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Abstract
Tell el-Ful was first excavated by Albright in 1923. Having studied carefully the topographical and historical arguments for the site, Albright became convinced that this was the biblical Gibeah. He was not the first to reach this conclusion: it was already the considered judgment of many other biblical authorities. Albright's archaeological interpretation of the site was based on his view that this was the site where King Saul resided. Israel Finkelstein rejects this identification, eliminating Gibeah by identifying it with Geba. In place of Gibeah, Finkelstein proposes that the site belonged to a fortress of the Maccabean age, and interprets the archaeology of the site according to this viewpoint. Here the evidence for the identification of Gibeah with Tell el-Ful is re-examined.
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Notes
1 The location of Mizpah, and also of Beeroth, is disputed. Albright initially believed Beeroth should be located at Tell Nasbeh and Mizpah at Neby Samwil. Later he became uncertain and reluctantly agreed that Tell Nasbeh might be either Mizpah or Ataroth with Beeroth being ‘very obscure’ (Albright Citation1929, 4; Citation1948, 203). Tell Nasbeh today is widely assumed to be Mizpah, but Joseph Blenkinsopp holds that Nebi Samwil as the site of Mizpah fits the evidence better. The name Mizpah (Hammiṣpah = watchtower) “is not particularly well suited to Tell en-Nasbeh, which has not a striking elevation and is surrounded by hills, some of which are higher than it. Such a name would be much more suited to Nebi Samwil … In short, the identification of Mizpah in the exilic period with Tell en-Nasbeh is not nearly so assured as is often claimed” (Blenkinsopp Citation1972, 100). Blenkinsopp (Citation2009, 73) later changed his mind about this, but on no convincing grounds.
2 The stadion of Josephus appears to be the Greek stade measuring roughly 600 ft. in comparison with the Roman stadium of 625 ft. and the English furlong of 660 ft.
3 An allusion to Paul's decent from the tribe of Benjamin (Rom 11:1; Phil 3:5).
4 The photographs taken by Linder before Albright's excavations (Linder Citation1922) reveal an immense pile of rubble, which had accumulated over the years.