Do the text tell the tel or
do the Tel tell the text? Archaeology’s methods and thinking of those who do it
1.METHODOLOGICAL AND
EPISTEMOLOGICAL DIRECTIONS AND CONSTRAINTS:
1.1 The selection of a norm
in an anormative society:
---One of the biggest
constraints that is laid upon the modern researcher is the epistemological
tendencies in archaeological consensus of the burocratic club of archaeological
academics.
---Like any of the other
sciences they also assume that they are highly original in their focus or
approach, not realizing that they are but the reflection of the decade they
were schooled and trained in.
---This inability to
criticize and analyze their own views in the light of earlier developments and
their inability to postulate the future of their acclamations, leads to
self-constructed "principles" that expect, no demand from the younger
scientist to adhere.
---In a certain sense the
perception of scientists as to what "true archaeology" is, led to an
epistemology in the sciences, and the science of archaeology is no exception,
that struggled with positivism for longer than half a century.
---The disruptive effects of
the Second World War led to a shift in the paradigm of the sciences that
affected also the "science" of archaeology.
---From a normativism hunted
for and fought about in the pre-War era, the epistemology shifted now towards
an anormativism and a relativism.
---The focus blurred with the
increasing demand that everything is relative and non-prescriptive, and that eclecticism
is the only method that will permit an accommodative approach to the
"science of archaeology".
---Since facts are not
"reality" any longer but only human observer's attempts to describe
what is perceived as reality in a selective manner, the humanistic and
rationalistic elements in the sciences received the ultimate focus.
---The sociology of
archaeology and the hiarchy of the archaeological endeavor became more
important than the objects found at the excavation.
--In the absence of any norm
to abide or adhere to, the "science" is viewed as a mere
"art" of the beholder.[1]
---Archaeologists took great
pride in the fact that there is not a Bible on the tel.[2]
---The role of the Bible in
archaeology also changed in the post-War period.
---Neo-orthodoxy's attempt to
harmonize the criticism of revelation with the acceptance of revelation led to
a denial of the reality of the one and paved the way to reconstruct the data of
"human perceived encounter revelation" ad hoc as the circumstances of
logic and availability of archaeological data demands.
---Since the neo-orthodox
academics felt that the writers of the text of revelation only selected data
that impressed them, human error included, it leaves the academic free to also
select other data (seen as `extra' data) to bring the so-called "fuller
picture" of the past. ---The Umwelt is then read into the text since it is
placed on an equal par with the text.
---In an anormative society
this is perfectly legitimate. ---Such is the postulates of nihilists, atheists
and their admirers struggling to be theistic humanists.
1.2 Do the text tell the tel
or do the tel tell the text?
---The dialectic issue of the
relationship of the science of literature to the science of archaeology,
received pertinent attention from scholars.
1.2.1 The Agnostic
archaeologists focused on the artifacts as their prime source of information
and are even willing to adjust the literature or "improve" its
correctness.
1.2.2 The Biblical Apologetic
archaeologists attempts to demand the prime function of the Bible as a source
of information of the reality of the past and thus classify or arrange the
artifacts according to the way they fit into the Biblical picture.
1.2.3 The Parochial
Apologetic archaeologists attempts to uncover and identify nationalistic and
ethnic history by focusing by way of publications and reconstruction
archaeology for the sake of tourists, on the prime periods of their history.
---This last approach contains
strong elements of "propaganda towards selfrealization".
---Since the focus is
politically and military, the Bible is only used to serve the purpose of
proving that militant endeavor.
---Admittedly, the Bible is
abused and misused in all three categories of archaeological scientists, each
who has his own hidden agenda that he/she is operating from or towards.
---It still remains a
question as to what the function is of the Bible in its relationship to the
tel?
1.3 Hermeneutical limitations
of the text and methodological constraints of the tel:
Certain postulates can be
considered as valuable and relevant for an investigation of this nature:
1.3.1 Whether one belongs to
the school of neo-orthodoxy in typical theistic-humanistic fashion or whether
one belongs to the phanerotic-theistic school of thinking, one fact remains,
both the text and the tel are selected fragments of a past reality.
---The dialectical issue will
be around the question as to how much of the reality is represented by either
the one or the other.
---It is thus detrimental to
the science of the past to ignore the one or the other.
---However, a view that the
one or the other or both are only representing reality partially and that
fiction and unavailability of data prevents the "full" understanding
of reality contains elements of destruction of the science.
---The permeating question is
then, if the text and tel represent only partial reality, does this give the
scientist freedom to reconstruct his/her own perceived reality on an ad hoc
basis.
---If this is the case, then
admittedly archaeology is not a science but an art.
---It is the art of
reconstructing not necessarily what happened in the past at the tel, but what
the academic perceived as to have happened at the tel in the past.
---In such an endeavor of
science, the survival of the concepts is done by manipulating the admirers of
the "archaeological artist" into a consensus of admiration and
expectancy for more similar concepts.
---Data are applied to
fulfill its task in the archaeological politics and the power struggle,
characterized by the dialectical nature of the archaeological endeavor.
---The consensus are not
reached by quiet analysis but by emotive and evaluative attachments to the
personality and other aspects of the archaeologist.
---In such a dialectical
archaeological endeavor the admirers are merely selecting data and topics for
investigation that will nullify the opposition or that will support the
debating activist.
1.3.2 The data of the text is
limited within chronological barriers that cannot be mechanically adapted or
changed on an ad hoc basis.
---The data of archaeology
awaits to be "allocated" or "allotted" to timeperiods.
---The chronology of the
textual data is fixed and settled internally from within the text but the
chronology of the archaeological data is assigned by the observer, as an
outside attachment.
1.3.3 The data of the text
will only coincide with the realities of the tel if the interpreter allows the
text to speak forcefully from within.
---That is to say, a
superimposition of artificial paradigms on the text from the outside will
endanger interpretations of the artifacts and data of archaeology.
1.3.4 The Gestalt theory
poses to be one of the major dilemmas in archaeological interpretation.
---The term
"Gestalt" is a German word that means "form" or
"organization".
---This theory is applied by
the director of the excavation and his associates as a reaction against the
Structuralistic theory of the volunteer and others.
---The Structuralistic theory
of the volunteer means that the volunteer attempts to recognize the elements of
the structure(s) and how these elements are associated with each other.
---The director and his
associates operates from the Gestalt theory that implies that the reality of
the past cannot be constructed from the association of individual elements of
the composition.
---According to them, a
structured meaningful unit only develops from the independent elements.
---This unit is called a
Gestalt, which is more than the sum of its composite parts.
---They deny that the
analysis of the isolated elements can be a true representation of the whole.
---In practical terms, it is
the structural analysis of the volunteer on a first level interpretation that leads
the supervisor to recognize and the director to sanction the interpretation.
---Due to the director's
advantage of more than one dig, and his ability to be anywhere at an excavation
at the same time, his Gestalt theorizing outwit that of the Structuralistic
volunteer and Gestalt interpretation adapts, suppress and change
Structuralistic interpretation.
---The hierarchical advantage
of the Gestalt interpretation over the Structuralistic interpretation causes
the individual volunteers to be aware of the "Gestalt theories" of
the tel and this creates an expectancy that helps the Structuralistic volunteer
to "recognize" what he/she expects. In most cases this process
results in a hermeneutical circle where the theories of the director are
continually sensitive in the mind of the volunteer, who discovers something
that will support again the theories of the director.
---The internal fallacy of
this theory is that its major criticism against the perception that the
composite parts can tell a story lends itself to the illusion that the Gestalt
interpretation is the "full" story.
---In reality, even after
decades of excavation, only a fragment of the tel is exposed.
---The full "Gestalt" is thus outside the
scope of the interpreter.
---The dilemma in modern
research is to superimpose the fragment onto the rest of the tel as if this is
the full reality of the past.
---The Gestalt theorist then
believes so strongly in this fragmented part of reality, that he/she is willing
to deny realities claimed by the text but not found on the tel and even proceed
further, namely, to adapt the text.
---The Gestalt theorist
operates under the silent illusion that ten or more seasons entitled him/her to
superimpose the fraction of exposed areas' results on the rest of the unexposed
areas of the tel.
---Claims are made such as:
"no destruction layer was found at the date indicated by the MT";
"the absence of a wall indicate that the redactors of the Biblical
tradition composed their story in a time when the realities of the past was
vague and imprecise".[3]
1.3.5 Although both the tel
and the text are under the constrains that they are "interpreted" and
that human error can be possible in both, yet if one compares the amount of
internal controls that can be enacted by the text to that of the tel it is
clear that those of the text are more.
---Chronology is less vague
in the text than it is in the tel.
---This means that
generalizations like "Iron Age II ceramic" covers several centuries
as opposed to the Biblical dating, sometimes as narrow as the very day of the
event.
1.4 The other methodological
limitation is the question whether one should allow the eclectic method of
textual tradition to be the guiding force in the "construction" of
the reality of text, or whether one should deny the possibility of a
pluralistic subsistence of the reality of the data in more than one text.
---This last option will be
the insistence of a single text as the norm against which the rest are
evaluated.
---It is natural that the
neo-Orthodoxy scholars and the nihilistic-atheistic scholars will join forces
in denying the existence of one single norm to judge the data by.
---They find it quite
comfortable and in unison with their anormative approach in a relativistic
society.
---The single text theory of
analysis will argue from the consonantal text of the MT as the norm to analyze
the data from.
---If one follows the
pluralistic view of the reality of the data in the texts, where will the norm
be that will inform the scholar that particular data, however at variance with
the consonantal text of the MT is "more" representative of the
reality of the past than the MT tradition?
---It becomes an artistic
enterprise where the selector chooses his/her possibilities on an ad hoc basis.
---In keeping with relativism
and existentialism, the norm will reside outside the text and the tel and
inside the evaluative tastes of the scholar.
---It is artistic to arrange
the textual data around the data of the tel where the scholar "feels"
that a one to one basis is extant.
In Conclusion, one wonders if
researchers are aware about their limitations that are “dishing up” for future
generations weird scenarios that are actually out of touch with past reality
since it is out of touch with the reality of the past as described in the
Masoretic Text of the Hebrew tradition.
These days, one should lament
that the very people who are arguing for the unreality of the Masoretic Text
are Israeli Jews, not to speak of the diaspora Jews, who are even worse. What a
disgrace. Is that not true?