Having examined the epilogue of the Book of Judges—Judges 17-21—it is now time to turn our attention to the introduction. The opening chapter of this book comes as quite a surprise. In the preceding Book of Joshua, the successful Conquest of Canaan under the military leadership of Joshua was recounted. The final seventeen chapters of that book then described how Joshua distributed the conquered territory among the Twelve Tribes of Israel. But once we turn the page and begin to read the Book of Judges, we are immediately told that after the death of Joshua, the Israelites embarked on a second conquest of Canaan. What is going on here?
The simplest explanation is that the scholars who compiled the Tanakh (or Jewish Bible) were drawing upon two independent sources for the one Conquest, but instead of conflating them, they incorporated both of them separately into their text—thereby creating a second, phantom Conquest. Biblical Fundamentalists and Maximalists, however, take the authors at their word and accept that there were two conquests. Kenneth Kitchen, a maximalist, is representative of this doctrine. He reconciles the apparent contradictions by alleging that Joshua’s conquest was only partially successful:
So, first, leaving aside the obligatory rhetorical summations, the book of Joshua does not present a sweeping conquest/instant occupation ...
Second, despite numberless assertions to the contrary, Judges does not give us either an alternative narrative of conquest or a connected account of ongoing settlement. It actually gives us the following picture:
Soon after Joshua’s death, listed in south to north order, Judges enumerates the subsequent attempts by individual tribes to enact a takeover in their allotted areas, In the south: Judah had quick success at Bezeq, Negev (and Hebron area), and in the hills, but failed to hold any place in the southwest plains, or Jerusalem. The latter repulsed Benjamin (after refortification?). In the center: Ephraim/Manasseh took Bethel, but not the lowland towns to the west or Jezreel; Dan was hemmed in, and some Danites went north to Laish. In the north: Zebulon, Asher, and Naphtali made very little headway. By way of “occupation” the Benjaminites had to settle alongside Jehu sites, and the central and northern tribes also had to settle alongside the Canaanites, even if eventually getting the upper hand socially. All this (all in Judg. 1) was clearly in the decade or so immediately after Joshua, and was then commented on theologically in Judg. 2:1-3:6 ...
But after this point, the main narratives never again tell us about the settlement process. They only tell us about crises that brought forth local leaders as deliverers from foreign rule. There is no ongoing biblical “narrative of settlement”! At the end, we have only the notice of some Danites’ move to Laish, and a civil war with Benjamin. Nothing more. Thus, contrary to common dogma, Judges does not give us an “alternative conquest” but instead notes some attempts at forcing takeovers, plus settling in next to locals, soon after Joshua, as a follow-up to his declared allotments. Of the ongoing settlement thereafter, we are told nothing, simply because it would contribute nothing to the author’s main theme. For that he drew upon occasions of crisis and oppression of Hebrew groups by others. Full stop. (Kitchen 223-224)
The curious thing is that the Book of Joshua already implied this Second Conquest. In that book, Joshua’s rapid Conquest of Canaan was recounted in Joshua 5-11. Then, in Chapters 13-21, Joshua distributed the conquered territory among the Twelve Tribes. But these chapters also described how the individual tribes were obliged to take the field against the Canaanites in order to secure their respective allotments, as though there had not just been a Joshuan Conquest:
With the exception of the first verse, scholars have long recognised and studied the parallels between chapter 1 of Judges and chapters 13 to 19 in the preceding Book of Joshua. Both provide similar accounts of the purported conquest of Canaan by the ancient Israelites. Judges 1 and Joshua 15–19 present two accounts of a slow, gradual, and only partial conquest by individual Israelite tribes, marred by defeats, in stark contrast with the 10th and 11th chapters of the Book of Joshua, which portray a swift and complete victory of a united Israelite army under the command of Joshua. (Wikipedia)
There are also some parallels between Joshua’s Conquest (Joshua 5-11) and Judges 1. For example, in Joshua 10, Adonizedek King of Jerusalem leads a coalition of five Canaanite kings against Joshua. In Judges 1, Judah and Simeon defeat a Canaanite king with a similar name: Adonibezek. Is one of these accounts a corrupted version of the other? Some scholars think so (Berlin & Brettler 511).
Eleven or Twelve Tribes
An important discrepancy between Joshua 13-21 and Judges 1 concerns the number of tribes into which the Israelite nation is divided—and their names. In Joshua, there are eleven full tribes and two half-tribes, though one tribe—Levi—receives no inheritance. It is made clear that Manasseh and Ephraim represent the Josephites (Joshua 14:4), but only Manasseh is explicitly described as a half-tribe. It is also unclear whether the Calebites form a separate tribe or are to be reckoned as part of Judah. If we count Caleb and Judah as two tribes, and Manasseh and Ephraim as the two halves of the Tribe of Joseph, then the final tally is twelve, the traditional number of tribes.
In Judges, there are twelve full tribes. The text mentions Joseph, Manasseh and Ephraim in succession, with no indication that Manasseh and Ephraim were the two half-tribes that made up the Tribe of Joseph. On the contrary, a literal reading of the text supports the view that the author regarded these as three separate full tribes. There is no mention of Gad, Reuben, Issachar or Levi, but there is mention of Kenites.
Both lists, then, can be interpreted to support the tradition that there were Twelve Tribes of Israel. This does not necessarily mean that there were precisely twelve tribes. The number twelve probably had some symbolic or theological significance for the ancient Israelites, and was considered important enough to retain:
| Joshua 13-21 | Judges 1 |
|---|---|
| Reuben | Judah |
| Gad | Simeon |
| Manasseh (Half of Joseph) | Caleb |
| Caleb | Kenites |
| Judah | Benjamin |
| Ephraim (Half of Joseph) | Joseph |
| Benjamin | Manasseh |
| Simeon | Ephraim |
| Zebulon | Zebulon |
| Issachar | Asher |
| Asher | Naphtali |
| Naphtali | Dan |
| Dan | - |
Seder Olam Zutta
The Seder Olam Zutta (Shorter World Order or Younger World Order) is a short rabbinical chronicle dating from 803 CE. It covers the entire period of Jewish history from the Creation to the beginning of the 9th century CE. In its ten chapters, however, this short text uses the succession of generations rather than the series of historical events for its chronological framework. Thus it links the Exodus and the Monarchy through the genealogy of David (presented in the Book of Ruth). As we shall see in a later article, this may be significant.
Curiously, the Seder Olam Zutta passes over the Period of the Judges, proceeding from Joshua directly to the reign of David, though it leaves adequate time between the two for the events described in Judges and the two books of Samuel:
And 41 years after the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt—that is, 2489 years since the Creation of the World—Israel entered the land [of Canaan], and Joshua son of Nun died at the age of one hundred and ten. That marked 2516 years since the Creation. All told: ten generations.
Boaz gave birth to Obed. And Obed gave birth to Jesse. Jesse begot David. And David reigned over Israel 396 years after their entry into the land. That is, 440 years after the Exodus from Egypt. That marks 2884 years since the Creation of the World ... (Seder Olam Zutta 4-5)
If the Exodus took place in the year 2448 from the Creation, and David’s reign began 440 years after the Exodus, then David’s reign should have begun in the year 2888. But the numeral in Chapter 5 of Seder Olam Zutta is 2884 by my reckoning of the Hebrew numerals:
The two marks inserted between the last two letters (ie the two leftmost letters) are called gershayim. They are included to alert the reader that this sequence of Hebrew letters is not a word but a numeral.
The Seder Olam Zutta was compiled as a continuation of the older Seder Olam Rabbah, and is in agreement with that text from the Creation to the time of Alexander the Great—ie the period covered by both chronologies. The Seder Olam Rabbah dates the Exodus to 2448 and the beginning of David’s reign to 2884—ie 436 years later:
| Event | Year of the World |
|---|---|
| Exodus | 2448 |
| Israelites Invade Canaan | 2488 |
| Joshua’s Death | 2516 |
| David’s Reign Begins | 2884 |
Seder Olam Rabbah (Johnson Chapters 12, 15)
Working Hypothesis
Biblical Minimalists simply deny that there ever was a Conquest of Canaan, but this hypothesis is at odds with my working model of Israelite history. I believe that the House of Israel dwelt in Egypt for a few generations, after which they returned to Canaan. I also accept that in historical times much of Canaan comprised two independent kingdoms: Israel and Judah. I do not see how to get from the former state of affairs to the latter without some sort of invasion and conquest.
I accept, therefore, that there was an Israelite Conquest of Canaan, but I hypothesize that the details of that conquest have been lost to time. The inconsistent accounts preserved in the books of Joshua and Judges are largely fictions spun by later Jewish scholars from wisps of tradition. The historicity of Joshua and the other named characters must be considered doubtful at best.
In earlier articles, we saw that there is an abundance of archaeological evidence for the Conquest, provided we date the Conquest to the end of the Middle Bronze Age, when the Hyksos were being expelled from Egypt and the 18th Dynasty was being established.
In the timeline of the Short Chronology which I am reconstructing, the Conquest is tentatively dated to 760 BCE and the Fall of Jerusalem to 343 BCE. (In this model, Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon is identified with the Persian Emperor Artaxerxes III.) This leaves only 417 years for the rest of the history of ancient Israel. In the conventional chronology, the Kingdom of Judah is assigned about 344 years—from 930-586 BCE. If we accept this duration as accurate, then the two Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were established around 687 BCE. That leaves about 70 years between the Conquest and the establishment of the two kingdoms to accommodate the Period of the Judges, the Judgeships of Eli and Samuel, and the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon. Clearly, the historicity of some of these must be set aside, or some of the judgeships and reigns must be greatly curtailed. Perhaps a combination of both approaches will be necessary to tie everything together.
Is it possible that the Conquest was a war of attrition that lasted about seventy years? A war that culminated in the final overthrow of a Canaanite confederacy and the setting up of the Kingdom of Israel in the north of Canaan, with the remaining undefeated Canaanites—Judah and Simeon?—setting up a rival Kingdom of Judah in the south? This scenario would require us to jettison everything between the Conquest and the setting up of the Dual Monarchy. It is too early to take such drastic measures, but we should keep an open mind as our research in this field continues.
And that’s a good place to stop.
References
- Adele Berlin & Marc Zvi Brettler (editors), The Jewish Study Bible, Jewish Publication Society TANAKH Translation, Oxford University Press, Oxford (1999)
- Ken Johnson, Ancient Seder Olam: A Christian Translation of the 2000-year-old Scroll, Xulon Press, Maitland, FL (2006)
- Kenneth A Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids MI (2003)
Image Credits
- The Distribution of the Promised Land: Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Die Bibel in Bildern, Georg Wigand, Leipzig (1860), Public Domain
- Kenneth Kitchen: Copyright Unknown, Fair Use
- The Fall of Jerusalem: Copyright Unknown, Fair Use
- Kingdoms of Israel and Judah: © Malus Catulus and FinnWikiNo, Creative Commons License
