Compared to the rest of the Near East, pre-exilic Israelite culture is poorly attested. Archaeological investigations have provided far clearer and more monumental remains for the cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia and for the rest of the Levant than for Israel. However, Palestine has been the target of much more thorough archaeological investigations than any other region of the Near East, and maybe even of the world. If one had to reconstruct the history of Israel on the basis of these findings, the resulting picture would be relatively brief and poor. The reason for this is the nature of the area. The latter was in a marginal position both in terms of natural resources and of political developments, with small-scale settlements and political and cultural developments, especially in comparison with the surrounding areas in the Iron Age.
Then, there were more specific reasons. First, despite having been repeatedly excavated, the capital Jerusalem has provided (and will always provide) very little evidence for the monarchic phase. This is due to the presence of later buildings over the layers of the temple, the palace and the Davidic city. Moreover, the lack of figurative monuments partly derives from the presence of religious movements that were against iconographic representations. Despite the fact that these movements were not so absolute and widespread as the Old Testament would make us believe, they still had a considerable impact. Vaguely similar is the peculiar lack of royal inscriptions, which have been found in many contemporary sites further north. This absence must be due to the cultural choices made with regards to the type of kingship and the relationship existing between the king and his subjects in Israel.
Finally, there was the strong cultural influence of flourishing centres, in particular that of Tyre, and Phoenicia in general. At least this is what can be understood from the Biblical account of the construction of the temple of Solomon, which was supposedly built by workers from Tyre, and the discovery of Phoenician ivories in Samaria. In contrast, the basic material culture of the area is far better attested than in other areas. This is mainly due to the intense excavations in Palestine. In this regard, we possess a detailed and diachronic development of pottery types, houses and building techniques, fortresses and city fortifications, and the overall layout of the cities in the area during the Iron Age.
It is undeniable that the written sources and official monuments found in Palestine may be rather limited. However, the Bible continues to play a crucial role in the reconstruction of the religious, political, literary and institutional history of Israel. Therefore, the importance of the transmitted literary corpus known as the Old Testament could not be more evident. There are two strategies that can be implemented to analyse this complex collection of texts, which is characterised by numerous adaptations and a noticeable distance between the time of the episodes narrated and of the narrator. The first one is to give in to the temptation of using the historical data provided by the Old Testament to reconstruct the periods to which they refer. In other words, one could use the Book of Genesis to reconstruct the ‘Patriarchal’ age, the Book ofJoshua to reconstruct the conquest of Israel, the Book of the Judges to reconstruct the homonymous phase, and so on. The second strategy consists in using these various texts to reconstruct the time in which they were written and the problems that led to their composition. This strategy is far more difficult to implement. It requires the rearrangement of the individual texts, and even the individual textual additions, to precise phases and precise problems, following their internal developments. Despite these issues, this procedure is the only correct one. The first strategy, which has been frequently applied, implies a degree of reliability of the sources that still needs to be demonstrated and is so far not plausible.
Rearranging individual texts, which together form the Old Testament, according to the time they were composed, one notices that the majority of them were written considerably after the time period considered in this book, namely, in the post-exilic phase (that is, the Achaemenid and Hellenistic period). Only a few of them were composed in the exilic phase. Without a doubt, the Old Testament can be better evaluated and appreciated in the context of the second temple rather than the first. It constitutes a monumental example of a re-formulation of the past, and its rewriting as a response to the present, the latter being a much later phase compared to the time narrated.
However, the consideration of the Old Testament here is justified for various reasons. In the critical and textual analysis of the Bible, the (mainly prophetic and historiographical) texts of the exilic and pre-exilic phase, namely, the time of the reformers, correspond to the Deuteronomy. They constitute a precious set of evidence on the final phases of the history of Israel within the historical reconstruction embarked on in this book. Moreover, the entire Old Testament reused and re-organised ancient material, which can be reconstructed and to a certain extent ‘dated’, contextualising it in earlier phases. Moreover, the historiographical re-organisation of the history of Israel in the post-exilic phase was the result of the political and cultural developments of the previous phases, and constitutes a significant aid for the comprehension of its most important aspects. However, it remains crucial to avoid the influence of the pre-dating of developments for theological reasons and the simplifications of a complex history in its final reconstruction.
For the phase of the ‘origins’ of Israel, its actual historical development and its Biblical account are completely different. This is due to the lack of reliable sources for this period, the considerable amount of time that passed when the account was written, and the strong influence of ‘foundational’ motives. For this period, then, our own archaeological and contextual evidence is far more reliable than that which the authors of the sixth to the fourth centuries bc had at their disposal, such as ancient legends, memorised genealogies and aetiologies.
For the monarchic phase it is necessary to make a distinction. The account of the reigns of David and Solomon is largely idealised and overestimated. It was originally developed as an archetypal and optimal model of rule, and is therefore not more reliable than the account on the origins of Israel. The divided monarchy is a different case. Naturally, ideological modifications are also attested for this phase. For instance, the sequence of kings is entirely modelled on their perceived qualities. Therefore, there is a distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ kings, according to the extent to which they worshipped Yahweh. However, regarding the factual information recorded in the Bible, whenever external contemporary evidence has been discovered, this seems to largely confirm the Biblical account of the facts. The stele of Mesha or the Assyrian annals naturally provide a different point of view on the historical developments of the time. Moreover, these interpretations often differ from those provided by the Bible. Nonetheless, the main events recorded largely correspond to the ones attested in the Bible.
Consequently, the biblical authors must have had access to some of the written evidence of the time, possibly some palace ‘chronicles’ or ‘annals’. Perhaps they even accessed some royal inscriptions, the ultimate expressions of an official historiography from the monarchic age. The formal tone and the historiographical maturity of the Bible, however, can only be part of a later development. This makes it impossible to accept the widespread assumption that Israelite historiography had prodigiously anticipated Greek historiography, and had abandoned Near Eastern historiography. Following the current interpretations on the matter, the main historiographical arrangements are the so-called ‘deuteronomistic’ ones of the pre-exilic and exilic phase (sixth to fifth centuries bc), and the ‘sacerdotal’ ones of the post-exilic phase (fourth century bc). Therefore, older material should be understood as part of an ancient tradition, rather than reliable written sources.
The prophetic texts constitute a second set of valuable documents (having removed any later additions or adaptations), due to their proximity to the events narrated. The literary genre of the ‘prophecy’ is simply a strongly theologised ‘code’ of political, rather than ethical or religious, messages. They therefore provide information on both the internal political developments of the kingdoms ofJudah and Israel, and their involvement in the events affecting the Near East as a whole, from their relations with neighbouring kingdoms and populations to the imperial attacks.
The emerging picture is one that could not be attested in official accounts of these events, recording contrasting opinions, alternative strategies, and internal conflicts. Moreover, this picture also emphasises the presence of that theological history mentioned above, and through it the presence of contrasts among the Syro-Levantine nations. The opportunity to catch a glimpse of (for instance) the arguments of the ‘pro-Egyptian’ and ‘pro-Babylonian’ side, or the impact the Assyrian destruction of a kingdom had on the surrounding kingdoms, are extremely rare. This is not because similar situations or debates did not occur elsewhere, but because the Israelite ones are the only ones that have survived to us. They therefore give us an idea of the political climate of the Near East in the Iron Age.
The imperial attacks, the deportations and the exiles, and then the return and the national renaissance of Israel, acted as a stimulus for a large portion of ancient Jewish literature. The three main stages were: 1) the debate over the political strategies to be implemented on a local level, the destiny of the neighbouring states and the function of empires; 2) then, during the exile, the influence of Babylonian (and maybe even Iranian) culture in the realms of historiography, wisdom, narrative and cultic literature; 3) and finally, the great re-writing of the past as part of the political masterplan centred on the second temple. Before these important, yet short, phases, what has survived of ancient Jewish literature is not very different from the rest of Near Eastern literature of the time. The literary, as well as religious, originality of Israel was after all the result of its final phase. The latter led to the political breakdown of the kingdom and the birth ofJudaism. Therefore, the idea that the Bible safeguarded a legacy of ancient knowledge is a phenomenon that needs to be considered, at least in part, as an illusion.
World History
