Khirbet Qeiyafa = Shaaraim

That is the identification Garfinkel will present at an ASOR session in Boston on Thursday. The evidence is suggestive. Go here. (HT: Jim Davila). Go here for more interesting details.

If correct, the identification accomplishes three things:

(1) It makes it probable that the Israelites and the Philistines drew up battle lines at least a kilometer or two to the east of Shaaraim, since, according to 1 Sam 17:52, the Philistines fell slain “on the road to Shaaraim,” and, beyond that, all the way to Gath and Ekron. It is conceivable that Khirbet Abbad = Ephes Dammin, Khirbet Shuweikeh = Socoh, about 2 km to the east of Khirbet Qeiyafa, and that the site of the duel was in the valley directly below both sites.

(2) It makes Naaman’s theory that Khirbet Qeiyafa is a Philistine stronghold less probable (it was already improbable for reasons discussed here). One would have to assume that Shaaraim was once a Philistine stronghold and changed hands at some point and that Josh 15:36 reflects the later time frame. That, however, runs into problems since the site was abandoned after a short early 10^th cent. bce occupation (C-14 dates of olive pits confirm this date). It is also worth noting that the Judite lists in Josh 15:20-63, based on this identification, would have to go back at least in part to administrative lists of the united kingdom of David, given the site’s subsequent abandonment until Hellenistic times.

 

(3) It reopens the question of the location of Gob (go here for a discussion), in which, according to 2 Sam 21:16 [emended], David and his retainers stayed before a battle against the Philistines, and at which location, according to 2 Sam 21:19, Elhanan struck down Goliath.

As Anson Rainey notes (Anson F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley, The Sacred Bridge: Carta’s Atlas of the Biblical World [Jerusalem: Carta, 2006] 147), “[the Elhanan story of 2 Sam 2:19] might be a hero story that gravitated to the more famous personality of David.” Naaman assumed, and I with him, that the locale of the original hero story carried over to the Davidic version. But that cannot be taken for granted.

Still, perhaps there is another site a bit to the east of Khirbet Qeiyafa that was occupied in David’s time, on the same northern slope of the valley of Elah, which might be identified with Gob. Khirbet Aklidia is a purely theoretical possibility; or perhaps there is a site that was occupied in Early Iron Age II under what was the Arab village Beit Netht (go here).

Fascinating stuff.

 

Comments

[Manuel]

"Fascinating stuff", yes! Thank you, pastor John!