Yosef Garfinkel

Yosef Garfinkel (born 1956) is an Israeli archaeologist and Yigael Yadin Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has become one of the most visible advocates for the historical reliability of the early Israelite monarchy through his fieldwork at fortified sites in the Judean Shephelah.

From 2007 to 2013 Garfinkel co-directed (with Saar Ganor) the excavation of Khirbet Qeiyafa, a small fortified city overlooking the Elah Valley along the historic Philistine-Judahite frontier. Radiocarbon analysis of olive pits and burned grain placed Qeiyafa firmly in the late 11th to early 10th century BC, the precise period traditionally assigned to Saul and David. The site's casemate fortifications, four-chambered gates, central administrative architecture, and absence of pig bones distinguish it from contemporary Philistine cities and align with Judahite material culture. Garfinkel interprets Qeiyafa as direct archaeological evidence for a functioning, organized state in Judah at the time the biblical narrative describes David's reign.

A limestone ostracon discovered at Qeiyafa preserves what Garfinkel and others have identified as early proto-Canaanite or proto-Hebrew script, potentially the oldest Hebrew inscription yet found. The reading remains debated, but the inscription's 10th-century context is significant regardless of linguistic interpretation.

Since 2013 Garfinkel has co-directed renewed excavations at Tel Lachish, focusing on Iron Age fortification phases. His public scholarship places him in direct intellectual conflict with Israel Finkelstein's "Low Chronology," which down-dates the same strata by 50-100 years and treats the Davidic monarchy as a literary projection. Garfinkel's position represents a mainstream-balanced maximalist alternative grounded in radiocarbon evidence rather than ceramic typology.