Studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) as history poses a problem to the modern
history reader: a scarcity of evidence, particularly with respect to the earlier
books. There is virtually no extrabiblical corroboration whatsoever of events in
the Pentateuch and the books of Joshua and Judges, and limited evidence for
subsequent narratives. To be sure, there is circumstantial evidence: the
Egyptian Twenty-second Dynasty imported slaves from Phoenicia via the Land
of Canaan around the same time that the Israelites were purportedly enslaved
in Egypt; a nomadic tribe called the Habiru wandered in the vicinity of
Canaan around the same time as the Hebrews wandered in the desert; and the
existence of the Banu Yamina, a warlike tribe that recalled the militaristic
behavior of the Benjaminites in Judges 23. All three of these examples suggest
a possible attestation of the biblical narratives, but none conclusively.
For the past two centuries, some scholars have concluded from this lack of
corroboration that these stories were fictional accounts. This claim began with
Julius Wellhausen, a nineteenth-century Protestant theologian who posited
that there were four distinct authors of biblical narrative: the Jahwist, the
Elohist, the Priestly author, and the Deuteronomist. This conceptualization
has generally been known as the Documentary Hypothesis on, more colloqui-
ally, as JEPD. Despite considerable efforts by biblical scholars to add nuance to
Wellhausen’s seminal though crude claim, however, it is still not known
whether these narratives were fictional or historical. The proposed authors of
the text remained shrouded in speculation: a scribe in the court of King David
or King Josiah, a northern anti-Davidic scribe, or a priest in exile.
The upshot is that these stories are best understood neither as history nor as
fiction, but rather as myth; and the distinct literary voices as editors and redac-
tors rather than authors. These stories were part of an oral/aural traditional of
folklore that was retold in less formal settings such as around a military camp-
fire between battles, or recited on formal occasions, such as the recitation
rituals described in Deuteronomy 26: 1–9 and Joshua 24: 1–16. Eventually
the stories were transcribed, collected, and canonized as the Hebrew Bible.
The availability of at least some evidence to corroborate the period from
the United Monarchy on has led biblical scholars to follow two distinct
Chapter 1