D'var Hanukkah: A teaching on Chag HaBanot

I’d like to share some new things I learned about the holiday of Hanukkah this year. As you know, if you were counting your candles, tonight is the 6th night of Hanukkah, which means tomorrow is, of course, the 7th night.

Does anyone here know about anything specifically special the 7th night … ?

Well, until a few days ago, I didn’t either. But it turns out that in some parts of the world, the 7th night of Hanukkah is its own special and distinct holiday. Let me explain …

It is true that Hanukkah is mostly a holiday about warriors and priests, Maccabees and Temple rituals. But in some parts of the world, the holiday has also become associated with special traditions concerning women and girls, via the story of Judith.

As an apocryphal book of the Bible, the Book of Judith has the same status as the Books of the Maccabbees, which tell the story of Hanukkah. But unlike the Maccabbees, which contain a full cast of male characters, the Book of Judith focuses on the heroic acts of one single woman.

This woman does one small but very important thing, and that is she tricks a military general by plying him with a bunch of salty cheeses, which prompts him to drink way too much alcohol and fall asleep. What the general had been planning to do was have an amorous role in the sheep tent with Judith before slaughtering all the Jews. Instead, the poor general wound up literally losing his head to Judith’s sword, and in that way, she was able to save the Jewish people.

In the middle ages, perhaps because of the arisal of anti-Semitism, Judith became a foremost Hanukkah heroine. Her figure was frequently depicted on menorahs, and the tradition developed of eating cheese dishes, to commemorate her clever strategy.

How did Judith’s story become entwined with the Hanukkah celebration? No one really knows. It might be because of the thematic connection between Judith and the Maccabees, both stories are about overthrowing a malevolent enemy army. Or it might also be because Hanukkah is the only Jewish holiday that includes a Rosh Chodesh – the monthly festival of the New Moon, and Rosh Chodesh is the quintessential women’s holiday.

In observant communities today, Rosh Chodesh is very much a living and breathing holiday. On that one day each month, women essentially get a Get Out of Work free card – they don’t have to do any work (at least in theory). It is said that this “holiday” is a reward for the fact that women did not give up their gold to make the golden calf.

Rosh Chodesh always falls on the 7th night of Hanukkah, which is tomorrow, and for women in North Africa, it became a kind of holiday within a holiday called Chag HaBanot, the festival for daughters. On this day, girls and brides received special gifts, and families retold the story of the book of Judith.

In countries such as Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, and Morocco, a variety of customs surrounded Chag HaBanot evolved, which I recently learned about from some writings by Rabbi Jill Hammer. Unfortunately, because the Jewish populations in these countries have essentially died out, the traditions seem to have died out along with them.

One tradition was for women to come to the synagogue, touch the Torah, and pray for the health of their daughters. Mothers would give their daughters gifts, and bridegrooms would give gifts to their brides.

Another tradition was for old and young women would come together to dance, and for girls who were fighting to make extra efforts at reconciliation.

Often there was a feast in honor of Judith, where participants would eat cheese to remember Judith's subterfuge; and women might also take food from a ritual meal of Talmud scholars and give it to their daughters, to protect them from harm.

There was also a custom of passing down inheritances on Chag HaBanot.

While these traditions have largely gone by the wayside, I think we can use them as an inspiration or a genesis for new practices on the 7th night of Hanukkah. For example, we can use candle-lighting tomorrow as a chance to talk with our children or grandchildren about the contributions Jewish women have made to history – whether that heroine is Judith or Golda Meir, or even Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

At a minimum, since tomorrow is Shabbat and Hanukkah and Rosh Chodesh, I think it is three really great reasons not to do any work AT ALL. Drink some cocoa, take a walk, and make someone else do the cooking for a change!

The real story of Hanukkah

This is the third in a series of newsletter columns, written for the Temple where I am a rabbinic intern:

As the Bible’s favorite melancholist, Ecclesiastes, put it עת לפרוץ ועת לבנות -- there is a time to tear down and a time to build up (3:3). It’s a phrase that has crossed my mind many times in rabbinical school, where an inescapable part of the process seems to be learning that the “truths” we grew up with aren’t quite what they were cracked up to be.

In the first year of school, I learned the distinction between “law” and “tradition” (or minhag). Before that year, so many things that seemed sacrosanct, were, I found out, merely social customs that had evolved in certain parts of the Jewish world. This isn’t to say that traditions don’t carry weight, but the revelation opened up an entire range of choices that had never existed before – which is both freeing and frightening.

For years I had heard it was forbidden to name a child after a living relative. It turns out, that’s minhag, and minhag only among Ashkenazi communities. Sephardic communities consider it an honor to name a child after a living relative. What prayers we say during Friday and Saturday services are hugely dependent on minhag – so much so it can be challenging to lead services in liberal communities where people are open to experimentation. Figuring out which prayers you have to keep in and which are optional takes far more skill than the “traditional” mode of prayer where everything is done by rote.

The second year of school, during the second week of biblical history class, we were told that the Exodus may have never happened and that we didn’t emigrate from Egypt – the early Israelites were actually no different from Canaanites. Well, if that doesn’t constitute “tearing down,” I don’t know what does! Suffice it to say, we spent nearly an hour “processing” those tidbits of biblical scholarship and sharing how we felt about them.

Now, this year, in my rabbinic history class, we spent several weeks exploring the Hanukkah story, and learning all sorts of sordid details about the Maccabean heros that are conveniently left out of children’s stories.

The basics of the story are simple enough: The Maccabees were a Jewish liberation movement that won independence from the Hellenistic leader Antiochus. They founded a royal dynasty, called the Hasmoneans, and established independence in the land of Israel for about 100 years (164 – 63 BCE).

The details get a little more complicated. While it is true that Antiochus was issuing ever-stricter edicts against the Jewish people, his actions were actually a reaction against growing nationalism and insurgency by small bands of what might be called Jewish “traditionalists” – Jews opposed to the Hellenistic (Greek-influenced) behaviors of the majority Jews around them. Antiochus' crackdown was basically an attempt to quell disorder and inter-Jewish conflict. As one of my classmate’s put it: It would be like a group of orthodox Jews today starting an insurgency against liberal Jews, believing they are behaving “too American.” And the orthodox winning!

With the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty, a series of strict (and, we would believe) repressive laws were put into place against “progressive” (or Hellenistic) life. Worst of all, the Hasmoneans established illegitimate rule at the Jerusalem Temple, which caused conflict for generations.

“The Hasmonean experience was to have a profound impact upon Judaism in Judea and its environs,” explains Martin S. Jaffee in his book Early Judaism. “The bitterness spawned in the battle against Hellenism did not dissipate with the Hasmonean victory. To the contrary, as the Hasmonean dynasty wore on, it was routinely accused by outsiders to power of betraying the original ideals of the anti-Hellenistic revolution, of outdistancing even the ancient Hellenizers in diluting the pure essence of Judaism. Opponents could easily question the legitimacy of Hasmonean political leadership from two perspectives: as Kings, the leaders were not Davidic; as High Priests, they were not descended from Aaron through Zadok. From the mid-second century BCE and after … the Temple and its priesthood became a source of conflict… ."

So there you have it: the “real” story of Hanukkah! I think it illustrates beautifully why adult Jewish learning is so important. I love the children’s version, and would never want to change it – but look at how much richer and more textured the story becomes when we explore it as grownups!

The Binding of Isaac: a seven-minute d'var Torah

D'var Torah * The Binding of Isaac

Rosh Hashanah 2008

The Torah portion we study today is one of the most famous in the Bible. It is known as the Binding of Isaac. Our tale begins at Genesis 22, when Avraham is told by God to bring his son Isaac to a mountaintop to sacrifice him. Obediently, Avraham travels for three days, and once at the mountain’s peak, binds him down. Only after his knife is raised does an angel of God intervene and provide a ram in Isaac’s place. The angel says: “Now I know that you are God-fearing, and you did not withhold your son, your only one, from me.” (Bereishit, 22:12).

In virtually any contemporary discussion about the Akeidah, the feeling that often becomes central is our feelings of horror. What father would even consider sacrificing his child? And what kind of God would even ask such a thing?

These are troubling questions to us as modern Jews, and as American Jews the story upsets us on yet another level. How is it that our religion can glorify such an act of blind obedience? Blind faith is a repugnant notion to an audience like ours, steeped in Democratic values.

Acknowledging these feelings is important to do, but to dwell on them is, I believe, to miss the point. Of course notions like human sacrifice and blind obedience are troublesome to contemporary ears, but this story did not evolve in our contemporary world.

I would like to challenge you to image this story as if you were in the audience for whom it was originally intended. Imagine it is 2,500 years ago, and you are living in exile in Babylonia. The Temple, which now lies in ruins, was the focal point of your entire religious life – and you are now struggling to preserve your Jewish identity in a foreign land.

Animal sacrifice, of course, is no longer possible. Prayer services and Passover seders have not yet been created. But what you can do is listen to the stories of your people.

Biblical scholars believe that it was during our 50 years in Babylonian exile that many of the oral traditions that make up the five books of the Torah were finally committed to parchment. Writing them down was a way of ensuring our survival and preventing assimilation. To these people in exile, the story of the Akeidah gave three very important messages:

First, the depiction of Abraham as a man of unfailing obedience made him the perfect mythical ancestor. The patriarch of the Jewish people – the story proudly says – has so much strength and faith that he would actually kill his own son at God’s request. In a society where values like free thought had not evolved, and where men of military might and faith were ideolized, Abraham must have been a comforting hero to have.

Second, the use of a ram as a sacrifice would have been familiar to an audience who could no longer sacrifice rams at the Temple. It would have given them hope to think that just as they had sacrificed animals to God for ages – going way back to the days of Abraham – they will one day sacrifice them again. The exile will end, the Temple will be rebuilt, and life will return as it was.

Finally, even the notion of God’s request for human sacrifice would not have been so strange to the Jews in Babylonia. Up until this time, Jews had lived for hundreds of years surrounded by various pagan peoples, some of whom reputedly sacrificed children. Judaism, of course, rejected this, and what the Akeidah did was bring this difference to the forefront. In this way, the story became a statement of Jewish moral superiority and a strong incentive for Jews to stick to their own.

The challenge today, of course, is realizing that such a stark moral paradigm no longer exists between our religion and the religion of our neighbors. The Akeidah no longer survives as a rallying cry to embrace our faith and our people. The challenge then, becomes not What do we do with the Akeidah? But rather, What stories, what words do we need to tell our communities to inspire this kind of devotion?

It’s a challenge that faces each of us in this room – regardless of whether we are raising children or working in leadership in Jewish communities. By committing ourselves in the coming year to reaching out to each other, and creating spaces and moments that make our time together special, we are engaging in this holy work of strengthening our community.

Shana tova, u’metukah. May you have a healthy new year of prosperity, joy and friendship.

Artwork: http://www.nuchi.com/

Who needs Halloween when we’ve got Jewish magic?

One of my duties with my rabbinic internship at a Reform temple is to write a monthly column for the congregational newsletter. This is the second column, for the month of October.

After having taught at a good half-dozen religious school now – schools spanning the entire Reform/Conservative/Reconstructionist spectrum – I always find it interesting to see how congregations navigate the “Halloween dilemma.”

While on one hand few families I know seriously question whether they should allow their kids to dress up and go trick-or-treating, the religious schools that educate these kids often have very intense discussions about the holiday, especially when it lands on a school day. Should the kids be invited to come to school in a costume? How should teachers react if the kids aren’t invited to dress up, but show up in costumes anyway?

Most thorny of all: Should school be cancelled? On the one hand, if you cancel it, you’re basically sanctioning the observance of a pagan/Christian holiday. But if you don’t cancel it, half the kids will be absent! The most ingenious solution I once heard about was the congregation that scheduled a teacher’s meeting on Halloween. That way, the kids who wouldn’t have shown up anyway wouldn’t technically be absent, but the school wouldn’t technically be cancelled. Clever!

For my part, I love teaching religious school on Halloween because it gives me a chance to teach about one of my favorite topics: Judaism and magic. At first blush, people are often shocked to see these two words in the same subject line, but the truth is, our tradition has a long and rich magical tradition that began in the days of the Torah, became particularly rich in the middle ages, and in some communities, continues on even to this day! (Check out some practices found in certain Israeli Sephardic communities if you don’t believe me).

Jewish magic is mentioned as early as Deuteronomy 18, where various groups of diviners, astrologers and exorcists are named, and their ceremonies are prohibited as idolatrous. The fact these practices are derided so repeatedly in the biblical canon (Kings 21:6, II Chronicles 33:6, Micah 11, Jeremiah 26:9, and so on and so on) is evidence of just how widespread these practices actually were!

For all these instances of divination or magic being criticized, there are other instances in which similar-sounding acts are described as legitimate forms of worship, some even taking place in the Temple itself! The purifying ritual of the red heifer (Numbers 19) and the scapegoat ritual of Yom Kippur (Leviticus 16) depict what are essentially magical acts: the mysterious ability of ritual to effect change on a spiritual or cosmic plane. The Sotah ritual of a suspected adulteress in Numbers 5:11 is a particularly peculiar ritual in which a potion has the mysterious ability to reveal the truth – a soothsaying of sorts.

And let us not forget the very presence of the prophets themselves! While scripture goes to great lengths to admonish anyone who claims to predict or affect the future (“There shall not be found among you any one who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or who uses divination, or a soothsayer, or an enchanter, or a magician, or a charmer, or a medium or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination to the Eternal!” Deut 18:10) – the entire second section of Tanakh is dedicated to the sermons of men doing precisely these things!

What is the difference between a prophet and a magician?

About the same difference as there is between an “environmentalist” and a “tree-hugger.” The truth is in the eye of the beholder. The person with the pen gets to decide which is a legitimate sign from God, and which is a divinatory act of “abomination.”

Not surprisingly, these lines are drawn in all the places you’d expect them to be. When the person doing the supernatural act is affiliated with the Temple cult or supports their agenda – they are receiving a sign from God. When the person engaging in divination is an outsider or even an opponent to the Temple-sanctioned polemic – it becomes magic.

I hope you enjoyed this short mini-lesson on magic and the Bible. The truth is, this only touches the tip of the textual iceberg! The Talmud, Apocryphal literature and medieval writings all reveal their own rich and fascinating versions of magic – and what better time of year to study some of these treasures than at Halloween!?

Part 7: The Babylonian exile

For the 150 years that the Israelites were reduced to the Southern Kingdom, their neighboring superpowers of the Babylonians and Assyrians skirmished with each other. With the rise of Nebuchadnezzar II in 626 BCE, the balance of power began shifting to the Babylonians’ favor. In 605, he conquered Egypt, and in 598, the first Judeans began being deported to Babylonia. The governor at the time, Zedekiah, rebelled in 587, and the kingdom fell in 576. Zedekiah’s sons were killed, and he was blinded and also shipped away.

(Above right: The Middle East, c. 600 BC, showing the extent of the Neo-Babylonian empire).

Judea’s priests, scribes and land-holding elite was sent to Babylonia, and the 50 years they spent in exile there have been the subject of much academic debate. It used to be thought that the five books of the Torah were finalized during this time – an activity of intense scribal activity by an exile community desperate to cling onto their identity. But this is no longer believed to be the case.

While it appears the exiles were allowed to live in the same areas and maintain their worship practices in Babylonia, they would not have had access to the foundational texts these books based upon – they would be back in Judea. Further, the absence of any Babylonian descriptions of any kind of flourishing Judean community in their midst suggests that there wasn’t one – that they were small, subsistence and basically living under the radar.

The 43 years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign were apparently quite spectacular. From Kuhrt Amelie:
Some of the splendour and wealth of Babylon and its court is echoed by the legendary anecdotes and romantic stories … the late second century book of Daniel being the best-known. But there are many more: the fabled hanging gardens were counted among the seven wonders of the world, and Babylon became a byword for luxury and cosmopolitan life. Nebuchadnezzar himself later counted as a world conqueror, reaching the frontiers of the known world. The immense wealth commanded by the Babylonian kings is reflected in their large-scale building projects, with their magnificent temples and towering ziggurats, now lying in sad ruins. The royal inscriptions describe in loving detail many more impressive royal constructions is which nothing has survived. The colourful embellishments and decorations in precious metals, too, have vanished. Some evidence for the manufacture of perform, oil and purple dye for textiles and fine wines on royal estates in Judah has been teased out.

The extensive cuneiform records reveal a great deal about Babylonian life and social structure, and significant among them is the evidence that the citizen body was an exclusive group. Gaining membership into the body of privileged inhabitants was neither automatic nor easy – and the Judean exiles were most certainly not a part of this group.

It was at this juncture in Israelite history that the term “Jew” entered the lexicon. The term derives from the Aramaic yehuday, or Judean, which was meant to distinguish the expatriate Judean from those still residing in Judah. In one Babylonian ration list, a man named Ur-milki is designated a “Jew,” as are several others in vicinity on the list.

What percentage of the population was actually shipped to Babylonia is not known, nor are the exact regions of their settlement there. However, some evidence suggests that the bulk of the expatriates were north of Babylon, with smaller numbers in the south. The names of some Jewish settlements -- mound of ears (of grain), mound of deluge and mound of potsherd – suggest they were sent to inferior agricultural areas that had been abandoned by the Babylonians due to salty soil or other destructions.

One possible new religious development in this period was the synagogue, Amelie says. The synagogue became in the beginning simply a gathering place of people, either in private resident or open air. Later, actual buildings were constructed for this purpose.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Judea
We don’t know a ton about the Judean exiles’ life in Babylon but we know even less about the Judeans who remained in Judea after the conquest. The archaeological record shows that the population shifted from the urban to the rural areas and living standards fell precipitously, but the written record is sparse.

Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty, was overthrown by Persian king Cyrus in 539 BCE (at right), who instituted more liberal measures toward the peoples who formed part of the Babylonian empire. From Assyria to western Iran, he returned local divine images to their temples and organized the return of people to their homelands.

To say that theJudean exiles “returned” to Judea, however, is a bit of a misnomer. The exile lasted 50 years, and back then, 50 years was a lifespan. So it was really the next generation who “went back” to a land that most of them had even known.

Part 6: The Southern Kingdom (722-587)

Judea is rarely mentioned outside the Bible prior to the fall of the North to the Assyrians in 722 BCE. This suggests its sparse populace and development didn’t attract the attention of the neighboring powers.

But with the fall of the North, the South explodes onto the biblical scene. For one thing, there was a huge influx of refugees who started streaming into the south and settling the lands. For another, several books of the Bible give a careful outline of the actions of the Southern kings during these 150 years.

According to these biblical accounts, almost all of these kings got it wrong – they were bad leaders and bad worshipers who led the people astray. The lengths of their reigns, however, actually suggest the opposite – that they were not only effective, but popular, and they oversaw periods of stability and affluence in the region. So what’s the deal with this discrepancy?!?

The answer to this question can be seen if you look at the only two kings the biblical writers actually liked during those 150 years – and those were Hezekiah and Josiah. These two kids had one very important thing in common, and that is that they were centralizers: they tore down rural and regional temples and altars of Ba’al, who is depicted as a bull on many ancient Israelite artifacts; they centralized worship to the YHVH god at the Temple in Jerusalem; and they purged the Temple of the many sculptures and altars to Ba’al and the feminine goddess Asherah that were inside the Temple.

As my teacher explained it, Hezekiah and Josiah were the “Stalinesque” kings of the day, who centralized their power contrary to what were clearly the normative religious practices of the people. We know YHVH, Ba’al and Asherah worship (as opposed to YHVH worship exclusively) normative because the moment these two kings left power, the temples and altars and figurines to these other gods reappeared. “The brevity and scarcity of the periods of ‘reform’ under Hezekiah and Josiah show us that heterodoxy was much more common than orthodoxy,” our teacher explained.

The attitudes of these Southern kings toward the limited polytheism of the people is detailed quite clearly in the Bible, and they are reinforced by the archaeological record. There is evidence of destruction at the major cultic sites outside Jerusalem during the periods of Hezekiah and Josiah, and there is evidence that these sites were rebuilt in the periods after their reigns.

It’s fascinating isn’t it? The one thing Judaism is most famous for is that it was the foundation of monotheism in the Western world. We are now up to the year 587 BCE, and what we see is that the “Judaism” of the day was still not actually monotheistic! It will become monotheistic to be sure – but these roots don’t originate anywhere close to the period of Abraham and Sarah, the mythic progenitors of Judaism and monotheism. That duo ostensibly lived back in Part 1 of this series, at the settling of the central highlands in Canaan in the 13th century.

So, to summarize early Israelite religion up until this point:

From 10th-6th century BCE, the majority of Israelite worship took place outside Jerusalem at temples and altars around the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Asherah, a female goddess; Ba’al, a young storm God depicted as a bull; and YHVH, depicted as a “box” (aka the desert tabernacle) were worshipped by the people. There was a cult of the dead, and practice of divination was widespread. The profusion of small household cultic objects suggests worship was largely a home-based practice fully integrated into people’s daily lives. (At right: Ba'al with raised arm, 14th-12th century BCE, found at Ras Shamra.)

The “orthodox” religion of the era was limited polytheism. When kings like Hezekiah and Josiah came along and tried to institute monotheistic “reforms,” they were the minority opinion, and their reforms did not last. In effect, they were the elite trying to impose their beliefs on their subjects, and patterns in other cultures suggest their efforts probably involved some amount of violence (though the biblical texts don’t tell us that).

Monotheism would become a learned and taught ideology after the Babylonian exile. It did not come about as a “given truth,” as the biblical writers would have us believe. The biblical writers came from the South, and represented the minority pro-monotheism, pro-YHVH, pro-Temple elite. At the end of the day, their views would become the majority views, and the ideological propaganda they waged on the pages of the Bible would completely transform the course of Jewish theology and history.

Part 5: The Northern Kingdom (928-722)

The monarchic period was a crucial one in the development of Israelite society. At the time, the land was divided between Israel in the north and Judea in the south, but the Northern Kingdom was clearly the dominant one. The bulk of the people we call “the Ancient Israelites” lived in the north, and it contained the largest settlements and evidence of material advancements. Key religious sites include the shrines at Beth El and Beth Dan.

The north oriented north, and the south oriented toward Jerusalem. Once the north falls to the Assyrians in 722, the whole focus will shift to the south – and careful reading of the Bible reveals that most of the authors of the books related to this time period actually came from the south, and they were writing after the north's collapse. Their writings will reveal all kinds of “reasons” why the north fell – usually having to do with “wrong" worship practices and “bad kings”. These are the biases that must be carefully sifted out when trying to discern a more accurate historical view of what was really going on in the monarchic period.

But … I’m getting ahead of myself. To go back …

According to the Bible, the Kingdom of Israel came into being in 928, and was conquered by the Assyrians in 722. Extra biblically, the kingdom is first mentioned about 75 years later as a force to be reckoned with. This is good confirmation that at least in this particular detail, the Bible is basically accurate.

The North’s history can be seen in two periods: Its first half as an independent state, and its second half as a vassal of the Assyrians. Of the North’s many kings (which are listed in a great timeline on page 2111 of the Jewish Study Bible), eight of them are mentioned in extra-biblical sources. The first one mentioned is the dynasty of Omri; and the others include Ahab, Jehoram, Jehu, Jeheash, Menoken, Pelcah and Hosea. The extra-biblical sources come from victory steles and annals written by the neighboring Assyrian superpower, and scholars are able to match up the chronology of the kings in Tanakh with these other sources.

Ahab was a particularly successful Israelite king – despite the fact he is totally vilified by later southern writers for marrying a Phoenician princess and engaging in all sorts of “improper” worship practices. In Assyrian annals, it is clear he was an imposing figure on the international stage, and his marriage to a Phoenician is proof of a strong political allegiance with that neighboring power. The annals also indicate that Ahab was part of a coalition of Assyrian kings that worked together in diplomatic endeavors.

It was under the Israelite kingship of Menoken that the North became an Assyrian vassal state, thus losing its status as an independent kingdom. The Annals of Tigleth-Pileser III (747-727 BCE) talk about this Assyrian king’s creation of the Neo-Assyrian empire, which included his incursion south into Israel in 732. Tigleth-Pileser (in a relief at right) is considered one of the most successful military commanders in world history, conquering most of the world known to the ancient Assyrians before his death in 727.

Becoming a vassal was not necessarily a bad thing. “Vassaldom” gave the Israelite people access to the riches and stability of a major superpower. However, after Tigleth's incursion, he began shipping Israelite inhabitants to other parts of the Assyrian empire -- a practice that was commonly enacted by his predecessors.

Why the North went from being a mere vassal to actually being conquered and pretty thoroughly decimated by the Assyrians in 722 is not 100 percent clear. Assyrian rulers after Tigleth (Shalmanaser V and Sargan II) continue moving further south, until all of the northern kingdom is decimated. With the north fully fallen, the empire would then set its sights on the Southern Kingdom. But conquering it would prove harder than it might have seemed.

Part 4: The judges and united monarchy

The Israelites of the central highlands were governed by chieftains – tribal leaders who delivered their people from oppression. In Hebrew they are called shoftim, which in English is usually translated as judges.

During the 11th and 10th centuries BCE, the Israelites often needed protection from violence, perhaps because their olive fields and vineyards garnered envy; or maybe just because human beings have a glorious history of being jerkwods and ransacking their neighbors. Whatever the reason, these people would band together during times of shared threat, often under the banner of a shofet.

Some shoftim were military leaders (Othniel, Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah); some were lone warriors (Shamgar and Samson); and some were prophets (Deborah and Samuel). Thus, a shofet is a term that covers a wide range of leaders who flourished in the period prior to the united monarchy.

At some point, the chaos and instability of living under these imperfect rulers became too much, and the Bible tells us that the people began clamoring for a king. More likely what happened is that a handful of these chieftans began winning greater military victories until finally, thanks to the success of what was basically his junta, King Saul was anointed king. This was effectively the birth of the monarchy.

The United Monarchy
The Book of I Samuel describes the transition of rule from the judges to the monarchic system. It is a monarchic system unique in the ancient Near East, for it is not absolute. Kings are not free to do however they wish, and they are bound to a higher power and morality, which is upheld by the prophets.

Saul was a sketchy king of dubious character, and it wasn’t until King David that the full potential of the monarchy was reached. What were once juntas becomes a full-blown standing army. The king resides in a “house of cedar,” which would be a substantial dwelling in those days. We see divisions of labor with the roles of priests and scribes. And a corvee’ and taxation system is established to support the growing bureaucracy.

What we know about this period from outside the Bible is very little, because the neighboring powers of Assyrians, Arameans, Egyptians and Libyans were preoccupied with their own wars. This might explain why the Israelites had the peace and independence to even develop a monarchy.

That said, there is reason to believe that there is some genuine historical accuracy to these books of the bible (Judges, I Samuel, II Samuel) – at least if you filter through the biases and assumptions made by the authors.

The books were written about 400 years after the events took place, but some of the content has been corroborated through archaeology and extra-biblical sources. This is clear indication that these books were based on earlier scrolls or records, which were lost after the Bible’s redaction.

The only extra-biblical mention of King David is in the famous Tel Dan Inscription dated to the 9th century. Found in the upper Galilee near the Golan, it refers to a “House of David” being situated in the southern part of the kingdom.


Another important extra-biblical source is a stele from the Egyptian Pharoah Shishak (945-924 BCE). The Shishak Relief in the Karnak Temple records his conquests in the land of Canaan, and mentions an astronomical phenomenon that enables us to date his expedition precisely to the year 925 BCE.

Amazingly, a parallel expedition by a king of almost the same name is described in I Kings 14:25, and archaeologists have uncovered destruction in several cities both the relief and the Bible record. What this gives us is what might be called “The Magic Trifecta”: three-pronged proof of a series of specific events.

Meanwhile…
Under the united monarchy, settlements in the highlands grew. Gezer, Megiddo and Hazor were the largest, touting double casement walls, fortified gates, large buildings and little domestic architecture. They also belie architectural influence from Syrians, Hittites and Phoenicians.

We see continued widespread worship of limited polytheism among the Israelites. Baal, the storm god, enjoys an upsurge in the north, and the Yahwists, who dominate the south, start to see this worship as problematic. A growing division between the two camps emerges.

Elijah and other radical prophets start ranting against Baal worship – although that story was written in the south, after the north falls to the Assyrians, so it’s hard to know how much of it is retroactive fault-finding. In both regions, archaeology shows that cults of all four gods are the common folk practice of the Israelite people.

Part 3: What about the Exodus?

If you were even half awake during my last posting, you might have noticed the omission of a small little thing called the “Exodus story.” If early Israelites and Canaanites were one and the same, what about the bulk of the content of the Torah – which describes the Hebrews’ flight from Egypt and return to Canaan?

All I can say is: the Exodus from Egypt very definitely didn’t happen the way the Torah says it did, it very possibly didn’t happen it all – and I hope I’m not the first person you’re hearing this from.

This is the consensus of modern biblical scholarship. How so? Because of the absence of evidence of an exodus, and the profusion of evidence of an indigenous Isreo-Canaanite culture (and I think I made that last word up).

-- There is no record in any Egyptian annals outside of the previously mentioned Merneptah stele, of a people called Israel, of an exodus, or of a series of plagues.
-- It would be impossible for an encampment of one million people (which is beyond enormous given the population numbers of the ancient world) to leave no archaeological trace, and yet there are none in any of the areas where the route could have occurred.
-- Even an exodus of much smaller numbers than the Torah reports – say 20,000 – would have left traces, and yet there are none.

+ The homes that suddenly proliferated in the highlands are the same architectural style found in the coastal Canaanite cities.
+ The pottery styles are also Canaanite (though of lesser quality, as previously mentioned)
+ The widespread use of cult objects, such as Asherah goddesses, and symbols for the gods of Baal, El and Yhvh, all of which are Canaanite in origin, are also found in the central highlands where ‘Israel’ is unanimously identified by the Bible, the Egyptians and the archaeological record.

What modern biblical scholarship cannot say with consensus is whether an even smaller group of slaves left Egypt, traveled to the central highlands of Canaan, and melded with the growing population of Canaanites fleeing the coastal cities. Their story could have merged and become part of the burgeoning self-identity of these people, and in time become part of the collective history.

Given the centrality of the Exodus narrative to Jewish tradition, theology and psyche, it seems a pretty reasonable assumption to make.

Part 2: The real origins of Israel

According to the Bible, the tribe of Israel originated with Abraham in Mesopotamia; he travelled from Ur, north through Canaan, and then south into Egypt. Joseph's descendants in Egypt eventually become enslaved to Pharoah, who, compelled by a series of horrible plagues, "lets the people go" back to Canaan. And so a nation is born.

From the perspective of literary analysis, this version if Israel's origins is probably a melding of two stories: one the tribal history of Abraham and his generation, and the second a national history telling the birth of a nation.

The Bible offers two versions of how the people ‘Israel’ resettled the land of Canaan. In Joshua, it describes a blitzkrieg resettlement across the Canaanite lands; in Judges, it describes a more gradual resettlement alongside the Canaanites.

What archaeology shows us fairly clearly is that in the period of the 13th century (aka the early 1200s BCE), Canaan was settled by Canaanites. Most of the population was on the coast, where trade with other Meditteranian peoples took place (such as the Phoenicians).

Major escavations have taken place at several sites the Bible lists as areas of Israelite conquest in the 1200 BCE era. Two of the five show major destruction in that time period, which means the other three are contradicted by the archaeological record:

Jericho (Joshua) No settlement or conquest in the 13th century
(A town there was burned to the ground in the 14th century, but it
was abandoned after that)
Ai (Joshua) Unoccupied in the 13th century
Gibeon (Joshua) Unoccupied in the 13th century
Lachsish Big destruction in the 13th century
Hazor Big destruction in the 13th century

At these escavation sites, there is no evidence that the conquering peoples came from a foreign culture or language.

The first extrabiblical reference to a people called ‘Israel’ is found in a funerary monument in Egypt in 1208 BCE called the Merneptah Stele. In it, King Meneptah documents his military victories in Canaan in a poetic fashion, and boasts that "Israel is laid waste; its seed is not."

Based on the location of other victories in the stele, it is possible to plot the route he took, and based on that, 'Israel' is located in the central highlands of Canaan, where the book of Judges also places the early Israelites. Archaeological evidence also places ‘Israel’ in the same geographic region.

Where are the central highlands, exactly? Basically in what would be called the lower Galilee today, north of Jerusalem.
The 13th century BCE – the time that this stele was written – was a crucial period of development in the land of Canaan. The archaeological record clearly shows
· a major population decrease in the coastal Canaanite cities and a major population increase in the central highlands
· the widespread use of six-pillared houses in the highlands
· a decline in the quality of pottery in the highlands
· a decrease in imports, or luxury goods, from outside Canaan
· the emergence of widespread adoption of agricultural terracing around small settlements of pillared houses, indicating groupings of extended families.

We also know from the Egyptian record, the Amarna Letters, that Canaan was under Egyptian control in the 14th century, and that by the 13th century, this city-state system had began to fall down. Local Canaanite rulers were getting very powerful and bands of marauders were wreaking havoc on the coastal settlements.

This, coupled with strong archaeological evidence, suggests that Canaanites began fleeing these towns, settling in the highlands, and adopting terracing systems for the growth of olive trees and vineyards.

The history of the land of Canaan is one marked by many periods of shifting populations from the coast to the highlands and back to the coast again. Life on the coast was usually easier due to rich trade routes and soil. The rocky highlands had less predictable weather, too much rain, and difficult soil. But in times of political instability, the highlands are safer and easier to protect, so populations often shifted there during times of coastal instability.

The population shift of the 13th century was different, however, because this time, the population stayed. They didn’t go back to the coast. And for reasons that remain a mystery, at some point these people began to distinguish themselves from their Canaanite neighbors and self-identify as ‘Israel’.

Terracing takes a tremendous amount of man-power. This might be one reason why they stayed. Once they had invested so much labor into their settlements, and began the profitable production of two highly prized commodities of the day – wine and olive oil – there was no reason to leave. The labor needed to make these terraces might also explain why pottery quality took a nosedive in these settlements. They had too many other things to do.

So, to summarize, Mark Smith explains:
"Despite the long regnant model that the 'Canaanites' and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and 'Canaanites' in the Iron I period (ca. 1200-1000). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from 'Canaanite' culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp6-7).

Part 1: An introduction to Biblical scholarship

This is the first of a series of posts I would like to write about the content of my Biblical Civilizations class. The course is essentially an academic overview of Israelite history, based on the latest scholarly thinking, and bringing into mind not just the biblical texts (some of which are deemed reliable and some are not) – but also extrabiblical texts, archaeological evidence, and what might be called socio-scientific analysis.

By extrabiblical texts, it means such things as Egyptian engravings, and Assyrian and Persian annals and scrolls; and by socio-scientific analysis we mean those generalities that can be inferred by patterns in human settlement and organization that are seen across all cultures. An example might be: If you have housing settlements done in small groupings, this generally means extended families lived there, and that is true worldwide, regardless of language, religion or culture.

Our teacher is a PhD in the field of biblical literature. I credit her namelessly for all of the information I’m offering, with the caveat that any mistakes I inadvertently make in relaying this information are entirely my own. This information is also extremely abbreviated, for readability sake. I hope you find this stuff as fascinating as I do!

About the Field of Biblical Scholarship
The study of Israelite history has changed radically in recent years. It used to be that the Bible was considered the starting point of what we knew about biblical civilization, until it was disproved otherwise – but that is no longer the case. There have been enough challenges to the biblical text (archaeologically, extrabiblically and otherwise), that the Bible can no longer be considered the starting point.

**The Bible tells us more about the thinking of 10th century Judeans than it does about the topics they were writing on.**

What is the Bible Exactly?
The Bible is a collection of texts circulated as scrolls that were eventually considered sacred by Jews and Christians. Different communities had different compilations and different versions. The version of the Bible known to most people is the Masoretic Text dating to the 10th century CE, though there is clear indication that parts of it are based on writings that are much older. The famous King James and JPS translation are based on this version.

An even older version has been found since those translations were made, however. The Leningrad Codex dates to 1008 CE, and it is this text that is today published under the name Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.

The differences between the Masoretic and Leningrad Codex are not huge, but they can be significant. It is for this reason the BHS is the text we use in our Biblical Text class, and why BHS is used by biblical scholars in general. The Etz Chaim Torah also uses the Leningrad Codex.

A still older version of Tanakh, called the Aleppo Codex, was found in Tiberias and made its way to Egypt, Syria and then Israel. It is dated to 800 CE, but parts have been missing since 1947. Therefore the Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete manuscript in existence.