References
Arruda, A. M. 2009. “Phoenician Colonization on the Atlantic Coast of the Iberian Peninsula.” In Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia: Phoenician, Greek, and Indigenous Relations, edited by M. Dietler and C. López-Ruiz, 113–30. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Aubet, M. E. 2001. The Phoenicians and the West: Politics, Colonies and Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Belén Deamos, M. 2009. “Phoenicians in Tartessos.” In Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia: Phoenician, Greek, and Indigenous Relations, edited by M. Dietler and C. López-Ruiz, 193–228. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Boardman, J. 1999. The Greeks Overseas: The Early Colonies and Trade. Fourth edition. London: Thames and Hudson.
Carpenter, R. 1958. “Phoenicians in the West.” American Journal of Archaeology 62: 35–53.
Cary, M., and E. H. Warmington. 1963. The Ancient Explorers. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin.
Casson, L. 1971. Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
López-Ruiz, C. 2009. “Tarshish and Tartessos Revisited: Textual Problems and Historical Implications.” In Colonial Encounters in Ancient Iberia: Phoenician, Greek, and Indigenous Relations, edited by M. Dietler and C. López-Ruiz, 255–80. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McGrail, S. 2001. Boats of the World: From the Stone Age to Medieval Times. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Papadopoulos, J. K. 2011. “‘Phantom Euboians’—A Decade on.” In Euboea and Athens, edited by D. W. Rupp and J. E. Tomlinson, 113–33. Athens: Canadian Institute in Greece.
Roller, D. W. 2006: Through the Pillars of Herakles: Greco-Roman Exploration of the Atlantic. London: Routledge.
Roller, D. W. 2015. Ancient Geography: The Discovery of the World in Classical Greece and Rome. London: I. B. Tauris.
Part Four
Receptions
Chapter 43
Phoenicians in the Hebrew Bible
Brian R. Doak
By the first millennium bce, the territory southeast of the coastal Mediterranean “Phoenician mainland” and west of the Jordan River and Dead Sea hosted a number of groups, sometimes called “Canaanites” or “Israelites.” At some point during this first millennium, these inland inhabitants of the Levant produced what we now have collected as the Hebrew Bible (the Christian Old Testament)—and the Phoenicians figure prominently in several important episodes in these texts. As a historical source, the Hebrew Bible immediately confronts us with the problem of providing secure dates not only for the texts themselves but also for the sources and information within or behind the texts. Are any of the Hebrew Bible’s references to the Phoenicians to be taken as primary-source information about the Phoenicians? If the biblical Phoenicians are mostly or only an imaginative ideological construction of ancient Israel, from which period(s) of Israelite history are those constructions derived, and for what purposes?
At a basic level we are justified in affirming the “artificial” and imaginative nature of all identity constructions; such an assumption is now bedrock in cultural studies and contemporary historiographic methodology, but at the outset we would do well to admit that, whatever image of the Phoenicians we derive from the Hebrew Bible, those “Phoenicians” are “Bible-Phoenicians,” not the Phoenicians of history “as it really was” on the ground. Such is the case with all images of the Phoenicians from antiquity. What Irene Winter has argued with regard to Homer’s Phoenicians, mutatis mutandis, could equally apply to these Bible-Phoenicians: “‘Homer’s Phoenicians,’ then, do not represent the world of the Phoenicians; rather, they present a masterful literary construct, at once produced by and working to produce the broader social, political, economic, and symbolic fabric of the early state in Archaic Greece” (Winter 1995: 264; cf. Skinner 2012: 86–89; Gruen 2011). So, too, the Bible-Phoenicians take on stereotypical characteristics as master builders, arrogant traders, wealth mongers, and hubristic false worshippers in texts where authors were clearly constructing a definition of Israel as humble recipients of their own deity’s favor. Having said all this, we would be wrong to dismiss out of hand the Hebrew Bible as a source of Phoenician identity. Even if we find only a few historical glimpses of a “real” Iron Age Phoenicia in the Bible, those glimpses would prove to be valuable in light of the general scarcity—especially in earlier periods—of information on the Phoenicians.
In what follows, I trace the appearance of “Phoenicians” in the Bible by way of examining texts in which basic Phoenician locales such as Tyre and Sidon appear. The Bible never uses the title “Phoenician” (Homer was the first to use terms such as phoinix and phoinikoessa in the eighth century bce). Here we face the difficult question of whether “Phoenician” is indeed appropriate at all before the Roman period (see essays in Quinn and Vella 2014). Should we not, rather, speak only of specific coastal cities (Tyre, Sidon, Byblos), bound together not by any national or ethnic affiliation, religion, or culture but only by commercial relationships with each other and other Mediterranean locales, as well as by whatever cosmopolitan characteristics were generally found among coastal urban centers, as is sometimes postulated (see now Quinn 2018)? Even though this is not the place for a full discussion of these issues, as other chapters in this volume show (even if implicitly), we are justified in speaking of “Phoenicians” in the Iron Age—in light of several key points and as long as we recognize the limits of the term. The Greek etymology of “Phoenicia” attests to the viability of “the Phoenicians” as at least a “flexible external ethnonym” (Doak 2015: 8) for those traders and colonizers based in cities on the Levantine coast such as Sidon and Tyre. Material culture such as pottery, though not to be equated with identity, attests to some shared character within the mainland coastal region, as well as in Mediterranean colonies (e.g., Aubet 2013; Sader 2013; Núñez Calvo 2008; Schreiber 2003; Anderson 1990), and Phoenician artistic products adhere to a distinct style and undoubtedly created a broadly understood “Phoenician” craft identity (e.g., Doak 2015: 11–12, 41–44; Markoe 1990; Winter 1976, 1981). Phoenician language constitutes a distinct and coherent category (e.g., Hackett 2004), and the Phoenician script saw wide use to the west (as adopted/adapted by the Greeks by the eighth century bce) and also inland in the Levant (Rollston 2010). (On these issues, see, e.g., chapters 3, 15-17, 22, and 23, this volume.)
The Biblical Origins of the Phoenicians
As with many other major people groups and empires, the Bible’s Phoenicians have their origins in the “primeval history” of Genesis 1–11. These materials have no place as historical data in a certain sense, but they do reveal the symbolic place various peoples had for the narrators at the time of the text’s composition (the time period for which has been fiercely debated over the past two centuries; see, e.g., Tsirkin 1991: 128–31, who believes the Phoenicians’ portions were composed between 743 and 676 bce—i.e., between the time of Tiglath-pileser III’s campaigns in Phoenicia and Esharhaddon’s destruction of Sidon). In the Table of Nations (Genesis 10), chronicling the descendants of Noah’s sons after the Flood, “Canaan,” grandson of Noah, bears as his firstborn a male descendent named “Sidon”—along with a list of other names associated with what the Bible sometimes calls “the Canaanites” (e.g., Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, and so on; Genesis 10:15–20; 1 Chronicles 1:13–16). Genesis 10:19 provides further association with the Canaanites in terms of geography: “And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon, in the direction of Gerar, as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha” (all translations in this chapter are from the NRSV). Though the location of “Lasha” has never been clear (presumably it is in the southern Levant, near the Dead Sea?), the basic spatial schema suggests that Sidon is a northernmost boundary of what the genealogist considered broader “Canaan” (thus also encompassing sites like Tyre, Dor, and Sarepta to the south, but not Byblos, Arvad, and other sites to the north)
. In what some consider an archaic poem embedded within Genesis, the prayer of Jacob in Genesis 49, we read of Sidon as a border again, for the tribe of Zebulun, who “shall settle at the shores of the sea” (v. 13). In Deuteronomy 3:9, a narrative aside provides a primitive ethnographic/linguistic note, claiming that the “Sidonians” call the geographical location “Hermon” by the name “Sirion.” Where such information came from is not clear, though it is hard to imagine a scenario in which an author would invent this information from whole cloth—presumably the author had some contact with Sidonians and their language.
The narrators of Joshua and Judges mention Sidon in varying contexts when describing Israel’s entry into and early experience within the land. Some of the references are quite incidental (e.g., Joshua 11:8; see also 2 Samuel 24:6) or occur to signal boundaries and other geographical references (Joshua 11:8, 13:4, 19:28). In both Joshua 11:8 and 19:28, the title of the city is “Mighty Sidon” or “Sidon the Great” (ṣîdôn rabbāh), which seems to indicate the status of Sidon in the eyes of the narrator but little else (presumably, Sidon could have been considered “great” in any number of time periods or for any number of reasons by an Israelite audience; e.g., Peckham 1992: 349–51). Otherwise, authors refer to Sidon as an enemy city that oppresses Israel (Judges 10:12) and as a location from which the Israelites were to drive out the inhabitants (Judges 1:31; Joshua 13:6); people worship the “gods of Sidon” (Judges 10:6); and Sidon appears in a context suggesting awareness that it was a larger city that could have offered military aid to a small satellite location (Laish, in Judges 18:28). Judges 1:31 lists known Phoenician sites such Akko and Achzib as places the tribe of Asher was to drive out and occupy (but did not), and Judges 3:3 includes “all the Canaanites, and the Sidonians, and the Hivites who lived on Mount Lebanon” among those whom the Lord had intentionally left in the land in order to teach Israel warfare.
Despite its known prominence in the eighth century bce on onward, Tyre receives no reference in Genesis along with Sidon, nor does it appear in lists of tribal boundaries, genealogies, or any other texts until, primarily, the sixth-century bce prophetic corpus (but see Joshua 19:29) and the material concerning Hiram (discussed later; Arvad, however, is mentioned in Genesis 10:18). The seemingly common pair descriptor “Tyre and Sidon” appears only in later texts such as Joel 3:4, Zechariah 9:2, and Jeremiah 47:4, and then, still later in the biblical orbit, in early Jewish works such as 1 Maccabees (5:15), 1 Esdras (5:55), 2 Esdras (1:11), and the New Testament (several times in Matthew, Luke, and Acts). The dating of the texts in Genesis, Joshua, and Judges cannot be ascertained with anything near certainty, thus complicating any attempt to chart a development for why Sidon (on its own terms, or as opposed to Tyre) appears with such prominence in the Bible’s vision of ethnic origins in Genesis 10 or in the struggle for Israel to establish itself in the land in Joshua and Judges. Moreover, the fact that Genesis, Joshua, and Judges occur before the monarchic period in the order of biblical books and in the Bible’s own presentation of its past in no way indicates that the traditions behind the texts of the “pre-monarchic” books stand prior to the “later” monarchic traditions.
Hiram of Tyre and the Phoenician Involvement in the Solomonic Temple
During the period of the biblical monarchy as represented in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, the Phoenicians figure prominently in three major instances: (1) the building of the Temple, in which Hiram/Huram king of Tyre and another Tyrian craftsman, also named Hiram, aid Solomon in 1 Kings 5, 7, and 9; and 2 Chronicles 2, 4, 8–9 (though David initiated the relationship with Hiram earlier; see 2 Samuel 5; and 1 Chronicles 14); (2) Ahab’s union with Jezebel, “daughter of King Ethbaal of the Sidonians” (1 Kings 16:31), and the ensuing drama involving the prophet Elijah and his confrontation with the prophets of Baal (1 Kings 17–19), Jezebel’s involvement in the theft of Naboth’s vineyard (1 Kings 21), and the account of Jezebel’s violent death (2 Kings 9); (3) moreover, prophetic books contain repeated condemnations of Phoenician cities, religion, and politics, and some of these texts may have been produced during the pre-exilic period.
Before turning to the biblical engagement with Jezebel or the Prophets, we first consider the question of Hiram of Tyre and his involvement with David and Solomon, culminating in the Temple construction (Green 1983). The relationship between Hiram and David begins without warning or elaboration in 2 Samuel 5. After David had established his reign in Jerusalem, “King Hiram of Tyre (melek ṣôr) sent messengers to David, along with cedar trees, and carpenters and masons who built David a house. David then perceived that the LORD had established him as king over Israel” (vv. 11–12). Hiram does not appear again (though see passing geographical references to Sidon and Tyre in 2 Samuel 24:5–6) until the reign of David’s son, Solomon. In this case, too, Hiram initiates the interaction, and the two kings correspond in absentia by messengers. Solomon cites Sidonian mastery in the timber industry (1 Kings 5:6, seeming to conflate the Sidonians with the Tyrians?) by way of asking Hiram for materials, and in return, Hiram requests food for his household. Then 1 Kings 5:12 (Hebrew v. 26) states that the two kings establish a treaty, and King Solomon’s conscripted labor force works alongside Hiram’s builders to complete the project.
Later, as Solomon completes his own house along with the Temple, Solomon employs an individual called “Hiram from/of Tyre,” not Hiram the “king of Tyre”—this Hiram “was the son of a widow of the tribe of Naphtali, whose father, a man of Tyre, had been an artisan in bronze” (1 Kings 7:13–14). This Hiram from/of Tyre works as a craftsman, casting objects in bronze, pillars, stands and various cultic items, and producing decorative motifs involving floral patterns and cherubim figures. The narrator even specifies the place of Hiram’s construction, “in the plain of the Jordan…in the clay ground between Succoth and Zarethan” (1 Kings 7:45–46). The Chronicler may be attempting an explanation or harmonization of the problem of the two Hirams in 2 Chronicles 2 (Klein 2012: 37), where the narrator has Hiram sending a letter to Solomon explaining that the craftsman Hiram, named “Hiram-abi,” is “the son of one of the Danite women, his father a Tyrian,” clarifying that he will execute the artistic work (2 Chronicles 2:12–14).
The narrative then turns back to Hiram King of Tyre in 1 Kings 9:10–14 to report an odd incident. In addition to the food provision for Hiram (1 Kings 5:9[23]), Solomon offers Hiram a bonus of “twenty cities in the land of Galilee. But when Hiram came from Tyre to see the cities that Solomon had given him, they did not please him. Therefore he said, ‘What kind of cities are these that you have given me, my brother?’ So they are called the land of Cabul to this day. But Hiram had sent to the king one hundred twenty talents of gold” (1 Kings 9:10–14). The question of why these cities were offered and then rejected remains obscure; moreover, why the narrator sees fit to tell us any of this is even more obscure. Similar to the observation above about Deuteronomy 3:9, we must wonder if the incidental nature of this account militates in favor of its historicity—Why report any of this? If the account is not historical, its value may be as a political slight: by giving Hiram undesirable cities, yet still taking an additional 120 talents of gold in the process (the exact same amount the fabled Queen of Sheba provides to Solomon in 1 Kings 10:10), Solomon proves his superiority over the Phoenician city and its king.
As the King Hiram narrative concludes in scattered references (1 Kings 9:26–28, 10:11, 10:22), Hiram continues to provide materials to Solomon—sailors, imported gold, and other exotic materials, all without Solomon needing to offer anything in return. On a purely narrative level, animated by knowledge of Phoenician wealth, artistic achievement, and naval power that could have pertained over many centuries (e.g., the early eighth century through the Persian period), the Hiram story bolsters Solomon’s regional credibility and positions him as a powerful ruler vis-à-vis a close neighbor. Moreover, as Peckham points out (1992: 351), the reference to Tyre/Hiram during the time of David (2 Samuel 5), connected as it is to So
lomon and the building of the temple (1 Kings 5), draws together the founding of the temple with a “distant and idyllic past” of “right worship” (see also McCarter 1984: 146, who argues that the reference to Hiram in 2 Samuel 5 is out of place, the product of a “Deuteronomistic compilation”).
How might we go about assessing the value of the Hiram stories in terms of learning anything about the Phoenicians of the tenth century bce? The narrative and ideological value of the stories seems clear enough, assuming audiences know Hiram as a powerful local king (Liverani 2005: 308–29). On the other hand, readers may perceive in the Phoenician involvement in the temple some kind of subtle religious swipe against Solomon in light of the alleged syncretism he would later perpetrate (1 Kings 11, esp. vv. 1, 5, and 33, where Solomon marries Sidonian women and worships Sidonian deities; Hays 2003: 166–67, 171, on other aspects of the Hiram narrative that could be read as slights against Solomon). The Bible never elsewhere speaks of Phoenician religious involvement in the affairs of Israel as a positive development (compare with the Jezebel stories below). The archaeological record undoubtedly confirms the notion that Israel had close and repeated contact with Phoenician material culture (e.g., Crouch 2014: 28–29; Geva 1982; Mazar 1992: 376–79, 464–75, 502–507; essays in Lipiński 1991). The Phoenician timber industry was certainly notable and widespread (Truemann 2009; Markoe 2000: 93–95; Nam 2012: 81–83), as was their long-distance trade represented by the biblical trope of the “ships of Tarshish,” probably referring to a colonization movement that may indeed have started in Hiram’s time or slightly later (e.g., Celestino and López-Ruiz 2016: 111–21; cf. also chapter 6, this volume). The sphinx-like creatures utilized in the Israelite Temple adornment (1 Kings 6:23–36) and the ark of the covenant (e.g., Exodus 25:18–22; 1 Samuel 4:4) could indicate Phoenician influence, as sphinx motifs were prominent in Phoenician art (though of course not exclusive to the Phoenicians; see Gubel 1987; and chapter 23, this volume). The involvement of the same Hiram across the reigns of two long-ruling kings (David and Solomon) is possible (Green 1983: 391) but sounds suspiciously like a narrative device meant to link father and son as builders (a motif taken much further in 1–2 Chronicles).
The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean Page 95