The History of Ancient Israel as a Problem: For a History of Ancient Palestine

EMANUEL PFOH

Córdoba

Congreso; European Association of Biblical Studies Annual Meeting, Córdoba 2015; 2015

European Association of Biblical Studies

The present communication deals with the problematic nature of the genre "history of ancient Israel", both in terms of historiography and historical epistemology. In a first place, it is argued that the concept "history of ancient Israel" is essentially valid within a particular historiographical context, namely a theological or biblical view on history---this in spite of the analytical advances produced by two hundred years of German historical-critical studies. As such, this ?history of ancient Israel? may indeed progress and generate new understandings but it is however seriously limited by its main concern with "biblical Israel". Secondly, it is proposed that in order to overcome these thematic and epistemological historical limitations, a wider history of ancient Palestine should be envisioned and pursued, a much more comprehensive history into which to understand the epigraphic and archaeological realia of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, together with other contemporary polities in the region, and the later development of biblical traditions and texts. There are of course notable antecedents of such historical perspective within the field of biblical studies, produced during the last fifty years; however the kind of integrative history of ancient Palestine envisioned here, primarily constructed from the archaeology and epigraphy of the southern Levant, should be further emphasized since "histories of ancient Israel" still constitute the main framework into which the past of the southern Levant in the first millennium BCE is understood in Western academy.