Nadav Na’aman, «The Israelite-Judahite Struggle for the Patrimony of Ancient Israel», Vol. 91 (2010) 1-23
The article addresses the controversial issue of the formation of "biblical Israel" in biblical historiography. It begins by presenting the political-cultural struggle between Assyria and Babylonia in the second and first millennia BCE, in part over
the question of ownership of the cultural patrimony of ancient Mesopotamia. It goes on to examine relations between Judah and Israel and compares them to those between Assyria and Babylonia. It then suggests that the adoption of the Israelite
identity by Judah, which took place during the reign of Josiah as part in his cultic reform, was motivated by the desire to take possession of the highly prestigious heritage of Israel, which had remained vacant since that kingdom’s annexation by
Assyria in 720 BCE.
4 NADAV NA’AMAN
“ holy †— possibly repeated three times — was undoubtedly used
even before the time of Isaiah. But the divine title “the Holy One of
Israel †must have originated after the fall of the Kingdom of Israel
(720 BCE).
The neighbouring kingdoms’ shared cult of YHWH has always
figured prominently in explaining why the name “Israel†was
extended to include Judah. Philip Davies explained the emergence
of “biblical Israel†as an effort by fifth-century scribes to forge a
common past for the new society of mixed origins that the Persian
authorities had transplanted in the province of Yehud, in a bid to
persuade the new settlers that they were being settled in their
“ homeland †11. However, the picture of a community of deportees of
mixed origin, settled by the Persian authorities in the province of
Yehud, for whose sake the history was being written, has no basis in
the evidence. Sensing, perhaps, that this explanation for the
formation of “biblical Israel†was unsatisfactory, Davies came up
with a new solution. In his historical reconstruction, from the 9th
century BCE onwards, the district of Benjamin was incorporated into
the territory of Israel, and was handed over to Judah by Sargon II
following his conquest and annexation of Samaria in 720 BCE. After
the destruction of Jerusalem in 587/6 BCE, the centre shifted to
Mizpah, where the first comprehensive historiographical work was
written. This early work underlined the military leadership of
Benjamin among the Israelite tribes (excluding Judah) and concluded
with the death of Saul on Mount Gilboa. The Deuteronomistic
History was written in response to this presumably early
Benjaminite composition, extensively reworking elements within
the earlier work, and creating, in the process, the literary entity of
“ biblical Israel†as we know it from biblical historiography 12.
DAVIES, In Search, 75-93. For criticism, see S. JAPHET, “Can the Persian
11
Period Bear the Burden? Reflections on the Origins of Biblical Historyâ€,
Proceedings of the Twelfth World Congress of Jewish Studies. Division A: The
Bible and Its World (ed. R. MARGOLIN) (Jerusalem 1999) 35*-45*.
P.R. DAVIES, “The Origin of Biblical Israelâ€, Essays on Ancient Israel in
12
Its Near Eastern Context. A Tribute to Nadav Na’aman (eds. Y. AMIT – E. BEN
ZVI – I. FINKELSTEIN – O. LIPSCHITS) (Winona Lake, IN 2006) 141-148; idem,
Origins of Biblical Israel, 105-126; idem, “The Trouble with Benjaminâ€,
Reflection and Refraction. Studies in Biblical Historiography in Honour of
A. Graeme Auld (eds. R. REZETKO et al.) (SVT 113 ; Leiden 2007) 93-111.
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