Another history of ancient Israel? Are there not enough of them already?
And what if its author is not even a professional Alttestamentler, but a
historian of the ancient Near East? It is true: we already have many (perhaps
too many) histories of ancient Israel, but they are all so similar to
each other because, inescapably, they are all too similar to the story we
find in the Biblical text. They share its plot, its way of presenting facts,
even when they question critically its historical reliability.
The history of ancient Israel has always been presented as a sort of
paraphrase of the Biblical text. At first the theological relevance of the
revealed word made it difficult to accept a rational critique that could,
even at great pains, open the way to a secular approach. Even the archaeological
discoveries in Palestine were not at first so sensational as to allow a
complete rethinking of the history of the area on the basis of ancient and
original sources, as was the case in Egypt, Mesopotamia and Hittite Anatolia.
Indeed, towards the end of the nineteenth century, archaeology began
to be used as ‘proof’ of the reliability of the Biblical text, while that text was
already being questioned at the time by the literary criticism of German
philologists.
During the last two centuries, Biblical criticism has progressively dismantled
the historicity of creation and flood, then of the patriarchs, then
(in chronological order) of the exodus and of the conquest, of Moses and
Joshua, then the period of Judges and the ‘twelve tribe league’, stopping at
the era of the ‘United Monarchy’ of David and Solomon, which was still
considered substantially historical. The realization that foundational episodes
of conquest and law-giving were in fact post-exilic retrojections,
aiming to justify the national and religious unity and the possession of the
land by groups of returnees from the Babylonian exile, implied a degree of
rewriting of the history of Israel, but did not challenge the idea that Israel
was a united (and powerful) state at the time of David and Solomon and
that a ‘First Temple’ really existed. Hence the return from exile was understood
as recreating an ethnic, political and religious reality that had existed
in the past.
xvi Israel’s History and the History of Israel
Recent criticism of the concept of the ‘United Monarchy’ has questioned
the Biblical narrative from its very foundation, because it reduces
the ‘historical’ Israel to one of several Palestinian kingdoms swept away by
the Assyrian conquest. Any connection between Israel and Judah in the
pre-exilic era (including the existence of a united Israel) is completely
denied. At this point, a drastic rewriting of the history of Israel is needed.
The critical approach to Israelite history, however, has always produced
Prolegomena (to use Wellhausen’s expression) and brave theoretical manifestos
(some of them very recent), but not yet a narrated history following
the order of modern reconstructions instead of the traditional plot of the
Biblical narrative. If the critical deconstruction of the Biblical text is accepted,
why not also attempt a reconstruction, referring literary texts to
the time in which they were written and not to the period they speak about?
Some recent postmodernist critics have, however, denied the possibility of
writing a history of ancient Israel and opened a gap between a narrated
history of the traditional kind and a literary criticism that breaks any contact
with a historical use of sources.
In the present work I have tried to write – at least in the form of a first
draft – a new version of the history of Israel, starting from the results of
textual and literary criticism as well as from data collected by archaeology
and epigraphy. In doing this I have felt free to change the Biblical plot,
while keeping a properly historical approach. This attempt, as obvious as it
is, is nevertheless something new, and is attended by tremendous difficulties
and very serious implications.
The result is a division of the history of Israel into two different phases.
The first one is the ‘normal’ (i.e. not unique) and quite insignificant history
of two kingdoms in Palestine, very similar to the other kingdoms destroyed
by the Assyrian and then Babylonian conquests, with the consequent devastation,
deportations and deculturation. This first phase is not particularly
important, particularly interesting, nor consequential – just as the parallel
histories of similar kingdoms (from Carchemish to Damascus, Tyre or
Gaza) have importance only to the specialist. But the fact is that we cannot
read the ‘Bibles’ of Carchemish, Damascus, Tyre or Gaza, and their traditions
were lost forever under the advance of the empires.For Users
Easiness We Upload all Books on two Links. One is Download Book and the other is Read Book Online. If one link does not
work properly then you can download Book from Alternative Link Which mention above.
Please Leave Comments. Your Comments
is Our Power.
