History of Biblical Israel: Major Problems and Minor Issues.

• Author: Younger, Jr., K. Lawson
• Position: Book Review

By ABRAHAM MALAMAT. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, vol. 7. Leiden: BRILL, 2001. Pp. XV + 476. $99.

Professor Abraham Malamat, one of the preeminent scholars of biblical history, has provided a collection of twenty-six of his essays on various topics and issues in the history of ancient Israel. These essays span a fifty-year period of Malamat's productive career. Two of the essays were forthcoming publications at the time of the appearance of this volume.

The essays are organized into five sections with an excursus. The first section contains four essays concerning the protohistory of Israel (originally published in 1983, 1985, 1988, and 1973). The second section has six articles on the formation of the Israelite nation (published in 1997 [though primarily written in 1992], 1979, 1971, forthcoming, 1982, and 1970). The third section contains four articles on the rise of the Davidic dynasty (published in 1982, 1963, 1999, and 1964). The fourth section contains four articles on the last days of the kingdom of Judah and the destruction of the first temple (published in 1953, 1973, 1975, and 1990). And the fifth section has six essays on various historical episodes in the Former Prophets and Prophetical Books (published in 1955, 1957 [1956], 1994, 1953, 1951, and 1951). The excursus has three miscellaneous essays (published in 1982, 1990, forthcoming). An addendum that provides some bibliographic updates concludes the volume (pp. 411-17). The book contains very good indices.

There are some advantages to a collection of an author's published work like this. For one, there are some essays that were published in more obscure and difficult-to-obtain volumes: e.g., the essay "Military Rationing in Papyrus Anastasi I and the Bible" (pp. 353-61), which was originally published in Melanges bibliques, rediges en l'honneur de Andre Robert (Paris, 1956), 114-21. This is still a valuable comparative article and it is a plus to have it more readily available (see COS 3:11-12 for James Allen's recent translation of Papyrus Anastasi I). Another advantage is that some of these essays are classics: e.g., "The Period of the Judges" (pp. 97-147), "Charismatic Leadership in the Book of Judges" (pp. 151-70), "The Danite Migration and the Pan-Israelite Exodus-Conquest: A Biblical Narrative Pattern" (pp. 171-85), among others. Thus it is a boon to have these gathered together in one volume.

There are, however, a number of disadvantages in such a...