The Invention of Ancient Israel (42 page)

21
  However, note Elton's denial of this analogy with the court of law in his dispute with Fogel on method:

22
  Samuel and Thompson (1990: 4), following Tonkin's (1990) analysis, note the ‘failure to recognize rationalistic realism as the special myth of Western culture'.

23
  
I owe this point to Burke Long (n.d.) who made the observation in a paper read to the SBL Annual Meeting in San Francisco, November 1992.

24
  It is highly questionable that a few scattered inscriptions and graffiti testify to widespread literacy in ancient Israel, as some have claimed. Harris (1989) focuses on Greek and Roman literacy, raising important questions about general literacy levels in antiquity. As is well known from a variety of studies (Goody 1968; Cipolla 1969; Ong 1982), widespread literacy is dependent upon a complex set of interrelationships backed by very significant centralized or government investment, as in Japan after the Meiji Restoration or in Cuba and Nicaragua (Harris 1989: 11–12). Harris notes that major historiographical works do not emerge in the Greek world until the fifth century BCE. This is to be contrasted with a general assumption in biblical studies that major historiographical works appeared at the court of David in the tenth century BCE. The role of urban centres in the spread of literacy and the development of historiographical works needs to be considered more carefully. The work of Harris (1989) points to the importance of the Persian and Hellenistic periods for exploring the development of biblical historiography as van Seters, Davies, Lemche, and Thompson have been arguing.

25
  This was part of a published interview in
Woman's Own
(October 1987).

26
  Gould (1987: 2) discusses the significance of McPhee's (1980) term for geological research.

27
  Bohannan (1967: 327–9) points out that the Tiv of Nigeria do not by and large correlate events or a period of time beyond a generation or two. There is no desire to indicate time in the distant past with any greater accuracy than for the future. Pocock (1967: 304) examines the problem when people know that they have changed and continue, nevertheless, to live in a world whose values depend upon immutability: ‘Here we have a choice: either we credit these people with an immense capacity for self-deception, an ability to live in permanent contradiction with their experience, or we must re-examine the assumptions in the light of which these facts constitute a problem.' The critical issue, however, is the anthropological use of time. See Fabian (1983) for a critique of the ideological use of time in social anthropology.
Chapter 2
will deal with this problem in relation to Palestinian history.

28
  Lord (1965: 29) reminds us that ‘the picture that emerges is not really one of a conflict between preserver of tradition and creative artist, it is rather one of the preservation of tradition by the constant recreation of it'.

29
  As Tonkin (1990: 25) notes: ‘Myth is a representation of the past which historians recognize, but generally not as an alternative to proper history. I think we should dissolve this dichotomy.' Myth is often understood as a story about the gods or a story-like representation of the past to illustrate an important if unverifiable truth. See, for instance, Hughes (1990: 3) who complains that many biblical scholars refuse to use the term ‘myth' in relation to the Bible because it is commonly defined as stories about gods whereas the Hebrew Bible is presented as nonmythical
and monotheistic. He argues that the biblical chronology is essentially mythical in that ‘it uses historical fiction to express ideological beliefs'. Anyone who has tried to define the term ‘myth' will be aware of the problems involved. Rogerson (1974: 174) emphasizes the ‘multidimensional nature' of myth and advises following Lévi-Strauss in not offering a formal definition. However, the problem remains the continued use of the term in opposition to history, implying that history is objective and value free by contrast to the ideologically generated myths of ancient societies.

30
  They go on to add:

31
  See Whitelam (1989) for a study of the different origin traditions in the Hebrew Bible as representations of factional disputes over the right to the land in the second Temple period.

32
  See Whitelam (1995b) for a discussion of the labels ‘sociological approach' and ‘sociological school' in recent biblical scholarship as misnomers.

33
  Garbini (1988: 51) argues that without the use of external documentation it is impossible to identify where the biblical narratives are sound. Thus, without adequate extrabiblical sources, it is impossible to write a history of Israel. However, Garbini does not appear to appreciate the significant difference that recent literary study has made to the discipline and the difficulties of using the texts for historical reconstruction.

34
  The phrase ought to be reserved for discussions concerning the historical development of the biblical texts themselves rather than as a label for the discussion of the history of the communities which gave rise to the literature.

35
  Chakrabarty (1992: 1) points out the ambivalence in any such exercise:

2
Denying Space and Time to Palestinian History

  
1
  Said (1994a: 413–20) provides a critique of the Gaza-Jericho agreement which leaves the Palestinians without sovereignty or freedom.

  
2
  Davies (1992: 23 n. 2) argues for the use of the term ‘Palestine' while rejecting the common alternative ‘land of Israel' on the basis that the former has been in use since the Assyrian period and the latter is unsuitable because only a small part of the region was occupied for a short time by a state of ‘Israel'. He goes on to add that he disclaims ‘interest in any political argument in this book'. However, the present work hopes to show that scholarship cannot disclaim such interest since the choice of terminology carries very important political implications.

  
3
  The collection of essays edited by Miller, Hanson, and McBride (1987) indicates the re-evaluation of Israelite religion which is now taking place. Dever (1987) and Coogan (1987) illustrate the crucial links between Israelite and ‘Canaanite', i.e. indigenous Palestinian, religion. Lemche (1984; 1988) has emphasized the religion of Israel as an indigenous phenomenon.

  
4
  Inden (1986: 405; 1990: 50) points out how Western Europe saw the Semitic Near East and Aryan Persia as monotheistic and individualistic cultures similar to the West in contrast to the Far East of India, China and Japan. He cites Campbell (1962) as a classic example of the belief that the civilizations of the ancient Near East were culturally continuous with the West. This cultural continuity does not extend, however, to ancient Palestinian culture.

  
5
  This is a frequent representation and justification of the modern state of Israel. Reifenberg (1955) presents a classic example of the view that it is the modern state which restores an ancient civilization following the supposed decline during the Ottoman period. There are numerous critiques of views which have ignored the size and role of the indigenous population in Palestine prior to and after the Zionist movement and subsequent establishment of the modern state of Israel (Khalidi 1984; Abu-Lughob 1987; Said 1992: 7–9). Hutteröth and Abdulfattah (1977) provide a more positive assessment of the Ottoman period.

  
6
  Similarly, Edelman (1991: 3–6) uses the term ‘Cisjordan' in an attempt to find neutral terminology to describe the region. As we have seen, however, no terminology which defines space can be said to be neutral.

  
7
  Baly (1984) discusses the relationship of geography to history in the Persian period in a volume in the
Cambridge History of Judaism
series. Although the article was published in 1984, it was completed by 1973. He refers to ‘Palestine proper, that is, the area of effective Jewish settlement' (1984: 2) as stretching from Dan to Beersheba and Joppa to Jordan. He contrasts this with the whole ‘Palestine area' which ranges from Dan to Ezion-geber and Jaffa to Philadelphia (modern Amman).

  
8
  The use of terminology to define time has profound implications for any understanding of Palestinian history. This will be treated in the following section.

  
9
  The same phrase was also used in the government White Paper of 1939
(Laqueur and Rabin 1981: 68). A similar phrase, a ‘natural home in the ancestral land', appears in the Zionist reaction to the White Paper in a statement prepared by the Jewish Agency for Palestine in 1939 (Laqueur and Rabin 1981: 76–7).

10
  It is noticeable that the various respondents at the conference chose to ignore the arguments advanced by Dothan, concentrating instead on a presentation by Redford on Egyptian influence on the region. This tends to suggest that this is an issue that is usually seen as too sensitive to address: the problem of the political implications of the discourse of biblical studies for contemporary disputes over the land is a problem that remains unspoken. Seger (1985: 158) was a noticeable exception in rejecting Dothan's terminology on the grounds that ‘these changes emphasize ethnic associations which are archaeologically the most difficult to adequately identify and assess'.

11
  It should be noted that Baly refers to ‘Palestinian communities' (1984: 2) and ‘the Palestine population' (1984: 20) in his discussion of the Persian period.

12
  This has been cited by Said (1992: 79) and taken from an unpublished dissertation by Miriam Rosen, ‘The Last Crusade: British Archaeology in Palestine'. I have been unable to obtain a copy of her work.

13
  Golda Meir's famous denial in 1969 of the existence of Palestinians (Said 1992: 4–5) is echoed in Peters's (1984) attempts to remove them from history.

14
  Ackroyd (1987: 248) has remarked on the misleading and inaccurate uses of such terms as ‘Exile' and ‘Restoration'. The term ‘Exile', as he points out, is tendentious and encourages assumptions based on a dangerously simple reading of the biblical texts. Such terms perpetuate a biblically based view of the region in which the vast majority of the inhabitants are ignored.

15
  For the presentation of Indian history as static, see Inden (1986: 423).

16
  The
Annalistes
conception of history as related to the problem of recreating the history of early Israel has been outlined by Whitelam (1986: 45–70). Miller (1987: 57 n. 3) believes that this is an overly optimistic enterprise which sets out an unrealistic agenda.

17
  Braudel borrowed this concept from Wolfram Eberhard (1965: 13).

18
  Foucault (1984: 87) criticizes the notion of ‘total history' as claiming to be able to present the past as a completed development which can be grasped as a whole while standing outside history itself.

19
  He does make the important point that much of the independence of the state which existed in the region for roughly ten per cent of the time under review was illusory (1984: 2). The question of an independent Israelite state in ancient Palestine will be examined in
chapter 4
.

20
  Iggers (1979: 10) notes that it has been the ambition of the
Annales
historians to lay the foundations of a ‘global/total' history of a region of larger geographical whole such as the Mediterranean. It is the underlying material forces of the interactions between the population and economic factors which provided the unifying elements of such a study rather than politics or ideology. McNeill (1961: 30; 45; 1982: 75–89) is a proponent of ‘world history' which offers a panoramic
view by which to discover rhythms and patterns which are not discernible from a detailed study of the different segments of history. However, the criticisms of Said and Foucault need to be borne in mind in order not to divest Palestine of inherent value thereby continuing its exclusion from historical discourse.