David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (11 page)

But why were the Egyptians forgotten in this part of the biblical tradition? Over the centuries, as the heroic stories of this period were told and retold among the people of Judah, Egypt again slipped into a period of historical eclipse, whereas the Philistines remained present and grew stronger. By the time of the compilation of the stories, when the scattered local traditions were collected and woven into a single narrative, hostility to the Philistines was as strong as ever. So they were portrayed as the main villains of the piece. It is possible that the Bible’s reference to the Philistines attacking the hill country and establishing garrisons at Geba (1 Samuel 13:3) and Bethlehem (2 Samuel 23:14), and to the great Philistine-Israelite battle at Beth-shean, may, in fact, preserve a memory of the Egypto-Philistine alliance.

The biblical tradition contains another secret that it only clumsily tries to hide. David fought back Philistine attacks on the western borders of Judah, but he also served as a vassal to Achish, the king of the Philistine city of Gath. He mustered with his men at the great gathering of Philistine troops at Aphek as they prepared to set off and deal a death blow to the forces of Saul. As a former Philistine vassal and chief of a region that was not attacked in the campaign of Sheshonq, David had a great deal to gain from a decline in the power of the northern highlands. A blow to the cluster of settlements in the Benjaminite plateau would have afforded the southern chiefdom a convenient opportunity to expand its territorial control northward in coordination with the Egyptians, or once the Egyptians had withdrawn.

In short, the southern chiefdom could have been a passive partner in the Egypto-Philistine alliance. This could be the reason that—like the Philistine cities—it is not mentioned in the Sheshonq I list at Karnak. It could also have been the origin of a northern accusation that David cooperated with the Philistines and was, at least indirectly, responsible for Saul’s demise. David and Judah may have benefited from the fall of the northern polity and expanded to control some of the highland territories that Saul once led. A memory that in the early days of the Davidic dynasty Jerusalem ruled over areas in the northern highlands beyond the traditional borders of Judah could well have been the historical kernel behind the idea of the “united monarchy” that David ruled from Jerusalem.

We do not know how long the Egyptians remained in the region or whether they managed to reestablish—even briefly—direct rule over Canaan/Israel. But sooner or later the Egypto-Philistine presence faded, and David and his heirs could have continued to dominate at least a part of the northern highlands. Thus in the immediate aftermath of Sheshonq’s attack on the northern chiefdom, David’s greatest danger might well have come not from outside enemies but from the hostility and accusations among the people of the northern highlands that he had betrayed or at least taken advantage of the defeat of their own leader, Saul.

SAINT, OR TRAITOR?

Saul, the first king of Israel, is depicted in the Bible as a painfully, even tragically conflicted figure. On one hand he is portrayed as a shy, modest, “handsome young man” (1 Samuel 9:2), a hero who saves the people of Israel from all their enemies:

On the other hand Saul is described as hotheaded, prone to fits of violent anger, and tormented by evil spirits. He twice tried to murder his faithful servant David and pursued him relentlessly. In his transgression of cultic law, he disqualified himself as a righteous ruler. The first book of Samuel puts it this way: “And the Lord repented that he had made Saul king over Israel” (1 Samuel 15:35).

How to explain these contradictions? Many biblical scholars have seen them as evidence for the existence of two different sources in the text. The stories that look at Saul favorably have generally been considered to have arisen in the northern kingdom of Israel and preserved genuine, though vague, memories of the time of the first king of the north. Like the stories of David the bandit in the southern highlands, they contain quite specific geographical details that include what may be memories of events in the tenth century
BCE
. Saul’s bravery, courage, and tragic demise at the hands of his enemies would have long been repeated and elaborated as a commemoration of the emergence of the first powerful highlands chiefdom and a mournful reflection on the dream of a united Israel ruled from the north that came to a sudden and unexpectedly violent end.

The anti-Saul, pro-David elements in the narrative reflect an entirely different perspective. They continually remind us why Saul was doomed to failure and why David became Israel’s rightfully anointed king. The two voices represent two sides in a now-silenced argument that has been woven into the overall biblical narrative. Indeed, some scholars have suggested that the entire story of David’s rise—detailing his replacement of Saul as God’s anointed—is written in the form of an apology, a literary genre well known in the ancient Near East, used by usurpers who had to legitimize their accession to the throne. Yet this theory makes sense only if the texts were written in the tenth century. This is highly unlikely: not only is there no evidence of an elaborate royal administration (of the type that might have been expected to possess literary scribes and court bards) in the isolated hilltop village of Jerusalem; there is no sign of extensive literacy or writing in Judah until the end of the eighth century
BCE
.

What we have in this early phase, instead, is a conflict of local, oral traditions that would only much later be integrated in a single written work. The assertions of one are contradicted by the other. The accusations of one side are countered by other side’s new explanatory detail. The partisans of Saul—the voice of whom can be found only in the background of the stories—would have maintained that David was no more than a bandit, a nobody who was accepted to the circles of the king and then betrayed him, an illegitimate usurper who undermined the throne of Saul and his family. To them, David was a traitor, a Philistine agent, who participated—actively or passively—in the military expedition that resulted in the death of the first great king of the north.

The supporters of David had to answer these accusations. David would never have taken up a life of banditry had it not been for the jealous rage of Saul. Moreover, at every opportunity that David had to kill his pursuer, he refrained from taking that action, for the greater good of Israel. In one of the incidents, David is reported to have said:

No less meaningful are the words (regarding David) put in the mouth of Saul himself:

The biblical narrative explains why David’s alliance with the Philistine king was only halfhearted, little more than a ruse to protect his Judahite countrymen. When he and his troops were mobilized by the Philistines to march against Saul’s forces, he was conveniently excused from Philistine service on the grounds of possible double loyalty (1 Samuel 29:3–10). No less significant, when David hears the news of the death of Saul and his sons at Mount Gilboa, he laments them in the most beautiful, moving words:

Most important of all, the biblical tradition asserts that the events were all divinely directed and thus perfectly lawful. God himself rejected Saul and elected David to replace him. It was he who transferred the throne to David from Saul. All these charges and counterarguments still bear the painful memories of the events of the tenth century
BCE
. Yet they are neither completely impartial history nor even the spontaneous back-and-forth argument between the grieving supporters of a fallen leader and the partisans of an up-and-coming highland chief. They are the result of an extraordinary period of creativity—at this stage still oral, not written—and thus represent another layer of folkloristic material that would contribute to the biblical tale.

By the end of the tenth century
BCE
, it was no longer enough just to cherish and celebrate the legends and achievements of local heroes. After the death of Saul and David’s establishment of a dynasty in Jerusalem, a wider highland identity may have begun to emerge in which the legendary figures of
both
Saul and David loomed large. At least in the area of Judah and the highlands immediately to its north, a new cycle of stories began to spread among the villages in which early heroic tales were merged into a psychological drama about the right of a particular dynasty to rule. In these early days and as we will see even more so in later centuries when a considerable wave of northern refugees came to the south, it was impossible for the southerners to disregard the inspiring tales of Saul’s election and the sheer scope and daring of his attempt to unite the northern highlands. Likewise, it was inconceivable that northerners would not be aware of the legends of David and his mighty men. What resulted was an embryonic national tradition that would be considerably expanded in every period when the rulers of Judah felt it necessary to counter northern accusations of betrayal and to contradict any challenge to the historical legitimacy of the Judahite claim to northern territories.

These historical developments have always been seen through the lens of the biblical tradition—and in the countless works of art portraying the tormented Israelite king and the innocent shepherd boy from Judah—as due to David’s greatness and Saul’s tragic flaws. Yet the archaeological and historical context shows that David’s destiny was neither clear nor unambiguous in a chaotic period of regional conflict in the Early Iron Age. Violence, domination, and betrayal were the indelible memories of the struggle of Egyptians, Philistines, and rival highland chieftains to forge a new world in the tenth century
BCE
. And an understanding of that unfolding drama is not of mere antiquarian interest. In the struggle for survival by the people of the northern and southern highlands of Canaan, the concept of a shared identity—the People of Israel—was born.

FROM BITTER WIVES TO A RAVISHED PRINCESS, TO
cold-blooded killers and traitors; from secret lovers to betrayed confidants to out-and-out scoundrels—there is perhaps no more fascinating cast of characters in the Bible than the close circle that surrounded King David in his court in Jerusalem. The biblical narrative known to scholars as the “Succession History” or the “Court History” (2 Samuel 9–20 and 1 Kings 1–2) follows yet differs in tone from the narrative of “David’s Rise to Power.” It is a drama of strong desires and their painful suppression. It is the story of a royal court continually falling prey to the basest temptations of power, with a king who is noble enough to repent his own unrighteous acts, and thereby receive atonement for his sins.

This part of the biblical story begins in the aftermath of Saul’s death at Mount Gilboa, when David is crowned king at Hebron by the people of Judah; his followers launch a campaign of assassinations to liquidate the house of Saul. Ish-bosheth, Saul’s surviving heir, and Abner, Saul’s faithful military commander, are both murdered by David’s lieutenants, allowing David himself to disavow any blame. Representatives of
all
the tribes of Israel come to see David in Hebron and anoint him king over the entire nation of Israel. With his daring band of warriors, David then proceeds to march on Jerusalem and seize it. Residing in the stronghold now called the City of David, the king strengthens Jerusalem’s fortifications. Hiram of Tyre, the powerful Phoenician ruler, acknowledging David’s greatness, sends precious cedar beams and skilled carpenters and masons to construct a proper royal palace for David in his new capital. Amidst his newfound opulence, David gathers a glittering entourage of scribes, military officers, mercenary bodyguards, priests, retainers, wives, and concubines as his inner circle. They become the cast of characters of the “Court History.”

David’s wars and his state’s territorial extent according to the Joab census

Until very recently, many biblical scholars accepted the “Court History” as a reliable and largely accurate historical record. It was assumed that the biblical narrative was written in the court of either David or Solomon—close in time to the events it described. One of the primary reasons was its extraordinary wealth of detail. For King David is not portrayed as a typical Egyptian or Assyrian king-god—perfect, aloof, and above the rest of humanity—as in most royal biographies in the ancient Near East. Instead, he is a man with strong urges and painful weaknesses, which the text does not try to hide. He benefits from the execution of his bitterest rivals; he steals another man’s wife and has her husband killed; he weeps uncontrollably at news of the death of his rebel son, Absalom, who tried to kill him; and he fades into a cold, lonely senility as his various courtiers and heirs squabble over who will succeed him to the throne.

Such details—along with the quite specific geographical descriptions of David’s sweeping conquests
*
—create an intensely realistic story. Thus, scholars have thought that at the time of writing, the memories of David’s reign must still have been quite fresh. And there was an obvious political logic to its composition: the official “Court History” was an act of royal spin control, intended to explain (and put the best possible light on) David’s actions and the selection of Solomon—who was not the first in line to the throne—as David’s legitimate successor. Taking the biblical lists of David’s court officials at face value, scholars have assumed that the mention of the offices of “recorder” (2 Samuel 8:16) and “secretary” (“scribe” in the Hebrew text of 2 Samuel 8:17) proved that written records were compiled and maintained in tenth-century
BCE
Jerusalem.

This is another case of circular argumentation, in which the biblical text serves as the primary evidence that its own historical reportage is true. We have repeatedly mentioned the lack of any archaeological evidence for extensive literacy in Judah until the late eighth century
BCE
. Now we must ask another question: on the basis of what we know about the general archaeological situation in Jerusalem, does the “Court History” speak with a tenth-century voice? Do the descriptions of David’s wars and building projects mesh with the archaeological reality of that era? Are the dynastic intrigues that play such a major role in the “Court History” conceivable in David’s time?

AN ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE

The answer is certainly negative. First, with regard to the physical background, there is little evidence in Jerusalem of any impressive tenth-century
BCE
royal constructions or, for that matter, much construction of any kind. Although it is possible that some structures of Davidic or Solomonic Jerusalem may have been destroyed or buried under the massive platform of Herod’s Temple, the evidence of great royal expansion elsewhere in the area of the City of David is nonexistent. The three main monuments that have been associated with the events of David’s reign—Warren’s shaft (identified by some as the water shaft mentioned in connection with David’s conquest of Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 5:8); the Stepped Stone Structure (proposed as the Millo mentioned in connection with David’s rebuilding of Jerusalem in 2 Samuel 5:9); and the tombs of the kings of Judah (the rock cuttings identified by some as remains of the royal tombs of the Davidic dynasty)—have nothing to do with tenth-century
BCE
building efforts and hardly provide conclusive independent proof of the biblical narrative.
*

The suggestion of some scholars that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” can be easily countered when we consider the general picture. Over a century of excavations in the City of David have produced surprisingly meager remains from the late sixteenth to mid–eighth centuries
BCE
. They amount to no more than a few walls and a modest quantity of pottery sherds, mostly found in erosion debris. The situation has been found to be the same at every excavated site in Jerusalem. The suggestion that substantial tenth-century
BCE
building remains
did
exist in Jerusalem but were obliterated by erosion or massive building activity in later generations is simply untenable, since impressive structures from both the earlier Middle Bronze Age (c. 2000–1550
BCE
) and the later Iron Age II (c. 750–586
BCE
)
have
survived.

The evidence clearly suggests that tenth-century Jerusalem was a small highland village that controlled a sparsely settled hinterland. If it had been the capital of a great kingdom with the wherewithal to muster tens of thousands of soldiers, collect tribute from vassals, and maintain garrisons in Aram Damascus and Edom (as the biblical narrative informs us it did), one would expect the presence of administrative buildings and storehouses, even outside the royal compound at the summit of the ridge. One would also expect to see changes in the villages of Judah—from which a significant portion of David’s armies were presumably mobilized and which would stand to benefit at least indirectly from the kingdom’s great wealth. Yet there is not the slightest evidence of any change in the landscape of Judah until the following century. The population remained low and the villages modest and few in number throughout the tenth century
BCE
.

And what of David’s sweeping conquests described in great detail in 2 Samuel 8, 10, and 12:26–29? If the descriptions of these wars and conquests are reliable, there should be evidence of violent military destructions in the area of his enlarged realm. Indeed in the early days of biblical archaeology, that is precisely what many scholars believed they had found. At sites throughout the areas of David’s supposed military expansion—first and foremost along the coast and in the northern valleys—virtually every destruction level that could be vaguely dated to David’s time was ascribed to his conquests, especially since these destruction layers usually marked the transition from a Philistine or a Canaanite city to a new material culture identified as “Israelite.”

Thus at the lowland site of Tell Qasile, a Philistine settlement located within the boundaries of modern Tel Aviv, the excavator Amihai Mazar declared, “The violent destruction of the flourishing Stratum X…at the beginning of the 10th century
B.C.
, was part of a series of destructions in various parts of the country,” most probably caused by “an Israelite invasion under King David.” Likewise, the Canaanite city-state of Megiddo, in the Jezreel Valley in the north, was thought to provide another example for the sweeping Davidic conquests. The Iron I city, still featuring Canaanite material culture, was conventionally dated to the eleventh century
BCE
. It came to an end in a conflagration so intense that it baked the mudbricks of its various buildings and covered the floors with a deep layer of collapsed upper-story beams, smashed artifacts, and ash. The Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin, who excavated at Megiddo in the 1960s, interpreted this as evidence of a Canaanite city “completely destroyed, probably by David,” and then replaced by an Israelite city of the time of Solomon.

But all these images were the result of that familiar kind of circular reasoning—using the biblical narrative as the basis for archaeological interpretation and then using the interpreted remains as proof of the Bible’s historical accuracy. The evidence of destruction at Tell Qasile, Megiddo, and other sites seemed, at that time, to fit the biblical story, but it is clear today that the archaeological proof of the conquests of David was illusory. We now know from new excavations and reanalysis of pottery assemblages, architectural observations, and radiocarbon dating that Philistine life in the southern coastal plain and Canaanite life in the northern valleys continued uninterrupted well into the tenth century
BCE
. The wave of destruction that had previously been dated to around 1000
BCE
and attributed to the expansion of the united monarchy in the days of King David actually came later, by almost a century.

So if we take all the evidence together and again ask if the biblical “Court History” of David is historically appropriate for the tenth century
BCE
, the answer would have to be no. There is no clear archaeological evidence for Jerusalem’s emergence at that time as the capital of a powerful empire with elaborate administrative institutions and a scribal tradition capable of composing such an elaborate chronicle of events.

Nor are the destructions long ascribed to David’s wars of conquest a secure basis for historical reconstruction. The few thousand farmers and herders of Judah—a number including women, children, and old people—could probably provide no more than a few hundred able-bodied fighting men, which is hardly enough for any military adventure beyond a local raid. A major social and political transformation—the emergence of a state with its various offices and institutions—would have to occur before the events of the “Court History” could possibly ring true. Such a transformation can indeed be traced in the archaeological record, but as we will suggest, it occurred first in the northern highlands rather than Judah—and only with the passage of several generations
after
the presumed reigns of both David and Solomon.

THE FIRST ISRAELITE ROYAL COURT

Even as village life in the highlands of Judah continued without significant alteration through the tenth and early ninth centuries
BCE
, major transformations were under way in the highlands to the north. Despite the abandonment of the cluster of settlements in the highlands of Benjamin (significantly, sites connected with the area of the biblical stories of Saul), archaeology hints at a steady growth in the population and agricultural capacity of the hundreds of villages scattered through the northern highlands that would profoundly influence the course of political developments.

In contrast to the situation in the Judahite highlands, the north witnessed the steady expansion of the area of settlement—both in the small, fertile valleys in the heart of the highlands and in the marginal areas to the east and west. New settlements on the eastern desert fringe hint at the growth of village-based herding; the establishment of villages on the rocky western slopes facing the Mediterranean suggests the renewal of terrace agriculture for vineyards and olive groves after a hiatus of hundreds of years. Larger villages emerged as regional centers and trade with the Phoenician coast was revived.

Then, suddenly, much more elaborate administrative centers appeared at important sites throughout the region, the largest being the vast compound built at Samaria in the northwestern hills. A huge podium, requiring massive leveling and filling operations, was constructed over the site of a former village. The podium was surrounded by an impressive casemate wall, with rooms that were probably used for storage. Other elaborate, specialized structures were constructed within the large area enclosed by the walls. The most noteworthy was a palace beautifully built of ashlar blocks, the largest structure ever found in Iron Age Israel. This imposing compound—and the others like it that were constructed at selected sites throughout the northern valleys—served both as administrative centers and impressive monuments to the power of their occupants. In anthropological terms, it is clear what was happening: the society of the northern highlands was undergoing a transformation from a dispersed village culture to the centralized regimentation of a full-blown state.