approaches in determining the historicity of this later period. Some, mainly
philologists, have followed a more minimalist approach. Noting the stylistic
similarities between biblical texts and Persian and Babylonian writings from
the sixth century B.C.E., these scholars have concluded that most of the bibli-
cal corpus is a literary invention of Jews living in the Persian diaspora.
Other scholars, mainly archeologists, have taken a more maximalist
approach. Fortified with a variety of artifacts and records, these scholars have
reconstructed enough of the biblical world to accept more of the biblical nar-
rative as historical. The truth undoubtedly lies somewhere between these two
approaches. What follows, therefore, is an attempt to separate the historical
aspects of these stories from the literary attempts of later generations to fash-
ion a more idealized picture of ancient Israel. Whether or not these stories
concern real events, therefore, is less important than the certainty with which
subsequent generations of Israelites and, later, Jews, believed that they do.
The biblical narrative that precedes the rise of the United Monarchy, in
particular, reveals at least as much about the collective memory and world-
view of later generations of Israelites and Jews as it does about
pre-tenth-century B.C.E. Israelite society. Six elements of biblical narrative
underscore the distinction between their historical and their mythical dimen-
sions. First, the narratives of the Books of Joshua, Judges, I and II Samuel and
I Kings are set during a period in ancient Near Eastern history known as the
Assyrian Interregnum, the intermezzo between the collapse of the first
Assyrian Empire during the mid-thirteenth century and the return of Assyria
as a major imperial power in the region during the ninth century. Coupled
with the declining Egyptian presence in Canaan owing to a series of battles
with the peoples of the sea along the southern border of Egypt, the interreg-
num explains how smaller peoples like the Israelites and their neighbors
aspired to – and, according to these narratives, attained – a measure of sover-
eignty. The possibility for sovereignty is at the heart of God’s covenant with
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In addition to a multitude of descendants – a
highly resonant promise to a numerically small people – their descendants are
guaranteed possession of the Land of Canaan. The stories of Joshua’s conquest
of the land presaged the rise of the United Monarchy by describing the hill-
dwelling clans that made up the Israelite tribal confederation overcoming and
defeating the technologically superior Canaanites and Philistines. The even-
tual expansion of the United Monarchy to the promised borders described the
promise coming to fruition.
Second, the ancient Israelites are more accurately characterized as mono-
latrous than as monotheistic. The Israelites worshiped Yahweh as the
supreme deity, and regarded the shrine of Yahweh – the Tabernacle, referred
to alternatively as Mishkan and Ohel Mo’ed – as the center of religious
worship. Israelite devotion to Yahweh was idealized in the form of a two-
dimensional covenant. Initially, the covenant revolved around a promise by
6 The world of the Hebrew Bible