The Bible often refers to David as "negid," which means "prince" or "chief," rather than "melek," which means "king".

The biblical David never established any of the complex bureaucracies a kingdom required. Even his army was comprised of volunteers.

Most of David's followers were either related to him and/or from his small home-area of Hebron, on the West Bank of Modern Day Israel, south of Jerusalem, in the Judaean Mountains.

Some scholars compare David's story as a heroic tale on the same level as King Arthur and Homer's epics. Others consider the David story as a political apology, an answer of the charges against him for murder and regicide (king killing).

Little about David is concrete or undisputed.

David may require several postings to gain his full extent. How many of you would associate these statements with your idea of who David was? Yet, several scholars have provided these literary criticisms of David:

- "a brutal tyrant, murderer, and vassal of Achish, the Philistine king of Gath" - (Baruch Halpern, the Covenant Foundation Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia, and Dig Leader from 1992 to 2007 at Tel Megiddo).

'"Ambitious and ruthless. A tyrant who murdered his opponents, including his own sons" - (Steven C. McKenzie, Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, Professor of Religious Studies, specialized in Ancient Israel and the literature of the Hebrew Bible).

-"A flesh-and-blood man who achieved power by any means necessary including murder, theft, bribery, sex, deceit, and treason" - (Joel S. Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School, specialized in the Pentateuch and Biblical Hebrew).

-"A serial killer." Also stated, "The reign of Saul, David, and Solomon are reasonably well attested, but most archaeologists today would argue that the United Monarchy was not much more than a kind of hill-country chiefdom" - (William G. Dever, American archaeologist, and Old Testament scholar, specialized in the Ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah in biblical times).

-"The killing of Goliath, his affair with Bathsheba, and his ruling of the United Kingdom of Israel rather than just Judah, are creations of those living in the Late Persian or Hellenistic Periods" - (Jacob L. Wright, Associate Professor of Religion at Emory University, specialized in the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament, and the archaeology of Ancient Israel).

Archaeological criticisms of David have included:

-"No contemporaneous extra-biblical source offers any account of the political situation in Israel and Judah during the 10th Century BC, and as we have seen, the archaeological remains themselves cannot provide any unambiguous evidence of events" - (Isaac Kalimi, Gutenberg Research Professor in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies and the History of Ancient Israel, at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. Kalimi wrote this in 2018).

-"The main question is what kind of settlement Jerusalem was in Iron IIA (In Hebrew History, Iron Age II is recognized from about 1000BC to about 580BC. Began with the establishment of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon. Continued until the United Monarchy split into Israel and Judah): was it a minor settlement, perhaps a large village or possibly a citadel but not a city, or was it the capital of a flourishing - or at least an emerging - state? Assessments differ considerably" - (Lester L. Grebbe, Retired American scholar and Emeritus Professor of the Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the University of Hull, England. Founded the European Seminar on Methodology in Israel's history. Wrote this in 2017).

-"On the other hand if one is not convinced in advance by the biblical profile, then there is nothing in the archaeological evidence itself to suggest that much of consequence was going on in Palestine during the tenth century BC and certainly nothing to suggest Jerusalem was a great political and cultural center" - (John Haralson Hayes and James Maxwell Miller, both have served as the Professor Emeritus in the Candler School of Theology at Emory University. They wrote this in 2006).

-"The archaeological evidence shows that Judah was sparsely inhabited and Jerusalem was no more than a small village. Archaeological evidence suggested that David ruled only as a chieftain over an area which cannot be described as a state or as a kingdom, but more as a chiefdom much smaller and overshadowed by the older and more powerful Kingdom of Israel to the north." - (Israel Finkelstein, Israeli archaeologist and Professor Emeritus at Tel Aviv University and Head of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa on Mount Carmel, and Neil Asher Silberman, American archaeologist and historian, specialized in biblical archaeology).

Finkelstein and Silberman also stated:

-Israel and Judah were not monotheistic at the time
-archaeological evidence for David's military campaigns lacks
-Jerusalem was underdeveloped compared to Samaria, the capital of Israel during the 9th Century BC

-"Jerusalem was a state in development. David reigned over Israel during the 11th Century BC and much of the biblical text is of a "literary-legendary nature" - (Amihai Mazar, Israeli archaeologist and Professor at the Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His Modified Conventional Chronology is the most widely accepted framework for the Israelite chronology during the Iron Age Period).

Mazar compared David to the Canaanite warlord Labaya, who lived during the time of the Egyptian Pharoah Akhenaten. The tenth ruler of the 18th Dynasty of Egypt. This Pharoah reigned abut 1353BC to around 1336BC.

Labaya was a 14th Century BC warlord in Southern Canaan and the author of the Amarna Letters 252, 253, and 254. Active around Samaria, he provided land near Shechem to the Habiru. He threatened Megiddo, Gezer, and Jerusalem.

These do not paint David in a very positive light. Or, are these assessments more accurate?

-The excavation of the Large Stone Structure, which Israeli archaeologist Eilat Mazar claimed was a part of a single large public building in the City of David, on the southeast hill of Modern Day East Jerusalem, and the Stepped Stone Structure, a curved 60-foot tall, narrow stone structure in the oldest part of Jerusalem, discovered in 2005, both challenge the previously listed archaeological criticisms of David.

Pottery, Phoenician-style ivory inlays, a black-and-red jug, and a bone radiocarbon dated to the 10th Century BC, were found along with the Stepped Stone Structure.

-In 2010, Eilat Mazar discovered part of the ancient city walls around the City of David, which proved an organized state existed there in the 10th Century BC.

-Excavation at Khirbet Qeiyafa, by Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor, uncovered an urbanized settlement, radiocarbon dated to the 10th Century BC, that supports the existence of an urbanized kingdom at David's time. (Yosef Garfinkel is a Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology, and Archaeology of the Biblical Period, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Saar Ganor was an Inspector for the Israel Antiquities Authority).

-After the Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation, the Israel Antiquities Authority stated, "The excavation at Khirbet Qeiyafa clearly reveal an urban society that existed in Judah already in the Late 11th Century BC. It can no longer be argued that the Kingdom of Judah developed only in the Late 8th Century BC or at some other later date."

Between all these criticisms of David, and the rebuttals, there is much more about him to be considered.

Next Time: Sea Of Galilee #31: Christianity's View Of David

Author Notes

The ghost city, by supergold, selected to complement my posting.