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[andrewcriddle]

Other parts of the Hebrew Bible which are IMO probably from the exilic or Persian period seem to know the Pentateuch or some form of proto-Pentateuch

Without knowing what works you are referring to I am unable to think this one through.

Kings, Deutero-Isaiah, Haggai, Nehemiah would be examples. I'm not saying all of them are pre-Hellenistic, but I'm pretty sure some are.

Andrew Criddle

[andrewcriddle]

... what evidence is there for the conquest of Canaan? One city's fall is hardly evidence of a conquest of Canaan as per the Bible.

I think it's a piece of solid evidence because the archaeology of Jericho matches the unique description of the city's fall in the Book of Joshua. Titus Kennedy also said there were other cities destroyed: https://youtu.be/jngjpuHM5b4?t=2112

You'll have to excuse me for passing up the video. I get my info from books and articles and past experience has led me to relying on videos as way more time wasted than actually gained. Unless you can give me an exact minute and second placement where I should look, perhaps. But just saying a scholar says there is evidence is not enough for me to engage with that evidence. Can you cite it and show us how it matches the Joshua account and then explain how that demonstrates a conquest of Canaan by Israelites. You will need to be more specific about the other places and destroyed and also engage with what the scholarship beyond Kennedy has had to say about it all.

If Canaan was conquered by Israelites then my understanding of the archaeological evidence that has been published and discussed would leave history with those invading Israelites embracing the same culture as the Canaanites ...

My understanding is similar even though I'm not sure to what degree was the Canaanite culture embraced by Israelites. Maybe some Israelites embraced it more, some less. But there is no doubt there was some embracement because even the author of 2 Kings 23:21–23 wrote that the judges didn't celebrate the Passover: "And the king commanded all the people, saying: 'Keep the passover unto the LORD your God, as it is written in this book of the covenant.' For there was not kept such a passover from the days of the judges that judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel, nor of the kings of Judah; but in the eighteenth year of king Josiah was this passover kept to the LORD in Jerusalem."

How does Kings help us interpret the archaeological data? This is the classic error of the past scholarship under the sway of biblical apologetics. We cannot justify beginning with the Bible and then interpreting archaeological remains in the light of the Bible. The only valid process is the reverse. We begin with the "hard evidence in the ground" and then see if it throws light on literary records of unknown provenance.

I know apologists say that the Bible says Israel fell into paganism and all the archaeological remains show pagan culture so therefore the Bible is true -- essentially, though not so crudely as that. But if that's the case then the Bible can't lose. If there is no evidence for any Israelites there then the Bible wins by saying that the Israelites were just like the pagans. That's not a convincing argument to many.

Besides, there is no extra-biblical evidence that the Biblical Passover was kept prior to the Hellenistic era. And that is the point of this thread. The biblical narrative may well have been a creation of the Hellenistic period and past events were created (e.g. Josiah's reforms) to justify new practices. I touched on that Josiah narrative in the OP.

One could argue that the main core of the Pentateuch was written in the 15th century during the Exodus (if the historicity of the Exodus is plausible). But I didn't want to derail this thread into the question of the historicity of the Exodus. I just wanted to show that there are some arguments for its historicity.

I think one could speculate that the Pentateuch was written so early but there is no evidence for its existence at that time. It would indeed be a most remarkable document if it were from that era -- so totally unlike any other contemporary literature or theological concepts. A thousand years ahead of its time, one might even say, and one that survived a thousand years and more despite making no material impact on the culture in all that time.

The Elephantine papyri indicate some sort of Passover even if it differs from that required by the Pentateuch.

Andrew Criddle

[andrewcriddle]

One General issue is that the works in the Old Testament that would often be regarded as early Hellenistic like Chronicles are revising an earlier pre-Hellenistic text (Samuel-Kings) in the light of later ideology. (Yes this does treat Samuel-Kings as pre-Hellenistic but it does IMO seem considerably prior to Chronicles.) There is less evidence of creation of large scale narratives de-novo in this period.

Andrew Criddle

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