18 A History of Judaism
remains to this day, even if modern historians can now complement the
Jewish and Greek sources with evidence from other contemporary writ-
ten sources, such as hieroglyphic documents from Egypt and cuneiform
tablets from Mesopotamia which Josephus was unable to use. If histor-
ians now are sceptical about much of Josephus’ version of the distant
Jewish past, this is less because of the discovery of new texts than a
result of critical study over the past two centuries of the nature and
composition history of the biblical writings and the archaeological
investigations of the Near East in more recent years. At its most extreme,
it has been suggested that the whole history of the Jews before the third
century bce was invented at that time by the compilers of the Bible.
Such invented histories for peoples who lacked knowledge of their ori-
gins can certainly be attested in this period – it was, for instance, at
around this time that Romans began to adopt elements of the myth of
the Trojan war in order to link the foundation of Rome to Greek the-
ories of the origins of peoples.^25
Such extreme scepticism is probably unwarranted. No amount of
critical study can shed light on the veracity of the travel narratives of
Abraham and his descendants, but there is much evidence in the Near
East in the third and second millennium bce of the nomadic lifestyle
represented in these stories, with fragile relations both between tribal
groupings and between them and more settled urban centres on the
fringes of desert areas. It is also clear that some nomadic tribes came
into close contact with the highly regimented Egyptian state towards
the end of the second millennium bce, although efforts to link Egyptian
records directly to the biblical narrative of the Exodus are unconvin-
cing. Archaeological evidence from the early Iron Age in the land of
Israel does not confirm the biblical story of conquest by Israelite tribes
infiltrating rapidly from the Transjordan, but the evidence is consonant
with the incorporation of outsiders into a local population in this
period, perhaps in a more gradual fashion.^26
Excavation of impressive stone fortresses at Megiddo and elsewhere
from the early first millennium has demonstrated the extent of urban-
ization in the period Josephus assigned to the united monarchy under
Saul, David and Solomon, although whether these fortresses, or the
monumental remains from c. 1000 bce found in recent decades just
south of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, confirm the history of monarchy
as described in the biblical narrative is much more debated. Impressive
buildings cannot by themselves demonstrate the extent of Jewish national
self- consciousness as presupposed in Josephus’ narrative. Finds of