6. Archeological Eras
I. Description
Of all the topics in the archaeological world, this one is probably the most confusing. Not because it is the standard for bible scholars and archaeologist of the Middle East but because there is so much variety in its use that tend to lead the un-educated archaeologically into bewilderment. There is consensus among professionals about these periods, the names of the different eras of human history, but there is also disagreement concerning the actual time periods for the majority of them.
As the history of man comes closer towards our modern times, the observer will see much more conformity as to what years each era took place but as one looks back in time, going further away from modern living, one will notice large disparities among scholars. The table below is but an example of this disparity and does not reflect all scholars and archaeologists conclusions as to when these eras existed. All figures are BC.
ERA Wright 1 E.A.E.H.L.** Mazar 2
Neolithic 8,000- 5,000 8,300- 4.500 8,500- 4,300
Chalcolithic 5,000- 3,300 4,500- 3,100 4,300- 3,300
EB* IA-C 3,300- 2,900 3,150 – 2,850 3,300- 3,050
EB II 2,900- 2,700 2,850- 2,650 3,050-
EB III 2,600- 2,400 2,650- 2,350 2,300
EB IIIB 2,400- 2,200 2,350- 2,200 2,300-
MB* I 2,100- 2,000 2,200- 2,000 2,000
MB IIA 1,900- 1,750 2,000- 1,750 2,000- 1,800
MB IIB 1,750- 1,625 1,750- 1,550 1,800- 1,550
LB* I 1,500- 1,400 1,550- 1,400 1,550- 1,400
LB IIA 1,400- 1,300 1,400- 1,300 1,400-
LB IIB 1, 300- 1,200 1, 300- 1,200 1,200
IA* IA 1,200- 1,150 1, 200- 1,150 1,200- 1,150
IA IB 1,150- 1,000 1,150- 1,000 1,150- 1,000
IA IIA 900- 800 1,000- 900 1,000- 925
IA IIB 800- 587 900- 800 925-720 (586)
*Early, Middle, late & Iron Age **Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land
As the reader can see there is disagreement and there are gaps. These gaps are due to the fact that some archaeologists and scholars add or subtract more sub-categories at their pleasure. What makes things much worse is that the Israeli archaeologists use their own terms for the exact same periods,
Some Israeli archaeologists tend to use terms with ethnic connotations—Canaanite period & Israeli period—instead of the terms Bronze Age and Iron Age.3
So it is no wonder non-professional or non-archaeologically educated people become confused by the terms Bronze Age, Stone Age and Iron Age. They are not used in a uniform manner and are at the whim of the scholar or archaeologist who uses them.
Then there is the problem of transitional periods. These are so-called gaps in the development of human civilization,
Another terminological problem relates to two transitional periods…These were given special names by scholars, intended to emphasize their uniqueness but the result was only chaos. 4
The more secular scholars tried or try to clear things up, the bigger mess they made. Even the definition given to this label is very ambiguous and allows for too much freedom to the archaeologist to apply the periods as they see fit and not as they should be.
Historic period- any period in the past that can be studied by using contemporary written documents. 5
Such non-specific definitions lend much to the comprehension problems many people face when studying the field of archaeology. One must not only be aware of their own categorization but of the many that are used by so many different people.
It is also an opening for archaeological games as these categories can be used to manipulate history and to argue against the biblical record.
The disagreement between Garstang and Kenyon, moderated by Wood, was one of the ceramic differences between MB III (old MB IIB) and LB I. One of the problems in that context is that there was basically no discontinuity, either culturally or ceramically, between MB III and LB I. So there was, and is, a lot of room for disagreement. It's simply not a clear and distinct cultural horizon 6
In other words, it is easy to use the archaeological periods as one wants as there are no hard and fast rules governing their use and no penalty if they are used wrongly or with ulterior motives. Archaeologists and scholars are free to use them as they wish and as reported earlier, when one has enough knowledge of a subject, they can confuse others very easily.
What has led to all this confusion comes in the next section as the history of the origin of the 3 stage age theory is explored.
II. The History of the Archaeological Eras
One may think that because archaeology is a field of science that it would use scientific means to determine the categories it uses for chronological and historical purposes. Unfortunately, that is just not so. In fact, science had very little to do with it and like most things in science and its sub-fields, these categories were determined arbitrarily and on the opinion of one person. The story goes like this:
This was the problem facing Christian Jurgensen Thomsen (1788-1865) when he was appointed curator of the Danish National Museum in Copenhagen in 1816. His array of prehistoric objects could not be placed in any sort of order based on date. He hit on an ingenious solution. He recognised that some of the museum‘s collection had come from sites where the only finds were made from stone; some came from sites where bronze was also used, while others came from sites where iron, stone and bronze were used. He suggested that those sites with only stone tools were the oldest, labeling this the Stone Age, those with bronze and stone tools belonged to a Bronze Age, while those with iron belonged to an Iron Age. In some ways, this followed the idea put forward by Hesiod. However, whereas Hesiod’s model was one of a decline from a time of perfection (the Age of Gold) to the present, sinful Age of Iron, Thomsen’s model was one of increasing technological complexity, from stone, through bronze to iron.7
This task of creating a museum display for all the material it had collected over the years was influenced by evolutionary thinking.
Although there are the hints of this idea developing in the writings of some early 19th century British antiquarians the breakthrough came in Denmark where Christian Jurgenson Thomsen, given the task of sorting out the collections of the National Museum of Denmark, developed a classification based on three successive ages, of stone, bronze and iron. He suggested that these ages, although defined by technology, represented differing stages of human development and consequently provided not just a classification but also some indication of chronology. 8 {bold mine}
It is thought that since man evolved so must have his tools but again this is very misleading as human culture or civilizations do not progress in these staged formats. There was not a period where everybody was stone aged then all of a sudden they realized they could move up to a higher level of technology and use bronze for their tools and weapons, then repeat that process for iron and so on.
All societies started and progressed differently and there is no uniform manner for human culture,
Archeologists admit, however, that all three types of tools are found together in archeological digs.9
Even today, civilizations do not progress in a uniform manner. Supposedly we are in the nuclear age yet less than 10 nations (out of the 150 or so in existence today) have nuclear weapons while many societies are still found to be living in the Stone Age.
“A MODERN relic of the Stone Age”; “The most primitive human beings so far discovered”; “The first known living ‘cavemen.’” Through such newspaper reports, worldwide attention was focused on a twenty-five-member tribe living in the dense jungle of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. Their discovery led to the forming of several expeditions composed of Filipino and American anthropologists, news correspondents, television crews of the National Geographic Society…10
One can see that the inexact science of creating these ages has actually created more problems than it solved. It was the simplicity of the system that made it a success as archaeologists were then able to start dividing their finds into different parts of history, whether they were the correct part remains uncertain simply because human civilizations did not and do not make choices or act according to how modern scholars demand or think.
His ideas were an instant success. Suddenly, archaeologists across Europe had the means to place finds in a relative sequence. If they did not know how long each of their Three Ages had lasted, that was something that it might be possible to sort out later. In the meantime, it became important to work out the sequences of finds in different parts of the world. It also became possible to correlate different types of monument with finds of different dates 11
It is easy to see why it was so successful, not only did it provide a loose framework to categorize their discoveries, it allowed them the freedom to re-write history as they saw fit. Since no textual documentation accompanies these discoveries, the archaeologist is, to a certain extent, free to place them where they think they belong, guided by the merest of instructions, the names of the three ages.
This is a very common practice among secular biblical scholars and minimalists who do not believe the Bible. They do not like the Biblical chronology so they change it at well using the 3 Age System and a lot of conjecture.12
In essence then, what we have on our hands is a big monster which can be used to alter history depending on the honesty and character of the professionals involved and as they are influenced by their religious beliefs, or lack of them, or their experience, or their preference. This then leads us into a deeper discussion on the problems that come with this invention of the 3 Age system.
III. The Problems of the Archaeological Eras
As has been briefly alluded to in the earlier section, many problems arise from the invention by Christian Jurgenson Thomsen. One such problem is the very limited use of this system. Many do not realize that this system is not for world wide application. In fact, its territory is restricted to a very small portion of the world,
The three-age system has been difficult to apply fully outside Europe and the Mediterranean for which it was devised. Some societies skipped some of the stages or never developed them when their societies did not need them. Some Amazonian tribes in South America remain to date in the Neolithic for example, and while there was no Bronze Age in Sub-Saharan Africa, technological innovation there progressed from stone to iron working.13
It was only created for the societies that existed in Europe and area that comprises the field of Biblical archaeology. It does not work for any other civilization or minor society as one can see by the quote that their development progressed at a different rate and or direction. Forcing the Bible and the civilizations it mentions into a very limited structure is distorting the past and allowing for misdating to occur.
This is a very big problem for if we do not get the dates right then how will we know if the rest of the theory is correct? We don’t. To be effective, a chronological era should be able to be applied to all civilizations and societies around the world but as noted earlier, progress with human is never uniform and it is not scientific.
A second problem that arises is that the Bible specifically mentions that metalworking began very, very early in time,
Again we only need to turn to the Bible for perspective. In Genesis 4:22, Tubalcain was "an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." This was before the flood.14
Thus the conclusions of the archaeologist are skewed as the ignore this fact and seek to date their discoveries according to a very general and flawed system. It is flawed, for it does not take into account the continued use of stone tools in different eras or that replicas could have been made or that even children were given stone tools to use by their parents, to protect them from the sharper metal ones. The reasons for the overlap are many and this system does not address such options.
Then we have the problem where a society’s knowledge in other fields far out distance their every day tools or weapons. In other words, they may be at a Stone Age level in the weapons or tool department of life while their academic pursuits were far beyond the Iron Age level. Case in point:
Using the three-age system to measure the advancement of societies is often quite inaccurate, as some developments have appeared in different societies at vastly differing stages of their development. For example, Classic Period Maya society had mathematics and astronomy that rivaled early renaissance Europe, but were still technically a Stone Age culture. Some pre-Inca cultures had metalworking starting in 1500 BC. The Japanese had pottery as early as 10,000 BC but did not begin bronze work or rice farming until 1000 to 500 BC. 15
This disparity between fields of study is glaring and demonstrates the weakness and limitation of the three age system. It is not a tool that can be relied upon as providing correct, constructive, or accurate data. It is just not designed to do so; it was designed to solve a then present day problem faced by a museum curator and has no reflection on history or the development of human civilization.
A fourth problem is, as mentioned earlier, civilizations do not progress in a uniform manner. The do so as their people decide what they want to achieve and those decisions are influenced by the amount of raw material at their disposal
The system isn't perfect; as is quite clear by anybody who has done reading of the literature, the technological change from stone to bronze to iron doesn't coincide with social changes except in the broadest of senses16
But if the system isn’t perfect, why use it at all, especially when its use leads to faulty positioning of cultural changes and changes in technology and other cultural products? For believers, then, they need to discard the system altogether and turn to something more honest and appropriate that speaks the truth and if they cannot find such an alternative, then they must alter the existing one to better fit their needs.
This present system seems to foster anti-biblical pre-supposition and bias:
Thomsen's Three Age System was the first classification of prehistoric times. The Three Age System was soon shown to have actual chronological validity, with layers of Stone Age tools underlying those with metals. But the whole of human existence was shackled within 6,000 years of Biblical chronology. 17
The secular world has altered the three age system to accommodate their evolutionary thinking and have extended it into the past by many thousands of years, though they cannot prove the validity of those additional eras. But one thing is for certain, they do not want to be associated with the Biblical chronology or the Bible. The number 6,000 is used a lot by evangelicals and it, as you can see, has become the standard for secularists to use when referring to Biblical timelines. We cannot even be sure of the 6,000 human year time frame as dating the past is basically an impossible chore. Nothing in the past is dated according to modern calendars thus we are only guessing when we come up with the dates of past events.
Even the 3 Age system is guessing as it cannot be positively certain that the dates used to divide each category is correct, at best it is an assumption and why we have so much disagreement among scholars as to the dates of each era. In fact, without time stamped records, even dating one’s activities of the previous week is almost impossible, given the mindset of scholars and archaeologists today.
One could provide their schedule diary as proof yet it can be dismissed as written the day before, to solve a problem or as biased and not a true account of one’s past because there is no corroboration from extra-personal sources. There are many objections that can be used to dismiss a date or event by archaeologists and biblical scholars and they will apply them because the true history does not meet their ideas.
In closing this chapter, one more quote is needed to illustrate the weakness of the archaeological eras:
…One confusing disagreement in chronological terminology must be signalized. About 1950 BC a sharp cultural shift occurred in Palestine which was marked by a rapid revival of urban life after an apparent hiatus of hundreds of years…Now that the evidence for the shift has emerged, it is apparent that the classical system of names for the cultural phases no longer corresponds with historical reality…Most recent writers are agreed that the classical system is now inadequate.18
It is inadequate and it does not correspond with actual human history, it was never intended to be nor was it designed for that purpose. It is an utter failure that subjects historical facts and records to the whims of those who spend their lives professionally studying history and archaeology.
It is better described as a tool for the secularist to alter biblical chronology in hopes of finally proving, once and for all, that the Bible is inaccurate and its message can be dismissed and ignored. The 3 stage system cannot deal with the inconsistencies of human development, nor can it be applied uniformly to all ancient civilizations around the world.
It is woefully inferior and without merit, yet why is it still in use today, for the simple reason it is the only system that exists where archaeologists can classify their work and it is ‘deeply ingrained in people’s minds, including those of archaeologists.’19 The concept has found a home and it will be too difficult for anyone to change the mindset because of the vast acceptance of the system.
Believers need to be wary as the dates they are given may not be accurate and may not reflect the true historical reality. The further back we go, the less evidence there is that has survived to inform of what has taken place and because secular scholars reject the intervention of the Flood, their dates are very much distorted and misleading.
What the believer needs to know is that God does not use exact dates, in many Biblical passages we read, the words, ‘…in the fifth year of the reign of…’20 or something similar and in the very first verse of the Bible we are not given an exact date. The verse begins, ‘In the beginning…’21, we are not privy as to when that beginning was, for the exact date is not germane to the Christian faith nor their salvation, the focus should be on God, as it should be when we study events from the past.
It does not matter to the believer exactly when something took place, i.e. the exodus; it should matter to them that they believe God and that it did take place.
7. Dating the Evidence
I. The Different Dating Systems
Besides the 3 Ages System, and in archaeology there are actually a lot more than the 3 ages as history has continued long after 587 BC, there are numerous ways to date discovered artifacts.
When archaeologists uncover things like coins, it is easy to get an accurate date from them because of the impression on the coin, or the actual date which may be stamped onto the metal. However, dating things that are not themselves dated is a far more difficult task. There are several ways of doing this.1
There is not space to deal with them all, suffice it to say that there are many options available to the archaeologist2 and they are free to choose which one they want to use as it fits their needs. There are two that are most common, the first is radiocarbon dating or as it is commonly known as, C-14 dating.
C-14 dating is very simple as it tracks the number of carbon atoms in a deceased piece of organic material. C-14 is derived from C-12 and then once the organic material dies, it declines at a given rate.3 Using C-14 as a dating tool is problematic in several ways; first, it destroys the artifact or example it is dating. When an archaeologist uses this method, they have to make sure they are not putting a valuable discovery inside the machine for it will perish during the test.
A second problem with C-14 dating is that it is based upon assumptions and ideals. There is no possible way for a scientist to be aware of how much C-14 was in the organic material at its death and there is no possible way for the scientist to accurately discover how much C-14 the organic material started out with or ingested over its life span.4 So to say that an item was 900 years old or even 9,000 is at best a guess or an approximation.
A third problem that arises when dealing with C-14 is there is no way to determine how much carbon the sun transmits to the earth or if the Flood altered the carbon amounts in many of the artifacts being dated.5 The next problem, which is fairly major, is the danger of contamination. Organic material absorbs contaminants, even after death,
For C14 to test accurately the artifact must have been protected from contamination. Organic matter, being porous, can easily be contaminated by organic carbon in groundwater. This increases the C12 content and interferes with the carbon ratio.6
To find a perfect and pristine sample is very difficult to do and many dates are thrown off because a sample is used that may have been contaminated, though done so unwarily. Finally, in dealing with problems related to C-14 dating is the concept of the decline rate,
For radiocarbon dating to be reliable scientists need to make a number of vital assumptions. Firstly, Dr Libby assumed that C14 decays at a constant rate. However, experimental evidence indicates that C14 decay is slowing down and that millennia ago it decayed much faster than is observed today.7
This has been my point of contention for years now. Libby’s assumption was that each half year lasted for 5,730 years (approx.) then for some inexplicable reason, it would slow down by 50%. In simpler terms:
C-14 has a half life of 5,730 years. If you begin with 100 pounds of C-14, it would take 5,730 years until there would only be 50 pounds left. It would take an additional 5,730 years for the 50 pounds to decay to only 25 pounds, and so on, halving the amount of C-14 every 5,730 years.
As it can be seen, this is not a steady decline rate but one that slows down every 5,730 years. What machinery applies this slow down is never discussed. In a search for answers, no resource talks about how this slow down works or is initiated and how it knows to do it every time at the exact same amount of passage of time is never discussed.
I put forth the theory that the half-life of C-14 can only be measured in 2 parts, providing the range of accuracy of about 11,500 years, give or take a hundred years or so. This would make more sense, given the date results that are produced by C-14 dating without the helpful, corrective calibration from Dendrochronology and other dating systems.
The accuracy or C-14 dating depends upon who you talk to as the dates range from my very low 11,000 +/- years up to 100,000+/- years. Unfortunately, no human will ever live long enough to prove Dr. Libby correct or pronounce him wrong and when they do, no one will care.
II Pottery
The next and most important, and most used, dating system that will be discussed is pottery. It is found in at all digs and even on the surface in abundant supply
What is it about pottery that makes it so valuable for archaeology? In the first place, pottery is the most basic and useful tool for developing the chronology of a site.9
And,
Hundreds of lamps have been unearthed and thousands of pottery fragments (“potsherds” or “sherds”) and coins were retrieved from the sifters10
Pottery is all over the place and was the ancient world’s most commonly used item. It use in dating ancient civilizations is vital and trumps radiocarbon dating, not only because it is cheap and there is so much evidence for it but because the archaeologist can see how it lies sequentially in the ground as they dig. Two men, played a role in discovering this method of dating, though the latter is given all the credit, the former played a small role as well:
But Schliemann was also learning, by trial and error, more systematic methods of excavation. He deserves credit for being one of the first archaeologists to understand the value of pottery sequencing—dating pottery sherds by comparing them sequentially to other sherds. At Troy, Schliemann also developed a form of stratigraphy, in which the various occupational layers of a site are carefully uncovered one by one (and are dated through pottery sequences).11 {underlining mine}
The second man, receives all the credit for pottery sequencing and I soften called the father of modern pottery dating,
Petrie spent the next two years performing excavations of two Nile Delta sites at Naukratis and Daphnae. Here, he uncovered pottery and was able to prove that both of these sites were former ancient Greek trading posts. From this excavation he developed a sequential dating method that would enable him to determine the chronology of any civilization by pottery fragment comparison. In the course of a brief interlude in Palestine, a six-week season of excavations at Tell el-Hesi in the spring of 1890, he introduced into Palestine the concept that a Tell is a manmade mound of successive, superimposed 'cities'. He established the dating of these 'cities' by means of their associated deeply stratified ceramic remains and of the "cross-dating" of these remains with reference to similar finds made in their Egyptian contexts. Petrie sponsored investigations that followed the stratification of a site in relation to such establishable chronologies.12
Thus we have the invention of pottery dating borne out of the astute observation of two former excavators. The value of using pottery as a dating system was enhanced when it was discovered that ‘once it was fired, it does not change nor disappear with time as do objects of metal…’13
It is, if left alone by stronger destructive forces, permanent and will lie in wait till it is unearthed by a farmer, or some other person digging in the dirt. What also makes it valuable is that ‘each society or archaeological period seemed to have its own distinct style and typical pottery. Archaeologists are able to date any level or stratum in a site by the type of pottery that appears in it.’ 14
So because of the numerous quantities and its variations, pottery has become a useful tool in dating archaeological digs and artifacts. These are dated according to the pottery that is found on site and at each level of the dig. Pottery is also a one of the best ways for an archaeologist to learn about a society. Their design, the sophistication, any writing that is placed upon a piece, the production techniques and so on:
One of the main ways an archeologist can learn about a culture is through its pottery. A pottery shard found in an archeological dig can tell the archeologist what materials were used in a given region, where the pottery clay came from, what the firing techniques were and the possible cultural purpose for a given piece.
Pottery is an advanced technology which requires a great deal of processing, experimentation and precision to create. Even using modern pot throwing techniques, molding and hand building (which are similar to their ancient counterparts), the process does not always yield a useable, workable pot. Many times in the process of firing a pot, multiple firings are required which can take days, and this does not include the added complication of glazing techniques. The sophistication needed to create a workable pot, along with the geographical resources needed for clay, has meant that in many areas pottery was not one of the early technologies developed. Many cultural areas within prehistory had knowledge of pottery, but the more sophisticated forms, such as those found within the South American tribe of the Moche, and within Jamon culture of Japan, display a great knowledge of the medium of clay, and all of its constituent components, which took many years to discover.15
As with the 3 Age system and its use of stone, bronze and iron, the pottery world is as uneven in development and use as the weapons and tools found in that system. What this tells us is that people advance or develop at different rates and there are mitigating factors involved which spur or hinder their growth as a developed civilization, though one could argue that the most sophisticated systems are those found in under-developed societies. They just do not record or do everything in a manner that pleases the western investigator.
Pottery is useful but it is not without its problems, as we shall see.
III. Problems with Pottery Dating
As has been discussed, radiocarbon dating is tenuous at best and leaves archaeologists in a bind,
The unreliability of carbon 14 date testing is a great concern to honest archaeologists. They get particularly concerned when C14 testing shows obviously inaccurate results and they are left in uncertainty about the reliability of the dates that they have previously never questioned.16
And which has left them little choice but to look to something more reliable, like pottery. But the pottery system is not immune to problems either and one has to do with the subjectivity of the chronology:
The beginning of an enduring pottery technology had to wait (if the chronologies offered by the archaeologists are valid) 17
Pottery chronologies are mainly an archaeologist construct and since we do not know when pottery was first invented18, nor have we beyond a shadow of a doubt samples with which to compare subsequent remains, it is difficult to say what style came first and if they were really as Amihai Mazar says;
The Neolithic pottery comprises mainly simple crude, handmade, vessels made on mats and fired at low temptatures.19
To be realistic, for all we know, we have stumbled upon what possibly could be a pottery school remains or the first attempts by beginners in learning how to make pottery or even test pots or vessels, to determine the right temperature and materials used, or they were just the cheapest option for non-rich villager could purchase. In other words, without knowing neither the beginning nor having any confirmed samples from the first potters, we have no way of knowing the exact nature of the vessels discovered
This description conforms in considerable detail to the bathing installations exposed in the small room containing the Lepers’ Pool. Among the unusual finds in this room were scores of complete pottery lamps, typical of the third and fourth centuries A.D. They are all very similar in style, and all lack the soot which characterizes a lamp after use. Perhaps these lamps were intended to be used in some midnight ritual by “lepers” hoping for a cure. Or maybe they were placed at the pool’s edge. The evidence is intriguing, to say the least. Certainty of interpretation will surely continue to elude us20
Those lamps could also have been put there for future sale, we just do not know and that is the way it is with pottery, unless we discover some text which describes its purpose. Another problem is the conflicting ideas among archaeologist about the ownership of pottery. They may agree that pottery has been left behind but as to the reason, they will differ:
Since ancient people often made their own pottery, when they moved from one place to another they did not bother to take it with them because it was so inexpensive.21
Verses,
Pottery is heavy and thus not very useful for people traveling in the desert22
Another issue that bears mentioning is the idea of what the ancient people did for pots and cooking ware prior to the invention, if it is as late as archaeologists claim,
Ain Ghazal was settled in about 7200 B.C., in the Neolithic period. Scholars divide this period into Pre-Pottery Neolithic (c. 9000–5500 B.C.) and Pottery Neolithic (c. 5500–4000 B.C.). Ain Ghazal flourished in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic for almost 2,000 years. By 6200 B.C. the settlement had grown to occupy nearly 40 acres, almost four times the size of contemporaneous Jericho, only 30 miles away. Indeed, Ain Ghazal was one of the largest “cities” in the Neolithic Near East23
One has to wonder what the ancients did when they wanted hot food over those 2,000 years, yet no one really addresses this issue for it goes against their accepted theories. Clearly, pottery, even though it can be permanent though under ideal circumstances, is subject to destructive forces because pottery is made of clay and even when fired it can be broken into tiny little pieces far beyond the ability of the archaeologist to analyze and date.
Did these people eat cold meat all the time with cold corn and potatoes? Not likely, for like the stone hammer, which many experts claim the ancient people used for a long time without a handle (a few swings of one would convince anyone that a handle was needed) the ancients would be tired of not having a variety at meal time and their minds would set about fixing the problem of the absence of hot meals.
In my opinion, pottery has been around for a lot longer than the archaeological experts think and as the late Dr. Mazar said, ‘the first stage of the pre-pottery Neolithic is not very well documented’24 Which translate into the fact that archaeologists have no real idea when pottery was put into use and it is safe to conclude that the ancients were a lot smarter than the modern experts grant them.
There is yet another problem with the pottery dating system and it is a common problem for all the archaeological digs throughout the world, especially in the Middle East. Looting can create gaps in the chronology making it virtually impossible to date a building, a city or a tomb.
The losses from looting are of several kinds. Many artifacts not deemed commercially valuable, such as animal bones, pollen and seed samples, and even pottery sherds, are simply thrown out or destroyed by looters. In addition, both looted sites and recovered objects become less valuable. Once the sites have been disturbed and the looted objects have been removed from their proper context, both the artifacts and the sites lose much of their capacity to contribute information about the past25
People need money, and one of the easiest sources in the Middle East for impoverished people is the numerous undiscovered ancient sites. They come in at night, dig, and when they find anything, they cart it off to sell at the antiquities markets in their respective countries and receive an income. The loss for the archaeologist is not solely monetary but measured in loss of information about that particular site and its history, which to an archaeologist is more of a travesty than the financial reward involved.
The information provided by these pottery remains, to an archaeologist is invaluable,
The finds from an archaeological excavation, apart from architectural remains, are almost exclusively pottery. Except in rare instances, this pottery is in the form of broken fragments, or sherds.
By themselves, sherds say very little about their former lives. Nevertheless, these sherds are valuable. Their shape, decoration and method of manufacture allow the archaeologist to date the pieces, and identify the historical context from which they came; sometimes even determining who made the pottery and where. In fact, the primary, means of dating in Palestine is through pottery. Thus, archaeologists spend a great deal of time and money excavating, processing, evaluating and publishing lowly potsherds26
And when the pottery is lost, broken or stolen, the value of the site decreases to a point of being almost worthless.
The believer must remember that, like the 3 Age System, all dating methods are man-made and are imperfect and should not be relied upon to provide concrete dates for the past. All dating systems are vulnerable to corruption, fallibility, errors, and miscalculations and so on. One of the most damaging negative actions that can be used, and which happens in all scientific fields, is manipulation of the facts, the evidence and of course, the dating systems.
Pottery is not immune to such manipulation for we do not know if a set of 10th century BC pots were original with the building it resides, or if the building was constructed after the 10th century but the people still used old pots or if the building was constructed prior to the 10th century and the pots were moved in at a much later date.
There are just too many options that apply to any given sight. Also, for tombs, we have no idea if the grieving loved ones placed their new pots in the tomb with their departed relative or if they decided that was a good place to dispose of their old cookery and other clay possessions. Experts assume, of course, that they would probably use their best, but if the people were economically deprived or if they were frugal, that idea would not make much sense.
In any case, we cannot prove the reason why, we can just see the results of their actions and only guess as to why they were found where they were. One, also, has to wonder how much the 3 Age System influences the dating of pottery. When pottery pieces are found in a known age, how much is assumed that the pottery actually came from that specific era? It is possible that the pottery came from another era via inheritance, keepsakes or gifts thus to assume the date is not always the best idea.
Then, for the believer, one must ask themselves, is knowing the exact date vital to my faith and salvation? All physical evidence is, for the believer, is a provision from God to shore up His follower’s faith, so that they will not weaken and be turned away from belief in Him. Knowing the exact date doesn’t necessarily accomplish that purpose, realizing that the evidence is there and that the event is true-- does.
Believers should not be caught up in the continuing debate of when things happened and when they existed for that is a distraction to their purpose and Christian life and can take the believer’s eyes off Jesus, causing them to stumble or fall. The believer needs to be wary and make issues of those things that are vital to their faith and Christian life.
8. The Problem of Education
I. The Scholar’s View
For some reason, many scholars and archaeologists have this idea that the ancient world was vastly different from the modern world. They think that what takes place in people’s lives, goals, desires, education, did not take place in the past or was vastly restricted by the ruling powers. Their concepts of writing and education bear the influence of evolutionary thinking and feel that for some strange reason, people could not grasp the idea of writing till much, much later in their development.
Language existed long before writing, emerging probably simultaneously with sapience, abstract thought and the Genus Homo. In my opinion, the signature event that separated the emergence of palaeohumans from their anthropoid progenitors was not tool-making but a rudimentary oral communication that replaced the hoots and gestures still used by lower primates. The transfer of more complex information, ideas and concepts from one individual to another, or to a group, was the single most advantageous evolutionary adaptation for species preservation.1
This idea is underscored by the following:
Humans had been speaking for a couple hundred thousand years before they got the inspiration or nerve to mark their ideas down for posterity.
But when a Mesopotamian people called the Sumerians finally did scratch out a few bookkeeping symbols on clay tablets 5,000 years ago, they unknowingly started a whole new era in history2
They also feel that communication was not done like it was today but that the ancients were sort of mentally disabled when it came to communicating with each other and had to act like monkeys or entertainers to speak their thoughts to another person.
If you have ever listened with fascination as older relatives spoke about their lives, you understand the delight people feel hearing stories about their past. Before writing was invented, people recalled the past through cave paintings, dance, ritual chant, and stories told by the light of campfires. In a number of ways—including myths, legends, fables, fairy tales, and animal stories—each generation tried to pass on its stories to the next.3
They forget or do not accept that there was no evolutionary process and that ancient man was exactly like modern man, for God did not do a processional creation nor were there two separate ones were ancient man was created one way and modern man another. What modern man desires is the same as the ancient one, for both were given the same human qualities and the same abilities thus as we look around at our fellow man today we can be assured that the desires for education, and literacy today were present in the ancient world.
In fact we know that education was vastly important in many ancient societies and it did not take hundreds of thousands of years to finally decide to write something down. One has to question why it took so long for ancient man to put their ideas on paper, or stone or whatever material they used. Surely in all those generations someone would have come up with the idea long before the credited inventors of the writing system.
We all know that the Wright Bros. were not the inventors of the idea of flying, for that idea was originated in the ancient world, long before Da Vinci drew his famous sketches of flying apparatuses. The same for writing, there were ancient societies long before Sumer thus the idea of writing and education most likely was well established long before they ‘invented’ it.
In the earliest certainly readable texts from South Iraq, the language was Sumerian. Whether or not the earliest Uruk texts (which we cannot read) also represented Sumerian, we are not sure.4
There were societies before the Sumerians and though they are credited with much, it is hard to say for certain how much they can be credited for, for they most likely inherited the ‘inventions’ from those who came before. William Dever goes a lot further and just makes a blanket generalization of the ancient world with his comment:
In the Ancient world generally, the populace was almost totally illiterate.5
Yet if this was so, why would King Hammurabi, and so many other rulers, create stele inscribed with their laws and place them around the country for all to read? Dr. Dever does not present one iota of proof for his conclusion and he has maintained this idea, without proof, for years6 But from research, we see in the ancient records that education was highly valued, not only in Greece and Rome but also in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
The latter two were both host countries to the Israelites, both as invited guests and as slaves, and thus the idea of education being valuable would not have been lost on them. In fact we read in the book of Daniel how many in Israel were selected for special training and education, so it is safe to conclude that that the idea of educating their people remained with them, not only after their sojourn in Egypt but also Babylon. {Of course, this idea is supported by the modern pursuit of education by the Jewish people throughout the world}
What these scholars, and Dr. Dever, seem to ignore is that even the most brutal of regimes educate their children and even their people who are political prisoners and given the harshest of living conditions. The prison or labor camps of North Korea provide us with a modern day example:
The school was a square compound composed of two facing buildings joined on either side by a wall. A flower bed and lawn stretched between the buildings. The classrooms were floor heated in traditional Korean style but only when the temperature dipped below 14 degrees F… {Pages 63-72 provide a much more detailed explanation of education in these camps and compares it with how the guards’ children were treated} 7
Education was neither that rare in the ancient world nor done as the scholars think, as we shall see.
II. Education
As we have seen, modern scholars have this distorted view of ancient education and one wonders that, if these modern scholars were correct, how the ancients could achieve so much if they were so illiterate. Most of their work surpasses that of modern man and without the aid of modern technology and machinery, and to do that took education and literacy.
The ancient Babylonians took education very seriously as they were studying advanced mathematics long before the Greeks ‘discovered’ it:
Eight hundred miles east of Cairo, near the ruins of Babylon in Iraq, they have found clay tablets dating back to 2,000 BC…Surfacing into the 20th century AD the slabs teach us that 600 years after Cheops was built, three hundred years before Tuthmosis II ruled, 1700 years before Euclid introduced his ‘new’ geometry at Alexandria, Babylonian school children were learning about the hypotenuse of a right triangle.8
And
The people dwelling along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers were the most advanced mathematicians and astronomers of their day.9
To do so those takes education and a commitment to teach ones children, not just the elite but all children. But this trend was not limited to Babylonia for the Romans put a high focus on education as well, which contradicts Dr. Dever’s conclusion about the Roman world,
It has been estimated that even in the Roman period no more than 5 per cent of the population were illiterate…In Israel the figure was certainly lower10
This seems to be a an assumption that Dr. Dever cannot support for in the following, we see that the Romans took great pride in having their children educated,
By then, Greek was the international language spoken by many Roman neighbors. From the 2nd century BC a Roman was considered fully educated only if he received the same education as a native Greek in parallel with instructions in Latin.
Only the children from the wealthiest families would receive a fully bi-lingual education. A very young boy or girl from a wealthy family would spend a lot of time with a Greek servant or slave and therefore would learn Greek before Latin. This private tutoring available only to rich people gave the highest result. The child also learned to read and write, again with Greek coming before Latin.
From the 3rd century BC Greek education was available to less privileged children in public schools, where the results were not as impressive. It took several years to teach the children to read.11
The Greek world was not much different:
The boys of Sparta were obliged to leave home at the age of 7 to join sternly disciplined groups under the supervision of a hierarchy of officers. From age 7 to 18, they underwent an increasingly severe course of training…In Sparta, girls also went to school at age 6 or 7. They lived, slept and trained in their sisterhood's barracks. No one knows if their school was as cruel or as rugged as the boy’s school, but the girls were taught wrestling, gymnastics and combat skills. Some historians believe the two schools were very similar and that an attempt was made to train the girls as thoroughly as they trained the boys…Until age 6 or 7, boys were taught at home by their mother or by a male slave. Boys attended elementary school from the time they were about age 6 or 7 until they were 13 or 14…At 13 or 14, the formal education of the poorer boys probably ended and was followed by apprenticeship at a trade. The wealthier boys continued their education under the tutelage of philosopher-teachers12
Not much different from today or even the 20th century as many farm boys or poorer children had to leave school to work to help support their families. People also complain about education today and why it takes so long for students to learn.
Thus the conclusions that, based upon the very incomplete record that we have of the ancient world, the ancient people were vastly illiterate are just baseless assumptions and are moot for they are not founded upon reality and the frustrations of those who oppose such conclusions are amply illustrated by the following complaint,
No one seems to question that the Greeks and Romans were capable of inventing Euclidian geometry, steam engines… [etc.]…(though now it appears that such knowledge was inherited from Minoans, central Asians and north Africans) but mention the existence of batteries, pyramids and the smelting of aluminum in early Bronze Age Africa-or even plumbing on Thera- and suddenly it becomes necessary to invent ancient astronauts who came down from the stars and showed them how.13
For many moderns, it is an impossibility for the ancients to be so thoroughly educated and advanced yet they cannot explain the existence of such modern technology and knowledge thousands of years prior to their ‘accepted’ invention. Their view is equivalent to the idea that archaeologists, 2,000 years from now, in excavating North America and based upon their fragmentary finds, declare that hundreds of millions of Americans were illiterate because their day to day note taking did not survive and the only schools or evidence of writing was discovered in Washington D.C. Thus the future archaeologists arbitrarily decided that only the elite government officials were literate and educated.
III Of Writing, Libraries and Schools
It is an accepted fact by scholars that the Sumerians ‘invented’ writing and they did so through their method using cuneiform characters.
However, the greatest gift the Sumerians would give to the world would be writing, without which modern society would not be able to function, and the second greatest gift from the Sumerians, written law, would not be possible.14
However, it is not known who actually or when they did, begin to write things down,
It was at Uruk that the earliest writing was found, dated to between 3500-3,000 BC…But the matter is complicated by the presence of other signs with no obvious pictographic connection. How did signs of this type originate?...If those non-pictograph signs did develop out of pictographs, the tablets from Uruk on which they occur…must have been separated from the original invention of writing by at least a century. But why, in that case, have we no evidence for the earlier stage? 15
In other words, they do not know when writing came into existence and because it is easier, they credit the Sumerians. For the early Israelites it is often concluded that Moses and the early Israelites could not write16 Yet Moses was raised in the palace of a country that highly valued education, Egypt, thus it is safe to conclude that he was educated and that education would have included some form of writing.
He was also told by God to write things down17 and unless God moved Moses’ arms for him or performed an occultic act of automatic writing we can conclude that even God knew that Moses had the ability to write. We now have written ancient Hebrew from the 10th century BC, which helps prove that the Israelites knew how to write a lot earlier than the opponents of the Bible grant.
Prof. Gershon Galil of the University of Haifa who deciphered the inscription: "It indicates that the Kingdom of Israel already existed in the 10th century BCE and that at least some of the biblical texts were written hundreds of years before the dates presented in current research."
A breakthrough in the research of the Hebrew Scriptures has shed new light on the period in which the Bible was written. Prof. Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa has deciphered an inscription dating from the 10th century BCE (the period of King David's reign), and has shown that this is a Hebrew inscription. The discovery makes this the earliest known Hebrew writing. The significance of this breakthrough relates to the fact that at least some of the biblical scriptures were composed hundreds of years before the dates presented today in research and that the Kingdom of Israel already existed at that time.18
This again contradicts what Dr. Dever concludes about ancient Israeli life and education,
Think of the elegant Hebrew, the complex syntax, the sophisticated literary allusions, the subtle play on words. All of this would have been lost on at least 90% of the population of Ancient Israel…most of who were uneducated villagers and farmers19
This conclusion of Dever is a basic insult to the ancient Israeli people, for Hebrew was their native tongue and they would have been well aware of the syntax, the allusions, the play on words even if they did not go to school and be educated. They would have known their own language because they used it every day in all situations. They did not grunt to each other in their daily lives as Dr. Dever seems to claim by his ignorant conclusion, thus scriptures would not ‘be lost on 90% of the population’ and Dr. Dever ignores the fact that the Bible was written so all could grasp its message not just the elite.
In the case for libraries, they seem to have existed from very early on, as archaeologists have found many depositories and caches throughout the ancient world, though the idea that they were the domains of kings and temples20 is misleading and about the same as declaring that only the president, because of the location of the Library of Congress, had sole right to books21 and the rest of the country went without, ignoring the fact that all cities contained libraries which would probably be misidentified as temples, given the application of archaeological logic.
It is not wise to assume that the spread of knowledge via books was restricted and limited for even the most despotic of rulers would want his propaganda and brainwashing to be understood by his own people and those he conquered. Ignorance does not help a nation grow and develop,
On more than one occasion Woolley and Lawrence found whole libraries of cuneiform tablets buried near city gates. One deposit ran 3 feet deep, and at the bottom someone had conveniently left a dictionary.’22
Finally, we turn to the topic of schools and how the ancient world was taught and as seen earlier, the Roman and Greek worlds used a form of public school training to teach their youth. The Bible tells us that there is ‘nothing new under the sun’ and this would apply to the educational world as well, both modern and ancient. Parents want their children to be educated and how this was done is limited no matter what age one lives in. There are few options and some of these options are open to the poor as well as the rich.
First, it would be unfair to say that only the elite went to school or that the poor could not afford to go, public education, no matter what culture one lives in, is designed to make it affordable for all to attend regardless of wealth.
Some of the assumptions Diodrus makes are questionable. He could be understood to imply that knowledge of Egyptian writing was limited to priests but this was certainly not the case. He also speaks as though the teaching of writing was exclusively from father to son, whereas it is certain that there were schools where formal teaching took place.23
From what can be gathered, education was for all but how long one stayed in school was up to the student, the family and their situation. It is also hard to imagine fathers coming home from a hard day of work, especially one filled with problems, then sit down for an hour or hours to teach their sons how to read and write. That is a job best left to others.
Second, it is often stated that the ancient temples were responsible for the majority of teaching in the past, yet ‘it has not been proved true, though is not an impossibility’24 and given the modern example of Roman catholic Schools and protestant church schools, we can see it taking place in the past on a limited scale like today
Parents would become dissatisfied with the quality of education in public schools or in the tutoring their children were receiving and looked for other options and temples, like their modern counter parts, could seize upon the opportunity to teach and use their own beliefs as curriculum.
Third, it is often said by archaeologists and scholars that the kings of ancient nations established and ran their own schools. But that seems to be a bit taxing when one considers the rest of their duties.
The first Mesopotamia schools of which we have positive knowledge were two established by King Shulgi at Nippur and at Ur…25
It would make more sense if it were thought that the regulations required that the King’s approval was needed before the school could officially begin operations, much like government approval is required today, and that the schools were actually established by some unheralded academic who wanted to teach children or youth.
The picture of the past is very incomplete and the modern day scholar or archaeologist takes great liberty in describing what took place, often distorting the reality to best fit their theories. The Bible tells us that man is the same and we can see that truth if we honestly look at history, yet the secularist is determined to re-write what has taken place because it does not meet their way of thinking.
Indeed, one distinguished Am. Scholar, Albrecht Goetze, made the plausible suggestion that the Sumerian term, dub.sar, literally scribe, was the equivalent of ‘Esquire’ or ‘BA’, applied to any educated man and did not necessarily imply that the person so designated actually specialized in scribal functions as a profession.26
I tend to agree with that conclusion for education was more widespread than is concluded by secular professionals and it makes much more sense. Not everyone could be a scribe. It is highly unlikely that employment opportunities, at all times in history, were more numerous than applicants. As for the Israelites, they were under God’s commands to 1. Raise up their children; 2. Seek knowledge wisdom and understanding; thus their desire to educate their own children would be an act of obedience and one that could not be restricted by government thoroughly.
So the conclusion that the people of Israel were illiterate and unable to grasp the nature of their own language is not credible and a new picture of educating the ancients is needed.
