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what are the difficulties faced by scholars when reconstructing the history and religion of ancient Israel.
In this essay I will be investigating the question in the title, I will be looking at the era from 1200bce till the 4th century. My aim is to outline the history of ancient Israel through biblical sources as well as nonbiblical and archeological, Once I have established these narratives I will look at the why there is a stronger case for some of them rather than others, as well as how using all three could produce a more whole reconstruction of the history and religion of ancient Israel. The short answer to the question in the title are the same difficulties that face any scholar when trying to bring about a reliable reconstruction of the passed, The result is depended on the material from the time, for this essay I will be using the archeological evidence as the primary source for this and the biblical and non-biblical records as the secondary sources. firstly I would like to establish the geographical position of where ancient Israel emerged which is believed to be the beginning of the iron age. Pre dating this by about two millennia the area west of the Euphrates which is now Lebanon and Syria was the land of Canaan. The surrounding area in the ancient near east would later become know as Israel, this area is of importance because of the convergences of Egyptians Assyrian and Hittite empires at that time. Archeological evidence of Canaan is is largely found in the artifacts dated to the time when the region existed under the new kingdom of Egypt, knowledge of Canaan is found in the Amarna letters these are from the period of Pharaoh Akhenaten these letters give an insight into the language and culture of the proto-Canaanites. Other Primary source knowledge has come from the archeological excavations of the late bronze age city of Ugarit now the city of Ras Shamar in Syria. Here are where the Ugaritic text were found, these are important because the language in the text is very similar to that of biblical Hebrew, this could give weight to the influence of many polytheistic ancient Semitic religions not only Canaan but also Egyptian and Babylonian, on what would later become the religion of Israel. I will now begin to look at the Canaanite pantheon and trace the similarities between the pagan religion of Canaan and later monotheistic religion of Israel. This began as a off shoot of the worship of the deity EL and the secondary lesser deity Yahweh. EL being the supreme deity of the Mesopotamia Semitic groups would later become the God of the Hebrew bible. However Yahweh would also become conflated with the supreme deity EL and the storm God Baal thus creating an amalgamation of the three. Early Israelites worshiped Yahweh and his wife Asherah who was originally the wife of El in the Canaanite tradition. The main difference between the God of the Hebrew bible and the God of the Pagan religions is that they had sexual relations and that Yahweh did not, with the focus towards manolotry the worship of one God among many but not denying the existence of other Gods there can be seen in the Hebrew text a divide between that of Yahweh and the older God Baal.Titles of the Canaanite El have been perverse in the Hebrew text. The name Babel is a combination of BAB and EL which means gate of the God. Yahweh was not only El of which Yahweh evolved but also Baal the storm God, this is perhaps why there is so much conflict with in the Hebrew text between Yahweh and Baal. The connection between Yahweh and Baal is undeniable there are many narratives displaying that the Israelite acknowledge this connection, such as exodus 32:8. As I stated earlier there are many parallels between the biblical Hebrew and the Ugaritic text, these depict Baal and Yahweh in a similar light. There can also be seen the influences of Egyptian tradition on Israelite religion, the practice of circumcision is first depicted in an inscription from the tomb of Saqqara dated around 2400bce. Due to the influence of
Egyptian culture on the area it would make sense that this Israelite tradition can be rooted here. Now that I have outlined a background to the emergences of ancient Israel and the influences on the construction of what would become the religion of that group. I will now look at one of the difficulties in that reconstruction, this is the contention between Biblical scholarship and archeology. The crux of this issue is weather or not the Bible can be used as a reliable historical document. If we take the books Exodus, Numbers, Joshua Judges and Samuel they read like historical writing so much so that they raise little suspicion within Biblical scholarship of their credibility. However in wider academic circles they have been contested for these reasons. Different accounts the book of Joshua and the book of Judges tells of destroying the city of Jericho and AI. In Judges the Canaanites still lives in their positions along the coast and they continued to attack the new comers, even though the two accounts in Joshua and Judges are different it was still widely accepted that the Israelites took the land through military conquest. Archeology has focused on many of the places where biblical event are said to have taken place. In the 1930s John Garstang traced the cities history back to the stone age. He believed that his findings confirmed the biblical story of the destruction of Jericho as recorded in the book of Joshua. In the 1950s another British excavator Dame Kathleen Kenyon renewed the work, she concluded that Jericho was uninhabited at the time when the Israel invasion was suppose to take place, this was also the same for excavations of AI which is said to have been abandoned for at least 1000 years before the Israelites were there. A number of the Cainite cities that are said to have been destroyed by Joshua, have the same problem archeology can see if a city has been destroyed but it cannot tell by who?? The super powers of the time Egypt Assyria and Babylonia, were weakened and were losing control of the land of Canaan, this lead to much intercity warfare and unrest. the Philistines where arriving in the region at that time as well and they could of been responsible for some of the destruction. Many of the artifacts that have been found are a continuation of Canaanite culture this is not surprising as we have already established the parallels between early Canaanites and the later ancient Israelites. Other issues arises when we look at the book of Exodus, there are no Egyptian records of the Israelite escape from Egypt or their enslavement. There is also no sources outside of the bible which mention Moses or Joshua.the biblical text are the sole witness to these events. The modern literature that supports the biblical text has been brought through theology and other biblical studies, These sources are problematic when it comes to them being used in constructing and accurate picture of the time considering that the evidence outside the bible is not given due creditability within the wider setting, one critics of biblical scholarship is that it does not incorporate the same methods as historians who engage in historical writing, Another is that biblical claims to territory have been used to back up contempered nationalistic claims to territory. Modern biblical scholarship began in the 19th century and has been largely ignored as historical writing. This is where I have found the most difficulty when it comes to finding sources that bridge the divide that exist between biblical scholarship and the the rest of the academic world. It would appear that biblical scholarship exists largely on its own. The bible as a record has problems due to how is one able to distinguish between what is story and what is interpretation. However within the pent tach there are discreet legal materials the laws in the book of Deuteronomy most likely took place after the fall of the northern kingdoms in the late 8th century be. Another set of laws is a much sorter collection in Exodus this is usually referred to as the covenant code or the book of the covenant, Its is referred to as this because it follows Moses receiving the covenant from God. The legal material contained in these chapter are mostly in the form of case, It can be deduced from this that they come from a society with no king or army. The civil and criminal cases take
up the majority of these example but there are some of moral and ritual concerns. There is indication of the social levels of the members of this society and the economic base, these all point to a period before the monarchy of Israel. The book of the covenant would appear to be edited to provide explanations for various precepts but overall it presupposes agricultural village life the way of life reflected in the laws is rural and simple. We can see from this that there is the understand of liability and respect for property, these are the issues that an isolated rural community would face. These laws would have given stability to an early settlement, but what would have been the name of that community and settlement? The Merpentan Stele may give some insight into this as it has an inscription which referrers to Israel being laid to waste his seed is no more, this was discovered in 1896 by Flinders Petrie. This is the only Egyptian record of Israel perhaps the word seed has a connection to that of agricultural people, This evidence is highly important when it comes to the debate of the origins of Israel. This is a one proposal of how the proto Israelites emerged, because of the political and economic turmoil in the Canaanite states dues to the conflict between the then super powers of the region, scattered farmers and peasants left to set up there own settlements in the hill country. There were probably joined by others wanting to avoid the turmoil at the time most likely from Egypt, there had been Canaanites that had migrated to Egypt who would have returned but not quite in the way the bible describes it in Exodus, The absence of the evidence that Exodus took place may not be the evidence of absence that there was a migration of Canaanites from Egypt. Together these group form the hilltop community which although had influences of Canaanite ways ultimately had departed from them, the values of the villagers perhaps depicted in the book of the covenant became supported by a myth of freedom the experience of the few that fled from Egypt and this became appropriated by the many as an idea of freedom and determination.
From this essay we begin to see some of the difficulties in regards to the study and reconstruction of history and the religion of ancient Israel, much of the archeological research has been concerned with finding specific event weather battles or settlement referred to in the bible. This has created a bias with outcome of the findings, also due to the this bias and the methods in which biblical scholarship has constructed the narrative of the Israelite emergences in the ancient near east this has caused the wider academic field to call into doubt the validity of their results.