Epigraphic Evidence. It
is true that we do not have epigraphic evidence for the United Monarchy and its
kings from the scribal records of important empires like Assyria or Egypt, but
this is because, as already noted, the empires had either collapsed or were in decline
in this period. Had these empires left any information on the region in the
tenth century with names of other kingdoms or kings, the lack of reference to
Israel would have been meaningful, but as no other names are mentioned, the
silence says nothing about the United Monarchy, only about the weakness of the
traditional empires. Indeed, this weakness is the very circumstance that
enabled the Israelites to forge a local kingdom in this period; it lacked
serious competitors other than small local polities. (Avraham Faust and Zev I.
Farber, The Bible’s First Kings: Uncovering the Story of Saul, David, and
Solomon [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025], 82)
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