January 26, 2005

BY MICHAEL VALPY

TORONTO -- Archeologist Russell Adams' interest is in Bronze Age and Iron Age copper production. He never intended to walk into archeology's vicious debate over the historical accuracy of the Old Testament.

Yet by coincidence, Adams, a professor at Canada's McMaster University, says he and colleagues fit into place a significant piece of the puzzle of human history in the Middle East.

They unearthed information that points to the existence of the Bible's vilified Kingdom of Edom at precisely the time the Bible says it existed, and contradicting academic belief that it did not come into being until 200 years later.

Their findings mean that those scholars convinced that the Hebrew Old Testament is at best a compendium of revisionist, fragmented history, mixed with folklore and theology, and at worst a piece of outright propaganda, likely will have to apply the brakes to their thinking.

Edomites and Israelites

Because, if the little bit of the Old Testament's narrative that Adams and his colleagues have looked at is true, other bits could be true as well.

References to the Kingdom of Edom -- almost none of them complimentary -- are woven through the Old Testament. It existed in what is today southern Jordan, next door to Israel, and the relationship between the biblical Edomites and Israelites was one of unrelenting hostility and warfare.

The team led by Adams, Thomas Levy of the University of California at San Diego and Mohammad Najjar of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities was investigating copper mining and smelting at Khirbat en-Nahas, by far the largest copper-production site in the region.

They applied radiocarbon-dating methods to some of their finds, and as they say in the British journal Antiquities, ''The results were spectacular.''

Dispute over accuracy

They firmly established that occupation of the site began in the 11th century B.C. and a monumental fortress was built in the 10th century B.C., supporting the argument for existence of an Edomite state at least 200 years earlier than had been assumed.

What is particularly exciting about their find is that it implies the existence of an Edomite state at the time the Bible says King David and his son Solomon ruled over a powerful united kingdom of Israel and Judah.

It is the historical accuracy -- the very existence of this united kingdom and the might and splendor of David and Solomon, as well as the existence of surrounding kingdoms -- that lies at the heart of the archeological dispute.

Those scholars known as minimalists argue that what is known as ''state formation'' -- the emergence of regional governments and kings -- did not take place in the area until the expansion of the Assyrian empire in the 8th century B.C., so David and Solomon, rather than being mighty monarchs, were mere petty chieftains.

And because everything that takes place in the Middle East inevitably is political, the minimalist argument is seen as weakening modern Israel's claim to Palestine.

Scripps Howard News Service