Books in Brief

008

Similar But Different

The History of Ancient Israel

Michael Grant

(New York: Charles Scribner’s, 1984) 317 pp., $19.95

A History of Ancient Israel from the Beginning to the Bar Kochba Revolt

J. Alberto Soggin

(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984) 436 pp., $29.95

Despite their similar titles, these are two very different books, different in intended audience, in approach and in quality. Michael Grant has specialized in writing lucid, even elegant accounts of the ancient Mediterranean, focusing especially on the Roman period, and in the past I have found his writings to be informative and entertaining. But this time he has disappointed. His History is a misleading account of ancient Israel up to the First Jewish Revolt, often uncritically based on a naive reading of the Bible.

Like Soggin, Grant begins with an overview of the geographical, historical and cultural context. After this summary, however, the two books diverge radically in methods and conclusions. Although Grant provides a wide-ranging bibliography, the majority of his footnotes refer to the Bible itself, and not infrequently erroneously. Thus, in describing the period of the Judges, he quotes Psalm 105:12–13 (from the New English Bible): “The people were few in number, strangers in the land of Canaan they wandered”; as its context makes clear, the verse refers not to the period of the Judges, but to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, whom Grant dates in the first half of the second millennium B.C. This kind of sloppiness is unfortunately characteristic of the book as a whole. It is littered with oversimplifications, errors and inconsistencies, and cannot be recommended.

Soggin’s volume is modestly titled A History, and in fact is more of a historiography. His approach to the Biblical sources is minimalist, agnostic and often skeptical. As he puts it, “We know what the people believed about their own past, but we have no certain information which we can put to the proof” (p. 117). This is especially true, in his view, for the events described in the Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges, and so he begins his history with David, when “for the first time Israel was faced with the problem of its own national identity,” and when “we have the first political, administrative and economic information” (p. 26). Much of Soggin’s attention is devoted to the historical validity of the sources at our disposal, especially for the period from Abraham to Joshua, which he deals with extensively in 100 pages after his discussion of the reigns of David and Solomon. Throughout the book Soggin’s impressive erudition is evident, so that it is also a valuable bibliographic resource. There are occasional lapses in the translation (from the Italian), and specifics with which I would disagree, but this is a stimulating work.

The differences between the two Histories may be illustrated by a brief consideration of their treatment of the relatively uncontroversial reign of Josiah. Soggin’s discussion covers some seven pages, including a bibliography of 29 items, 17 of which are in English, and is typically nuanced on such issues as the relationship between the two accounts of the king’s reign in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles and on the relationship of “the book of the law” (2 Kings 22:8) and Deuteronomy. He includes a treatment of archaeological evidence from such sites as Arad, Yabneh-Yam and Ein Gedi, as well as the royal (lmlk) stamped jar-handles, which he wrongly dates to this period. He also suggests that the Josianic reform was more radical in theory than in practice and was politically as well as religiously motivated.

Grant’s treatment of the same period is brief, less than two pages long, and follows 2 Kings closely, ignoring Chronicles. The reform was inspired by the discovery of the book, which was “probably an early text of Deuteronomy” (p. 140), and was revolutionary in scope. He refers to the discoveries at Yabneh-Yam but to no other extra-Biblical material. To be sure, Grant’s History is directed more to a popular audience, and its failure to include the details of scholarly investigation is to some extent understandable. But his presentation is misleading because it implies that the Biblical account is, without much qualification, reliable; Grant’s is a volume that with few differences could have been written a century ago. Soggin’s work, on the other hand, will not be easy going for a popular audience, but his radical positivism will force readers to examine their own presuppositions and to return to the sources again and again. It is provocative and in the end rewarding for both layperson and scholar.

Urban Tour

Major Cities of the Biblical World

Edited by R. K. Harrison

(Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1985) 302 pp., $15.95

This volume contains 26 essays on cities of the Biblical world. Thirty-three cities are covered, because one essay deals with both Tyre and Sidon, and another covers all seven of the cities of Roman Asia named in the opening chapters of Revelation (Pergamum, Smyrna, Philadelphia, Ephesus, Sardis, Thyatira and Laodicea).

The cities are called “cities of the Biblical world” and not simply cities of the Bible, because three of them—Ebla, Mari and Nuzi—are not mentioned in the Bible. These three were important centers of civilization in Syria and Mesopotamia in the patriarchal age, and texts discovered in them have shed welcome light on the setting of the Biblical narratives, if not on the narratives themselves. Though exaggerated claims were formerly made for the relevance of those texts to the patriarchal record, further study has resulted in more sober assessments, and this is reflected in the treatment of these cities (Ebla by M. J. 010Horsnell, Mari by B. J. Beitzel and Nuzi by P. W. Gaebelein).

The cities are arranged in alphabetical order, from Alexandria (D. J. Moo) to Ur (M. J. Selman). It was probably decided at some stage that this was more convenient than a regional arrangement, although that would have had advantages.

Some of the writers have outstandingly good qualifications for dealing with their allotted cities. Two of the most qualified are John Wilkinson of Jerusalem, who writes on Jerusalem, and Colin Hemer of Tyndale House, Cambridge, England, who writes on the seven cities of Asia.

Wilkinson, for instance, perceptively points out that Jerusalem is not a site that would have been “a natural first choice for human beings,” despite the Gihon spring. It was not on the road to anywhere. Yet David appreciated the value of Jerusalem as a political, strategic and religious center for his United Monarchy and, from the time of his capture of the city through the four centuries of the monarchy, it grew steadily, climbing up the western hill. Post-Exilic Jerusalem was a modest settlement confined at first to the eastern hill; then it grew until, under the Hasmoneans, it covered almost the same area as the city of the later monarchy. Wilkinson is especially well-informed on the Jerusalem that Jesus knew, and what he says about the walls, the water supply and the Jerusalem sites mentioned in the Gospels can be accepted with confidence.

Colin Hemer, writing on the seven cities of Asia, points out that Revelation is addressed to seven churches in western Asia Minor, located “in cities ideally placed to serve as the distribution points.” Copies of Revelation could be dispersed to Christian communities in the areas served by those cities. The order in which the seven cities are named corresponds to their positions on a circular route along which the letter-carrier would have traveled. It is especially interesting to observe how features of the cities, known from contemporaneous literature, seem to have been reproduced in the character of the respective churches, as described in the letters addressed to them. The best-known example is the comparison of the spiritual lukewarmness of the Laodicean church with the tepid and nauseating water supply of their city.

It is impossible to discuss in any detail the treatment of the other cities covered in this book, but it may be helpful to know the names and the authors of each chapter. In addition to those mentioned, they are: Antioch of Syria (R. N. Longenecker), Athens (G. R. Osborne), Babylon (E. Yamauchi), Bethel (D. Hildebrand), Bethlehem (W. O. McCready), Caesarea (A. B. Spencer), Capernaum (J. E. Sanderson), Corinth (W. L. Lane), Damascus (G. H. Livingston), Hazor (R. Youngblood), Jericho (W. J. Dumbrell), Nazareth (R. K. Harrison), Nineveh (M. R. Wilson), Philippi (W. W. Gasque), Rome (D. B. Saddington), Samaria (J. D. Price), Thebes (J. K. Hoffmeier), Thessalonica (T. L. Donaldson) and Tyre and Sidon (the late P. C. Craigie).

These essays are copiously illustrated by photographs, maps and other figures in the text. Appended to each are suggestions for further reading. The volume is full of information for the nonspecialist Bible student presented in an interesting way.

But the reviewer begs to be allowed one grumble: the proofreading has been inadequate, and too many misprints and small errors have been left in the text. For example, Athens is credited with shrines to deities called Apollos (for Apollo) and Athenia (for Athena or Athene), and on page 17 the Roman historian Suetonius’s name is misspelled and the Latin title of his Life of Claudius is a monstrosity detectable by anyone who has studied first-year Latin. The nonspecialist reader ought to be better served.