Richard Nelson has written a masterful guide to the (largely political) history of ancient Israel and early Judaism from the Iron Age to the beginning of the Roman period. As its title indicates, it is not a narrative history in the style of John Bright, to whom, along with William Hallo, the book is dedicated. Rather, it is a nuanced summary of the sources and issues involved in reconstructing such a history, presuming familiarity with and access to the biblical text and to non-biblical data.
The six chapters, of roughly the same length, deal with the following periods: the emergence of Israel (ca. 1200–1000 BCE), state formation (to ca. 930 BCE), the kingdoms of Israel and Judah (ca. 930–720 BCE), Judah in the Assyrian and Babylonian periods (720–539 BCE), Yehud and Persia (539–330 BCE), and the Hellenistic period (330–63 BCE). Each chapter begins with a bibliography of recent works relevant to the period under discussion. This is followed by a summary of the history of the period, which is then expanded in the sections that follow. Each chapter concludes with a discussion of biblical literature that can plausibly be dated to the period being discussed. At the end of the book are indexes of biblical and other ancient sources, modern authors, and subjects.
As is clear from the above outline, disproportionate attention is given to the period of state formation, conventionally known as the “united monarchy,” also one of the most controversial in current scholarship. Using anthropological analysis and careful exegesis (“reading between the lines,” p. 47), Nelson shows that Saul and David were real persons who were more like chieftains than kings, although they may have claimed the latter title for themselves. Their reigns may have overlapped. Only with Solomon do we find a monarchic state, although one smaller than the idealization that the biblical writers present. Its capital city, Jerusalem, was already fortified in the tenth century BCE, and its administrative structures, its scribal practices, and even aspects of its religion were adapted from the earlier Jebusites.
Throughout the book, Nelson adopts a middle ground between so-called “minimalists” and “maximalists.” He incorporates biblical and non-biblical sources, both written and artifactual, into a sophisticated synthesis. All in all, this is a classic.
MICHAEL COOGANHarvard Divinity SchoolCambridge, Massachusetts
