Read The Invention of Ancient Israel Online
Authors: Keith W. Whitelam
The Invention of Ancient Israel (12 page)
The debate over the starting point of Israelite history has meant that major blocks of tradition within the Pentateuch and Deuteronomistic History have been relegated to the prehistory of Israel. As we have seen, this has not meant that these periods are returned to Palestinian history. Israel's claim to the past has remained as strong
as ever. Yet the concentration upon prehistory and protohistory also has profound implications for the conception of history, which in turn helps to silence and deny Palestinian history. The widely held distinction between history and prehistory embodies the common assumption, prevalent within biblical studies, that the writing of history is dependent upon the existence or, more accurately, the
accidental
preservation of written materials. Yet the ebb and flow of the historical process is not dependent on written materials. They are clearly a major source for the historian but their absence does not mean that the past must be abandoned. Clarke highlights the complex and misleading relationship between history and prehistory:
The term prehistoric, while it serves a useful purpose in designating a period for which written records are available only for the concluding phase, is in some respects unfortunate. The roll of history is nothing if not continuous. It is only that different parts of it have to be read by different means. Prehistory is not merely an antecedent of history. In a broader sense it forms a part, indeed much the larger part of the story of man's past. From a temporal point, though not from an existential point of view, almost the whole of human history is prehistoric in the technical sense that it has to be reconstructed without the aid of written records. Only some five thousand out of the two million years are documented in this way and then only for a minute area. Conversely vast territories remained âprehistoric' until âdiscovered' by western man in recent centuries. Indeed the remoter parts of territories like Australia, New Guinea or Brazil remained outside the range of recorded history until our own generation.
(Clarke 1973: xviiâxviii)
This insistence on the importance of written sources for the reconstruction of the past betrays the Eurocentric nature of the historical enterprise, as Clarke makes clear. It is an assumption which has informed biblical studies, dependent upon the canons of European historiography, leading to the insistence that Israel and its written traditions are the arbiter of history.
The removal of traditions from the grasp of the biblical historian by literary critics may have led to a crisis of confidence in the scholarly enterprise of writing a history of Israel but it has not resulted in a voice for Palestinian history. Palestine has, we are told, few written materials that have been preserved or unearthed by
archaeologists. Thus it cannot have a history. Those which are well known, such as the Amarna or Ugaritic materials, are claimed as background to Israel's prehistory. Malamat (1983: 303) is typical in trying to come to terms with the problem of the Patriarchal and Conquest traditions. He draws a distinction between Israelite âprehistory' and âprotohistory': âprehistory' implies a time prior to Israel's existence, whereas âprotohistory' is restricted to the period when embryonic Israel took shape and eventually emerged as an ethnic and territorial unit in Canaan. He would include the so-called Patriarchal, Exodus, Settlement, and Conquest periods in this latter term. Thus for Malamat, as for Aharoni and many biblical specialists, vast spans of time do not belong to Palestine or Palestinian history but remain the preserve of Israel and its (proto-)history.
Palestinian history, if it is to emerge as a subject in its own right, has to be freed from both the tyranny of biblical time and the tyranny of prehistoric time which denies it substance and voice. Lucien Febvre exposed the fallacy of âprehistory' in strikingly eloquent terms:
Nevertheless the concept of pre-history is one of the most ridiculous that can be imagined. A man who studies the period in which a certain type of neolithic pottery was widespread is doing history in exactly the same way as a man who draws a map of the distribution of telephones in the Far East in 1948. Both, in the same spirit, for the same ends, are devoting themselves to a study of the manifestations of the inventive genius of mankind, which differ in age and in yield, if you like, but certainly not in ingenuity.
(Febvre 1973: 35)
Or as Braudel (1989: 19â20) would have it: âAs if history did not reach back into the mists of time! As if prehistory and history were not one and the same process.' The history of Palestine will need to be written from the conjunction of written and material remains, and will need to be pursued for those periods where written materials do not exist (cf. Febvre 1973: 34).
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The pursuit of Palestinian history is dependent upon freeing it from the temporal constraints imposed upon it by the discourse of biblical studies. Braudel's concept of
la longue durée
offers a perspective which overcomes the neat periodization of biblical histories. It is a temporal perspective which helps to illustrate that Israel is but an entity in the sweep of Palestinian time. Concentration
on the short term, the Iron Age to Roman period or the present, obscures the fact that Israel is but one thread in the rich tapestry of Palestinian history. It is the perspective of
la longue durée
which allows the historian to decide whether the settlement patterns of, say, the Early Iron Age in Palestine are unique or conform to similar patterns at other times. Only then is it possible to ask if there might be similar factors at work affecting the shift in settlement or whether it has to be explained in terms completely different from any other period in the history of ancient Palestine. From this perspective, Palestinian history becomes the pursuit of the whole gamut of social, economic, political, and religious developments within Palestine, rather than a primary or exclusive concern with how such developments relate to and explain the emergence and evolution of Israel.
The appeal to the Braudelian conception of time (1972; 1980), with its different levels of geographical, social, and individual time, however, again raises the problem of Eurocentrism. Braudel (1984: 18) places great emphasis on what he terms
world time
which is uneven in the ways in which it affects different areas: âThis exceptional time-scale governs certain areas of the world and certain realities depending on period and place. Other areas and other realities will always escape and lie outside it.'
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He goes on to add that:
âWorld time
then might be said to concentrate above all on a kind of superstructure of world history: it represents a crowning achievement, created and supported by forces at work underneath it, although in turn its weight has an effect on the base.' Said (1985: 22â3) has criticized this conception of world time as growing out of the European colonial enterprise: âWhat was neither observed by Europe nor documented by it was therefore “lost” until, at some later date, it too could be incorporated by the new sciences of anthropology, political economics, and linguistics.' It is important therefore to recognize and allow Palestinian history its own time. Said (1985: 22) argues that although âthe methodological assumptions and practice of world history' are âideologically anti-imperialist', âlittle or no attention is given to those cultural practices like Orientalism or ethnography affiliated with imperialism, which in genealogical fact fathered world history itself'. The danger remains that in trying to free the history of Palestine from the tyranny of biblical time it will become replaced by a notion of world time which continues to deny Palestine its own inherent importance and coherence.
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The reality of this danger can best be illustrated by Baly's remark that because of Palestine's position at the crossroads of three continents surrounded
by barriers to settlement and movement it can âbe said to have had, properly speaking, no internal history' (1984: 1) during the Persian period.
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Here is the problem of world time writ large so that it divests Palestinian history of internal worth and value.
Thus the history of Palestine should not be subsumed under âworld history' or âworld time' any more than it should be subsumed under Israelite history or biblical time. It has its own rhythms and patterns which are an essential part of its own history and which form part of any world history. Attention needs to be paid to the microenvironments of Palestine, the diversity which goes to make up the singularity we call Palestine. All too often in the past, discussions of the region have focused upon the nature and identity of âIsrael' to the virtual exclusion of other important historical entities except where they are thought to impinge upon Israelite history. Our standard âbiblical histories' have presented a conception of history almost exclusively in ethnic and religious terms, even though our understanding of ethnicity in antiquity is extremely problematical. Such classifications presuppose that the rightful concern of history is a series of unique events and individuals narrated as part of a linear, progressive history. The conception of Palestinian history advanced here would concentrate upon wide-ranging issues such as settlement, politics, economy, trade, ideology, and religion which need to be discussed in the broadest possible terms. By concentrating upon such broad themes the focus then is shifted away from the standard historical concern with great personalities and unique events to a concern with overarching factors that have shaped and been shaped by the history of the region.
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Such a history would draw upon all forms of evidence, particularly archaeology and anthropology, including the Hebrew Bible, while being aware of the elaborate connections of such disciplines with the colonial enterprise that has shaped and distorted the history of the region. Written sources must take their place in the hierarchy of forms of evidence as they relate to particular issues under discussion. Such a history is not predicated on a notion of ecological determinism, as some claim, simply because it moves the focus away from the âspecific people and events' of the Hebrew Bible.
One of the major issues raised by such an approach is the relationship between the study of the history of the region and biblical studies in general. Clearly the term âbiblical history' is no longer appropriate for the kind of exercise being advocated here. The biblical text no longer forms the basis of or sets the agenda for the
research in the same way that it has dominated past approaches to the problem. Syro-Palestinian archaeology broke away from the constraints of âbiblical archaeology in the pioneering work of W.G. Dever. It is now time for Palestinian history to come of age and formally reject the agenda and constraints of âbiblical history'. Those scholars concerned with understanding the social and political milieu from which the Hebrew Bible arose must pursue research into the communities which gave rise to these traditions and their regional and interregional environments. But we must also recognize that the region possesses a legitimate history which is much wider than these communities or the texts to which they gave rise. Thompson (1987: 36) agrees that âIsrael's history (understood as distinct from biblical historiography), and the history of Israel's origin, fall unquestionably and inescapably into the context of regional, historical geographical changes in the history of Palestine'. Palestinian history must come of age through the pursuit of
all aspects
of the region's history regardless of whether or not it sheds light on the development and understanding of the text of the Hebrew Bible. It demands its own time and space denied to it for more than a century by the discourse of biblical studies.
It is the historian who must set the agenda and not the theologian. In the past the theologian has dictated the concerns and methods to be employed in the study of the history of Israel on the grounds that the Hebrew Bible is the only source of evidence and is their domain. Now the historian must claim the right to set the agenda and research strategies. Attempts by theologians or exegetes to try to understand and appropriate the results of such a history as they relate, if at all, to the interpretation of the text is a separate issue which remains the domain of biblical studies.
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Palestinian history must be granted its own temporal and geographical domain outside the discourse of biblical studies. The discourse on the Palestinian past is, to adapt Said (1992: 8), a contest between affirmation and denial in which ancient Israel has taken control of Palestinian time and space. Furthermore, in reclaiming the temporal and spatial elements for such a regional history as part of world time, it has to be recognized for its own intrinsic value and not solely as the locus for the origins of European civilization. The invention and construction of America provides an analogy with the way in which Palestine has been appropriated, divested of meaning, and its history effectively silenced. O'Gorman (1961: 137) makes a similar point to those advanced above about the domination of all history by Europe in reference to the discovery
and invention of America: âEurope became history's paradigm, and the European way of life came to be regarded as the supreme criterion by which to judge the value and meaning of all other forms of civilization.' The invention of America by Europe is paralleled by the invention of ancient Israel by biblical specialists. What O'Gorman has to say about the invention of America could just as easily be applied to the discourse of biblical studies and its invention of ancient Israel:
America was no more than a potentiality, which could be realized only by receiving and fulfilling the values and ideals of European culture. America, in fact, could acquire historical significance only by becoming another Europe. Such was the spiritual or historical being that was identified for America.
(O'Gorman 1961:139)
Just as America was âinvented in the image of its inventor' (O'Gorman 1961:140), so ancient Israel was invented in terms of the European nation state; or, as Chakrabarty (1992: 2) put it, âEurope is the silent referent in historical knowledge'. The dominant discourse of biblical studies has masked the means by which the term Palestine has been divested of spatial and temporal significance. Palestinian history has become one of the many excluded histories, divested of significance in terms of world history and relegated to prehistory. Europe, and later Zionism, has rescued the historical significance of the region in its search for ancient Israel: a search for its own cultural roots which has silenced Palestinian history. It is this invention to which we must now turn in order to illustrate the ways in which the dominant discourse of biblical studies has achieved this in the name of objective scholarship.