well I can answer you regarding
Biblical Archaeology because of course
in biblical exegesis there have been
many developments starting in the what
can I say the latest in the beginning of
the 19th century if not before so from the
perspective of Biblical Archaeology when
I came to the university 40 something 45
years ago or so we were still in the phase of
the traditional Biblical Archaeology
especially in this country but I think
worldwide in a way, which means that there was
this perspective basically accepting
within the history of ancient Israel
this part of the bible, there was basically the concept of the text describes the
history of ancient Israel and we come
with archaeology to try to add, to change
some perspectives not all of it
there was no critical approach yet so I
remember the students sitting and
attending conferences where there was a
big clash regarding the archaeology of
the period of the patriarchs locating
the period of the Patriarchs now it looks
to us ridiculous but you know 45 years
ago or so it was still an issue whether the path that it takes describes the
reality that can be verified in the
beginning of the second millennium over
the late second millennium somewhere there and so on then a few years later I very
vividly remember you know a big clash
regarding the text in the book of Joshua
whether it is historical or not
whether there was, whether there are,
whether there is evidence for destruction of cities and whether this evidence can be
interpreted as belonging or as so
associating with the biblical text and
so on so there was a development and I
am a product of the traditional biblical
archaeology in the beginning but come to
think of it even when I look back at my
excavations at Shiloh which took place
when was it 35 years ago and I take a
look today at the final Shiloh report its I
see
the some sort of a naive compilation when
it comes to evaluating the history of Shilo because I was
still halfway I understood I think at that time speaking
about what 25 years ago also worked for
the publication was put in writing was
published I understood that I need to
take a more critical approach but I was
still only the beginning also of
understanding the background of biblical
research so in a certain point in my
career I took a break and I said to
myself listen you cannot continue like
this you have to devote a few years to
really diving into biblical scholarship
into the history of ancient Israel for
the beginning and put yourself in a
position that you at least understand
what's going on I am not you know a
biblical scholar that can you know
analyze the chapter although I tried
and tried recently with the book of
Judges to do that so I'm more confident but in the beginning it was enough for
me to understand you know the scene I
would call it setting the stage and it
was extremely important because without
it without knowing the background
there's no way you know to offer my own
insights on on biblical history many
archaeologists do this without knowing
the background and in my opinion turns
out is less than it's a little bit compromising
let's put it this way
 
it was a combination of better
understanding the power of archaeology on
one hand and the limitations of archaeology
on the other hand and understanding
better the history of biblical exegesis
which means you know I gave a talk in
Boston you remember the part in
which I described a little bit naive
approach of some biblical archaeologists who
can who think that they can come and
destroy the whole structure of critical biblical exegesis with one blow one
site, one wall, one shell will change
everything
and those of us who understand you know
the depth of biblical exegesis
understand that this is impossible the
structure is very solid of course you
can always come with the new insights
but there is no way in my opinion today
of you know coming to this pyramid of
strong pyramid of biblical scholarship
and tilt it or put it down in one blow
from the side of archaeology
 
nobody can predict the future I can tell
you what I think about the situation
right now in recent years I have been
more and more involved and interested in
the question of the Northern Kingdom as you know and also the book came out the
Forgotten Kingdom however the book is
completely archaeology or almost completely
archaeology but after the book had been
published I kind of turn more to
biblical scholarship and to try to
understand the biblical background in
the sense that I'm asking myself now the
question and trying to ask the question of
what in the biblical corpus comes from the north of course nothing is there which you
can say here is a text from the north
which is complete you know one day they
came with the text and put it in the
corpus that's it you know all of them
are redacted and edited later and so on but
there are traces of modern materials but
this has been known for years there is nothing new in this
so the question is whether there was an
northern corpus this is the big question in
my opinion and this is where we are
going I am going now and discussing
things with my friends there will be an
issue of HeBAI soon which deals exactly
with this which has been edited by
Konrad Schmid and myself on the question of
texts of the Northern Kingdom and my
piece there discusses the question of a
corpus were there and because had there
been a corpus in the North it should
change the entire perspective on Judahite
compilations in late monarchic times because
the Judahite compilation must have been
influenced by Northern writings and
must have also reacted to northern
writings so this comes from a different
you know view or the development if we wish to say bombastically
I would say development of the Hebrew Bible
 
there are two criteria first of all the
text of course then it deals with Northern
places Northern issues, place
names, regions, you need you need to look at the
geography you need to look at the background
signs which are important that say
it's very obvious when one looks at the
Jacob cycle that you are dealing with
a northern text I mean the whole
thing in the beginning is around the
Transjordan, Penuel, Mizpah, Mahanaim, Sukkot and so on so this is
very obvious when it comes from in my
opinion there could be no question or when
you look at the Savior stories in the
book of Judges I mean there's no
question in the Gideon story for
instance or the Jephthah story that we
are dealing with Northern text and this
is there's nothing new about it the
question is how to put them into to put
the pieces of the puzzle in order to
have a big picture and this is what I
have been trying to do it the recent
years and only now and it takes time
to be published that come from my pen
 
what exactly did they try to tell us and
they try to tell us in the northern
texts because the northern texts you
know I am coming from the side of
archaeology after all which means I'm not
exactly you know a biblical scholar
like you I don't have the talent or the
bedrock the knowledge to deal with the
texts the way you do although I'm not completely ignorant let's put it this way in
this but I think my forte is in
looking trying to reconstruct the
background and by looking at archaeology
I can give you an example in a minute
and also understanding the geography and
this is really interesting because when
you look very carefully at the northern stories many of them deal with a certain
piece of geography a certain piece of
land I would say we go into details the
central highlands of the house of Joseph
let's put it this way
part of Transjordan and perhaps the
northern valley Jezreel but not
the Galilee and not the Jordan
Valley and not the coast and the
question is why and I think that they are
trying there in this text to delineate
what is core Israel what is true Israel
and this needs to be understood of the
background in my opinion of the transition
from the Omride to the Nimshide
Dynasty and conflicts within the
kingdom of the north regarding who is a
true Israelite what is true Israel who belongs to the nation which means they were in a
way a troubled by the same kind of
questions that the Judahites were
troubled by later even in post-exilic
times of course but the beginning
comes from there when you look at these texts very carefully you can see in these texts
ideology of the north for instance
arguing for uniting their monarchy
which is the route from Samaria and includes Judah so I think the
may give an example I think that by
looking at the northern texts and trying
to understand them and studying them in
depth one can see that the idea of the
Northern kingdom is not a Judahite idea it is a northern idea with Judahite reaction in the
7th century the late 7th century starting
in the late 7th century when Israel is no
more
 
then we go to the big debate with some
of my friends how exactly did this text
come to Judah
this is the big question so you know one
can argue that they were deposited and
Bethel and at Bethel they survived in
to Exilic times and then there
was a way of
importing them to to Jerusalem
let's put it this way but I think the
archaeology of Bethel and other
arguments are against it and I am strongly in
favor of this idea its not my idea
people raised this possibility before me
but I picked it up and promoted it
the idea of movement of people from
the north after 720 to Jerusalem now I
think that this can be shown
archaeologically and here we have a
point where archaeology is extremely
important in the biblical discussion
why is that because when we look at the
demographic situation in Judah
there's no question that we see a big
boom demographic boom demographic
expansion starting I can even
I can say starting not much before
750 BC this is the earliest possible
date so possibly starting there but
mainly after 720 there is a window of
opportunity when I have to look at it
from the point of view of archaeology
because archaeology can tell you
about the method that I want to be the
method that I want to see the method that I
want to weigh and you can compare them so one can see
the development and then the question is
where where did this these people come
from they did not come from the moon
right they there is no specific economic
attraction in Jerusalem to attract
people from the coastal plain let's say
why should they come to this godforsaken
place in the highlands so we have to
turn to the north now in parallel from the
results of the surveys
I see depletion of population in certain
areas of the Northern Kingdom after 720 BC
also from the side of archaeology
and on top of all these I think that we
can all say that we see items of
material culture imported from the north
to the south after 720 what do I mean I
see items of northern material culture
that are characteristic in the north of
the ninth century or the beginning of
the eighth century appearing in Judah
only after 720 so all these look like
there is a package even before mentioning biblical texts is a package that
one cannot ignore that's why I am so
strong on supporting and fighting to
preserve this idea of northerners
moving to the south because in my
opinion if I could say bluntly if you will
allow me to say something bluntly in
this interview I think there is no way
to understand the history of biblical
compilation without accepting this notion
because then you know it you find
yourself in a chaotic situation
completely when you work on a logical
graphically and somewhat this is a
linchpin you know in the entire theory
and in the entire understanding my 
understand but I think everybody's
understanding of the development of
how to call it biblical history the history of ancient Israel as the Bible sees it
in my opinion
starting in the eighth century and
ending in the late second century we can
speak about this I mean if you wish
later we'll get to Chronicles and Ezra Nehemiah and so on for now we are
speaking about the beginning of the
eighth century
 
it's a complementary approach and it is
an approach which I always used to call the
view from the center and I think maybe the most important item in the view
there are several important items in the view from the centre my point of view
only to speak about the longue durée
things like this but I think one of the
most important foundations I would
say is this approach that says that we
need to take to look at it in what the
French used to call many years ago histoire
agressive which means that when one reconstructs history one needs first
of all to establish himself or herself
on solid ground and then start
reconstructing back so my approach is
always been for late monarchic times to
start with the late 7th century and then
slice by slice to go back into the
eighth century and before question mark
or when we deal with post-exilic
materials start in my opinion from
Hasmonean times and then look back
so this is my approach of the view to
the center also it is approach which
argues that there is no black and white
which means there is no there's nothing
like dismissing texts all together or
accepting texts all together and
every text must be studied on its own
merits and so this is also I think an
important point that needs to be put
forward and also I would say that one
can argue that as we go back in time in
'back in time' in the history of ancient
Israel where things become less historical 
and one goes forward in time things
become more historical but this is not
the case because ideology is always
there and theology is always there and
it is not that simple which means that we
there is a possibility to look back and
identify all materials
how far back they go we can argue of
course
they're not going to we are not
going to find them tell 10 millennium BC
or the beginning of the second millenium
you go back to the 10th century or
something like that and so so this is
also important
there must be some sort of a balance to
to understand all this because of the
many directions of reconstructing
the history of ancient Israel
biblical exegesis archaeology ancient
texts evidently things are
complicated
 
well there is a revolution there's no
question about it I think we can
describe it in a colorful way by saying
that you know the ship of archeology was
going this way 25 years ago and now it's
going this direction its completely different  you
can see it is by opening you know any
journal in archeology it's looking at it
and table of contents and seeing the
number of articles which deal with
issues that have to do with the exact
life sciences and I have a part in this
in this huge project that I carried out
together with my friend Steve Weiner from
the Weizmann Institute of Science in
which we put in motion 10 tracks of
exact life sciences in the study of
ancient Israel and the iron age
archeology so there is a big evolution
and the evolution is also by looking
at who gets a position now in archeology
in archaeology departments first of all
I'm very proud to say that you know from
our projects we have now six young
people and if I'm not wrong all six of
them or five of them are women
researchers which is extremely important
I think who receive now in positions in
departments of archaeology in Israel
here in Israel so this is very important
and we did have an impact by many
articles by you know changing the
concept now part of it is pure archaeology I
mean the way I deal with them we did now
we have let me give you in just one
small example we now have evidence for
ancient DNA for appearance of zebu cows
in the Levant sometime probably in late Bronze Age
so this is important by itself to try understand why who brought
them from where why
what's the role of the Zebu why was the
cattle in the levant not good enough and
so on or was it just you know by
accident or something like that by so
this is the pure archaeology oh you know
evidence for import of exotic
commodities from India or Southeast Asia
as early as the 10th century BC however
there are pockets where we have also
impact on biblical studies I think one
of them is the project that we contducted
and it was part of this big thing
and which is has been very promising and
I'm very proud of it we assembled here a team to deal with digital methods to approach
Hebrew ostraka writing inscriptions from
the Iron Age and here I think that we
have a major impact for instance in the
work that we published recently on the
Arad ostraca because why is it
important because we are archaeologists
and biblical scholars we can argue you
know for the rest of our life for about
the volume of scribal activity or
literacy in ancient Israel or in ancient
Judah in the seventh century or
later but we are in the air we always
find ourselves in several arguments
because what do we do we look at the
text in order to give an answer about
the text so this is of course a circular
argument there must be a way to get out
of this circular argument and here we these matters
we develop it's a big team there
are mathematicians there are physicists me
as an archaeologist an epigraphist it's a
big team of about 10 we meet here
you know once every month or three weeks
and we plan how to continue the research
so at a certain point we said how can we
break this vicious circle of circular
arguments and the answer was to take the
corpus of Arad which is very good
because it is a godforsaken place on
the margin of Judah however it is a
place which is connected to the state as
a military post in the south facing
Edom on the road to if you wish Arabia, Edom and Arabia  we took
the corpus of Arad and developed an algorithm which compares the letters so this is
not anymore a matter of how a person
a scholar compares the letter I don't believe
in this because when a scholar compares a letter a scholar comes with a whole
set of ideas and theories in his mind so
this of course the brain influences the
eye there's no question about it and
then the hand which draws the the letters
but the algorithm is independent of all
this and we came to the conclusion that
in the corpus of Arad it is 16-17
inscriptions that we analyzed there are
five or six hands and then the five or
six hands go all the way down the
hierarchy of the Judahite military
establishment so this is extremely
important
