Biblical Archaeology Review

See Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, p. 117; and Yohanan Aharoni, The Land of the Bible: A Historical Geography (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1967), pp. 269–273.

First Chronicles contains many texts relevant to the study of early monarchical Israel. See Baruch Halpern, “Sacred History and Ideology: Chronicles’ Thematic Structure—Indications of an Earlier Source,” in The Creation of Sacred Literature, ed. R.E. Friedman, Near Eastern Studies 22 (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1981), pp. 35–54.

The economic centralization of David’s empire as detailed in 1 Chronicles 27:25–31 has been documented by Michael Heltzer, “The Royal Economy of King David Compared with the Royal Economy in Ugarit,” Eretz-Israel 20 (1989), pp. 175–180 (in Hebrew). Agricultural produce and the breeding of livestock were managed according to specialized programs, subsequent to which goods were distributed according to state policy.

Carol Meyers, “David as Temple Builder,” in Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross, ed. P.D. Miller, Jr., P.D. Hanson and S.D. McBride (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 357–376.

See Leviticus 26:30 (in which Yahweh threatens to destroy Israelite bamot) and Numbers 33:52. Both of these are attributed to the Priestly School (Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible [New York: Summit/Simon and Schuster, 1987], pp. 252, 254), writing in the seventh or sixth century B.C.E.

This is the approach used by Yohanan Aharoni in his description of the Arad and other bamot temples as institutions “at the royal administrative and military centers dominating the [Israelite and Judaean] borders” (“Arad: Its Inscriptions and Temple,” Biblical Archaeologist 31 [1968], pp. 28–30).

Barrick, “What Do We Really Know About ‘High-places’?” Svensk Exegetisk Arsbok 45 (1980), p. 51.

See, for example, William F. Albright, “The High Place in Ancient Palestine,” Vetus Testamentum Supplement 4 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1957); Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), p. 102; and, contra, W. Boyd Barrick, “The Funerary Character of ‘High Places’ in Ancient Palestine: A Reassessment,” Vetus Testamentum 25 (1975), pp. 565–595.