Khirbet Qeiyafa, a contentious dig in Israel, delves into
the kingdoms of David and Solomon, stirring a debate over the veracity of the
biblical record.
Bryant:
True,
the Zionist movement that spearheaded Israel’s establishment was largely
secular. But it also drew heavily on the Bible. Founding father David
Ben-Gurion pushed aside the image of bespectacled Jews poring over rabbinical
teachings and championed instead the brawny heroes of the Bible, who overcame
insurmountable odds to conquer Israel’s enemies. These included David and
Solomon, who, according to the Bible, joined the tribes of Israel and Judah
into a kingdom known as the United Monarchy.
“For
Ben-Gurion, the image of a great United Monarchy with territorial expansion . .
. establishing a nation, establishing a big administration with monumental
architecture – this was an image that played back and forth, between that David
and this David, between King David and David Ben-Gurion, in a way,” says
Israel Finkelstein.
The
origins of Ashkenazi Jews remain highly controversial. Like Judaism,
mitochondrial DNA is passed along the maternal line. Its variation in the
Ashkenazim is highly distinctive, with four major and numerous minor founders.
However, due to their rarity in the general population, these founders have
been difficult to trace to a source. Here we show that all four major founders,
~40% of Ashkenazi mtDNA variation, have ancestry in prehistoric Europe, rather
than the Near East or Caucasus. Furthermore, most of the remaining minor
founders share a similar deep European ancestry. Thus the great majority of
Ashkenazi maternal lineages were not brought from the Levant, as commonly
supposed, nor recruited in the Caucasus, as sometimes suggested, but
assimilated within Europe. These results point to a significant role for the
conversion of women in the formation of Ashkenazi communities, and provide the
foundation for a detailed reconstruction of Ashkenazi genealogical history.