David Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ==Historicity== {{See also|Historicity of the Bible|Davidic line#Historicity|label2=Davidic line § Historicity}} ===Literary analysis=== [[file:David SM Maggiore.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Statue of David (1609–1612) by [[Nicolas Cordier]]]] Biblical literature and archaeological finds are the only sources that attest to David's life. Some scholars have concluded that this was likely compiled from contemporary records of the 11th and 10th centuries BCE, but that there is no clear historical basis for determining the exact date of compilation.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hill |first1=Andrew E. |last2=Walton |first2=John H. |title=A Survey of the Old Testament |edition=3rd |year=2009 |orig-year=1991 |publisher=Zondervan |location=Grand Rapids |isbn=978-0-310-28095-8 |page=258 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3PhbDc-PdvMC&pg=PA258 |quote=The events of the book took place in the last half of the eleventh century and the early part of the tenth century BC, but it is difficult to determine when the events were recorded. There are no particularly persuasive reasons to date the sources used by the compiler later than the events themselves, and good reason to believe that contemporary records were kept (cf. 2 Sam. 20:24–25). |access-date=2019-12-27 |archive-date=2020-10-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201011131826/https://books.google.com/books?id=3PhbDc-PdvMC&pg=PA258 |url-status=live}}</ref> Other scholars believe that the [[Books of Samuel]] were substantially composed during the time of King [[Josiah]] at the end of the 7th century BCE, extended during the [[Babylonian exile]] (6th century BCE), and substantially complete by about 550 BCE. Old Testament scholar [[Graeme Auld]] contends that further editing was done even after then—the silver quarter-shekel Saul's servant offers to Samuel in 1 Samuel 9 "almost certainly fixes the date of the story in the Persian or Hellenistic period" because a quarter-shekel was known to exist in Hasmonean times.{{sfn|Auld|2003|p=219}} The authors and editors of Samuel drew on many earlier sources, including, for their history of David, the "history of David's rise"<ref>{{bibleverse|1 Samuel 16:14–2, 5:10|multi=yes}}</ref> and the "succession narrative".<ref>{{bibleverse|2 Samuel|9–20}} and {{bibleverse|1 Kings|1–2}}</ref>{{sfn|Knight|1991|p=853}} The [[Books of Chronicles|Book of Chronicles]], which tells the story from a different point of view, was probably composed in the period 350–300 BCE, and uses Samuel and Kings as its source.{{sfn|McKenzie|2004|p=32}} Biblical evidence indicates that David's Judah was something less than a full-fledged monarchy: it often calls him ''negid'', meaning "prince" or "chief", rather than ''melek'', meaning "king"; the biblical David sets up none of the complex bureaucracy that a kingdom needs (even his army is made up of volunteers), and his followers are largely related to him and from his small home-area around [[Hebron]].{{sfn|Moore|Kelle|2011|pp=220–221}} Beyond this, the full range of possible interpretations is available. A number of scholars consider the David story to be a heroic tale similar to [[King Arthur]]'s legend or [[Homer]]'s epics,<ref>*{{cite web |last=Thompson |first=Thomas L. |year=2001 |title=A view from Copenhagen: Israel and the History of Palestine |website=The Bible and Interpretation |url=https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/view-copenhagen-israel-and-history-palestine |access-date=December 25, 2020 |quote=The history of Palestine and of its peoples is very different from the Bible's narratives, whatever political claims to the contrary may be. An independent history of Judea during the Iron I and Iron II periods has little room for historicizing readings of the stories of I-II Samuel and I Kings.}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Redford|1992|pp=301–302|ps=: One (perversely perhaps) longs to see the result of the application of such a criterion to Geoffrey of Monmouth's treatment of Arthur, to the anonymous Joseph and Asenath, to the Alexander Romances, or a host of other Pseudepigrapha. Mesmerized by the literary quality of much of the writing in 1 and 2 Samuel—it is in truth a damned good story!—many scholars take a further step: "The Succession story must be regarded as the oldest specimen of ancient Israelite history writing."}}; {{harvnb|Pfoh|2016|p=54 n. 126|ps=: Isser links the David story with other heroic tales, like Homer's epics and King Arthur's legend}}</ref> while others find such comparisons questionable.<ref>Kalimi, Isaac. ''Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel'', Cambridge University Press, 2019, p. 53</ref> One theme that has been paralleled with other Near Eastern literature is the homoerotic nature of the relationship between [[David and Jonathan]]. The instance in the [[Book of Jashar]], excerpted in [[Samuel 2]] (1:26), where David "proclaims that Jonathan's love was sweeter to him than the love of a woman", has been compared to [[Achilles]]' comparison of [[Patroclus]] to a girl and [[Gilgamesh]]'s love for [[Enkidu]] "as a woman".{{sfn|Gordon|1955|p=89}}{{sfn|Horner|1978|p=19}} Others hold that the David story is a political apology—an answer to contemporary charges against him, of his involvement in murders and regicide.{{sfn|Baden|2013|p=12|ps=: the biblical narrative may be considered the ancient equivalent of political spin: it is a retelling, even a reinterpretation, of events, the goal of which is to absolve David of any potential guilt and to show him in a positive light.}} The authors and editors of Samuel and Chronicles aimed not to record history but to promote David's reign as inevitable and desirable, and for this reason there is little about David that is concrete and undisputed.{{sfn|Moore|Kelle|2011|pp=232–233}} Some other studies of David have been written: [[Baruch Halpern]] has pictured him as a brutal tyrant, a murderer and a lifelong vassal of [[Achish]], the Philistine king of Gath;<ref>{{cite web |last=Carasik |first=Michael |date=June 2014 |url=http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/1551_3721.pdf |title=Review of Baruch Halpern's ''David's Secret Demons: Messiah, Murderer, Traitor, King'' |url-status=dead |archive-date=2007-08-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070810172523/http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/1551_3721.pdf}}</ref> Steven McKenzie argues that David came from a wealthy family, and was an "ambitious and ruthless" tyrant who murdered his opponents, including his own sons.<ref name="McKenzie_on_David" /> Joel S. Baden has called him "an ambitious, ruthless, flesh-and-blood man who achieved power by any means necessary, including murder, theft, bribery, sex, deceit, and treason".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Baden |first=Joel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=igQqmwEACAAJ&q=The+historical+David |title=The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero |date=2014-07-29 |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0-06-218837-3 |language=en}}</ref>{{page needed|date=November 2021}} [[William G. Dever]] described him as "a serial killer".{{sfn|Dever|2020|p=}} [[Jacob L. Wright]] has written that the most popular legends about David, including his killing of Goliath, his affair with Bathsheba, and his ruling of a United Kingdom of Israel rather than just Judah, are the creation of those who lived generations after him, in particular those living in the late Persian or Hellenistic periods.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://bibleinterp.arizona.edu/articles/2014/07/wri388001 |title=David, King of Judah (Not Israel) |date=July 2014 |access-date=3 September 2017 |website=bibleinterp.arizona.edu}}</ref> Isaac Kalimi wrote about the 10th century BCE: "Almost all that one can say about King Solomon and his time is unavoidably based on the biblical texts. Nevertheless, here also one cannot always offer conclusive proof that a certain biblical passage reflects the actual historical situation in the tenth century BCE, beyond arguing that it is plausible to this or that degree."<ref name="Ancient Israel page 32"/> ===Archaeological findings=== [[File:JRSLM 300116 Tel Dan Stele 01.jpg|thumb|left|The [[Tel Dan Stele]]]] The [[Tel Dan Stele]], discovered in 1993, is an inscribed stone erected by [[Hazael]], a [[Aram-Damascus|king of Damascus]] in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE. It commemorates the king's victory over two enemy kings, and contains the phrase {{Lang|oar|𐤁𐤉𐤕𐤃𐤅𐤃}}, {{Lang|oar-Latn|bytdwd}}, which most scholars translate as "House of David".{{sfn|Pioske|2015|p=180}}{{sfn|Lemaire|1994}} Other scholars have challenged this reading,{{Sfn|Pioske|2015|loc=Chapter 4: David's Jerusalem: The Early 10th Century BCE Part I: An Agrarian Community |p=180 | ps =: '…the reading of ''bytdwd'' as "House of David" has been challenged by those unconvinced of the inscription's allusion to an eponymous David or the kingdom of Judah.'}} but it is likely that this is a reference to a dynasty of the [[Kingdom of Judah]] which traced its ancestry to a founder named David.{{sfn|Pioske|2015|p=180}} Two [[epigrapher]]s, [[André Lemaire]] and [[Émile Puech]], hypothesised in 1994 that the [[Mesha Stele]] from [[Moab]], dating from the 9th century, also contain the words "House of David" at the end of Line 31, although this was considered as less certain than the mention in the Tel Dan inscription.{{sfn|Pioske|2015|p=210, fn. 18}} In May 2019, [[Israel Finkelstein]], [[Nadav Na'aman]], and [[Thomas Römer]] concluded from the new images that the ruler's name contained three consonants and started with a [[bet (letter)|''bet'']], which excludes the reading "House of David" and, in conjunction with the monarch's city of residence "Horonaim" in Moab, makes it likely that the one mentioned is King [[Balak]], a name also known from the [[Hebrew Bible]].{{sfn|Finkelstein|Na'aman|Römer|2019}}<ref name=AAAS/> Later that year, Michael Langlois used high-resolution photographs of both the inscription itself, and the 19th-century original [[Squeeze paper|squeeze]] of the then still intact stele to reaffirm Lemaire's view that line 31 contains the phrase "House of David".<ref name= AAAS>{{cite web |title= New reading of the Mesha Stele inscription has major consequences for biblical history | via = American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) |date= 2 May 2019 | publisher = American Friends of Tel Aviv University | type = news release |url= https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-05/afot-nro050219.php |access-date=22 October 2020}}</ref>{{sfn|Langlois|2019}} Replying to Langlois, Na'aman argued that the "House of David" reading is unacceptable because the resulting sentence structure is extremely rare in West Semitic royal inscriptions.{{sfn|Na'aman|2019|p=196}} [[File:Karnak Tempel 19.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|The Triumphal Relief of [[Shoshenq I]] near the [[Bubastite Portal]] at [[Karnak]], depicting the god [[Amun-Re]] receiving a list of cities and villages conquered by the king in his Near Eastern military campaigns.]] Besides the two steles, Bible scholar and Egyptologist [[Kenneth Kitchen]] suggests that David's name also appears in a relief of Pharaoh [[Shoshenq I|Shoshenq]], who is usually identified with [[Shishak]] in the Bible.<ref>{{bibleverse|1 Kings|14:25–27}}</ref><ref name= "Phar">{{cite book| url= https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/mckenzie-david.html |title=King David: A Biography |chapter= One | last =McKenzie | first = Steven L. |year=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0-19-513273-4 |access-date=2018-06-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180119124308/http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/m/mckenzie-david.html |archive-date= 2018-01-19|url-status=live}}</ref> The relief claims that Shoshenq raided places in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] in 925 BCE, and Kitchen interprets one place as "Heights of David", which was in Southern Judah and the [[Negev]] where the Bible says David took refuge from Saul. The relief is damaged and interpretation is uncertain.<ref name= "Phar"/> ===Archaeological analysis=== Of the evidence in question, John Haralson Hayes and James Maxwell Miller wrote in 2006: "If one is not convinced in advance by the biblical profile, then there is nothing in the archaeological evidence itself to suggest that much of consequence was going on in Palestine during the tenth century BCE, and certainly nothing to suggest that Jerusalem was a great political and cultural center."<ref>A History of Ancient Israel and Judah; ByJames Maxwell Miller & John Haralson Hayes; pages 204; SCM Press, 2006; {{ISBN|9780334041177}}</ref> This echoed the 1995 conclusion of [[Amélie Kuhrt]], who noted that "there are no royal inscriptions from the time of the united monarchy (indeed very little written material altogether), and not a single contemporary reference to either David or Solomon," while noting, "against this must be set the evidence for substantial development and growth at several sites, which is plausibly related to the tenth century."<ref name="Kuhrtp438">{{cite book|last=Kuhrt|first=Amélie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V_sfMzRPTgoC&q=Kuhrt,+Amiele+(1995).+The+Ancient+Near+East.|title=The Ancient Near East, c. 3000–330 BC, Band 1|publisher=Routledge |year=1995|isbn=978-0-41516-762-8|location=New York|page=438 |author-link=Amélie Kuhrt}}</ref> In 2007, [[Israel Finkelstein]] and [[Neil Asher Silberman]] stated that the archaeological evidence shows that Judah was sparsely inhabited and Jerusalem no more than a small village. The evidence suggested that David ruled only as a chieftain over an area which cannot be described as a state or as a kingdom, but more as a chiefdom, much smaller and always overshadowed by the older and more powerful [[Kingdom of Israel (Samaria)|kingdom of Israel]] to the north.<ref>{{harvnb|Finkelstein|Silberman|2007|pp=26–27}}; {{harvnb|Finkelstein|Silberman|2002|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bibleunearthedar00fink/page/189 189–190]|loc=Chapter 8|ps=: Archaeologically and historically, the redating of these cities from Solomon's era to the time of Omrides has enormous implication. It removes the only archeological evidence that there was ever a united monarchy based in Jerusalem and suggests that David and Solomon were, in political terms, little more than hill country chieftains, whose administrative reach remained on a fairly local level, restricted to the hill country.}}</ref> They posited that Israel and Judah were not monotheistic at the time and that later 7th-century redactors sought to portray a past golden age of a united, monotheistic monarchy in order to serve contemporary needs.{{sfn|Finkelstein|Silberman|2002|p=[https://books.google.com/books?id=lu6ywyJr0CMC&pg=PA23 23]; 241–247}} They noted a lack of archeological evidence for David's military campaigns and a relative underdevelopment of Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, compared to a more developed and urbanized Samaria, capital of Israel during the 9th century BCE.<ref>{{harvnb|Finkelstein|Silberman|2002|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=lu6ywyJr0CMC&pg=PA158 158]}}. "We still have no hard archaeological evidence—despite the unparalleled biblical description of its grandeur—that Jerusalem was anything more than a modest highland village in the time of David, Solomon, and Rehoboam."</ref>{{sfn|Finkelstein|Silberman |2002|p=131|loc=Table Two}}<ref>{{harvnb|Finkelstein|Silberman|2002|p=181}}. Speaking of Samaria: "The scale of this project was enormous."</ref> In 2014, [[Amihai Mazar]] wrote that the [[United Monarchy]] of the 10th century BCE can be described as a "state in development".<ref name="amazar">{{cite book| last = Mazar | first = Amihai |title= Archaeology and the biblical Narrative: The Case of the United Monarchy|url= http://www.rehov.org/Rehov/publications/Mazar%20-%20The%20United%20%20Monarchy-BZAW2010.pdf |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20140611170411/http://www.rehov.org/Rehov/publications/Mazar%20-%20The%20United%20%20Monarchy-BZAW2010.pdf |archive-date= 2014-06-11 |url-status= dead}}</ref> He compared David to [[Labaya]], a Caananite warlord living during the time of Pharaoh [[Akhenaten]]. While Mazar believes that David reigned over Israel during the 11th century BCE, he argues that much of the Biblical text is of "literary-legendary nature".<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-12-12|title=First Person: Did the Kingdoms of Saul, David and Solomon Actually Exist?|url=https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/did-the-kingdoms-of-saul-david-and-solomon-actually-exist/|access-date=2021-07-20|website=Biblical Archaeology Society}}</ref> According to William G. Dever, the reigns of [[Saul]], David and [[Solomon]] are reasonably well attested, but "most archeologists today would argue that the United Monarchy was not much more than a kind of hill-country chiefdom".{{sfn|Dever|2020|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}}{{sfn|Dever|2017|p={{page needed|date=November 2021}}}}<ref>{{Cite web|title=NOVA {{!}} The Bible's Buried Secrets {{!}} Archeology of the Hebrew Bible |website=PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bible/dever.html|access-date=2021-07-20|quote=The stories of Solomon are larger than life. According to the stories, Solomon imported 100,000 workers from what is now Lebanon. Well, the whole population of Israel probably wasn't 100,000 in the 10th century. Everything Solomon touched turned to gold. In the minds of the biblical writers, of course, David and Solomon are ideal kings chosen by Yahweh. So they glorify them. Now, archeology can't either prove or disprove the stories. But I think most archeologists today would argue that the United Monarchy was not much more than a kind of hill-country chiefdom. It was very small-scale.}}</ref> [[Lester L. Grabbe]] wrote in 2017: "The main question is what kind of settlement Jerusalem was in Iron IIA: was it a minor settlement, perhaps a large village or possibly a citadel but not a city, or was it the capital of a flourishing—or at least an emerging—state? Assessments differ considerably".<ref>Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It? By Lester L. Grabbe; page 77Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017</ref> Isaac Kalimi wrote in 2018, "No contemporaneous extra-biblical source offers any account of the political situation in Israel and Judah during the tenth century BCE, and as we have seen, the archaeological remains themselves cannot provide any unambiguous evidence of events."<ref name="Ancient Israel page 32"/> The view of Davidic Jerusalem as a village has been challenged by [[Eilat Mazar]]'s excavation of the [[Large Stone Structure]] and the [[Stepped Stone Structure]] in 2005.<ref>Zachary Thomas, "Debating the United Monarchy: let's see how far we've come." ''Biblical Theology Bulletin'' (2016).</ref> Mazar proposed that these two structures may have been architecturally linked as one unit and that they date to the time of King David. Mazar supports this dating with a number of artifacts, including pottery, two Phoenician-style ivory inlays, a black-and-red jug, and a radiocarbon-dated bone, estimated to be from the 10th century.<ref>Mazar, Eilat, ''Excavations at the Summit of the City of David, Preliminary Report of Seasons 2005–2007'', Shoham, Jerusalem and New York, 2009, pp. 52–56.</ref> Dever, [[Amihai Mazar]], [[Avraham Faust]], and Nadav Na'aman have argued in favour of the 10th-century BCE dating and responded to challenges to it.<ref name="amazar"/><ref>Mazar, Amihai. Archaeology and the biblical narrative: the case of the United Monarchy. 2010. [https://www.academia.edu/40148883/Archaeology_and_the_Biblical_Narrative_The_Case_of_the_United_Monarchy Full text.]</ref><ref>Avraham Faust 2010. "The large stone structure in the City of David: a reexamination." ''Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins''.</ref><ref>"The Stepped Stone Structure" in Mazar ed., The Summit of the City of David Excavations 2005–2008: Final Reports Volume I: Area G (2015), pp. 169–88</ref>{{sfn|Na'aman|2014}}{{sfn|Dever|2017|pp=277–283}} In 2010, Eilat Mazar announced the discovery of part of the [[ancient city walls around the City of David]], which she believes date to the 10th century BCE. According to Mazar, this would prove that an organized state did exist in the 10th century.<ref name=":0" /> In 2006, [[Kenneth Kitchen]] came to a similar conclusion, arguing that "the physical archaeology of tenth-century [[Canaan]] is consistent with the former existence of a unified state on its terrain."<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kitchen |first=K. A.|title=On the Reliability of the Old Testament|date=2006-06-09|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-0-8028-0396-2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kw6U05qBiXcC&q=%22the+physical+archaeology+of+tenth-century+Canaan+is+consistent+with+the+former+existence+of+a+unified+state+on+its+terrain%22&pg=PA158}}</ref> Scholars such as [[Israel Finkelstein]], Lily Singer-Avitz, [[Ze'ev Herzog]] and [[David Ussishkin]] do not accept these conclusions.<ref>Has King David's Palace in Jerusalem been Found? By Israel Finkelstein, Lily Singer-Avitz, Ze'ev Herzog & David Ussishkin; Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, Volume 34, 2007 - Issue 2; Pages 142-164</ref> Finkelstein does not accept the dating of these structures to the 10th century BCE, based in part on the fact that later structures on the site penetrated deep into underlying layers, that the entire area had been excavated in the early 20th century and then backfilled, that pottery from later periods was found below earlier strata, and that consequently the finds collected by E. Mazar cannot necessarily be considered as retrieved ''in situ''.<ref>The "Large Stone Structure" in Jerusalem Reality versus Yearning By Israel Finkelstein, 2011; Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palastina-Vereins 127(1):2-10; at [https://www.mq.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/527790/Finkelstein-2011,-Jerusalem.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230419090508/https://www.mq.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/527790/Finkelstein-2011,-Jerusalem.pdf|date=2023-04-19}}</ref> [[Aren Maeir]] said in 2010 that he has seen no evidence that these structures are from the 10th century BCE and that proof of the existence of a strong, centralized kingdom at that time remains "tenuous."<ref name=":0">'Jerusalem city wall dates back to King Solomon'; by Abe Selig; Jerusalem Post, 23 February 2010; at [https://www.jpost.com/Israel/Jlem-city-wall-dates-back-to-King-Solomon]</ref> Excavations at [[Khirbet Qeiyafa]] by archaeologists [[Yosef Garfinkel]] and [[Saar Ganor]] found an urbanized settlement [[radiocarbon dated]] to the 10th century, which supports the existence of an urbanised kingdom. The [[Israel Antiquities Authority]] stated: "The excavations at Khirbat Qeiyafa clearly reveal an urban society that existed in Judah already in the late eleventh century BCE. It can no longer be argued that the Kingdom of Judah developed only in the late eighth century BCE or at some other later date."<ref name="garfinkel2012">{{cite web|last1=Garfinkel|first1=Yossi|last2=Ganor|first2=Sa'ar|last3=Hasel|first3=Michael|date=19 April 2012|title=Journal 124: Khirbat Qeiyafa preliminary report|url=http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=1989|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120623021750/http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=1989|archive-date=23 June 2012|access-date=12 June 2018|website=Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel|publisher=Israel Antiquities Authority|ref=garfinkel2012}}</ref> But other scholars have criticized the techniques and interpretations to reach some conclusions related to Khirbet Qeiyafa, such as Israel Finkelstein and Alexander Fantalkin of [[Tel Aviv University]], who have instead proposed that the city is to be identified as part of a northern Israelite polity.<ref name="finkelsteinfantalkin2012">{{cite journal|last1=Finkelstein|first1=Israel|last2=Fantalkin|first2=Alexander|date=May 2012|title=Khirbet Qeiyafa: an unsensational archaeological and historical interpretation|url=http://archaeology.tau.ac.il/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Qeiyafa_Unsensational_Interpretation.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170131195600/http://archaeology.tau.ac.il/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Qeiyafa_Unsensational_Interpretation.pdf |archive-date=2017-01-31 |url-status=live|journal=Tel Aviv|volume=39|pages=38–63|doi=10.1179/033443512x13226621280507|access-date=12 June 2018|ref=finkelsteinfantalkin2012|s2cid=161627736}}</ref> In 2018, [[Avraham Faust]] and Yair Sapir stated that [[Eglon, Canaan|a Canaanite site]] at Tel Eton, about 30 miles from Jerusalem, was taken over by a Judahite community by peaceful assimilation and transformed from a village into a central town at some point in the late 11th or early 10th century BCE. This transformation used some [[ashlar]] blocks in construction, which they argued supports the United Monarchy theory.{{sfn |Faust|Sapir|2018|p= 1|ps=: 'The lack of evidence for public construction and state apparatus in the region of Judah before the 8th century, expressed for example by the total lack of ashlar construction, is one of the oft-quoted evidence against the historical plausibility of a kingdom centered in Judah. The building of the "governor's residency," along with other lines of evidence, suggests that the settlement at Tel'Eton was transformed in the 10th century BCE, lending important support to the historicity of the United Monarchy'}}<ref>Proof Of King David? Not Yet. But Riveting Site Shores Up Roots Of Israelite Era, By Amanda Borschel-Dan; Times Of Israel; 14 May 2018; At [https://Www.Timesofisrael.Com/Proof-Of-King-David-Not-Yet-But-Riveting-Site-Shores-Up-Roots-Of-Israelite-Era/]</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page