In the preceding article in this series, I hypothesized that the history of Canaan depicted in the Book of Judges reflects the situation in Canaan while the House of Israel (ie Jacob’s extended family) was dwelling in Egypt. Chronologically speaking, the Book of Judges should be placed before the Book of Joshua in the Old Testament—or even substituted for it. The Twelve Tribes of Israel were really the Canaanite tribes of Palestine.
This Canaanite confederation was partly conquered by Joshua and the Israelites at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, and this led to the creation of the Kingdom of Israel in the immediate aftermath of the Conquest. The southern part of Canaan, which was not conquered by the Israelites, formed the rival kingdom of Judah. The House of Israel and the Canaanite tribes were all of the same “race” and spoke dialects of the same North-West Semitic language. The House of Israel was simply a Canaanite family that had migrated from Canaan to Egypt during a famine.
According to this working model, the Judahites were not Israelites who conquered territory for themselves in southern Canaan sometime after the Joshuan Conquest of northern Canaan. They were native Canaanites, who successfully resisted the Joshuan Conquest and then found themselves cut off from their Canaanite confederates. I leave open the possibility, however, that the Judahites did later expand their territory in southern Canaan at the expense of other Canaanite tribes in the region, such as the Kenizzites, the Kenites, the Calebites, and the Jerahmeelites.
In that article, we also saw that there was archaeological evidence that Canaan was a confederation of tribes and city-states at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age. In this and the next few articles, we will take a closer look at the Book of Judges and see whether or not it supports my hypothesis.
Differing Opinions
In the opinion of many contemporary Biblical commentators, the Book of Judges forms part of the so-called Deuteronomistic History. This model was devised in the 1940s by the German scholar Martin Noth to explain the origin and purpose of five successive books of the Old Testament: Joshua, Judges, I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings and II Kings. These, Noth argued, were compiled and edited in the 6th-century BCE by a single author, whose intention it was to explain recent events in the history of the Israelites—eg the fall of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah, and the Babylonian Exile—using the theology and language of the Book of Deuteronomy:
The concept of a great overarching “Deuteronomistic” work extending from Deuteronomy though Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings was first set out fully by M. Noth in his Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien, first issued in 1943, then reissued (without change) in 1957 and 1967. In English it appeared as M. Noth, The Deuteronomistic History, 2nd ed., JSOTSup 15 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991). Noth believed in one overall work, by one author, finally produced soon after 562 during the Babylonian exile; but other views are also propounded. Some have suggested that the presumed work was the product of a “school” rather than one author; so E. W. Nicholson, Deuteronomy and Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), and then Weinfeld, Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomic School; there is nothing to commend this “committee” view. Others have suggested that there were successive editions of the work, one under Josiah, and then a longer edition in the exile. This has been set forth by K M. Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), 274-89. For an overall view of opinions on the Deuteronomistic History’s own history, see conveniently S. L. McKenzie, in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 2:160-68. (Kitchen 564-565)
If Noth’s hypothesis is sound, the Deuteronomistic History ought to be self-consistent. But this is not the case. Compare, for example, the following passages:
Joshua 10:36-37: And Joshua went up from Eglon, and all Israel with him, unto Hebron; and they fought against it: And they took it, and smote it with the edge of the sword, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof, and all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining, according to all that he had done to Eglon; but destroyed it utterly, and all the souls that were therein.
Joshua 14:6 ... 13-14: Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadeshbarnea ... And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite unto this day, because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.
Judges 1:1 ... 10 ... 20: Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass ... And Judah went against the Canaanites that dwelt in Hebron: (now the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba:) and they slew Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai ... And they gave Hebron unto Caleb, as Moses said: and he expelled thence the three sons of Anak.
Was Hebron conquered by Joshua during the Conquest or by the Tribe of Judah after the death of Joshua? If there had been a single author or editor of these books, surely he would not have contradicted himself like this. And there are many more examples of similar inconsistencies in these books. In the preceding article, we cited discrepancies in the names and number of the Tribes of Israel. Some scholars have tried to account for these discrepancies by modifying Noth’s original model. For example, what if there had been multiple authors of the Deuteronomistic History, each with his own specific contributions to the history, but all sharing the same theology and overall aim? Recently, however, a number of prominent Biblical scholars have begun to express doubts about the fundamental assumptions underpinning Noth’s model.
The British Biblical scholar and archaeologist Kenneth Anderson Kitchen is one of these. He has adopted a more maximalist approach to the Old Testament—albeit one that falls well short of literal Fundamentalism. In his opinion, these inconsistencies are merely apparent, and they are easily resolved by a correct interpretation of the texts. Viewed in this light, Judges follows Joshua logically and chronologically:
Thus, to sum up, the book of Joshua in reality simply records the Hebrew entry into Canaan, their base camp at Gilgal by the Jordan, their initial raids (without occupation!) against local rulers and subjects in south and north Canaan, followed by localized occupation (a) north from Gilgal as far as Shechem and Tirzah and (b) south to Hebron/Debir, and very little more. This is not the sweeping, instant conquest-with-occupation that some hasty scholars would foist upon the text of Joshua, without any factual justification. Insofar as only Jericho, Ai, and Hazor were explicitly allowed to have been burned into nonoccupation, it is also pointless going looking for extensive conflagration levels at any other Late Bronze sites (of any phase) to identify them with any Israelite impact. Onto this initial picture Judges follows directly and easily, with no inherent contradiction: it contradicts only the bogus and superficial construction that some modern commentators have willfully thrust upon the biblical text of Joshua without adequate reason. The fact is that biblical scholars have allowed themselves to be swept away by the upbeat, rhetorical element present in Joshua, a persistent feature of most war reports in ancient Near Eastern sources that they are not accustomed to understand and properly handle. (Kitchen 163)
It is well to bear these different interpretations of the Book of Judges in mind as we continue our own investigation.
The Structure of Judges
The twenty-one chapters of the Book of Judges can be divided into three sections:
Introduction (1:1-3:6) This comprises two prologues, which are not interdependent—another indication of multiple authors. The first, Judges 1:1-2:6, seems to be an alternative account of the Conquest of Canaan by the Israelites. In Kitchen’s opinion, this is a Second Conquest, which was undertaken because Joshua’s Conquest had ultimately failed (Kitchen 223-224). The second prologue, Judges 2:7-3:6, sets out what Kitchen calls the Cyclical Paradigm—Disobedience, Punishment, Contrition, Deliverance (then Relapse), DPCD (+ R)—which characterizes the history of Israel throughout the period of the Judges (Kitchen 200).
The History of the Judges (3:7-16:31) An historical account of the Israelites during the period of the Judges, when they were ruled by six major and six minor judges. This includes several intervals when the Israelites were subjugated by foreign powers, and a period of three years when they were ruled by King Abimelech, the son of the fifth Judge, Gideon. (The final two Judges, Eli and Samuel, make their appearance in I Samuel.)
Epilogue (17:1-21:25) A pair of supplementary tales that form an appendix to the main history. Yahweh’s treasures are used to make idolatrous images, the Levites become corrupt, the Tribe of Dan migrates northwards and conquers the Sidonian town of Laish, and the Tribes of Israel make war on their kinsmen the Benjaminites.
Chronology
The chronology of the Jewish Bible, or the Tanakh, was studied by rabbinic scholars in the early centuries of the Christian era. These studies resulted in the compilation of two important texts:
Seder Olam Rabbah (Great World Order) This work was compiled in the 2nd century and is the larger of the two texts. It is sometimes referred to simply as Seder Olam. It chronicles the events of Biblical history from the Creation to the time of Alexander the Great.
Seder Olam Zutta (Shorter World Order or Younger World Order). This shorter text dates 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 chronicle records generations rather than historical events. 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.
According to the former, the chronology of the Conquest of Canaan and the Period of the Judges is as follows:
| Period | Duration (Years) |
|---|---|
| Conquest | 7 |
| Allotment of Land | 7 |
| Joshua Rules in Retirement | 14 |
| Rule of Elders | 17 |
| Othniel | 40 |
| Aramaeans | 8 |
| Ehud | 80 |
| Moabites | 18 |
| Shamgar | 0 (Co-Ruled with Ehud) |
| King Jabin of Hazor | 20 |
| Deborah | 40 |
| Midianites | 7 |
| Gideon | 40 |
| Abimelech | 3 |
| Tola | 23 |
| Jair | 22 (Jair 1-2 = Tola 22-23) |
| Ammonites | 18 |
| Jephthah | 6 |
| Ibzan | 7 |
| Elon | 10 |
| Abdon | 8 |
| Philistines | 40 |
| Samson | 20 |
If we simply add up all these figures, the total is 457 years. But the compilers of the Seder Olam believed that the periods of oppression, when the Israelites were subjugated by foreign nations, overlapped with the Judgeships, so that only 342 years elapsed between the Crossing of the Jordan by Joshua and the Death of Samson. In absolute terms, the former event took place in 2488 AM and the latter in 2830 AM (the Creation having taken place in the year 1 AM):
This section is quoted by Rashi in his commentary on Judges 11:26, in the computation of the 300 years between the wars of Sihon and ‛Og and that of Jephtah. In Rashi’s words: “We have learned in Seder Olam: Joshua provided for Israel for 28 years, but there is no verse that would imply that.” Nevertheless, we are able to deduce this number from Scripture. We already emphasized many times that the overriding principle of the author of Seder Olam is: “Scripture does not come to hide but to explain,” i.e., it is possible to reconstruct Jewish history from Scripture. In the book of Judges, this means mainly that the years of reign of the different judges are consecutive and can be added to give a correct sum. The first, important, implication is that the years under foreign domination are not to be counted, they are contained in the official length of reign of the Judge savior from oppression; we shall confirm that in our discussion of Jephtah. (Guggenheimer 120-121)
The two-year discrepancy between the 342 years allotted to this period and the 344 years that the figures actually sum to results from the belief that the first two years of Jair’s Judgeship overlapped with the last two years of Tola’s:
Up to here, the author of Seder Olam was strict in the application of his principle, that years of life and rule given in Scripture can be added without caring about overlapping years. It seems, that from here to the end of the period of Judges, the author interprets the expressions “there arose after him” (Judges 10:3), “there judged after him” (Judges 12:8,11) to mean that there was no interruption in the rule and, hence, a year each has to be subtracted. Also, if that year was not subtracted, one would have to subtract one for overlapping the last year of Yair and the oppression by the Ammonites, since of the year of Yair’s death it is said (Judges 10:8): “They roughed up and oppressed the Children of Israel in that year.” (Guggenheimer 126)
For comparison, James Ussher gives the following dates in his Annals of the Old Testament:
- Death of Moses: 1451 BCE
- Death of Joshua: 1413 BCE
- Death of Samson: 1117 BCE
This is a total of 334 years for the same period—eight years fewer than the Seder Olam.
Whatever absolute chronology we are following, if we accept either Ussher’s or the Rabbis’ interpretation of the Book of Judges, we must conclude that the establishment of the Kingdom of Israel took place about four centuries after the Exodus. Some revisionists, such as Immanuel Velikovsky, are happy to accept this conclusion, but it is simply untenable for adherents of the Short Chronology. In the working model which I am following, the Exodus took place around 763 BCE and the Conquest of Canaan around 760 BCE. In this model, there is simply no time to accommodate the Period of the Judges, no matter how short we make it. This is why I am investigating the possibility that this period of history took place before the Conquest.
My working model of the Short Chronology is based on the one proposed by Charles Ginenthal and Lynn E Rose, in which the Exodus takes place at the end of the Hyksos Period of Egyptian History. Another model, proposed by Emmet J Sweeney, places the Exodus around 840 BCE, shortly before the Hyksos invasion. Sweeney believes that there was a Period of the Judges between the Conquest and the rise of the Kingdom of Israel, but it was much shorter than the three centuries or so of the Fundamentalists (Sweeney 51, 129).
There are several things in the Book of Judges, however, which undermine the contention that it depicts the history of Canaan over a period of about 340 years following the Exodus, the Wandering in the Wilderness, and the Conquest of Canaan by Joshua. In the following articles we will examine some of these.
And that’s a good place to stop.
References
- David N Freedman (editor), The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, Doubleday, New York (1992)
- Heinrich W Guggenheimer (translator & commentator), Seder Olam: The Rabbinic View of Biblical Chronology, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanham, MD (2005)
- Ken Johnson, Ancient Seder Olam, Xulon Press, Camarillo, CA (2006)
- Kenneth A Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids MI (2003)
- Martin Noth, Überlieferungsgeschichtliche Studien: Die Sammelnden und Bearbeitenden Geschichtswerke im Alten Testament, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen (1957)
- Emmet Sweeney, The Pyramid Age, Ages in Alignment, Volume 2, Algora Publishing, New York (2007)
- James Ussher, Larry and Marion Pierce (editors), The Annals of the World, Revised and Updated from the 1658 English Translation, Master Books, Green Forest, AR (2003)
- James Ussher, Annales Veteris et Novi Testamenti, a prima mundi origine deducti, una cum rerum Asiaticarum et Aegyptiacarum chronico, a temporis historici principio usque ad Maccabaicorum initia producto [Annals of the Old Testament, Deduced from the First Origins of the World to the Beginning of the Maccabees, Together with a Chronicle of Asiatic and Egyptian Matters], and Annalium pars posterior [The Latter Part of the Annals], F Crook & G Beddell, London (1650, 1654)
Image Credits
- The Book of Judges: © Caleb Kimbrough, Creative Commons License
- Canaan in the Time of the Judges: © Conforming to Jesus Ministry, Fair Use
- Martin Noth: Copyright Unknown, Fair Use
- Kenneth A Kitchen: © Eerdmans Publishing, Fair Use
- A Rabbi Scholar in His Study: Julius Fehr (artist), Public Domain
- Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki): Anonymous Woodcut, Guillaume de Paris, Postillae Maiores Totius Anni cum Glossis et Quaestionibus, Lyon (1539), Public Domain
- James Ussher: Peter Lely (artist), Cobbe Collection 349, © National Trust Images, National Trust, Hatchlands, Surrey, Fair Use
