Again a debate surrounding the question of whether the kingdoms of David and Solomon were indeed as they are described in the Bible

How does my scholarly colleague know that King Shishak invaded the Land of Israel in 925 BC? * A critical article by Prof. Israel Finkelstein on the dating of the archaeological layers at Tel Rehov rekindles the debate on the reliability of the biblical description of the reigns of David and Solomon

Ran Shapira, Haaretz

Who built the cities of Gezer, Hazor and Megiddo? The book of XNUMX Kings attributes their establishment, with the magnificent palaces and impressive fortifications in them, to Solomon. For many years, archaeologists and historians of the biblical period followed in the footsteps of Prof. Yigal Yedin, who stated that the finds in the excavations at these sites correspond to the biblical description.

According to this view, the findings at the three sites, all of which have a similar material culture, indicate that during the period when Gezer, Hazor and Megiddo were established - the tenth century BC - the Land of Israel was a developed and powerful political entity. This entity was the United Kingdom under the leadership of David and Solomon.

In recent years, there have been those who challenge this perception, led by Prof. Israel Finkelstein, from the Institute of Archeology at Tel Aviv University. According to them, the material culture that Din and his successors attribute to the period of the United Kingdom actually belongs to the days of Beit Omri, that is, to the Northern Kingdom in the ninth century BC. In the tenth century, they believe, there was no developed political entity in the region and the biblical description does not correspond to reality.

A series of dates based on an examination of olive pits and grain kernels from Tel Rehov, published a few months ago by Prof. Amichai Mazar from the Institute of Archeology at the Hebrew University, added points to supporters of the approach according to which there is literally in the biblical description. In collaboration with Dr. Hendrik Bruins from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Prof. Mazar examined many olive kernels and grain kernels found in Tel Rehov, south of Beit Shean. The hulls and kernels were tested in a laboratory at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, which specializes in dating based on the measurement of the carbon 14 isotope. This isotope is created in every organic body - plant or animal - and fades away from the day of its death. Accurate measurement of the amount of carbon 14 isotope remaining in the remains of the animal or plant makes it possible to determine how much time has passed since its death.

The results of the test yielded a series of dates, which made it possible to date the sequence of layers in Tel Rehov. According to the interpretation of Mazar and Bruins, two of the layers in the mound are from the tenth century BC and one of them, layer V, was destroyed by a fierce fire. In their opinion, the fire happened in the second half of the tenth century BC. The date corresponds to the period when Pharaoh Shishak invaded the Land of Israel. The Bible states the invasion of Shishak five years after the death of Solomon, that is, in 925 BC according to the accepted understanding. Shishak's journey was also documented in a large inscription that the Egyptian king left in the temple of Amun in Karnak. A fragment of a tombstone from his days was discovered in Megiddo.

In an article published by Mazar and Bruins in the journal "Science" in May of this year, they explained that the precise dating of layer V at Tel Rehov allows dating to that period settlement layers in many sites where a similar material culture was discovered, among them the layers in Megiddo and Hazor where monumental buildings were found. Thus, the dating provides indirect evidence that the United Kingdom was not a figment of imagination or a later rewrite.
But Finkelstein disagrees with both the way the dating tests were performed and the conclusions drawn from them. In a response article he published at the end of October in "Science" in collaboration with Prof. Eli Piasetsky from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University, he raises a series of misunderstandings about Mazar and Bruins' research.

According to him, the series of dates published by Mazer and Bruins is based only on some of the samples taken from the site. They did not mention other samples, which were tested in laboratories at the Weizmann Institute and the University of Arizona and from which it emerged that the olive pits and grain kernels from the same layers at Tel Rehov were from a later period. He adds and claims that not all the samples included in the test by Mazar and Bruins were sufficiently clean. "In Tel Rehov there are three very close layers, in which the ceramics are the same. If there is contamination in the samples taken from these layers, it is impossible to tell the difference between them," says Finkelstein.
Finkelstein disagrees not only on the test method, but also on the interpretation of the results. According to him, there is no certainty that the journey that he launched to the Land of Israel was indeed in 925 BC. Relying on the mention of the journey in the Bible to link the dating of a certain layer to an event that may have occurred around the same date is not valid.

In a response article published alongside Finkelstein's and Piasetsky's article, Mazar admits that the exact date of Shishak's journey is unknown. Together with Bruins and Dr. Hans van der Volt from the University of Groningen, who performed the tests for the dating of the grain and the olive pods, he explains that the results of previous tests from Tel Rehov were omitted, because they produced a consistent discrepancy in the dates. As for the claim that the samples they did not use were not clean, according to Mazar they were all of high quality and were taken from places that can be associated with certainty to a specific layer on the site. Additional evidence, such as pottery found in the rooms from which the samples were taken, supports the dates obtained. The consistency of the series of dates obtained in the tests also proves, according to them, the reliability of the findings.