Did biblical Edom exist? Implications for an "Israel"? And, what politics are involved in this?

 For the unfamiliar, the Copenhagen school of interpretation of the Tanakh/Old Testament is indeed minimalist even within critical exegesis. It claims that not only did Abraham not exist, not only did Moses not exist, but David and Solomon also did not exist and almost any historical claim in the Tanakh before the return from exile and Ezra (we presume) doing editorial work on the Torah (Copenhagen folks often claim writing work, not just editorial work, taking a more fragmentary rather than documentary approach) isn't true.

Well, Smithsonian has a piece about a re-exploration of old copper mines in Israel's Arabah that were reportedly redeveloped from earlier Egyptian New Kingdom mining circa 1000 BCE. As in, time of alleged Biblical Edom and time of David. Earlier archaeological work was done there about a century ago by the renowned Nelson Glueck. Glueck claimed he had found "King Solomon's mines." Later work in the 1960s backdated it to Egyptian New Kingdom times and said that the great cataclysm of the eastern Mediterranean circa 1177 BCE led to their being shut down.

First, I'm not going to argue that whoever redeveloped the mines at Timna at this time wasn't well off. People wearing Tyrian purple, found on site in the new work by Erez Ben-Yosef.

OK, who did this mining? And, how close to 1000 BCE did it start?

First of all, the author, Matti Friedman (more on him at Wiki) doesn't mention the dating range of any material. (I Tweeted to him at the time I started writing this.)

Second, how do you know this is "Edomite"? Egypt started a partial return to glory with the 22nd Dynasty, founded by Sheshonq I, the "Shishak" of 1 Kings note, invading Judah of Rehoboam at instigation of Israel of Jereboam I. (Note: Israel Finkelstein, a minimalist but not quite of Copenhagen level, considers the story a legend; he's mentioned in the Smithsonian piece, for his comments related to Timna, plus that he, like Ben-Yosef, works at Tel Aviv University.) Why couldn't it be running the mines again? And, that is a valid question whether the part about Sheshonq invading organized kingdoms of Israel and Judah is true or not.

Sheshonq came to power 945 BCE, hence my Tweet to Friedman asking about the precision of the dating.

Third, even if run by a group called "Edom," that doesn't mean we should conceive of them as being anything like a nation-state. Ben-Yosef does, and Finkelstein has harshly criticized him.

Fourth, beyond the carbon dating range, is one of language. Got any ostraca or other items with writing on them? Until you do, and said ostraca have a language known as "Edomite" on them, this is pure conjecture.

Fourth, Friedman seems to be doing some spinning:

What Ben-Yosef has produced isn’t an argument for or against the historical accuracy of the Bible but a critique of his own profession. Archaeology, he argues, has overstated its authority. Entire kingdoms could exist under our noses, and archaeologists would never find a trace. Timna is an anomaly that throws into relief the limits of what we can know. The treasure of the ancient mines, it turns out, is humility.

Well, archaeology has always had limitations and young Turks have always been wanting to state new theories and ideas.

That said, we need to go further. Friedman says, very early in the story, and a photo is also so captioned, that Ben-Yosef is "agnostic" about the bible as history. The caption starts:

Erez Ben-Yosef, who leads the Timna excavation, is a self-described agnostic when it comes to biblical history.

Sounds simple, right? But, put an asterisk in that and see below.

And, in either case, is Friedman? Or, does he see an "opening" to run with here?

And, why not? Click the link on his name, or the Wiki page, and .... ???

He's a pretty ardent Zionist.  Per Wiki:

Following the 2014 Israel–Gaza conflict, Friedman wrote an essay criticizing what he views as the international media's bias against Israel and undue focus on the country, stating that news organizations treat it as "most important story on earth". He said when he was a correspondent at the AP,

the agency had more than 40 staffers covering Israel and the Palestinian territories. That was significantly more news staff than the AP had in China, Russia, or India, or in all of the 50 countries of sub-Saharan Africa combined. It was higher than the total number of news-gathering employees in all the countries where the uprisings of the "Arab Spring" eventually erupted. [...] I don’t mean to pick on the AP—the agency is wholly average, which makes it useful as an example. The big players in the news business practice groupthink, and these staffing arrangements were reflected across the herd.[7]

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the piece went "viral" on Facebook.[4] The Atlantic then invited Friedman to write a longer article.[18] AP issued a statement, saying that Friedman's "... arguments have been filled with distortions, half-truths and inaccuracies, both about the recent Gaza war and more distant events. His suggestion of AP bias against Israel is false".[19]

Given that he's also listed as an NYT op-ed columnist, and the likes of Bret Stephens have praised his books, uhhh ....

And, its relation to this?

Even if Ben-Yosef isn't postulating a real Moses, bank-shotting off a real Edom, he's postulating the Glueck-like idea of a real David and Solomon is true.

And, of course, that's got implications for Zionism.

Let us say the dating is correct and within a narrow band. Given that, as Ben-Yosef noted, Edom is mentioned outside the bible and as of this time, who says that proves the bible is historically true on the existence of polities named "Israel" and "Judah"? And, who says this copper was being mined for any such polity rather than for a re-emerging Egypt?

That said, per the argument between the archaeological heavyweights, per a link off the Smithsonian piece, Ben-Yosef IS, at a minimum, more agnostic than Friedman:

While I still maintain that the historical reconstruction presented in my recent publications 73 fits better the available evidence, it should be noted that the differing views of specific aspects of the early Iron Age archaeology of the south—including its identification with Edom— have little bearing on my main argument, which is methodological in essence.

But, not FULLY agnostic. Per a Jerusalem Post piece, Ben-Yosef thinks Israel (would actually be Judah???) at least indirectly controlled the mines. But, we still don't have the alleged copper basin of Solomon. We DO, per the J Post, have evidence of Timna copper of this era in ... ??? 

Egypt. (See above!)

In any case, color me less than fully convinced. That's also despite Biblical Archaeology Review playing this up, on the first 21st century work, 15 years ago. (Shock me.)

The precision of the carbon dating is not a big deal. Not having writing or any other things at Timna to specifically identify this as a people, a polity, separate from Egypt, as in not under its control, is a deal. 

But, I have my answer, per this piece. Here we are:

The results of several different types of tests conducted in recent years, including high resolution 14C dating and archaeo-magnetism from multiple slag mounds,[6] necessitated a revision in the dating suggested by Rothenberg and determined that the peak of activity at Timna took place during the early Iron Age, or 11th-9th centuries B.C.E.

And, that is broader than the Friedman piece implies. 1000 BCE is just the midpoint, but even the above doesn't specify if uncertainty on the range is higher on one end than the other.

It's also clear from that piece that Friedman is strawmanning about Ben-Yosef. He's not so agnostic about bible as history at all. 

It's even more clear at this J Post piece:

So if we understand differently the potential role of nomads, the basic attributes of archaeologists to identify power should also be changed. And if we're looking for walls and big palaces in order to understand the size, the magnitude of the united monarchy of David and Solomon, we don't necessarily have to find these attributes in order to for biblical descriptions to have a real history in them. 

This is what I'm saying. I'm not saying we can prove, but I'm saying that archaeology can definitely not disprove the description in the Bible of an influential, big kingdom, strong kingdom centered in Jerusalem. This is part of our insights from studying a nomadic society in the South

Has Finkelstein claimed that archaeology "disproves" or just that "it shows no proof," first?

Second, yes, new revelations in archaeology show, let us say "kinglets" without walls and palaces. (I say this while in the middle of the new Graeber-Wengrow book.) Big kings and big kingdoms without those things? Not so much.

Finally, to pivot this back to politics? 

The Smithsonian could have done some more editing on this. And, it possibly could just have rejected the piece, if it didn't solicit it.