ABSTRACT
For all of the archaeological work that has gone on in Israel since the late nineteenth century, site identification is still a thorny problem. Nowhere is this any better illustrated than with a ruin known as Tell Beit Mirsim (hereafter TBM). Located on the edge of the Shephelah 15 miles north-northeast of Beersheba and about the same distance southwest of Hebron, TBM was identified with biblical Debir (Kiriath-Seper; Josh 15: 15; Judg. 1: 11) in 1924 by W. F. Albright (see Figure 72). Albright conducted four archaeological campaigns here between 1926 and 1932. His work at TBM was a
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many of his conclusions have been challenged, and in many instances, modified or completely changed by later scholars (see Greenberg, OEANE). In fact, one of the most drastic modifications has been the successful challenge to Albright’s identification of the site. It is generally accepted today that biblical Debir is not to be identified with TBM at all but with Khirbet Rabud, a large 15-acre site located about sevenand-a-half miles south of Hebron. If this is, in fact, the case then TBM contains the remains of major Canaanite and Israelite towns that have never been correlated with a biblical place name (although Eglon has been suggested). Because of Albright’s achievement this is an important site despite its lack of biblical identity, and its inclusion in a general study of this sort is, to my mind, completely justified.
