In the 1980s, a few biblical scholars began to assert that the archaeological evidence for an extensive kingdom before the late 8th century BCE is too weak, and that the methodology used to obtain the evidence is flawed. According to Finkelstein and
Neil Silberman, the authors of
The Bible Unearthed, ideas of a united monarchy is not accurate history but "creative expressions of a powerful religious reform movement" that are possibly "based on certain historical kernels." Some see the united monarchy as fabricated during the
Babylonian Exile transforming David and Solomon from local
folk heroes into rulers of international status. Finkelstein has posited a potential United Monarchy under
Jeroboam II in the 8th century BCE, whereas the former one was potentially invented during the reign of
Josiah to justify his territorial expansion. Finkelstein's views have been strongly criticized by Amihai Mazar; in response, Mazar proposed the Modified Conventional Chronology, which places the beginning of the Iron IIA period in the early 10th century and its end in the mid-9th century, solving the problems of the High Chronology while still dating the archeological discoveries to the 10th century BCE. Finkelstein's Low Chronology and views about the monarchy have received strong criticism from other scholars, including
Amnon Ben-Tor,
William G. Dever,
Kenneth Kitchen,
Doron Ben-Ami, Raz Kletter and
Lawrence Stager. Though
Amélie Kuhrt acknowledges that "there are no royal inscriptions from the time of the united monarchy (indeed very little written material altogether) and not a single contemporary reference to either David or Solomon," she concludes, "Against this must be set the evidence for substantial development and growth at several sites, which is plausibly related to the tenth century." On August 4, 2005, archaeologist
Eilat Mazar announced that she had discovered in
Jerusalem what may have been the palace of
King David. Now referred to as the
Large Stone structure, Mazar's discovery consists of a public building she dated from the 10th century BCE, a copper scroll, pottery from the same period, and a clay
bulla, or inscribed seal, of
Jehucal, son of Shelemiah, son of Shevi, an official mentioned at least twice in the
Book of Jeremiah. In July 2008, she also found a second bulla, belonging to Gedaliah ben Pashhur, who is mentioned together with Jehucal in Jeremiah 38:1. Amihai Mazar called the find "something of a miracle." He has said that he believes the building may be the Fortress of Zion that David is said to have captured. Other scholars are skeptical that the foundation walls are from David's palace. , an archaeological site in modern-day Israel (2008) Excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, an
Iron Age site in Judah, found an urbanized settlement
radiocarbon dated well before scholars such as Finkelstein suggest that
urbanization had begun in Judah, which supports the existence of an urbanized kingdom in the 10th century BCE. The
Israel Antiquities Authority stated, "The excavations at Khirbat Qeiyafa reveal an urban society that existed in Judah already in the late eleventh century BCE. It can no longer be argued that the Kingdom of Judah developed only in the late eighth century BCE or at some other later date." The techniques and interpretations to reach some conclusions related to Khirbet Qeiyafa have been criticized by some scholars, such as Finkelstein and Alexander Fantalkin. In 2010, archaeologist
Eilat Mazar announced the discovery of part of the ancient city walls around the City of David, which she believes dates to the tenth century BCE. According to Mazar, "It's the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel," and "It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem, there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction." The 10th century is the period the Bible describes as the reign of King
Solomon. Not all archaeologists agree with Mazar, and archaeologist
Aren Maeir is dubious about such claims and Mazar's dating. In the
Jewish Study Bible (2014),
Oded Lipschits states the concept of United Monarchy should be abandoned, In August 2015, Israeli archaeologists discovered massive fortifications in the ruins of the ancient city of
Gath, supposed birthplace of
Goliath. The size of the fortifications shows that Gath was a large city in the 10th century BCE, perhaps the largest in Canaan at the time. The professor leading the dig,
Aren Maeir, estimated that Gath was as much as four times the size of contemporary Jerusalem, which cast doubt that David's kingdom could have been as powerful as described in the Bible. In his book,
The Forgotten Kingdom (2013),
Israel Finkelstein considered that Saul, originally from the Benjamin territory, had gained power in his natal
Gibeon region around the 10th century BCE and that he conquered Jerusalem in the south and
Shechem to the north, creating a polity dangerous to Egypt's geopolitical intentions. So,
Shoshenq I, from Egypt, invaded the territory and destroyed this new polity, and installed David of Bethlehem in Jerusalem (Judah) and Jeroboam I in Shechem (Israel) as small local rulers who were vassals of Egypt. Finkelstein concludes that the memory of a united monarchy was inspired by Saul's conquered territory serving first the ideal of a great united monarchy ruled by a northern king in the times of Jeroboam II and next to the idea of a united monarchy ruled from Jerusalem. In an article on the
Biblical Archaeology Review, William G. Dever strongly criticized Finkelstein's theory, calling it full of "numerous errors, misrepresentations, over-simplifications and contradictions." Dever noted that Finkelstein proposes that Saul ruled a polity extending as far north as Jezreel and as far south as Hebron and reaching a border with Gath, with a capital located in Gibeon rather than Jerusalem. According to Dever, such a polity is a united monarchy in its own right, ironically confirming the biblical tradition. In addition, he rejected the notion that Gibeon was the capital of such polity since there is "no clear archaeological evidence of occupation in the tenth century, much less monumental architecture." Dever went as far as to dismiss Finkelstein's theory as "a product of his fantasy, stemmed by his obsession to prove that Saul, David and Solomon were not real kings and that the United Monarchy is an invention of a Judahite-biased biblical writer." Dever concluded by stating that "Finkelstein has not discovered a forgotten kingdom. He had invented it. The careful reader will nevertheless gain some insights into Israel—Israel Finkelstein, that is." Similar arguments were advanced by Amihai Mazar in two essays written in 2010 and 2013, which point toward archaeological evidence emerged from excavation sites in Jerusalem by Eilat Mazar and in Khirbet Qeiyafa by
Yosef Garfinkel. The archaeologist
Avraham Faust, reviewing
Beyond the Texts stated "Dever’s view of the historicity of the united monarchy, which will probably be the main interest of many readers, is that the state or states appeared in the early tenth century but should be defined as 'early inchoate state' (363), not the empire described in the Bible." In 2018, Faust announced that his excavations at
Tel 'Eton (believed to be the biblical
Eglon) had uncovered an elite house (which he referred to as "the governor's residency"), whose foundations were dated by
carbon-14 analysis in the late 11th–10th century BCE, the time usually ascribed to Saul, David and Solomon. Such dating would strengthen the thesis that a centralized state existed at the time of David. According to Dever (2021), 10th century Judah was "something like in 'early inchoate state,' one that will not be fully consolidated until the 9th century BCE" while Israel had a separate development. In their book, ''The Bible's First Kings'' (2025), Avraham Faust and Zev Farber have argued that the United Monarchy was a historical
mini-empire and that archaeological evidence and early biblical traditions attest to its emergence in the 10th century BCE. Faust and Farber say that Bible scholars embrace radical skepticism about the United Monarchy, but archaeologists do not. ==Historical sources==