* The New York Times has an article on a remarkable archeological find in the City of David, alongside the Old City of Jerusalem. The kicker:
The find will also be used in the broad political battle over Jerusalem – whether the Jews have their origins here and thus have some special hold on the place, or whether, as many Palestinians have said, including the late Yasir Arafat, the idea of a Jewish origin in Jerusalem is a myth used to justify conquest and occupation.
It’s disturbing to see those two positions placed alongside each other, as if they have equivalent legitimacy. Jim Davila at PaleoJudaica responds:
we have plenty of evidence that Jerusalem was inhabited by Hebrew-speaking Judeans during the Iron Age II, especially the last century or so of it (e.g., references to biblical kings in the Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, the Hezekiah’s tunnel inscription, the Siloam tomb inscription, the Ophel ostracon, etc.). There is legitimate debate about the nature of David’s and Solomon’s supposed empires and how reliable the biblical sources are for the Iron Age II, but that is another issue and should not be conflated with the frequently bizarre claims of the Palestinians.
More thoughts on this discovery at One Jerusalem.
(Hat tip: Mediacrity)
