The December 2010 issue of National Geographic
Smooth Stones to Vanquish the Doubters
Was David the king and “sweet psalmist of Israel” or merely a ficticious character of “cultural identity”?
Archaeology has been a friend to Biblical Christianity. Many events recorded in the Scriptures, previously scoffed at by critics, have been shown to be factual by the archaeologist’s spade.
The December 2010 issue of National Geographic has a lengthy cover story by Robert Draper discussing recent discoveries in Israel which relate to David and Solomon. Although certainly not giving credence to the Biblical record, Draper explores such finds as ruins of a palace in Jerusalem, believed by some archaeologists to be David’s; and ruins at Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, attributed to Solomon by some. Also discussed are ancient copper mines being excavated showing that “a complex, centralized society existed in Solomon’s time.” This would certainly fit well with the Biblical account of Solomon’s temple and its furnishings.However, those intent on disproving the Scriptures seem to take delight in aggressively denying discoveries which appear to corraborate Biblical accounts. “In no other part of the world does archaeology so closely resemble a contact sport,” observes Draper.
One of the aggressive liberal linemen in this contest is Tel Aviv University professor Israel Finkelstein, who Draper describes as the University’s “contrarian-in-residence.” Draper writes: “During David’s time, as Finkelstein casts it, Jerusalem was little more than a ‘hill-country village,’ David himself a raggedy upstart akin to Pancho Villa, and his legion of followers more like ‘500 people with sticks in their hands shouting and cursing and spitting.…’”
National Geographic, never an ally of the Bible believer, states that many “scholars” believed that “David and Solomon were simply ficticious characters.” Nonetheless, the article candidly continues: “The credibility of that position was undercut in 1993, when an excavation team in the northern Israel site of Tel Dan dug up a black basalt stela inscribed with the phrase “House of David.”
Critic Finkelstein is given the last word in the article, but not before Draper points out: “The proposition that a complex tenth-century B.C. [the time of David and Solomon] society may have existed on either side of the Jordan River has thrown Finkelstein’s vision of the David and Solomon era squarely on the defensive. His many rebuttal papers and his sarcastic tone reflect that defensiveness, and his arguments at times seem a bit desperate.”
