By Eliana Kahan
Someone pushes a button and the whole model shifts. Chunks of ground begin to rise and fall. New sections are illuminated. The layout changes completely.
We are standing crowded around a small model of hills and gates, walls and structures; the ancient city of Megiddo. This once great Northern roadside city lies outside visitor’s center we currently inhabit. Before looking at Megiddo in its current state, we get a seamless picture of the city that once stood here.
But even the model cannot grant us a glimpse of what the city once looked like. The model depicts not one city, but two: an Israelite structure imposed upon a preexisting Canaanite one. As buttons are pressed the model is manipulated to expose the two layers that are one.
We have traveled here to discuss the biblical text, the Torah. Is it meant to be taken as a historical account? Did the events it details truly transpire? What do its many stories illuminate in our everyday lives? We walk around a bit, acquainting ourselves to the ancient landscape. We see (or imagine) gates, a storage cellar, an altar, possibly stables. We sit down for a moment.
Jamie, our tour guide, hands us a small chart in which several theories are mapped out. When did the events described in the Prophets in fact occur? Did they? The many columns and rows argue with each other: “There was once a great united kingdom that split into the respective kingdoms Judah and Israel,” “The kingdom was never united! Israel emerged later alongside Judah,” “Judah and Israel never existed simultaneously, Israel preceded Judah entirely.” No one wins the argument. They all look up at me, waiting for a response.
I’ve heard these theories before. Generally, I don’t pay much attention to them. I space out when given dates and refocus when my professors, Rabbis, teachers, and friends get back to talking about syntax, semantics, textual context, content. The biblical text, messy as it may be, is one I can work with without knowing when, where, and who exactly it speaks of. But these chunks of ground are different. What does one do with a heap of dirt or a stone structure that looks like it may have been an altar… to who? There’s no narrative, only dust and rock, dry bones.
Who will revive them? The text of the Tanakh? The ideas of academics?
I walk away from Megiddo thinking not about what the Tanakh means to me, rather, what these rocks do.
