Ancient Israel: A New History of Israel

Description

When this provocative text was first published, Lemche presented a new model of how we should understand Israelite society, its history and its religion. Lemche argues first that ‘Israel’ was the result of a social development among the Canaanite population of Palestine in the second half of the second millennium BCE. This implies that Israelite religion was originally 'Canaanite' and that what we think of as typically 'Jewish' religion did not arise until c. 500 BCE. Lemche’s radical reassessment of Israelite history is based on the conviction that the Old Testament contains hardly any historical sources older than the seventh century BCE. The early history of Israel must therefore be reconstructed from archaeological results and non-biblical evidence, not from the Old Testament. In this new edition Lemche provides an extensive new introduction and bibliography, considering how the field has developed since the work first appeared. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Preface Table of Chronology Introduction to Ancient Israel: New Edition Dating biblical historiography Identifying the hot spots of recent historical analysis Chapter 1 Geography, Demography, Economy 1 Introduction 2 The geography of Palestine 3 Demography and economy 4 Concluding remarks Chapter 2 Text and History 1 The Old Testament as history 2 The Old Testament regarded as a text 3 The Old Testament as a historical source 4 Methods of reading the texts 5 Other sources Chapter 3 The Pre-monarchical Period 1 Palestine between 3000 and 1500 2 The Late Bronze Age 3 Israelite tribal society 4 The pre-national period in earlier academic discussion 5 Concluding remarks Chapter 4 The Period of the Monarchy 1 The Deuteronomistic History 2 The political history of the monarchy 3 Israelite society during the monarchy 4 History as intellectual experience: The development of a national identity Chapter 5 The Exile and the Post-exilic Period 1 The sources 2 The Babylonian exile 3 The post-exilic period Chapter 6 Israelite Religion 1 Presuppositions for writing a history of Israelite religion 2 West Semitic religion in the second half of the second millennium bce 3 Monotheistic Yahwism 4 Pre-exilic Israelite religion 5 The transformation of pre-exilic religion 6 The origins of Yahwism 7 Concluding remarks A Guide to Relevant Literature Bibliographical notes General works Chapter 1 Geography, demography, economy Chapter 2 Text and history Chapter 3 Pre-monarchical period Chapter 4 The period of the Monarchy Chapter 5 The exile and Post-exilic periods Chapter 6 Israelite religion Introduction to Ancient Israel Bibliography: Supplement for New Edition General introduction Centralist position Conservative position The minimalists The series changing perspectives Archaeology and the Bible Jerusalem The Yahwist and historiography in the Pentateuch Deuteronomism and the Deuteronomistic history The Babylonian exile, the Persian and early Hellenistic periods The Bible and the Greeks Samarians/Samaritans Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls Index of Biblical References Index of Authors