Part 1: Amazing discoveries regarding the creation of the world, paradise, the flood and the Tower of Babel.
Part 2: Truth and Legend about the Patriarchs.
Part 3: Folk tradition or truth?
Part 4: Moses in a halo of myths
Is the sixth book of the Old Testament, as Bible lovers have thought for centuries, the authentic records of Joshua? Can it be regarded as a reliable historical source? Science answers both of these questions in the negative. With the help of linguistic analysis of the text, it was possible to establish absolutely precisely that the Book of Joshua is a conglomeration of several historical documents relating to different eras and reflecting the interests of different social strata.
In addition, these sources have undergone countless editorial revisions over the course of time. In general, we can say that the Book of Joshua presents two main documents: an account of the conquest of Canaan, compiled at the beginning of the ninth century BC, and a description of the partition of Canaan after its conquest, which took place during the time of King Solomon. In short, the Book of Joshua appeared several hundred years after his death.
We deliberately used the term "conglomerate," for the Bible editors used the documents they received uncritically, without trying to link them into a logical whole. Because of this, the biblical legends abound in repetitions, in their presentation there is a lot of inconsistency. Since we are limited by space, we will give only some of the most striking examples. But the attentive reader of the Bible, interested in this issue, will easily see how much confusion and mistakes there are.
They are striking at the first reading. For example, we learn that after the defeat of the coalition of southern Canaan, the Israelites destroyed Jerusalem and exterminated its inhabitants. Meanwhile, already in the next chapter, forgetful compilers of the text calmly tell that Jerusalem was not conquered, and the Jebusites lived in it even in their times. This is confirmed by an incident from the life of that biblical Levite, who sometimes quarreled, then reconciled with his wife.
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Returning home after another reconciliation, the couple passed at dusk under the walls of Jerusalem. Then their servant invited them to spend the night there. Leviticus objected to him as follows: "No, we will not go to the city of foreigners who are not from the sons of Israel …" It should be remembered that this legend arose a few years later, and maybe even a dozen or two years after the death of Joshua, the alleged conqueror Jerusalem.
There is a similar amount of confusion in the Bible with regard to the city of Shechem. According to her text, Joshua at the end of his life gathered the Israelites there and once again demanded from them that they remain faithful to the union with Yahweh. Now, however, we know that the city of Shechem remained in the hands of the Canaanites for a long time after the death of Joshua. Some Bible scholars tried to interpret this fact in their own way, suggesting that the mentioned meeting took place not in the city itself, but in its vicinity, where the Israelites had allegedly already settled.
The hypothesis is unconvincing! Compilers of biblical texts have simply "thrown into the past" the situation that existed during their lifetime. Shechem was then an Israeli city, so it could easily have been thought that it belonged to the Israelites even under Joshua. From here, of course, only one step to the legend that it was in Shechem that a historical meeting took place. After all, this is the city of Abraham, the city that the ancient Jews surrounded with a cult. By connecting with Shechem the last speech of Joshua - a solemn act of confirmation of the Sinai union - the editors of the Bible thereby attached great religious and symbolic significance to it and in some way established a connection with the most ancient legends from the era of the patriarchs. We come across strikingly contradictory facts especially in those chapters of the Bible,which lists the Israeli conquests in Canaan. The king of Jerusalem, Adonisedek, was first killed by the order of Joshua, and then perishes a second time, falling into the hands of the tribe of Judah. In the first case, it is true, he bears the name Adonizedek (Joshua, chapter 10, verse 1), and in the second - Adoii-Vezek (Judges, chapter 1, verse 7), but, apparently, we are talking about one and the same same face.
In the first chapter of the Book of Judges, the tribe of Judah also captures the cities of Gaza, Ascalon and Ekron. Although the named cities lay in the coastal lowlands, the Bible editors report in the very next verse that Judas “took possession of the mountain. But he could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley; because they had chariots of iron”(Judges, chapter 1, verse 19). "They" are the Philistines, who not only were not then subdued, but eventually subjugated the Israelites themselves. Having become entangled in these contradictions, we finally ask ourselves: which cities did Joshua conquered, and which ones were his assistants and successors, and which Canaanite cities did the Israelites really take over?
If, in addition to all our doubts, we remember that Jericho and Ai had long been in ruins by the time of the Israeli invasion and that the authenticity of Joshua's personality is highly problematic, then we will be convinced that the sixth book of the Bible is absolutely unreliable as a historical source. The compilers of the Bible were not interested in historical truth in the modern sense of the word and were not at all embarrassed by chronology. They pursued only one task: to show with selected examples that the conquest of Canaan meant the fulfillment of the promise of Yahweh and, therefore, was an event of religious significance.
In an effort to achieve their goal, they very freely handled historical documents: some bypassed in silence, while others reworked in the spirit they liked. As a result, the sixth book of the Bible became a collection of legends, religious and moral in its tendency. These legends teach that the Israelites owe everything to Yahweh, who followed the course of the aggressive campaign and, as needed, interceded for the Israelites with the help of miracles. The leader of the intervention, Joshua, won his victories only because he was a faithful follower of Yahvism. At the end of his life, he strengthened the Sinai union and died in a halo of holiness, as a wise teacher of the Israelites and an unyielding fighter for the Mosaic heritage.
Taking this interpretation of history as a basis, the biblical editors logically should have portrayed the capture of Canaan as a fait accompli. In their version, the Canaanites were either exterminated or subjugated. This meant the complete victory of the chosen people, not allowing any compromise or sympathy for the vanquished. Yahweh, endowed with the features of a harsh, unforgiving god of war, gives his followers a command not to spare even women, children and animals.
According to the military oath included in the decrees and commandments of Deuteronomy, the Israelites left no stone unturned in the captured cities. Even very valuable war booty was set on fire, and if someone, like Achan, for example, violated the sacred law and appropriated a part of the booty, then as punishment they would burn him at the stake.
Here we must make a reservation that the events described in the Bible can in no way be evaluated in the spirit of today's morality. It was a barbaric era. A widespread military custom allowed the killing of prisoners and the population of captured fortresses, cruelly maiming or killing kings, and treachery and treachery. This is how wars were fought in those distant times. In this respect, the Israelites were faithful sons of their era and did not differ from other peoples of the ancient world. Total wars were waged by the Babylonians, Egyptians, Assyrians and, as we know from Homer, Greeks.
However, later we will see that the biblical chroniclers, overwhelmed by religious fanaticism, greatly exaggerated the Israeli atrocities. Indeed, as follows from the same Bible, Joshua entered into an alliance with the inhabitants of the city of Gibeon, and from the Book of Judges we learn that the country was still inhabited by a large Canaanite population.
This raises the question: did a certain Joshua really conquer Canaan? Since the Book of Judges is, in fact, the story of the liberation struggle of the Israelites against the Canaanite peoples, who each time imposed their power on them, the answer must be negative.
Then what exactly did Joshua do? This problem was solved by archeology only at the beginning of our century. The first sensational discovery was Egyptian vases on which the pharaohs inscribed the names of hostile or rebellious Palestinian cities. These vessels were broken as a sign of curse during major religious celebrations. In the minds of the ancient Egyptians, this was not only a symbolic act: in Egypt they firmly believed that the destruction of the names of peoples, cities or the names of individual people entailed their true death.
For the Bible students, however, it was important that the names of a number of Canaanite cities mentioned in the Bible could be read on the fragments; in their eyes this fact served as proof that the Bible reflected reliable events.
Thereafter, various archaeological expeditions began to search for the named Canaanite cities. The Americans discovered the ruins of the city of Bethel, which lay at a distance of one and a half kilometers from Guy.
Having passed several cultural layers, they finally reached the ruins, undoubtedly dating back to the twelfth century BC. There they found traces of a terrible fire, in the ruins of houses, ashes reached a meter in height, and broken statuettes of the gods testified that the culprit of the destruction was a foreign invader. Deeper excavations have shown that Bethel was founded in the early Bronze Age, around the time that Ai was destroyed.
Bible scholars have suggested that the chroniclers simply confused the city of Ai with Bethel. Already several centuries before Joshua, the city of Ai was turned into ruins and was never rebuilt. Meanwhile, the Israelites built their own homes on the ruins of Bethel. In these conditions, the assumption could easily be born that the ruins of Ai were a monument to the campaign of Joshua. In addition, the ruins of the cities of Lachish, Eglon, Davir, Hebron and others were excavated. Throughout the twelfth century BC layer, obvious traces of violence and fire are found. In 1956, an expedition from the University of Jerusalem stumbled upon the ruins of Hazor, the capital of the unfortunate king Jabin.
The fortress was located to the north of Lake Galilee and had about forty thousand inhabitants. On the basis of excavations it was established that in the seventeenth century BC the city was occupied by the Hyksos, the conquerors of Egypt. An extensive platform of tamped earth and the remains of stables testify to the presence of a strong garrison of chariots and horses.
For us, however, the most important thing is that Hazor, also in the twelfth century BC, fell victim to a great fire.
But no traces of fire and devastation were found in the city of Gibeon, which just confirms the biblical legend. Gibeon voluntarily surrendered and in this way escaped destruction. An interesting detail is worth mentioning - the excavations have confirmed the Bible in one more respect. In the Book of Joshua (chapter 10, verse 2) we read literally: "… Gibeon (was) a big city, like one of the king's cities …" Ruins were found in the Jordanian village of El-Jib, about eight kilometers north-west of Jerusalem … Gibeon consisted of numerous streets, squares, temples and public buildings. Its wealth is evidenced by many bronze objects found in tombs and ruins of houses.
It was also established that its inhabitants were engaged in international trade on a large scale, since among the jugs, cups, dishes, figurines, knives, scarabs and rings, an amazing number of vessels were found originating from Cyprus and Syria. What did the inhabitants of Gibeon trade? Judging by the grape squeezing cisterns and the spacious caves for storing grape juice, they produced and exported wine. Even large jugs have been found engraved with the name Gibeon. They sent wine to overseas customers.
Thanks to these archaeological discoveries, it became clear why the inhabitants of Gibeon surrendered on conditions that did not bring them honor. These were merchants for whom trade was closer than military craft. And they seem to have achieved their goal, albeit at the cost of political independence. Well-preserved fortress walls, like other architectural monuments, tell us that Gibeon escaped the fate of many Canaanite cities and continued to flourish under the hegemony of the Israelites.
Since we are talking about archeology, it is worth mentioning one more detail. As we know from the Bible, Joshua was buried in Famnaf-Sarai on Mount Ephraim.
The Septuagint (Greek translation of the Old Testament) adds an interesting detail: stone knives were put into his tomb, with which the Israelites were cut off in Gilgal. So, in 1870, in one of the burial caves discovered in the same area, a fair amount of stone knives were found. Of course, we would be in error if we wanted to draw from this fact a hasty conclusion that the cave is the tomb of Joshua. But one cannot exclude the possibility that the biblical version of circumcision has its source in ancient religious rites observed by the Canaanite tribe that settled in those places.
The custom of circumcision was adopted independently by various ancient peoples.
Thus, it can be assumed that the Israelites, during their forty years in the wilderness, so firmly forgot about the circumcision bequeathed to them by Moses, that they returned to this painful rite only under the influence of the Canaanite tribe in Famnaf Sarai.
How, however, did the campaign of Joshua take place, if we conditionally call this a certain Israeli conqueror? Let's try to connect on the map with a dash those cities that are known to have been burned in the twelfth century BC, and we will just get the path of his conquests. This will first of all allow us to establish that, contrary to the assertion of the editors of the Bible, our conditional Joshua by no means took possession of all Canaan. He walked, as Werner Keller, author of Yet Scripture is Right, "along the line of least resistance." He avoided strong fortresses and occupied mainly sparsely populated mountainous areas, such as, for example, both rocky banks of the Jordan. He did not dare, however, to take possession of the productive valleys, which for the next two centuries remained in the hands of the Canaanites.
Between the mountains of Judea and the Ephraim mountains, the Jebusite fortress of Jerusalem continued to stand guard, and the seaside cities fell prey to the Philistines. Further north, the federation of Gibeon cities retained its independence. The Israeli tribes settled in the northern regions of the country were cut off from their fellow tribesmen in the south by a chain of Canaanite fortresses in the Jezreel Valley. In short, the valleys retained their advantage over the highlands. This situation was due to the significantly better armament of the Canaanites. They had numerous war chariots drawn by firing argamaks, unusually mobile in tactical action and dangerous to the Israeli foot troops.
Joshua's campaign, therefore, rather had the character of a gradual penetration into less populated and weakly defended parts of Canaan. Despite the support of Yahweh, the legendary leader did not complete the task of conquering the country.
After his death, individual Israeli tribes were forced to fight for their existence and repeatedly fell under the yoke of the Canaanites, and during periods of peaceful existence succumbed to the influence of their higher culture and religion. We learn about these long fights with the indigenous people of the country from the Book of Judges.
It is amazing how the invasion of a primitive, poorly armed people in a country that had advanced far in the development of civilization, a country with many fortified cities and superbly armed military units, was possible at all. The success of the Israelis, however, becomes clear if we relate it to the political situation of the then world. Canaan, as a bridge between Africa and Asia, has constantly served as an object of rivalry between the great powers - Mesopotamia and Egypt. After the expulsion of the Hyksos, it remained an Egyptian province for three centuries. The pharaohs did not change the order that existed in this country. The fortified cities were ruled by local chiefs, mostly of foreign origin, but the Canaanite masses, who spoke a language close to Hebrew,engaged mainly in agriculture and were deprived of political rights.
Egypt regarded the Canaanite kings as their vassals. He gave them relative freedom, allowed them to maintain military units and arm themselves with war chariots, and even looked favorably on the fact that they were waging internecine wars. Intrigues and squabbles between them only strengthened Egypt's hegemony and raised its authority as the highest arbitration authority. The Roman political principle “divide et impera” was applied, as we can see, by the Egyptian pharaohs. Egyptian garrisons were stationed in large Canaanite cities, and there was a residence of governors, whose main task was to collect tribute. And this tribute was unheard of.
On top of that, the tribute collectors were corrupt bribe-takers and robbed the country themselves, seeking to enrich themselves as soon as possible. The Egyptian troops consisted of mercenary soldiers of various races and nationalities. Since they were often not paid their salaries and were deceived when giving out food rations, they roamed the villages and robbed wherever they could. The inhabitants of Canaan were forced to work on the construction sites of palaces and defensive fortifications, they were plundered by soldiers, and they were reduced to the position of slaves: their material standard of living fell lower and lower, and their number was reduced. The once flourishing Canaan was brought almost to ruin.
This process of the destruction and impoverishment of Canaan was reflected to a certain extent in some chapters of the Book of Joshua and in the Book of Judges. In addition, we find information about him in cuneiform tablets found in Tel el-Amarna, and in other data from archaeological excavations. The architecture of that period, including the palaces of the aristocracy, was in a rather miserable state, the defenses of the cities fell into complete decay. The general impoverishment is also evidenced by the strikingly small number of luxury items found. Under the rule of the kings and their Egyptian sovereigns, Canaan eventually turned into a remote, backward province.
We have already written in the previous chapters about how Ramses, the second after a long war, concluded a peace treaty with the Hittites. After his death, the Indo-European peoples, the so-called "Sea Peoples", attacked Egypt. In their march through Greece and Asia Minor, they crushed the Hittite state, seized the Mediterranean coast and invaded the Nile Delta. Pharaoh Mernepta managed to repel the invasion, but the hard struggle greatly weakened Egypt. During the reign of the last pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty, the country was in chaos.
It was then that one of the many uprisings of oppressed peasants, artisans and slaves broke out, Egypt disintegrated into several small independent states, and a long, fierce struggle went on for the throne of the pharaohs. Finally, the twentieth dynasty seized power over the entire state. Its second pharaoh - Ramses the second repulsed a new offensive of the "peoples of the sea", having won over them a brilliant victory in a naval battle near Pelusium. But his successors, the so-called Ramsesids, were weak and infirm rulers. Confusion increased in the country, riots and unrest broke out every now and then. The main culprits of this chaos were the priests who seized a huge part of the cultivated land and, blinded by their selfishness, did not want to supply food to the starving population.
As a result of these events, Egypt's authority fell completely. We learn about the contempt with which other peoples treated Egypt in those days from the report written on the papyrus of the Egyptian ambassador Unuamon, whom the Theban priests sent to Lebanon for a cedar tree to build the sacred boat of the god Amon-Ra. Unuamon sailed by sea to Byblos. On the way, he stopped at the port of Dora, and there one of the sailors stole all the gold and silver that Unuamon was carrying in payment for the tree. It was known that the thief was hiding in the city, and the Egyptians demanded his extradition. But the local ruler, apparently, preferred to keep the booty for himself. Brazenly scoffing at the ambassador of the once mighty state, he delayed the decision under various pretexts, and after nine days of vain waiting, Unuamon was forced to set off on a further journey, as they say, not eating too much.
Even worse offenses awaited him in the Bible. The ruler of this Phoenician port, having learned that the ambassador had come without money, not only did not give him a cedar tree on credit, but even confiscated the ship from him and ordered him, as an unwanted foreigner, to immediately leave the city. Unuamon, having lost his ship, could not, of course, carry out this order, and when he was about to leave on another ship, he was arrested.
After much mockery and controversy, Unuamon finally sent to Thebes for money and exchange goods in order to get back the ship and acquire a cedar tree. The ruler of Byblos, taking advantage of the weakness of Egypt, broke an unheard-of price.
In addition to gold and silver, he received ten royal garments made of flax of the highest grade, five hundred scrolls of papyrus, five hundred ox skins, five hundred skeins of rope, twenty bags of lentils and thirty baskets of fish. The fall of Egyptian power went hand in hand with the intensification of political chaos in Asia. The Hittite state fell under the blows of the Sea Peoples. Babylonia, ruled by the Kassite dynasty, was weak, and the growing power of Assyria and Elam posed a very serious threat to her. This was one of those very rare periods in ancient history when the expansionist aspirations of Asia and Egypt did not clash in Canaan.
Egypt's former Canaanite vassals now felt like independent sovereigns. In an effort to expand the borders of their tiny states, they fought fierce battles among themselves for every inch of land, for every border line.
The country was politically fragmented and even in moments of greatest danger could not create a common defense front. The extent of this fragmentation is evidenced by the Book of Joshua, which says that he killed thirty-one kings. Against the backdrop of these political relationships, the success attributed to the biblical Joshua becomes clear. He did not come face to face with the united forces of all Canaan, but dealt with individual kings or their coalitions, hastily assembled for joint defense. The Israelites prevailed over them not only because of their warlike passion, but also because of their numerical superiority.
Canaan's weakness was also rooted in political fragmentation. The relationship that Joshua found in many ways resembles the decline of the great Roman Empire. Oppressed by extortions, the impoverished masses of the Italian people welcomed the German aggressors as liberators. The latter brought with them a social revolution and the promise of better times and, in any case, set the limit of power with an expensive and corroded bureaucracy, which, under the last Caesars, had grown to absurd proportions and sucked out all the vital juices of society. Now imagine the situation at the time of the Israeli invasion.
The peasants and artisans, who had already suffered enough during the internecine wars, did not want to fight anymore. Forcibly drafted into the army, they fought listlessly and eagerly fled from the battlefield. After all, this was not their war, but the war of the gentlemen who had something to defend. The Israeli invaders, it can be assumed, even enjoyed the secret sympathy of the masses: the Israelis were not only as simple people as they were, but in addition spoke a Semitic dialect so close to their language that they could freely agree with each other.
But how could the Canaanite people have sympathy for the invaders, who, according to the biblical version, waged a brutal, all-out war, killing prisoners and completely exterminating the civilian population? We have already said that the Bible editors greatly exaggerated the atrocities of the Israelites. If we read the Book of Judges, we come to the conclusion that the conquerors quickly intermarried with the natives through mixed marriages and became zealous worshipers of their gods. Even the editors of the Bible failed to gloss over this fact, explaining only that Yahweh left so many Canaanites alive to punish the Israelites for apostasy and violation of the Mosaic commandments.
Thus, everything suggests that the broad masses of the Canaanite people really favored the invaders, and then, without resistance, reconciled with their presence.
These moods, in all likelihood, served as one of the main reasons for the relatively easy conquest of certain regions of Canaan.
According to the Bible, Yahweh himself had a hand in the victory of Joshua, supporting the Israelites with the help of miracles. The editors of the text apparently wished in this way to emphasize the supernatural character of this aggression. But this time, as well as in many previous cases, they did not suck the described events out of their thumb. They only, in accordance with their intentions, interpreted in their own way the facts that really took place during the aggressive campaign. In the Book of Joshua we encounter three miracles, and each of them can be explained in the most natural way.
The first miracle happened when the waters of the Jordan suddenly stopped. We read about this in the Book of Joshua (chapter 3, verse 16) the following: “The water flowing from above stopped and became a wall for a very long distance, to the city of Adam, which is near Zartan; and the plain flowing into the sea, into the Salt Sea, has gone and dried up. The city of Adam mentioned in the text helped the Bible students to explain this miracle. At a distance of twenty-five kilometers north of Jericho, there is a Jordanian ford, to this day called El Damieh. In addition, on the east bank of the river lies a small hill called Tel el Damieh. Both names undoubtedly come from the ancient Adom (Adam), whose ruins are indeed recently discovered under the aforementioned hill.
The Jordan flows there through a deep ravine between the walls of lime and clay. Both shores often experience volcanic tremors. It happened more than once that rocky walls collapsed into the riverbed and created a dam that stopped the flow of water. In 1927, Jordan was thus closed for almost a whole day. As waters accumulated north of El Damieh, the southern stretch of the river from the dam to the Dead Sea became so shallow that it could be crossed with barely wet feet. In the light of the above facts, the conclusion suggests itself: if an extraordinary event during the crossing of the Jordan really happened, then it was not Yahweh who was to blame, but the whim of nature widespread in these places. Why don't the compilers of the Bible say a word about the earthquake? I think they did it on purpose.
The Israelites, who lived in the mountainous surroundings of the Jordan, knew well that a rock collapse could block the Jordan just at the town of Adam. Consequently, it would be difficult to convince them that it was due to a miracle. The compilers of the Bible understood that theological interpretation of a fact could arouse doubts, and therefore omitted in their description anything that did not suit them. But despite their efforts, the folk tradition of the earthquake has not completely disappeared and is found in other fragments of the Bible. So, for example, the prophetess Deborah says in her inspired song of victory: "When you, Lord, went out from Seir, when you walked from the field of Edom, then the earth shook …" And in the one hundred and thirteenth psalm, which seems to go back to the traditions of the era of Joshua, we find the following poetic words: “Jordan turned back.
Mountains jumped like sheep, and hills like lambs. As you can see, the annoying gap in the description, belonging to the editors of the Bible, was filled: the Jordan stopped as a result of the earthquake, as stones that broke away from the walls of the gorge blocked the channel.
Another miracle is the collapsed walls of Jericho. Bible students in this legend have searched for the facts that really happened. However, before briefly presenting their hypotheses, we must return to what we have already discussed on another occasion. The archaeologists who discovered Jericho, that is, the most competent people, firmly argue that the fortress fell victim to the invasion a hundred years before the invasion of the Israelites, and therefore the biblical Joshua could not be its conqueror. In this regard, it is suggested that Jericho was destroyed by some other Hebrew tribes under the leadership of a man who lived much earlier than the Old Testament Jesus, but was his namesake.
Subsequently, both of these persons were identified during the period of hegemony of Judea, which sought in this way to achieve the political and spiritual unification of the Hebrew tribes of northern and southern Canaan. Of course, together with the hero of the northern tribes, a whole complex of legends about his exploits, including the capture of Jericho, entered the treasury of historical legends. So, according to this concept, the biblical Joshua is a two-layer creation, composed of elements related to different eras and separate Hebrew centers.
After these necessary reservations, we can now hear what archaeologists and historians have to say about the miracle at Jericho. The discoverers of Jericho are of the opinion that this fortress was the victim of an earthquake and a fire, as evidenced by smoked piles of stones and bricks, charred pieces of wood, as well as a thick layer of ash covering the ruins of the uppermost cultural layer. In addition, deep cracks are visible in the surviving parts of the fortress wall, and the roofs of houses, apparently, collapsed suddenly, burying objects of everyday use under them.
This version, however, runs counter to the Book of Joshua, where it is said that the fortress walls collapsed, shaken by the thunder of trumpets and the shout of the attackers.
Bible students, wishing to reconcile the findings of the archaeologists with the biblical version, put forward another, more convincing hypothesis.
Thanks to cuneiform documents, we know that the mining of fortress walls is one of the most ancient means of siege technology in the history of mankind. Under cover of night, soldiers dug under the foundations of fortifications and laid thick logs there. At a certain moment, they were set on fire, and the walls slid into the dug ditches, sowing panic among the besieged and opening the way to the city for the attackers. It can be assumed that such siege tactics were used against Jericho. While digging under the walls was underway, the attackers probably wanted to distract the attention of the besieged and drown out the noise of underground sapper work. To this end, they used a clever maneuver, organizing a procession of armed detachments around the walls, marching to the roar of trumpets and warlike shouts.
The traces of fires found in the excavations do not contradict this hypothesis at all:
after all, we read in the Book of Joshua that the Israelites, after the capture of the city, "all that was in it, they burned with fire."
The third miracle of the Israeli campaign caused the greatest controversy. During the pursuit of the army of the five kings of southern Canaan, Joshua allegedly had to stop the sun and the moon in order to prevent the enemies from hiding under the cover of night.
Even the most zealous Fideists were hesitant to claim that Jesus had such power over the sun and moon. Therefore, they looked for various ways to explain this miracle, proceeding from the position that "the Bible is true" and in this regard, the phenomenon of nature described in it should have actually happened. We are unable to list all hypotheses here. For example, we will give only one of them, which at one time had the most supporters. It boils down to the fact that a dense, hail-carrying cloud allegedly caused complete darkness. The sun, which had already disappeared beyond the edge of the horizon, suddenly burst out from behind the clouds, and the reflection of the rays on the gloomy ceiling of the sky created a picture of sudden clarification.
The unexpectedly bursting light was used by the Israelites to completely defeat the Canaanites. Subsequently, folk fantasy added to this episode the legend that Joshua performed a miracle, stopping the sun and moon in order to be able to fight until the final victory. Later, however, it turned out that the whole story, in fact, is based on a misunderstanding. Joshua exclaims in joyful excitement: “Stop, the sun, over Gibeon, and the moon, over the valley of Aialon! And the sun stopped and the moon stood while the people took revenge on their enemies (Joshua, chapter 10, verses 12-13).
We immediately see that the message about the miracle has a pronounced character of a poetic apostrophe. The author of these lines strove with the help of metaphor to emphasize how important the victory of Jesus was, to show that it was so lightning-fast and complete that even the sun and moon stopped in surprise. We very often meet such hyperboles in ancient poems, among other things, in Homer. Therefore, the miracle described in the Bible should not be taken literally. This is simply a stylistic figure, exalted and exalted singing the praises of Joshua.
Later linguistic searches, however, dispelled all doubts in this regard. For it turned out that the above lines are a literal quotation from the Book of the Righteous, much later inserted into the story of Joshua by the biblical chroniclers. The Book of the Righteous is a collection of hymns and short epic poems very popular among Jews. Another quote taken from this ancient anthology is found in 2 Kings (chapter 1, verse 18). Thus, the legend of the miracle with the stopped sun was finally dispelled.
The Book of Judges is a continuation of the Book of Joshua and covers approximately 1200-1050 BC; according to the dates of the Bible, this is the period from the death of Joshua to the beginning of the monarchical system introduced by Samuel. The Bible editors, however, did not write the complete history of this period, nor did they combine facts and events in their chronological order.
As in previous books, they sought to show, using selected examples, what fate befell the Israelite tribes if they retreated from Yahweh and served foreign gods. Thus, it turned out, as it were, an anthology of epic legends, vividly reminiscent of the Scandinavian sagas. These legends are full of cruelty, military alarm, burning breath of fires, destructive disasters, but at the same time personal heroism, noble impulses and acute conflicts in the name of true humanity. In biblical legends, we find motives that are well known to us from other sources. Deborah is the Israeli Joan of Arc; Jephthah's daughter perishes just like Iphigenia, sacrificed by Agamemnon. Samson has many similarities with Hercules, and in the grotesque nightmarish adventure of the sons of Benjamin we find, as it were, the prototype of the famous Roman legend of the abduction of the Sabine women.
Having piled up so many cruelties, dishonorable acts and incredible events in one book, the editors of the biblical text suddenly seemed to come to their senses. It is no coincidence that the collection of these dark sagas ends with an optimistic chord - a charming legend about the faithful Ruth, included in the Bible much later and dating back to the era of judges. An idyllic picture, saturated with delightful silence: mowers during the harvest, eating food together, generous farmers, meek, loving women - what a sharp contrast against the background of general anarchy, rudeness and barbarity! The authors of the legend about Ruth seemed to want to show us that in the era of judges, in spite of everything, there was an ordinary world of honest people who, in the midst of the general chaos, preserved purity of morals, innocence and human dignity.
Although the editors of the Bible have adapted the story to their own religious tendencies, the Book of Judges gives us a fairly accurate picture of the political relations that have developed since the invasion of Canaan by the Israeli tribes. First of all, we learn that the idea of racial unity, according to the biblical version, imposed on the Israelites by Moses and supported by Joshua, did not stand the test of time. The ancient Semitic tribal organization, based on the bonds of blood, was still too tenacious to retreat even in the new conditions of sedentary life. Each tribe had its own special everyday traditions, they even spoke in different dialects. After the death of Joshua, when there was no common leader, old grievances, prejudices and separatist tendencies surfaced again. This was favored by the factthat as a result of the collapse of the primitive community and the deepening of class differences, the former elective tribal elders turned into a hereditary aristocracy. The head of a tribe or clan assumed the title of prince or chief, along with such epithets as mighty or noble.
These privileged strata began to compete with each other and contributed not only to the split of Israeli unity, but even to the fratricidal war. Thus, the Israelis entered a period of political chaos and arbitrariness. In the Book of Judges, we read that in those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what seemed right to him. Daniel-Rops in his book "From Abraham to Christ" wittily writes that "the history of Israel during this period is divided into a number of stories according to the number of tribes."
The split of the Israelite people into twelve warring clans was all the more dangerous because Joshua had only partially conquered Canaan. In the very heart of the country, the mighty Canaanite tribes retained their independence, which completely owned the fortified cities and the most fertile valleys. The Israelis first settled in sparsely populated mountainous areas, where they led a semi-nomadic life as pastoralists. They did not build stone houses there, but lived in tents and wooden huts.
Only in rare cases did they seize territory with weapons; For the most part, it was a gradual, peaceful penetration of nomadic pastoralists into a foreign country. Separate Israeli tribes, left to their own devices, of course, could not enter into a struggle with the rulers of neighboring small Canaanite states. To obtain permission to settle in the nearby area, they all too often had to recognize the hegemony of the Canaanite kings and pay tribute to them.
Economic and political dependence often degenerated into complete slavery.
The book of judges is, in fact, a collection of legends about the oppressed Israeli tribes who endured slavery for many years and eventually rose to the war of liberation under the leadership of their national heroes, called judges. The Bible tells in detail about six outstanding leaders and mentions six more, less significant, about which, besides their names, we will not learn anything from the Old Testament text. Judges were called in ancient Hebrew "shofetim", from the verb "shafat" - "to judge."
But their duties were not limited only to judicial functions. This title, which existed for a long time among the Semites, was awarded to the highest officials of the administration. In Phoenician cities, the so-called suffetses were elected every year - governors for the colonies. When Carthage broke away from its Phoenician metropolis and became a sovereign trading power, it was still led by the Suffethes, who were elected each year by the merchant plutocracy. Sometimes, during the interregnum, they were also chosen in the city-states of Phenicia. So, in Tire they were entrusted with the reins of government in 563-556 BC.
It looks a little different in the Bible. Israeli judges appear there mainly as gallant rebellion leaders or guerrillas, and only incidentally as civil administrators. According to the Bible, these were rather military dictators who, thanks to their personal merits, acquired great authority among their fellow tribesmen and at the appropriate moment led them to fight for freedom. Their power for the most part did not go beyond the borders of one tribe, although some judges managed to put together temporary coalitions of several tribes to fight the Canaanite oppressors. After the return of independence, the judges, as national heroes, exercised power until the end of their days, but after their death, the tribes they ruled, in most cases, again fell under the yoke of the Canaanites.
Far more dangerous than political submission was the fact that the Israelites easily succumbed to the influence of Canaanite culture and religion, which threatened them with a complete loss of their national character. The Book of Judges does not clearly say why this happened. The editors of the Bible, guarding the position of harsh Judaism, portrayed the Canaanites as a corrupt and barbaric people, observing a vile and depraved religious cult. In this regard, the question arose: how could it happen that the Israeli tribes, brought up in the spirit of the moral commandments of Moses, allowed themselves to be easily carried away on the path of sin?
It was difficult to answer such a question as long as our knowledge of the Canaanites was limited mainly to what the Bible reports. A shift in this respect came only thanks to archaeological discoveries in Palestine. Now we know that the Canaanites created a highly developed material culture, which was not much inferior to the culture of Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia. Numerous Canaanite cities were famous for their public buildings and palaces, maintained trade and cultural ties with other states, their population was successfully engaged in trade and crafts. Gardening flourished along with agriculture and cattle breeding. Everywhere in the country there were diligently manicured gardens of date palms, olives, figs and pomegranates, vineyards stretched out on the mountain slopes in the sun, and all kinds of vegetables grew in the valleys.
It is known that the Canaanites exported wine, olives and vegetables to Egypt.
Archaeological finds also show a high level of art and handicrafts. In the ruins of Canaanite cities, originally carved figurines of gods and goddesses, secular portraits, jewelry made of gold and silver, ivory bas-reliefs, earthenware vessels with figured ornaments, as well as masterfully engraved everyday objects (boxes, bottles, stilettos, hatchets, weapons and all kinds of ceramics). Pharaoh Thutmose III reports in one of the surviving records that in Palestine he seized a rich booty - vessels of gold and silver.
In Beth Shan, a magnificent stone sculpture has been excavated from the ruins, depicting two lions wrestling among themselves. Canaan, moreover, was famous for its fine weaving dyed with purple, a very valuable dye produced in that country. As we noted earlier, Canaanite culture experienced a period of decline in the twelfth century BC. Despite this, she should have made a huge impression on the Israeli nomads, who for forty years lived in the primitive conditions of the desert. The Canaanites, with their populous cities full of imposing buildings and opulent shops, certainly impressed the common herders.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the Israelites, according to the Bible, willingly took their daughters as wives, and gave their daughters to their sons, for such a relationship was probably considered an honor for themselves. However, for the small states of Canaan that failed to fend for themselves, the Israeli invasion was a disaster. Excavations dating back to that period indicate a striking decline in the level of crafts, and above all construction. On the ruins of Canaanite cities, the invaders erected miserable houses without the most primitive devices for draining rainwater.
The Israeli tribes, of course, could not acquire construction experience in the desert. In addition, this was hampered by their patriarchal-democratic system: large buildings and defensive systems in that era could be created only with the use of the slave, coordinated labor of the oppressed masses. The Israelites remained free herders for a long time; it is true that the title of elders in their tribes was already inherited, but the elders did not have such unlimited power as the rulers of the Canaanite cities.
It must also be borne in mind that the invasion of foreign tribes on the lands inhabited by the Canaanites should have caused a deep economic upheaval there.
The Canaanite cities flourished mainly through international trade.
Therefore, as soon as the invaders cut off the caravan routes, a stagnation in trade began, followed by the following general decline in welfare. The consequences of the economic collapse made themselves felt for several centuries. When Solomon began building the Jerusalem Temple, he was forced to invite artisans, artists and builders from Phoenician Tire. It was only thanks to the perseverance and energy of this king that trade revived and cities flourished again, and some of them, for example Jerusalem, were able in the end to compete even with the cities of Syria and Egypt. Archaeological excavations have explained to us what role the Israeli invaders played in Canaan. The question still remained unanswered why they were so easily carried away by the Canaanite religion, which the Bible editors always spoke of with disgust and condemnation.
Only in 1928, when the ruins of the Phoenician city of Ugarit were discovered in northern Syria, did a decisive turnaround in this respect take place. Among the ruins, several hundred cuneiform tablets with documents, including those in the Ugaritic language, were found. When they were read, it turned out that they were mostly religious texts, containing hymns, prayers and mythological poems. From the point of view of science, this was an important discovery, because on the basis of the tablets found, it was finally possible to refute the one-sided biblical version and reconstruct the Canaanite religion as it really was. What is common between the Phoenician religion and the Canaanites? First of all, it was established that Phenicia and Canaan constituted a cultural, religious and ethnic unity.
The Canaanite peoples spoke primarily in the Phoenician language or in dialects very close to it. In addition, they recognized the same gods as the inhabitants of Tire, Byblos and Ugarit. And therefore, everything that was read on the cuneiform tablets, according to the logic of things, should also relate to the religion professed in Canaan. The Phoenicians, a Semitic people of seafarers, merchants and travelers, settled on the coast of Syria in the third millennium BC. Their port cities of Tire, Byblos, and Sidon were bustling with maritime trade.
Phoenician ships sailed to the northwestern shores of Africa and England, and perhaps even circled the African mainland. Among the colonies founded by Phoenician merchants along the Mediterranean coast, Carthage became famous for freeing itself from the rule of its metropolis and, as a sovereign sea power, entered into a life-and-death struggle with the Roman Empire.
Over their long history, the Phoenicians have reached a very high level of cultural development. Despite its Mesopotamian and Egyptian influences, it was an original culture. Construction, craft and art flourished in the Phoenician cities. By means of exchange trade, handicrafts were transported to remote corners of the then world. But the greatest achievement of the Phoenicians was the invention of writing based on an alphabetical system.
The excavations at Ugarit have shown that the religion of ancient Canaan was not at all as immoral as the Bible editors tried to convince us. The world of the gods presented in the documents is rich and picturesque, full of poetry and dramatic tension. The gods and goddesses acting in it are possessed by all the passions inherent in an ordinary mortal: they love, hate, fight among themselves, suffer and die. Of course, this religion did not proclaim high moral principles.
Like all varieties of ancient polytheism, it expressed the naive ideas of the then man about the mysterious meaning of the cosmos, reflected the drama of human life with its personal and social conflicts.
The Phoenician religious epic sometimes vividly resembles Homer. Here is a passage praising Baal:
He drank a goblet of the magic drink, From the bed he rose and uttered shouts of joy, He began to sing to the sound of cymbals, and his voice was beautiful.
He then ascended to the top of Mount Zapon, Daughter saw his Nadriya, the goddess of light, And his daughter Talia, who was the goddess of rain …
The highest Phoenician deity was El, a bloodthirsty god, as if possessed by the passion of destruction and at the same time complacent and merciful. The greatest honors, however, as we know, were given to Baal, god of the harvest, rain and patron of livestock. His wife was Astarte, the goddess of love and fertility, one of the most popular goddesses of the ancient world, revered in Canaan also under the name of Ashera. Baal was a god of Sumerian-Akkadian descent. Among the peoples of the East, he appears under different names. The Phoenicians also call him Tammuz (Tammuz) or Eshmun, in Egypt we meet him in the form of Osiris, and the Greeks honored him under the guise of the eternally young Adonis.
As we know from the prophecy of Ezekiel, the cult of Tammuz was observed as early as 590 BC in the courtyard of the Jerusalem temple. We read in the Bible literally the following: "And he brought me to the entrance to the gate of the house of the Lord, which is to the north, and, behold, there are women sitting there weeping for Tammuz."
The popularity of Baal (Balla) is evidenced primarily by the fact that his name was very often included in the main composition of Phoenician, Israeli and Carthaginian names. One of the judges was nicknamed Jerobaal, the name of King Saul's son was Yeshabaal, and the greatest heroes of Carthage were Hasdrubal and Hannibal.
In Tire, the symbols of Baal were two pillars - one of gold, the other of silver.
Folk fantasy subsequently carried these pillars far west, to the Strait of Gibraltar, and the Greeks introduced them into their legends as the Pillars of Hercules. Great festivals and religious processions were associated with the Baal cult, dramatically illustrating the mythical fate of this god. At the beginning of autumn, the death god Mot abducted Baal into the underworld, which entailed the death of nature and the onset of winter. The Canaanite people mourned the deceased god, expressing their despair by tore at their clothes, mutilate their bodies, and sang funeral songs. But in the spring, the goddess of fertility Anat entered into a victorious struggle with Mot and brought her husband to the surface of the earth.
Then the farmers arranged joyful processions in honor of the resurrected god of the harvest, sang hymns glorifying him and danced to the accompaniment of tambourines.
The myth of the death and resurrection of the harvest god played an important role not only among the Phoenicians and Canaanites. Let us recall here at least the Egyptian cult of Osiris and the goddess Isis, the Greek mysteries associated with the goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone, the Phrygian goddess Cybele and her young husband Attis, as well as mystical rituals in honor of Aphrodite and Adonis in the Hellenistic era.
Along with Baal, the goddess of fertility Astarte was surrounded by the greatest veneration in Canaan. She was a typical mother goddess who appeared in many other religious cults. In the Bible, she is harshly condemned, because the cult of Astarte emphasizes sexuality as the main aspect of life, which found expression in religiously sanctified debauchery. Temples served as houses of tolerance in which initiates - men and women - engaged in prostitution. Gifts for their service came to the cashier of the temple, in the form of donations to the deity. In fact, in this form of the cult, the feelings of ordinary people were naively manifested, who considered the relationship between the sexes to be something completely natural and therefore did not see anything shameful in them. The cult of Astarte did not at all testify to the moral depravity and licentiousness of the Canaanites, as the harsh followers of Yahvism portray in the Bible.
In the galaxy of Phoenician-Canaanite deities, there was still one god who could justly cause indignation. We know him by the name of Moloch. This is a distorted form of the Semitic word melech, which simply means king. In Ur Sumerian he was called Malcum, among the Ammonites - Milk, and in Syria and Babylon - Malik, in Tire and Carthage he acted as Melekart, which means king of the city.
The most savage side of this cult was that its followers sacrificed people, and especially babies, to their deity. This disgusting ritual, in particular, was common in Carthage.
Archaeological excavations have shown that babies were sacrificed in Canaan long after the Israeli invasion. A whole cemetery of newborns was found in Gezer. There are clear traces of fire on the bones. The sacrificed children were then thrust into large jugs, head inward, and buried in the ground. The Canaanite religion was closely related to the calendar of agricultural work and tried to clarify the secret of the rhythmic birth and death of nature. It is for this reason that the Israelites so easily succumbed to her influence. Moving from a nomadic life to a sedentary one, from cattle breeding to cultivating the land, they had to learn agriculture from the Canaanites. They also learned from them that it is necessary to honor the local gods in order to secure a good harvest.
The Israeli farmer had a deep need for a religion that would support him in his daily life. Colorful, full of spectacular splendor, the rite associated with the cult of Baal and Astarte, vividly influenced his imagination and was more in line with his primitive nature than the Puritan religion of Moses.
The economic and psychological motives behind this religious apostasy have meant that the Yahvists have never, in fact, been able to eradicate "idolatry." In the Book of Judges, we read that the Israelites “continued to do evil in the eyes of the Lord, and served the Baals and Astartes, and the Aramaic gods, and the Sidonian gods, and the Moabite gods, and the Ammonite gods, and the Philistine gods; but the lords left and did not serve him”(chapter 10, verse 6).
While the Israeli plowman was working the land, he did not want and could not abandon the worship of the Canaanite gods. From time to time he gave Yahweh what was due to him, but the agricultural gods who ruled the land of Canaan from time immemorial were really close to him. Hosea's prophecy (chapter 2, verses 5-8) from the eighth century contains a passage that perfectly explains these life motives. We read there literally: … for she said (the mother of the sons of Israel. - 3.) K.):
“I will go after my lovers, who give me bread and water, wool and flax, oil and drinks” … But she did not know that I was (Yahweh, - 3). K.), I gave her bread and wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, from which they made the image of Baal."
This passage shows how deeply rooted among the Israelites the worship of the Canaanite gods. The Bible implies that it existed for several centuries and held out even after the fall of Jerusalem in 571 BC. In the Book of Judges, we read that Joash, the father of the hero Gideon, had an altar to Baal. When Gideon destroyed him and set up an altar to Yahweh in the same place, the Israelites were so indignant that they demanded his death. But Gideon himself, after the victory over the enemies, ordered the casting of a golden ephod, that is, some kind of subject of the Canaanite cult.
In the same book we learn, in addition, that in order to finance the coup d'état of Abimelech, the inhabitants of Shechem gave him seventy shekels of silver from the treasury of the house of Baal. In Mispa, the ruins of two sanctuaries, Baal and Yahweh, have been excavated, which stand not far from each other and both date back to the ninth century BC An interesting detail: in the ruins of both sanctuaries, many statues of the goddess Astarte were found. The archaeologists had a suspicion: did the inhabitants of Shechem make her the wife of Yahweh? This hypothesis is not as fantastic as it might seem at first glance. A later era brings us evidence that syncretism of this kind was possible among the Israelites. After the fall of Jerusalem, a group of Jewish refugees settled on the Egyptian island of Elephantine, which lay near the first rapids of the Nile at Aswan.
They built a common sanctuary there for Yahweh and his consort Astarte, serving under the Canaanite name of Anat Yahu.
It is possible that in Shiloh, the then capital of Yahvism, during the reign of the high priest Elijah, the cult of Astarte was also observed. For we read in 1 Kings (chapter 2, verse 22): "Eli was very old, and he heard everything how his sons behaved with all the Israelites, and that they slept with the women who gathered at the entrance to the tabernacle of the meeting." Isaiah, as can be judged by his prophecy (chapter 8, verse 3), went to Jerusalem to one of the Canaanite temples to have a child from the priestess of the goddess Astarte.
During the reign of King Solomon, Baal and Astarte were also honored in the Jerusalem temple along with Yahweh, to whom they erected separate altars. Even with the revival of Yahvism, during the reign of Josiah and after his death in 609 BC, it was not possible to suppress the cult of the Canaanite gods. This was confirmed, to his own surprise, by the prophet Jeremiah when he appeared in Jerusalem, devastated by the Egyptians and Babylonians. Jeremiah met children on the streets collecting “fuel for the fires,” which their fathers intended to light in honor of the “goddess of heaven,” while the women baked sacred cakes with an image of Astarte engraved on them. In response to Jeremiah's reproaches, people explained that they should offer sacrifices to the goddess, so that she would more generously endow them with food. They complained that since Josiah tried to suppress the cult of Astarte, they have been pursued by only misfortune: Jerusalem was devastated by the Chaldeans,one part of the inhabitants was taken to Mesopotamia, while the other was forced to seek shelter in Egypt.
Jeremiah's explanation that these catastrophes and misfortunes are punishment for apostasy from the religion of Yahweh did not find the slightest response among the desperate Jews. The influence of the Canaanite religion naturally left its mark on biblical literature. So, for example, in the twenty-eighth psalm, traces of the old Ugaritic hymn are clearly visible. This is indicated by striking coincidences in general ideas, in the names of the Syrian bone-places mentioned there, as well as the influence of the Ugaritic language. Verses twelve through fifteen in the fifteenth chapter of Isaiah are literal quotations from the mythological Ugaritic poem found in Ugarit. It is also known that some biblical sayings were copied from Canaanite models. Some researchers also came to the conclusion that the Song of Songs is a collection of ritual songs in honor of the god Tammuz.
In this regard, we have the right to ask: by what miracle did the Mosaic religion survived in such conditions? First of all, we must remember that the Israelites, giving honor to the Canaanite gods, never completely deviated from the god of their tribe. In many places, the sanctuaries of Yahweh and Baal were nearby. Some kings, such as Ahab and Solomon, built sanctuaries for the Canaanite gods, which, however, did not prevent them from continuing to remain followers of Yahweh.
Thus, it was quite obvious polytheism, in which Yahweh, depending on the circumstances, occupied a less or more honorable place in the galaxy of other gods. During that period of great confusion, there probably existed circles of irreconcilable followers of Yahweh who did not allow themselves to be carried away by the general wave of apostasy and even more than once tried to actively defend their religion. When the wife of King Ahab, Jezebel, pursued the prophets of Yahvism, the king's servant Obadiah “took a hundred prophets and hid them, fifty men each, in caves, and fed them with bread and water” (1 Kings, chapter 18, verse 4). In addition to the priests and Levites, the old Mosaic faith was supported to a certain extent by the brotherhoods of devout people who took the vows of Yahweh.
We already know the Nazarenes, since Samson belonged to them. The Nazirites did not drink wine, did not cut their hair, did not eat dishes considered ritually unclean, and did not dare to touch the dead. The brotherhood of the rihavites was much more interesting. These are the descendants of Jonadab, the son of Richab, who destroyed the servants of Baal during the reign of Ahab. The Richavites did not drink wine, cultivate the land or grow grapes, lived in tents and led the primitive life of shepherds, condemning the urbanism of the Canaanites and the resulting bad social and religious consequences. Of course, the desire to preserve the pastoral order of the time of Moses was just an anachronism, and therefore the brotherhood of the Richavites did not achieve much popularity among the Israelites. Later, during the reign of the Jewish king Josiah (640-609 BC), the Jerusalem priests launched a powerful attack on the apostates. They sought to introduce a theocratic order and actually exercise power on behalf of Yahweh.
In fact, they pursued political goals, and in their religious teachings they insisted on external forms of worship and the observance of religious rites and rituals. It was only under the influence of the moral teaching of the prophets that the Israelites gradually brought their religion to the level of pure ethical monotheism. In their beliefs, Yahweh becomes universal, the only god in the universe. Thus, Hebrew monotheism is a rather late and final result of a difficult historical path through centuries of wandering, suffering and political catastrophe.
During the era of judges, Israel experienced a period of civil wars and a weakening of religious unity. Three legends, in particular, give us a stunning picture of these internal relations: about the massacre of the descendants of Ephraim at the Jordanian ford, about the extermination of almost the entire tribe of Benjamin and about the bloody coup d'etat of Abimelech.
The latter legend deserves special attention, since here we find additional information about the class structure of Israeli society and the political trends that are the forerunners of the subsequent monarchical system. In the Book of Judges (chapter 8, verse 22) we read:
“And the Israelites said to Gideon, Take possession of us, you and your son, and your son's son; for you have saved us from the hand of the Midianites. Gideon did not accept the royal crown offered to him, although in fact he became the hereditary ruler. In his capital, he ruled as the most typical oriental despot and maintained a harem of concubines, from whom he had seventy sons. Why, then, did he not want to formally accept the royal title? There is no doubt that among the Israelites then there was a certain group of people who saw in the monarchical system the only way out of anarchy and salvation from death.
In their opinion, only the central government could unite the Israeli tribes in a common front against the growing threat from the hostile Canaanite peoples. But the monarchists were apparently in the minority. The broad masses of the people feared despotism and clung convulsively to tribal separatism. Gideon probably reckoned with these sentiments and therefore rejected the crown. However, he could afford it, because thanks to his personal authority, he already had unlimited power over the tribes subordinate to him.
The story of Abimelech shows us how strong the opposition was against the monarchist idea and in which social strata it was deeply rooted.
Abimelech, in fact, was not a king, but a usurper who seized power with the help of his relatives in Shechem. With the funds received from them, he recruited mercenaries, then massacred his half-brothers and established an unprecedentedly bloody regime. However, he only lasted three years on the throne. The signal for the uprising was given by the very city of Shechem, which recently so actively helped him to carry out a coup d'etat. Why exactly his hometown? If we carefully read the corresponding lines of the Bible, we will get an exhaustive answer to this question. The Book of Judges (chapter 9, verse 6) says; "And all the inhabitants of Shehem and all the house of Millo gathered together, and went and made Abimelech king …"
In fact, Millo was not a home, but an aristocratic quarter, to a certain extent corresponding to the Greek acropolis. Archaeologists have discovered such neighborhoods not only in Shechem, but also in Jerusalem and other Palestinian cities. It was an earthen area, paved with stone and surrounded by a defensive wall, behind which stood the palaces of nobles and aristocratic families.
So, the key to the riddle was found. First of all, we learn to what extent Israeli society was already divided in class terms at that time. From this message, in addition, it follows without fail that the monarchists were mainly representatives of the privileged classes and that it was they who elevated Abimelech to the throne. All doubts about the atom are eliminated by verses twenty-three and twenty-four of the above chapter of the Book of Judges. It says that "the inhabitants of Shehem did not submit to Abimelech, so that in this way vengeance might be accomplished for the seventy sons of Jerubbaal, and their blood turned to Abimelech, their brother who killed them, and to the inhabitants of Shehem, who strengthened his hands …"
In short, the riot of the city of Shechem was a popular uprising not only against the usurper, but also against the regime of the oligarchy. Consequently, it bore the distinct character of a social revolution. As can be judged from his description, the people fought with an extraordinary bitterness and contempt for death. The fact that not only men took part in the struggle also tells us about the general popular character of the uprising. Abimelech was mortally wounded by a woman who threw a piece of millstone at him from the tower of the besieged tower. After the fall of Abimelech, it will be a long time before the Israelite tribes again decide to choose their king. They will only do this in the face of growing danger from the Philistines. But even then, as can be judged from the history of Samuel, the opposition to the monarchy was still strong and active.
Although the Book of Judges in its extant edition is a relatively late work, we find in its text a lot of strong evidence that ancient historical documents served as the basis for it more than once.
For example, let us give the legend of Deborah, an Israeli prophetess and poet.
The source of this legend was two different and even contradictory documents in content:
a story in prose about King Jabin, who cruelly oppressed the Israelites, and his commander Sisera, and the victory hymn of the prophetess Deborah. In prosaic form, King Jabin of Hazor is Israel's main enemy, and Sisera is just his subordinate. But in the verses Javin is not named at all, and Sisera appears as a sovereign ruler. The versions about the death of Sisera also do not agree: in the prose part he dies a terrible death, in a dream, and in the poem he is killed, sneaking up behind, at the moment when he calmly drinks milk.
Linguistic analysis of the text established that the gloomy hymn of victory attributed to Deborah, saturated with the rattling of weapons and yet ending with a surprisingly human intonation (the story of the agonizing concern of Sisera's mother), is one of the oldest monuments of Hebrew literature.
It is even assumed that it arose simultaneously with the events described and therefore gives a true picture of the life of the Israelites in the earliest period of their colonization of Palestine.
Very ancient sources underlie the legend of the tragedy of Jephthah, who, by virtue of a vow, brought his beloved daughter as a sacrifice to Yahweh. This ritual sacrifice certainly refers to the ancient history of mankind.
Some researchers, embarrassed by the fact that the biblical hero had committed such a barbaric act, put forward the hypothesis that Jephthah's daughter was not at all deprived of her life, but ordained as a Vestal in one of Yahweh's illegal temples. According to these researchers, the mourning procession of the Israelites mourning the death of the girl is in fact nothing more than a ceremony borrowed from the Canaanites in honor of the goddess of fertility Astarte. However, Orthodox Bible commentators never interpreted Jephthah's sacrifice in a symbolic sense.
The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (1st century AD) and the so-called Babylonian Talmud (6th century AD) took Jephthah's sacrifice literally, as a true historical fact. Although the Bible harshly condemns human sacrifice, considering them a heinous crime, Jephthah's act was not isolated. Thus, the prophet Samuel cut into pieces the king Agag in front of the altar of Yahweh, and David hanged the seven sons of Saul to ward off hunger. Of course, it would be absurd to approach these facts from the standpoint of our today's moral ideas or ethical norms of the prophets of the period of established monotheism. We should not forget what kind of ancient era we are talking about here. After all, it was the twelfth, eleventh or tenth centuries BC, the century of Iphigenia and Clytemnestra, the Trojan War and the participant in this war - the Cretan king Idomaeus,who sacrificed his son to Poseidon as a token of gratitude for saving him from the sea storm. The then Hebrew tribes in spiritual development were no higher and no lower than other peoples of their era, including the Dorians or Achaeans.
A very interesting example of the unification of old and newer motives in one legend is the charming legend of the faithful Ruth. Numerous Aramaic phrases in the text indicate that the legend arose very late, presumably after the Babylonian captivity. Some Bible scholars have come to the conclusion that the story of Ruth is a kind of political pamphlet, in allegorical images protesting against the draconian orders of Ezra and Nehemiah, who not only did not recognize mixed marriages, but even expelled women of foreign origin who married Jews from Jerusalem.
The author of the legend wanted to remind the Jewish fanatics that Ruth, the great-grandmother of the greatest king of Israel, David, was a Moabite woman and, therefore, mixed marriages were unfairly condemned. If this was the case in reality, then the author of the legend still had to use a much older legend on the same or a similar topic, for in the post-Babylonian era the customs described in the legend about Ruth had already left or were out of use.
One more example. The right to the ears left on the stubble was an ancient privilege of the poor, widows, orphans and travelers, enshrined in the Mosaic Laws. However, after the Israelites began to settle in cities and class strife intensified, this ancient custom was rarely observed. Some prophets, especially Amos, Isaiah, and Micah, condemned the rich for oppressing the poor. “Hear this, you who desire to devour the poor and destroy the poor,” exclaims Amos.
The idyllic social relations depicted in the legend, in which farmers live in patriarchal harmony with their servants and are full of sympathy for the poor, were already an anachronism. Another legalized custom described in the story of Ruth was even older. We mean the so-called levirate, according to which the brother of the deceased husband had to marry a childless widow. If he refused, the widow could seek her rights in court. Ruth married Boaz by virtue of the Levirate Law, which held out among the Israelites until the first century BC.
However, in the post-Babylonian era, there was no longer a levirate-related procedure requiring a person who did not want to marry to remove his shoe as a sign that he was ceding the right to a widow in favor of the next of kin. This long-forgotten formal gesture had an everyday basis in those days when there was still no written language and no fixed legal acts.
By the way, in its oldest form, this custom was fraught with very violent consequences. If a relative refused to fulfill his duty, the widow would forcibly remove his shoe, spit in his face, and in this way exposed him to a laughingstock in front of the whole society. Having touched upon the most curious aspects of the Book of Judges, we deliberately pushed back to the very end of the discussion of the image of Samson, since his story serves as an introduction to the story of Samuel, Saul and David. Samson is undoubtedly a legendary figure. In some features, he resembles the Sumerian Gilgamesh and the Greek Hercules.
Scholars even suspect that Samson was originally a mythological deity among the sun-worshiping tribes; there were many followers of this cult in Canaan. Samson's name is etymologically derived from the Hebrew word shemesh and the Babylonian shamshu, which means sun. In addition, it is known that in Bet Shemesh, at a short distance from the native village of Samson, there was a temple dedicated to the sun god.
Therefore, it is possible that the prototype of Samson was some deity popular with the Canaanites. All of the above does not mean at all that this biblical hero is not a creation of Hebrew fantasy. A desperate, cocky bully, an inexhaustible grip-fellow, a childishly naive hero - what a magnificent, typical folk figure this is! In his tricks and troubles of life, the crude humor of the Hebrew shepherds and the typical for the East addiction to adventure legendary legends come to light.
The people gave Samson sympathy, talked with pleasure about his love affairs and watched with a sense of joyful satisfaction how he dealt with the hated Philistines. The image of Samson in its own way reflected the then, still weak political consciousness of the Israelites. After all, Samson is not a leader who, like other judges, organizes resistance to the oppressors. His clashes with the Philistines are in the nature of a solitary, partisan struggle of a fanatic who wants to avenge experienced or perceived insults. His actions are dictated not so much by patriotism as by the desire to settle personal scores.
And only at the end of the tale is the image of Samson clearly exalted, becomes heroic and truly tragic. This deeply moving finale, as it were, contains the harbinger of the coming new times, when the quarreled Israeli tribes, in the face of the growing Philistine danger, will finally understand that they need to unite for a common struggle for freedom. By the will of his parents, Samson was bound by the Nazirite vow from infancy. However, he observed only the external requirements of the Nazarite: he did not cut his hair and did not drink wine. In addition, in his behavior he was never guided by religious motives.
Thus, you cannot say about Samson that he was a fighter for Yahvism. In love affairs with the Philistines, in guerrilla sorties alone, in bloody adventures, extremely dubious from a moral point of view, he behaves like a savage, like a pagan! Samson was neither a wise judge, nor a leader of his tribe, nor a religious man distinguished by his fear of God.
Therefore, it should be surprising that the editors of the Bible included his story in the canon books, exposing him to a certain extent as a role model.
And they not only included, but with crude naturalism they portrayed things that, in all conscience, are not quite suitable for "writing" called "sacred." Moreover, in the legend about Samson, they are extremely condescending to interpret the numerous love affairs of an Israelite with women of foreign origin and, with undisguised satisfaction, approve of his savage antics.
How did it happen that such an uncouth hero of folk legends was introduced into the "good society" of leaders, kings and prophets? I think the answer is simple. Samson became a symbol of the heroic era of the struggle against the Philistines for the Israelites, and in this capacity so inseparably merged with the national tradition that it was impossible to bypass him.
The fight against the Philistines was fought for national existence, and thus for the preservation of the Israeli religion. That is why absolutely all of Samson's actions acquired a religious meaning and significance in the eyes of the faithful Yahvists. We have already said that Samson is a legendary figure, but the plot of the legend is based on the material of historical events. Armed clashes with the Philistines marked the way of the Israelites for nearly two centuries, and they ended in the victory of King David.
Until recently, we had little data on the Philistines. Thanks to the archaeological discoveries of recent decades and the deciphering of Egyptian and Mesopotamian cuneiform, we have obtained relatively complete information about who the Philistines were and where they came from.
In order to get an idea of them and understand under what circumstances they appeared in Canaan, we must first of all get acquainted with the era in which they lived and acted. Archaeological excavations in the Peloponnesian Mycenae, Crete, Troy, Anatolia, Syria, Palestine and Egypt give us a vast store of information about these distant and previously completely unexplored eras.
In the second millennium BC, a people lived in Crete who created a sophisticated culture and founded a mighty trading power in the Aegean Sea. In the same period, the Peloponnese was inhabited by tribes whose origin and language we do not know.
They were conquered by the warlike Achaeans, clad in bronze shells. The Achaeans built fortresses from stone blocks in Mycenae, Tiryns and other areas of Argolis.
The Greek historian Thucydides reports that the Achaeans were engaged in piracy and built a powerful fleet, which became a dangerous rival for the Cretans. Beginning in the fifteenth century BC, the Achaeans, under the leadership of the Atrids, to which Agamemnon belonged, gradually oust the Cretans from their colonial possessions in the Aegean Islands and the coast of Asia Minor. In 1400 BC, they conquer Crete and destroy the flourishing Minos culture, named after the mythical king Minos. Around 1180 BC, after a 10-year siege, they turn Troy into a heap of ruins.
However, they did not enjoy the fruits of their successes for long. From the depths of Europe came other barbarian Greek tribes, collectively known as the Dorians.
They conquered the Peloponnese, Crete, the Aegean Islands and the coast of Asia Minor. Under the pressure of these tribes in the vastness of the Aegean Sea, one of those ethnic revolutions took place that caused great movements of peoples. The inhabitants of the Balkans, Illyria and the Aegean Islands, driven out of their possessions, wave after wave rushed south in search of new places of settlement. They passed through Anatolia, Asia Minor, Syria and Canaan and reached the Nile delta, where the Pharaoh Mernepta defeated them completely and forced them to retreat.
The most formidable was the offensive of the Greek tribes on Egypt in 1191 BC Countless hordes of soldiers, together in families and property, moved along the coast of Syria and Canaan, overshadowed from the sea by a large flotilla of sailing ships. Under their blows, the Hittite state collapsed, its capital - Khattushash on the Galis River, forever turns into a heap of rubble and ash. The prey of the invaders then becomes Cilicia with countless herds of thoroughbred horses, for which it was once famous. The Phoenician cities of Byblos, Sidon and Tire voluntarily surrender and thus avoid destruction.
Having passed Canaan along the sea, the invaders invade Egypt and devastate its northern regions. Pharaoh Rameses the third had to exert all his strength to contain this pressure. In the end, he defeated the aggressors on land and at sea, destroying their fleet in the naval battle of Pelusium. The greatest danger that hung over Egypt in its entire history was averted, but Ramses lacked the strength to expel the intruders from Canaan and Syria as well. This is how the part of the newcomers who survived the defeat were able to freely occupy the fertile seaside valley in southern Canaan and settle there for centuries.
By a happy coincidence, an Egyptian document has survived, containing immensely valuable information about these mysterious nomadic peoples. In Medinet Gabu, a short distance from Thebes, the ruins of the temple of the god Amun have been excavated. Its walls are covered from top to bottom with inscriptions and paintings, very impressively depicting the course of the Pharaoh's struggle with the aggressors. While on land the gallant Egyptian infantry fights fiercely with foreign warriors, at sea the Pharaoh's ships win a decisive victory over the enemy fleet. One can see how the dead fall from the flaming and sinking sailing ships of the enemy and how frightened sailors rush into the sea.
On one of the frescoes, we see heavy carts drawn by oxen, on which women, children and war booty are loaded. Consequently, it was a migration of peoples in the full sense of the word. The men are tall, with shaved faces, straight, typically Greek noses and high foreheads. Warriors wear on their heads peculiar helmets made of bird feathers, reminiscent of the helmets of Homer's heroes on ancient bas-reliefs.
Wide short swords and small round shields are probably also of Greek origin. From the wall inscriptions we learn that the Egyptians called the invaders "the peoples of the sea." The warriors of the Donoya and Ahaiva tribes occupy a special place among them; under these names, perhaps, the Danaans and Achaeans known to us from ancient Greek history are hidden. We also come across the Egyptian names of the Philistines - "Peleset" or "Pret".
Despite these data, scientists are not unanimous in determining the ethnic origin of the aggressors. But even if tribes of the most diverse origins were mixed here, according to some researchers, it is in any case indisputable that they were influenced by Greek culture and that there were also Achaeans among them, driven out by the Dorians from the Balkan Peninsula, from Asia Minor and from the islands. Aegean Sea.
After an unsuccessful campaign in Egypt, the Philistines settled in Canaan almost simultaneously with the Israelites. We know from the Bible that they occupied a crop strip of coastline south of Mount Carmel. Their city-states - Gaza, Ascalon, Azot, Gat and Ekron - formed a federation called the Greek pentarchy.
Directing their expansion into the interior of the continent, they quickly came into conflict with the neighboring Israeli tribes of Judah and Dan. It is these collisions that form the historical background of the legend of Samson.
Among the "peoples of the sea" the Philistines constituted a special, not too numerous ethnic group. Bible students and archaeologists are trying hard to learn new things about them, and in this regard they already have a number of achievements. Let us briefly describe the results of scientific searches carried out in this area so far.
According to the Bible, the Philistines were from Crete. The prophet Amos (chapter 9, verse 7) asks on behalf of Yahweh: "Did I not bring Israel out of the land of Egypt, and the Philistines from Caphtor?.." The name Caphtor means Crete (in the Babylonian cuneiform texts - Caphtor). Doubts about this and not another interpretation of the word "Caphtor" are further dispelled by the prophet Ezekiel, who directly identifies the Philistines with the Cretans. Therefore, if we agree with the biblical tradition, we will come to the conviction that the Philistines were Achaeans who conquered Crete, and then, in turn, were driven from this island by the Dorians.
Unfortunately, this kind of tradition is often deceiving and lacking the value of scientific proof. The researchers drew attention to a remarkable fact:
some Philistine names were of Illyrian origin, and there was a city of Palestine in Illyria. Since the migration of the Dorian peoples began there, it is possible that the Philistines were pre-Greek inhabitants of Illyria, driven out of there by the next invaders. Let us now hear what archeology has to say on this issue based on excavations carried out in Syria and Palestine.
So, in the ruins of the city of Ugarit, tombs were found, by their type characteristic of the Aegean, Cypriot and Mycenaean cultures. But the pottery excavated from the ruins of five Philistine cities of the former Canaan is mostly Mycenaean. The cups and jugs are decorated with black and red figured ornaments applied to the background of light yellow glaze. Such pottery was used in Mycenae, the city of Agamemnon. Other archaeological finds are more significant. In the legend of Samson, the Bible portrays the Philistines as lovers of mass feasts. We read there literally: “And when their hearts were glad, they said:
call Samson, let him amuse us. And they called Samson out of the house of the prisoners, and he amused them, and put him between the posts … The house was full of men and women; there were all the lords of the Philistines, and on the roof there were up to three thousand men and women looking at Samson amusing them. Archeology has supplemented this impressive picture of a noisy feast in a somewhat unexpected way. In the ruins of Philistine cities, a large number of beer jugs were found, equipped with filter nozzles to trap barley husks floating in freshly brewed beer.
So, it turned out that in the land of wine, the Philistines preferred beer, the traditional drink of the Greek warriors. What conclusions can be drawn from these facts? We cannot affirm with all certainty that the Philistines belonged to the great family of Greek tribes. It is true, however, that they have long been influenced by their culture and adopted their customs. It is even possible that among them there were Achaean refugees from Argolis, Illyria, Asia Minor, from Crete and the Aegean Islands. In all likelihood, these were nomadic tribes of Greek and non-Greek origin, who, after the defeat in Egypt, united to jointly capture Canaan.
In fairness one might ask:
How did such a small handful of invaders not only retain their conquests, but even eventually subdue almost all of Canaan along with the Israelites? It turns out that their superiority was based on the fact that they brought with them the secret of iron processing. Iron weapons and tools gave them a decisive advantage over a country that was still in the Bronze Age.
Let's step back a few centuries to find out which ways the Philistines reached the mastery of iron. Somewhere in the Armenian mountains lived the Kizvadan tribe, which learned to smelt iron in the fourteenth century BC. It did not make a new discovery, but simply found a way to make iron cheaply, and even in large quantities. In Egypt and Mesopotamia, where iron was already known in a much earlier era, in the third millennium BC, it was found, however, so rarely that it was valued above gold.
The Kizvadans were conquered by the Hittites and, of course, snatched from them the secret of melting iron, which they cherished like the apple of their eye. When one of the pharaohs asked a friendly Hittite king to reveal a secret to him, he received only an iron stiletto in response without any comments. In the twelfth century BC, the Sea Peoples defeated the Hittites and took possession of the carefully guarded secret smelting of iron. This most valuable treasure went to the Philistines.
In the First Book of Kingdoms (chapter 13, verses 19-22) we read: “There were no smiths in all the land of Israel; for the Philistines feared lest the Jews make a sword or a spear. And all the Israelites had to go to the Philistines to hone their plowshares, and their spades, and their axes, and their picks, when a chink was made on the point of the plowshares, and at the spades, and at the pitchfork, and at the axes, or it was necessary to fix the rampage.
Therefore, during the war, all the people who were with Saul and Jonathan had neither a sword nor a spear …”As follows from these words, the Philistines kept the Israelites in bondage, most cruelly defending their monopoly on iron. It was a military and economic monopoly, because no one but them in Canaan knew how to develop either iron weapons or tools needed for crafts and agriculture. True, the Israelites could acquire tools from the Philistines, but in order to correct or sharpen these tools, they again had to turn to the Philistines, who, in addition, took a rather high fee for their services. Surprisingly, archeology has confirmed the information given in the Bible. In the space of the former small Philistine states, a huge number of iron products were mined from the earth,while in other parts of Canaan such finds are rare. The picture changes quite clearly, as soon as the cultural layers belonging to the period when the hegemony of the Philistines in Canaan came to an end were unearthed. Since then, iron has been found in large quantities, and it is evenly distributed throughout the whole area of Canaan. The victory of the Israelites also meant an economic revolution as a result of the destruction of the Philistine monopoly and the entry of the Semitic peoples of Canaan into the Iron Age. The victory of the Israelites also meant an economic revolution as a result of the destruction of the Philistine monopoly and the entry of the Semitic peoples of Canaan into the Iron Age. The victory of the Israelites also meant an economic revolution as a result of the destruction of the Philistine monopoly and the entry of the Semitic peoples of Canaan into the Iron Age.
After two centuries of struggle, the Philistines were defeated, and although since then they have played only a secondary political role, they have not disappeared from the pages of history.
For it is from them that Palestine takes its name, which later appears in the official Roman nomenclature. In this way, the Philistines won an unexpected victory: they were immortalized in the name of the country, which, despite long efforts, they could not subdue.
Continuation: Truth and Legend about the Creators of the Kingdom of Israel
Author: Zenon Kosidovsky
