Niels Peter Lemche

The old testament ‐a Hellenistic book?∗

Abstract New trends and discoveries have made a general reorientation of Old Testament scholarship necessary. Thus the old notion of an Israelite immigration into Palestine at the beginning of its history has now been substituted by a hew explanation according to which Israel originated among the local population of Palestine. Another change, forced upon the historian is the demise of the kingdom of David and Solomon, which nowadays may be considered a fairy kingdom rather than a historical fact. In fact, the state of Judah may only have arisen c. 850 BCE. As a consequence of these and other discoveries, the OT cannot be dated to the pre‐exilic period; it is more likely a post‐exilic and to a large extent a hellenistic book written by Jews for Jews. The consequence for theological studies are conspicuous as they move the OT nearer to the New Testament world and thus make it a precarious subject on a Christian foundation to pursue with OT theology without acknowledging its being part of the Christian canon...

Is it still possible to write a history of ancient Israel

Abstract In this paper three examples of historical information in the OT are discussed: 1) the building of Pithom and Ramses in Exod 1,11; 2) the Ben‐jaminite conquest traditions, and 3) the tradition‐historical relationship between David and Solomon and Omri and Ahab. The outcome is that the OT historians can be seen to have manipulated freely with traditions, the origin of which they had no change to trace. Thus these examples can be reckoned as new examples of the incompability between the OT history of Israel and the history of Palestine in Ancient times.

The Canaanites and their land : the tradition of the Canaanites

It is an interesting consequence of the new reconstructions of the early history of Israel that the Israelites must originally have been Canaanites. Nevertheless, an outspoken hatred against Canaanites permeates the Old Testament. Lemche presents a new way of explaining the anti-Canaanite sentiments of the Old Testament historians, while at the same time disclosing some of the aims and ideas which governed Old Testament history writing.

Clio is also among the muses

Abstract A review article of Keith W. Whitelam, The Invention of Ancient Israel (London 1996). Whitelam is praised for the courage demonstrated by the appearance of this book, which will probably not win him much applause from a scholarly world accustomed to biblical paraphrases and eurocentric interpretations of the ancient Near East. Whitelam argues in favour of a Palestinian history, but he at the same time overlooks the possibility of understanding this history as part of Syrias history. He stresses the necessity of creating a history of the Palestinians, as if they already in Antiquity formed an ethnic unit, which was hardly the case. However, his characterisation of the traditional European and North American reconstructions of ancient Israel as the predecessor not only of the modern Israeli state but — indeed — of western European civilization is precise and absolutely to the point and should not be missed by any person interested, not only in ancient Palestine, but also in Palestine of the presen...

Does the Idea of the Old Testament as a Hellenistic Book Prevent Source Criticism of the Pentateuch

ABSTRACT It is sometimes maintained that the dating of the Old Testament to the Hellenistic Period precludes any serious critical analysis of, in this case, the Pentateuchal narrative. It is my intent in this paper to state that this is not the case. On the contrary, the idea of the “Endprodukt” coming from a special period says little about the date of its individual parts. The essay will provide examples to show how the Pentateuchal stories rely on traditions (some will today say “memories”) with a very old history of their own. Furthermore it is also the aim of this paper to warn against a pan-Hellenism as a substitute for the old “pan-Babylonism.” There is no need to exchange a Babel-Bibel Streit with a new Hellas-Bibel Streit.

When the End is the Beginning: Creating a National History

Abstract Contrary to Kierkegaard’s words about living history forwards, although writing it backwards, biblical scholars have followed a different path, not understanding the implications of writing history backwards. Instead they have seen the biblical history as if it was written as a running commentary on the fate of ancient Israel as history progressed. Israel’s history as told by Old Testament historiographers is not reflecting the progress of history; it is cultural memory constructing this history backwards and building on institutional models present in the time of these historiographers, such as the Greek amphictyony. Thus Martin Noth was after all right: Israel is reconstructed as an amphictyony in biblical historiography, although there never was an Israelite amphictyony in the real world.

Conservative Scholarship on the Move

In a series of articles the evangelical scholar Ian Provan has been attacking minimalism for being governed by ideology rather than honest scholarship (as he sees it). Provans criticism has been joined by other scholars from the conservative field, including the Danish evangelical scholar Jens Bruun Kofoed. A study of these contributions by Provan and other scholars shows that they are attacking the minimalists serving them as a kind of straw man: Their aim is actually not minimalism per se but critical scholarship in general, and the are using the language of traditional conservative Christianity against more critical minds. That they are at the same time—without mentioning it expressly—involved in ideas about causality that reflects modern evangelical ideas about intelligent design is another indication of their religiously based criticism. Here really nothing has changed, only the way they are abusing more traditionally minded critical scholars including self‐acclaimed “maximalists” like William G. Dever or Baruch Halpern.

“Because they have cast away the law of the Lord of Hosts”—or: “We and the rest of the world” The authors who “wrote” The Old Testament

Recent scholarship has questioned the historical relevance of the biblical idea of the exile. While on one hand Judeans definitely were deported to Mesopotamia at the beginning of the 6th century BCE, it is on the other rather uncertain that the exile ended as described in the Old Testament. It would be true to say that the exile somehow never ended (before 1952 CE), as a extended Jewish community was always present in Mesopotamia also after 538 BCE, the official date of the return. However, the idea of the exile lived on and became an intellectual matrix for the people who “wrote” the Old Testament, the historical literature as well as the prophetic books. Who were those people? A study of key passages in Isaiah, Isa 4,2-6; 5,8-24, and 6,11-13, shows that they belonged to a religious community that marked a difference between the people who studied the law day an night (cf Ps 1), and the people who paid little attention to the word of God. Thus it is possible to identify a religious elite brought up within Babylonian tradition—students of law—who despised all people not members of their group. In a “Taleban”-like movement, representatives of this group moved to Palestine to establish there their idea of the Kingdom of God, fighting any person who would not agree with their religious ideas.

The origin of the Israelite state — A Copenhagen perspective on the emergence of critical historical studies of ancient Israel in recent times

Abstract The champion of the national history, be it Israelite or modern national history, will be in the worst position to provide anything like an unbiased version of his or hers own society. This also extends to members of religious communities who has since childhood been brought up to believe that the biblical narrative is “true”; — in the modern sense as opposed to “false”;. It is to be commended when modern scholars have been able to overcome such mental obstacles and produce valuable historical reconstruction. Examples of such studies are presented relating to the historical development in Israel/Palestine in the transition period.

The Greek "Amphictyony" - Could it Be a Prototype for the Israelite Society in the Period of the Judges ?

Several recent studies have tried to invalidate M.Noths thesis of an Israelite amphictyony in the period of the judges. However, most of them have passed over Noths treatment of the Greek amphictyonies and their impact on a supposed Israelite league of twelve tribes in silence. The purpose of the present study is to make good this omission. A closer examination of the Greek amphictyony shows in the first place that there was only one amphic tyony, that of Delphi, and secondly that the technical term was only used at a later date by the Greek and Roman authors to denote other leagues. After all, the Delphic amphictyony did not come into existence until the 8th century B.C. and thus cannot be taken into account for the study of Israels organization in the 12th or 11th century B.C.