the Bible and biblical chronology in the period of the United Monarchy in Jerusalem. Most of the evidence for this period of David and Solomon is found in the bible, and there is a decided lack of archaeological evidence to correlate the biblical narrative. Most archaeologists take the view that the Bible is a narrative of mythology interwoven with some historical elements; whereas some historians believe that the Bible, along with archaeological evidence, can be a valid historical source. This dichotomy of viewpoints is further divided into questions of chronology rebuilt from historical synchronisms dated by astronomy for historians, versus archaeological remains dated byCarbon-14 for archaeologists, and above all the reliability of ancient narratives. When the current conditions for excavation in Jerusalem and the complexity of occupational position are considered, it is not so unusual that there is little evidence of Davidic and Solomonic Jerusalem. The area of the citadel of the City of David is currently beneath private homes; therefore very little excavation has been done. Similarly, the Temple Mount covers the site of the Solomonic Temple, where it is impossible for religious and political reasons to conduct even an archaeological survey. Two factors in occupational deposition are important to consider: first of all, in hilly regions like Jerusalem, it is most practical to remove the earlier construction phases and debris down to bedrock when building new structures. Second, uninterrupted settlement, from the 10 to the early 6th centuries BCE, leaves less of an archaeological footprint than would a period of destruction or invasion, so it is understandable that there would be less data from this period.