A History of Israelite Religion in the Old Testament Period, 2 vols.

• Author: Smith, Mark S.

Since the 1960s histories of the religion of Israel have been in eclipse. R. Albertz' two volumes mark an important revival of the genre, now aided by the explosion of archaeological and textual information from the ancient Near East and a newer interdisciplinary use of the social sciences. Albertz' work marks an important watershed, not only for amply documenting primary evidence and secondary sources, but also for situating religious ideas and practices in ancient Israel within their social and political contexts. The chapters are arranged chronologically, beginning with the pre-state religion of small family groups ("patriarchal religion") through the Maccabees. The discussions are often illuminating and quite helpful, if occasionally abbreviated. Especially valuable is Albertz' treatment of the family and its importance for understanding Israelite society and religion. He had brought this area to the fore of biblical studies in his dissertation (later published as a book), and it serves as the basis for his outline of Israelite religion in these two volumes. As a result, Albertz describes early Israel's societal structure despite the lack of contemporary written sources.

Albertz' work contains two general difficulties. First and most striking, he recognizes the relative lateness of many literary materials, but then he proceeds as if the outlines of the biblical narrative can serve as the basis for an historical account. For example, he acknowledges that the Pentateuch constitutes a series of Iron II- and Persian-period sources and redactions which have limited value for historical reconstruction (vol. 1, pp. 42-44), but he uses these texts as the basis for reconstructing Late Bronze and Iron I Israelite history, including "the Exodus." Albertz claims that Israel's departure represented a liberation from the state oppression of Egypt under the banner of the god, Yahweh. If he used only the evidence which seems to date (if only generally) to the "time of the Exodus," his data base might be reduced to Egyptian personal names of the apparently priestly family of Moses and Aaron (perhaps to be added as well is the often-mentioned argument of historical plausibility that a people would not describe themselves as slaves in a story of national origins unless there were some historical kernel behind such a self-understanding). The available evidence predating the monarchy does not even adjudicate the problem of whether the original god of "the...