An Attack on Tel Shiloh and the Biblical Narrative

I think I may have missed this hit piece on Shiloh's archaeological value at the time.

Excerpts:

About 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) north of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, just west of the Israeli settlement Shiloh, lies Tel Shiloh, an archaeological site that attracts tens of thousands of evangelical Christians every year.

There, Scott Stripling, an evangelical pastor from Texas, heads a dig...

...Stripling calls Tel Shiloh Israel's "first capital", based on the idea that Shiloh was the first capital of the Israelites for close to 400 years from the 15th century BCE. ...Biblical scholars beg to differ.

"Properly credentialed biblical scholarship does not assume the historicity of anything prior to King David [ca. 1010-970 BCE]," says Southern Methodist University Professor of Old Testament Susanne Scholz. "That Stripling projects the biblical stories into the historical record exposes him as a Christian fundamentalist. That's the origin of his drive to do archaeology at Tel Shiloh."

Scholz also points out that the claim that Shiloh was the capital of ancient Israel is "utter nonsense".

"Such statements are used to advance geopolitical goals," she says.

The first question an academic like her should be asked is: have you reviewed any of the results of the dig? After all, to depend on a news media site is really an inadequate source.

Has she reviewed the previous results of any earlier digs? The pottery? The walls? Etc.

Some of the studies:

- Buhl, Marie-Louise, & Svend Holm-Nielsen, Shiloh--The Danish Excavations at Tall Sailum, Palestine, in 1926, 1929, 1932 AND 1962: The Pre-Hellenistic Remains. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark, 1969.

- Finkelstein, Israel, et al. Shiloh: The Archaeology of a Biblical City. Tel Aviv, 1993.

- Hizmi, Hananya, and Reut Livyatan-ben-Arie. “The Excavations at the Northern Platform of Tel Shiloh the 2012-2013 Seasons [Translated from Hebrew].” Edited by D. Scott Stripling and David E. Graves. Translated by Hillel Richman. Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin 62 (2017): 35–52.

- Kaufman, Asher S. “Fixing the Site of the Tabernacle at Shiloh.” Biblical Archaeology Review 14.6 (Nov-Dec1988): 42-49.

- Schley, Donald G. Shiloh: A Biblical City in Tradition and History, Sheffield, 1989, 2009. 

and this from Stripling:

- Stripling, Scott. “The Israelite Tabernacle at Shiloh.” Bible and Spade 29.3 (Fall 2016): 88-95.

Or even a semi-academic presentation, as here.

Even Finkelstein accepts Shiloh as site of the Tabernacle (religion is not his driving force) and as 

"the sacred religious center of the Israelite population of the hill country"

More from Finkelstein, no Christian fundamentalist, here.

And in this article, evidence of Carbon-14 is presented dating a major conflagration at Shiloh at 1050 BCE, plus or minus 25 years, which corresponds with the Biblical narrative.

According to her CV, her archaeological experience is minimal:

Susanne Scholz is Professor of Old Testament at Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas. As a diasporic German-American feminist post-Holocaust scholar, she researches, writes, and teaches in the area of sacred text studies, primarily in Hebrew Bible studies.

Dr. Scholz holds a Ph.D. from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Born and raised in Germany, she studied at the University of Mainz and the University of Heidelberg while preparing for the equivalent of the Master of Divinity. She also studied in a one-year study program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, prior to coming to the United States. During these years, she participated at an archaeological dig at Tell el-Oreme/Tel Kinrot on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, led by one of her professors in Mainz.

I would suggest that perhaps it is Scholz who has an agenda rather than an independent objective body of knowledge.

The ongoing excavation and the investigation of the artifacts discovered are impressive and present real evidence and not just theories.

Maybe, when she gets the opportunity, she should visit Tel Shiloh?

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Brainwashed and Lied To

You are asked to believe this:

“Tourists coming here are brainwashed, they are lied to, they do not know this is our land”, said a Palestinian farmer living next to Shiloh settlement, where the Israeli government is funding a large visitor centre to draw tourists to an archaeological site.

Don't.

There are no lies at Shiloh.

We do know whose land this is.

We know what the Arabs did to the site before Jews returned.

We know exactly what Arab period remains are at the site.

Come and judge for yourself.

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Week Three at Tel Shiloh

The short version of what happened and was discovered at Tel Shiloh by Dr. Scott Stripling of ARB, his team and volunteers:-


In Squares AH29-30, Tim Lopez identified two more walls to add to his wall list – Roman, Iron Age (Israelite) and Middle Bronze Age (Canaanite)...on Friday...the dirt they dug was then sent to our new wet sifting station. There, Richard from my square, wet sifted the dirt and recognized an ancient Egyptian scarab. It had a cartouche with an Egyptian pharaoh’s name – but we’re not certain what it said. I thought I could read it, but wasn’t sure. We’ve sent it to an expert…and I’ll let you know how good my knowledge of hieroglyphics really is!

opened new Square AG29...finding a wall-line on Friday afternoon. Still, in all that dirt, his team uncovered a large number of wonderful finds – including seven coins, fragments of nine oil lamps, two slingstones and one stone mortar. Then on Friday his team discovered a ceramic object which no one knew for sure what it was- even our conservator said she had never seen one before! Best guess at the moment…an inkwell.

In Square AF29, we were able to find two more stones in the interior face of the Canaanite perimeter wall that runs the full width of our square. In the bulk take-down, we did find a number of interesting pottery sherds and small objects, including one coin, which were kept for further study. 

in AC28-89 and AD29, have been excavating a long stretch of the outer face of the 5m-wide Canaanite perimeter wall – and by the end of the week, they found a hole in the wall! Well, not exactly a hole, the wall was just stopped – from top to bottom! Yet it does not appear to be a gateway and neither does it appear to be part of the original Canaanite wall construction. 

In AF27 and AG27, Ruth Vanderford supervised the final clearing of the glacis – a 35-degree sloping earthen rampart constructed around the outside of the ancient perimeter wall. It was designed in antiquity to hinder attacking armies from reaching the wall and to protect the wall’s foundation from being undermined. Directly above the glacis, they found a large amount of disintegrated red mudbrick, apparently the fallen mudbrick superstructure of the perimeter wall’s stone foundation.

In Square AG30, Kevin Larsen and his team have four walls from a Roman house. It includes what looks like a circular stone column drum deliberately set in the corner of one room. In the next room was a restorable whole New Testament era storage jar along with an unusual stone mortar found in situ within the same room. While the base was flat, the bowl of the mortar sat at a 30-degree angle, seemingly tilted especially for someone’s convenience while sitting on the floor. Finally, one of the corners in this house is created with well-cut stones – maybe the finest Roman room corner in all Israel – probably not…but it was still really well-constructed!

Suzanne Lattimer’s team, in AE29, sits next to mine and she has also uncovered the inner face of the city wall – giving us about 10m of continuous exposure. They have also cleared the wall’s top – almost to the outer face. And, in the process, they found a large dump of Roman pottery – the largest pile of broken pottery we’ve found on the site.

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What Has Been Found at Tel Shiloh Recently?

From Week Two of Dr. Scott Stripling's excavations:


an intact Iron Age saucer oil lamp

a mendable bag jar from the Roman era

a bronze arrow head

a decorative ceramic pomegranate

hundreds of sherds related to several Middle Bronze Age storage jars and pitho

a number of small kitchen vessels such as grinding stones

sling stones

multiple rows of a MB III wall

the remnants of two MBII storage jars

a scarab (this is now the third scarab found to date)

a fully intact glacis/rampart to the city in Square AG27 as well as the remnants of the fallen mud brick wall just east of Smith’s square. A number of MB pottery sherds embedded in the glacis helped date the wall to that period.

30 coins, which included 10 coins from the Danish/Finkelstein dump. Our grand total for two weeks is 53. Other metal finds include a bronze chisel, a sword or dagger point, an iron ring, and an assortment of sandal tacks.

the wet sifting work yielded a number of small finds such as Roman glass, beads, and stone vessel fragments

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And Down at Tel Shiloh

My veteran followers know my awe of the archaeological work that has been done at Tel Shiloh.

I have studied the Danish excavation report.

with Era Rappaport I went down to visit with Israel Finkelstein during his 1981-84 dig to see the sometimes daily progress then, followed the digs of the basilicas of Yitzchak Magen and on to Reut Ben-Arie who also worked on the City of David excavations (her Shiloh report is here)

Of course, while trying to locate the Tabernacle is a central aspect

Photo by Barry Kramer and graphics by Jerry Taylor

there is much much more about the Tel. Well the good news now is that Dr. Scott Stripling's ABR second season has begun. His introduction/overview to the Tel is a must read. The first season's reports are here. Here is his grid:

 

There I am at last year's visit.

I went down to the Tel get reacquainted with the work being done last Friday and Scott was as courteous as ever:

There were animal teeth:

and flat-bottomed pottery and shards

and walls and rooms and and coins and such:

See the pottery shards?

From what Scott explained to me, this is going to be a great season. The Danish and Finkelstein teams' discarded soil will be resifted, thoroughly.  Bedrock has been reached in more places 

and the Canaanite (or Emorite) Wall is becoming more exposed and more defined. Interesting possibilities of the wall's elements are becoming apparent.

You can listen to Eve Harow's interview with Scott

That yellow-marked area is a pit with some great finds.

Looking forward to more.

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P.S. Try this clip.

Chanukah Archaeology at Tel Shiloh

New finds at Tel Shiloh (in Hebrew).  And now in English.

Remember Emek Shaveh's wars and campaigns against Israel's archaeology administration beyond the Green Line, but not only?  We have news for them (below, keep scrolling).

Remember this?

Mizrachi also cites the Tel Shiloh and Sussiya archeological sites in the West Bank as problematic because they are run by settlers instead of a neutral body of experts.
“These sites have been handled very badly by settlers who use them to justify their settlements there and have ignored many layers of archeological evidence to focus on the Bible regarding their finds,” he says.
“We regularly criticize the way their finds are being presented because it’s always linked to the settlement. Now, I’m not saying that there is no Jewish history at these sites – we do believe Jewish history is there – but we are saying you cannot only focus on this period and ignore the whole story.”

These things and also these unnerve them to insanity. 

And these events:

Searching for the Lost Oil Lamp

Chana's Prayer

Dance Festival

Well, now the news.

See that spot?

Well, that was formerly a Hellenistic period non-Jewish dwelling area.  It's preserved.  Tel Shiloh people don't destroy or hide things.  The pottery and other artifacts attest to its identity.

And in the 2nd century BCE, during the time of the rule of Antiochus IV, it was razed by a conquering force.  It was a violent act.  And it was done by the Hasmoneans during the revolt against an oppressive rule.

Yes.

The Chanukah story.

The archaeology excavation was supervised by the Civil Administration's Archaeology Unit headed by Hanina Hizami and conducted by Reut Livyatan Ben-Aryeh.

The Hebrew Yedioth Ahronot item with a lamp and a coin from the period of Antiochus III:

There is evidence of a fire, smashed jugs and ballista stones.  Other evidence included a fish bowl and handles of wine containers:

The site then became the residence of Jews. The proof for that are mikvaot, coins of the Hasmonean dynasty, the Herodian dynasty as well as from the period of the Great Revolt against Rome, 67-70CE.

Archaeology - from then to today.

And there's this at Susiya, too.

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Amos Schocken and I at Tel Shiloh

Recently, at my invitation, I was host, together with others, to Amos Schocken, owner and publisher of Ha'Aretz, and led a tour accompanied by archaelogist Reut Ben-Aryeh of Tel Shiloh.

Mr. Schocken spent almost two hours with us and was very attentive and interested in the site's history and the finds.  No politics were discussed.

Photo credits: Tamar Talmudi-Asraf
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Working at Jam'a A-Sattin

Jam'a A-Sattin (the 'Friday Hangout' Mosque) is just outside and south of the main Tel Shiloh area.  It was a Roman period building that was converted to a mosque when the Arabs invaded, conquered and then occupied the Land of Israel.

I've blogged about it before.

Recently, it has been undergoing a cleaning out and the walls are being strengthened and the site is being extended to the fullest of its boundaries.

I visited this past week and here are some photographic evidence:

More here.

Here is what piqued my interest as an amateur archaeologist.  What was the purpose for what seems to be a large outside courtyard?  We can observe that the soil was raised by having the west side (to the right in the picture below) level to the eastern side of the structure:

The work being done to strengthen the walls:

The inside of the main room:

You can discern the added exterior support wall:

An additional room added on:

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New Shiloh Excavations at Jam'a A-Sittin

I have posted in the past about Jam'a A-Sittin.

It is to the south of Tel Shiloh 

And now that the news is out, I am posting to let you know that a new archaelogical excavation, the fourth now, according to my count over the past almost three years (the main seasons were 30 years ago), has been initiated at the site which I discovered was in progress a fortnight ago.

Some tantalizing photographs of the first stage which was setting up a perimeter and clearing things up and already, it is larger than we were aware:

Looking north

Looking west

Looking east

At left of front entrance

Looking south on the building's east side

Inside the main structure

North-westt corner of main structure

Looking east

See you at Tel Shiloh - expanded.

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Shiloh - Jam'a A-Sattin

Here:

See here and also here.

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Latitude 32.0560011455 N Longitude 35.2895776128 E

From this fascinating site:

Tel Shiloh.


From Google Earth:

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