From Conquest to Coexistence: Ideology and Antiquarian Intent in the Historiography of Israel’s Settlement in Canaan

Bekkum, Koenraad van (2010) From Conquest to Coexistence: Ideology and Antiquarian Intent in the Historiography of Israel’s Settlement in Canaan. Doctoral thesis.

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Samenvatting

Current research on biblical historiography concentrates on the relation between history and ideology. The ideological rhetoric of Joshua 9-12, combined with external evidence seems to falsify the historicity of these chapters. However, scholars disagree on the question how the text's antiquarian interest and its ideology should be related to one another. This thesis seeks to answer this question by using three methods: (1) synchronic and diachronic analysis, (2) comparison with ANE historiography; (3) evaluation of recent developments in archaeology. The textual analysis of Joshua 9:1-13:7 reveals that these chapters can be viewed as a piece of ancient Hebrew historiography that was composed in Judah between the late 10th and the early 8th century BCE with help of Late Bronze memories. In addition, the artefactual analysis of the ar-chaeological remains of the cities mentioned in this textual unit and of some non-biblical texts showed how the Cisjordanian Southern Levant developed during the Late Bronze and Iron Ages. The dialogue between both kind of evidence show that there remain some minor archaeological and historical problems. But overall, the picture of 13th century BCE unified conquest of several tens of thousands of Israelites and of a scribal Judean historiographical activity with regard not only to this event, but also to the process thereafter at the beginning of the First millennium BCE fits the archaeological southern Levantine picture during Late Bronze II - Iron IIA.

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