The REAL House of David

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan. And

Dan Beecher I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. And the Dans are feeling steely.

Dan Beecher Hey. Tonight. Yes. It's a, it's a Steely Dan type of show where- ... where Dan tells Dan about the Tel Dan Stele. There you go. And that's, uh, that's always fun. Um, I know, Dan, every time you mention the Tel Dan Stele, somebody wants to make a comment about Steely Dan. And you hate it, but I encourage it, so.

Dan McClellan I don't hate it. I d- I'm just not as amused about it as I used to be, is all.

Dan Beecher Well, okay.

Dan McClellan But if it amuses the commenters, by all means-

Dan Beecher Yes ... blast off. That's fine. Yeah. Um, but- Uh, st- I, I want to encourage people to dive into the comments and, uh, and make, and, and find-

Dan McClellan Yes, I have a feeling this is only going to, uh, amplify the, uh- ...

Dan Beecher find some Tel, some, some Steely Dan, uh, songs and make- ... clever puns on those song titles in the comments. Anyway. Yeah. Uh, this is on artifacts and fiction, and I think we should just dive right into it. All right. Okay, so, uh, th- Tel Dan is spelled T-E-L D-A-N.

Dan McClellan Correct.

Dan Beecher Uh, and it's not about telling us something. What, what, what does that part mean?

Dan McClellan So, so Tel Dan, it just means a, h- a hill. Uh, uh, so it's a, tel is usually what, a way that archeologists refer to s- the, the remains of, uh, an ancient, um, city, town, village, something like that, where- Oh, okay ... uh, the accumulation of, of ruins has created a, a bump in the landscape, so- A tel. A tel, yeah. Okay. And so Dan is at the very northern end of, uh, ancient Israel. So Tel Dan is the tel that remains from this ancient city. Okay. Another place that is visitable when that area becomes fully visitable. Uh, and they've found a, a mud brick g- city gate- Hmm ... that dates back to ar- around 2000 BCE. Wow. Uh, they've found, uh, there's a, uh, there's a temple site there, uh, that had a four-horned altar there. You can, you can go see the layout of the, of the temple. There- What does four-horned mean? Uh, so in ancient Israel, their altars, the corners would have kind of horn-looking, um- Oh ... accents on the, on the corners.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, but if y- so four-horned altar is, uh, is a way to refer to these altars, and you can see examples of that if you Google that. They, you know, they have them at Beersheba. They have them at a variety of different places. Okay. But, uh, there's a, there's a city gate, the, the old, um, Bronze Age mud brick one, and then there's an Iron Age one when th- when this was a part of ancient Israel. And they have like a, a series of standing stones set up outside the gate, which is kind of the standard. You have these, uh, these divine images that would be out there by the, the city gate- Okay ... uh, just to kind of, you know, represent this liminal, um, passage from outside the city to inside the city. There's a l- there's a lot going on there, but anyway. Uh, uh, excavations 33 years ago turned up, uh, three different pieces of stone that, uh, were, they were discovered in, in a variety of different, uh, circumstances. One of them, for instance, had been reused as part of, uh, the rubble for, for a wall, uh, and other parts that were found in, uh, other areas. But they, they noticed there were inscriptions on them, and one of, like, when, if you're on an excavation, to find an inscription is the coolest thing ever. That, yeah, that's gotta- Right? That's- ...

Dan Beecher that's, that is, uh, that's pay dirt right there.

Dan McClellan Yeah. That is the coolest thing in the, in the world. And, um, but they, they found these pieces and were able to put them together and recover a good chunk of an inscription that was written somewhere in the mid-9th century BCE, so like 840-ish, 830-ish. Wow. Somewhere around there. And it's written in a kind of Aramaic, um, that it was likely written by an Aramaean king, and the one that most people associate it with is an Aramaean king named Hazael, who's mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as the Aramaean king who did battle with kings like Jehoram/Joram or, and Ahaziah.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And as we're gonna see, those names get mentioned in this inscription.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But the, the most famous thing about this inscription, and if you go check out the inscription, uh, you will see it is like white chalk has filled in this part of the inscription, these six letters that spell out Beit David, House of David.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And that's what the inscription is, is most well known for- And- ... a reference to the House of David.

Dan Beecher I, the, and the white is, is a modern application that's-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. That, that's what we've basically done. It's, that's the highlighter.

Dan Beecher Yeah, I was gonna say, it, 'cause this, I, I looked it up, and this is now in a, in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher And it does look like they, yeah, somebody just did a highlighter on like white. It, it, it feels funny that they did this, but, but yes, there it is. Uh, the, those, those, like you say, those six letters.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Um, and written in the way, in the way that, that we've described before, where there's no spaces, there's no, uh-

Dan McClellan They, they have little dots Um, between the words.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan So those are, those are... That's as, as good as we can, uh, as we can expect from, um, from this kind of inscription.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Um, so if you, if you're looking at a picture, you'll see, like, it almo- and there, it almost looks like just a, a chip in the, uh, in the inscription. Mm. But those dots are separating out words. Now, they don't separate them out all perfectly the way we would do today in a printed version of the Hebrew Bible or something like that, but- Right ... uh, but they do do that. It's, it's a very, it's a very good inscription in terms of, uh, the, the skill of the engraver. Uh, it was part of a standing stone. It's in the same kind of genre as the Mesha inscription.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan The, or the, from the Moabite Stone, where it's basically the king is going, "I'm such and such, and I'm so cool, and these are all the things that I did."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So it's, it's basically his, uh, you know, the executive summary of his- ... his resume.

Dan Beecher They should call them brag stones.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Brag stones. Um, and we don't have all the in- uh, inscription, but basically, this is this king, probably Hazael, talking about a bunch of people he defeated, and the, the most important part is, uh, for our purposes today, uh, I, I can read through the entire inscription, in fact. It's, it's somewhat fragmentary. Uh, the, the first visible word, the highest line, it just says, "And cut." Uh, and then, "My father went up against him when he fought at so and so, and my father lay down. He went to his ancestors," which, which is the idiom for, uh, he died.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "And the King of Israel entered previously in my father's land. And Hadad," this is the, uh, Aramean storm deity. In the Aramean world, where they speak Aramaic, the storm deity is the head god of the pantheon.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And Hadad is, is that storm deity. Baal Hadad is, is a conflation of Baal with Hadad, but, uh, he says, "Hadad made me king," which is, you know, you would expect, um, an Israelite to say, "Adonai made me king."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan "And Hadad went in front of me, and I departed from the seven lacunae." Uh, and then we got, you know, we don't know what, uh, "Some things of my kingdom, and I slew 70 kings." 70 obviously being the, that nice large, round number- Right ... uh, which would be the equivalent of somebody today saying, "Yeah, I killed a million kings." Right. Uh, "Who harnessed thousands of chariots and thousands of horsemen." So, uh, less than one chariot per king. Um, no, uh, uh, a lot more. Uh, I was- Yeah ... I had a million in my head.

Dan Beecher Oh,

Dan McClellan okay. Okay, so s- Yeah ... then I was like, wait a minute. They didn't s- they couldn't say a million back then.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, so, uh, several. Several per. Per king,

Dan Beecher yeah.

Dan McClellan And then he says he, "Killed Jehoram, son of Ahab, King of Israel." Now, this is kind of fragmentary. Like, the name Ahab is not there, but we can see the end of the name Jehoram, and we can see son, and then obviously that would've been Ahab, King of Israel. King of Israel is very clearly legible.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan "And I killed Ahaziah, son of," and then that would be a, a different Jehoram, uh, "King of the House of David." And that's where we get House of David. Okay. Um, and interestingly, so he claims to have, have killed these two kings, and it says, "I, I set their towns into ruin and turned their land into desolation." Uh, and then there's a reconstruction that imagines that, uh, there's a reference to Jehu, uh, 'cause somebody else ruled over Israel after that, and so we think that would've been Jehu.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Um, and, and that's, and it basically, it tapers off from there. You know, he, he basically writes, "Ah." Um, no. He doesn't write that. Um, it's, it's fragmentary.

Dan Beecher I, I j- I wanna clarify one thing as, before we go on too far, which is, uh, are, i- is this drawing a distinction between King of Israel and H- House of David?

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Like Israel and David are two different things?

Dan McClellan They're two different entities, but they're also, it also seems like they're two different kinds of entities.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan 'Cause Isra- Israel is, is the name of a nation.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan A kingdom that has a king. House of David is a dynastic designation.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so what a lot of scholars think might be going on here is that the southern kingdom is not yet a kingdom. Judah is not a full-fledged kingdom. We just have this dynastic family that is camped out in Jerusalem that calls themselves kings. And so, uh, what, you know, they don't, maybe the kingdom doesn't have a name yet. They're just going by House of David.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, but you also have other references to the, the House of Omri as a reference to the northern kingdom of Israel. So, uh, it's, it's not perfectly clear what's going on there. But yeah, it seems like we have the nation or the kingdom of Israel, and then we have this dynastic reference to the House of David. But this, this is widely considered to be kind of indirect, uh, evidence, d- uh, data supporting the historicity of David. It's coming, you know, over a century after David would've lived, so, you know, there's still potential that it might not be historical. But I think most scholars would say, yeah, this leans us in the direction of concluding there, there was a historical David who s- began this dynasty.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And then-

Dan Beecher Yeah, I mean, I remember us talking about that when we, when we did a story about David, and- Uh-huh ... and I asked you if David was a real person.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And we briefly mentioned this stele. So interestingly, I guess before the '90s, the answer to that question would've been different.

Dan McClellan Yeah, there were, there were certainly scholars who thought there was a historical David, but that we didn't, we didn't have enough data to really say anything about David. And thi- and this is the closest we get to archeological data confirming the existence of, of a historical David. It almost certainly confirms the existence of, of a Davidic dynasty.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, so yeah, that's, I think that's what, what it's doing there. Um-

Dan Beecher Interesting.

Dan McClellan Now, when we, when we go to 2 Kings, uh, here's what we have in 2 Kings 12:17-18: "At that time, King Hazael of Aram went up, fought against Gath, and took it. But when Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem, King Jehoash of Judah took all the votive gifts that Jehoshaphat, Jehoram, and Ahaziah, his ancestors, the kings of Judah, had dedicated, as well as his own votive gifts, all the gold that was found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and of the king's house, and sent these to King Hazael of Aram. Then Hazael withdrew from Jerusalem." So there, there's other intrigue related to, uh, the relationship between Hazael. Uh, but if we go up a couple chapters to nine, 2 Kings 9- Uh ... we have Jehu- Okay ... um, who is-

Dan Beecher I, I remember that name popping up.

Dan McClellan Yes. What, what's funny is 2 Kings 9:20, I, I know a guy who's in a band called, uh, um, I think it was called Drive Like Jehu.

Dan Beecher Uh-huh.

Dan McClellan And the reason is 2 Kings 9:20 says, uh, "And again, the sentinel reported, 'He reached them, but he is not coming back. It looks like the driving of Jehu son of Nimshi,'" driving a chariot- ... "'for he drives like a maniac.'" So, so Jehu evidently had a reputation for, uh, for, uh, charioteering like a maniac.

Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah.

Dan McClellan But, um, so Jehu actually comes out and is executing judgment on the house of Ahab, according to the text. But, uh, King Joram, which is a- another, uh, spelling of Jehoram, and, uh, Ahaziah, so King Joram of Israel and Ahaziah of Judah, uh, they come out each in his chariot and went to meet Jehu. They met him at the property of Naboth the Jezreelite, and Jehu kills both of them.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So, so what we have in the Bible, and, and this is a contradiction- Right ... because we've got, we've got another account in 1 Chronicles where, uh, Jehu do- kills both of them, Joram and, uh, Ahaziah again, but the, the manner of Ahaziah's death is entirely different.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan In, in 2 Kings, he shoots, uh, Joram in the chariot, and Joram's, uh, dies. And then he says, "Shoot him, too," and points at Ahaziah. So they shoot Ahaziah, and he flees to Megiddo and dies in Megiddo.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And then, uh, you, you remember that one, right?

Dan Beecher Yeah, we talked about that one m- on an episode-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah ... mo-

Dan Beecher many moons ago.

Dan McClellan And then Ahaziah's own men take him to Jerusalem and bury him in Jerusalem.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, i- in the 1 Chronicles account, uh, they go looking for Ahaziah, and they find him hiding out in Samaria. They bring him before Jehu, they execute him, and Jehu's men say, "You know what? This guy was the, you know, a, a descendant of Jehoshaphat who loved the Lord with all his heart. We're gonna give him a decent burial." So Jehu's men, after they have executed Ahaziah, bury Ahaziah. But so we have two non-reconcilable ways that Ahaziah died. Uh, and according to the Tel Dan Stele- Right ... neither of them are right. Uh-

Dan Beecher They're fur- They, they are further nonrec- non, uh, what, what did you just say? Reconcilable,

Dan McClellan yeah.

Dan Beecher Reconcilable- Yeah ... uh, with this. So- Yeah,

Dan McClellan so we've got, it's, uh, I understand it to be a, a kind of a standoff characterized by a certain ethnic group, uh, that the three of the, the, uh, different accounts of Ahaziah's death are, uh, in conflict with, uh, with each other.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, uh, because according to Tel Dan Stele, uh, it was Hazael who did it. It was, had nothing to do with, with Jehu, because Jehu would've been one of the enemies of the Aramians as well.

Dan Beecher So-

Dan McClellan And what's funny is y- you can find apologetic attempts to be like, "Well, no, Jehu was probably allied with Hazael, and so he was acting on his behalf." So, like, you could say that, uh... And, and it could be that Hazael was just, you know, uh, got ye old five-finger discount on, uh, on credit for killing these men.

Dan Beecher Was just, yeah, taking credit for- Yeah ... for Jehu's, uh, fine workmanship.

Dan McClellan Yeah, he, he may have shown up on the scene and found, uh, Ahaziah with the arrow through his chest and might have been like, "Hiya, got him." And, uh-

Dan Beecher I, I did that. I was the- ...

Dan McClellan he was like, "He was already dead. He was already dead."

Dan Beecher I, I counted. "Nope,

Dan McClellan he flinched. I had to get him." Yeah. So, uh, who knows if that's what's going on here, but, but certainly the account that we, that we find as, as that narrative goes is, is in conflict. But-

Dan Beecher Well, let me ask you this, because obviously, uh, the Tel Dan Stele is going to have been contemporary, contemporary with, or roughly contemporary to the time that it's telling these stories about.

Dan McClellan Yes. It, it probably was something that was erected, uh, at some point after, obviously, these events, but m- maybe many years. Maybe this was a kind of end-of-life, uh, tell-my-story, uh, put-it-on-this s- piece-of-stone. And, and so it could have been years later, it could have been right after.

Dan Beecher But it seems likely that it's within the lifetime of a single guy.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah.

Dan Beecher So talk to me about when we think 2 Kings was written, when we think Chronicles was written.

Dan McClellan Well, the Chronicles is, is taking earlier sources and is editing them together in the post-exilic period.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, like- 500s, 400s BCE.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Maybe, maybe into the 300s. Um, I need to get a Chronicles expert on here to, uh, because this, that's one of the, uh, don't go near there. Bah, Betty, stay away from there. Stay away from the river. Um, that's one of those places where, where I don't, uh, I don't dip my toe into Chronicles nearly enough. So we need to have a Chronicles expert on here to, uh, to, to give us the straight dope. But, uh, the traditions come from much earlier and, and certainly the Chronicles editors are borrowing some from the Books of Kings and, and Samuel, but they, they seem to have their own independent sources as well.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Uh, and, and Samuel and Kings are probably based on accounts that were initially written down in the pre-exilic period, and a lot of it probably came together in the pre-exilic period. So for instance, we, we've talked about, uh, the problem of whom- who killed Goliath. Like, that account of some dude named Elhanan killing Goliath, that's gotta come from pretty early-

Dan Beecher Mm

Dan McClellan ... for it to predate the people who were trying to glaze David and were swiping these, these feats of strength, uh, that were actually, uh, achieved by David's men. So it, it, that's probably more historically accurate. That's probably coming from an earlier layer of, of these traditions that may go back, you know, maybe 800 BCE, maybe 700 BCE. So some of these traditions probably go back pretty far, get pretty close to the historical David. But another interesting thing to note is the Tel Dan Stele. I, I mentioned that it's kind of in the same genre as the Moabite Stone-

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm

Dan McClellan ... the Mesha Inscription. These are, uh, what they call monumental inscriptions because they're intended to be set up as, as something that's gonna be publicly on display. Uh, but these are some of the earliest examples of, uh, historical narrative prose in an alphabetic script-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... from this region. So you have the Moabite one written in Moabite. You have this, uh, Aramean one written in, in a version of Aramaic. Uh, there's, there are ar- there are scholars who have pointed out we don't have any historical narrative prose prior to these monumental inscriptions, and so that's probably where the historical narrative prose begins, is in these monumental inscriptions. That's kind of a, uh, a logical evolution of things. I, you know, we go from, uh, you know, "I am such and such," to, "I am such and such, and here's what I did. I gotta tell you my story of what I did." And then that later goes on to, like, historical annals-

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm

Dan McClellan ... where people are copying down, "Here's what they did." Um, and so the historical narratives that we find in the Bible probably do not date any earlier than this inscription. So the, the Mesha Inscription and the Tel Dan Stele probably represent the terminus post quem, the point after which for any historical narrative prose we find in the Hebrew Bible.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So the traditions, uh, anything that came from before these, uh, monumental inscriptions probably would've been poetic. Um, so it would've been, uh, you know, short bursts of, of kind of poetic parallelism telling, um, tales and things like that.

Dan Beecher So there's, are there, ig- so what examples of that made it into the Bible?

Dan McClellan Uh, so things like the Song of Deborah-

Dan Beecher Oh

Dan McClellan ... in Judges 5 probably predates this inscription.

Dan Beecher Oh, cool.

Dan McClellan Things, the Song of the Sea m- in Exodus 15, maybe. There are scholars who argue it is very, very early. There are other scholars who are like, "Come on, man. It's not that early." So, um, so that's, that's another example. The, the Song of Moses, uh, might be the same, you know? It, it, it's, it's kind of these, like, uh, uh, "Gather 'round, children, and I'll tell you-

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm

Dan McClellan ... the tale of this thing."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And the, "A shabida doobidy and shabida dabida and shoobidy doobidy and hibidy dibidy." They, you've got this-

Dan Beecher I think that's the Song of Gilligan that you were just-

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, uh, the, it's, it's where you tell the stories with these, these little sing-songy, poetic things.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan That's, that's not historical narrative prose, but you're still telling a story.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, and so th- that's why a lot of people will say, like, Judges 5 is, might be the earliest written thing in the entire Hebrew Bible. It might go back to the time of a historical David, uh, around 1000 BCE or something like that.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan But, but you'll notice when you look, you've got Judges 4 tells the story, and then Judges 5 gives you the poem about the story.

Dan Beecher Right. Yes.

Dan McClellan So, uh, Jud- the Judges 4 is probably a later narrative, um, manifestation of that story as it existed when, when narrative prose became a possibility. So, um, so, you know, the-

Dan Beecher And, and then they're like, "Yeah, throw the song in after."

Dan McClellan Yeah, put the song in there, too. Yeah.

Dan Beecher Why not?

Dan McClellan Uh, you know, that, we- we're gonna do what we do. Uh, you know, we got, we got Genesis 1, and then we got the other creation account in Genesis 2. We're gonna put them back to back.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, we, uh, you know, Exodus 15, the Song of the Sea. We, we just told the story, and now we're gonna tell it again with this song-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... where we sing about everything that happened, and what happened doesn't really line up with the story- ... that we just told. So, um, you know, that's, that's the way it goes.

Dan Beecher That's

Dan McClellan the way it goes. Same as it ever was.

Dan Beecher Yep.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Well, that's interesting. I love it. Uh, s- Steely Dan, uh, Tel Dan Stele. It's all, it's all the same. Uh, it's not all the same, but it's all very interesting. And as you are, uh, very eager to point out, uh, Steely Dan was not named after this, was named before we even knew this existed.

Dan McClellan Yes. To my knowledge, there's no etymological relationship, so.

Dan Beecher Okay. Maybe they were just prescient, uh, uh, in their, in their naming of the band. Well, that's it for today. Thank you all, uh, for, for coming along on the ride with us. If you would like to become a part of keeping this show rocking and rolling, we'd love to have you. Come on over to, uh, the Patreon over at patreon.com/dataoverdogma, where you can get early ad-free access to every episode of the show. A- and you can get the, uh, the patrons-only content that I never know what to refer to it as anymore. Uh, it used to be the after party, and now it's the, the, the pre-game or- The

Dan McClellan pre-game

Dan Beecher ... whatever it is. Anyway, it, that's a lot of fun that we have every week, and, uh, and our patrons are the only ones who get that, as well as, uh, you know, the, like I said, the early access and, and who knows what else. We'll, you never know what's gonna happen with us. Thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing. Thanks to Sam Holden for being our right-hand fella, and thanks to all of you for joining us. We'll talk to you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.