From Conquest to Coexistence: Ideology and Antiquarian Intent in the Historiography of Israel's Settlement in Canaan.

• Author: Hess, Richard S.
• Position: Book review

From Conquest to Coexistence: Ideology and Antiquarian Intent in the Historiography of Israel's Settlement in Canaan. By KOERT VAN BEKKUM. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, vol. 45. Leiden: BRILL, 2011. Pp. xxi + 691. $270.

Koert van Bekkum has undertaken a comprehensive analysis of the study of the Hebrew Bible's text of Joshua 9:1-13:7. Central to the thesis of this work is the assumption that previous studies have failed to engage fully both the biblical Hebrew textual evidence and the ancient Near Eastern archaeological and textual evidence in a manner that does justice to both the biblical text and to the artifactual evidence. Van Bekkum first attempts to examine the text and then the ancient materials, each in its own context. Having done this, he argues that he can initiate a meaningful dialogue between the two that will respect the unique methodology and evidence that each brings to bear.

This approach is outlined in the first of four parts to the book. Here van Bekkum reviews the previous models of peaceful infiltration, of conquest, and of peasant revolt, respectively represented by Alt, Albright, and Mendenhall as well as Gottwald. He notes the tendency of some to bifurcate the Israel of the Bible from the ancient Israel of archaeology, where the former remains a literary and ideological construct while the latter becomes either a study of Israel only from the ninth century onwards or only by objectionable attempts to integrate the Bible and archaeology. Observing all this, the author attempts to trace some of the recent historiographical movements, including Liverani's rejection of the biblical evidence in favor of only the "contemporary texts," Van Seters' relocation of the Deuteronomistic History into the period after the Classical Greek historians who influenced them, and Thompson's rejection of biblical evidence except where it can be confirmed by extra-biblical evidence (actually rather like the approach of Liverani). Figures like Na'aman and Halpern are content to identify historicized fiction in which the later authors built their works on historical sources and added to them, without providing a clear means of identifying what is authentic and what is later.

Into this maelstrom, van Bekkum notes the dictum of Barr (followed by Brettler) that "the understanding of ideology ... has become highly ideological" (p. 36). Methodologically, van Bekkum argues that a text such as 1 Kings 6:1 should not be taken as...