Fatal error: the true maximalist's stance
Apart from its intrinsic religious content, for which no further evidence is required or asked for, the Bible offers the documented history of the Kingdom of ancient Israel from its nomadic days of wandering in antiquity (roughly 1800 BC), to its eventual destruction in 586 BC. This includes a golden period wherein Israel metamorphosed from a confederation of tribes, to a powerful kingdom ruled by dynasties of illustrious kings. The kingdom expanded rapidly, exponentially and for a brief spell is even said to have become a superpower of the Near-Eastern arena. Monuments, temples, palaces and cities were said to have been built. Battles were won and lost. In short, the Old Testament, to a large extent, doubles as the historical archive of the ancient Kingdom of Israel.
This archive, documented in exacting details, attracted an altogether different set of scholars—historians, biblical scholars and archaeologists—to the Bible. These scholars, crusaders of a different mien, simply could not wait to archaeologically ‘resurrect’ the fabled kingdom of Israel using the rich documented evidence available in the Bible.
To them it appeared a straightforward and very exciting proposal. Archaeology had come of age and excavations conducted at Babylonia, Assyria and Egypt had come up with some very satisfactory results. Indeed, this trio of so-called aggressors (from the biblical perspective), acquitted themselves admirably, although perhaps, the breath-taking grandeur of these heathen kingdoms was a bit disconcerting to the Christian scholars who breathed life into them.
Those were glorious days for the archaeologists and hopes were running feverishly high. Archaeologists were skipping from mound to mound, busily resurrecting lost kingdoms, magnificent palaces, cities and ziggurats with a minimum of effort. There was even a high-spirited British archaeologist who claimed to have found evidence of the epic biblical flood at Ur and even the Garden of Eden, or paradise, was in danger of being broken into by these spade-wielding, gung-ho scholars, much to the consternation of God and aflutter of His angels!
It was thought therefore that finding ancient Israel would be a cakewalk. With a Bible tucked under one’s armpit, one could stroll down the biblical arena, identify half-a-dozen key sites and be back home for lunch. Thus, there was a scramble, literally, to resurrect the Promised Land.
Unfortunately, things did not happen as expected. Archaeologists were bewildered at first and later, that is to say, after almost two centuries of trying every trick in their backpack, were disillusioned. The cause? For some unfathomable reason, the Bible adamantly refused to divulge its archaeological secrets. Bitterly cursed to oblivion by the fiery God of the Old Testament, the fabled kingdom of the Jews was not so easily to be had.
Fresh impetus was gained with the birth of modern Israel. Biblical archaeology became a national undertaking and the Israelis undertook renewed excavations on a war footing. There was a spate of discoveries under the aegis of Professor Yigael Yadin, a founder-father-turned-archaeologist of this new nation and others. However, upon closer examination by later-day scholars, these discoveries were found to be problematic. Even so, these early-date discoveries that seemingly confirmed the Bible’s historicity, continued to serve a section of society. Religious organizations, not wanting their sacred text to be tampered with, appropriated these discoveries and used them to firmly close the door on biblical archaeology. This is why the church, if asked, will stoically deliver the message that ‘abundant archaeological evidence for the Bible has been found.’ The opposite however, is closer to the truth.
The sad fact is, archaeological evidence for much of the Bible stories is yet to be found. Even more alarming is the fact that what little evidence is available rarely supports the Bible narrative in its details, chronology, or grandeur. On the contrary, it conspires to contradict the whole story. Another thing conspicuous by its absence is the nonexistence of written records. Unlike its neighbors, did Israel perhaps write on perishable papyrus rather than durable clay? Or this a case of having nothing at all to write about, and therefore what is available in the Bible is a later-date fabrication?
Clearly, something was terribly wrong in the Biblical arena. Biblical archaeology, which by all counts, ought to have yielded rich dividends, seemed almost insistent on bankrupting its investors with little or no returns. And what is embarrassing about the whole episode is that the one and only time archaeologists actually possess detailed textual archives of an ancient kingdom, complete with elaborate triangulations, all diligently documented by the Bible, they miserably fail to find the archaeological evidence for the same. Indeed, the reversal has been so complete that most biblical archaeologists have given up or moved on. A few smart ones have restyled themselves as ‘Levantine scholars,’ having nimbly sidestepped to this overlapping field of study and continue to keep a wary eye on the biblical arena.
Biblical archaeology has become a near extinct field of study today. The remaining few biblical archaeologists have neither the grand optimism of the old guards nor the penchant to boldly trample into the territory of transcendentalists. This once close-knit and gung-ho community has split into two fractious halves, of maximalists and minimalists, and having set aside their spades, have taken to good old-fashioned mudslinging.
The biblical minimalists, brash, unhappy men of science, maintain that the Bible has no historic value whatsoever. They proclaim in a voice than rings clearer and louder than a church bell, that it is all runway fiction, a theme that the Jews very likely fine-tuned while in exile, between bouts of nostalgia and deep lamentation, possibly by the river of Babylon. ‘If it had historicity, we would have seen archaeological evidence at least by now,’ is their cornerstone argument. These scholars are willing only to concede to the barest minimum of the Bible narrative as having historicity. They prefer to be guided solely by archaeological evidence or the lack thereof. The minimalists feel that much of what is recorded in the Bible is distorted at best and some characters and events are entirely fictional. Most suspect that even Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Judaism’s traditional founders, never really existed. Many even doubt the tales of slavery in Egypt and the Exodus. There was no Moses, no crossing of the sea and no revelation on Mount Sinai. Even Joshua’s conquest of Jericho and the rest of the Promised Land are not above suspicion.
The biblical maximalists on the other hand, like their Bible whole and literally believe in it from cover to cover. They are a decidedly thinner and not so vocal club of obdurate gentlemen scholars, unwilling to let go, and now increasingly comfortable with their obtuse stance. Although they are accused of basing their belief in the historicity of the Bible on their religious conviction, the reality is, they believe in the Bible because it reads like a convincing document. What underpins this simple stance is the conviction that the Bible stories contain innumerable ‘micro-registers’ or real-life ‘background noises’ that are scientifically verifiable. Indeed, by comparing biblical records with non-biblical or secular textual records of the same period, they have been of-late able to practically establish that the Bible literally hums with true and real-life background noises. Details from the Bible, such as the quoted price of slaves, the style of warfare, the laws of inheritance, etc., are all scientifically proven to be consistent with that available in contemporary secular textual sources.
Be that as it may, excavations at prominent biblical sites such as Jericho and Ai continue to undermine the maximalist’s optimistic stance. Indeed, it has now been established without a shade of doubt that the region in question was actually deserted from the beginning of the 15th century until the 11th century BC. Even the central hilly regions of this arena, which correspond to the territories of Judea and Samaria, that were considered biblical heartlands wherein all the ‘action’ took place, were entirely uninhabited during biblical times.
The minimalists extract maximum mileage from such seemingly rock-solid and scientifically proven arguments. Unfazed, the maximalists retaliate by attacking the very foundation of this argument. They suggest that no evidence exists, or that the hilly regions were uninhabited, because the places in question ‘were located elsewhere’ 3000 odd years ago. In a like manner, they stoutly defend the Exodus story, which too is under concerted attack by the minimalists, by suggesting that no evidence has been found along the route of the Exodus for the simple reason that they probably ‘went by a different route’ than the one reconstructed by scholars.
The above, ‘were located elsewhere’ or ‘went by a different route’ appears to be the standard fall back argument of the maximalists and has the ‘its-got-to-be-around-the-next-corner’ desperate ring to it.
But what if it were true?
To elaborate, archaeologists, as would any manner of treasure hunters, require a map where ‘x’ marks the spot, in this case, a particular city or temple they wish to excavate. However, such a map was not readily available. Certainly, the Bible was not handed down to us with the map of Canaan drawn (by none other than Moses) on its endpapers! Biblical scholars had to painstakingly reconstruct this map from clues gleaned from the Bible and other related historical textual references. Needless to add, the whole thing was glued together with sizable dollops of educated guesses.
What if this speculatively reconstructed map was faulty? How was the map of the core biblical arena regenerated?
The American minister cum biblical scholar Edward Robinson is credited with having reconstructed much of what is accepted as biblical geography. He, along with his friend and student Eli Smith, who headed the Protestant Missionary at Beirut, had gone on two fact-finding missions (in 1838 and in 1852) through Ottoman Palestine, expressly to identify and redraw the map of the core biblical arena. Together this duo was able to identify dozens of biblical sites by quizzing the locals and by intently studying the then existing Arabic place names. Others too have contributed to this field of study and bit by bit, over a period of many years, this map came into being. It is this map that serves to identify and excavate biblical sites. Indeed, it is this map, underpinned, I might add, by the knowledge of a handful of wide-eyed Bedouin herdsmen, which has now come around to bite and bitterly dispute the Bible’s historicity.
While Edward Robinson is considered the first qualified biblical scholar in having studied the biblical arena’s geography, the fact is, others before him had undertaken this very same exercise. For example, from 1095 to 1291, the crusaders had meticulously researched and redrawn the map of the core biblical arena. Numerous such maps are available at various libraries and museums around the world. Even before the crusaders, maps or at least geographical information of the core biblical area (Near-Eastern arena) was available in the writings of early historians such as Herodotus, Eratosthenes, Strabo, Ptolemy, Josephus and others. All these geographical presentations have a stake or say in the final version that is in rigorous use today. Is it not possible that at any one of these reconstructions stages—and not necessarily at the Edward Robinson-Bedouin herdsmen stage (although it does seem a very bright candidate)—a fatal error had crept in and is the root cause of the Bible’s no show?
Getting back to the maximalist’s ‘were located elsewhere’ or ‘went by a different route’ dug-in stance, we may now be certain that what they are obliquely referring to is a ‘fatal reconstruction or mapping error.’ What they are saying in not so many words is that the reconstructed scenario of the biblical region is ‘faulty beyond repair,’ ‘radically different from the original.’ In short, the maximalist’s cornerstone argument really is a veiled and deadly one. Its cornered and seemingly desperate squeak, is in reality, a squeal, a voice threatening to blow the lid off a carefully preserved pretence.
Now in the ‘fatal error scenario’ we may right away exclude minor slip-ups. A little to right, a little to the left slip-ups that signal minor mapping discrepancies are at any rate factored in and caught on the field. What we seem to be dealing with here is a fundamental mapping error and one that would require us to go back to Robinson’s drawing board or beyond. One would have to set aside all the archaeological finding (and their ingenious interpretations), and go back to reevaluating the textual clues that went into the reconstruction of the map of the core biblical arena, and if necessary, redraw the map of the core biblical arena. It is, without a doubt, a daunting task. Those afraid of upsetting the applecart of biblical archaeology might want to sit this one out. For this is, if anything, a call for planting new apple trees!
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