The days of the judges: When men and women were animals and trees were kings

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Volumn 26, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 37-64

  Scham, Sandra ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61149558401     PISSN: 03090892     EISSN: 14766728     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030908920202600303     Document Type: Review

References (112)

1. An argument disparaged by Whitelam as the sophistical defense used by mainstream biblical historians for giving credence to biblical texts (K.W. Whitelam, 'The Search for Early Israel: Historical Perspective', in S. Ahcombining dot belowituv and E. Oren [eds.], The Origin of Early Israel: Current Debate [Beersheba: Ben-Gurion University Press, 1998], pp. 41-64 [59])
2. This is not a completely satisfactory term but it has been suggested by at least two of the individuals in reference to themselves and others (N.P. Lemche and T.L. Thompson, 'Did Biran Kill David? The Bible in Light of Archaeology', JSOT 64 [1994], pp. 3-22). I will not fall into the egregious habit of characterizing these historians as a cabal intent upon destroying the Bible. What they do have in common is a certain distrust of the biblical text - some for scholarly reasons, some for ideological reasons and some for both reasons
3. P.D. Guest, 'Can Judges Survive Without Sources? Challenging the Consensus', JSOT 18 (1998), pp. 43-61
4. Brettler, 'The Book of Judges: Literature as Politics', JBL 108 (1989), pp. 395-418
5. M. Noth, The History of Israel (New York: Harper & Row, 1960)
6. R. de Vaux, The Early History of Israel (trans. P.R. Ackroyd; London: Dartman, Longman & Todd, 2nd edn, 1978)
7. A.D.H. Mayes, Israel in the Period of the Judges (London: SCM Press, 1974)
8. B. Halpern, The Emergence of Israel in Canaan (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), and the list goes on
9. T.L. Thompson, The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives (BZAW, 133; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1974)
10. J. Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975)
11. R.J. Carroll, 'Madonna of Silences: Clio and the Bible', in L.L. Grabbe (ed.), Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written? (JSOTSup, 245; European Seminar in Historical Methodology, 1; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 84-103 (88-89)
12. Beginning with the so-called 'sociological' model proposed by G.E. Mendenhall, 'The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine', BA 25 (1962), pp. 66-87, and continuing with that same author's The Tenth Generation (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973)
13. See also N.K. Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1979)
14. C.H.J. de Geus, The Tribes of Israel: An Investigation into Some of the Presuppositions of Martin Noth's Amphictyony Hypothesis (Studia Semitica Neerlandica 18; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1976)
15. T.L. Thompson, The Early History: From the Written and the Archaeological Sources (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), pp. 127-45
16. N.P. Lemche, Early Israel: Anthropological and Historical Studies on the Israelite Society Before the Monarchy (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1985)
17. D.V. Edelman, 'Ethnicity and Early Israel', in M.G. Brett (ed.), Ethnicity and the Bible (Biblical Interpretation Series, 19; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), pp. 25-55 (42-47)
18. A. Malamat, 'Tribal Societies: Biblical Genealogies and African Lineage Systems', Archives Européennes de Sociologie 14 (1973), pp. 126-36
19. K.L. Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998)
20. Brett (ed.), Ethnicity and the Bible
21. W.G. Dever, 'Ceramics, Ethnicity and the Question of Israel's Origins', BA 58 (1995), pp. 200-13. This is not, by any means, an exhaustive list
22. For example, Dever insists that 'all Syro-Palestinian archaeologists proceed on the assumption that material culture in general reflects ethnicity...' ('Archaeology, Ideology and the Quest for an "Ancient" or "Biblical Israel"', Near Eastern Archaeology 61.1 [1998], pp. 39-52 [46])
23. In this (if in nothing else) he is supported by I. Finkelstein who in answer to his own question, 'Can we identify the ethnicity of inhabitants of specific sites?', tells us 'If the Iron I highlands people as a whole are distinguishable, then such identification ought to be possible...' ('Ethnicity and Origin of the Iron Age I Settlers in the Highlands of Canaan: Can the Real Israel Stand Up?', BA 59.4 [1996], pp. 198-212 [200])
24. F. Barth (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1969)
25. L.A. Despres (ed.), Ethnicity and Resource Competition in Plural Societies (The Hague: Mouton, 1975)
26. G. Emberling, 'Ethnicity in Complex Societies: Archaeological Perspectives', Journal of Archaeological Research 5.4 (1997); pp. 296-97
27. Thompson, The Early History, pp. 127-45
28. Lemche, Early Israel
29. T.L. Thompson, 'Defining History and Ethnicity in the South Levant', in Grabbe (ed.), Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written?, pp. 166-87 (180-81)
30. N.P. Lemche, 'Clio is also among the Muses! K.W. Whitelam and the History of Palestine: A Review and Commentary', in Grabbe (ed.), Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written?, pp. 123-55 (155)
31. Thompson, 'Defining History'
32. P. Novick, 'There Was No King in Israel'
33. Idem, That Noble Dream: The 'Objectivity Question' and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 573-629
34. I. Hodder, The Archaeological Process (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1999), pp. 153-54
35. Hodder, The Archaeological Process, p. 7
36. Lemche, 'Clio is also among the Muses!', p. 142
37. K. A. Kitchen, 'Egyptians and Hebrews: From Ra'amses to Jericho', in Ahcombining dot belowituv and Oren (eds.), The Origin of Early Israel, pp. 65-133
38. B. Halpern, 'Erasing History: The Minimalist Assault on Ancient Israel', BR 11.6 (December 1995), pp. 26-35, 47, among many others
39. K.W. Whitelam, The Invention of 'Ancient Israel': The Silencing of Palestinian History (London: Routledge, 1996)
40. And T.L. Thompson, The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (New York: Random House, 1999), among some others
41. H.G.M. Williamson, 'The Origins of Israel: Can we safely ignore the Bible?', in Ahcombining dot belowituv and Oren (eds.), The Origin of Early Israel, pp. 141-52
42. L.L. Grabbe, 'Introduction'
43. In idem (ed.), Can a 'History of Israel' Be Written?, pp. 11-18
44. A. Wylie, 'The Reaction Against Analogy', in M. Schiffer (ed.), Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory 8 (New York: Academic Press, 1985), pp. 63-112
45. Stark, 'Refitting the Cracked and Broken Facade: The Case for Empiricism in Postprocessual Ethnoarchaeology', in N. Yoffee and A. Sherratt (eds.), Archaeological Theory: Who Sets the Agenda? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 93-104
46. P.R. Davies, In Search of 'Ancient Israel' (JSOTSup, 148; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1992)
47. Whitelam, The Invention of 'Ancient Israel'; Thompson, 'Defining History'
48. B. Trigger, 'Constraint and Freedom: A New Synthesis of Archaeological Interpretation', American Anthropologist 93.3 (1991), pp. 551-69
49. Anthropologist Clifford Geertz' well known device of 'thick description' involves the attempt to transform cultural practice into meaning through the use of multiple metaphors and analogies. See C. Geertz, 'Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture', in idem, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp. 3-30 (5)
50. See the Glossary in I. Hodder et al. (eds.), Interpreting Archaeology: Finding Meaning in the Past (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 239, 241
51. Although narratives and narrativity are features most often associated with postprocessual archaeology, historians and archaeologists have used similar concepts for years - without recognizing the structure of their arguments. Essentially, sequencing and periodization are ways of constructing cultural narratives. See I. Hodder, 'The Narrative and Rhetoric of Material Culture Sequences', World Archaeology 25.2 (1993), pp. 268-82
52. P. Willis, 'Introduction'
53. In idem (ed.), Signifying Animals: Human Meaning in the Natural World (New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 1-24
54. M. Douglas, 'The Pangolin Revisited', in Willis (ed.), Signifying Animals, pp. 25-36
55. I. Hodder, Symbols in Action: Ethnoarchaeological Studies of Material Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982)
56. M. Shanks and I. Hodder, 'Processual, Postprocessual and Interpretive Archaeologies', in Hodder et al. (eds.), Interpreting Archaeology, pp. 3-29
57. J. McCorriston and F. Hole, 'The Ecology of Seasonal Stress and the Origin of Agriculture in the Near East', American Anthropologist 93 (1991), pp. 46-69
58. C. Grigson, 'Plough and Pasture in the Early Economy of the Southern Levant', in T.E. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land (New York: Facts on File, 1995), pp. 245-68
59. A. Sherratt, 'Plough and Pastoralism: Aspects of the Secondary Products Revolution', in I. Hodder, G. Isaac and N. Hammond (eds.), Patterns of the Past: Studies in Honour of David Clarke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 261-305
60. D. Zohary, D. Speigel-Roy and P. Speigel-Roy, 'Beginnings of Fruit Growing in the Old World', Science 187 (1975), pp. 319-27
61. W.G. Dever, 'The Israelite Settlement in Canaan: New Archaeological Models', in idem, Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990), pp. 1-51 (49)
62. B. Campagnoni and M. Tosi, 'The Camel: Its Distribution and State of Domestication in the Middle East During the Third Millennium B.C. in Light of Finds From Shahr-I Sokhta', in M. Zeder and R.H. Meadow (eds.), Approaches to Faunal Analysis in the Middle East (Peabody Museum Bulletin, 2; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 91-104
63. D. Snell, Life in the Ancient Near East (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), pp. 12-13
64. R.J. Clifford, Creation Accounts in the Ancient Near East and the Bible (CBQMS, 26; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association, 1994), p. 61
65. Dever, 'The Israelite Settlement in Canaan', p. 53
66. O. LaBianca, Sedentarization and Nomadization: Food Systems and Cycles at Hesban and Vicinity in Transjordan, Hesban, I (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1990)
67. I. Finkelstein, 'The Great Transformation: The Conquest of the Highland Frontiers and the Rise of Territorial States', in Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society, pp. 356-57
68. D.C. Hopkins, The Highlands of Canaan: Agricultural Life in the Early Iron Age (Social World of Biblical Antiquity, 3; Sheffield: Almond Press, 1985)
69. C. Meyers, 'Women and the Domestic Economy of Early Israel', in B.S. Lesko (ed.), Women's Earliest Records from Egypt and Western Asia: Proceeding of the Conference on Women in the Ancient Near East, Brown University, November 1987 (BJS, 166; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), pp. 265-78
70. E. Bloch-Smith and B. Nakai, 'A Landscape Comes to Life: The Iron Age I', Near Eastern Archaeology 62.2 (1999), pp. 62-92, 101-29 (72-73)
71. The comments made by P. Bienkowski ('Comments on the Papers of Kitchen, Whitelam and Finkelstein', in Ahcombining dot belowituv and Oren [eds.], The Origin of Early Israel: Current Debate, pp. 163-64), that it is very difficult to date surface sherds, are well taken. Nonetheless, the great preponderance of diagnostic Iron Age sherds among the evidence in the Ephraim survey is enough to support the assumption of many new Iron I settlements
72. I. Finkelstein, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1988), pp. 65-80
73. B. Rosen, 'Subsistence Economy in Iron Age I', in I. Finkelstein and N. Na'aman (eds.), From Nomadism to Monarchy (Jerusalem: Yad Yitshak Ben-Zvi, 1994), pp. 339-51
74. I. Finkelstein, Shiloh: The Archaeology of a Biblical Site (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 1995), p. 221
75. I. Finkelstein, 'Izbet Scombining dot belowartcombining dot belowah', in E. Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1993), II, pp. 652-54
76. Finkelstein, The Archaeology of the Israelite Settlement, pp. 65-80
77. Rosen, 'Subsistence Economy'; Hopkins, 'Highlands of Canaan'
78. D. Schmandt-Besserat, 'The Animal Figurines of Ain Ghazal', Expedition 8 (1997), pp. 103-21
79. Grigson, 'Plough and Pasture', pp. 265-68
80. A. Bloch, 'The Cedar and the Palm Tree: A Paired Male/Female Symbol in Hebrew and Aramaic', in Z. Zevit, S. Gitin and M. Sokoloff (eds.), Solving Riddles and Untying Knots: Biblical Epigraphic and Semitic Studies in Honor of Jonas Greenfield (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1995), pp. 13-17
81. Z. Meshel, 'Teman, Hcombining dot beloworvat', in Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, IV, pp. 1462-63
82. S. Niditch, Ancient Israelite Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 13-14. The bull, of course, is well known as a Baal. symbol but its ubiquitous appearance at Near Eastern sites from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period through the Hellenistic Period suggests that it has certain other powerful associations. See Schmandt-Besserat, 'The Animal Figurines of Ain Ghazal'
83. N. Hareuveni, Nature in Our Biblical Heritage (Jerusalem: Neot Kedumim, 1980), p. 41
84. Y. Feliks, The Animal World of the Bible (Tel Aviv: Sinai Press, 1962), p. 120
85. Hareuveni, Nature in Our Biblical Heritage, p. 43
86. S. Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen: Women in Judges and Biblical Israel (New York: Doubleday, 1999), p. 47
87. See Hodder, 'The Narrative and Rhetoric of Material Culture Sequences', p. 275, for a discussion on the cultural correlates of ironic 'tropes'
88. Feliks, The Animal World of the Bible, p. 120
89. For a number of the ideas discussed here, the author is indebted to I. Stek, 'The Bee and the Mountain Goat: A Literary Reading of Judges 4', in W.C. Kaiser, Jr, and R.F. Youngblood (eds.), A Tribute to Gleason Archer (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), pp. 53-86
90. See also Ackerman's suggestion that this epithet does not refer to Deborah's marital status but is simply intended to describe her personality in Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, p. 38
91. Ackerman, Warrior, Dancer, Seductress, Queen, pp. 93-94
92. O. Borowski, Every Living Thing: Daily Use of Animals in Ancient Israel (London: Altamira, 1998)
93. Stek, 'The Bee and the Mountain Goat', p. 81
94. P. de Miroschedji, 'Far'ah, Tell el- (North)', in Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, II, pp. 433-38
95. E.F. Campbell, Jr, Shechem: Portrait of a Hill Country Vale; The Shechem Regional Survey (ASOR Reports, 2; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991)
96. Finkelstein, The Archeology of the Israelite Settlement, pp. 80-91
97. Bloch-Smith and Nakai, 'A Landscape Comes to Life', pp. 70-71
98. A. Glock, 'Taanach', in Stern (ed.), The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, IV, pp. 1428-33
99. M. Garsiel, A Literary Study of Midrashic Derivations and Puns (Tel Aviv: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1987)
100. J. Feliks, 'Wheat', EncJud, XVI, p. 479
101. B. Lindars, 'Jotham's Fable: A New Form Critical Analysis', JTS 24 (1973), pp. 355-66
102. Garsiel, A Literary Study
103. Finkelstein, 'The Great Transformation', pp. 353-54
104. J.S. Holladay, 'The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah: Political and Economic Centralization in the Iron Age IIA-B (ca. 1000-75 BCE)', in Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society, pp. 370-91 (374)
105. A. Malamat, 'The Danite Migration and the Pan-Israelite Exodus-Conquest: A Biblical Narrative Pattern', Bib 51 (1970), pp. 1-16
106. J.C. Exum, 'Aspects of Symmetry and Balance in the Samson Saga', JSOT 19 (1981), pp. 13-29
107. Brettler, 'The Ehud Story as Satire', in The Creation of History in Ancient Israel (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 188-203 (191)
108. Brettler, 'The Ehud Story as Satire', discusses the various sacrificial associations attendant to the use of the name Eglon and the term minchah. See also R. Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), p. 39
109. And Y. Amit, The Book of Judges: The Art of Editing (Biblical Encyclopedia Library, 5; Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1992), pp. 171-72 (Hebrew)
110. Boling, Judges, p. 51
111. I. Hodder, The Domestication of Europe: Structure and Contingency in Neolithic Societies (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990)
112. Geertz, 'Thick Description', p. 5