Read The Invention of Ancient Israel Online
Authors: Keith W. Whitelam
The mirage of the Israelite monarchy as some all-consuming entity, claiming the past and thereby legitimizing the present, which defined and dominated Palestinian history, is further emphasized by Noth's contention (1960: 193) that David âcreated a great empire extending far beyond the confines of the Israelite tribes, and well rounded-off on all sides, including a greater part of Palestine and Syria'.
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This recurrent theme of âempire', the image of âGreater Israel' shows a complete misunderstanding of the nature of empire or the potential of Palestine itself in relation to surrounding areas. Noth even refers to the Aramean territory of the northern land east of the Jordan as far as Damascus as a âprovince of the empire of David'.
The whole realm had become an extremely complicated political structure and had grown far beyond the confines of a purely Israelite state. It had become a PalestinianâSyrian empire united in the person of the king and embracing numerous different peoples. David's political organization was the first great independent power structure on PalestinianâSyrian soil of which we have knowledge, embracing directly or indirectly most of Palestine and Syria: a tremendous phenomenon from the point of view of world history and basically the achievement of one intelligent and uncommonly successful man. The general historical situation in the Orient had been in his favour. In Egypt and Mesopotamia there was at that time no greater
power which might have encroached on Palestine and Syria and enforced a claim to rule over it.
(Noth 1960: 195)
The imperial power vacuum in the area had allowed David's âempire' to develop in SyriaâPalestine just as the Zionists were able to exploit the power vacuum create by the British resignation of UN mandatory powers. This is the defining moment not
just
in Palestinian history but in world history. The âhistoric' claim of Israel to the past and the present, advanced through the notion of priority, is confirmed in Noth's vision of a Davidic empire: âthe first great independent power structure on PalestinianâSyrian soil of which we have knowledge.'
The cult of personality, the reflex of German historiography that it is the great men who shape history, so evident in Alt's work, finds further expression in Noth's view that âthe existence of David's empire was so dependent on the strong personality of its founder that its survival beyond his death only seemed assured provided a successor of more or less equal stature could be found' (1960: 199). This is reinforced with his final statement on the reign of David that any successor was faced with an âextraordinarily difficult' task in holding together this âcomplicated empire' (1960: 199).
Noth's understanding of the Israelite state under David and Solomon is clearly a reflection of the ideals of the European nation state:
The historical events which took place in the reigns of David and Solomon occasioned extremely great changes in the Israelites' conditions of life. A strong monarchy had relieved them of concern for self-preservation in their particular historical setting and they enjoyed the advantages of living in a state that was not merely powerful but also well governed.
(Noth 1960: 216â17)
Noth is able to state that it is well governed even though he admits (1960: 217) that âwe are told almost nothing of the administrative measures of David's reign, and even for Solomon's we are merely told a few things connected with his buildings and the royal household'. No evidence is offered. The statement could easily have been made of the modern state as the haven for European Jews, represented as the ideal of democracy, strong and well governed. While the state is the defining factor of this imagined past, it is a particular form of state, not one like the monarchies round about. It
is this notion of the ideal of democracy embodied within the Israelite state which provides a solution to the paradox of the monarchy as a denial of the essential theocratic nature of Israel. In terms of the region, Israel is to be distinguished from its neighbours:
These great descriptions of episodes from the history of David have also a special significance in so far as they have established once and for all the fact that the monarchy represented an institution on the soil of Israel which had emerged in history long after the Israelite tribes had settled in Palestine and consolidated their position, and that, after the episode of Saul, David was the first to establish and bequeath to his son the monarchies over Judah and Israel which continued to exist in the history of the people. It was therefore difficult for the idea to emerge in Israel that the institution of the monarchy as such and the actual monarchies in Judah and Israel were elements of the unalterable and everlasting world order. If it is also borne in mind that the problematical nature of the monarchy in general was also felt among the Israelite tribes possibly from the very beginning and with ever-increasing force as time went on ⦠it will be realized that the monarchy was bound to appear in very different light than was the case in the rest of the ancient Orient and, above all, in the ancient oriental empires where monarchy was regarded as an essential element in an everlasting, divine order of things.
(Noth 1960: 223)
Israel of the past as well as the present was a nation set apart, particularly set apart from its own social and political world. Thus Noth continues:
In Israel the monarchy was bound always to be regarded as an institution that had evolved in the process of history and it was precisely under the influence of the historical emergence of the monarchy that the form of historical writing arose in Israel to which there is no counterpart in the world of the ancient Orient. It was the result of Israel's unique historical consciousness which was based on the special nature of its experience of God. It is therefore wrong to apply without question to the monarchy in Israel the ancient oriental ideas of a sacral divine monarchy, with the attendant religious observances.
(Noth 1960: 223)
It is remarkable how closely this is echoed in the perceptions of the modern state of Israel as a nation set apart from its political and cultural context, a civilizing influence in the region. It is the result of âIsrael's unique historical consciousness' which is divinely inspired.
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The formulation of a âSolomonic Enlightenment' by von Rad represents the culmination of the view of the Israelite monarchy as a golden age which defined all subsequent moments in the history of the region. This became the setting and stimulus for the development of Israelite historiography and other wisdom traditions which were to form a major part of the Hebrew Bible:
Thus the golden age of the Hebrew monarchy produced genuine historical works. No other civilization of the ancient Near East was able to do so. Even the Greeks achieved it only at the height of their development in the fifth century, and then as quickly fell away again. Here, on the contrary, we are dealing with a nation which had only just become civilized. The factors which were conducive to this, including the easily learned script, came to them as to the Greeks from the former occupants of their land; but this only makes their achievement the more astonishing. Here, as in all historical situations, we have the insoluble problems of innate ability. By virtue of their achievement in historical writing, realized independently and fully grown from the start, the civilization of Israel must be ranged alongside that which was achieved on the soil of Greece to a richer and fuller degree some centuries later.
(von Rad 1965: 285â6)
The reader is presented with the astounding claim that it is through âinnate ability' that Israel is able to produce historical works âfully formed' even though it had only just become civilized or learned the alphabet. Noticeably, the mark of civilization is statehood. This is indeed a unique culture with which other ancient Near East civilizations do not bear comparison. These other civilizations, it should be remembered, include the great riverine civilizations of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia with their magnificent monuments, graphic art, and extensive literary remains.
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John Bright's
A History of Israel
, a paradigm of âbiblical history', takes the world context of the region possibly more seriously than any other work of this genre. The incursions of the ever-changing imperial powers are carefully catalogued and interwoven into the narrative of the history of Israel. It forms an important backdrop to
understanding the discrete history of Israel. However, the interconnections between the rise and fall of empires and Palestine's place in this dynamic of world power need to be explored further. Imperial control is a constant in the kaleidoscopic history of Palestine but it is usually treated in discrete terms, as part of the unique, unrepeatable events of traditional history, Braudel's
âl'histoire événementielle
'. Yet the concentration on the incursions and battles of various Pharaohs, Assyrian or Babylonian kings, or Persian and Roman generals reveals only a part of the story of this recurrent theme of the region's history. The history of Palestine reveals quite clearly that from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman period, one could say through to the present day, there has been a shifting dynamic of world power which has seen economic and military superiority fluctuate from region to region. The imperial episodes in Palestinian history need to be treated from a comparative perspective in order to reveal their similarities and dissimilarities. The apocalyptic literature of the region often adopts a rigid schema of the succession of empires, a schema mirrored in the reconstructions of our modern âbiblical histories' which then posit a Davidic empire in the power vacuum of the early Iron Age. The failure to appreciate the dynamics of world power and its effect upon the history of the region lies behind the assertion of many biblical scholars and archaeologists of the existence of a Davidic empire. This failure will be explored briefly later in the chapter.
For the present, it is enough to acknowledge, as we have seen above, that Bright's (1972: 179) classic treatment of the rise of the Israelite state, the so-called âunited monarchy' of David and Solomon, which eradicates all other narrations of Palestinian history for the early Iron Age repeats the recurrent themes found in the works of Alt and Noth. Bright (1972: 224) presents the paradox of an Israelite monarchy in even starker terms than Noth. What is fascinating is that although Noth and Bright are represented as protagonists in the discourse of biblical studies in respect of their constructions of the emergence of Israel in Palestine, they share remarkably similar views when it comes to a consideration of the inauguration of an Israelite state. Their disagreements over the use of archaeology disappear since there is little archaeological evidence pertaining to the so-called periods of David and Solomon. Strikingly, they both accept that the biblical texts are basically historically trustworthy and use them as the major source for their constructions which amount to little more than the précis of the narratives of the
books of Samuel and Kings. The model of the nation state, the locus of state archives which are the basis of history writing, becomes so dominant that their constructions of the imagined past of Israel coincide.
Herrmann's history (1975), which stands in the tradition of the scholarship of Alt and Noth, is interesting because he states explicitly that Israel in the pre-monarchic period did not âas yet form a “state” in any way' (1975: 131). He detects the beginnings of the âequally modern conception of a united “people'” but again states that the stimuli for the movement to statehood were external. We are not told how Herrmann is able to detect such things. Again we find the paradox of the essentially alien nature of monarchy to Israel but also the claim that this change in organization brought with it âa new degree of mutual awareness' (1975: 132). Again no justification is offered for such a claim. He then follows the standard practice of paraphrasing and expanding the biblical text in his construction of the reign of Saul. The vexed question of the extent of Saul's kingdom is revealing of some underlying assumptions:
When he became king, he did not take over a clearly defined territory; he was merely acclaimed by a group of tribes about whom unfortunately we know no further details. Saul's âkingdom' was a national state in the original sense of the word, a hegemony over clans and tribes of the same origin; it was not at the same time a territorial state with fixed boundaries and an independent administration.
(Herrmann 1975: 140)
Here is the conception of Israel as a nation seeking out a territory which has pervaded so much of biblical scholarship.
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It becomes transformed and confirmed with David: âHe ruled over a “national” group which was in one sense limited, but whose territory and purpose was far more closely defined than Saul's complex “empire”' (1975: 152). David, on this account, is the founder of a nation state. Herrmann (1975: 156) cites Alt's view that with David's capture of Jerusalem âalmost overnight the stunted city-state becomes the centre of a kingdom which embraces the whole of Palestine'. He moves from this to argue that David is the creator of the nation state:
We may conclude from this that David succeeded where Saul failed in taking the step from a national to a territorial state, to a âkingdom' with more or less fixed boundaries, to a territory
and not just a tribal alliance, under the authority of the king.
(Herrmann 1975: 157)
Revealingly, we are told that this state had to incorporate other âethnic groups': âThe result was that the so-called “Canaanite problem” became not only an acute domestic political difficulty but also above all a religious danger' (1975: 157). This has been the critical problem for the modern state following the wars of 1967 and 1973, both of which preceded the publication of Herrmann's history. His choice of phraseology is intriguing: he refers to the âCanaanite problem' faced by the Israelite state. It parallels the âPalestinian problem' confronting the modern state of Israel which was apparent for all to see in the early 1970s, and earlier, but which remained unspoken in the discourse of biblical studies. Significantly, for Herrmann, the problem is not one of the rights of the âCanaanites' but the danger which they pose from inside to the unity and security of the Israelite nation state.