deserves preference where precise distinction is unnecessary or impossible.
The traditions which prevailed among the Hebrews concerning their origin belong to a time when Judah and Israel were regarded as a unit. Twelve divisions or tribes, of which Judah was one, held together by a traditional sentiment, were traced back to the sons of Jacob (otherwise known as Israel), the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham. Their names vary in origin and probably also in point of age, and where they represent fixed territorial limits, the districts so described were in some cases certainly peopled by groups of non-Israelite ancestry. But as tribal names they invited explanation, and of the many characteristic traditions which were doubtless current a number have been preserved, though not in any very early dress. Close relationship was recognized with the Aramaeans, with Edom, Moab and Ammon. This is characteristically expressed when Esau, the ancestor of Edom, is represented as the brother of Jacob, or when Moab and Ammon are the children of Lot, Abraham’s nephew (see Genealogy: Biblical). Abraham, it was believed, came from Harran (Carrhae), primarily from Babylonia, and Jacob re-enters from Gilead in the north-east with his Aramaean wives and concubines and their families (Benjamin excepted). It is on this occasion that Jacob’s name is changed to Israel. These traditions of migration and kinship are in themselves entirely credible, but the detailed accounts of the ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as given in Genesis, are inherently doubtful as regards both the internal conditions, which the (late) chronological scheme ascribes to the first half of the second millennium B.C., and the general circumstances of the life of these strangers in a foreign land. From a variety of independent reasons one is forced to conclude that, whatever historical elements they may contain, the stories of this remote past represent the form which tradition had taken in a very much later age.
Opinion is at variance regarding the patriarchal narratives as a whole. To deny their historical character is to reject them as trustworthy accounts of the age to which they are ascribed, and even those scholars who claim that they are essentially historical already go so far as to concede idealization and the possibility or probability of later revision. The failure to apprehend historical method has often led to the fallacious argument that the trustworthiness of individual features justifies our accepting the whole, or that the elimination of unhistorical elements will leave an historical residuum. Here and frequently elsewhere in biblical history it is necessary to allow that a genuine historical tradition may be clothed in an unhistorical dress, but since many diverse motives are often concentrated upon one narrative (e.g. Gen. xxxii. 22-32, xxxiv., xxxviii.), the work of internal historical criticism (in view of the scantiness of the evidence) can rarely claim finality. The patriarchal narratives themselves belong to the popular stock of tradition of which only a portion has been preserved. Many of the elements lie outside questions of time and place and are almost immemorial. Some appear written for the first time in the book of Jubilees, in “the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs” (both perhaps 2nd century B.C.) and in later sources; and although in Genesis the stories are now in a post-exilic setting (a stage earlier than Jubilees), the older portions may well belong to the 7th or 6th cent. This question, however, will rest upon those criteria alone which are of true chronological validity (see further Genesis).
The story of the settlement of the national and tribal ancestors in Palestine is interrupted by an account of the southward movement of Jacob (or Israel) and his sons into a district under the immediate influence of the kings of Egypt. After an interval of uncertain duration we find in Exodus a numerous people subjected to rigorous oppression. No longer individual sons of Jacob or Israel, united tribes were led out by Moses and Aaron; and, after a series of incidents extending over forty years, the “children of Israel” invaded the land in which their ancestors had lived. The traditions embodied in the books Exodus-Joshua are considerably later than the apparent date of the events themselves, and amid the diverse and often conflicting data it is possible to recognize distinct groups due to some extent to distinct historical conditions. The story of the “exodus” is that of the religious birth of “Israel,” joined by covenant with the national god Yahweh[1] whose aid in times of peril and need proved his supremacy. In Moses (q.v.) was seen the founder of Israel’s religion and laws; in Aaron (q.v.) the prototype of the Israelite priesthood. Although it is difficult to determine the true historical kernel, two features are most prominent in the narratives which the post-exilic compiler has incorporated: the revelation of Yahweh, and the movement into Palestine. Yahweh had admittedly been the God of Israel’s ancestors, but his name was only now made known (Exod. iii. 13 sqq., vi. 2 seq.), and this conception of a new era in Yahweh’s relations with the people is associated with the family of Moses and with small groups from the south of Palestine which reappear in religious movements in later history (see Kenites). Amid a great variety of motives the prominence of Kadesh in south Palestine is to be recognized, but it is uncertain what clans or tribes were at Kadesh, and it is possible that traditions, originally confined to those with whom the new conception of Yahweh is connected, were subsequently adopted by others who came to regard themselves as the worshippers of the only true Yahweh. At all events, two quite distinct views seem to underlie the opening books of the Old Testament. The one associates itself with the ancestors of the Hebrews and has an ethnic character. The other, part of the religious history of “Israel,” is essentially bound up with the religious genius of the people, and is partly connected with clans from the south of Palestine whose influence appears in later times. Other factors in the literary growth of the present narratives are not excluded (see further § 8, and Exodus, The).[2]
6. The Monarchy of Israel.—The book of Joshua continues the fortunes of the “children of Israel” and describes a successful occupation of Palestine by the united tribes. This stands in striking contrast to other records of the partial successes of individual groups (Judg. i.). The former, however, is based upon the account of victories by the Ephraimite Joshua over confederations of petty kings to the south and north of central Palestine, apparently the specific traditions of the people of Ephraim describing from their standpoint the entire conquest of Palestine.[3] The book of Judges represents a period of unrest after the settlement of the people. External oppression and internal rivalries rent the Israelites, and in the religious philosophy of a later (Deuteronomic) age the period is represented as one of alternate apostasy from and of penitent return to the Yahweh of the “exodus.” Some vague recollection of known historical events (§ 3 end) might be claimed among the traditions ascribed to the closing centuries of the second millennium, but the view that the prelude to the monarchy was an era when individual leaders “judged” all Israel finds no support in the older narratives, where the heroes of the age (whose correct sequence is uncertain) enjoy only a local fame. The best historical narratives belong to Israel and Gilead; Judah scarcely appears, and in a relatively old poetical account of a great fight of the united tribes against a northern adversary lies outside the writer’s horizon or interest (Judg. v., see Deborah). Stories of successful warfare and of temporary leaders (see Abimelech; Ehud; Gideon; Jephthah) form an introduction to the institution of the Israelite monarchy, an epoch of supreme importance in biblical history. The heroic figure who stands at the head is Saul (“asked”), and two accounts of his rise are recorded. (1) The Philistines, a foreign people whose presence in Palestine
- ↑ On the name see Jehovah, Tetragrammaton.
- ↑ The story of Joseph has distinctive internal features of its own, and appears to be from an independent cycle, which has been used to form a connecting link between the Settlement and the Exodus; see also Ed. Meyer, Die Israeliten u. ihre Nachbarstämme (1906), pp. 228, 433; B. Luther, ibid. pp. 108 seq., 142 sqq. Neither of the poems in Deut. xxxii. seq. alludes to an escape from Egypt; Israel is merely a desert tribe inspired to settle in Palestine. Apparently even the older accounts of the exodus are not of very great antiquity; according to Jeremiah ii. 2, 7 (cf. Hos. ii. 15) some traditions of the wilderness must have represented Israel in a very favourable light; for the “canonical” view, see Ezekiel xvi., xx., xxiii.
- ↑ The capture of central Palestine itself is not recorded; according to its own traditions the district had been seized by Jacob (Gen. xlviii. 22; cf. the late form of the tradition in Jubilees xxxiv.). This conception of a conquering hero is entirely distinct from the narratives of the descent of Jacob into Egypt, &c. (see Meyer and Luther, op. cit. pp. 110, 227 seq., 415, 433).
