[Avodah] The Bronze Age Collapse

[Lisa Liel via Avodah]

On 9/21/2016 3:33 AM, Chesky Salomon via Avodah wrote:
> On 2016-09-20 4:37 PM, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
>> Seems that somewhere around 1207 - 1177 BCE (judging from Egyptian
>> records), there was a widespread collapse of Bronze Era civilations...

>> Is there anything in Tanakh about this? Could this be the reason why
>> we fractured from centralized authority (Yehoshua) to lots of local
>> cheiftans (Shofetim)?
...
> There's nothing I recall from Yehoshua, Shofetim, or Shemuel which
> directly points to any sort of regional collapse.  I wonder whether the
> collapse might have occurred during the 40 years wandering the
> wilderness...
> I also find it intriguing that this collapse allowed Benei Yisrael to
> establish themselves in a part of the world otherwise of all-too-much
> interest to empires.

As some of you know, I hold that the conventional dating of the Bronze
and Iron Ages in the ancient near east is mistaken, and that the Exodus
took place at the end of the Egyptian Old Kingdom (the end of Early
Bronze III). And that King Solomon does not date to the Iron Age, but
to the end of the Middle Bronze Age (the so-called "Hyksos Empire").

The collapse of civilizations at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the
beginning of the Iron Age was huge. No question. But I put that not in the
1100s, but in the 700s. The conventional school of thought has one great
movement of peoples, mostly from the west, around Greece and Italy, moving
eastward in the 1100s, and another great movement of peoples spreading out
from Mesopotamia and Europe, moving westward and southward in the 700s.

The mass migrations in the 700s are dated by years, but the ones in the
1100s are dated by pottery. What I mean by that is that even though we
use dates in both cases when we're talking about them, some dates come
from finding a fixed point in time that we know the date of and counting
backwards. That's where we get the 700s from. We know when Persia and
Greece took over, and we can count backwards from them. But other dates
aren't real dates. When they say that Ramses III lived in the 1100s,
what they really mean is that he lived at the time that corresponds to
the end of the Bronze Age. Because he isn't dated by counting backwards;
he's dated by pottery styles and weapon styles that were being used at
the same time he reigned. Saying "he lived in the 1100s" is shorthand for
"he lived at the end of the Bronze Age", because it's easier for laymen
to understand.

So that really begs the question. What if the pottery at the end
of the Bronze Age actually goes with the years of the 700s? And as
it happens, historians see the time from the 1100s to the 700s as a
dark age in Greece, in Asia Minor, and elsewhere in the region. Why?
Because civilization seems to end at the end of the Bronze Age, and
doesn't really start up again until the 700s. Which makes perfect sense
if there wasn't actually any time between those two points.

In Israel in particular, they've assigned the devastation at different
times to Sea Peoples and to Israelites. But it's far more likely to be
the Assyrian invasions of Shalmaneser V and Sargon II and Tiglath Pileser
III, and the resettlement of the Samaritan tribes. The real irony is that
the remains commonly attributed to the Israelite settlement actually
date from the Samaritan settlement. That's why there are inscriptions
showing God with a "consort". We know that the Samaritans worshipped
goddesses alongside God.

The famous Israel Stele of Merneptah in Egypt probably refers to the
year when four different kings reigned in Israel, and a dynasty that had
lasted a century came to a messy end. That collapse is actually what
probably led to the Assyrian invasions. After about half a century of
Israel and Judah expanding to an area literally from the Nile to the
Euphrates, there was suddenly a power vacuum south of the Euphrates,
and Assyria just exploded over the river. That actually started a domino
effect that didn't really damp out until Rome fell.

The Sea Peoples the Egyptians talk about wound up settling in Philistia
after they were defeated. We know this from records from the time
of Ramses III. But they weren't the original Philistines. Those had
been there since the time of the Avot, and we know from Melachim that
during the time of Uzziah and Achaz, the Plishtim moved into the Negev.
Likely because of the influx of Greek tribes on the coast.

Lisa