Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Light from the Ancient Past, Vol. 1 and 2: The Archaeological Background of the Hebrew-Christian Religion (Princeton Legacy Library) Paperback – March 21, 2017 by Jack Finegan . Princeton University Press,

bookjacket

During the past twenty-five years, archaeological excavations in the Near East have revolutionized our entire conception of ancient history and of the milieu out of which Israel and the Bible issued. For Jews, this new knowledge is of more than academic interest, for it provides a criterion—albeit as yet imperfect—whereby their true, or probable, early history may be distinguished from that fanciful embellishment of it which, in the manner of all folk traditions, forms the basis of their religious beliefs. Religion, to be sure, is in no way affected by a demonstration of the obvious truth that it is based more on subjective constructions of facts than upon the facts themselves. History, however, and historical perspective, can only stand to gain by a distinction between assured data and imaginative fancy.


The object of the volumes here under review is to present a synthesis of the new knowledge. The first part of the book is devoted to a survey of excavations in the Near East and to accounts of what has been recovered (especially in recent years) of Sumerian, Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, and Canaanite civilizations. The Obeid, Uruk, Jemdet Nasr, and Mari cultures are passed in review against a broad historical background, and this is followed by a rapid sketch of Egyptian history, divided into the periods of Predynastic, Protodynastic, Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, and New Kingdom. The narrative then passes to Palestine and Syria, describing recent finds at such sites as Jericho, Megiddo, Beth-Shean, Lachish, Gezer, Ezion-Geber, Jerusalem, and Ras Shamra. After this come similar accounts of the Assyrian, Kassite, Hittite, and Persian Empires. The second part of the book discusses the new light upon Christian origins, with especial emphasis on the discovery of ancient Biblical papyri and of early catacombs and churches. The work is illustrated by over two hundred excellent photographs and by a series of exceptionally clear maps. It is also fully indexed.

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Dr. Finegan’s book is at once good and bad. Its good points are its happy summarizations of archaeological results in the field, where complicated questions of stratification, topography, ceramic styles, and datings and the like are presented in lucid, non-technical language such as a layman can readily understand. Commendable, too, is the author’s habit of quoting frequently from ancient documents, and always in the best available translations, while the meticulous care with which he invariably cites sources and recent literature may well serve as a model to other writers. The bad points, however, cannot be ignored, more especially since they seem to proceed from fundamental errors of approach.

In the first place, there is the question of direction. This book purports to deal with the archaeological backgrounds of the Hebrew-Christian religion. Actually, however, it does little of the kind. What it does is to assemble, not without skill, a great mass of information relating to the archaeology of what are commonly called Biblical lands, but at least 60 per cent of this information has no bearing whatever on the history of “the Hebrew-Christian religion.” The account, for instance, of potter) patterns in predynastic Sumeria, or the brief summary of what is known about the Kassites, or, indeed, much of what is here written concerning the Egyptian and Assyrian empires, while it may be of importance in illustrating the cultural antecedents of the Biblical milieu, is completely irrelevant to a discussion of Hebrew religion.

On the other hand, most of what archaeology really has to say about Hebrew religious institutions and usages is passed over in silence. Some points which immediately suggest themselves are: the relation of the Israelitic to the earlier Canaanite system of sacrifices; the indebtedness of Old Testament poets to Canaanite mythology; the parallels, in both Sumerian and Hittite cultus, to the Israelitic rite of the scapegoat; the relation of the Jewish to the Babylonian calendar; the development of Hebrew psalmody as illustrated by Babylonian parallels and by the patterns of Canaanite verse; the new light on the architecture of temples and sanctuaries in relation to cosmic patterns; the divinity of kings and the evolution of the Messianic concept; the evidence of “holy Trinities” in Semitic religion; and the rise of monotheism. All of these issues are ignored in the present work, yet it is apparent that all of them have a place in a discussion of Hebrew religious origins, and in respect to all of them, archaeology has, indeed, material to contribute. It would seem, indeed, that the author has not sufficiently distinguished between Biblical archaeology as a whole and that part of it which bears upon the development of the Hebrew and Christian religions.

Secondly, Dr. Finegan seems—at least to this reviewer—too often to fail to see the wood for the trees. He is so obviously preoccupied with archaeology (in the narrower sense of excavations) as to overlook history. Out of the mass of his data it is difficult to construct any comprehensive picture of Sumerian, Babylonian or even Hebrew, culture. While, for ex ample, the main facts of Assyrian archaeology are correctly described, no picture emerges of what kind of life the Assyrians actually lived or what manner of beliefs they entertained; and it is surely in this direction, rather than in that of formal dynastic records or accounts of excavations, that information should be sought regarding their influence on the development of the Hebrew-Christian religion.

Lastly, it is to be feared that the author’s sins of omission are at times aggravated by sins of commission. While passing over most of what is really relevant to his theme, his anxiety to achieve complete coverage of the ancient civilizations of the Near East some times leads him to present such material as he offers in a somewhat skimpy and superficial manner. A case in point is his treatment of the Hittites. Actually, there was no reason at all for introducing them, since the author has not a word to say about their religion or its possible affinities with that of the Hebrews. But since he does introduce them, they should surely not have been dismissed in two pages! And the reader should surely have been in formed that the term “Hittite” is applied today to two distinct civilizations, the one represented by the documents written in cuneiform, and the other, mainly of later date, by monuments in the yet imperfectly deciphered hieroglyphic script.

Similarly, in a work which purports to deal with the background of Hebrew religion, more attention might well have been paid to the Horites (Hurrians) who are now emerging as one of the major cultural elements of Palestine and Syria during the latter half of the second millenium B.C.E. Sometimes, too, the information given is not entirely up to date; the summary of the important Canaanite texts from Ras Shamra, for example, is derived from sources already antiquated; while the use of Mercer’s edition of the Tell el Amarna letters reflects perhaps a less than fortunate choice. Faults of perspective and orientation, how ever, should not be allowed to obscure the fact that, within its own compass and limits, this is a by no means unacceptable introduction to the archaeology of Biblical lands. It is a pity only that its subtitle is-so misleading.

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