by
Damien F. Mackey
“So if we assume that this is an authentic artifact from the Temple of Solomon,
then how is it that the inscription is from the Iron Age II but
the pomegranate itself is dated to the Late Bronze Age?”
Stuart Zachary Steinberg
Archaeologists really need to dig deeper.
As far as the Old Testament goes, archaeologists are invariably digging in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Too shallow.
And that goes for Israeli archaeologists as well.
Professor Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv university, after digging interminably in the Iron Age II level for evidence of King Solomon and his wondrous realm, ignominiously declared in a National Geographic article by Robert Draper, “Kings of Controversy” (December 2010, p. 85):
“Now Solomon. I think I destroyed Solomon, so to speak. Sorry for that!”
Archaeologically speaking, Israel Finkelstein had not even come near King Solomon.
Daniel Lazare came up with a similar pronouncement, as we read in Dr. David Down’s article, “False history—‘Out with David and Solomon!’” (2002):
https://creation.com/false-history-out-with-david-and-solomon
….
Facts against the Bible?
Concerning Solomon’s building activities, 1 Kings 9:17–19 says, ‘And Solomon built Gezer, and Beth-horon the lower, and Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land. And he built all the store-cities which Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.’ Also, the Bible describes Solomon’s economy as being on an enviable scale. ‘And the king made silver and gold at Jerusalem like stones, and he made cedar trees as plentiful as the sycamore trees in the valley’ (2 Chronicles 1:15). But the architectural remains from Iron Age I and early Iron Age II reveal that this was a period of pitiful poverty, few people and scant building activity. This is why the critic Lazare could write, ‘Not one goblet, not one brick, has ever been found to indicate that such a reign existed.’ ….
Thanks to Dr. Immanuel Velikovsky’s vital biblico-historical synchronism as argued in Volume I of his Ages in Chaos (1952) series, however, we can align King Solomon, as an older contemporary, with pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt’s Eighteenth Dynasty, as the biblical “Shishak King of Egypt” (I Kings 14:25-26).
And, thanks to Dr. John Bimson with his important article, “Can There be a Revised Chronology Without a Revised Stratigraphy?” (S.I.S. Review Journal of the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies, Vol. VI Issues 1-3, 1978), we can correlate the archaeology of Thutmose III with that of King Solomon: to Late Bronze II (LB II).
Thus Dr. Bimson wrote:
Bronze Age and the Reign of Solomon
…. I also suggested briefly that the transition to LB I B belonged in the reign of Solomon [13]. Research carried out since that article was written has led me to modify that view. Although an exhaustive study of the LBA contexts of all scarabs commemorating Hatshepsut and Thutmose III would be required to establish this point, a preliminary survey suggests that objects from the joint reign of these two rulers do not occur until the transition from LB I to LB II, and that scarabs of Thutmose III occur regularly from the start of LB II onwards, and perhaps no earlier [14]. Velikovsky’s chronology makes Hatshepsut (with Thutmose III as co-ruler) a contemporary of Solomon, and Thutmose III’s sole reign contemporary with that of Rehoboam in Judah [15]. Therefore, if the revised chronology is correct, these scarabs would suggest that Solomon’s reign saw the transition from LB I to LB II, rather than that from LB I A to LB I B.
Placing the beginning of LB II during the reign of Solomon produces a very good correlation between archaeological evidence and the biblical record of that period. It is with this correlation that we will begin. In taking the LB I – II transition as its starting-point, the present article not only takes up the challenge offered by Stiebing, but also continues the revision begun in my previous articles, and will bring it to a conclusion (in broad outline) with the end of the Iron Age.
Though KENYON has stated that the LB I – II transition saw a decline in the material culture of Palestine [16], ongoing excavations are now revealing a different picture. LB II A “was definitely superior to the preceding LB I”, in terms of stability and material prosperity; it saw “a rising population that reoccupied long abandoned towns” [17]. Foreign pottery imports are a chief characteristic of the period [18]. According to the biblical accounts in the books of Kings and Chronicles, Solomon’s reign brought a period of peace which saw an increase in foreign contacts, unprecedented prosperity, and an energetic building programme which extended throughout the kingdom [19].
I Kings 9:15 specifically relates that Solomon rebuilt Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer. In the revised stratigraphy envisaged here, the cities built by Solomon at these sites would therefore be those of LB II A. More specifically, these three Solomonic cities would be represented by Stratum VIII in Area AA at Megiddo [20], by Stratum XVI at Gezer, and by Stratum XIV of the Upper City at Hazor (= Str. Ib of the Lower City) [21].
The wealth and international trade attested by these levels certainly reflect the age of Solomon far more accurately than the Iron Age cities normally attributed to him, from which we have “no evidence of any particular luxury” [21a]. The above-mentioned strata at Megiddo and Gezer have both yielded remains of very fine buildings and courtyards [22]. The Late Bronze strata on the tell at Hazor have unfortunately not produced a clear picture, because of levelling operations and extensive looting of these levels during the Iron Age; but the LB II A stratum of the Lower City has produced a temple very similar in concept to the Temple built by Solomon in Jerusalem, as described in the Old Testament [23].
Art treasures from these cities not only indicate the wealth of the period, but reflect contacts with Egypt and northern Mesopotamia [24].
These contacts are precisely those we would expect to find attested during Solomon’s reign, the Bible records Solomon’s trade with Egypt and his marriage to the Pharaoh’s daughter [25], and says (I Kings 4:24) that his kingdom extended as far to the north-east as Tiphsah, which is probably to be identified with Thapsacus, “an important crossing in the west bank of the Middle Euphrates … placed strategically on a great east-west trade route” [26]. ….
Further indication for an LB II location for the Solomonic realm comes from this piece by Stuart Zachary Steinberg (2024):
https://medium.com/@stuartz2727/the-inscribed-ivory-from-the-temple-of-solomon-and-the-late-bronze-age-0af65e9b26da
The Inscribed Pomegranate from the Temple of Solomon and the Late Bronze Age
One of the only existent artifacts from the Temple of Solomon is the inscribed pomegranate. It is a small pomegranate made out of ivory with an an inscription in Hebrew of לבי ( )ה קדש כהנים The world renowned epigrapher Andre Lemaire who considers this artifact authentic proposed the following reading לבית יהוה קדש כהנים which translates as Belonging to the Temple of YHWH , holy to the priests. However some scholars have disagreed with Lemaire and the authenticity of the pomegranate. A paper was published with a number of scholars titled “ Re-examination of the inscribed Pomegranate of the Israel Museum.” They conclude in their paper that the pomegranate and its inscription is not authentic. They conclude:
“The combined results of this study indicate that the ivory pomegranate is ancient, its surface covered by a naturally-formed patina. It probably dates from the Late Bronze Age. The letters of the inscription are well executed (with the exception of the problematic mem).In contrast to the antiquity of the pomegranate itself, the inscription and the patina-like material on the inscription and around it are a recent forgery.”
However in 2015 the late editor of BAR Hershel Shanks brought a number of scholars to examine various artifacts that had controversy surrounding their authenticity. One of the artifacts was this inscribed pomegranate. One of the expert paleographers who examined it was Ava Yardeni. She wrote
“Following my new examination of the tiny pomegranate with the microscope, I am now convinced and agree with André Lemaire that there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the pomegranate [inscription] … I have to admit that at my latest examination of the pomegranate under the microscope, I missed the angle at which I should have looked at the object in order that I could clearly see the crucial part of the fragmentary left stroke of taw at the break. Thanks to the guidance of Robert Deutsch, who showed me where and how I should look at the old break from the left upper angle, I was able to see clearly that the protrusion was lower than the old break … Many thanks and warmest regards.”
In addition Professor Yitzhak Roman of Hebrew University in late 2008 and examined this artifact with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and he found that there were no signs that it was a forgery. The lines of the letters went into the ancient break which showed it was written before the ancient break existed. Also the patina in the letters was natural. (1)
So if we assume that this is an authentic artifact from the Temple of Solomon, then how is it that the inscription is from the Iron Age II but the pomegranate itself is dated to the Late Bronze Age? One explanation as proposed by the authors of the above cited paper was that the scribe wrote on an ancient Canaanite pomegranate from the Late Bronze Age. However is it really reasonable that the scribe living in the Iron Age II would have had a pomegranate from the Late Bronze Age nearly three hundred years earlier? Also would the priests use something that had been made by Canaanites who were idol worshippers in the Holy Jerusalem Temple? Furthermore would they inscribe a religious sentence on a pomegranate which was impure from Canaanite culture and religion? Everything we know from Israelite religion and culture this seems very highly unlikely.
The more reasonable explanation is that the pomegranate was made from scratch on which the scribe wrote. Also just as the pomegranate has been dated to the Late Bronze Age so should the inscription be dated to the Late Bronze Age, specifically the Late Bronze Age II. The implication is that the Temple of Solomon was contemporary with the Late Bronze Age II and not the Iron Age II where it is conventionally placed. This would require lowering the Late Bronze Age II from around 1300 BCE to around 1000–950 BCE as proposed by David Rohl and his colleagues regarding the New Chronology.
(1) Biblical Archaeological Review special report, December 16, 2008
https://web.archive.org/web/20100115025132/http://www.bib-arch.org/news/news-ivory-pomegranate.asp
