Can judges survive without sources?: Challenging the consensus

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Volumn 23, Issue 78, 1998, Pages 43-61

  Guest, P Deryn ^a  

^a Westhill College of Higher Education   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 60950696225     PISSN: 03090892     EISSN: 14766728     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030908929802307803     Document Type: Article

References (53)

1. J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of Israel (Edinburgh: A. & C. Black, 1885)
2. Wellhausen, Prolegomena, p. 245
3. J.A. Soggin, Judges: A Commentary (OTL; London: SCM Press, 1981), pp. 53-54
4. A.D.H. Mayes, Judges (OTG; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985), pp. 20-21
5. G.F. Moore, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2nd edn, 1898)
6. Moore, Judges, p. xxxiii
7. R.H. O'Connell, The Rhetoric of the Book of Judges (VTSup, 63; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996)
8. O'Connell, Rhetoric, p. 347
9. R.G. Boling, Judges: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (AB, 6A; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975)
10. Boling, Judges, p. 11
11. Boling, Judges, p. 86, n.16
12. J. Bright, A History of Israel (London: SCM Press, 3rd edn, 1981)
13. Bright, History, p. 176
14. J. A. Soggin, An Introduction to the History of Israel and Judah (London: SCM Press, rev. 2nd edn, 1993)
15. Soggin, Introduction to the History, p. 33
16. G.W. Ahlström, The History of Ancient Palestine from the Palaeolithic Period to Alexander's Conquest (JSOTSup, 146; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993)
17. Ahlström, History, pp. 57-58
18. I. Finkelstein, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1988)
19. W.G. Dever, 'The Identity of Early Israel: A Rejoinder to Keith W. Whitelam', JSOT 72 (1996), pp. 3-24
20. W.G. Dever, 'Ceramics, Ethnicity, and the Question of Israel's Origins', BA 58.4 (1995), pp. 200-13 (209)
21. Dever makes much of the gentilic used in the Merneptah inscription, but caution should be exercised against reading too much into this. In his translation and brief comment, J.A.Wilson 'Egyptian Hymns and Prayers', in ANET, pp. 365-81 refers to the 'notorious carelessness of Late-Egyptian scribes and several blunders of writing in this stela' (p. 378)
22. Ahlström 'The Origin of Israel in Palestine', SJOT 2 (1991), pp. 19-34 expresses a similar caution when he writes 'if the scribe knew what he had to report' (p. 22, my italics). There is always the possibility that the use of the gentilic is merely a 'scribal guess' from one who had no personal knowledge of this 'Israel' which he was to include in the inscription
23. T.L. Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People from the Written and Archaeological Sources (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), p. 404
24. See also W.H. Stiebing, Out of the Desert?: Archaeology and the Exodus/Conquest Narratives (New York: Prometheus, 1989), pp. 50-52, who is likewise unwilling to ethnically identify such a group
25. M. Noth, The History of Israel (London: SCM Press, 2nd edn, 1983), p. 3
26. Dever, Identity, p. 17
27. M. Skjeggestad, 'Ethnic Groups in Early Iron Age Palestine: Some Remarks on the Use of the Term "Israelite" in Recent Research', SJOT 6 (1992), pp. 159-86 (167)
28. Ahlström, History, p. 253 n. 2
29. D.C. Hopkins, The Highlands of Canaan: Agricultural Life in the Early Iron Age (Social World of Biblical Antiquity, 3; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1985)
30. K.W. Whitelam The Invention of Ancient Israel: The Silencing of Palestinian History (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1996)
31. K. A.D. Smelik, Writings From Ancient Israel: A Handbook of Historical and Religious Documents (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991), p. 19
32. A.R. Millard, 'Literacy (Israel)' in ABD, IV, pp. 338-39
33. See for example G. Garbini, History and Ideology in Ancient Israel (London: SCM Press, 1988), p. 32
34. P.R. Davies, In Search of 'Ancient Israel' (JSOTSup, 148; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992), p. 29
35. N.P. Lemche, 'The Old Testament - a Hellenistic Book?', SJOT 7 (1993), pp. 163-93 (176-77)
36. For example, the Samaria ostraca, Tell Deir 'Alla inscription, Lachish and 'Arad letters, graffiti at Kuntillet 'Ajrud
37. J. Van Seters, In Search of History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983)
38. G. von Rad, The Problem of the Hexateuch and Other Essays (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1966), pp. 166-204
39. D.M. Gunn, The Story of King David: Genre and Interpretation (JSOTSup, 6; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1978), pp. 30-34
40. M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative (Bloomington, IN: Indiana Press, 1985)
41. Sternberg, Poetics, p. 269
42. S. Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible (JSOTSup, 70; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989), p. 115
43. J.C. Exum, 'The Centre Cannot Hold: Thematic and Textual Instabilities in Judges', CBQ 52 (1990), pp. 410-31 (412)
44. N.P. Lemche, Ancient Israel: A New History of Israelite Society (The Biblical Seminar, 5; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988), p. 55
45. N.P. Lemche, Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Israelite Society Before the Monarchy (VTSup, 37; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985), p. 383
46. B.G. Webb, The Book of Judges: An Integrated Reading (JSOTSup, 46; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1987)
47. R.M. Polzin, Moses and the Deuteronomist: A Literary Study of the Deuteronomic History (New York: Seabury, 1980)
48. D.W. Gooding, 'The Composition of the Book of Judges', EI 16 (1982), pp. 70-79
49. In 1981 R. Alter described several biblical narratives as historicized prose fiction and noted the author's freedom 'to invent interior monologue for his characters... to supply verbatim dialogue for occasions when no-one but the actors themselves could have had knowledge of exactly what was said' (The Art of Biblical Narrative [London: George, Allen & Unwin, 1981], p. 35)
50. and he likened this to Shakespeare's relation to history in plays such as Richard III. D.M. Gunn has directly raised the possibilities of fiction within 'historical' narratives in his The Story of King David and The Fate of King Saul: An Interpretation of a Biblical Story (JSOTSup, 14; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980)
51. R.N. Whybray, The Making of the Pentateuch: A Methodological Study (JSOTSup. 53; Sheffield, JSOT Press, 1987) speaks of a single controlling genius working in the sixth century BCE who drew not so much upon lengthy pre-existent and ancient sources, as has commonly been advocated, but partly upon his own literary imagination and folklore current to his own time. Whybray speaks openly of the fictional element within biblical texts and he expresses surprise at the reluctance of some scholars to admit the same. In 1993 and 1994 Lemche further emphasized the level of fiction within Hebrew narrative. Currently, Lemche is sceptical of finding history within the narratives of Josh.-2 Kgs. See Lemche, in 'Hellenistic Book', pp. 163-93
52. and 'Is it Still Possible to Write a History of Ancient Israel?', SJOT 8 (1994), pp. 165-90
53. Garbini, History, p. 16