Lecture 4: January 13, 2011

Today in class, we began the topic of Canaanite Jerusalem. Dr. Cargill started by discussing how Jerusalem was before David, specifically the villages. The livelihood of these villages were around herding-- They are allowed to do this because of the prescence of water. Even though Jerusalem doesn't lie on the two major trade routes, it sits on the water-shed highway. Jerusalem starts to see agricultural settlements emerging around 2000BC. Dr. Cargill stated to back up biblical texts with hard archaelogical evidence. Like science, claims are backed up by scientific evidence. There is a ton of evidence to the contrary. Some contradict anything the Bible says is true; whereas others state that it is not. We looked at Burial Tombs of the Ophel, which I found very interesting.

We looked at an Execration text; texts buried with people. These were written in hieroglyphics. The names of enemies were written on them and then smashed. There is an idea of sympathetic magic.. The gods are called upon and the curse it put on someone. I found it interesting that not only did Jerusalem have people living in 1900BC, but it was worthy of curse text.

When getting to the slide of Jerusalem in the earliest Non-Biblical texts, there is hard archaelogical evidence. This could be the fountain gate mentioned in the book of Nehemiah.

There was a picture of the Pool Tower form the East. The Pool Tower from the east was used to protect the area of the Gihon Spring. Why invest a lot of time in building pools and towers? ...This is because water is entirely necessary.

In Luke 13:1-5, The author of the Gospel of Luke likes to make references to historical and geological items. The reason you want to site historial figures/items is because it makes it sound more credible. He is trying to add a historical context so that you will believe his story.

A new word was introduced called Cuneiform: Triangular or wedge shaped letters (like hieroglyphics)
Why would rulers in Jerusalem be writing letters to the great powers of Egypt? Because It was a place of refuge and they were asking for help.

The el-Amarna Letter 287 is an extremely persuasive letter showering compliments and offers to Pharaoh.

I was vey intrigued with the textual problems with the "Conquest". Can you call this genocide? Is it fair to take modern ethics and impose them on what occured in the past? I found it very interesting how there were two contradicting texts with different ideas of what exactly occured with the Israelites. One stating that Israelites wiped everyone out, and another that states they did not. This creates the idea of numerous authors of the bible.