British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

Understanding the History of Ancient Israel

Abstract

Akkadian Sources

Mark Geller, University College London

Biblical scholars using Akkadian sources to reconstruct biblical history often ignore the many administrative and economic documents from Mesopotamia, which can counterbalance the official versions of events from annals and chronicles. The 9th century BCE lets biblical scholars off the hook; only Assyrian annals and votive inscriptions survive, without a single administrative archive being discovered from ancient Mesopotamia or Syria from this period. This paper asks why such Assyrian records are lacking, or whether they existed at all, and whether the official Assyrian ideology of 'battle - booty -
buildings' may have influenced biblical historiography.