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John, I realise what you're saying now. No, southern Levant does not mean Negev, it's a broader term - the Levant as a whole takes in everything from Lebanon down to Sinai, and "southern Levant" is the southern half of that, i.e., Palestine. And if you're aware of any Iron Age narratives that describe the history of Israel/Jordan, let us know, because nobody else does. You don't get any historians writing about events in Judah after c.500 BCE until 1 Maccabees, which is a biblical book; the next is Josephus, who's outside out time-frame. PiCo ( talk) 05:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
The original 2nd para of the section on the Late Bronze Age was as follows:
I felt this would work better if it focused more sharply on the actual subject, i.e., the Late Bronze period (what's the reference to the Romans got to do with it?) I've also reduced the amount of detail, because I'm concerned that the article is already quite long and likely to get longer as we expand sections like the one on Sources. Finally, I rearranged the material so that the paragraph becomes an overview of the political/demographic structure of the area immediately prior to the first mention of the name Israel on the Merneptah stele - the starting point of the next section. So this is the new para:
Any discussion? PiCo ( talk) 06:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
John, thanks for beginning to expand this. A comment on the first expansion:
"The Bible narratives are ascribed to the eras they depict by Bava Batra 14b ff. (Talmud) and early Church Fathers. Modern opinions vary."
True, but I don't think it goes far enough. Biblical scholars base their insights on more than the "biblical narratives" (I take it you mean the history-related narratives, from Genesis through Kings and maybe Chronicles). They get a great deal out of the prophets (Hosea is surprisingly important), the Psalms (lots of information about how religious belief and practice changed over time), and from the Hellenistic apocrypha (Jubilees, Enoch etc). Also, the Bava Batra isn't the earliest source for Jewish tradition - there's ben Sirach, Josephus, and many more (don't get too hung up about Bava Batra, it's actually quite late, 2nd century AD at the earliest). I'd like to help, but I'm not sure you want me to? PiCo ( talk) 11:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
What? An article about events between in the millennium before the birth of Christ is slanted towards recent events? Please explain! PiCo ( talk) 03:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
What kind of pleading is "Please leave - this list is in use"? Why don't you Please explain! how this list (of books I deleted) is in use? None of the books I deleted are cited in any way and are a WP:COATRACK of undue weight clearly forbidden by WP:ELPOV. If you want to use them, WP:USERFY them. Sorry for any tone, but you undid spelling and formatting corrections again in your zeal to keep links in the article that have no place except to continue the recentism. JJB 04:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
This may be a usual solution, but there is circumstantial evidence that both lists are very overweighted toward a single POV cluster, and as such the second is undue weight. But we'll keep dealing with issues one by one, as that way it only takes months instead of years. JJB 17:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
I reverted John's edit, here:
to the original edit, here:
Here are the differences, the original text first with John's proposed edits below:
Naming Finkelstein and Brown makes it sound as if only these two are involved - this is totally misleading, every archaeologist who writes about the subject of early Iron villages in the highland zone mentions the pig bones. The original wording covers the same point and avoids being misleadingly specific about names. (Not that I'm saying John is being deliberately misleading, just accidentally).
Plus one standalone sentence that John wants to add:
This sentence conflates three points: (a) the ceramic assemblages found in highland sites are different from those in Canaanite ones; (b) the settlement plans of highland sites are different from lowland (Canaanite) ones; (c) both the ceramics and the settlement plans are found in regions outside those commonly associated with Israel in the Bible.
This is also misleading, but for a different reason. First, let me explain that word "assemblage" - it means simply the various types of pottery found at a site. The assemblage from highland villages differs from lowland sites by being "impoverished", meaning that there are fewer pottery types represented - no imported wares, and what there is is rather crude (meaning no specialist potters). It does not, however, contain any pottery types totally absent from lowland sites of equivalent age - it's a variant of the lowland assemblage, not an alternative. Then there's a second very important point about highland pottery: a specific type of pot called the "rim-collared pithoi" is found there. It was once thought that this was a marker of Israelite villages, but no longer - it's not recognised as a late development of a Canaanite type. Similarly the settlement plans: there's a type of house found in the highlands that isn't found in the lowlands, the "four-chambered" house. This also was once thought to be a marker of the Israelite highlands, but like the rim-pithoi it's now recognised as a type found also in Transjordan, which is the territory of Ammon and Moab (bearing in mind that these two kingdoms hadn't formed yet). Finally, the "agrarian settlement pattern" refers to something else again, namely to a habit of building villages with all the houses round the outside of a circle and a clear space in the middle. This has been found in a very few instances, and marks the very earliest stage o0f settlement in the hills. Finkelstein (and in this case we can name a name) thinks this shows that the settlers were originally nomads - this circle pattern is used by nomads to corral the animals (sheep and goats in the middle, people round the outside). He might be right. But the information as given in this paragraph of John's is conflating a whole lot of rather specialised information into a few words, and in the process produces a very distorted picture of reality. (For an overview of the archaeology, see Finkelstein's "The Bible Unearthed", chapter 4, Who were the Israelites?)
John's edit is well-intentioned, but his lack of background in the subject leads him to misinterpret what he reads. Nevertheless, he may have a point - we do need to spend more time in this section outlining various theories on how these highland villages originated. I'll look at that in the next few days. PiCo ( talk) 05:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
John, I added this para to the Sources section, but only as a suggestion - I don't insist that it stay. This is just to give you some ideas on the way you might like to tackle the subject. Feel free to write your own. PiCo ( talk) 05:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
"The bible contains a mixture of narrative history, religious hymns, wisdom literature and other works - all of them can provide historians with information on the history of ancient Israel and Judah. There is general agreement, however, that the narrative history in particular is not simple reportage of events, but was written in order to advance a particular ideology in which Israel was depicted as the Chosen People of God and Palestine as their Promised Land. The authors of this history are unknown, as are the sources they may have used, although there is again general agreement that the bulk of it was composed in the 6th century BCE. For this reason, biblical scholars use the biblical narratives with caution."
I added a section regarding theories of emergence that compete with the main theory given voice in this article. I tried my best to state the strengths and weaknesses of these other theories. I don't particularly like where the section fits within the text/ narrative of the article and I am open to suggestions regarding how to best make the section fit. The section could be more thorough as well, but I didn't want it to dominate the article. Nws106 ( talk) 19:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Dylan restored two sentences claiming BRD, but this is not BRD because they were my deletions of PiCo's sentences. I have nothing to add to my two edit summaries unless either editor provides a rationale: "Delete unsourced generic sentence (that also breaks MOS:CAPS) that is redundant with better-expressed Dever 2003 p. 206 prior .... Delete syn; Silberman p. 248 says nothing about ancient Israel or Judah, and assuming Israel's highlands relate to it is unsourced synthesis. Also redundant with Bright 2000 p. 473." JJB 05:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Since both editors are failing to discuss the policy reasons for deleting the two sentences, I am deleting them again. Note that I did not challenge any of the rest of PiCo's first edit set, and proposed deleting them as a minimum policy-compliant compromise, but not even that was accepted. JJB 02:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
PiCo's commits further errors: first, it repeats the insertion of mistaken language, challenged above, never rebutted, and retained for over a week by silent consensus: "were once identified", "have been found", and "Palestine". Second, it repeats the deletion of Killebrew twice, which proves the mistake. Third, the idea that pig bones are "genuinely unique" is not in any source, especially not Silberman p. 248. I had a feeling PiCo would be back to continue the game of revert-without-discussion, so no surprise. It is plain that a conclusion, even if "found" in 1986, is clearly mitigated by supplemental evidence in the other direction published in 2005, and the deletion of your own source, while restoring words to avoid, is clearly POV exclusion; the restoration of the unsourced and synthetic sentences is also clearly antipolicy. If these errors are not discussed they will be reverted. JJB 06:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Since PiCo is failing to discuss the policy reasons for balancing this part with additional sources, I am repeating the addition. Note that this is a continuation of attempting to fix the verification problem I first noted about 26 Sep and stated formally above on 10 Oct, which has never been addressed; that is, for 2 months now PiCo has been insisting that pig bones are unique without any source and contrary to other sources. The continuation of these editors' reverting this POV fix without any basis in sourcing is getting surreal. JJB 02:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
It means you have again defaulted by refusing to discuss the edits. JJB 02:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
I am using the common word "default" to mean you are pointedly avoiding the subject, as your comment here does once again. Most people who revert agree with the need to provide reasons that pass muster to third parties. Now you have at least in summary linked PiCo's statement above "I agree" to claim a new "consensus"; but two people without a policy reason do not form a consensus against one person with, sorry. I have shown (for two months) where the edit I reverted has a POV, but neither of you has ever cited a problem with the pig text that is based in policy; everything you've provided has been answered above with logic and policy arguments. Now I can cut and paste those arguments if you like, but why don't you tell me first what you think is really wrong with pointing out sources find more distinctions between highlands and other regions than just pigs? JJB 03:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
That diff is not a consensus, as answered just above, because it in no way answers the policy arguments; nor does it have anything to do with the pig edits to this article, which are different from the two new sentences of PiCo the diff is referring to. So even if it were consensus, since it is wholly inapplicable to the pig edits, you have not provided any reasons responsive to those edits. JJB 03:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
There is a dispute about conformity/verification of sources in this article after one editor made a number of new edits and another editor raised the issue of verification. This is meant to be a content RfC dealing with verification and conformity with sources and related issues. The talk page above lays out the dispute, and this link [1] shows the difference between the edits up to September 26th, when the dispute began, and today. Dougweller ( talk) 19:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Here is a much better diff, in that Doug's diff includes a lot of post-Persian changes that I have not reviewed or disputed. As another minor point, the history is actually that PiCo made significant edits to Joshua that arose from this article and I brought the V issue here from there. I will be treating the current version as the baseline because it appears there is a consensus on the first couple changes aside from PiCo (we had agreed to discuss the sentences one-by-one, and that was working to a degree and can continue to do so, but this list gives the current baseline for either seriatim or parallel discussion). I am also using this list as the baseline for PiCo's current concerns, as they appear to me to be shifting regularly. Much of this rehashes the list above at "The emergence of Israel". From these versions:
Did you even skim what I said above to see that point 1 is an issue with the lead, not the 3 grafs you quote? Did you see that point 2 is your own issue with my language in another graf, beginning "In the 2nd millennium", or are you waiving that point? Are you waiving your points 3 and 5 by not advocating for them to be checked also? Is there some reason you need to quote the material I already linked and to lump in the material I did not challenge? Did you not notice my stated concern in the last point, 17, about how to deal with you for future concerns after this one wraps up, due to the way you change (as here) what other people say? Do you believe that Ed should redo all my checking work, and much work I didn't request, even though we already have this very RFC that Ed proposed, as if the RFC process doesn't matter? Do you think you know my position, the one I don't seem to you to be inclined to shift, as if you've presented anything that addresses my repeatedly stated concerns, or as if you can cogently restate my concerns accurately (as you don't here)? I don't know Ed, but why are you asking me to abandon a community RFC in favor of a venue change of your selection? To answer your question, only parts of these three grafs are applicable, and only to disputes 4 and 6-16. JJB 01:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for apologizing, but if you do it simultaneously with blithe ignorance of what has been said and/or rewriting what has been said, that would be a continuation of the offense. 3 of these points are, as I said, yours, taken from your cited list in a good-faith attempt to represent them, but if your statements here are taken as dropping those points, that reduces it to 14. The lead concerns, and the ongoing practice concerns, are natural branch-outs of the source concerns, and, sorry, conflicted editors do not generally get to use "I don't see that" as a reason to not discuss others' concerns (which is why I attempted to discuss your expressed concerns with the present text). Ed, others, you, and I are all free to comment; but I've already made my comment and would have little to add. If RFC and Ed remain silent, that implies the other editors are not sticking with you and then a third opinion might be fine, although I will probably try another bold before the RFC closes. This is a simple matter of reading the source and determining which quote glosses its thought better, which could be done by anyone with an analytical mind. If you consider yourself analytical, I ask this: "Source says A. WP says B. PiCo says A means the same as B. John changes B to A. PiCo reverts. Does PiCo's revert imply A does not mean the same as B? If YES, how does PiCo resolve the contradiction? If NO, why revert a synonym, when not to do so would make peace?" JJB 15:58, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
It appears that only one sentence of the article is in question here:"Canaanite dialects of the first millennium, for example,[10] divide into a core group made up of Phoenician and Israelite and a "fringe" group of Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite and Judaean;[11]" This should not be too hard for you guys to find agreement on, though I must say the present sentence is not crystal clear. Does Wikipedia have a sub-article anywhere that talks about the evolution of the Hebrew language? EdJohnston ( talk) 02:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)I would change "Canaanite dialects of the first millennium" to "Northwest Semitic dialects" because no source says outright that Israelite or Judaean are dialects of Canaanite; Mansoor's chart specifically says that they are lateral branches of NW Semitic; and the sourceability of the NW Semitic statement is not disputed like the Canaanite statement is. PiCo objects that I have treated NW Semitic as a language rather than a family.
In Iron Age, I would change "the Phoenician cities continued from the Bronze into the Iron Age without interruption" to "the Phoenician cities were held by the tenth century; Phoenician kings are also mentioned in Biblical texts" because source Golden pp. 155-160 does not say anything about Phoenicians continuing uninterrupted from the Bronze Age. PiCo said he does, without quoting him. Source mention of Biblical evidence was also brought in at this point to deal with PiCo's unsourced assertion that Phoenicia was not in the pertinent Bible passages. Since it seems the only way to make headway is to retype your Google Books sources myself, the one graf on this is, under "Iron Age I", "The Phoenicians at this time held several important cities, including Tyre and Sidon on the northern coast. Phoenician kings are mentioned in both biblical and extra-biblical texts, often in terms of having friendly relations with the Israelites and not-so-friendly relations with the Egyptians. At the port city of Tel Dor, there was an important harbor and a glacis fortification system." Also, "At this time" is defined by the prior sentence, "By the tenth century B.C.E., Ekron ...." Since you believe that Golden's commentary on the Iron-not-Bronze age with a single graf on Phoenicia is synonymous with saying that Phoenicia continued "without interruption" from the Bronze, why doesn't WP just quote Golden's words, since Golden's words convey the thought "continued without interruption" to you? (I know this judo-move question is starting to sound repetitive, but it gets more fun every time you ignore it.) JJB 06:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Great, now we're talking, I'm glad the ball is finally rolling. Why don't you propose a text to replace Golden (who never uses the word "interrupted") with whatever you think best from those two sources? Then I won't need to rebut everything above specifically. I'll let you have a couple hours to yourself here. Please don't forget to answer my followup question above. JJB 07:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
That's potentially an includible POV when kept in balance. But don't you think that would better go to battle of Jericho? Does this article talk about Israelite conquest of Canaan c. 1200? JJB 07:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
(ec)I never said the Phoenicians were not disrupted, I said the source pages didn't say they continued uninterrupted (or when they began at all). I asked for a proposal based on the new sources. If you prefer "paragraph" to "graf" (or "para"), you say it, you get it (I prefer "Golden" to "Gulden" myself, just saying). I don't mind making discussion of conquest point 18, as it's not point 6 and I have been in queue awhile; I also don't mind PiCo just going ahead and inserting conquest sentences boldly (as PiCo has felt free to do similarly in great swaths prior). But I simply want to ensure that the verification failures will be addressed through process, which means keeping you on track. Since discussion has restarted well, I'll probably break from this article today to see what edit(s) you and PiCo propose to address point 6 or any other. Thanks. The page number of that paragraph is 160, sorry that I only said 155-160. JJB 15:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Hearing none, " WP:BOLD again". JJB 03:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
PiCo, thank you for sticking with this. Is what you said above correct concerning "Lemche's own ideas about where this Israel was: not the western border of the highlands, as John would have it, but the highlands themselves"? If so we can just delete "the northern part of" before "the central highlands" from our sentence (and the word "central" too if you like), and be done with this one. But since it appeared to me you contradicted yourself on this issue, I wanted to ask first. It would also help if you have any points that you can advance the discussion on yourself rather than have me sit and wait one at a time while my position is already stated and you have ample time to propose a way to enfold my concerns. For instance, you could start the proposed section on historical source texts rather than me, because I'm not sure my time would be well-rewarded preparing something that has a risk of getting shot down, and you would not have the same risk as long as you stick to what reliable sources say. JJB 04:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
(Section title shpould perhaps read Merneptah's Israel). John, I've deleted your most recent addition because it's a misreading of the source. It's here:
This is not accurate. Lemche actually says on p.37 that the stele lists a series of Canaanite towns and then Israel, "...whether this reference is a reference to a specific population, a tribe or a tribal coalition, or just a territory carrying this name." In other words, he's not interested in giving a view on what "Israel" might be, he's pointing out that it comes at the end of a list of towns which points in a certain direction of march for the Egyptian army. Elsewhere he makes clear that he believes the Israel of the stele is a people: "It (ie the stele) testifies only to the presence in we3stern Asia at the end of the thirteenth century BCE of something that constituted some sort of ethnic unity...". He also says why it should be seen as an ethnic designation: "[T]he way Israel is introduced is different from the preceding place-names Canaan, Askalon, Geza and Yanoam; Israel alone is determined by the hieroglyphic sign for 'foreign people'..." He then goes on to discuss Ahlstrom's argument that, despite this, Israel means a place or territory, leading then into the passage you quote out of context. But Ahlstrom's arguments haven't been widely accepted by his colleagues, and the "ethnicity" reading is the norm - something Lemche also makes clear. (And on p.38 last para he says "northern part of the central highlands). PiCo ( talk) 02:26, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
JJB, I reverted your recent addition to the first para of the lead: it says that the article treats the period 1200 BCE to 6CE because of two markers, the Merneptah stele and the absorption of the nominal kingdom of Judah into the Roman empire. In other words, all it's doing is setting the chronological scope of the article. The fact that the bible gives a narrative account of that period isn't the point. Please go ahead and write the section on sources, and we can include it there. PiCo ( talk) 00:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Since my other changes relating to point 9 have been accepted silently, I think one more sentence change should wrap it up. Please comment below if necessary. Changed "The origin of these settlers was probably mixed, including both sedentary peasants and former pastoralists." to "Paula McNutt says these villagers were probably linked to other communities such as nomads that did not leave sufficient remains to determine their settlement patterns." in that the former sounds nothing like McNutt p. 69 and the latter does (see quotes at point 9 above). Note also that linkage is not origin. Which better represents the source (should be a no-brainer)? JJB 05:29, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
What you say "she means" is correct. What you say "the idea is" is unsourced and not in McNutt. You are free to cite a different source, but for you to reinsert that sentence cited to p. 69, when you basically admit it's not on p. 69 by referring to two other books n.p., is another failure to carry your WP:BURDEN and will be tagged. As to my own sentence, McNutt continues, "Although this was probably the case during Iron Age I, as it has been in other periods, only the villagers left behind sufficient remains for us to determine the character of their settlement patterns." The word "only" implies that nonvillagers were not determinable as to settlement patterns, and "settlement" means not only "archaeological site" but also "residence". My point is that these sourced linked communities must be mentioned to prevent undue weight attached to the population numbers being verified for villages only. Your point about origins may be valid but is wholly unsourced. JJB 08:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC) The sentence is tagged, the proposed change is on the table, but no discussion is ensuing. It seems the only way to get discussion going is to keep correcting the verification failures and getting reverted, so trying again. JJB 23:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
In PiCo's latest edits he commits another negotiation taboo, namely, going back on prior agreements, deleting a clause he agreed with and another he admitted by silence. He also begins this edit set with the interesting observation, "rv - words taken out of context produced nonsensical sentence, see Talk", when his resultant text included this text, which is not a model of clarity either:
Anyway, a good-faith interpretation of that is that PiCo is merely not recognizing the degree of nonsense of his own edit while being more sensitive to the nonsense of mine. Turning to the first clause Pico deleted, viz., "(the Bible narratives are ascribed to the eras they depict by Bava Batra 14b ff. ( Talmud) and early Church Fathers)", we see that PiCo already unequivocally agreed "This sentence belongs", but has now deleted it rather than moving it to the section in which he said it belongs, a section he created. The simplest remedy is for me to restore the sentence, moved there, in accord with his prior directions, and if he wishes to dispute with himself he can report the result back to us. The second clause PiCo deleted, "new settlements were established in both Transjordan and the Negev", resulted in the erratic text above; his edit summary was "this repeats the information in the previous sentence". However, the resultant text says nothing about new settlements as such in Transjordan. This is best remedied by enfolding it in while correcting the text. (I will be happy to stipulate that Killebrew's new "fringe" settlements were those in Philistia, Ammon, Moab, and Edom. PiCo also deleted Lemche and Ahlström, although this is acceptable to me on grounds already stated, assuming arguendo that Lemche is encompassed by Dever and Ahlström is a sufficiently small minority. There was also a map deletion based on PiCo's finding its making edits difficult; per WP:PRESERVE, I will restore it in a way likely not to hamper editing, assuming the map content is not controversial, in that PiCo didn't say so.) In short, it is troubling that PiCo still feels free to make sweeping changes to disputed text without prior discussion, and further feels free to ignore his own prior statement about the compromise version and go back on it; but a good-faith interpretation is that PiCo doesn't remember saying that the sentence belonged. These are several small points, but please limit this section to discussion of this edit, encompassing the above. JJB 08:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your considerate response. Reviewing talk I can see that some of my initial comments were more harsh than necessary. However, the difficulty I have is that I've always seen your edits as being scattershot, even those last year to longevity myths. I can never tell what direction you're going to come from, and that can tempt one to frustration. If I can assume that you'll come out sooner or later in favor of policy compliance, that will help keep my cool. Anyway, the open points are balancing the bare settler population totals and possibly finding origin POVs. JJB 14:01, 29 October 2010 (UTC) Since Pico is continuing on Biblical sources here without discussing this, proceeding to points 10-11, which appear to need to be taken together. JJB 07:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
See my statement earlier in the RFC thread. JJB 07:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Try Talk:History of ancient Israel and Judah#Point10, newly anchored. Your statement suggests you do not understand what this RFC is about, namely, addressing a list of concerns I presented first via a set of edit summaries and then repeatedly on this page. However, this is inconsequential as long as you continue to interact civilly. JJB 16:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC) PiCo's substitution of Bright as a new source for this text is a good start, but he still undid a couple of needed balance clauses: (a) who holds the POVs about pig bones indicating ethnicity (archaeologist Finkelstein pro, William Brown anti); (b) what POVs there are about other distinguishing marks (Killebrew pro, Brown again anti); (c) deletion of the assumptive "In short, the evidence" as out of context and better replaced by "Archaeological evidence"; (d) deletion of the WP:SYN that puts two of Brown's thoughts (in Bright) together improperly with the word "through", better replaced by Brown's actual indication, that this is only one way "through" which it might have happened and that it is only an emerging theory. If these POV problems are not resolved, then using Bright is only substituting one verification failure for another. However, PiCo can be thanked for letting my edits on points 9 and 12 go through. JJB 05:08, 1 November 2010 (UTC) Discussion continues at #Reversion of John Bulten's edit on Iron I. JJB 17:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
The following is the current 2nd para of the section "Iron Age I":
The number of villages in the highlands increased to more than 300 by the end of Iron Age I [1] (more and larger in the north), with the settled population rising from 20,000 in the twelfth century to 40,000 in the eleventh. [2] The villages probably shared the highlands with other communities such as pastoral nomads, but only villagers left remains. [13] These highlanders are usually identified with the "Israel" of Merneptah and of the bible, but their origin is a matter of ongoing dispute. Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between the highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Canaanite culture: [14] certain features such as collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses were once identified as intrinsically "Israelite," but have been found to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Palestine, [15] and the absence of pig bones from highland sites, their sole genuinely unique feature, has complicated roots, probably relating to survival strategies among new arrivals. [16] McNutt says, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime during Iron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'", differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion. [17]
This para has been the more-or-less consensus for a while now - John Bulten would like to change it, but other authors, notably myself and Dylan Flaherty, have explicitly said we're happy with it, and nobody else has said they're not (meaning John is very much in the minority). I'll go through it line by line and see how it stands up - John, you can tell us your problems with any of these line.
1. The number of villages in the highlands increased to more than 300 by the end of Iron Age I [1] (more and larger in the north), with the settled population rising from 20,000 in the twelfth century to 40,000 in the eleventh. [2] The villages probably shared the highlands with other communities such as pastoral nomads, but only villagers left remains. [13]
2. These highlanders are usually identified with the "Israel" of Merneptah and of the bible, but their origin is a matter of ongoing dispute. :This statement isn't sourced. John, do you want us to source it, or are you happy to accept it?
3. Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between the highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Canaanite culture: [18]
4. certain features such as collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses were once identified as intrinsically "Israelite," but have been found to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Palestine, [19]
5. and the absence of pig bones from highland sites, their sole genuinely unique feature, has complicated roots, probably relating to survival strategies among new arrivals. [20] This statement is sourced. John, do you have a problem with it?
6. McNutt says, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime during Iron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'", differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion. [21]
PiCo ( talk) 04:20, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
I made an edit presented as a compromise to PiCo that accommodated two of PiCo's points; PiCo has been silent; and Dylan has reverted with the incomprehensible summary "per discussion". Now we could game BRD either way, because Dylan could claim he was reverting my bold even though he was no part of the content discussion, or I could claim I am reverting his bold because BRD is two-party and I concluded the conversation with PiCo. But let's cut to the chase. Dylan, I am undoing due to policy violations. You have 28 hours to provide a source-based reason for your removal of sourced POVs in favor of a single POV and your insertion of a completely unrelated source page and a completely synthetic clause, or I will report you for cold-warring, or hot on your second revert after this statement. JJB 23:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Claiming consensus does not make it so. My edit summary stands: "Delete syn; Silberman p. 248 says nothing about ancient Israel or Judah, and assuming Israel's highlands relate to it is unsourced synthesis. Also redundant with Bright 2000 p. 473." Your response presented zero defense against this charge of policy violation, in full: "Hi. Let's have that discussion. And now that it's here, PiCo and LeadWind will actually know about it." The only sentence you claim for consensus was PiCo's, which also presents zero defense against WP:SYN: "I have to agree with Dylan on this one: the paragraph needs to reflect generally held academic views, and do this accurately, while being pitched at the general reader." You continued to provide zero defense, and PiCo continued to discuss other issues than the synthesis and coatracking (inapplicability) of his clause. Thus by your own statements the "consensus" refers to a generic statement that does not address the policy violations cited in my initial edit on this cycle (as well as for the last two months without resolution). Further, I see no incivility in my comment above; I stated that your summary was incomprehensible to me and provided reasons why. Now, when one party is citing policy and sources and the other party is talking about everything but, the first party is generally understood as attempting to avoid edit war: my second-to-last edit here was a compromise to PiCo, who has been WP:SILENT since, and my last edit was one revert (compatible with BRD per above), following your "incomprehensible" summary, which I can only conclude was a failed appeal to the "consensus" that (even if considered a rare true 2-on-1 consensus) has no applicability to the edit's rationale itself. Nor am I threatening to revert above, but you are. I also told you that your latest (passive) refusal to mediate would be taken as disinterest in the topic area, but you have combined the rejection of mediation with the continuation of what can only be considered disruption, for the reasons abundantly stated on this and two other talkpages. However, my decision on writing the report will of course be based on Big Ben and the Tower of Pisa (time and inclination). JJB 00:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually, a response to John's proposed revision of the paragraph under discussion.
John, first let me thank you for framing your proposal as a compromise edit. Nevertheless, while compromise is a desirable goal, accuracy is even more so, and I'm afraid your proposal is based on a misunderstanding of your sources.
Here's your proposal:
Of course, you're not disputing the lead clause - "Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between the highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Canaanite culture" - I added it just for context.
Now to begin, the first sentence in your post above is this: Killebrew in 2005 says p. 13, "These small sites are distinguished by the limited number of ceramic forms and their relative percentages, as well as the agrarian nature of their settlement plans. It's not clear to me how you're interpreting this sentence, but I get a "vibe" that your understanding of it may not be accurate. Nobody believes anything other than what Killebrew says here, not Finkelstein and certainly not me. What she's saying is that the Iron I hill sites have a reduced number of "ceramic types" compared with the Late Bronze urban sites (and urban sites are all there are in Late Bronze - it was an urban culture), and she's saying that they have an "agrarian" form (she means the circular plan with a sheepfold in the middle, versus the more obviously "urban" form of streets and lanes that you find in the Late Bronze town plans). As I say, I'm not sure what you're building on top of this sentence, but you seem to have misinterpreted both parts of it (the ceramics and the settlement pattern). On the ceramics, she's saying that the number of forms is reduced - which is only to be expected when you move from a sophisticated urban culture to a primitive village-based one. The types of ceramic forms don't change, only the number - some Late Bronze forms are lost (no imported ware, notably), but none of the Iron I forms are totally new. As for the settlement plans (the circular outlines), this applies only to the very earliest Iron I villages - the bulk of the villages don't show this plan at all. So to summarise, Killebrew isn't saying anything that contradicts the existing sentences in our article.
Now your second sentence: and collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses have been said to be intrinsically "Israelite," but are also said to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Canaan. [36]. This, of course, is not what Miller says. In fact it's not what anyone says these days. The collar-rimmed jars and 4-roomed houses were thought by Albright to be distinctively highland ("Israelite"), but they've since been found in Transjordan and the lowlands, and today absolutely nobody takes them as markers of "Israelite" sites. (I take it you understand what I mean by a "marker" of an Israelite site - it means a physical indication that a certain site was inhabited by Israelites as opposed to anyone else).
On pig bones, this sentence of yours is pretty good: "One species, the pig, is notably absent. ... Some archaeologists have interpreted this to indicate that the ethnic identity of the highland inhabitants was distinct from Late Bronze Age indigenous peoples (see Finkelstein 1997, 227–30). Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish (1997) advise caution, however, since the lack of pig bones at Iron I highland settlements could be a result of other factors that have little to do with ethnicity." I'd change "some archaeologists" to "Israel Finkelstein", since this idea is very much associated with him (he wrote a major study), but otherwise, ok. I suggest this sentence: "One species, the pig, is notably absent from highland settlents. Israel Finkelstein (Finkelstein 1997, 227–30) has interpreted this as an ethnic indicator for the highlands, but Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish advise caution, (1997) since the lack of pig bones could be a result of other factors that have little to do with ethnicity." (I'll tweak it a little to give in-line indications of the relevant publications). All these - Finkelstein's study and the Hesse/Wapnish pa are very well-known in the scholarly community. (Slightly later: I amended the sentence slightly). PiCo ( talk) 04:26, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I introduced this break largely to make the thread more easily navigable. John, you're continuing to misunderstand the sources and the overall situation with regard to the archaeology. Let me explain in point-form:
Incidentally, Dylan is right to say that your comment-style is long on hostility. Your relationships could improve if you adopted a more collegiate tone. PiCo ( talk) 23:02, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
John, I'm not sure what you want me to do with your proposed edit. But I'll start by analysing it. Let me say first that it's very hard to construct a coherent narrative from it - it looks like a string of "facts", but they don't depend on any premise and they don't lead to any conclusion. To put that another way: just what are you trying to say here? What's the theme? Here it is again:
You begin by saying that the Iron I settlements have considerable continuity with Late Bronze culture - that's the import of the first sentence. What's the next sentence got to do with that? One would expect a concrete example or two to illustrate this continuity. But we get this: "agrarian settlement plans and "impoverished" ceramic repertoire are said to be distinctives of highland sites". (Aside: "distinctive", not "distinctives" - there's no such word). What does this have to do with the continuity (or even the non-continuity) of Late Bronze/Iron I culture? What point are you making?
Then you go on: "certain features such as collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses have been said to be intrinsically "Israelite," but also are said to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Canaan." This is factually incorrect, or at least misleading - they were said by Albright, many years ago, but are no longer said. But again, what point are you trying to make?
Next you say: "The pig is notably absent from highland settlements: specialists have advised caution in interpreting this as an ethnic marker (as archaeologists like Israel Finkelstein have interpreted it), since the lack of pig bones could reflect factors that have little to do with ethnicity". You're right that pig bones are absent from highland villages, but the rest of the sentence is a mess. What you're trying to say is that Finkelstein has said this absence can be taken as an ethnic marker (he meant that when you find a highland village without pig bones, it's Israelite), but that subsequent scholars have questioned this (pig bones are absent from lots of sites in the Middle East, many of which never saw an Israelite).
And your last sentence tells us that "the issue of food taboos has been discussed in detail." The reader is going to wonder what the heck you're trying to tell him.
John, please go back, think =very hard about what point you want to make, and give us another draft. I might be going out on a limb here, but I think you want to demonstrate that the highland villages were settled by Israelites who were not Canaanites - who were, in fact, the Israelites described in the Book of Joshua. If that's what you want, you need to be clear. Well you need to be clear in any case: what are you trying to say?
Ok, so let's construct a logical, coherent, purposive paragraph. We begin with the statement: "Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between the highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Canaanite culture" (sourced to Bright, 2002 - not actually Bright, he was dead by then). So our next task is to illustrate just where they see this continuity. The most obvious place to look is the "ceramic tradition", since bits of broken pots are what most digs are all about. So let's take this: "The Iron I ceramic repertoire is considered by experts to be a direct continuation of the Late Bronze ceramic tradition." That's from Diana Edelman, "Ethnicity and Early Israel". (Don't get over-excited when you see that she's arguing that there were lots of different populations in the highlands - we're only trying to illustrate the continuity). Ok, so now we've illustrated one major aspect of this continuity. We could mention others, such as language and religion, but we won't bother. Are there any discontinuities? Yes. Pig bones. In fact they're the only discontinuity. We have to mention them. What can we say? First let's just establish the fact: pig bones are absent from highland sites and present in lowland ones. What do scholars make of this? Finkelstein says it's an "ethnic marker" - the highlanders avoided pigs because it was against their religion, religion being an aspect of "ethos" - and some agree: take Golden for example: "[I]t is reasonable to suppose that this practice (the avoidance of pigs) began with people exploiting the more arid areas that could simply not support pig husbandry...in time this may have translated into an avowed cultural prohibition...which at the same time served as a distinct point of difference between distinct cultural groups..." namely Israel and not-Israel. Others, however, urge caution, for reasons you're already aware of (lots of people in the ANE avoided pigs, not just the biblical Hebrews).
So what we need to say is this: (1) archaeologists see more continuity than discontinuity between Late Bronze Canaan ( a lowland culture) and the Iron I highlands; (2) example: ceramics; (3) but there's one major difference, namely pig bones; (4) but whether or not the absence of pigs means the presence of Israelites is a matter of dispute. And we finish up with the sentence about the emergence of Israel (biblical Israel, that is) from a mixed population with its roots in LB Canaan.
With that, we'll have a paragraph that reflects the current scholarly understanding of what was happening in Iron I Israel. (By the way, since you seem quite convinced that modern archaeologists still regard the collar-rim pithoi as distinctively Israelite, see Edelman, page 42). PiCo ( talk) 10:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
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John, I realise what you're saying now. No, southern Levant does not mean Negev, it's a broader term - the Levant as a whole takes in everything from Lebanon down to Sinai, and "southern Levant" is the southern half of that, i.e., Palestine. And if you're aware of any Iron Age narratives that describe the history of Israel/Jordan, let us know, because nobody else does. You don't get any historians writing about events in Judah after c.500 BCE until 1 Maccabees, which is a biblical book; the next is Josephus, who's outside out time-frame. PiCo ( talk) 05:32, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
The original 2nd para of the section on the Late Bronze Age was as follows:
I felt this would work better if it focused more sharply on the actual subject, i.e., the Late Bronze period (what's the reference to the Romans got to do with it?) I've also reduced the amount of detail, because I'm concerned that the article is already quite long and likely to get longer as we expand sections like the one on Sources. Finally, I rearranged the material so that the paragraph becomes an overview of the political/demographic structure of the area immediately prior to the first mention of the name Israel on the Merneptah stele - the starting point of the next section. So this is the new para:
Any discussion? PiCo ( talk) 06:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
John, thanks for beginning to expand this. A comment on the first expansion:
"The Bible narratives are ascribed to the eras they depict by Bava Batra 14b ff. (Talmud) and early Church Fathers. Modern opinions vary."
True, but I don't think it goes far enough. Biblical scholars base their insights on more than the "biblical narratives" (I take it you mean the history-related narratives, from Genesis through Kings and maybe Chronicles). They get a great deal out of the prophets (Hosea is surprisingly important), the Psalms (lots of information about how religious belief and practice changed over time), and from the Hellenistic apocrypha (Jubilees, Enoch etc). Also, the Bava Batra isn't the earliest source for Jewish tradition - there's ben Sirach, Josephus, and many more (don't get too hung up about Bava Batra, it's actually quite late, 2nd century AD at the earliest). I'd like to help, but I'm not sure you want me to? PiCo ( talk) 11:50, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
What? An article about events between in the millennium before the birth of Christ is slanted towards recent events? Please explain! PiCo ( talk) 03:26, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
What kind of pleading is "Please leave - this list is in use"? Why don't you Please explain! how this list (of books I deleted) is in use? None of the books I deleted are cited in any way and are a WP:COATRACK of undue weight clearly forbidden by WP:ELPOV. If you want to use them, WP:USERFY them. Sorry for any tone, but you undid spelling and formatting corrections again in your zeal to keep links in the article that have no place except to continue the recentism. JJB 04:55, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
This may be a usual solution, but there is circumstantial evidence that both lists are very overweighted toward a single POV cluster, and as such the second is undue weight. But we'll keep dealing with issues one by one, as that way it only takes months instead of years. JJB 17:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
I reverted John's edit, here:
to the original edit, here:
Here are the differences, the original text first with John's proposed edits below:
Naming Finkelstein and Brown makes it sound as if only these two are involved - this is totally misleading, every archaeologist who writes about the subject of early Iron villages in the highland zone mentions the pig bones. The original wording covers the same point and avoids being misleadingly specific about names. (Not that I'm saying John is being deliberately misleading, just accidentally).
Plus one standalone sentence that John wants to add:
This sentence conflates three points: (a) the ceramic assemblages found in highland sites are different from those in Canaanite ones; (b) the settlement plans of highland sites are different from lowland (Canaanite) ones; (c) both the ceramics and the settlement plans are found in regions outside those commonly associated with Israel in the Bible.
This is also misleading, but for a different reason. First, let me explain that word "assemblage" - it means simply the various types of pottery found at a site. The assemblage from highland villages differs from lowland sites by being "impoverished", meaning that there are fewer pottery types represented - no imported wares, and what there is is rather crude (meaning no specialist potters). It does not, however, contain any pottery types totally absent from lowland sites of equivalent age - it's a variant of the lowland assemblage, not an alternative. Then there's a second very important point about highland pottery: a specific type of pot called the "rim-collared pithoi" is found there. It was once thought that this was a marker of Israelite villages, but no longer - it's not recognised as a late development of a Canaanite type. Similarly the settlement plans: there's a type of house found in the highlands that isn't found in the lowlands, the "four-chambered" house. This also was once thought to be a marker of the Israelite highlands, but like the rim-pithoi it's now recognised as a type found also in Transjordan, which is the territory of Ammon and Moab (bearing in mind that these two kingdoms hadn't formed yet). Finally, the "agrarian settlement pattern" refers to something else again, namely to a habit of building villages with all the houses round the outside of a circle and a clear space in the middle. This has been found in a very few instances, and marks the very earliest stage o0f settlement in the hills. Finkelstein (and in this case we can name a name) thinks this shows that the settlers were originally nomads - this circle pattern is used by nomads to corral the animals (sheep and goats in the middle, people round the outside). He might be right. But the information as given in this paragraph of John's is conflating a whole lot of rather specialised information into a few words, and in the process produces a very distorted picture of reality. (For an overview of the archaeology, see Finkelstein's "The Bible Unearthed", chapter 4, Who were the Israelites?)
John's edit is well-intentioned, but his lack of background in the subject leads him to misinterpret what he reads. Nevertheless, he may have a point - we do need to spend more time in this section outlining various theories on how these highland villages originated. I'll look at that in the next few days. PiCo ( talk) 05:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
John, I added this para to the Sources section, but only as a suggestion - I don't insist that it stay. This is just to give you some ideas on the way you might like to tackle the subject. Feel free to write your own. PiCo ( talk) 05:31, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
"The bible contains a mixture of narrative history, religious hymns, wisdom literature and other works - all of them can provide historians with information on the history of ancient Israel and Judah. There is general agreement, however, that the narrative history in particular is not simple reportage of events, but was written in order to advance a particular ideology in which Israel was depicted as the Chosen People of God and Palestine as their Promised Land. The authors of this history are unknown, as are the sources they may have used, although there is again general agreement that the bulk of it was composed in the 6th century BCE. For this reason, biblical scholars use the biblical narratives with caution."
I added a section regarding theories of emergence that compete with the main theory given voice in this article. I tried my best to state the strengths and weaknesses of these other theories. I don't particularly like where the section fits within the text/ narrative of the article and I am open to suggestions regarding how to best make the section fit. The section could be more thorough as well, but I didn't want it to dominate the article. Nws106 ( talk) 19:59, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
Dylan restored two sentences claiming BRD, but this is not BRD because they were my deletions of PiCo's sentences. I have nothing to add to my two edit summaries unless either editor provides a rationale: "Delete unsourced generic sentence (that also breaks MOS:CAPS) that is redundant with better-expressed Dever 2003 p. 206 prior .... Delete syn; Silberman p. 248 says nothing about ancient Israel or Judah, and assuming Israel's highlands relate to it is unsourced synthesis. Also redundant with Bright 2000 p. 473." JJB 05:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Since both editors are failing to discuss the policy reasons for deleting the two sentences, I am deleting them again. Note that I did not challenge any of the rest of PiCo's first edit set, and proposed deleting them as a minimum policy-compliant compromise, but not even that was accepted. JJB 02:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
PiCo's commits further errors: first, it repeats the insertion of mistaken language, challenged above, never rebutted, and retained for over a week by silent consensus: "were once identified", "have been found", and "Palestine". Second, it repeats the deletion of Killebrew twice, which proves the mistake. Third, the idea that pig bones are "genuinely unique" is not in any source, especially not Silberman p. 248. I had a feeling PiCo would be back to continue the game of revert-without-discussion, so no surprise. It is plain that a conclusion, even if "found" in 1986, is clearly mitigated by supplemental evidence in the other direction published in 2005, and the deletion of your own source, while restoring words to avoid, is clearly POV exclusion; the restoration of the unsourced and synthetic sentences is also clearly antipolicy. If these errors are not discussed they will be reverted. JJB 06:47, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
Since PiCo is failing to discuss the policy reasons for balancing this part with additional sources, I am repeating the addition. Note that this is a continuation of attempting to fix the verification problem I first noted about 26 Sep and stated formally above on 10 Oct, which has never been addressed; that is, for 2 months now PiCo has been insisting that pig bones are unique without any source and contrary to other sources. The continuation of these editors' reverting this POV fix without any basis in sourcing is getting surreal. JJB 02:43, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
It means you have again defaulted by refusing to discuss the edits. JJB 02:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
I am using the common word "default" to mean you are pointedly avoiding the subject, as your comment here does once again. Most people who revert agree with the need to provide reasons that pass muster to third parties. Now you have at least in summary linked PiCo's statement above "I agree" to claim a new "consensus"; but two people without a policy reason do not form a consensus against one person with, sorry. I have shown (for two months) where the edit I reverted has a POV, but neither of you has ever cited a problem with the pig text that is based in policy; everything you've provided has been answered above with logic and policy arguments. Now I can cut and paste those arguments if you like, but why don't you tell me first what you think is really wrong with pointing out sources find more distinctions between highlands and other regions than just pigs? JJB 03:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
That diff is not a consensus, as answered just above, because it in no way answers the policy arguments; nor does it have anything to do with the pig edits to this article, which are different from the two new sentences of PiCo the diff is referring to. So even if it were consensus, since it is wholly inapplicable to the pig edits, you have not provided any reasons responsive to those edits. JJB 03:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
There is a dispute about conformity/verification of sources in this article after one editor made a number of new edits and another editor raised the issue of verification. This is meant to be a content RfC dealing with verification and conformity with sources and related issues. The talk page above lays out the dispute, and this link [1] shows the difference between the edits up to September 26th, when the dispute began, and today. Dougweller ( talk) 19:44, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
Here is a much better diff, in that Doug's diff includes a lot of post-Persian changes that I have not reviewed or disputed. As another minor point, the history is actually that PiCo made significant edits to Joshua that arose from this article and I brought the V issue here from there. I will be treating the current version as the baseline because it appears there is a consensus on the first couple changes aside from PiCo (we had agreed to discuss the sentences one-by-one, and that was working to a degree and can continue to do so, but this list gives the current baseline for either seriatim or parallel discussion). I am also using this list as the baseline for PiCo's current concerns, as they appear to me to be shifting regularly. Much of this rehashes the list above at "The emergence of Israel". From these versions:
Did you even skim what I said above to see that point 1 is an issue with the lead, not the 3 grafs you quote? Did you see that point 2 is your own issue with my language in another graf, beginning "In the 2nd millennium", or are you waiving that point? Are you waiving your points 3 and 5 by not advocating for them to be checked also? Is there some reason you need to quote the material I already linked and to lump in the material I did not challenge? Did you not notice my stated concern in the last point, 17, about how to deal with you for future concerns after this one wraps up, due to the way you change (as here) what other people say? Do you believe that Ed should redo all my checking work, and much work I didn't request, even though we already have this very RFC that Ed proposed, as if the RFC process doesn't matter? Do you think you know my position, the one I don't seem to you to be inclined to shift, as if you've presented anything that addresses my repeatedly stated concerns, or as if you can cogently restate my concerns accurately (as you don't here)? I don't know Ed, but why are you asking me to abandon a community RFC in favor of a venue change of your selection? To answer your question, only parts of these three grafs are applicable, and only to disputes 4 and 6-16. JJB 01:22, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for apologizing, but if you do it simultaneously with blithe ignorance of what has been said and/or rewriting what has been said, that would be a continuation of the offense. 3 of these points are, as I said, yours, taken from your cited list in a good-faith attempt to represent them, but if your statements here are taken as dropping those points, that reduces it to 14. The lead concerns, and the ongoing practice concerns, are natural branch-outs of the source concerns, and, sorry, conflicted editors do not generally get to use "I don't see that" as a reason to not discuss others' concerns (which is why I attempted to discuss your expressed concerns with the present text). Ed, others, you, and I are all free to comment; but I've already made my comment and would have little to add. If RFC and Ed remain silent, that implies the other editors are not sticking with you and then a third opinion might be fine, although I will probably try another bold before the RFC closes. This is a simple matter of reading the source and determining which quote glosses its thought better, which could be done by anyone with an analytical mind. If you consider yourself analytical, I ask this: "Source says A. WP says B. PiCo says A means the same as B. John changes B to A. PiCo reverts. Does PiCo's revert imply A does not mean the same as B? If YES, how does PiCo resolve the contradiction? If NO, why revert a synonym, when not to do so would make peace?" JJB 15:58, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
It appears that only one sentence of the article is in question here:"Canaanite dialects of the first millennium, for example,[10] divide into a core group made up of Phoenician and Israelite and a "fringe" group of Ammonite, Moabite and Edomite and Judaean;[11]" This should not be too hard for you guys to find agreement on, though I must say the present sentence is not crystal clear. Does Wikipedia have a sub-article anywhere that talks about the evolution of the Hebrew language? EdJohnston ( talk) 02:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)I would change "Canaanite dialects of the first millennium" to "Northwest Semitic dialects" because no source says outright that Israelite or Judaean are dialects of Canaanite; Mansoor's chart specifically says that they are lateral branches of NW Semitic; and the sourceability of the NW Semitic statement is not disputed like the Canaanite statement is. PiCo objects that I have treated NW Semitic as a language rather than a family.
In Iron Age, I would change "the Phoenician cities continued from the Bronze into the Iron Age without interruption" to "the Phoenician cities were held by the tenth century; Phoenician kings are also mentioned in Biblical texts" because source Golden pp. 155-160 does not say anything about Phoenicians continuing uninterrupted from the Bronze Age. PiCo said he does, without quoting him. Source mention of Biblical evidence was also brought in at this point to deal with PiCo's unsourced assertion that Phoenicia was not in the pertinent Bible passages. Since it seems the only way to make headway is to retype your Google Books sources myself, the one graf on this is, under "Iron Age I", "The Phoenicians at this time held several important cities, including Tyre and Sidon on the northern coast. Phoenician kings are mentioned in both biblical and extra-biblical texts, often in terms of having friendly relations with the Israelites and not-so-friendly relations with the Egyptians. At the port city of Tel Dor, there was an important harbor and a glacis fortification system." Also, "At this time" is defined by the prior sentence, "By the tenth century B.C.E., Ekron ...." Since you believe that Golden's commentary on the Iron-not-Bronze age with a single graf on Phoenicia is synonymous with saying that Phoenicia continued "without interruption" from the Bronze, why doesn't WP just quote Golden's words, since Golden's words convey the thought "continued without interruption" to you? (I know this judo-move question is starting to sound repetitive, but it gets more fun every time you ignore it.) JJB 06:12, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Great, now we're talking, I'm glad the ball is finally rolling. Why don't you propose a text to replace Golden (who never uses the word "interrupted") with whatever you think best from those two sources? Then I won't need to rebut everything above specifically. I'll let you have a couple hours to yourself here. Please don't forget to answer my followup question above. JJB 07:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
That's potentially an includible POV when kept in balance. But don't you think that would better go to battle of Jericho? Does this article talk about Israelite conquest of Canaan c. 1200? JJB 07:23, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
(ec)I never said the Phoenicians were not disrupted, I said the source pages didn't say they continued uninterrupted (or when they began at all). I asked for a proposal based on the new sources. If you prefer "paragraph" to "graf" (or "para"), you say it, you get it (I prefer "Golden" to "Gulden" myself, just saying). I don't mind making discussion of conquest point 18, as it's not point 6 and I have been in queue awhile; I also don't mind PiCo just going ahead and inserting conquest sentences boldly (as PiCo has felt free to do similarly in great swaths prior). But I simply want to ensure that the verification failures will be addressed through process, which means keeping you on track. Since discussion has restarted well, I'll probably break from this article today to see what edit(s) you and PiCo propose to address point 6 or any other. Thanks. The page number of that paragraph is 160, sorry that I only said 155-160. JJB 15:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)
Hearing none, " WP:BOLD again". JJB 03:01, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
PiCo, thank you for sticking with this. Is what you said above correct concerning "Lemche's own ideas about where this Israel was: not the western border of the highlands, as John would have it, but the highlands themselves"? If so we can just delete "the northern part of" before "the central highlands" from our sentence (and the word "central" too if you like), and be done with this one. But since it appeared to me you contradicted yourself on this issue, I wanted to ask first. It would also help if you have any points that you can advance the discussion on yourself rather than have me sit and wait one at a time while my position is already stated and you have ample time to propose a way to enfold my concerns. For instance, you could start the proposed section on historical source texts rather than me, because I'm not sure my time would be well-rewarded preparing something that has a risk of getting shot down, and you would not have the same risk as long as you stick to what reliable sources say. JJB 04:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)
(Section title shpould perhaps read Merneptah's Israel). John, I've deleted your most recent addition because it's a misreading of the source. It's here:
This is not accurate. Lemche actually says on p.37 that the stele lists a series of Canaanite towns and then Israel, "...whether this reference is a reference to a specific population, a tribe or a tribal coalition, or just a territory carrying this name." In other words, he's not interested in giving a view on what "Israel" might be, he's pointing out that it comes at the end of a list of towns which points in a certain direction of march for the Egyptian army. Elsewhere he makes clear that he believes the Israel of the stele is a people: "It (ie the stele) testifies only to the presence in we3stern Asia at the end of the thirteenth century BCE of something that constituted some sort of ethnic unity...". He also says why it should be seen as an ethnic designation: "[T]he way Israel is introduced is different from the preceding place-names Canaan, Askalon, Geza and Yanoam; Israel alone is determined by the hieroglyphic sign for 'foreign people'..." He then goes on to discuss Ahlstrom's argument that, despite this, Israel means a place or territory, leading then into the passage you quote out of context. But Ahlstrom's arguments haven't been widely accepted by his colleagues, and the "ethnicity" reading is the norm - something Lemche also makes clear. (And on p.38 last para he says "northern part of the central highlands). PiCo ( talk) 02:26, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
JJB, I reverted your recent addition to the first para of the lead: it says that the article treats the period 1200 BCE to 6CE because of two markers, the Merneptah stele and the absorption of the nominal kingdom of Judah into the Roman empire. In other words, all it's doing is setting the chronological scope of the article. The fact that the bible gives a narrative account of that period isn't the point. Please go ahead and write the section on sources, and we can include it there. PiCo ( talk) 00:38, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
Since my other changes relating to point 9 have been accepted silently, I think one more sentence change should wrap it up. Please comment below if necessary. Changed "The origin of these settlers was probably mixed, including both sedentary peasants and former pastoralists." to "Paula McNutt says these villagers were probably linked to other communities such as nomads that did not leave sufficient remains to determine their settlement patterns." in that the former sounds nothing like McNutt p. 69 and the latter does (see quotes at point 9 above). Note also that linkage is not origin. Which better represents the source (should be a no-brainer)? JJB 05:29, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
What you say "she means" is correct. What you say "the idea is" is unsourced and not in McNutt. You are free to cite a different source, but for you to reinsert that sentence cited to p. 69, when you basically admit it's not on p. 69 by referring to two other books n.p., is another failure to carry your WP:BURDEN and will be tagged. As to my own sentence, McNutt continues, "Although this was probably the case during Iron Age I, as it has been in other periods, only the villagers left behind sufficient remains for us to determine the character of their settlement patterns." The word "only" implies that nonvillagers were not determinable as to settlement patterns, and "settlement" means not only "archaeological site" but also "residence". My point is that these sourced linked communities must be mentioned to prevent undue weight attached to the population numbers being verified for villages only. Your point about origins may be valid but is wholly unsourced. JJB 08:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC) The sentence is tagged, the proposed change is on the table, but no discussion is ensuing. It seems the only way to get discussion going is to keep correcting the verification failures and getting reverted, so trying again. JJB 23:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
In PiCo's latest edits he commits another negotiation taboo, namely, going back on prior agreements, deleting a clause he agreed with and another he admitted by silence. He also begins this edit set with the interesting observation, "rv - words taken out of context produced nonsensical sentence, see Talk", when his resultant text included this text, which is not a model of clarity either:
Anyway, a good-faith interpretation of that is that PiCo is merely not recognizing the degree of nonsense of his own edit while being more sensitive to the nonsense of mine. Turning to the first clause Pico deleted, viz., "(the Bible narratives are ascribed to the eras they depict by Bava Batra 14b ff. ( Talmud) and early Church Fathers)", we see that PiCo already unequivocally agreed "This sentence belongs", but has now deleted it rather than moving it to the section in which he said it belongs, a section he created. The simplest remedy is for me to restore the sentence, moved there, in accord with his prior directions, and if he wishes to dispute with himself he can report the result back to us. The second clause PiCo deleted, "new settlements were established in both Transjordan and the Negev", resulted in the erratic text above; his edit summary was "this repeats the information in the previous sentence". However, the resultant text says nothing about new settlements as such in Transjordan. This is best remedied by enfolding it in while correcting the text. (I will be happy to stipulate that Killebrew's new "fringe" settlements were those in Philistia, Ammon, Moab, and Edom. PiCo also deleted Lemche and Ahlström, although this is acceptable to me on grounds already stated, assuming arguendo that Lemche is encompassed by Dever and Ahlström is a sufficiently small minority. There was also a map deletion based on PiCo's finding its making edits difficult; per WP:PRESERVE, I will restore it in a way likely not to hamper editing, assuming the map content is not controversial, in that PiCo didn't say so.) In short, it is troubling that PiCo still feels free to make sweeping changes to disputed text without prior discussion, and further feels free to ignore his own prior statement about the compromise version and go back on it; but a good-faith interpretation is that PiCo doesn't remember saying that the sentence belonged. These are several small points, but please limit this section to discussion of this edit, encompassing the above. JJB 08:20, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
Thank you for your considerate response. Reviewing talk I can see that some of my initial comments were more harsh than necessary. However, the difficulty I have is that I've always seen your edits as being scattershot, even those last year to longevity myths. I can never tell what direction you're going to come from, and that can tempt one to frustration. If I can assume that you'll come out sooner or later in favor of policy compliance, that will help keep my cool. Anyway, the open points are balancing the bare settler population totals and possibly finding origin POVs. JJB 14:01, 29 October 2010 (UTC) Since Pico is continuing on Biblical sources here without discussing this, proceeding to points 10-11, which appear to need to be taken together. JJB 07:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
See my statement earlier in the RFC thread. JJB 07:25, 31 October 2010 (UTC)
Try Talk:History of ancient Israel and Judah#Point10, newly anchored. Your statement suggests you do not understand what this RFC is about, namely, addressing a list of concerns I presented first via a set of edit summaries and then repeatedly on this page. However, this is inconsequential as long as you continue to interact civilly. JJB 16:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC) PiCo's substitution of Bright as a new source for this text is a good start, but he still undid a couple of needed balance clauses: (a) who holds the POVs about pig bones indicating ethnicity (archaeologist Finkelstein pro, William Brown anti); (b) what POVs there are about other distinguishing marks (Killebrew pro, Brown again anti); (c) deletion of the assumptive "In short, the evidence" as out of context and better replaced by "Archaeological evidence"; (d) deletion of the WP:SYN that puts two of Brown's thoughts (in Bright) together improperly with the word "through", better replaced by Brown's actual indication, that this is only one way "through" which it might have happened and that it is only an emerging theory. If these POV problems are not resolved, then using Bright is only substituting one verification failure for another. However, PiCo can be thanked for letting my edits on points 9 and 12 go through. JJB 05:08, 1 November 2010 (UTC) Discussion continues at #Reversion of John Bulten's edit on Iron I. JJB 17:22, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
The following is the current 2nd para of the section "Iron Age I":
The number of villages in the highlands increased to more than 300 by the end of Iron Age I [1] (more and larger in the north), with the settled population rising from 20,000 in the twelfth century to 40,000 in the eleventh. [2] The villages probably shared the highlands with other communities such as pastoral nomads, but only villagers left remains. [13] These highlanders are usually identified with the "Israel" of Merneptah and of the bible, but their origin is a matter of ongoing dispute. Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between the highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Canaanite culture: [14] certain features such as collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses were once identified as intrinsically "Israelite," but have been found to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Palestine, [15] and the absence of pig bones from highland sites, their sole genuinely unique feature, has complicated roots, probably relating to survival strategies among new arrivals. [16] McNutt says, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime during Iron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'", differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion. [17]
This para has been the more-or-less consensus for a while now - John Bulten would like to change it, but other authors, notably myself and Dylan Flaherty, have explicitly said we're happy with it, and nobody else has said they're not (meaning John is very much in the minority). I'll go through it line by line and see how it stands up - John, you can tell us your problems with any of these line.
1. The number of villages in the highlands increased to more than 300 by the end of Iron Age I [1] (more and larger in the north), with the settled population rising from 20,000 in the twelfth century to 40,000 in the eleventh. [2] The villages probably shared the highlands with other communities such as pastoral nomads, but only villagers left remains. [13]
2. These highlanders are usually identified with the "Israel" of Merneptah and of the bible, but their origin is a matter of ongoing dispute. :This statement isn't sourced. John, do you want us to source it, or are you happy to accept it?
3. Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between the highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Canaanite culture: [18]
4. certain features such as collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses were once identified as intrinsically "Israelite," but have been found to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Palestine, [19]
5. and the absence of pig bones from highland sites, their sole genuinely unique feature, has complicated roots, probably relating to survival strategies among new arrivals. [20] This statement is sourced. John, do you have a problem with it?
6. McNutt says, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime during Iron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'", differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion. [21]
PiCo ( talk) 04:20, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
I made an edit presented as a compromise to PiCo that accommodated two of PiCo's points; PiCo has been silent; and Dylan has reverted with the incomprehensible summary "per discussion". Now we could game BRD either way, because Dylan could claim he was reverting my bold even though he was no part of the content discussion, or I could claim I am reverting his bold because BRD is two-party and I concluded the conversation with PiCo. But let's cut to the chase. Dylan, I am undoing due to policy violations. You have 28 hours to provide a source-based reason for your removal of sourced POVs in favor of a single POV and your insertion of a completely unrelated source page and a completely synthetic clause, or I will report you for cold-warring, or hot on your second revert after this statement. JJB 23:09, 20 November 2010 (UTC)
Claiming consensus does not make it so. My edit summary stands: "Delete syn; Silberman p. 248 says nothing about ancient Israel or Judah, and assuming Israel's highlands relate to it is unsourced synthesis. Also redundant with Bright 2000 p. 473." Your response presented zero defense against this charge of policy violation, in full: "Hi. Let's have that discussion. And now that it's here, PiCo and LeadWind will actually know about it." The only sentence you claim for consensus was PiCo's, which also presents zero defense against WP:SYN: "I have to agree with Dylan on this one: the paragraph needs to reflect generally held academic views, and do this accurately, while being pitched at the general reader." You continued to provide zero defense, and PiCo continued to discuss other issues than the synthesis and coatracking (inapplicability) of his clause. Thus by your own statements the "consensus" refers to a generic statement that does not address the policy violations cited in my initial edit on this cycle (as well as for the last two months without resolution). Further, I see no incivility in my comment above; I stated that your summary was incomprehensible to me and provided reasons why. Now, when one party is citing policy and sources and the other party is talking about everything but, the first party is generally understood as attempting to avoid edit war: my second-to-last edit here was a compromise to PiCo, who has been WP:SILENT since, and my last edit was one revert (compatible with BRD per above), following your "incomprehensible" summary, which I can only conclude was a failed appeal to the "consensus" that (even if considered a rare true 2-on-1 consensus) has no applicability to the edit's rationale itself. Nor am I threatening to revert above, but you are. I also told you that your latest (passive) refusal to mediate would be taken as disinterest in the topic area, but you have combined the rejection of mediation with the continuation of what can only be considered disruption, for the reasons abundantly stated on this and two other talkpages. However, my decision on writing the report will of course be based on Big Ben and the Tower of Pisa (time and inclination). JJB 00:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
Actually, a response to John's proposed revision of the paragraph under discussion.
John, first let me thank you for framing your proposal as a compromise edit. Nevertheless, while compromise is a desirable goal, accuracy is even more so, and I'm afraid your proposal is based on a misunderstanding of your sources.
Here's your proposal:
Of course, you're not disputing the lead clause - "Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between the highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Canaanite culture" - I added it just for context.
Now to begin, the first sentence in your post above is this: Killebrew in 2005 says p. 13, "These small sites are distinguished by the limited number of ceramic forms and their relative percentages, as well as the agrarian nature of their settlement plans. It's not clear to me how you're interpreting this sentence, but I get a "vibe" that your understanding of it may not be accurate. Nobody believes anything other than what Killebrew says here, not Finkelstein and certainly not me. What she's saying is that the Iron I hill sites have a reduced number of "ceramic types" compared with the Late Bronze urban sites (and urban sites are all there are in Late Bronze - it was an urban culture), and she's saying that they have an "agrarian" form (she means the circular plan with a sheepfold in the middle, versus the more obviously "urban" form of streets and lanes that you find in the Late Bronze town plans). As I say, I'm not sure what you're building on top of this sentence, but you seem to have misinterpreted both parts of it (the ceramics and the settlement pattern). On the ceramics, she's saying that the number of forms is reduced - which is only to be expected when you move from a sophisticated urban culture to a primitive village-based one. The types of ceramic forms don't change, only the number - some Late Bronze forms are lost (no imported ware, notably), but none of the Iron I forms are totally new. As for the settlement plans (the circular outlines), this applies only to the very earliest Iron I villages - the bulk of the villages don't show this plan at all. So to summarise, Killebrew isn't saying anything that contradicts the existing sentences in our article.
Now your second sentence: and collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses have been said to be intrinsically "Israelite," but are also said to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Canaan. [36]. This, of course, is not what Miller says. In fact it's not what anyone says these days. The collar-rimmed jars and 4-roomed houses were thought by Albright to be distinctively highland ("Israelite"), but they've since been found in Transjordan and the lowlands, and today absolutely nobody takes them as markers of "Israelite" sites. (I take it you understand what I mean by a "marker" of an Israelite site - it means a physical indication that a certain site was inhabited by Israelites as opposed to anyone else).
On pig bones, this sentence of yours is pretty good: "One species, the pig, is notably absent. ... Some archaeologists have interpreted this to indicate that the ethnic identity of the highland inhabitants was distinct from Late Bronze Age indigenous peoples (see Finkelstein 1997, 227–30). Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish (1997) advise caution, however, since the lack of pig bones at Iron I highland settlements could be a result of other factors that have little to do with ethnicity." I'd change "some archaeologists" to "Israel Finkelstein", since this idea is very much associated with him (he wrote a major study), but otherwise, ok. I suggest this sentence: "One species, the pig, is notably absent from highland settlents. Israel Finkelstein (Finkelstein 1997, 227–30) has interpreted this as an ethnic indicator for the highlands, but Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish advise caution, (1997) since the lack of pig bones could be a result of other factors that have little to do with ethnicity." (I'll tweak it a little to give in-line indications of the relevant publications). All these - Finkelstein's study and the Hesse/Wapnish pa are very well-known in the scholarly community. (Slightly later: I amended the sentence slightly). PiCo ( talk) 04:26, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
I introduced this break largely to make the thread more easily navigable. John, you're continuing to misunderstand the sources and the overall situation with regard to the archaeology. Let me explain in point-form:
Incidentally, Dylan is right to say that your comment-style is long on hostility. Your relationships could improve if you adopted a more collegiate tone. PiCo ( talk) 23:02, 21 November 2010 (UTC)
John, I'm not sure what you want me to do with your proposed edit. But I'll start by analysing it. Let me say first that it's very hard to construct a coherent narrative from it - it looks like a string of "facts", but they don't depend on any premise and they don't lead to any conclusion. To put that another way: just what are you trying to say here? What's the theme? Here it is again:
You begin by saying that the Iron I settlements have considerable continuity with Late Bronze culture - that's the import of the first sentence. What's the next sentence got to do with that? One would expect a concrete example or two to illustrate this continuity. But we get this: "agrarian settlement plans and "impoverished" ceramic repertoire are said to be distinctives of highland sites". (Aside: "distinctive", not "distinctives" - there's no such word). What does this have to do with the continuity (or even the non-continuity) of Late Bronze/Iron I culture? What point are you making?
Then you go on: "certain features such as collar-rimmed jars and four-roomed houses have been said to be intrinsically "Israelite," but also are said to belong to a commonly shared culture throughout Iron I Canaan." This is factually incorrect, or at least misleading - they were said by Albright, many years ago, but are no longer said. But again, what point are you trying to make?
Next you say: "The pig is notably absent from highland settlements: specialists have advised caution in interpreting this as an ethnic marker (as archaeologists like Israel Finkelstein have interpreted it), since the lack of pig bones could reflect factors that have little to do with ethnicity". You're right that pig bones are absent from highland villages, but the rest of the sentence is a mess. What you're trying to say is that Finkelstein has said this absence can be taken as an ethnic marker (he meant that when you find a highland village without pig bones, it's Israelite), but that subsequent scholars have questioned this (pig bones are absent from lots of sites in the Middle East, many of which never saw an Israelite).
And your last sentence tells us that "the issue of food taboos has been discussed in detail." The reader is going to wonder what the heck you're trying to tell him.
John, please go back, think =very hard about what point you want to make, and give us another draft. I might be going out on a limb here, but I think you want to demonstrate that the highland villages were settled by Israelites who were not Canaanites - who were, in fact, the Israelites described in the Book of Joshua. If that's what you want, you need to be clear. Well you need to be clear in any case: what are you trying to say?
Ok, so let's construct a logical, coherent, purposive paragraph. We begin with the statement: "Archaeologists and historians see more continuity than discontinuity between the highland settlements and the preceding Late Bronze Canaanite culture" (sourced to Bright, 2002 - not actually Bright, he was dead by then). So our next task is to illustrate just where they see this continuity. The most obvious place to look is the "ceramic tradition", since bits of broken pots are what most digs are all about. So let's take this: "The Iron I ceramic repertoire is considered by experts to be a direct continuation of the Late Bronze ceramic tradition." That's from Diana Edelman, "Ethnicity and Early Israel". (Don't get over-excited when you see that she's arguing that there were lots of different populations in the highlands - we're only trying to illustrate the continuity). Ok, so now we've illustrated one major aspect of this continuity. We could mention others, such as language and religion, but we won't bother. Are there any discontinuities? Yes. Pig bones. In fact they're the only discontinuity. We have to mention them. What can we say? First let's just establish the fact: pig bones are absent from highland sites and present in lowland ones. What do scholars make of this? Finkelstein says it's an "ethnic marker" - the highlanders avoided pigs because it was against their religion, religion being an aspect of "ethos" - and some agree: take Golden for example: "[I]t is reasonable to suppose that this practice (the avoidance of pigs) began with people exploiting the more arid areas that could simply not support pig husbandry...in time this may have translated into an avowed cultural prohibition...which at the same time served as a distinct point of difference between distinct cultural groups..." namely Israel and not-Israel. Others, however, urge caution, for reasons you're already aware of (lots of people in the ANE avoided pigs, not just the biblical Hebrews).
So what we need to say is this: (1) archaeologists see more continuity than discontinuity between Late Bronze Canaan ( a lowland culture) and the Iron I highlands; (2) example: ceramics; (3) but there's one major difference, namely pig bones; (4) but whether or not the absence of pigs means the presence of Israelites is a matter of dispute. And we finish up with the sentence about the emergence of Israel (biblical Israel, that is) from a mixed population with its roots in LB Canaan.
With that, we'll have a paragraph that reflects the current scholarly understanding of what was happening in Iron I Israel. (By the way, since you seem quite convinced that modern archaeologists still regard the collar-rim pithoi as distinctively Israelite, see Edelman, page 42). PiCo ( talk) 10:37, 23 November 2010 (UTC)