Joseph, Judah and the Benjamin Conundrum

Zeitschrift fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Volumn 116, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 223-241

  Levin, Yigal ^a,b  

^a Department of Jewish History ^*

^b BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

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EID: 64949112887     PISSN: 00442526     EISSN: 16130103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1515/zatw.2004.011     Document Type: Review

References (138)

1. By »unhistorical criticism« I am referring to the recent assertion by a growing group of scholars, that it is nearly impossible to use the text of the Bible in order to reconstruct the history of Iron Age Israel. The literature is too numerous to list here, but the basic references are G. Garbini, History and Ideology in Ancient Israel (trans. from the 1986 Italian by John Bowden), 1988;
2. P.R. Davies, In Search of 〉Ancient Israel〈, JSOT.S 148, 1992;
3. N.P. Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition, 1998;
4. idem, Prelude to Israel's Past: Backgrounds and Beginnings of Israelite History and Identity, 1998;
5. T.L. Thompson, The Mythic Past - Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel, 1999;
6. Finkelstein/N.A. Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and its Sacred Texts, 2001.
7. For a recent summary of these and others cf. Z. Zevit, Three Debates About Bible and Archaeology, Bib. 83 (2002), 1-27.
8. See also S. Japhet, In Search of Ancient Israel: Revisionism at All Costs, in: D.N. Myers/D.B. Ruderman (eds.), The Jewish Past Revisited: Reflections on Modern Jewish Historians, Studies in Jewish Culture and Society, 1998, 212-233, for one of many critiques of this position.
9. On the Chronicler's genealogies as representing the self-identification of the people of post-exilic Yehud see Y. Levin, Who Was The Chronicler's Audience? A Hint From His Genealogies, JBL 122 (2003), 229-245.
10. See also M.Z. Brettler, The Creation of History in Ancient Israel, 1995, 110f., who considers all of this to be evidence of a »pro-Saulide« faction in post-exilic Judah.
11. K.-D. Schunck, Benjamin, AncBD 1, 1992, 671;
12. th century Mari cf. A. Malamat, Mari and the Early Israelite Experience, 1989, 35.
13. In the case of the spy list in Num 13, verse 11, »Of the tribe of Joseph, namely of the tribe of Manasseh ...« seems to have been transferred from its original place before verse 8 (Ephraim), and cf. Z. Kallai, The Twelve-Tribe Systems of Israel, VT 47 (1997), 67f.
14. Cf. J.M. Miller/J.H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah, 1986, 138-140.
15. Cf. F.S. Frick, The Formation of the State in Ancient Israel, 1985, 71-97.191;
16. Schäfer-Lichtenberger, Sociological and Biblical Views of the Early State, in: V. Fritz/P. R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States, JSOT.S 228, 1996, 99 (though she prefers the definition of »inchoative state« over that of »chiefdom«);
17. D.M. Master, State Formation Theory and the Kingdom of Ancient Israel, JNES 60 (2001), 117-131.
18. th century C.E. Europe than of the Ancient Near East. For one insight into the »tribal« character of Iron Age Levantine states see Ø. LaBianca, Salient Features of Iron Age Tribal Kingdoms, in: B. MacDonald/R.W Younker (eds.) Ancient Ammon, 1999, 19-23.
19. See also J.W. Flanagan, Models for the Origin of Iron Age Monarchy: A Modern Case Study, in: K.H. Richards (ed.), SBL.SP 1982, 135-156.
20. For an in-depth examination of Solomon's ascension see T. Ishida, The Succession Narrative in Historical Perspective, in History and Historical Writing in Ancient Israel - Studies in Biblical Historiography, Studies in the History and Culture of the Ancient Near East XVI, 1999, 102-185.
21. Explanations for this have varied, from the assumption that Solomon, indeed, did not levy taxes from his own tribe, to the supposition that Judah was similarly divided into its own districts, to the suggestion that Judah was the twelfth district, later replaced by the artificial »Sihon and Og« district now described in v. 19, to the assertion that this verse originally ended »and one prefect in the land of Judah«, the last word being dropped through haplography. Cf. N. Na'aman, Borders and Districts in Biblical Historiography, Jerusalem Biblical Studies 4, 1986, 194;
22. Z. Kallai, Historical Geography of the Bible - The Tribal Territories of Israel, 1986, 44-47 and references there.
23. 2 (trans. A.F. Rainey), 1979, 321.
24. W.F. Albright, The List of Levitic Cities, Louis Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, 61-82;
25. B. Mazar, The Cities of the Priests and Levites, VT.S 7, 1960, 194-206.
26. Cf. also Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, 301-305;
27. Kallai, Historical Geography of the Bible, 447-458.
28. The differences between the Joshua version, which lists Gibeon, Geba, Anathoth and Almon, and the Chronicles version that drops Gibeon and replaces Almon with the unknown Alemeth, are dealt with by all of the commentaries. We would like to point out, however, the graphic similarity between and, proposing that the either final of the former was combined through a copyist's error into the final of the latter or vice-versa. For additional examples of such substitutions see Y. Levin, The Search for Moresheth-gath: A New Proposal, PEQ 134 (2002), 5 and n.7.
29. Y. Levin/A. Faust, The Ties Between the Tribes Asher and Benjamin, in: Y. Eshel (ed.), Judea and Samaria Research Studies - Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting, 1998, 225-231 (Hebrew with English abstract).
30. We, following H.L. Ginzberg (The Israelian Heritage of Judaism, 1982, 1-2)
31. G. Rendsburg (Israelian Hebrew Features in Genesis 49, Maarav 8, [1992], 161-170)
32. and Z. Zevit (The Religions of Ancient Israel - A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches, 2001, 439 n.1), use »Israelian« to define something pertaining to the northern kingdom alone, as opposed to »Israelite« which, in »Biblical English« is used to describe the whole nation, including Judah. In Hebrew, of course, the generic does not allow such distinctions.
33. For additional discussions of this passage see F.I. Anderson/D.N. Freedman, Hosea, AncB, 1980, 399-416;
34. W. Schütte, Eine originale Stimme aus dem syrisch-ephraimitischen Krieg. Zu Hos 5,8-6,6, ZAW 99 (1987), 406-408.
35. Several scholars have shown an awareness of this problem. John Bright (A History of Israel, 1960, 213)
36. 2, OTL, 1970, 296) suggested that »the allegiance of Benjamin was divided, part adhering to the kingdom of the house of David more by force of circumstances than by choice«.
37. Miller/Hayes (A History of Ancient Israel and Judah, 1986, 232) preferred to look at the »empty half of the cup« and concluded that »at least some of the Benjaminites remained loyal to Rehoboam«.
38. 2 H.V. Jaffa, A New Birth of Freedom - Abraham Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War, 2000, 238.
39. D.S. Heidler/J.T. Heidler, Encyclopedia of the American Civil War - A Political, Social and Military History I, 2000, xxxii i.
40. G.L. Browne, Maryland, in: Heidler/Heidler (eds.), Encyclopedia of the American Civil War III, 2000, 1258-1261.
41. For the function of Mizpah in this text and others see S.L. McKenzie, Mizpah of Benjamin and the Date of the Deuteronomistic History, in: K.-D. Schunck/M. Augustin (eds.), »Lasset uns Brücken bauen ...« - Collected Communications to the XVth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, 1998, 149-156.
42. For more on this passage see Å. Viberg, 〉A Mantle Torn is A Kingdom Lost〈: The Tradition History of a Deuteronomistic Theme (I Kings xi 29-31), in: K.-D. Schunck/M. Augustin (eds.), »Lasset uns Brücken bauen ...« - Collected Communications to the XVth Congress of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament, 1998, 135-140;
43. A. Frisch, Jeroboam and the Division of the Kingdom: Mapping Contrasting Biblical Accounts, JANES 27 (2000), 16-19.
44. For evidence of northern refugees in general entering Judah at this time see S. Gibson, Tell el Ful and the Results of the North-East Jerusalem Survey, in A. Faust (ed.), New Studies on Jerusalem: Proceedings of the Second Conference, 1996, 16-8
45. Z. Greenhut, The Periphery of Jerusalem in the Bronze & Iron Ages - New Discoveries, ibid., 6-8;
46. Finkelstein and Silberman, The Bible Unearthed, 243-245;
47. Finkelstein, The Rise of Jerusalem and Judah: the Missing Link, Levant 33 (2001), 105 and references there.
48. Cf. I. Milevski, Settlement Patterns in Northern Judah during the Achaemenid Period According to the Hill Country of Benjamin and Jerusalem Surveys, Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 15 (1996-97), 7-29;
49. O. Lipschits, The History of the Benjamin Region Under Babylonian Rule», Tel Aviv 26 (1999), 155-190.
50. Cf. J.W. Flanagan, Genealogy and Dynasty in the Early Monarchy of Israel and Judah, Proceedings of the Eighth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Division A: The Period of the Bible, 1982, 25;
51. Brettler, The Creation of History in Ancient Israel, 110f.;
52. Edelman, Did Saulite-Davidic Rivalry Resurface in Early Persian Yehud?, in: J.A. Dearman/M.P. Graham (eds.), The Land That I Will Show You - Essays on the History and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East in Honour of J. Maxwell Miller, JSOT.S 343, 2001, 69-91.
53. These, too, are of course modern definitions, but they are useful for our purposes. »Judahite« means someone or something pertaining to the pre-exilic tribe and kingdom of Judah (cf. Rendsburg, Israelian Hebrew Features in Genesis 49, 163, who writes of »Judahite Hebrew«, as opposed to »Israelian Hebrew«).
54. »Judean« is the same, pertaining to the post-exilic province or state of Yehud/Judah/Judea, though R.C. Head (Dynamics of Diselection, Ambiguity in Genesis 12-36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-Exilic Judah, 2001, 16ff.) has used »Yehudian« to describe the former. The term »Jewish« is used for the worldwide religious community. These distinctions are lacking in Hebrew, where the word encompasses all three meanings. Modern Israeli scholars have, in recent years, coined the term as an equivalent of »Judahite«.
55. On the dating of the theorized sources of the Pentateuch see most commentaries and in addition cf. J. van Seters, In Search of History - Historiography in the Ancient World and the Origins of Biblical History, 1983;
56. idem, Prologue to History - The Yahwist as Historian in Genesis, 1992; R.E. Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?, 1987;
57. J. Blenkinsopp, The Pentateuch - An Introduction to the First Five Books of the Bible, 1992;
58. B. Halpern, The First Historians - the Hebrew Bible and History, 1996;
59. Zevit, Three Debates About Bible and Archaeology, 1-27 and references there.
60. Cf. Davies, In Search of 〉Ancient Israel〈, 75-93;
61. Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition, 160;
62. Thompson, The Mythic Past - Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel, 200-225;
63. J.-W. Wesselius, Towards a New History of Israel, Journal of Hebrew Scriptures (http://purl.org/jhs) 3: 2 (2000).
64. Cf. Thompson, The Mythic Past - Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel, 164f.
65. D. Edelman, Saul ben Kish in History and Tradition, in: V. Fritz/P. R. Davies (eds.), The Origins of the Ancient Israelite States, JSOT.S 228, 1996, 153.
66. See also Davies, In Search of 〉Ancient Israel〈, 69;
67. Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition, 78.
68. I. Finkelstein, State formation in Israel and Judah, Near Eastern Archaeology 62 (1999), 35-52;
69. idem, The Rise of Jerusalem and Judah: the Missing Link, Levant 33 (2001), 105-115.
70. F.-W. Busch, quoted by J.A. Soggin, Notes on the Joseph Story, in: A.G. Auld (ed.), Understanding Poets and Prophets, Essays in Honour of George Wishart Anderson, JSOT.S 152, 1993, 336.
71. N. Sarna, Understanding Genesis, 1966, 211.
72. C.T. Fritsch, 〉God Was With Him〈 - A Theological Study of the Joseph Narrative, Interp. 9 (1955), 21.
73. G. von Rad, Genesis - A Commentary, OTL, 1961, 428;
74. R. de Vaux, The Early History of Israel (trans. D. Smith), 1978, 296;
75. G.W. Coats, The Joseph Story and Ancient Wisdom: A Reappraisal, CBQ 35 (1973), 285-297;
76. 2, 1974, 90
77. and cf. M.V. Fox, Wisdom in the Joseph Story, Vetus Testamentum 51 (2001), 26-41.
78. W.L. Humphreys, Joseph and His Family - A Literary Study, 1988, 15ff.
79. Von Rad, Josephgeschichte und alte Chokma, in: J.A. Emerton et al. (eds.), Congress Volume, Copenhagen 1953, VT.S 1, 1953, 120-127;
80. J.P.H. Wessels, The Joseph Story as a Wisdom Novelette, in: J.A. Loader/J.H. le Roux (eds.), OTE 2, 1984, 39-60.
81. T.C. Römer, La Narration, une Subversion l'histoire de Joseph (Gn 37-50) et les Ramans de la Diaspora, in: G.J. Brooke/J.-D. Kaestli (eds.), Narrativity in Biblical and Related Texts, 2000, 17-29.
82. A. Wénin, Le temps dans l'histoire de Joseph (Gn 37-50) Repères temporeles pour une analyse narrative, Bib. 83 (2002), 53.
83. J.R. King, The Joseph Story and Divine Politics: A Comparative Study of a Biographic Formula from the Ancient Near East, JBL 106 (1987), 577-595.
84. C. Westermann, Genesis - A Practical Commentary (trans. D.E. Green), Text and Interpretation, 1987, 257.
85. Such as E.A. Speiser, Genesis, AncB, 1964, 292-346;
86. de Vaux, The Early History of Israel, 293;
87. H. Seebass, The Joseph Story, Genesis 48 and the Canonical Process», JSOT 35 (1986), 29-43.
88. Cf. Coats, The Joseph Story and Ancient Wisdom: A Reappraisal, 53-74;
89. Westermann, Genesis, xiii, 258;
90. Rendsburg, The Redaction of Genesis, 1986, 79-97;
91. idem, Redactional Structuring in the Joseph Story: Genesis 37-50, in: V.L. Tollers/J. Maier (eds.), Mappings of the Biblical Terrain: The Bible as Text, Bucknell Review 33/2, 1990, 215-232;
92. Soggin, Notes on the Joseph Story, 336-337 and references there.
93. Von Rad (Genesis, 343) took the middle position, citing at once the story's literary unity and its being »an artistic composition from the representations of the sources J and E.« For a critique of von Rad's position see R.N. Whybray, The Joseph Story and Pentateuchal Criticism, VT 18 (1968), 522-528.
94. H. Schweizer, Text Segmentation and Levels of Interpretation: Reading and Rereading the Biblical Story of Joseph, Semiotica 107 (1995), 273-292.
95. C. Aling, Some Remarks on the Historicity of the Joseph Story, Near Eastern Archaeological Society Bulletin 39-40 (1995), 31-39;
96. O. Zudhi, Joseph - The Career of an Egyptian Official, KMT; A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt 7 (1996), 69-78.
97. Von Rad, Genesis, 28-429;
98. Coats, The Joseph Story and Ancient Wisdom: A Reappraisal, 79;
99. de Vaux, The Early History of Israel, 296;
100. Rendsburg, The Redaction of Genesis, 107-120;
101. Westermann, Genesis, 257f.
102. N. Shupak, The Joseph Story: Legend or History?, in: M.V. Fox et al. (eds.), Texts, Temples and Traditions - A Tribute to Menahem Haran, 1996, 125 -133 (Hebrew with English abstract).
103. Römer, La Narration, une Subversion l'histoire de Joseph.
104. Soggin, Notes on the Joseph Story, 344.
105. Sarna, Understanding Genesis, 212;
106. de Vaux, The Early History of Israel, 297-310;
107. Aling, Some Remarks on the Historicity of the Joseph Story;
108. Zudhi, Joseph - The Career of an Egyptian Official;
109. Shupak, The Joseph Story: Legend or History?, 126-130.
110. Cf. Humphreys, Joseph and His Family - A Literary Study, 154-172;
111. Fritsch, 〉God Was With Him〈 - A Theological Study of the Joseph Narrative, 23.
112. K. Frieden, Dream Interpreters in Exile: Joseph, Daniel and Sigmund (Solomon), in: V.L. Tollers/J. Maier (eds.), Mappings of the Biblical Terrain: The Bible as Text, Bucknell Review 33/2, 1990, 193-203;
113. for a literary analysis of Joseph's dreams see S. Bar, A Letter That has not Been Read - Dreams in the Hebrew Bible (trans. L. J. Schramm) Monographs of the Hebrew Union College 25, 2001, 45-59.
114. D.B. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50), VT.S. 20, 1970, 66-68.
115. S.E. Loewenstamm, Reuben and Judah in the Cycle of Joseph-Stories, Fourth World Congress of Jewish Studies vol. 1, 1969, 69-70.
116. W. Dietrich, Die Joseferzählung als Novelle und Geschichtsschreibung: Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Pentateuchfrage, 1989.
117. H. Schulte, Die Entstehung der Geschichtsschreibung im Alten Israel, BZAW 128, 1972, 24-27.
118. Coats, The Joseph Story and Ancient Wisdom: A Reappraisal, 74-75.
119. Humphreys, Joseph and His Family - A Literary Study, 135-153, 176-191.
120. Redford, A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph, 244-251.
121. See also Lemche, Prelude to Israel's Past, 41.
122. Redford (A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph, 11 n.4) actually preferred to attribute the whole story to a »Genesis editor that is roughly equivalent to the one others choose to call P in the rest of the Pentateuch«.
123. This is contradictory to the common view, that the Joseph narrative is a composite of J and E. See also R.E. Friedman, The Exile and Biblical Narrative - The Formation of the Deuteronomistic and Priestly Works, HSM 22, 1981, 89, who states that »Separated from the JE narratives of Jacob and Joseph, the Priestly account amounts to barely five verses«.
124. So Westermann, Genesis, xiii.
125. Cf. Loewenstamm, Reuben and Judah in the Cycle of Joseph-Stories;
126. H.C. White, The Joseph Story: A Narrative Which 〉Consumes〈 its Content, Semeia 31 (1985), 57;
127. A. Ben Yoseph, Joseph and His Brothers, JBQ 21 (1993), 153-158;
128. Shupak, The Joseph Story: Legend or History?, 132.
129. Some of the medieval commentators, in an attempt to harmonize these contradictions, explained that the memory of Rachel's death was the reason that Jacob did not lavish his love on Benjamin (Hezkuni), and that his understanding of Joseph's dream as including Rachel was what caused Jacob's anger (Rashi). Others assumed the dream to refer to Bilhah, the dead Rachel's handmaiden who had raised Joseph from youth. Cf. M. Zlotowitz/N. Sherman, Bereishis - Genesis / A New Translation with a Commentary Anthologized From Talmudic, Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources II, 1986, 1620; 1626.
130. Reprinted in B. Mazar, The Historical Background of the Book of Genesis, in The Early Biblical Period - Historical Studies (ed. S. Ahituv and B.A. Levine), 1986, 49-62;
131. see also Rendsburg, Biblical Literature as Politics: The case of Genesis, in: A. Berlin (ed.), Religion and Politics in the Ancient Near East, 1996, 47-70.
132. Head, Dynamics of Diselection, Ambiguity in Genesis 12-36 and Ethnic Boundaries in Post-Exilic Judah, 2001.
133. For more on Joseph's precise title see S.D. Sperling, Genesis 41:40: A New Interpretation, JANES 10 (1978), 113-119.
134. For some of the studies on this topic see F.M. Cross, Reuben, First-Born of Jacob, ZAW 100 (1988), 46-65;
135. idem, From Epic to Canon - History and Literature in Ancient Israel, 1998, 53-70;
136. P.B. Dirksen, 1 Chronicles 5:1-2, JNSL 25 (1999), 17-23;
137. L.G. Herr, Tall al-Umayri and the Reubenite hypothesis», Erls 26 (1999), 64-77, and references there.
138. See also Rendsburg, The Redaction of Genesis, 114