Chronology and united monarchy: A methodological review

Recently the research agenda of the study of early Iron Age Palestine has shifted. The focus on the Iron Age I settlement is ‘out’ , to debate the historicity of the United Kingdom and the archaeological chronology of the 10 th – 9 th centuries B.C.E. is ‘in’. ISRAEL FINKELSTEIN’s ‘low chronology’ (henceforward, LC) 1 is debated against the former, ‘high chronology’ (HC) . This paper does not offer a new chronology, nor does it compare pottery assemblages and strata. Rather, it reviews the whole body of FINKELSTEIN’s writing on the LC and discusses its methodology and development from a perspective of seven years (1995 – 2002) . I assume that readers are familiar with the debate, and will not describe each argument and counter argument. I will study the achievements of the LC as stated by FINKELSTEIN; its theoretical basis and some of its basic conceptions, and comment on some related issues. This paper is not written in order to support the historicity of the United Monarchy (cf. Solomon, holding ‘his’ temple, Taf. 1). In the course of this study, some phases of development are noted within the LC. Since the correlation between date of writing and date of publication is not always direct, these phases are not specified by exact years – I have no wish to start a debate about the chronology of the low chronology. I have tried to maintain accuracy when translating from Hebrew versions of LC papers.

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