Carbon dating backs Bible on Edom
southbendtribune.com
By Richard N. Ostling
Associated Press Writer
February 18, 2005
Excerpt:
The Mideast's latest archaeological sensation is all about Edom.
The Bible says Edom's kings interacted with ancient Israel, but some scholars have confidently declared that no Edomite state could have existed that early.
The latest archaeological work indicates the Bible got it right, those experts got it wrong and some write-ups need rewriting. The findings also could buttress disputed biblical reports about kings David and Solomon.
Edom was a rugged land south and east of the Dead Sea in present-day southern Jordan. The Bible reports that Edom had kings before Israel (Genesis 36:31, 1 Chronicles 1:43) and that they barred Moses' throng after the Exodus (Numbers 20:14-21) and later warred with David (2 Samuel 8:13-14, 1 Kings 11:15-16).
Traditional dating puts David's rule from 1012 B.C. to 972 B.C., followed by son Solomon through 932 B.C. By looser reckoning, their monarchy emerged around 1000 B.C. (The exodus came long before.)
The doubters figured the Bible erred because the earliest discovered remains from Edom and nonbiblical references dated back only to the eighth century B.C. Such thinking ignored the old archaeological warning that "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Sample skepticism:
The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992) says "Edom was probably not a political unity" in Moses' time, and for three or four centuries afterward, which also rule out war with David.
Israel Finkelstein of Tel Aviv University contends in "The Bible Unearthed" (2001, co-authored with Neil Asher Silberman) that archaeology made it "clear" there were "no real kings and no state in Edom" before the eighth century because earlier large settlements and fortresses were lacking.
University of Arizona archaeologist William G. Dever states in "Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?" (2003) that the Edom region "remained largely nomadic" until perhaps the seventh century B.C. when a "semi-sedentary tribal state emerged."
Dever, for one, acknowledges that the chronology has been thrown centuries earlier and thinks the "revolutionary" findings support the Bible's credibility concerning Edom and the kingdom of David and Solomon.