Book Frank Moore Cross

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FRANKMOORE

CROSS

C O N V E R S A T I O N S

W I T H A B I B L E

S C H O L A R

H E R S H E L S H A N K S


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Frank Cross of Harvaris Americas lea in

Bible scholar

H eretofore, Crosss views co ld be gleaned only from arcanescholarly articles and abstr se tomes. Now, for the firsttime, his insights are accessible in clear, informal and easily nder-standable lang age.

In the n s al format of an interview,Bib ica Archa o o y R i wandBib R i weditor Hershel Shanks q estions Cross

abo t s ch diverse s bjects as the ro te of the Exod s (thro ghSa di Arabia!), the development of Israelite religion, the history of the alphabet and its effect on Israelite c lt re, the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the importance of ancient Hebrew seals.

And all this is ill strated with glorio s f ll-color pict res, aswell as explanatory charts and maps.

In his c stomary engaging, sometimes provocative, style, Shanksexplores with Cross the nat re of the scholars vocation, the way hereasons and even anecdotes involving efforts to p rchase some of theDead Sea Scrolls.

In the process, a gentle, wise and witty scholar with a warmh man face is revealeda combination of high scholarship and per-sonal testament.

No one serio sly interested in the Bible can afford to miss thisdisc ssion. Never before has biblical scholarship been so enticing.

Best of all, it will be a highly enjoyable experienceindeed, one toret rn to again and again as rereadings open p new layers of schol-arly wisdom.


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FRANK MOORE CROSS

C o n v e r s a t i o n s w i t h a B i B l e s C h o l a r


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FRANK MOORE CROSS

Conversa t ions wi th

a B iBle sCho la r

HERSHEL SHANKS EdITOR

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOgy SOCIETy

WASHINgTON, dC

WWW.BIB-ARCH.ORg
http://www.bib-arch.org/http://www.bib-arch.org/


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The Biblical Archaeology Society wo ld like to thank Carol R. Arenberg, J dith Wohlberg, La rie Andrews, Sean OBrien, Steven Feldman, S zanne Singer andColeta Aranas-Campanale for preparing this book for p blication.

The conversations in chapters 1, 2 and 3 took place at the home of ProfessorCross in Lexington, Massach setts, on November 7 and 8, 1991, and were p b-lished inBib R i w8:4, 8:5 and 8:6 (1992). The conversations in chapters 4and 5 took place at Professor Crosss home on April 13, 1993.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-P blication DataCross, Frank Moore.

Frank Moore Cross: conversations with a Bible scholar / Hershel Shanks, editor.p. cm.

Incl des index.ISBN 1-880317-18-4

1. J daismHistoryTo 70 A.D.2. Bible. O.T.History of Biblical events.

3. AlphabetHistory.4. Inscriptions, AncientMiddle East.

5. Dead Sea ScrollsCriticism, interpretation, etc.6. Cross, Frank MooreInterviews. I. Shanks, Hershel. II.

Title. BM165.C76 1994296-dc20 94-3713 CIP

All rights reserved nder International and Pan-American Copyright ConventionsDesigned by AuRAS Design, Washington, DC

ISBN 1-880317-18-4

1994 Biblical Archaeology Society4710 41st Street, NW

Washington, DC 20016


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CONtENtS

Introd ction 1Acknowledgments 3

Opening Conversation 5

I. Israelite Origins 11

II. The Development of Israelite Religion 33

III. How the Alphabet Democratized Civilization 57

IV. Seals and Other Writings 87

V. The History and Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls 97

Endnotes 173

Glossary 179

List of Ill strations 181

Index 183


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1

INtRODUCtION

a

My fa orit way to arn is by as in qu stions of a r at scho ar.That is why I so much njoy d doin this boo .

But ca in Fran Cross a r at scho ar is an und rstat m nt. Ha in h d th Hancoc chair at Har ard (th third o d st ndow d chairin th country) for 35 y ars, h is n ra y r ard d by his co a u s with aw . Th br adth of his scho arship, as I su st in our pr iminarycon rsation, brin s to mind a co ossus of arnin of an ar i r n ration, Wi iam F. A bri ht. Crosss scho ar y int r sts xt nd from th ori ins of Isra to th D ad S a Scro s, from th history of th a phab t to th history of cu tur , from handwritin typo o i s to anci nt H br w s a s.

Un i A bri ht, how r, Cross has addr ss d hims f main y to his scho ar y co a u s and stud nts. H has not writt n much for

ayp op . In this co ction of int r i wsfor th first tim , I b i Cross and his id as ar asi y acc ssib to a wid audi nc . For that

r ason a on , this itt boo is a tr asur . H r , in disti d, crysta -in form, th fruits of Fran Crosss arnin ar mad a ai ab toryon .

I initiat d th s int r i ws for pub ication in Bib R i w (BR), thon y ma azin d ot d to brin in hi h- bib ica scho arship tonon-scho ars. Th s int r i ws ntua y app ar d in thr cons cutiissu s of BR. Our r ad rs found th m so stimu atin that w d cid d


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to pub ish th m as a boo (th first thr chapt rs of this o um ) andto add to th m (th r maind r of this boo ) discussions of subj cts notco r d in th pr ious int r i ws. Th at r mat ria is pub ish d

h r for th first tim .What may not com throu h in th s int r i ws, Im afraid, is FranCross, th man nt , wis , int r st d, nt rtainin and ca m, nin th fac of pro ocation. I wou d b d r ict if I did not r cord what a p asur it has b n to int r i w Prof ssor Cross and to wor with him pr parin th transcripts for pub ication. In a candor, h and I ha disa r d about som thin ry important to both of usmy ro in ma in th D ad S a Scro s a ai ab to a scho ars. ButProf ssor Cross, a ways th nt man, n r a ow d this d p y f t disa r m nt to com b tw n us. And I ist n d to him withunbound d r sp ct, n in th rar instanc s wh n I disa r d with him. Now, happi y, our disa r m nt is history.

Th r is no mor xcitin way to nt r th mind and thou ht of onof th r at st bib ica scho ars of our tim than by r adin and r -r adin this boo . I consid r it a r at p rsona honor to b thm ans of pr s ntin Fran Crosss id as to stud nts of th Bib . I now r ad rs wi find it ducationa , nrichin and inspirin a fr sh appr ciation of th unp umb d d pths waitin to b xp or din th r at st boo of a tim .

Hershel Shanks Editor Bible Review

2


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ACKNOWLEDGMENtS

a

The bea tif l design, the lavish color pict res, the finepaper in this book wo ld not have been possible with-o t the genero s s pport of Frank Crosss friends andadmirers. We are pleased to acknowledge with great

gratit de their contrib tion to this p blication:

Leon Levy and Shelby WhiteTerrence and R th Elkes

Michael and J dy SteinhardtRichard and Joan Sche er


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FRANK MOORE CROSS


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5

I began my conversatIons with Professor Cross at his home inLexington, Massach setts, by asking him if he recognized the fol-lowing q otation:

The whole of the ancient Near East has been his bailiwickits geography and archaeology, its lang ages and literat re, itshistory and religion. I s spect that he is the last...generalistwith the specialists precision in designated areas of Egyptian,Mesopotamian, Anatolian and Syro-Palestinian st dies....Eachof the great discoveries in the Near East has galvanized [him]with excitement, and he has been fo nd reg larly in the fore-front of those who endeavored to interpret the new data and tob ild new syntheses comprehending the new evidence.

He recognized the description immediately as his trib te to the great

biblical archaeologist William Foxwell Albright written in 1970.1

I told him his description reminded me of another great scholarhimselfand I went on to describe him. Yo are certainly one of theworlds leading epigraphers. Yo read and decipher an ancient textbetter than almost anyone else. Yo can date an inscription by theshape and stance of the letters. Yo know a dozen ancient lang agesand dialects. Yo are a leading historian of the biblical period. Yoare an expert in the development of the biblical canon. Yo have ex-plained the creation of the alphabet. Yo are a historian of religion. Yo are an a thority on ancient c lt res. Yo re a historical geog-

OpENINGCONvERSAtION

a


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6

F R A N k M O O R e C R O S S

rapher. In yo r time, yo have done archaeology on both land andseaand nder water. Yo are a leading a thority on the Dead SeaScrolls. In fact, yo are an expert in almost everything over a period

of 2,000 years. And yo hold the third oldest endowed academicchair in the co ntry, the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and OtherOriental Lang ages at Harvard.

Cross rejected the comparison to Albright. Yo compare me toAlbright, he said, b t I have remarkably narrowed the sphere inwhich he operated. I work in c neiform some, b t I am not a c nei-formist; he was. I once co ld read Egyptian. I have not worked inEgyptian for 40 years. If I have to decipher a place name or person inEgyptian, I can do that, b t I dont read Egyptian texts, as Albrightdid. I dont read Hittite, as Albright did. I dont know Sanskrit, asAlbright did. My Berber is terrible; Albrights was excellent. I co ldgo on. I have limited myself to a m ch more restricted range.

Then Cross deflected the conversation. Had I seen the recent a -tobiographical reflections of Hebrew university professor BenjaminMazar, the elderly doyen of Israeli archaeology? Cross praised Mazarand explained that Albright andMazar were his teachers. Mazar hadremarked how m ch Albright had inspired and galvanized him, and

altho gh Cross was Albrights st dent, he wanted me to nderstandthat he regarded himself as a st dent of Mazar as well. Mazar hadinspired him, he said, in ways that Albright had not.

My relationship over the years with Mazar has been very inti-mate, and I have often spoken of him as my teacher. In many ways,Mazar was a better pedagog e than Albright. Mazar is at his best ina seminar, in a disc ssion face to face. Albright was very diffic lt oneto one. With Albright yo co ld not get across yo r ideas before

he was lect ring yo . As a st dent, I fo nd the only way I co ldpers ade Albright of an idea of mineor get an article past him forp blicationwas not to disc ss it with him, b t to hand it to himcompletely written, leave and let him look at it.

Cross retired in May 1992, shortly after o r first interview. I askedhim if he felt more satisfaction or fr stration at his pending retirement.

My st dents, he replied, have given me the greatest pleas re.I have always had the view that the first task of a scholar is to passknowledge and nderstanding of method and the tools of his fieldfrom one generation to the next. To lead st dents into the forefront


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of the field is a very exciting vent re. I have now directed over 100doctoral dissertations at Harvard. I have been somewhat fr stratednot to have had more time for writing and research. B t I elected to

give teaching priority and, when I am thinking straight, I like thatpriority. I chose it and wo ld do so again. We also talked abo t the press re on st dents to specialize in

light of the knowledge explosion. I think yo lose more by being anarrow specialist, he said, altho gh yo re safe and sec re in yo rlittle niche, than yo do by the riskiness of some breadth. For thegeneralist, there is the possibility of synthesizing, of seeing aspectsof things that the specialist cannot see.

I dont like the narrowing of biblical scholarship into a theologicalframework in the Protestant tradition. And I dont like the narrow-ing of archaeologists into technicians, which is a tendency in IsraelI deploreand which Mazar also deplores, by the way. I dont likethe narrowing of biblical st dies into literary analysis. I am not talk-ing abo t old-fashioned literary criticism b t abo t the new literaryanalysis in which yo dont have to know historical ling istics, yodont have to read history, yo dont have to know anything excepta little bit of literary theory. Any c tting off of the air of other fields

and other perspectives tro bles me.I know that the amo nt of lore in Mesopotamian st dies is so

large that people now specialize in Assyriology or in S merology orin the Neo-Assyrian period as against the Old Babylonian period.These specialties have been pressed on s by the sheer amo nt of material that exists. Archaeologists feel the same sort of press re. B tthe specialist who knows Middle Bronze I exceedingly well restrictshimself ltimately from seeing any relationship between archaeology

and history. Archaeology in a historical period m st interact withhistory.I asked him what he advises his st dents with regard to special-

ization. Their training sho ld be like training in law or medicine, Itell them, where yo st dy a little bit of everything in law school ormedical school, and then yo specialize. I think biblical scholars orSemitists sho ld have broad training in a whole gro p of lang ages,partic larly comparative Semitic philology and the history of theHebrew lang age or, if yo re a Mesopotamian scholar, the history of the East Semitic gro p of lang ages. Yo sho ld do eno gh archaeol-

7

O P e N I N g C O N v e R S A T I O N


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ogy to be able to read archaeological literat re critically. Yo sho ldknow eno gh ancient history so that yo re not lost. Yo sho ld beable to check a c neiform text if yo have to. In short, yo sho ld

not be restricted if yo have to move in another direction. If it t rnso t that yo have to p blish scrolls from Q mrn, yo sho ld haveeno gh training in Greek so that yo can bring yo r Greek p to thepoint of sing it in text al criticism.

Then, inevitably, yo specialize. B t yo have to have the nec-essary eq ipment, the necessary lang ages and the necessary tools,the necessary historiographic theory to operate. Otherwise, it seemsto me, yo are constantly at the mercy of the secondary literat re. Yo control nothing on yo r own. I dont like what comes o t of thatyo contin e to rely on old paradigms that are antiq ated.

Then we t rned o r attention to the Bible and biblical history.



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MESHA STELE (MOABITE STONE)

Caption on pa 12.


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11

C H A p T E R 1

ISRAELItE ORIGINSa

Hershel Shanks: I ha h ard you sp a of Isra it ori ins, but I ha not s n in print your th ory that th Isra it s cam out of e ypt and tra dto Canaan ia Saudi Arabia. Is that corr ct?

Frank Moore Cross:[La ghter] Yo have an ncanny ability to p tmatters in the most provocative way possible. I sho ld not expressmyself in the words yo have chosen. Let me p t my views in mywords. The land of Midian played an important role in ancient Israelitehistory, in Israelite origins. The Midianites were West Semites andprobably spoke a northwest Semitic dialect. The role of the priest of Midian is most extraordinary in Epic tradition,1 partic larly in view of later tradition, which treats the Midianites as an intractable enemy.

HS: J thro?

FMC:Yes. Moses married his da ghter (Exod s 2:15-22). Thepriestly offspring of Moses were th s half Israelite, half Midianiteaccording to tradition. This too is extraordinary, and the fact thatthe tradition was preserved demands explanation.

Altho gh Midian plays a major role in the early traditions of Moses life and labors, the Midianites later play a strangely sinisterrole in other traditions. In priestly lore the Midianites are archenemies


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who led Israel into gross sin (N mbers 25 and 31). On the otherhand, Epic tradition makes Israels j diciary the creation of the priestof Midian (Exod s 18:14-27). And an old tradition records that the

priest of Midian made sacrifices and joined in a comm nal feast withAaron,mirabi dictu, and the elders of Israel (Exod s 18:12).These bizarre traditions, one might say grat ito s traditions,

gave rise to the so-called Midianite hypothesis. A major proponentof this hypothesis was the great German historian Ed ard Meyerwhoseg schicht d s A t rtums(History of Antiq ity)2 is one of themon ments of ancient Near Eastern scholarship. Scholars in his campproposed that the god Yahweh was a Midianite deity, patron of aMidianite leag e with which elements of Israel, incl ding Moses, wereassociated in the so th and Transjordan, before Israels entry into thePromised Land. So, in part, Israels religio s origins may be tracedto Midian. New evidence has acc m lated since Ed ard Meyer andhis followers sketched the Midianite hypothesis, and I believe we cannow propose a new and more detailed Midianite hypothesis.

HS: Wh r is Midian?

FMC:Midian proper bordered Edom on the so th and probablyocc pied part of the area that became so thern Edom in what isnow so thern Transjordan. It also incl ded the northwestern cornerof the Hejaz; it is a land of formidable mo ntains as well as deserts.

12


MESHA STELE (MOABITE STONE), page 10. According to the ninth-centuryb .c .e . Mesha Stelealso called the Moabite Stonea sanctuary was located in thecity of Nebo, which Cross locates in the valley between Mount Nebo and MountPeor. The Mesha Stele, which is more than three feet high and two feet wide, isthe largest monumental inscription ever discovered from pre-Exilic Palestine andwas written by order of Mesha, the Moabite king. On the black basalt stele, Meshaboasts of conquering Israelite territory and humiliating the tribe of Dan.

The intact stele was discovered in 1868 in Dhiban, now in Jordan, but thestone was later broken into pieces, perhaps because individual pieces were more valuable on the market than the stele would have been in one piece. After a longsearch, Charles Clermont-Ganneau, a French diplomat and amateur archaeolo-gist, recovered some of the fragments. By combining them with partial copiesof the text made before the stone was destroyed, Clermont-Ganneau was able topiece together most of the inscription. The smooth areas on the stone indicate

Clermont-Ganneaus reconstruction.


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HS: In Saudi Arabia?

FMC:Yes, Midian is in the northwestern border area of what is now Sa di Arabia. I prefer to refer to it by the biblical term Midian.Incidentally the Sa dis will not permit excavation in this area despiteefforts that Peter Parr and I cond cted some years ago on behalf of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the British School

of Archaeology.

13

I S R A e l I T e O R I g I N S

EGYPT

SINAI

MIDIANSerabtd el-Khdem

Jebel Musa

Qurayyah

Eilat

Timna

Kuntillet f Ajrd

Kadesh-BarneaMt. Seir

M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a DeadSea

R e d S e a

G u l f o f

E i l a t

G u l f o f S u

e z

ROUTE OF THE EXODUS. One of the most vexing problems in biblical archae-ology is establishing the route taken by the Israelites when they left Egypt. Manytheories have been proposed for tracking the Exodusa northern route along theMediterranean called the Way of the Land of the Philistines or the Way of theSea, a central route called the Way of Shur and a southern route that passes by Jebel Musa, the mountain traditionally identified as Mount Sinai.

Frank Moore Cross considers efforts to locate Mount Sinai in the Sinai penin-sula misguided. He believes the Israelites wandered through the land of Midian,east of the Gulf of Eilat (modern northwest Saudi Arabia).


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14


HS: Isnt Midian traditiona y p ac d in Sinai?

FMC:I sho ld say rather that Sinai is placed in Midian.

HS: Ar you sayin that a scho ars a r that Midian is south of th Jordanian-Saudi bord r?

FMC:I cannot say categorically all, b t the consens s is that ancientMidian was so th of Eilat on the Sa di side. Note too that traditionholds that the Midianites controlled ro tes north thro gh Edom andMoab very m ch like the later Nabateans, and that Midian in Israelsearliest poetry is associated with Edom, Mo nt Seir and Teman.

The notion that the mo ntain of God called Sinai and Horebwas located in what we now call the Sinai Penins la has no oldertradition s pporting it than Byzantine times. It is one of the manyholy places created for pilgrims in the Byzantine period.

HS: In th fourth c ntury?

FMC:Yes.

HS: So you wou d p ac Sinai in what is today Saudi Arabia?

FMC:Yo havent forgotten yo r skills in cross- (or Cross-) ex-amination. Yes, in the northwestern corner of Sa di Arabia, ancientMidian. There is new evidence favoring this identification. In thelate 1960s and 1970s when Israel controlled the Sinai Penins la, es-pecially in the period shortly before the area was ret rned to Egypt,

the penins la was explored systematically and intensely by archaeolo-

A LAND OF PHYSICAL CONTRASTSforbidding deserts and formidablemountainsancient Midian is also a land of contrasts in Israelite tradition. Onthe one hand, Moses sojourned in Midian after slaying an Egyptian (Exodus 2:15);he married the daughter of Jethro, a Midianite priest (Exodus 2:21); and Jethrolater advised Moses on how to dispense justice efficiently (Exodus 18:33-27). Onthe other hand, the Midianites are depicted as archenemies who led the Israelitesinto sin (Numbers 25 and 31). Frank Moore Cross attributes the pro-Midianiteposition to the combined J (Yahwist) and E (Elohist) strand of the Pentateuch,which he calls the Epic tradition. He ascribes the anti-Midianite outlook to the P(Priestly code) component of the Pentateuch.


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gists. What they fo nd from the 13th to 12th cent riesb .c .e ., theera of Moses and Israels entry into Canaan, was an archaeologicalblank save for Egyptian mining sites at Serab dt el-Khdem (photos,

pp. 71-73) and Timna (photos, pp. 18-19) near Eilat. They fo ndno evidence of settled occ pation. This proved tr e even at the sitegenerally identified with Kadesh-Barnea (f n Q deirat), which wasnot occ pied ntil the tenth cent ryb .c .e . at the earliest. The fortresswas constr cted only in the ninth cent ry.3

On the other hand, recent s rveys of Midian have prod ced s r-prising discoveries of a developed civilization in precisely the periodin q estion, the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of theIron Age, the 13th to 12th cent ries.4 At Q rayyah, archaeologistsdiscovered a major fortified citadel, a walled village and extensiveirrigation works (see photos, p. 20). Characteristic pottery calledMidianite ware s ally called Hejaz ware in Sa di jo rnals radi-ates o t from the northern Hejaz into so thern Transjordan and

15



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sites near Eilat, notably Timna. Extraordinarily eno gh, it is absentfrom the Sinai. In short, we have a blank Sinai and a thriving c lt rein Midian in this era.

Biblical traditions preserve m ch Midianite lore. At the end of his life, Moses is described as going north into the district of Mo ntNebo and Mo nt Peor in Transjordan. Both an Epic so rce and thePriestly so rce in the Balaam cycle in the Book of N mbers recordtraditions of Midianite presence in this area. Evidently they exercisedat least commercial hegemony, controlling the newly developed in-

JUDAH

Mt. Nebo

M e d i t e r r a n e a n

S e a

Dead Sea

Tribal Allotments according tothe Book of Joshua

SIMEON

REUBEN

M OA B

E D O M

GADEPHRAIMDAN

BENJAMIN

MANASSEH

EASTMANASSEH A

S H E R

N A P H

T A L I

ZEBULUN

ISSACHAR

Se aof

Galilee

Jerusalem Peor

Shechem

J o r d a n

R i v

e r

N

0 20 mi

0 30 km


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17


cense trade. In Israelite so rces, this area of Transjordan was assignedto Re ben b t was lost to Moab early and is often called the plainsof Moab in the Bible. We know from the ninth-cent ry (b .c .e .)

Mesha Stele5

that there was a sanct ary in the city of Nebo.6

Moseswas b ried in this valley. Balaam delivered his oracles (N mbers23:28), we are told, from Mo nt Peor; and the notorio s orgy inwhich there was co pling with Midianite women (N mbers 25:1-5)has its loc s here as well.

HS: Ar you p acin N bo wh r it is traditiona y p ac d?

FMC:Mo nt Nebo, yes. The city of Nebo I have shifted from theByzantine site on the so th of the mo ntain to an early Iron Age siteright in the heart of the valley over against Mo nt Peor.

I think it is fair to say that we can trace a cycle of Midianite lorefrom the locale of the mo ntain of God in Midian, and northward toRe ben. The Book of De teronomy places Moses second giving of the law (De teronomy 4:44 thro gh chapter 26) and the renewal of the covenant of the tribes in Re ben (De teronomy 29-31). We aretold too that in this same district the rallying of the militia took place

and the entry into the Promised Land was la nched (Josh a 2-4): Omy people, remember...what happened from Shittim to Gilgal, asMicah reminds s (Micah 6:5).

HS: Can you trac th rout ? Th exodus rout wou d ha to o acrossSinai, wou dnt it, if you ar a in e ypt.

FMC:At best we can only spec late. A mo ntain of paper has

been expended in attempting to locate the stations of the Exod s inN mbers 33. There are almost as many opinions as there are scholars.One of the most pers asive treatments I know is Martin Noths.7 Hearg es that nderlying the Priestly doc ment (and the list of stationsin De teronomy 10:6-7) was a list of pilgrimage stations from Re bento Midian, secondarily s pplemented to cross to Egypt. Pilgrimages tothe so thern mo ntain are reflected in the narrative of Elijahs jo rneyto Sinai. The small site of K ntilletf Ajrd8 (photos, pp. 24-25), fromthe late ninth cent ryb .c .e ., is probably a pilgrimage station on theway to Eilat and so th. Pilgrim texts mention Yahweh of Samaria,


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18



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and notably Yahweh of Teman, probably a reference to a Midianiteshrine either in Midian or on Mo nt Seir.

HS: Isnt th mo m nt of th Isra it s into Saudi Arabia in thopposit dir ction from th way th y wish d to o?

FMC:That depends on what their goal was.

HS: I am assumin it was th Promis d land.

FMC:Matters are m ch more complicated. The historian has greatdiffic lty separating history from legend and tradition reshaped in theliterary interests of poets and seers. There is some reason to believethat there is a historical n cle s in the tradition that some elementsof what later became Israelthe Moses gro p, we can call them, or

19

CLIFFS OF THE TIMNA VALLEY. Located in the Negev about 19 miles north-west of Eilat (see map, p. 13), Timna has been the site of copper mines since theChalcolithic period (fourth millenniumb .c .e .). The area around the toweringcliffs of the Timna Valley, like the ones seen in the photo (bottom left) calledKing Solomons Pillars (there is no evidence that Solomon had anything todo with the site), is honeycombed with more than 7,000 mine shafts. In a surveyof the area in 1966, archaeologist Beno Rothenberg discovered a small structurebuilt against the base of one of the pillars (top left). The building is about 50 feeton each side with preserved remains five feet high, a long-standing sanctuary thatwas once a temple to the Egyptian goddess Hathor (late 14th to mid-13th centuryb .c .e .). The site was later used as a tented shrine during a Midianite phase datingto about the mid-12th centuryb .c .e ., during which representations of Hathor aswell as earlier hieroglyphic inscriptions were systematically defaced. Examples of Midianite pottery from Timna are shown above.



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20


FORTIFIED CITADEL AT QURAYYAH. Evidence of 13th- and 12th-centuryactivity is scarce in the area traditionally identified as Sinai despite intense ar-chaeological exploration in the 1960s and 1970s when the area was under Israelicontrol. In Midian, on the other hand, considerable archaeological remains datingto the 13th and 12th centuriesb .c .e . have been found.

At Qurayyah, for example, archaeologists uncovered a fortified citadel (top),a walled village and extensive irrigation works. Midianite ware (above) has beenrecovered in northwestern Arabia, southern Transjordan and sites near Eilat (suchas Timna). The resulting picture of the period, Professor Cross notes, is of a blankSinai and a thriving culture in Midian. Based on this evidence, he concludesthat the people who left Egypt and later joined other tribal groups to form theIsraelite people traveled through Midian, which should properly be identified asbiblical Sinai.


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proto-Israelfled from Egypt and event ally (a generation, or 40years later, according to the biblical chronology) ended p invad-ing Canaan from the Re benite area of Transjordan. There is also

archaeological evidence that tribal elements moved from east to westwhen they occ pied the central hill co ntry of Canaan. Certainlythere was the movement of other gro ps of people of patriarch stockinto the hill co ntry in this same period who were not of the Mosesgro p. In De teronomistic tradition we are told that the Israelitescompassed Mo nt Seir many days.9

So we cannot think of Israel leaving Egypt and making a beelinefor the Promised Land. If the tradition of their long sojo rn in thewilderness has a historical basis, then the historian m st ask how this tradition s rvived. Even if the gro p was small, co nted at mostin h ndreds rather than millions, as tradition in N mbers (N mbers1:46) claims, they co ld not have s rvived for a generation in nin-habited Sinai nless one takes at face val e the legend of the heav-ens raining manna and the migration with mirac lo s freq encyof myriads of q ail (Exod s 16:4-36).

No, if the Israelite contingent from Egypt s rvived long in theso thern wilderness, it was beca se they headed for an area where

there was civilization, irrigated crops, the means of s stenance.So thern Edom and Midian s pply this need, and so I believe theyheaded there. And this doesnt even mention the alliance by mar-riage between Moses family and the priestly ho se of Midian. Thatthis alliance had a historical basis is diffic lt to do btsince it wasprofo ndly objectionable to many circles in Israel, incl ding thePriestly school, which finally edited the Tetrate ch (Genesis, Exod s,Levitic s and N mbers). Yet it was kept in.

HS: You m ntion d in passin patriarch stoc . Do you m an thd sc ndants of th patriarchs in th Bib ?

FMC:More or less. Peoples who spoke the lang age and bore thepersonal names that we can call patriarchal or, better, Hebrew.M ch has been written on the termsf Apir and Hebrew (f ibr ) andtheir relationship. I have long held that the termf apiru(not f apru as some vocalize it) means client or member of a client class.10 Thef Apir in fact had no stat s in the Canaanite fe dal order b t


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attached himself to it in a variety of rolesin military service, asan agric lt ral worker, etc. Or, since he had no legal stat s, heco ld t rn to o tlawry.

This client class, which was despised by Canaanite nobility beforeIsraels appearance in Canaan, becamef Ibrm, Hebrews, a class orgro ponly later did the term carry ethnic overtoneswith whomIsrael identified and who had special stat s in early Israelite legal lore.S rely in the consolidation of the Israelite leag e, serfs (d hupsuwhobecame freemen,d hopsi, a ling istic development m ch like that of f apirubecomingf ibr ), clients and slaves were readily absorbed intothe nation, imprinting Israel with the conscio sness of being of lowlyorigins, o tsiders in Canaanite society.

22


MOUNT NEBO. From Mount Nebo, which rises from the plains of Moab justeast of the Jordan River, Moses was allowed to look across to the Promised Land,although he was fated never to enter it (Deuteronomy 34:1-8). He was buried inan unknown spot in the valley between Mount Nebo and Mount Peor.

Other biblical events associated with this area include the delivery of Balaamsoracles from Mount Peor (Numbers 23 and 24) and the illicit coupling of Israelitemen with Midianite women (Numbers 25). These incidents, although they tookplace in Moab, include references to a Midianite presence in the area. ProfessorCross believes that the Midianites, who controlled the newly developed incensetrade, exercised commercial hegemony over the area.


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23


The f Apir are mentioned often in inscriptions from the LateBronze Age in Syria and Egypt, and especially in the Amarna let-ters, correspondence from the 14th cent ryb .c .e ., chiefly between

Canaanite vassal kings and their Egyptian overlords.11

From theseletters, we learn that a gro p of f apiruheaded by a certain Labayyact ally seized the important city of Shechem and terrified the king-lets ro nd abo t, who in t rn rged the pharaoh to come to their aid.

The Amarna letters reveal that the fe dal system in Palestine wasbreaking down and that dissident elements were making all kinds of tro ble. Egypt nder the pharaoh Akhenaten was weak and losingcontrol of the empire, which incl ded Canaan.

George Mendenhall12and Norman Gottwald13have promoted thetheory that Israel came into being in the land as the res lt of a socialrevol tion. I think this theory is not witho t some merit, b t I dontthink this single (for Gottwald, Marxist) explanation of Israelite ori-gins in the land is the whole story.

Israel also moved from the east into the hill co ntry of centralCanaan, a co ntry largely ninhabited.14 Albrecht Alt, and most re-cently Israel Finkelstein, have arg ed that Israelite elements, small

gro ps of nomadic pastoralists, peacef lly infiltrated ninhabited ar-eas in Cisjordan and slowly began to settle down in the co rse of thelate 13th and early 12th cent riesb .c .e . This model too, I believe, hassome validity, b t again I find it overly simple.

The biblical tradition of a systematic, all-encompassing militaryconq est is, no do bt, m ch overdrawn, and there are some contra-dictory elements even in the conq est tradition as we have it in theBible.15 B t I do not believe that Israel moved into the land witho tany conflict. Tribal people are almost by definition warriors as wellas keepers of small cattle (chiefly sheep and goats in mixed flocks inthis period).16 And the rapid and aggressive formation of the leag em st have led to military confrontations.

I am bem sed by the fact that, given the widespread evidence of destr ction in Canaan at the end of the Late Bronze Age and thebeginning of the Iron Age, some scholars are inclined to attrib tethe violence to vario s people, despite the lack of written records, toalmost anyoneexcept Israel, for whom we have elaborate writtenrecords of warfare. The notion of conq est, largely discredited these


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KUNTILLETf AJRD, a

late ninth-centuryb .c .e . pilgrimage site and reststop (shown at right),sits atop a westward- facing plateau in thenorthern Sinai. FrankCross suggests that theplaces listed in Numbers33 and Deuteronomy 10as sites through whichthe Israelites passed af-

ter leaving Egypt, as well assites in Moab and Midian, were

pilgrimage stations much like thisone. Among the remarkable finds at

Kuntilletf Ajrd was a fragment froma large storage jar bearing a drawing and

an inscription (top photo and artists rendi-tion), which have been the subject of heated de-

bate. The inscription reads, I have blessed you by Yahweh of Samaria and hisgasherah. Some scholars have suggested that Yahweh isrepresented at left and the goddessgAsherah either at center or at right. Others arguethat both the left and center figures are the Egyptian god Bes, depicted in typical

arms-akimbo pose topped by a characteristic feathered headdress; the figure at right,according to this theory, is an ordinary lyre player.

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days, and properly so in the stereotyped, De teronomistic ver-sion, is not witho t testimony, archaeological and literary. Israelspremonarchical hymns, Songs of the Wars of Yahweh, testify to

early wars and conq ests.In short, I prefer a complex explanation of the origins of Israel inthe land to any of the simple models now being offered. B t to ret rnto o r thesis, embedded in the biblical tradition is historical evidenceof a migration or inc rsion from Re ben of elements of Israel whocame from the so th and had ties to Midian, whose original leaderwas Moses.

HS: Did th y com from e ypt?

FMC:Moses has an Egyptian name, and tradition early and late p tshim in the ho se of pharaoh. His descendants, too, sometimes exhibitEgyptian names. I have no reason to do bt that many who event -ally reached Re ben (or the plains of Moab as the area is morefreq ently called in the Bible) came north from so thern Edom andnorthern Midian, where the Midianite leag e flo rished, and where,in my view, the mo ntain of God was located. They were ref gees

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26


from Egypt or, in traditional terms, patriarchal folk who were freedfrom Egyptian slavery.

HS: Do you ha any u ss which mountain mi ht b Mount Sinai?

FMC:I really dont. There are several enormo s mo ntains in whatis now northwestern Sa di Arabia. Jebel el-Lawz is the highest mo n-tain in Midian8,465 feethigher than any mo ntain in the SinaiPenins la. B t biblical Mo nt Sinai need not be the highest mo n-tain. There is some reason to search for it in so thern Edom, whichwas Midianite terrain before the expansion of the Edomites so th.Archaic poetry in the Bible describes Yahweh as coming from Edom.For example, in J dges 5:1-31, the oldest of the biblical narrativesongs (late 12th cent ryb .c .e .), we read:

When Tho Yahweh went forth from Seir, When Thodidst march forth from the highlands of Edom, Earth shook, mo ntains sh ddered; Before Yahweh, Lord of Sinai, Before Yahweh, God of Israel

(J dges 5:4-5)

And in the Blessing of Moses, which is also very old, we read: Yahweh from Sinai came, He beamed forth from Seir pon

s, He shone from Mo nt Paran(De teronomy 33:2)

The name Seir refers of co rse to a mo ntaino s district of Edom.The following verses are fo nd in Habakk k 3:3-7 (one of the oldestand most primitive hymns in the Hebrew Bible):17

Eloah (God) came from Teman, The Holy One from Mo ntParan. His majesty covered heaven, His praise filled the earth, He shone like a destroying fire.... He stood and he shookearth, He looked and startled nations. Ancient mo ntainswere shattered, Eternal hills collapsed, Eternal orbits weredestroyed. The tents of K shan shook, Tent c rtains of theland of Midian.

I wo ld arg e that these archaic songs that locate Yahwehs move-ments in the so theastin Edom/Seir/Teman/Midian/C shanareo r most reliable evidence for locating Sinai/Horeb, the mo ntain of God. The search for origins and the reconstr ction of history from


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material that arises in oral tradition is always a precario s task. Thesingers of narrative poemsI speak of them as epic so rcesfollow certain traditional patterns that incl de mythological elements. They

do not contain what we wo ld call history in the modern sense of that term. We are dealing with epic, which does not fit easily intoeither the genres of fiction or of history.

How can the historian ferret o t valid historical memory in s chtraditional narratives? Perhaps he cannot. I am inclined to think,however, that old traditions that have no social f nction in laterIsraelor traditions that act ally flo t later orthodoxythat s chtraditions may preserve a thentic historical memories, memories toofixed in archaic poetry to be revised o t or s ppressed.

HS: Can you i m an xamp ?

FMC:In later Israel, the Midianites, as we have seen, were the bitterenemies of Israel according to one strat m of tradition. One needonly read the Priestly acco nt of the episode of Baf al Peor and thewar in which the Midianites were annihilated by Israel.18 Moses isdescribed as standing helpless and allowing the orgy and apostasy to

proceed witho t reprimand, according to the Priestly so rce; the herois the Aaronid Phineas, who, as a reward for his intervention, is givenan eternal priesthood. The fertility rites incl de what may e phe-mistically be called sacral marriage between a Midianite woman andan Israelite man, both of exalted lineage. Phineas spears the co ple,whom he catchesin f a rant d icto.

Alongside s ch traditions are older acco nts of the priest of Midian assisting Moses at Mo nt Sinai, of a scion of Midian g iding

Israel in the desert, of the marriage of Moses to a Midianite woman,of Moses siring mixed offspring, of Miriam being t rned p re whitewith leprosy for objecting to Moses marriage to a dark-skinnedMidianite. Indeed, as we search the JE traditions,19 Epic traditionsas opposed to the later Priestly so rce, there is no hint of polemicagainst Midian. On the contrary, in this strat m of tradition, it isAaron who creates the golden b ll and thereby leads Israel into apos-tasy, idolatry and orgiastic rites (Exod s 32). And it is the Levites,not the Aaronids, who receive an eternal priesthood for sla ghtering3,000 of the participants in the affair.

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In the acco nts of the stay in the wilderness of Sinai, there are aseries of conflict stories, especially between Moses and his allies,incl ding Midian, and, on the other hand, Aaron, Miriam and their

allies.20

Israels epic singers did not preserve these traditions in orderto s lly the rep tation of Moses. Evidently the Midianite traditionswere too firmly established in the old so rces to be forgotten or s p-pressedand hence are probably historical in n cle s.

Nor were traditions of Aarons dreadf l exploits preserved totarnish grat ito sly his dignity and a thority. The c ltic aetiologyof Aaron and the b ll probably has its roots in Israelite traditionsof Aaronic priests in Bethel who, in the ninth to eighth cent riesb .c .e . after the nited monarchy split in two, claimed Aaron as thecreator of the iconography that adorned their templethe yo ng

28


CUNEIFORM TABLET FROM TELLEL-AMARNA. More than 350 cunei-form tablets like the one shown herehave been found at Tell el-Amarna,the site of the capital of Egypt underPharaoh Akhenaten (Amenophis IV,1353-1335b .c .e .). Many of the tab-

lets contain correspondence betweenAkhenaten (or his predecessor) and vassal kings in Canaan. The letters reveal an empire in trouble. Egypt waslosing control of subject states, includ-ing Canaan, and Canaan itself was besetby problems inflicted by a mysteriouspeople known as the fApiru, who wereoutside the ranks of normal Canaanitesociety and were hired as agriculturalworkers or mercenaries. Some even saythe fApiru were outlaws. The Amarnaletter shown here records that a groupof fApiru, led by a certain Labgayyu(his name is highlighted in the pho-to), had seized the city of Shechem.Professor Cross proposes that the fApi-ru were one group that became part of the Israelite confederation and that thename fApiru was transformed into f I-brm, the Hebrew name for Hebrews.


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b ll, which, from their point of view, was no less orthodox than thecher b iconography of Jer salem, the capital of J dah. The expres-sion Behold yo r god(s) O Israel who bro ght yo p from the

land of Egypt appears both in the acco nt in Exod s 32 and in 1Kings 12:28 when Jeroboam, king of the northern kingdom, set phis c lt s in Dan and Bethel. The legend concerning Aaron was thent rned backward into angry polemic by non-Aaronid priests-tobe precise, by priests who traced their lineage to Moses and whosetraditions are fo nd in the Elohistic Epic so rce.

The conflict stories are inexplicable nless they arose in historicalconflict and rivalry between a Moses gro p and an Aaron gro p, moreprecisely in the rivalry and conflict between Israels two priestly ho ses,one the Zadokite family stemming from Aaron, the other a M shite(Moses-ite) or Levitic family that claimed descent from Moses.

There is evidence of rivalry as late as the time of David when hechose two joint high priests for his national shrine and c lt s aremarkable phenomenon nless answering a political need in Davidsattempt to nify his realm and legitimize his new shrine in Jer salem.The high priest Zadok can be traced to the Aaronids of Hebron, thesite of an important ancient shrine in J dah; the high priest Abiathar,

to the old M shite priesthood of the shrine at Shiloh in the north.Event ally, the Levites of Mosaic descent lost their rights to be altarpriests in Jer salem and became a second-class, s bservient clergy.

The evidence of the bitter conflict between the priestly ho ses s r-vives in o r biblical traditions. The priestly tradent, belonging to theAaronids (i.e., Zadokites), when bringing into final form this massof Tetrate chal traditions, dared not s ppress the stories of conflict,despite the fact that in his day the Aaronids were wholly dominant.

The stories had already become part of a well known, a thoritativeEpic tradition.Traditions abo t Re ben also yield evidence of Israels early re-

ligio s and social history. Re ben effectively disappeared from itstribal territoryand probably from any serio s role in later Israelitehistoryin the co rse of the 11th cent ryb .c .e .21 The tribal allot-ment ceased to be called Re ben, and this area is s ally referred to,as we have observed, as the plains or steppes of Moab. In the 11th- cent ry Blessing of Moses (De teronomy 33) we find the plea: LetRe ben live and not die, Altho gh his men be few. Yet strangely,

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Re ben is called the firstborn of Jacob.Genealogies in ancient Israeland indeed, more widely, among

tribal gro ps that create segmentary genealogiesalways reflect some

sociological and historical reality. The Chronicler reflects, if not be-wilderment at Re bens place in the genealogy, at least the clear j dg-ment that Re ben was nworthy of the birthright, and that, in fact,it went to Joseph, tho gh J dah became preeminent.22 Chroniclesnotes, however, that one m st write genealogies with Re ben as thefirstborn. I contend that Re bens place in the genealogy is evidencethat Re ben once played a major role in Israelite society, even adominant one, either political or religio s or both.

So important was the role of Re ben that it co ld not be eradi-cated or forgotten. P rs ing this line leads to the concl sion that thecycle of traditions rooted in the plains of Moab, in ancient Re ben,in which Moses plays a dominant role, and in the related Midianitetradition, rests on historical memories, very early epic memories. Thisdoes not mean that the modern historian can treat these memories

ncritically as history. Traditional memories may have distorted,telescoped or reshaped the core. This happens to orally transmittednarrative, even when it is preserved in the form las and themes of

oral poetry. B t in p rs ing his critical task, the modern historiancan often ferret o t important material for the history of Israelitereligion and society.


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WARRIOR gOd BA f ALCaption on pa 34.


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33

C H A p T E R 2

tHE DEvELOpMENt OFISRAELItE RELIGION

a

HS:You spo of usin archaic po try in th Bib to f rr t out th historyof Isra it r i ion and soci ty. How do you t what is archaic and o d and what isnt?

FMC:One of the first two monographs that Noel Freedman and Iwrote was on j st this s bject.1 In the book, we attempted to isolatearchaic poetry by sing a series of typologies. Typological seq encesare sed to date scripts, pots, grammatical sage, prosodic canonsand rhetorical devices, spelling practices, art forms and m sical styles,architect re, dress fashions, armor and a tomobiles. The typologieswe sed in the analysis of archaic poetry incl ded dating ling istic

sage, vocab lary, morphology (notably of the verb system and pro-

nominal elements and particles), syntax, spelling styles (a precario stask since spelling was s ally revised over the cent ries of scribaltransmission), prosodic styles and canons, and finally mythologicaland religio s traits.

Extrabiblical Canaanite and Hebrew inscriptions have providedthe basis for a typological description of Hebrew poetry in theBible, controlling the more s bjective proced re of analyzing bib-lical literat re and developing its typologies only on the basis of internal evidence. Poetry partic larly lends itself to this proced rebeca se its metrical str ct re and set form las resist, in some mea-


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s re, the press res to modernize that shape less str ct red prose.More s bjective, b t no less important, is the historical typology

of ideas, partic larly religio s ideas. In archaic biblical poetry one

finds s rvivals of raw mythology. In Psalm 29, a lightly revised Baf alhymn, Yahweh is celebrated as the storm god whose voice is theth nder and whose bolts shatter the cedars of Lebanon. His roarmakes (Mo nt) Lebanon to dance like a yo ng b ll, (Mo nt) Sirionlike a yo ng b ffalo (Psalm 29:6). Archaic poetry delights in re-co nting the theophany (or visible manifestation) of the storm godas the Divine Warrior who marches o t to war or who ret rns in vic-tory to his temple (or mo ntain abode). In the oracles of rhapsodistprophetss ch as Isaiah or Jeremiahthis lang age comes to be re-garded as nco th, if not dangero s, and is characteristically replacedin revelations by word, a dition or vision of the heavenly co ncil of Yahweh. Instead of th nder we get the word, the j dgment.

HS: Th sti , sma oic .

FMC:J st so. The still, small voice is a gen ine oxymoron. TheHebrew sho ld be translated a silent so nd. And the meaning is

that Yahweh, whose theophanic appearance Elijah so ght, passedwith no perceptible noise.

HS: As oppos d to passin in th storm.

34


STELE SHOWING WARRIOR GOD BAf AL, page 32. On this stele from Ugarit,on the Mediterranean coast of modern Syria, the god Baf al wields a club in hisright hand and a lance with branches representing lightning in his left. This 14th-or 13th-centuryb .c .e . limestone slab measures nearly 18 inches high and 20 inchesacross. Many descriptions of God in the Hebrew Bible are as awe-inspiring asthe image on this stele. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars, the voice of theLord breaks the cedars of Lebanon, asserts the psalmist in Psalm 29. He makesMount Lebanon to dance like a young bull, Mount Sirion like a young buffalo.

Based on his studies of literary forms, Professor Cross believes that Psalm 29is an early Hebrew poem, a lightly revised hymn to Baf al, with mythological ideasembedded in it. The dominant image in this and other early Hebrew poems is astorm god who marches to war on behalf of his people and returns victorious tohis temple or mountain abode. This image of God, Cross points out, was rejected bylater prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah in favor of a deity who reveals his inten-tions by word rather than deed.


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35

I S R A e l I T e R e l I g I O N

FMC:Yes. Yahweh passed silently, b t happily, engaged in conver-sation with Elijah. The acco nt in 1 Kings 19 (see box, above) of Elijahs pilgrimage to Mo nt Sinai (to escape the wrath of Jezebel) ismost interesting. It comes at the climax of a battle in which Yahwismseemed abo t to be overcome by Baf alism, that is, by the sophisticat-ed polytheism of the Phoenician co rt. Elijah goes to the mo ntain,to the very cave from which Moses glimpsed the back of Yahweh ashe passed reciting his (Yahwehs) names.

Elijah is portrayed as a new Moses seeking a repetition of the oldrevelation to Moses on Sinai, b t one marked by storm, earthq akeand firein short, by the lang age of the storm theophany, thecharacteristic manifestation of Baf al. In 1 Kings 19 there is wind andearthq ake and fire, b t the narrative, in vivid repeated phrases, tells

s that Yahweh is not in the storm, Yahweh is not in the earthq ake, Yahweh is not in the fire. He passes imperceptibly, and then speaks

a word to Elijah, giving him a new vocation.

1Wh n Ahab to d J z b a that e ijah had don and how h had put a th proph ts of Baf a to th sword,2 J z b s nt a m ss n rto e ijah, sayin , Thus and mormay th ods do if by this tim to-morrow I ha not mad you ion of th m. 3 Fri ht n d, e ijah f d at onc for his if ....

8 e ijah wa d forty days and forty ni hts as far as th moun-tain of god at Hor b.9Th r h w nt into a ca , and th r h sp nt th ni ht.

Th n th word of th lord camto him. H said to him, Why ar you h r , e ijah?10 H r p i d, I am mo d by z a for th lord,

th god of Hosts, for th Isra -it s ha forsa n Your co nant,torn down Your a tars, and putYour proph ts to th sword. I a on am ft, and th y ar out tota my if .11Com out, Hca d, and stand on th moun-tain b for th lord. And o, th lord pass d by. Th r

was a r at and mi hty wind, sp it-tin mountains and shatt rin roc s by th pow r of th lord; butth lord was not in th wind. Aft rth windan arthqua ; but th lord was not in th arthqua .12 Aft r th arthqua fir ; butth lord was not in th fir . And aft r th fir a sti , sma oic .

Elijah Flees to Sinai (Horeb) and Yahweh Silently Appears (1 Kings 19:1-3,8-12)


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In the prophetic literat re from the ninth cent ryb .c .e . to theBabylonian Exile in the sixth cent ryb .c .e ., the lang age of revelation

sing the imagery of the storm is rare or missing. It does ret rn in

baroq e form in what I call proto-Apocalyptic (I prefer that label toso-called Late Prophecy). See, for example, the vision of the stormchariot that introd ces the Book of Ezekiel. The storm theophanyis essentially the mode of revelation of Baf al. By contrast the modeof revelation of gEl is the word, the decree of the Divine Co ncil.2

In the virile, nchallenged vigor of early Yahwism, borrowing thelang age of the storm theophany was acceptable. In the era of theprophets, the lang age of gEl was deemed safer. I s spect that theancient Israelites may have said simplyin o r termsthat Yahwehdecided to change his normative mode of self-disclos re.

HS: You ha m ntion d that th r must ha b n som conf ict in thcours of th Isra it s tt m nt in th hi country of Canaan. Th r ismuch ta th s days about th historica r iabi ity, or ac th r of, of thconqu st stori s such as th ictori s at J richo and Ai. How do th s fitinto your th ory?

FMC:In the case of Jericho and Ai (the name means the r in), therewas no occ pation in the period of the conq est/settlement. Theremay have been some sq atters at one or both sites, b t the great,fortified cities did not exist, only their r ins. There are also problemsin Transjordan. Heshbon, capital of one of the Amorite kingdomsdestroyed by Israel (according to biblical tradition), seems to have beenfo nded after the entry of Israel into their land. We generally date thisentrance to the time of Ramesses II (1279-1212b .c .e .) or the time of

Merneptah (1212-1202b .c .e .

). New ceramic evidence for the date of collared-rim jarsa marker of the early Israelitess ggests a date nolater than Ramesses II for the beginning of the settlement.3

HS: Th M rn ptah St dat s to 1207 b .c . e .

FMC:Yes, to the fifth year of Merneptah.

HS: At that tim , Isra was a r ady in th and, s tt d, accordin to th M rn ptah St . What do you do with that? In this st , th most pow rfu

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man in th wor d, th pharaoh, not on y nows about this p op Isra inth andthis is not som comm rcia docum nt conc rnin som Isra it about whom w ha no information, wh th r h is a sin indi idua

or a m mb r of a mar ina trib or what r. This p op , Isra , hascom to th att ntion of pharaoh hims f. And pharaoh c aims that his ictory o r this p op Isra in Canaan is on of th most si nificant accomp ishm nts in his r i n.

FMC:I am not s re I wo ld call Merneptah the most powerf l manin the world at this time. S rely T k lti-Nin rta I of the MiddleAssyrian empire, the conq eror of Babylon, the first Assyrian kingto add the title king of Babylon to his tit lary, has a better claim.B t never mind.

The Merneptah Stele is important, b t it needs to be read with acritical perspective.4 Most of the stele contains hymns, or strophes of a long hymn, abo t the defeat of vario s gro ps of Libyans. The finalhymn, or strophe, in which Israel is named, describes Merneptahsconq ests ranging from Hatti (the Hittite empire), Libya and theSea Peoples to Canaan. Then there are claims at the end of the hymnthat every single land is pacified, everyone who roams abo t is s b-

d ed, j stifying John Wilsons remark that the text is a poetice logy of a niversally victorio s pharaoh. The stele is written inparallelistic poetry. Israel is fo nd in the q atrain:

Ashkelon has been carried off; Gezer has been seized; Yanof am has been made into nothing, Israel is laid waste; hisseed is not.

Aro nd this q atrain, in an envelope or circle constr ction, arethe lines:

Pl ndered is the [land] of Canaan... Palestine (H rr ) hasbecome a widow for Egypt.

Interestingly, one name for Canaan is male; the other one (H rr )is female. This was no do bt a conscio s device of the poet. Israel,marked in Egyptian with the determinative sign for the name of apeople, not of a place or a state, is in parallel to Ashkelon and Gezer,and more closely to Yanof am, all three of which are marked with thedeterminative for city-states. This s ggests the scale of importancegiven to Israel.

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F rther, the pharaoh Merneptah added to his official tit lary thetitle Seizer of Gezer, s ggesting strongly that of the list of entitiesin Canaan, Gezer was preeminent. I wo ld concl de that the Israel

of the stele was a small people, perhaps villagers or pastoralists livingin the central hill co ntry, b t not the f ll 12-tribe leag e of greaterCanaan. The stele, moreover, says that he left Israel destroyed andwitho t seed.

HS: Ob ious y that is wron . But Isra must ha b n in th and.Thats 1207, th nd of th 13th c ntury. That is b for Iron I, is it not?

FMC:Yes to all points. The beginning of the Iron Age we label witha ro nd n mber, 1200, b t we might add pl s or min s a decade or so.B t to address yo r main point, when we say that Israel was in the land,what do we mean? Jacob/Israel is, of co rse, the eponymo s ancestorchosen to head the genealogies of the tribes. B t it is not obvio s, oreven credible to me, given the lang age of the stele, to s ppose thatthe Israel of the stele is identical with the Israelite confederacy as itdeveloped in the late 12th and 11th cent ries. The proper name of theearly leag e was act ally the Kindred of Yahweh (f am yahw h). In my

j dgment, the first reference to the f ll confederacy is in the late 12thcent ry (in the Song of Deborah, J dges 5).

HS: What was th Isra m ntion d in th M rn ptah St ?

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MERNEPTAH STELE. Israel is laid waste; his seed is not, Pharaoh Merneptahboasted on this stele dating to 1207b .c .e ., his fifth regnal year. Plundered is the[land] of Canaan... the stele says in the lines just preceding the mention of Israel.Ashkelon has been carried off; Gezer has been seized; Yanof am has been madeinto nothing. The Canaanite campaign described here was waged at the beginningof Merneptahs rule, in 1212b .c .e .

The reference to Israelthe earliest one outside the Bibleis slightly to theleft of center in the second line from the bottom (see detail). Determinatives(unpronounced signs) attached to the place names indicate that Ashkelon, Gezerand Yanof am were cities and that Canaan was a foreign land; the determinativefor Israel, however, indicates that the term referred to a people rather than a place.The Merneptah Stele shows that a people called Israel existed in 1212b .c .e . andthat the pharaoh of Egypt not only knew about them, but also felt it was worthboasting about having defeated them in battle.

Professor Cross believes that, at that time, Israel was still a small people, mostlypastoralists and villagers who inhabited the central hill country of Canaan. Hebelieves they did not coalesce into the 12-tribe league known from the Bible untilthe 12th centuryb .c .e .


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FMC:I cannot answer satisfactorilyelements of later Israel.

HS: A particu ar trib ?

FMC:Perhaps a gro p of tribes or clans, perhapsto spec latef rthera gro p in the area of Shechem, abo t which we have veryearly c ltic traditions going back into the 12th cent ry.

HS: And th y w r som how r at d to th p op who at r b cam th12-trib a u ?

FMC:I sho ld think so. B t I am not s re that this Israel and theMidianite-Moses gro p, which so strongly shaped early Israelite re-ligion,5 were nited yet. At present, I do not think there is s fficientdata to decide s ch q estions.

HS: W dont r a y now that th r was r a 12-trib a u , do w ?

FMC:I am among those who think there was a 12-tribe leag e.Twelve was a ro nd n mber, and there is doc mentation of 12-tribe

leag es both in Greece and in the so th of Syria-Palestine. Yoco ld always arrange yo r tribes and clans so as to come o t with 12.

HS: By ji in th numb rs?

FMC:Yes. Is Levi one of the 12? And what abo t the half-tribesof Manasseh and Ephraim (Josephs sons), rather than Joseph? Then mber 12 also seems to have marked the leag es of Ishmael, Edom

and Seir (Genesis 25:13-16, 36:10-19, 36:20-30, respectively). HS: Wou d you a r with m if I su st that th M rn ptah St s msto indicat that th r was an Isra in Canaan p rhaps as ar y as 1250?

FMC:Pottery s ally associated with the early elements of Israelperhaps begins as early as the second half of the 13th cent ry. B tthe Merneptah Stele tells s only that by 1207, a gro p of people settled in villages or nomadic, b t not constit ting a statecalledIsrael was defeated.

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HS: Ar you sur nou h of th dat s that you can say that th i a sthat spran up in th c ntra hi country of Canaan didnt app ar unti aft r th M rn ptah St ?

FMC:One is never certain within a generation of pottery dates. Thereis now some evidence for collared-rim jars as early as the late 13thcent ry. B t most of the evidence for the fo ndation of these vil-lages is Iron I, the early 12th cent ry, at least in the view of ceramicspecialists (of which I am not one). I have dated one inscription on acollared-rim jar to the late 13th cent ry, b t with the recent loweringof the Egyptian chronology, my date too m st be lowered, to abo t1200 or the early 12th cent ry. My dating of this inscription wasbased p rely on paleographic gro nds; at the time, I am embarrassed

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INSCRIBED JAR HANDLE, from Raddana, about ten miles north of Jerusalem,bears (from top to bottom) the letters g alep (A), d het (dH) andlamed (L). Addingthe letterdalet (D) completes the name gAdhld, a name known from contem-poraneous references in 2 Samuel 8:16 and 20:24.

Professor Cross, applying his expertise in paleography (the study of scriptstyle and placement), dated this jar handle to about 1200b .c .e . Cross believes theearliest Israelites may have been of patriarchal stock living in the Shechem area.They formed a covenant of clans early in the 12th century; this proto-Israelwas later joined by followers of Moses, devotees of Yahweh who entered Canaanfrom the east.


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to say, I was innocent of the knowledge that the handle on which theinscription was scratched was from a collared-rim jar.6

HS: I s a prob m h r . Th M rn ptah St indicat s th m r ncof a p op nam d Isra , which must ha d op d b for M rn ptah h ard about th m and was conc rn d about th m and want d to bra about d f atin th m. So I say that Isra was in th and som tim ,cons r ati y, around 1230b .c . e .

FMC:I cannot disprove that, b t I can contin e to ask what sizethe Israel of the stele was, and what its relation was to the later12-tribe leag e.

HS: Th n if you say that th s i a s in th hi country did not sprin up unti 1180 or so, th r is a ap.

FMC:Not necessarily. I have said, basing my views on s ch st diesas those of Stager and Finkelstein, that most of these villages appearto date from the beginning of the Iron Age. Some scenarios can becreated to accommodate the data.

Lets say that in the Shechem area, home of f Apir , tribal ele-ments of patriarchal stock consolidated themselves in a covenant of g e -b rit(gEl of the Covenant) (J dges 9:46; cf. Josh a 24 and therites at Shechem). The covenanted clans may have been called by thepatriarchal epithet Jacob/Israel. One patriarchal c ltic aetiology has Jacob/Israel p rchasing a plot in Shechem and setting p an altar togEl, the god of Israel [i.e., of Jacob] (Genesis 33:20).

Traditions of the c lt of Shechem recorded in the Bible, in which

the law was recited and a ceremony of covenant renewal was held atintervals, m st have been very early beca se Shechem was destroyedin the second half of the 12th cent ry. S ch an Israel may have hadnothing to do with other gro ps of clans coming into the land fromthe easte.g., the Moses gro p, devotees of Yahweh, thegEl of theso th ntil sometime later. This Moses gro p is described as en-tering Canaan from Re ben and moving into what wo ld be called J dah, by way of Gilgal. Still other gro ps of tribes in the north,in Gilead and in the far so th may have been added (thro gh themechanism of covenant-making) to the expanding confederation,

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making p, finally, the 12-tribe leag e of tradition.How long s ch a process wo ld have taken we do not know. How

m ch conflict and warfare was involved as the leag e p shed o t

into the ninhabited portions of the central hill co ntry we do notknow. We know the expansion was completed by the time of Sa l,and I think it highly likely that it was completed by the end of the12th cent ry. That is, a process that began slowly accelerated rapidlyin the co rse of the 12th cent ry. I am aware that in large part o rreconstr ction of this era is a skein of spec lations. B t at least o rspec lations try to comprehend all the bits of data we possess at themoment and to interpret them in a parsimonio s way.

HS: l ts o bac to J richo and Ai. You said th r w r no citi s th rin th at 3th c ntury, wh n w wou d suppos that th conqu sts hadta n p ac ? What do you ma of th s stori s? Is th r any history inth bib ica stori s?

FMC:The conq ests of the walled city of Jericho and the great bas-tion of Ai were not the work of invading Israelites. These cities weredestroyed earlier (and at different times). In the acco nt of the fall of

Jericho, moreover, there is a great deal of telltale folklore and literaryornamentation. The story of Rahab the harlot is a masterpiece of oralliterat re (Josh a 2).

HS:But its a so fu of an normous numb r of d tai s that fit th ocationof J richo, fit th n ironm nt, fit th tim of y ar, fit th p op xtraor-dinary d tai s and n a d struction. Th ayp rson says o ay, mayb th Isra it s attribut d th ir ictory to som ind of di in caus , but what

is pr s r d h r is a r a ictory that has b n aborat d in an pic that attribut s a di in caus to a ictory that, in fact, has natura caus s.

FMC:There are two iss es here: (1) whether there is any historicalreality lying behind the story of the conq est of Jericho, and (2)whether one can explain away divine ca ses as nat ral ca ses. Thelatter does not really concern s here, tho gh I have never nder-stood why literalists and f ndamentalists wish to explain away di-vine miracles by searching for nat ral or scientific explanations. Toget rid of God in order to preserve the historicity of a folkloristic

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narrative strikes me as an instance of robbing Peter to pay Pa l.The first q estion is more serio s. The details of local color were

available to any singer of tales who had visited Jericho. Jericho had

ndergone a tremendo s destr ction of an earlier city and lay therein impressive r ins. I am inclined to think that a pre-Israelite epictradition sang of the destr ction, adding marvelo s details over time,and that later Israelite singers, composing an epic of Israels cominginto the land, added the Jericho tale to the complex of oral narrativesin their repertoire. S ch expansions of epic narrative are characteristicof the process of the creation and transmission of epic and sho ldnot be the occasion of s rprise.

HS: Wh r th n do you s th conqu st in th Isra it occupation of Canaan?

FMC:There was a great deal of dist rbance in this period and thedestr ction of many sites. It is diffic lt in any single case to be s rewho was the agent of destr ction. Merneptah and the Sea Peopleswere b sy in the so th and along the coast. Sites in the north likeHazor or Bethel are better candidates for Israelite conq est. B t I

am inclined to credit the consistent witness of early Hebrew poetrythat Yahweh led Israel in holy wars and not attempt to trace theconq est in the archaeological record.

There are destr ctions eno gh to accommodate all parties. As Iobserved before, the 12-tribe leag e consolidated itself in the landwith extreme rapidity. The speed of the formation of the leag ewo ld, I think, req ire military conflict for s ccess, and militaryconflict wo ld in t rn speed the formation of the leag e.

HS: W ar ta in about a coup of hundr d y ars, ar w not?

FMC:From Merneptah to the end of the 12th cent ry is a cent ry.By the time of the composition of early biblical poetry in the late12th and 11th cent riesb .c .e ., these poets ass me a more or lesshomogeneo s religio s gro p, a tribal system with a n mber of sodalities (brotherhoods or comm nities)a leag e militia, a c lticestablishment or religio s society, priestly and lay leaders.


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HS: l ts turn to th r i ion of Isra . You ha str ss d th continuiti s b tw n Isra it r i ion and what w nt b for , sp cia y Canaanit and Amorit r i ion. You ha mphasiz d th r ationships and th

d opm nt from ar i r and cont mporan ous W st S mitic r i ions,isnt that corr ct?

FMC:I do nderline contin ities between West Semitic and Israelitereligion. This is partly in reaction to the past generation that stressedthe novelty and niq eness of Israelite religion. Those claims havenow been smothered by a cascade of new evidence, religio s textswon by the archaeologists spade.

My own philosophy of history maintains that there are no severelyradical, or sui n ris, innovations in h man history. There m st becontin ity, or the novel will be nintelligible or nacceptable. Thisdoes not, however, mean that nothing new emerges. On the contrary,new elements do emerge, b t in contin ity with the past.

Let me ill strate with an example in paleography. All letterschange over time, b t the changes cannot be so radical as to be

nrecognizable. If they are, the writing will be illegible. Changeexhibits contin ity, b t gen inely new styles do emerge. A letter,

let s say ang a p, can change from one shape to another over a longperiod of time, so that one wo ld never recognize the late formas developed from the early. B t if the whole typological series islaid o t for scr tiny, the contin ity from one form to another iscontin o s and wholly intelligible (see chart, p. 46).

One can speak of revol tions in history or revol tions in religio sconceptions and insights. B t these great changes are prepared forbefore they emerge. They may be precipitated swiftly, b t if s fficient

detail is known, one is able to perceive links and contin ities. Thenew emergent takes p the past into itself.

HS: What is uniqu and distinct about Isra it r i ion, and how didit m r ?

FMC:Near Eastern religion, and especially West Semitic religion,has at its heart a cycle of myths abo t the establishment of king-ship among the gods. The cosmogonies and rit als have two levels:(1) the celebration of the victory of the god of fertility and life and

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order over the nr ly old powers of chaos and death, and (2) theestablishment of the earthly kingdom after the heavenly model, a rit alattempt to bring the king, the nation and the people into harmony

with the gods and the state into the eternal orders of creation. This isa profo ndly static vision of ideal reality. S ch religion is concernedwith eternity, not with time or history.

At the heart of biblical religion, on the other hand, is not imitationof the gods b t a celebration of historic events located in ordinarytime, events that, in theory at least, can be dated, events in whichhistorical fig res like Moses play a central role. To be s re, in IsraeliteEpic the hero is a Divine Warrior, Yahweh, the god of armies. This is,if yo wish, a mythological feat re that ill minates history and givesit meaning, direction and a goal.

Epic memory and hope gave identity to Israel. Israels vocationanation of slaves, freed by a historical redemptionwas to establish acomm nity of j stice. In the new Israel, the ethical was not definedby hierarchical str ct res in a society established in the created order;

DEVELOPMENT OF g ALEP. The chart shows the first letter of the alphabet,which became the Hebrew g alep, and how it changed over time. The earliest form(top left) is in the shape of an ox head, the word for which began with the soundof the letter. Moving to the right, the g alep evolves, although even the Greek alphaand Latin A as we know them preserve the earliest appearance.

Like the evolution of g alep, larger historical developments also demonstratecontinuity amidst change. Professor Cross sees the development of g alep as anencapsulation of his concept of history. My own philosophy of history, Crosssays, [is] that there are no severely radical innovations in human history. Theremust be continuity, or the novel will be unintelligible or unacceptable. New ele-ments do emerge, but in continuity with the past.

Proto-Sinaitic(c. 1500b .c .e .)

Proto-Canaanite(13th-11th cent.

b .c .e .)

PhoenicianAhiram

Sarcophagus (c.1000b .c .e .)

Moabite MeshaStele (mid-9th

cent.b .c .e .)

Hebrew SiloamInscription (c. 700

b .c .e .)

Hebrew Lachishostraca (early 6th

cent.b .c .e .)

Aramaic Elephan-tine Papyrus (late5th cent.b .c .e .)

Aramaic Dead SeaScrolls (2nd cent.

b .c .e .-1st cent.c .e .)

Greekand

Latin


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we do not find j stice as eq ity according to class. Rather, j stice isdefined in egalitarian terms; it is redemptive, it frees slaves, pliftsthe poor, gives j stice to the widow and orphan, loves with an altr -

istic amity both ones neighbor (i.e., fellow member of the kinshipcomm nity) and the resident alien or client (sojo rner in the King James Version) as on s f .

The system of land ten re treats the land as a s fr ct [somethingthat can be sed by all], a provisional loan from the Divine Landlord,and its largesse is to be distrib ted with a free hand to everyone in need.Rent and interest and the alienation of the land were prohibitedatleast in the ideal law codes preserved by De teronomistic and Priestlycircles in Israel.

The religio s obligation laid on the Israelite is to do j stice andlove mercy (Micah 6:8) in the here and now, not to be preocc piedwith rit al and sacrifice or intent on bargaining with the deity foran individ al, eternal salvation. According to the prophetic teach-ing, Israel was to constr ct a comm nity of social responsibility, of j stice, of compassion and of brotherhood.

This nderstanding of the b siness of religionat least in em-phasiscontrasts with religions that sanctify an order of divine

and h man kingship. In one sense, Israels emergent faith seeksthe sec larization of religion. For the prophet, neither the personof the king, nor the Temple in Jer salem, nor any other instit tionof society is divine or sacral in more than a provisional way, andthe s rvival of these instit tions depends on their f lfillment of the command to Let j stice well p as waters,/ Righteo sness asa mighty stream (Amos 5:24).

Israels religion is historical. It offers no escape from history, b t

rather pl nges the comm nity into the midst of historic time. HS: You dont m ntion thica monoth ism.

FMC:I have been talking abo t the ethical, and abo t history as therealm of the ethical. What interests me is Israels pec liar nderstand-ing of the ethical. Monotheism also emerged in Israel, of co rse, asit did elsewhere. Once again, I am more interested in the specifictype of monotheism fo nd in the Bible than in monotheism as anabstract category.

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If we define monotheism as a theoretical or philosophic affirma-tion that no more than one god exists, we have not recognized, Ithink, what is most important abo t Israels concept of their deity. Why is one god better than two or none? The biblical view of God is

not abstract or ontological; it is existential. What is important is therelation of the worshiper and the comm nity to Godobedience toand love of God, rather than affirmation of his sole existence.

TheSh ma(fo nd in De teronomy 6) is often mis nderstoodas an abstract affirmation of the existence of one God. It is s allytranslated: Hear O Israel: the Lord is o r God, the Lord is one.Literally translated, it reads, Hear O Israel: Yahweh is o r God, Yahweh alone. The s bstit tion of the Lord for the personal name

of the Israelite God (Yahweh) conf ses matters. To translate theLord is one makes sense as an affirmation of a monotheistic faith.B t to translate literally Yahweh is one makes no sense. Who wo ldclaim that more than one Yahweh existed?

Israel was req ired to worship only one God and to confess hisniq e and niversal power in the historical realm. At least in early

Israel, Israelite religion did not systematically deny the existenceof other gods or divine powers. In Psalm 82, Yahweh stands p inthe co ncil of the gods and decrees the death of the gods beca seof their fail re to j dge their peoples j stly, and then Yahweh takes

1god stands in th di inass mb y;

amon th di in b in s Hpronounc s jud m nt.

2 How on wi you judp r rs y,

showin fa or to th wic d? 3 Jud th wr tch d and th

orphan,indicat th ow y and th poor,

4 r scu th wr tch d and thn dy;

sa th m from th hand of th wic d.

5Th y n ith r now norund rstand,

th y o about in dar n ss;a th foundations of th arth

tott r.6 I had ta n you for di in

b in s,sons of th Most Hi h, a of

you;7 but you sha di as m n do,fa i any princ .

8 Aris , O god, jud th arth,for a th nations ar Your

poss ssion.

Yahweh Decrees Death to Other Gods (Psalm 82)


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over. One can arg e that the psalm at once admits to the existenceof other gods and asserts that Yahweh killed them offinstantmonotheism. I prefer to speak of existential monotheism in defin-

ing Israels credo. HS: What you ar d scribin may b h noth ism.

FMC:Well, henotheism historically has been sed to refer to thebelief in one local god who enjoys domination over his local t rfIsrael or Moab or Ammon. One god per co ntry, so to speak. Idont think that Israel ever had s ch a belief, and indeed, even inpre-Israelite Canaanite mythology, the great gods were niversal. Themyths speak of the land or mo nt of heritage of some of the gods,b t these are favorite abodes, and the expressions indicate no limitson their power or, normally, their ability to travel over the cosmos.7

Monolatry is another term that many scholars sethe worshipof only one god. This term, also, I regard as too restrictive in definingIsraelite faith and practice. In Israel, Yahweh was creator and j dgein the divine co rt. Other divine beings existed, b t they were notimportant; they exercised little a thority or initiative. If they retained

a modic m of power, lets say to heal or provide omens, the Israelitewas forbidden to make se of their power.

Q ite early, magic was proscribed. The existence and effectivenessof magic was not denied or theoretically rep diated, b t an Israelitewas not to to ch it. Indeed, there is a law req iring that a sorceressor witch be p t to death (Exod s 22:18). Nor is the transcendentone, the God of Israel, to be manip lated.

In short, Israel defined its God and its relation to that God in

existential, relational terms. They did not, ntil q ite late, approachthe q estion of one God in an abstract, philosophical way. If I had tochoose between the two ways of approaching the deity, I sho ld pre-fer the existential, relational way to the abstract, philosophical way.I think it is tr eror, in any case, less misleadingto say that Godis an old Jew with a white beard whom I love than to say that Godis the gro nd of being and meaning, or to say that God is a namedenoting the ltimate mystery. I prefer the bold, primitive colors of the biblical way of describing God.8

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HS: You ha said that in Isra , myth and history a ways stood in stron t nsion, myth s r in primari y to i a cosmic dim nsion, a transc nd ntm anin to th historica , rar y functionin to disso history.

FMC:I dont remember that precise q otation b t it so nds likeme. Let me q ote a better statement from the preface toCanaanit Myth and H br w epic:

Characteristic of the religion of Israel is a perennial and n-re-laxed tension between the mythic and the historical....Israelsreligion emerged from a mythopoeic past nder the impact of certain historical experiences which stim lated the creation of an epic cycle and its associated covenant rites of the early time.Th s epic, rather than the Canaanite cosmogonic myth, wasfeat red in the rit al drama of the old Israelite c lt s. At thesame time the epic events and their interpretation were shapedstrongly by inherited mythic patterns and lang age, so that theygained a vertical dimension in addition to their horizontal, his-torical stance. In this tension between mythic and historicalelements the meaning of Israels history became transparent.9

Let me ill strate with something concretethe Song of the Seain Exod s 15. This poem reco nts a divine victory at the sea. Thenthe Divine Warrior marches with his chosen people to his mo nt of inheritance and b ilds his sanct ary, where he is revealed as king. Thepoem ends with the sho t, Let Yahweh reign, Forever and ever.This seq ence of themes is really, in o tline, the story of Baf als warwith Sea (Yamm): Baf al defeats Sea, b ilds his temple as a manifesta-tion of the kingship won in his victory and is declared eternal king.

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9 Awa , awa , c oth yours f with sp ndor.

O arm of th lord!Awa as in days of o d,As in form r a s!It was you that hac d Rahab in

pi c s,That pi rc d th Dra on.

10 It was you that dri d up th S a,

Th wat rs of th r at d p;That mad th abyss s of th S aA road th r d m d mi ht wa .

11So t th ransom d of th lordr turn,

And com with shoutin to Zion,Crown d with joy r astin .l t th m attain joy and adn ss,Whi sorrow and si hin f .

A Myth ResurfacesYahweh Overcomes the Sea(Isaiah 51:9-11)


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B t there are, of co rse, differences in the biblical poem. Yahwehdoes not defeat the sea b t creates a storm to drown the Egyptians.The sea is his tool, not his enemy, and his real foes are pharaoh and

his chariotsh man, historical foes. One is moved to ask, however,why the central, defining victory of the dei

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Book Frank Moore Cross