Herzog, Zeev

Zeev Herzog (born 1941) - Israeli archaeologist , professor of archeology at the Faculty of Archeology and Ancient Cultures of the Middle East at Tel Aviv University , since 2005 director of the Sony and Marco Nadler Archaeological Institute. He specializes in social archeology, ancient architecture and field archeology.

He was engaged in the study of the reconstruction of the First Temple ^[2] . He participated in the excavations of ancient settlements that existed on the site of modern Tel Hazor , Megiddo , Arad and Be'er Sheva ( Tel Be'er Sheva ). He later led a number of excavations.

He is one of the most active proponents of the point of view that “biblical archeology is no longer the guiding paradigm in archeology, and that archeology has become an independent discipline with its own conclusions and observations, which, in fact, present to us the reality of ancient Israel is completely different from what is described in biblical stories ” ^[3] .

In 1999, Herzog’s article in the Haaretz weekly, published on its cover, entitled, “The Deconstruction of the Walls of Jericho,” sparked widespread public interest and controversy. In an article, Herzog argued that “the Israelis were never in Egypt, did not wander in the desert, did not conquer the country during the military campaign, and did not become the ancestor of the 12 tribes of Israel. It will probably be more difficult to come to terms with the fact that the unified monarchy of David and Solomon, which the Bible describes as an influential regional force, was just a small tribal kingdom. And an unpleasant shock for many will be that the God of Israel, Jehovah , had a female wife, and that the early Israeli religion adopted monotheism only at the end of the monarchy, and not at all on Mount Sinai. ” The name "Israel" is mentioned in one Egyptian document of the period of the pharaoh Merneptah , dated 1208 BC. e.: “Canaan was looted with all the atrocities, Ashkelon was taken, captured by Geser , Yenoam. Israel is devastated, its seed is not. " The term “Israel” was given to one of the population groups that lived in Canaan by the end of the Late Bronze Age, apparently in the central part of the hill, in the area where the Kingdom of Israel would later be created ^{[4] [5]} .

Herzog - co-author of the article “Was King David’s Palace in Jerusalem Discovered?” ^[6] (Israel Finkelstein, Ze'ev Herzog, Lily Singer-Avitz and David Ussishkin. 2007), which criticized the allegations of Eilat Mazar that she discovered in Jerusalem palace of david.