Read The Invention of Ancient Israel Online
Authors: Keith W. Whitelam
The invention of Israel's past is confirmed in Wright's classic treatment,
Biblical Archaeology
, in which he points out that, with the meticulous development of archaeology in the twentieth century, it has become possible to differentiate âbetween early Israelite towns and those of the Canaanites whom the Hebrews could not drive out, to trace the evidences of the Israelite Conquest of Canaan' (1962: 24â5). The key element here is the differentiation between Israel and the indigenous population. This is borne out by Albright's excavation of Bethel, in which Wright participated, and which revealed evidence of a massive destruction of the city. However, the conclusion he draws from this is revealing of his underlying assumption:
The Canaanite city destroyed was a fine one with excellent houses, paved or plastered floors and drains. Compared with them the poor straggly houses of the next town were poverty itself. The break between the two is so complete that there can be no doubt but that this was the Israelite destruction.
(Wright 1962: 81)
No evidence is offered for this dogmatic statement except the implicit assumption that the destruction layer and poor settlement which follow indicate that there must have been a dramatic break in
culture which can only be explained in terms of external invasion. He confirms this with his explanation of the destruction of Tell Beit Mirsim: âAs was the case at Bethel, the new town founded in the ashes was so different from the preceding one that we must think of a new people having built it, a people who must have been Israelites, or closely related to them' (Wright 1962: 83). Once again, no evidence is offered for this conclusion and he goes even further with the assertion that the destruction âmust have been' the result of invading Israelites or some group closely related to them. The indigenous population is destroyed and its voice silenced in the relentless search for ancient Israel. He believes that he âcan safely conclude that during the 13th century a portion at least of the later nation of Israel gained entrance to Palestine by a carefully planned invasion' (1962: 84). The search for Israel determined the interpretation of the archaeological evidence so that material artifacts are given an ethnic label which allows them to be used to differentiate between Israel and the indigenous Palestinian population even though there is nothing in the archaeological record which would permit such a conclusion.
The corollary of this is the theological assumption that Israel, and thereby its spiritual heirs in Christianity, is a unique entity which can be confirmed by the archaeologist's spade:
We can now see that though the Bible arose in that ancient world, it was not entirely of it; though its history and its people resemble those of the surrounding nations, yet it radiates an atmosphere, a spirit, a faith, far more profound and radically different than any other ancient literature.
(Wright 1962: 27)
Israel of the ancient world is set apart from its environment just as modern Israel is often described as set apart from the rest of the Middle East. Its special status, then, means that the conquest of Palestine is not a problem: it is in fact part of the divine plan: âThe deliverance from slavery in Egypt and the gift of a good land in which to dwell were to Israel God's greatest acts on her behalf' (Wright 1962: 69). What it results in, following the ceremony at Shechem (Joshua 24), is âa united Israel with a common national heritage' (1962: 78).
The culmination of the pervasive influence of an invention of an Israelite conquest of Palestine is to be found in John Bright's
A History of Israel
, first published in 1960, which has shaped the ideas
and assumptions of generations of students and scholars.
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Despite the fact that the Albright-Bright position has long been seen as in direct opposition to the AltâNoth hypothesis, as we have noted, it is remarkable to note how many important assumptions they share. These are the very assumptions that emphasize the uniqueness and superiority of Israel and the inferiority of the indigenous Palestinian population: assumptions which underline Israel's right to the land and justify the dispossession of the Palestinians. In his opening remarks, when setting the scene, to his discussion of the Exodus and Conquest traditions, he refers to Israel as âa peculiar people' (1960: 97). Strikingly, he then adds that by the end of the thirteenth century BCE âwe find the people Israel settled on the land that was to be theirs through the centuries to come' (1960: 97). Bright clearly assumes that the land, Palestine, belongs to Israel. No consideration is given to the claims to the land of the indigenous population. Although he argues that Israel comes from outside Palestine, there seems to be no question that the land naturally belongs to this âpeculiar people'. Underlying Bright's construction of this period, and all other periods, is the assumption, prevalent in the discourse of biblical studies, as we have seen, that Israel is unique and set aside from its environment. It informs every aspect of his work, as articulated in the preface:
The history of Israel is the history of a people which came into being at a certain point in time as a league of tribes united in a covenant with Yahweh, which subsequently existed as a nation, then as two nations, and finally as a religious community, but which was at all times set off from its environment as a distinctive cultural entity. The distinguishing factor that made Israel the peculiar phenomenon that she was, which both created her society and was the controlling factor in her history, was of course her religion.
(Bright 1960: 9)
The use of this volume as the standard textbook on Israelite history in British and American universities and seminaries has ensured that this classic statement on the concept of Israelite uniqueness, its separation from its environment, and by implication the contrast with indigenous culture, has been read and absorbed by countless numbers of students for two to three decades.
Bright acknowledges the material and cultural achievements of âCanaan' with its impressive urban culture and the invention of
writing (1960: 107â8). Yet its indigenous religion is immoral and corrupt: âCanaanite religion, however, presents us with no pretty picture. It was, in fact, an extraordinarily debasing form of paganism, specifically of the fertility cult' (1960: 108). This is in contrast to Israelite religion which was âquite without parallel in the ancient world'; it was this that âset Israel off from her environment and made her the distinctive and creative phenomenon that she was' (1960: 128). Israel's moral purity is reinforced with his assertion that Palestine possessed âthe sort of religion which Israel, however much she might borrow of the culture of Canaan, could never with good conscience make peace' (1960: 109). The way in which Israel is set apart from its environment is reinforced by an assumption shared with Alt and Noth that the indigenous population was incapable of developing sophisticated political systems: âThough a cultural unit, Canaan was politically without identity' (1960: 109). The evolutionary scheme, common to both hypotheses, and an integral part of the discourse of biblical studies, extends to political and religious institutions: Palestine represents a branch of the evolutionary tree which fails to reach the pinnacle of evolution, the nation state and monotheistic faith, the hallmarks of European and American civilization. It becomes inevitable, under such a scheme, that the degenerate and static native cultures were surpassed and replaced by Israelite and Western civilization.
Both models presumed a now outmoded evolutionary view of social and political development from nomads/semi-nomads to sedentary groups. The American hypothesis shared with its German counterpart the assumption that Israel settled at first in the scarcely populated hill country of Palestine. Bright sets the stage for his description of the Israelite conquest of Canaan by preparing the reader with the suggestion and assertion that Israel was about to introduce a moral and political order into the region in just the same way that the Israel of his own day was often presented as the bearer of (European/Western) civilization into a region that was politically divided and morally bankrupt. The cultural achievements of Palestine are only mentioned in passing to be overshadowed by the inabilities of a religiously corrupt population to form itself into a meaningful political organization, i.e. it was incapable of crossing the threshold to statehood. Palestine, before the intervention of Israel, was merely a patchwork of petty city-states under Egyptian control which was left âdisorganized and helpless' (1960: 109) with the collapse of Egyptian power. Furthermore, the real controlling
assumption of Bright's conception of history, or at least Israelite history, is revealed in the following sentence: âIt was this, humanly speaking, that made the Israelite conquest possible' (1960: 109). Underlying this is the belief that it is the divine which controls the course of history.
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Little wonder then that there is no need to question Israel's right to the land; it is, after all, the gift of God. Israel becomes both the progenitor and the carrier of European civilization which has to be introduced from outside the region if it is to develop along the evolutionary political and religious scale.
Bright (1960: 117) is in no doubt that the biblical tradition of a conquest is historical and âought no longer to be denied'; as it was, of course, by German scholarship following Alt and Noth. This is seen as the pivotal disagreement between the two major hypotheses which dominated the discourse of biblical studies for half a century from the early 1920s to the 1970s. Such a presentation has obscured the critical shared assumptions which have been instrumental in helping to silence Palestinian history. For Bright, as for his mentor Albright, the process is understood primarily in terms of the âIsraelite conquest' or âIsraelite occupation' of Palestine. Bright acknowledges the biblical traditions of a protracted and âpeaceful' process but argues that the archaeological evidence for the destruction of key urban centres in Palestine leads him to the conclusion that âit may be regarded as certain that a violent irruption into the land took place in the thirteenth century!' (1960: 120). He follows the standard assumption that Israel first settled in the sparsely populated hill country and later defeated the urban centres of the lowlands. He provides a striking description of this process which could easily have been written about the consequences of the foundation of the modern state of Israel:
The incompleteness of the conquest, however, is evident. Israel was unable to occupy either the coastal plain or the Plain of Esdraelon, while the Canaanite enclaves â such as Jerusalem (Judges 1: 21), which was not taken until the time of David (2 Samuel 5: 6â10) â remained in the mountains as well. Since most of these areas, however, were ultimately incorporated into Israel, this means that Israel was later to include people whose ancestors had not only not taken part in the conquest, but had actively resisted it!
(Bright 1960:122)
He does not go as far as Alt in claiming that these indigenous groups
did not expect equality of treatment. None the less, Bright's model of ancient Israel is one which is remarkably similar to the modern state in which large numbers of Palestinians were incorporated into the new state boundaries, particularly in 1948 and then later after the conflicts in 1967 and 1974.
Israel's right to the land in Bright's construction is based largely upon the right of conquest, although he argues that there is evidence to support the view that Israelite elements were in Palestine prior to the main conquest (1960: 122). This view again is in remarkable accord with the modern situation where there was a significant Jewish presence in Palestine prior to the Zionist immigration of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and the conflict which led to the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. His summary description of the process echoes Albright and Wright in ignoring the rights of the indigenous population:
In the latter half of the thirteenth century there took place, as archaeological evidence abundantly attests, a great onslaught upon western Palestine, which, however incomplete it may have been, broke the back of organized resistance and enabled Israel to transfer her tribal center there. There is no reason to doubt that this conquest was, as The Book of Joshua depicts it, a bloody and brutal business. It was the Holy War of Yahweh, by which he would give his people the Land of Promise. At the same time, it must be remembered that the herem was applied only in certain cases; the Canaanite population was by no means exterminated. Much of the land occupied by Israel was thinly populated, and much inhabited by elements who made common cause with her. Israel's victories occasioned wholesale accessions to her numbers. Clans and cities came over en masse and were incorporated into her structure in solemn covenant (Joshua 24). Among those absorbed either at once or later were Khapiru elements and various towns of central Palestine, the Gibeonite confederacy (chapter 9), Galilean clans and towns, as well as groups (Kenizites, Kenites, etc.), many of them already Yahwist, who had infiltrated the land from the south and mingled with Judah. Though the process of absorption was to go on for some time, Israel's tribal structure speedily filled out and assumed its normative form. With this the history of the people of Israel may be said to have begun.
(Bright 1960:126â7)
Israel's history begins, while Palestinian history ends. The past belongs to Israel; the indigenous population, whether absorbed or slaughtered, has no claim on this past.
M. Weippert's survey (1971) and restatement of the Alt hypothesis stresses that the debate between the schools of Alt and Albright was not about historical details as much as the principles of historiography. This is true in the sense that it was a debate over the relative values of the biblical traditions and âexternal evidence', particularly the growing body of archaeological data from the 1920s onwards. However, this obscures the fact that, in important aspects, both schools shared important assumptions about the nature of Israel and its occupation/conquest of Palestine. Neither questioned the right of Israel to the land or raised the issue of the rights of the dispossessed indigenous population. In both cases, they assumed a model of the past which was directly related to and shaped by their own time: in the case of the Baltimore school, this was particularly influenced by the evangelical Christian persuasion of its participants. The real methodological issues which influenced these constructions of ancient Israel were hidden from the reader and have remained hidden and unspoken throughout the whole discourse of biblical studies. The search for ancient Israel, by both German and American scholarship, had resulted in its invention at a critical point in the history of the region, the Late Bronze-Iron Age transition. These inventions served to silence and exclude the history of ancient Palestine. At this point, Israel was Palestine: Palestine and its history, Palestinian time and space, are completely subsumed by Israel and its claims to the past as presented by the major figures of Western biblical scholarship.