In Their Own Words

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Itamar Singer, author of the following, was one of Israel’s most distinguished historians. He taught at Tel Aviv University. Unfortunately he died on September 19, 2012, at the age of 65.^a The excerpt below is from one of his final papers and summarizes a much longer discussion. Our more scholarly readers may consult the original publication.¹

The mainstream of current Biblical scholarship tends to accept the premise that the main part of the Deuteronomistic History [Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings] was composed in Jerusalem in the seventh–early sixth century B.C.E.

The more difficult questions concern the sources at the disposal of the late authors and how they were exploited. Most commentators would agree that some written sources must have been kept in the palace or temple library in Jerusalem, probably for educational purposes. These may have included literary and historical works, notably the “Chronicles of the kings of Israel” and the “Chronicles of the kings of Judah” [referred to frequently in the Books of Kings].

Perhaps there were also some royal building inscriptions, such as have been found in neighboring countries, but so far not in Israel.

This still leaves a gap of several centuries between the time of writing and the events described. Orally transmitted narratives may have filled this large gap, but, the haunting question has always been how much credibility should be ascribed to such oral transmissions.

A lot of field work has been done in this domain in the last generations in Africa and in the Balkans. Some of the theories have also been applied to Old Testament studies, but as a rule, Biblical historiography has mainly been preoccupied with questions relating to written transmission.

With regard to the historicity of oral traditions in general, opinions have differed widely among scholars, ranging from total rejection to cautious consideration. The main problem is usually the lack of parallel sources against which the accuracy of the oral traditions may be tested.

Homeric historiography has gone through strikingly similar processes as Biblical historiography. The question, however, as in the case of the Deuteronomistic History, is, how much was retained from that distant past?

The problems are similar, but in the case of Homer there are some extraordinary circumstances which should provide better answers concerning the validity of oral transmission. Fortunately, there is an ancient source that can authenticate the general geo-political background of the Homeric narrative: Hittite documents. [For example, the Hittite documents from the time of the supposed Trojan War between the European Greeks and the Asian Trojans uses exactly the name used by Homer to designate the Greeks, Achaioi.]

To be sure, the story has been revised time and again and adapted to contemporary needs, but its basic features had been remembered and kept alive in all probability without any written transmission.

In evaluating the historicity of a story, a distinction should be made between its main structure and its secondary details. In other words, even if Odysseus’s boar-tusk helmet were proven to be late, there would still remain the general situation described by Homer, which fits much better the Mycenaean Age than his own times.

The relevance of this analogy to the Philistine-Israelite encounter narrated in the Books of Samuel is obvious. The armament of Goliath, even if shown to contain late elements, should not obscure the overall impression gained from the essential situation described in the story. And this, in my opinion, conforms much better to the Iron Age I than to any subsequent period in Israelite history, including, of course, the late-monarchic period.

The Deuteronomistic History preserves a relatively accurate memory of the distant past, of a time when the Philistines expanded from their five-city kingdoms northwards and eastwards to the central highlands [of Israel], or in other words, of the Iron I. The Biblical narrative obviously contains late anachronisms, but I do not see how the main core of the story could be relevant to a late-monarchic setting.

As in countless other national epics throughout the world, the main features of the heroic saga—the description of the crucial struggle against the Philistines, the quintessential “other” who played such a dominant role in the formation of Israelite identity—were remembered and cherished throughout the centuries, before being immortalized in the Deuteronomistic History.

Itamar Singer, author of the following, was one of Israel’s most distinguished historians. He taught at Tel Aviv University. Unfortunately he died on September 19, 2012, at the age of 65.a The excerpt below is from one of his final papers and summarizes a much longer discussion. Our more scholarly readers may consult the original publication.1 The mainstream of current Biblical scholarship tends to accept the premise that the main part of the Deuteronomistic History [Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings] was composed in Jerusalem in the seventh–early sixth century B.C.E. The more difficult questions concern the sources at the […]