Regarding A Quack’s Take on the Study of History

The following is response to a couple of post on a popular Mythicist blog and the counter post at,
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/exploringourmatrix/2012/01/more-mythicist-misrepresentation.html

I think Neil’s problem (among many) here is that he isn’t really interested in ancient history; he is interested in demonstrating the Bible is fiction. Neil apparently studied history in a traditional Von Ranke setting, where, as one historian put it, history begins with the Peace of Westphalia. I’ve noticed this myself and Vansina and Howell & Prevenier are no exception, that text on the study of history don’t adequately address the study of ancient history. If Neil wanted to argue that the findings of historians of the ancient world are only so many hypotheses and no facts, I wouldn’t be able to disagree. Unfortunately Neil doesn’t want to make that statement because; A. he would like to promote the notion that the historians he disagrees with are only doing apologetics for biblical literalist B. he wants to establish as a fact that the biblical accounts are fiction without historical referents. Note this gem from (http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/confessions-of-a-theologian-bible-scholars-really-do-do-history-differently/#more-23801 ) “One does wonder why if there were as much evidence for Jesus as for any other figure of ancient times (e.g. Socrates, Mohammed) the question of Jesus’ historicity would have arisen in the first place.” Neil acts oblivious even though it has been pointed out to him that both Socrates and Mohammed have had their historicity questioned and those scholars don’t give Jesus myth theories anymore credibility than they do Socrates or Mohammed myth theories.

I do find it interesting that Neil didn’t elaborate on what H&P consider external controls. The findings of anthropologist decades later clearly are not the sort of controls Neil has in mind, and it goes along with his dismissal of “3.The source whose account can be confirmed by reference to outside authorities in some of its parts can be trusted in its entirety if it is impossible similarly to confirm the entire text.” We know that some of the facts presented by the early Christian text are true, so one cannot simply assume the rest is fiction.

Most of Neil’s argument doesn’t seem (Neil isn’t great communicator and is so frequently inconsistent that “seems to say” is a good way to put anything he says) deny that HJ scholars are studying the text with improper methods, but that they have misidentified the nature of the text.  Of course all of this is based on minority opinions that have not gained general acceptance.  Is someone really doing bad history if their work isn’t based on the fringe views of the field? He goes on to say,

 “The first section by H & P that is most directly applicable to the nature of our evidence for Jesus begins on page 62 under the heading “Genesis of a Document”.

The identifications [of time, place, author] provided by the source itself are . . . often misleading. . . . [S]ometimes authors are deliberately faking a source, sometimes they are disguising the real place and date of issuance. (p. 63)

This is not taken from a manual for nihilists on how to reject everything people think they know as false. It is from a manual for budding historians, or really for historians who are embarking on some sort of post-graduate work. Yet when such questions are raised among theologians the response sometimes implies that such scepticism is bad, extreme, hyper.”

HJ scholars have already established many instances of early Christian text being psudographical in one way or another. They do not accuse themselves of hyper skepticism for this.  People call Neil hyper skeptical because he readily accepts all sorts of dubious theories for forgery and literary fiction. If he finds these theories convincing, fine, but he should have some respect for the fact that most scholars do not. All history would look different if we accepted all the minority theories presented as true. Just because Neil thinks Mark is a metaphorical, allegorical, Jewish novel, that is retelling the Old Testament and the Odyssey, does not obligate historians to agree.  H&P seem open to using hagiographies as a source (Most of the documents that come from the past — whether a law code, a contract, a philosophical text, or a hagiography — are products of an intellectual tradition, and historians using an isolated text must know something about this tradition in order to read their text responsibly. (p. 63)) so surely the Gospels would at least match this level of historical documentation, and it is only if we buy the dubious theories that Neil hawks, often from non-scholarly sources, that we would dismiss the Gospels as a source. Neil seems to deny that HJ scholars have any critical instincts at all, but it is really he that lacks critical thinking, and this leads him to accept the archeological musings of musicians as reliable sources. There is a large amount of work that has been done that can hardly be said to “simply take for granted that what they read in a Gospel must be sourced from an eye-witness or a tradition traced back to an eye-witness.”

Another gem is “#6 is fundamental and has passed the test of time. It works very well for historians of any other event or person. Historical Jesus scholars have squeezed it beyond recognition to make “independent” apply to different points of view within the one religious tradition. This is truly an exceptional use of the principle. HJ studies are truly the exception to the way history is ideally done more broadly.” Our sources must come from different religious traditions to be independent? So if all our sources on Martin Luther are Christian, they aren’t independent? I have never heard this from a real historian.

Does Numbers 24:24 Date to the Hellenistic Era?

Recently I read a blog advocating Numbers 24 may contain material dating to the Greek or Roman periods of Judean history[1].  Does it?

The argument it does is based primarily on interpreting Kittim to mean Greece or Italy as it does in 1 Maccabees or the Septuagint Daniel.  If this is so, then what is the significance of “Kittim” to identify them? The word comes from Kition,[2]a town in Cyprus well known in antiquity[3]. It is used in this sense in Isaiah 23:1. While the name of a town, it was sometimes used as a generic term for sea faring nations of the west.  The view that it is late interprets the Oracle of Balaam in Numbers 24:15-24 to be a prophecy of the Greek colonization of the Levant after Alexander the Great’s time. The Greeks afflict Asshur and Eber, that is Assyria and Israel, and in turn are destroyed ( by the Maccabees?). 

The person this prophecy is attributed, Balaam son of Beor, is however independently attested to in the region of modern Jordan with material dated to the 8^th century BCE. Other than the accounts in the Bible, this character is unheard of in the record.  Since he is unattested to in later culture, it suggest an earlier period for the Balaam material in the Bible, including this poem.  It is not impossible that Biblical texts were altered during the time of the Maccabees, and it is in fact likely they have been. Is Numbers 24:15-24 among them, created as evidence that the victory over the Greeks was prophesied, like Daniel? It seems more likely that instead, the poem is a prophecy relating to the early history of Israel, before Solomon, composed at an early stage of the Israelite history tradition; that is earlier than the account in Samuel and Kings. This is supported by the language of the text, which doesn’t betray the influence of Greek or Persian styles and terms.

  If Kittim means Cyprus and people from the western seas generally, were there any peoples fitting this description earlier than Alexander’s Greeks? Yes there is, the Philistines were part of lager migration of people some coming from the western Mediterranean, Greece and the Aegean islands.  They were active in the region from the 12^th century on.

Eber, seems to clearly refer to the Eber who is the ancestor of the Hebrews, and thus the Hebrews themselves and is sometimes a synonym for the more popular term Israelite, though properly, Hebrew would include a number of southern Semitic groups.  Asshur could either refer to Asshur the mythic ancestor of the Assyrians as in Genesis 10:8-12[4] or the Asshurim from Genesis 25:1-3 who’s is among the Arabian sons of Abraham.  The Kenites and Amelkites mentioned in verses 21 and 20 are two groups associated with each other in 1 Samuel 15:6 where Saul eradicates the Amelkites and drivers the Kenites from their homes.  Edom and Moab are both well-known biblical nations. The prophecy of the subjugation of these groups reflects well the emergence of the Davidic state as described in the Primary History (Genesis-2 Kings).

 Rather than being a cryptic metaphorical description of the state of affairs under the Greek kings, it is more naturally a description of the events described in the Primary History, but from an earlier age, when groups like Amalek, Kain, and Asshur (the Arabian Asshur) where more prominent. This scenario does not require the metaphorical meaning of the names as required by the theory placing it later under Greek influence. It also places it closer in composition to the other known example of a prophecy related to Balaam son of Beor. Finally, the Oracles of Balaam contain no other indicators such as Persian or Greek Language or clear references to historical facts of the Greek or Persian period that would lead one to suspect it was composed during the time of those empires control of the land of Israel.

See also: http://doctor.claudemariottini.com/2008/09/understanding-numbers-2424.html

and

http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/who-wrote-the-bible-2-challenging-the-documentary-hypothesis/

---

[1] It is significant that the first biblical definite evidence of the existence of the biblical texts is in the Hellenistic period — after the conquests of Alexander the Great and the spread of Hellenization (Greek culture and language) throughout the Middle East.

Lemche stresses that a justifiable dating of a text must come from the latest material found within it even if it does contain some earlier material. So if the Pentateuch contains passages that can only be explained as of Hellenistic provenance then the Pentateuch as we have it surely must date from the Hellenistic times even if it contains some Mesopotamian material (e.g. the flood story) that is earlier. Lemche points out, for example, that Karl Ilgen first told us 200 years ago that Numbers 24:24 can only possibly be a reference to the Macedonians and that Martin Luther had likewise made this clear in notes to his translation — hence the poem must be dated to the late fourth or third centuries bce. Yet despite this clear pointer to a late date scholars have generally dated this chapter as some of the most archaic of poetic literature, certainly pre-monarchic. The chapter was later moved to the monarchic period when the name Balaam turned up in an eighth or seventh century Aramaic inscription. Meanwhile, the poem itself keeps murmuring, “Hellenistic”. (p. 160, Israelites in History and Tradition).

http://vridar.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/who-wrote-the-bible-2-challenging-the-documentary-hypothesis/

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kittim

[3] http://www2.rgzm.de/Navis2/Home/HarbourFullTextOutput.cfm?HarbourNR=Kition

[4] http://classic.net.bible.org/dictionary.php?word=Asshur

Noam Chomsky on presidential war crimes.

 

Recently someone pointed out this article to me. It is an essay by Noam Chomsky on what if the rules at Nuremburg were applied to allies today.

 

http://www.chomsky.info/talks/1990—-.htm

The article is largely a list of war crimes somehow attributed to the U.S. The implication is that the Nuremburg trials were unfair to the Axis.
If Chomsky is arguing that the leaders of America since WWII should be hanged for crimes against humanity, I have to question his sincerity. Is it only U.S leaders, or all leaders who gave some support to a violent regime? Wouldn’t this include a rather large number of leaders? Who would carry out this justice if most of the world is in on it? Is Noam so disappointed at the outcome that he would rather the allies lost so they would not have the opportunity to do this? I would like to think not.
Also, if so many nations engage in this behavior, or support those who do, might it been necessary to combat a greater evil? As an example I’ll mention another of the participants at Nuremburg, the Soviet Union. This state committed atrocities of the same type AND scale as the allies. If Chomsky feels that Hamburg is equal to Auschwitz in type, then Stalin equaled it in scale. And yet he has a judge presiding of Nazi’s. Furthermore the U.S. supported this state during WWII as did France and England. Would Chomsky insist that the allies arrest and try their leaders in the middle of the war, or afterward? Was it so obvious that we could win without Stalin? I think not. The western Allies’ use of violence was nowhere near as gratuitous as the Nazis. The terroristic acts of the Allies were performed to end violent action on the part of the Axis. After the cessation of violence the Allies stopped attacking civilians and helped reconstruct those societies’ social institutions. It was not unreasonable to think these attacks may have stopped the war early, or even prevented the defeat of the west. In light of that I understand why these people may have been driven to do them, but Nazi fears of Jews or Stalinist fears of small property-owners is not enough to justify genocide, or the invasion of Poland. Such a purge of leadership as Chomsky may suggest would demoralize the west’s resolve to combat genocidal totalitarianism.
We should remember thought that the Nuremburg trials were by many standards a kangaroo court, and some involved may not have deserved their fate, and these are further tragedies of the time. On the other hand, it did devastate the leadership of these murderous regimes and probably sped up the transition to liberal democracy.

Job’s concept of God

In responce to an article here

http://tomverenna.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/question-of-the-day-did-the-authors-of-job-believe-in-god/

//I think this question is important, as the author(s) of Job seem to have a multifaceted approach to theology–one of necessity but also of indifference towards it. Is it just so easy to lump the author(s) of Job in with the authors of Genesis? Can we say, wholly, that the authors of the books which make up the Bible had the same strong belief in God? I don’t think it’s that easy. So this is my question to my fellow Bibliobloggers: Did the author(s) of Job believe in a God? If you believe so, in what way do you think they viewed God? What sort of believer would we say the author(s) of Job is (are)? If not, what drove them to write the narrative?//

I think there is rather a gulf between the authors of Job and the authors of Genesis. I have described Genesis as being relatively un-theological. Job by contrast asks more sophisticated questions of the gods[1]. You know, Abraham may bargain with gods for the lives of Sodom, but there is no real questioning of the god’s character. I think even today, its concepts are a more sober reflection on the human condition than offered by the evangelical church. This is especially true if you omit the intro and conclusion chapters, which may be a later addition.

While I don’t think any of the contributors is atheist, [2] I do think that Job could be rendered in largely atheist terms. In Job, god is an unpredictable and mysterious being. I think this it shares with the older concepts of god too. But the difference is Job’s god isn’t interacting with Job. In Genesis gods are constantly interacting with the characters, giving them advice, commands and making deals. They are is a very personal deities. You could replace god with fate, existence, or some other impersonal term for the stream of causality and much of Job’s message would still be intelligible: Life is unfair; there is no guarantee to prosperity except the prosperity that comes with living in the self-confidence of being wise; the universe is governed by a mysterious and powerful force whose objectives cannot be comprehended. Is not all of this true?

The tale is marred in my opinion, by the added end and introduction. By giving the audience the means to know what Job does not, God’s motive in this caper and subsequent repayment for the damage done, the message in Job I think is under cut. It now says, “You can know gods motives, we’ll tell you, he is playing a weird game with his tribe in heaven.” And you may have heard devout people use this to console the grieving, “god is testing you”. And of course all suffering gets repaid, so I suppose had Job died penniless, we would know he really had angered God.

I think Job intended to say that if we shout into expanse of the sky to ask “why?” we should not expect an answer. I find that very non-theist.

[1] Genesis doesn’t have the cast of divinities many other similar collections of tales do, but there are multiple heavenly beings referenced and they are sometimes called the sons of God, so while one of them is the unquestioned boss, there does seem to be a little tribe of these beings in existence. I don’t think the relationship of the beings to God is clearly explained in the bible, so I wonder if the other beings could or should be considered God’s peers.
[2]Gods not just being a theological concept but a concept for understanding the fundamental forces of the cosmos, I would imagine the explanation for physical phenomenon were gods

The Corrupting Power of Doing Good

One of the many things I’m unhappy with in the world (hate is such a strong word) are the children of rich yuppies who’s career is some charitable organization for saving the rain forest or ending poverty. The link below is to a Slate Magazine article describing the waste and corruption that exist in some of these groups.

http://www.slate.com/id/2296334/

The problem is that a large chunk of the donations made to such groups are used to pay people to do this work, and in order to maintain their position in the third world countries they operate, they tend to be to eager to compromise to keep their host happy. If Cambodia thinks they are to aggressive ion their actions to save rain forest or fight poverty they’ll be sent packing, and no more parting in in cheap bars.

This shows that any group dedicated to charity can become attached to the good life, and justify an inflated salary with the notion that since they are altruistically helping people, unlike a greedy CEO, they are entitled high pay and a little exploitation of the locals. The same vices that secularist accuse religious organizations of are also found in secular charitable groups.

My moral math says that if you demand just monetary compensation for your charity work, then you accumulate no good karma for the deed, no matter how beneficial. you are no better than a CEO who improves society by manufacturing and distributing a useful product, but only does so to the extent they are paid for it. Like a hammer, your good to have around so long as you can drive nails, and when you can’t you are to be disposed of.

In a capitalist system it may take fifty cents to deliver a dollar of aid to a impoverished country, but if that is the case please can the smug ‘I’m an activist dedicated to helping people” bit. Your an entrepreneur selling modern day indulgences to other entrepreneurs with guilty consciouses that you should have too.

Two Documentaries.

I saw two documentaries tonight, Transcendent Man, a documentary by Barry Ptolemy about futurist Ray Kurzweil ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil), and The God Who Wasn’t There. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Who_Wasn%27t_There )
There is world of difference in the quality of the two ideas expressed.
Ray Kurzweil, a computer scientist of considerable skill, makes a number of astonishing predictions for the future based on statistic collected now and projected into the future. His special gift here is in taking into account that the rate of progress speeds up as each new invention makes the next easier. He for sees the end to all our problems through a technical solution. One of his quotes i like, is the statement that intelligence is the most powerful force in the universe. Very uplifting. The way he presents the power of future technologies to fix our problems and the terminology he applies to phenomenon of the god like machines is messianic and apocalyptic. He makes me think of my own project as I explore how Kenites, a ancient metal smithing clan, also was regarded as partly supernatural, and were innovators of technology and religion and philosophy.
On the other hand there is the dreadfully cheap and sensational, The God Who Wasn’t There. This movie recycles the all the old and outmoded arguments of the myther community. As is typical it challenges not the best scholarship available, but popular Christian understandings of the historicity of Jesus. The film does little to hide that it is simply a cheaply made and ham handed anti Christian polemic. Presumably if Jesus is erased from history, we wont have Waco’s or Charlie Mansons, the show implies, using those as examples of Christianity’s influence. If you want to get a quick idea of where the less sophisticated mythicist get there talking points look no further. As usual a major one is the lack of descriptions of the Jesus of history in the Epistles of the New Testament, our main source for the years between Jesus and the Gospels. The only problem is there are in fact references to an earthly Jesus even then, so the problem then is,” why so little?”, but not, “why none?”, a fantasy of mythers. The film provides no insight into the critical study of early Christianity, but is a decent enough product for eager mythacist fans, who have little of value to support. It is primarily the domain of Internet quacks and New Agers, and a couple of Ph D’s of obscure employment and little acclaim.

Oral Tradition and the Israelite Folk History. Part 3

J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes’ book, “A History of Ancient Israel and Judah” commit part of their work to analyze the role history had in developing the accounts of the Book of Judges. I will attempt to explain their views. 

The first thing to look at is the composition of Judges its self.  Judges appears to be a compilation of folkloric stories of various times in the age before the Davidic kingdom. The works were likely composed over a number of centuries. The earliest date to perhaps the 12th or 11th century BCE and may have been contemporary with the events they portray. Others were likely much later, with the overall theme of the book being added by an editor in the 7th to 5th century BCE, along with some of the narrative.  The book is made up of tales, poems and list.  The material provides evidence of varying degrees of accuracy on a wide range of time, not just the time it depicts, but attitudes of the times from which they were composed.

One of the features of Judges is that it presents an artificial structure for its chronology. Most of the judges have the length of their time as leader noted. The stories are presented so as to suggest there is a string of Judges who rule a united Israel. But examination the individual stories suggest a different picture.

The individual stories have a number of folkloric elements. The Samson tales are similar to the mythic stories that circulated about Heracles and Gilgamesh. Along with feats of supernatural strength, Samson’s name relates to the Sun god Shamash, and it is often thought that the Heracles and Gilgamesh story cycle is related to a solar myth. Samson’s birth is a miracle announced by a deity, much like the later legend surrounding the birth of Jesus of Nazareth or the judge Samuel (which Miller think may have been originally a story connected to Saul).   Gideon receives his calling by way of a vision of a divine messenger, a theme that is repeated by both legendary heroes like Elijah and also reported by prophets like Ezekiel. Miller suspects that the notice of Othniel’s battle with Cushan-Rishathaim is a work of fiction created to give some of the action in Judges to a hero of Judah, The villain of the story’s name, he points out, translates to Cushan the Double Evil, the sort of name that an invented villan would have. This is just a small set of example of folkloric elements in the book of Judges. None the less, a number of individuals in judges are likely historical, such as Deborah, Barak, Jerubaal (Gideon) and Abimelech.

The book of Judges presents material that may reflect the religious practices of the Israelites in the premonarchial period. The picture presented seem to be one of a number of local sanctuaries operated by a number of priestly families. They range from small shrines to monumental temples. Miller contends that the family relationships given for the priestly families is artificial. Miller follows the suggestion of most scholars of the subject that El was originally the principal God of Israel and that YHWH was a later addition.  He supports the basic contention of the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis that YHWH was introduced from the Negev Sinai region.

As suggested by the name of the hero, Jerubaal, Baal, the Canaanite god of weather was also worshiped in early Israel. Miller hypothesizes that Baal was worshiped by farmers while YHWH was seen as a god of war, and the two could be worshiped by the same communities without conflict. It is the frequent wars that Israel found itself engaged in the boosted the prominence of the YHWH cult. I disagree with his assessment on this however. YHWH seems to be associated not only with war but, weather also, and the myths of Baal portray him as a mighty warrior that slays dragons and demons. Both YHWH and Baal are sons of El (who himself is occasionally seen as a warrior). YHWH in the few known images of him, is depicted with a large penis, a trait associated with fertility gods, like Baal. While the earliest Israelites may have worshiped El in several of his aspects of Father of Days, creator, fertile bull, and dragon slaying warrior, I suspect that Baal was also popular in Israel as the son of El. In the popular mind, El may have been seen as a distant father god, while Baal was the hero who answered prayers for rain and fertility and fought enemies of goodness. YHWH seems to be a norther Arabian version of this popular mythic theme. i suspect that conflict between priest of YHWH and Baal would have in fact been immediate as the worshipers of the two similar gods came to live in the same region. While both could worship El as the distant father, Baal and YHWH seem to occupy the same niche as a popular devotional god.

 

Oral Tradition and the Israelite Folk History. Part 2

 

The limits of Israel’s Historical Folk Traditions 

How far back in time can we expect accurate historical accounts from Israel’s(by Israel, I mean that which is the core of the Israelite state and not peripheral states that were part of Israel at different points, such as Judah and Edom) folk traditions? I think an answer can be found by comparing what we know of Israel though primary evidence, and then comparing it with the folk traditions.

Israel’s first known mention in documented history is on a carved stone block written in the reign of Merneptah, king of Egypt.  “A history of Ancient Israel and Judah”, places the stones manufacture at 1230 BCE (other scholars use slightly different dates.).  It will not be documented again until after the period covered in this article. The stone briefly tells of the king’s raid on Canaan in the form of a song.  The king boast of the destruction he inflicted on his enemies there, among them Israel. More properly, Israelis, as the symbol used in the hieroglyphs meant people, not places or cities.  Prior to this, and for some decades to come, Egypt has a large degree of control over Canaan. Egypt can travel though Canaan without much difficulty, and has successfully attacked Canaanite kingdoms several times. Egypt  served as an overlord to Canaan until at least 1198 BCE (using Miller’s figures). And yet there are no stories in the Israelite traditions of Egyptian armies in Canaan. Not during the age of the patriarchs, the exodus, or Joshua’s conquest. The book of Judges also lacks any awareness of Egypt’s past activity in Canaan. This is good evidence that Israel’s historical memory does not extend past 1198 BCE.

Another piece of evidence  is a chieftain mentioned in the Armana tablets of the late 15th and early 14th centuries. They mention warlords like Labaya. L is described as a habiru, a word for roving bands of people. He is the master of Shechem, a major site in Israel.  despite his troubling of the king of Jerusalem, and coming to the attention Egypt, he and the situation described are unknown to Israelite traditions. While it is possible that he was not remembered while others of his generation were, this does count as evidence that Israel’s traditions simply do not reach back this far in history.

The next piece of evidence I will use to fix the depth of the folk history is the arrival of the Philistine people to Canaan. This event is recorded by Rameses III. In approximately 1175 a large army of Philistine marauders attacked Egypt and are turned back, but have the territories they control in Canaan recognized as theirs. In the Hebrew Bible however, the impression is given that the Philistines have always lived in Canaan. This implies that the Israelites did not have accurate recollections of the time before the Philistines arrived.

Finally, there are the accounts of the conquest of Canaan and the cities destroyed by the Israelites. Archeological evidence has determined that these cities were destroyed over a much wider period of time than depicted in the Bible.  In some cases centuries separate the destructions and the first mention of Israel. It is hard to believe Israel could have been such a powerful state for so long and not be mentioned in all the text that exist for this period. In a number of instances different heroes are credited with the same cities destruction.  While the Israelites are aware cities were destroyed in the past, they do not seem to know when or how this happened.  It only seems to be in the period after approximately 1175 that their may be accurate historical traditions.   Before, at best, there are awareness of prior people, and in some instances their nationality, but no specific events or people.  The situation in Canaan afterward, so far as known, does not contradict the account given in Judges as blatantly as before this period.  Miller notes that Judges presupposes sociocultural conditions in keeping with what is known about Palestine at the beginning of the Iron Age.  It is possible that the folk memory goes somewhat later in time, but is focused on events in the wilderness to the east and not the Egyptians and Canaanites on the plain, but if it existed much further into the past, we would expect some mention Egypt, or awareness of the newness of the Philistines.

Some of the cities that see destruction in this period are Dan, Shechem, Hazor and Bethel. It is then possible that there are accurate memories of these events and the people associated with them. While we do not have written primary sources or traditions for several centuries later, there is evidence to suggest oral traditions can be maintained for several centuries, in some extreme examples nearly 1000 years. However sometimes events are forgotten relatively quickly, such as the Nez Perce’, who forgot how they acquired horse, despite the passing of only a century from the event (Oral Narratives and Aboriginal Past-An Interdisciplinary Review of the Literature on oral Traditions and Oral Histories p.9,11 http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ai/rs/pubs/re/orl/orl-eng.asp ) different factors can affect the ability to maintain oral traditions, and in the case of Israel, it is likely that the turbulence of the time and shifting tribal loyalties would negatively affect the ability of memories to be maintained as they would jostle with the traditions of newcomers to the tribal system and an unstable society is not able to maintain specialized keepers of oral tradition. This is not a problem however after Israel becomes a  settled and stable state, which would be the case approximately 200 years after Merneptah’s mention of Israel.

We can expect to find accurate memories of Israels past only till about 1250-1175. In probability the events that led to the formation of Israel in the first place are lost to us. While it is possible that elements of the event, or the name of the first heroes are still present in the traditions, it may not be possible to determine what or who they are with any confidence. some comprehension though of the people and events after this time though may be recoverable.

The next portion will conclude with a discussion of Miller’s reconstruction of the period of Judges.

Oral Tradition and the Israelite Folk History. Part 1

I’ve been reading Jan Vansina’s book “Oral Tradition: A study in HistoricalMethodology” ( http://www.amazon.com/Oral-Tradition-Study-Historical-Methodology/dp/0202308197/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307430411&sr=1-2 ) I wanted to read a book about how to think about oral traditions. My work in using the literature of the Ancient Near East frequently means using accounts that attempt to record the happenings of centuries before writing was used to capture the story.  The time between the happening and writing of the history is the period of oral transmission. Vansina here is studying the oral traditions of Central African peoples, such as in Congo or Rwanda. 

 I have also been reading J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes’, “A History of Ancient Israel and Judah”  ( http://www.amazon.com/History-Ancient-Israel-Judah-Second/dp/0664223583/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1307430514&sr=1-1 ), concentrating on the first chapters concerning the origin of Israel though the kingdom of Saul.  These chapters impact the study I am making on the introduction of the YHWH cult to the northern tribes of Israel. My article on Blenkinsopp’s review of the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis I think gives an adequate explanation for its introduction to the southern Israelite tribes (http://mikew1584.wordpress.com/2011/05/25/my-thoughts-on-blenkinsopps-the-midianite-kenite-hypothesis-revisited-and-the-origins-of-judah/ ) . Many of the essentials of that hypothesis, are incidentally, supported by Miller.

Miller quickly establishes that the origin accounts from Genesis to Joshua is essentially a historical collections of various myths and folk tales of golden age heroes.  This a common assessment of the early biblical material now, and not controversial outside conservative  religious institutions. On this I agree with Miller. While the material does give us real information on the relations of Israel with neighbors, and the degree of kinship they perceived to have with each other, it tells us virtually nothing about the actions of individuals or specific political realities.

Miller list four factors used to investigate the historical realities of the early Israelite nation. They are the historians own threshold of  credibility. That is to say, when examine an old tradition, at what point is it concluded that a particular fact is simply impossible. For this reason few historians  begin their history with the activities of Adam and Eve.  Then, there is the evidence from non biblical text and archeology.  Miller then mention literary-critical analysis, which needed to makes sense of any documentary evidence. We must have an understanding of genre and layers, if any, of the texts composition. Lastly, he discuses the need for models, which are often formed from analogy to other circumstances and peoples. The model attempts to give a blue print for social development that can be used to make assumptions about that which is not available for direct observation.

Miller describes his approach to Israelite origins as cautious, eclectic, utilizing the four factors, and “considerable” intuitive speculation. He admits that it is not very satisfying from a methodological standpoint, but is the best that can be done.  He mentions, importantly for my own work, “The evidence, or lack of evidence, is such that a confident treatment of the origins of Israel and Judah in terms of critical historiography is, in our opinion, simply impossible. This is one of those places where the historian must be willing to concede that anything said is largely guess work.” Miller says of the biblical accounts from Genesis to Joshua is artificial and theologically motivated.  We can get some idea of this from older material included in the composite work, and the traditions recorded in Judges.  Period described in Judges, Miller concludes, represents the real situation of Israel on the eve of Saul. a collections of politically and ethnically diverse family groups, or clans.  he thus declines to begin his history of Israel earlier than the material presented in Judges.

Next I will give a brief over view of Millers history of early Israel, and an assessment on the reach of Israelite oral traditions.

My Synopsis of Blenkinsopp’s “The Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis Revisited and the Origins of Judah

In this post I am going to discuss Joseph Blenkinsopp’s ( http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Blenkinsopp/e/B001H6W1MG ) ”The Midianite-Kenite Hypothesis Revisited and the Origins of Israel”. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 2008 33:131

In the article, Blenkinsopp reviews the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis, “which argues for the pre-Israelite origins of the cult of Yahweh among proto-Arabian Tribes east and west of the Arabah and the Gulf Aqaba”. This is an old idea going back to the 1860′s and having a notable pedigree of supporters. He also notes prominent dissenting voices. The Hypothesis has four bases.

1. the biblical narratives dealing Moses and his in-laws. 2. Early Hebrew poems describing YHWH’s original residence. 3. Egyptian text of the 14th and 12th centuries where the name, YHWH, is connected with Edomite regions. 4. The interpretation of Cain as the eponymous ancestor of the Kenites.

First, Blenkinsopp explains that the origin of the theory is the stories presented in Exodus where Moses marries a Midianite woman (2:11-22).  Moses father in law, a Midianite priest, instructs Moses in governance and they both sacrifice to YHWH (18), who Moses meets at a holy mountain near Midian (3). Blenkinsopp then presents the evidence from the “Song of Deborah”(Judges 5). In this poem YHWH  is said to march out from Seir in Edom, from Mt. Sinai. It gives the impression that YHWH’s home is in this land, which lay outside the territory of Israel, the people he is said to be the god of.

Blenkinsopp also mentions some text from from Egypt’s, New Kingdom. Regarding the Bedouin tribes that lived  around the Egyptian run copper mines of Timna and Punon, an inscription from the first half of the 14th century speaks of the “Shasu (Bedouin) land of Yahu”. Yahu, it is broadly agreed, is a form of YHWH.  His final base for the hypothesis is the myth of Cain. The name of Cain is also the name of a tribe, the Kenites (more apparent in Hebrew than English, but pronounce them aloud, and you will hear the similarity).  There is also a town of Cain (Joshuah 15:57) . The name, Cain, translates to metal smith. a descendant of Cain, Tubal-Cain, is a maker of bronze and iron objects.

The article list a number of notable clans that are said to be related to the Kenites in the Bibles various genealogies. Among them are Caleb and Othaniel, the Kenizzites (Numbers 32:12, Joshua 14:6, and Judges 3:9). Jael, the hero of the Deborah legend, is a Kenite. Also the Rechabites, who Blenkinsopp describes as “fanatical Yahweist”, are related to the Kenites according to 1 Chronicles 2:55.

In the next section of Blenkinsopp’s paper, he discusses what he thinks are the implications of the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis and the ethnic origins of Judah. He summarizes his argument as “…we find several tribes-Kenites, Kenizzites, Calebites, Jerahmeelites, Judahites, Simonites and Levites-moving into the Northern Sinai and Negev thought Late Bronze-Iron I period (Josh.15. 13-19; Judg. 1.10-20). It seems the groups were linked by blood or covenant or both, that they frequented the same cult centerers, and were under the aegis of the same deity, namely Yahweh. the natural inference would be that Judah originated as one of these closely related proto-Arabian groups, originally as a clan rather than a tribe.”

For a final section, Blenkinsopp discuses a number of links that have been noted between Edom and the tribes and clans listed above. Among them are the names Ruel, one of the names given for Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, another variation of Moses’ father-in-law(spelled Jitran, a variation of Jethro), Kenaz, and the Levitical clans Korah and Heman, have Edomite equivalents.  He then discuss the Jacob-Esau myth as demonstrating the close kinship that was perceived between Edom and Israel. His concluding remarks point out the commonality of the theme of two brothers fighting as the beginning of a peoples history, citing Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Romulus and Remus, lycus and Aegeus, and others.

At an earlier point in Blenkinsopp’s article he states that the Midianite-Kenite hypothesis raises questions about how the YHWH cult came to be adopted by the Israelites in the central Palestinian highlands. He mentions clues such as the northern Kenites of Judges 4:11, the pilgrimage of Elijah to Mt. Horeb, and the Rechabites, but says that much more thorough investigation of this subject is needed . My up coming Summer research project is an attempt to look at this issue and provide a hypothesis for how the YHWH cult was adopted by the Israelites of the central highlands.