The people of Israel worshipped idols, even in the sanctuary at Kiriath-jearim. Although in the Hebrew Bible it is presented as if it was active for only around 20 years, in reality it can be found to have existed for 200 years, around the 1:01 mark.

And in fact, the original Ark of the Covenant before the era of Josiah actually had a statue in it. Josiah changed that into a book so that it would become monotheistic. Around 1:24:30.
This can be seen from Assyrian exile reliefs, where the exiles were carrying an ark similar in shape to the Ark of the Covenant, and inside it one can clearly see an idol-statue. And that is why it says “the Ark of the Lord,” and not “the Ark of the Covenant” as in Josiah’s time.
Does a resemblance between a relief showing people carrying an ark and the Ark of the Covenant really mean that this is how it actually was in the Temple?

Spare Michi the trouble. I know the scholarly publications behind this film very well. It’s simply a collection of baseless and absurd speculations. One of the least supported theses I’ve ever encountered in biblical research. I’ll comment here later.

All right, so here goes.
First, the facts: the term “the Ark of the Lord” appears in the Book of Joshua. In the Torah, by contrast, it says “the Ark of the Testimony” (Exodus – P) or “the Ark of the House of the Lord” (D and JE). The claim that first there was “the Ark of the Lord” and only later “the Ark of the Covenant” is false. Römer—whose lone opinion this is, as is well known—thinks that the Book of Joshua predates the Torah. All of this is of course completely absurd. Even according to 99% of scholars, the linguistic layer in the parts of the Torah that say “the Ark of the Testimony” / “the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord” is earlier than the linguistic layer of the Book of Joshua. So not only is this claim factually incorrect (that is, it appears in Joshua, whereas in the Torah it specifically says “the Ark of the Testimony”), it is also based on an assumption not accepted by the scholarly world as a whole.

Next,
Let’s assume that the earlier term really was “the Ark of the Lord”—would that prove anything?
This is speculation (a very, very weak one) and nothing more. Just as the term “man of God” and similar expressions indicate belonging, and are not understood as referring to an idol. In any case, the earlier term is “the Ark of the Testimony,” and that completely refutes this part of the argument. Presenting dubious and unaccepted dating as though it were an established fact is the method of scholars from this school. For anyone who accepts the traditional order of the writing of the Bible (according to which Joshua was written after the Torah), there is certainly no reason to accept this. The Torah says “the Ark of the Covenant” or “the Ark of the Testimony.”

As for the reliefs—more nonsense. Quite apart from the fact that we have no idea what that thing in the Assyrian carving actually is (some random cultic object—who says it is even supposed to be the Ark of the Covenant at all),
what exactly is the proof here?
In a relief depicting the Kingdom of Israel (!) we see X, so does that mean that this is how things were in the Temple of the Kingdom of Judah??? What kind of nonsense is that?
Especially since we know very well that the Kingdom of Israel is described as steeped in idol worship throughout its history, unlike the Kingdom of Judah where this was less intense and mainly characteristic of periods such as Manasseh’s reign (this is also visible archaeologically, by the way). This logical inference is absurd. Is it really impossible that in the Kingdom of Israel they made statues, while in the Kingdom of Judah they did not? As I said, there’s no need even to assume that, because it isn’t clear what the thing in the picture even is. But even if it definitely were an ark, that would prove nothing.

So what do we have so far?
We saw something unclear in a picture from the Kingdom of Israel, and we saw in a late book (!) a term called “the Ark of the Lord,” and from that we concluded that in the Kingdom of Judah there was a statue inside the ark in the Temple—even though the earlier term (based on logic and the view of most of the scholarly world) is “the Ark of the Testimony.” And all this counts as “proof.” No doubt these are arguments of the very highest caliber. I’ve seen more convincing little homiletic tidbits in Arachim-style weekly Torah-portion talks.

That covers this point.

Now as for the finding at Kiriath-jearim—
Finkelstein, as usual, doesn’t understand what he is reading and builds straw men against the Bible. Nowhere in the Bible (!!!) does it say that there was a cult site in Kiriath-jearim in David’s time! All it says is that the Ark of the Covenant resided in the private home of a local resident (which proves exactly the opposite of the existence of a cult site…).
So how does the fact that there was a cultic site there in the 8th century prove anything? Finkelstein alone can explain. And yes, if you look carefully you’ll see that the excavation report from Kiriath-jearim states explicitly that the site was inhabited during the period of King David! So the scholarly picture clearly matches what emerges from the Bible. Kiriath-jearim was inhabited, and the Ark sat in someone’s private home. Here too—where is the conclusive proof? Finkelstein alone can explain.

One could ask a different question—why doesn’t the Bible mention that there was a cult site in Kiriath-jearim? But that’s a strange question, and in this context Finkelstein has not added anything new. Cult sites also existed at Tel Be’er Sheva, Arad, Motza, and many other places. Why doesn’t the Bible deal with that? Interesting question—but what does that have to do with reliability regarding the monarchic period??? Of course, in Kiriath-jearim they didn’t find any temple, only indications of some kind of cultic site, but even if there had been a temple there—there were at least three others like it. Finkelstein has added nothing new.

In short: a collection of errors, dubious logical inferences, straw men, and selective presentation of data that creates a false picture of history. The film takes advantage of the fact that most of the public does not read excavation reports, is not familiar with the scholarly picture regarding the order in which the books of the Bible were written (even if we accept it, of course), and does not know the material as a whole. The problem is not the public, but the scholars who present their speculations without explaining their foundations or analyzing the alternatives, as I would expect from an honest person.

And the fact that the Torah says “the Ark of the Testimony” (the Tabernacle chapters in Exodus) or “the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord” (in Numbers and Deuteronomy) is, if anything, the strongest proof of what sat in that ark….

The book by which the covenant with the Holy One, blessed be He, was made (“the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord”), or “the testimony,” in the Torah’s words:
“And into the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you.”

With God’s help, 25 Heshvan 5781

On M’s correct remarks about the Bible, I would add one point:

The existence of cult sites devoted to the Lord is mentioned many times in the Book of Kings, which says more than once: “Only the high places were not removed.” After all, the high places were permitted between the destruction of Shiloh and the building of the Temple by Solomon. And it was hard to uproot what had become rooted in the people, especially since there were presumably “conservatives” who argued that even Solomon’s building of the Temple had not yet brought the people “to the resting place and the inheritance.”

Nor was Judah free of idolatry. Even before the days of Jehoram and Ahaziah, when the kings of Judah became related by marriage to Jezebel and her descendants, we find even Solomon’s wives worshipping their idols, and Asa’s mother who “made an abominable image for Asherah.” And if a flame has fallen among the cedars, what can the residents of Kiriath-jearim say, some of whom were descendants of the Gibeonites?

In Judah too there were Jews who saw great value in not being “closed off” and “fanatical,” but rather in opening themselves to the surrounding culture and taking from it beliefs and modes of worship that were “modern” and would add “added value” to the old tradition 🙂

Regards,
Shatsius von Lewenhausen

Shatzel—
– Daughter-sites are indeed mentioned, but it’s not certain that the intention is temples… (by the way, no such temple has been found so far in Kiriath-jearim)
– There was idol worship in Judah, but the amount was significantly lower than in Israel, as Kaufmann already proved. I see no reason to say that idolatry in the form of such a statue existed in the Kingdom of Judah, and I would be surprised if there was ever a statue of the God of Israel even in the Kingdom of Israel (in fact, there are several strong arguments *against* that possibility)

To M—hello,

A statue of the God of Israel did exist—Micah’s idol. His mother says explicitly: “I had wholly dedicated the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son, to make a graven image and a molten image” (Judges 17:3). The idol was taken by the Danites, who conquered Laish, and the idol “adorned” the sanctuary they set up in Laish, as it says: “And they set up for themselves Micah’s graven image, which he had made, all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh” (18:31). The sanctuary they built in Dan lasted “until the day of the captivity of the land” (18:30), though it is possible that by then the idol had been replaced, in Jeroboam’s days, by the calf,[ which too was apparently dedicated to the God of Israel.

In any case, this is a degeneration of the early monotheism, caused by the influence of the foreign environment, and there is not the slightest shred of evidence here for a late emergence of monotheism among the people of Israel.

Regards,
Sh. Tz.

By the way, the Danites reached Micah after camping “in Kiriath-jearim in Judah,” and maybe from there they took the idea of adopting an idol for the God of Israel.

Paragraph 2, line 1:
Because of the influence of the foreign environment,…

Shatzel—the fact you brought is actually precisely the proof that apparently there was no sculpted image of the God of Israel among the Israelites, and that is Kaufmann’s proof: if it had been a common phenomenon, we would see polemic against it. But instead we see only one isolated case… Archaeology too has clearly confirmed this assessment (in general, the figurines in Judah are pillar figurines and chariot-of-the-sun figurines).

There isn’t really any claim there that’s worth discussing, but the whole way they draw conclusions there is fascinating and teaches a lot about how various researchers draw far-fetched and unproven conclusions. In my humble opinion, the Rabbi would get a lot of enjoyment and amusement out of the film.

To Judah—

But one could say that the reason you don’t accept the filmmakers’ conclusions is that your name represents “Judah,” whereas Professor Finkelstein is “Israel,” and this is, as is well known, a typological dispute 🙂

Regards,
Shatsius von Lewenhausen

And on a serious note—

The attempt to date the invention of the Torah and its faith to the days of Josiah is absurd. After all, for hundreds of years before that the people had already been split into tribes and kingdoms. Some of them were already scattered in exile in Hezekiah’s days, and all of them went into exile a short time after Josiah.

How did this revolutionary idea manage to unite the fragments of scattered tribes, all of whom, “from Hodu to Cush,” adopted without any shared basis and without any central leadership an identical national and religious consciousness and all held the same Torah? Even the Samaritans, who did not accept the centrality of Jerusalem, hold the same text of the Torah with only very slight differences.

In short: the scenario of a new invention conquering fragments of tribes that never had any common religious infrastructure is plainly absurd.

Regards,
Sh. Tz.

M, are there responses to this Professor Finkelstein? He seems to be the leading biblical-criticism scholar today.
Cassuto had a lot of criticism of the Documentary Hypothesis, from what I saw. Did he write it down somewhere?

He is absolutely not the leading scholar in the world. He is a great archaeologist, but his problems begin with historical analysis. He’s an archaeologist who pretends to be a Bible scholar, despite having no training in that field, and his arguments, as you saw, are ridiculous in a large number of cases.

As for responses to him—books have already been written that refuted many of his claims. There are things on which his opinion is accepted by almost no leading scholar today (for example, on matters of chronology), and there are things on which many do accept his view. But even on those, many refutations have been written.

On the website “Da’at La’amin,” in the Bible section, there are scholarly summary articles against his method.

If you have a focused question, feel free to raise it.

I also saw YouTube videos by someone named David Belhassen who writes against the Documentary Hypothesis. He says Yom Kippur is a late invention, same with tefillin, same with the Sabbath, and he also claims that the Ninth of Av is not even the correct day. Do you have answers to his claims?

Belhassen mostly talks nonsense mixed with misunderstandings that some people have. The site “Ratio” has already analyzed several of his videos word by word and torn them to shreds. Go ahead and post one sample argument here and we can discuss it. We can also move to email.