Lecture 3: Canaanite Jerusalem and David's Jerusalem

We opened lecture today with a study of rulers and society in Jerusalem before King David. The Earliest settlement seems to date back to the Chalcolithic Period around 4000 BCE. Settlements during Bronze Age Jerusalem recorded in the Bible are, for the most part, backed by archaeological evidence and non-biblical texts. Such texts include: execration texts, fortifications, and the Armarna Letters. Execration texts are ritual curse texts that mention the names of Jerusalem rulers as far back as 1900 BCE. Fortifications are man-made structures in Jerusalem that date back the the eighteenth century BCE (i.e., Pool Tower from the East that protects Gihon Spring). Finally, the Armarna Letters surfaced around 1350 BCE, and they include letters written from rulers in Canaan and Syria to Egyptian Pharaoh (Akhenaten). These letters are pleas for help and protection from the powerful nation.

We moved on to examine the first Biblical account of Jerusalem in Genesis 14:17 (Abraham and Melchizedek), where the city is referred to as "Salem."

After going over briefly the history of Jerusalem before the time of King David, we analyzed the textual problem with the "Conquest of Joshua." It seems, from reading Judges and Joshua, that the Bible contradicts itself. Such an observation is still a topic of much debate. While some choose to dismiss the recordings in the Bible as mere stories, others choose to view these contradictions as a result of multiple authors. In any case, scholars are now divided among three options when considering how the Israelites made their way to Canaan.

These three options simply put are: they were suddenly there by Conquest (as suggested by the Bible), they immigrated slowly into Canaan, or they were always there (they could have revolted against other Canaanites, or they could have had a gradual shift away from Canaanite view). Most archaeological evidence seems to support the third option.

We closed lecture today with a brief introduction to David's life and rule in Jerusalem (City of David). There is no mention of David in archaeological evidence until the discovery of the Tel Dan Inscription.