The Period of the Judges
A third major objection to a 12th century BC Israelite Conquest is the assumption that the period of the Judges required hundreds of years to unfold; the 12th century chronology allows only one hundred years for this period (c. 1130–1030 BC). While the book of Judges appears to describe successive events that should have taken hundreds of years, there are three lines of evidence that contradict this impression and allow the events of the text to comfortably fit into a one-hundred-year period from the end of the Conquest to the monarchy. These lines of evidence include recent literary analyses of the book of Judges, archaeological discoveries, and the testimony of the books of Joshua and Judges themselves.
Literary Analysis
Judges is not a historical narrative
Recent literary analysis shows that the book of Judges is not a historical narrative, as long assumed. The book is best understood as a sermonic or prophetic work that cannot be read literally as a record of successive events, because the events have been arranged thematically with little or no concern for historical succession.[1]
The author’s arbitrary arrangement of events depicts Israel’s progressive descent into moral depravity triggering divine consequences that led to the inevitable need for a king to unify and lead them against the single enemy that threatened all the tribes, the Philistines. The Israelites would demand a king be appointed over them like all the other nations to deal with this existential threat.
The book of Judges can be divided into three sections. The first section (1:1–3:8) begins with “after the death of Joshua” leading the reader to assume that all subsequent events in the text happened after Joshua had died. But that is not the case, as will be seen below. This first section is a brief summation of early conflicts within tribal areas, failures to take allotted lands, along with warnings against fraternizing with the indigenous people, and another account of Joshua’s death.
Now consider the third section of the book. These events (Danite migration and civil war, chapters 17–21) occurred before the events of the second section (that lists the 12 judges). The events of this third section would have happened in the lifetime of Joshua—though after his retirement as military commander. These events were evidently placed last in the book since they appear to represent the most heinous recorded deeds of the Israelite tribes.[2]
How to Read Judges
The major challenge facing readers of Judges is to accept that the “after the death of” segues (or similar transitions) in the second section of the book do not indicate historical succession but rather are the author’s peculiar method of changing subjects. This is a deduction based on archaeological evidence and statements within the books of Joshua and Judges (as illustrated below).
The twelve Judges in the second section of the book (chapters 3–16) were regional leaders of single tribes or, in some cases, of several tribes dealing with a common threat. Most of the twelve tribes of Israel had a representative local hero in this listing.
We must recognize that the tenure of any one judge may have been occurring at the same time as other judges. A judge’s accession, despite a literal reading of the text, did not await the death of an incumbent judge because none of these leaders judged all of Israel. This expression is a literary device that cannot be taken literally, as explained below.
Northern Israelite tribal allotments
(looking east)
(Courtesy RØHR Productions, Ltd.)
Southern Israelite tribal allotments
(looking east)
(Courtesy RØHR Productions, Ltd.)
Not All of Israel
Another source of confusion for the reader is the author’s use of a literary device called a synecdoche. The presence of this device implies that individual judges exercised authority over all the tribes of Israel. That was not the case. Here’s an example of a synecdoche: “Boston won by two runs.” Obviously, it was not the city or people of Boston but the baseball team that won. This is a figure of speech that cannot be taken literally.
Although the twelve Judges stories may be representative of what was happening throughout the tribes (thus “all of Israel”), the individual judges had only tribal or regional authority. There was no organizational structure in Israel’s charter that could invest a single judge with authority to rule the combined tribes of Israel, as in the Conquest.[3]
Given new insights into the literary characteristics of the book of Judges it is entirely possible for the period of the Judges to have occurred within the one-hundred-year window from the end of the Conquest (c. 1130 BC) to the time of the first king (c. 1032 BC).
Shiloh, Israel’s cultic center established at
the beginning of the period of the Judges c. 1130 BC
(Courtesy RØHR Productions, Ltd.)
The Archaeological Evidence
The most convincing evidence for the one-hundred-year duration of the period of the Judges is the archaeological evidence at Shiloh. When the Conquest ended—after five years of war—the Israelites moved their cultic center from Gilgal on the Jericho Plain to Shiloh, an ancient religious temenos (a walled enclosure continuously regarded as sacred regardless of the god/s that had formerly been honored there). The yemenis had been abandoned early in the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BC). The primary excavator of the site (Israel Finkelstein) determined that the site was rehabilitated (by the Israelites) c. 1130 BC, having lain fallow for two centuries.[4]
When the compound was completed at Shiloh, the Israelites assembled there, marking the very end of the Conquest; they surveyed the yet unallotted lands and defined and assigned the inheritance of the remaining tribes. The period of the Judges began at that time, c. 1130 BC, as the tribes disbanded and went to their own lands. The individual tribes, now autonomous, were tasked with eliminating the remaining indigenous population in their tribal areas, destroying their cultic sites, and occupying their towns.
But the Israelite tribes did not do this. Instead, they compromised their divine mandate, settled in among the indigenous people, intermarried with them, and adopted their forbidden practices. Consequently, each tribe faced oppression at the hands of local and foreign enemies over the course of a century until the Philistines began their efforts to subjugate the heartland of the Israelites.
The Textual Evidence
It has been commonly believed that the Philistines arrived on the southern coast of Canaan c. 1177 BC, after Ramesses III’s momentous defeat of the Sea People coalition. The arrival of the Philistines in Canaan and their emergence as the preeminent force on the southwestern coast of Canaan form a background context for the dates of the Conquest and the lifetime of Joshua, both of which must have occurred in the latter 12th century BC, and extending into the 11th century.
When the Israelites departed Egypt (c. 1175 BC), God did not lead them out along the coastal highway (the main route in/out of the Egyptian Delta, formerly called the Ways of Horus). At the time of the Exodus this route was referred to in the Bible as the Way of the Land of the Philistines. The reason God did not lead the Israelites along this route was because, he said, “The people might change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt’” (Exod. 13:17). This passage, taken at face value, dates the Exodus to sometime after c. 1177 BC when the Philistines presumably arrived on the coast.
Here’s another contextual clue. The Israelite spies dispatched by Moses into Canaan from Kadesh-Barnea c. 1174 BC reported the Canaanites [equivalent to Amorites] were along the coast (Num. 13:29) with no mention of the Philistines—though they were apparently there as later events would show. In the early years of the period of the Judges (which began c. 1130 BC) the tribes of Dan and Judah were unable to descend to the fertile coast of their inheritance because of the Amorites (i.e., Canaanites) who possessed iron chariots (Judg. 1:19, 34). Later, in the period of the Judges, it was the Philistines that prevented the tribes of Judah and Dan from descending to the coastal plain. The rising threat of the Philistines did not materialize until early in the 11th century BC; and this was happening in Joshua’s lifetime.
Here is a third textual clue: Joshua 13 summarizes the land that yet remained in Joshua’s old age when the LORD said to him: “This is the land that yet remains: all the regions of the Philistines, and all those of the Geshurites (from the Shihor, which is east of Egypt, northward to the boundary of Ekron, it is counted as Canaanite; there are five rulers of the Philistines, those of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron)” (Josh. 13:2-3).
Taken at face value these texts dates the Conquest to the latter 12th century BC and places Joshua’s later years well into the period of the Judges in the 11th century BC. And there are other indications that Joshua lived into the time of the Judges and the period of the Philistine emergence.
Once the allotments were assigned, Joshua had to admonish the tribes to leave Gilgal and occupy their lands (Josh. 18:3). The irrigated Plains of Jericho (centered on the Gilgal encampment) apparently served as the Israelite breadbasket for at least five years. Judah was among the first to go up and attempt to occupy their allotment. Others followed. Many years passed.
When Joshua summoned the tribes to Shechem near the end of his life (Josh. 23; 24) the text is clear that the tribes had assembled from their allotted lands. In his address Joshua said to the people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel . . . . I gave you a land on which you had not labored, and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them [emphasis added]; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant” (Josh. 24:13).
His final word to Israel was this: “Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living [emphasis added]; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Josh. 24:15).
Joshua may have lived several decades after the Conquest ended without any leadership role beyond his moral influence. He died at 110 years of age (Josh. 24: 29; Judg. 2:8). At that time, he was no longer residing in Gilgal.
While Joshua Was Still Alive
Several important events in the book of Judges had likely already occurred by the time Joshua gave his final address at Shechem near the end of his days (Josh. 24).[5] These events include the migration of elements of the tribe of Dan to Laish (Judg. 17–18) and the Benjamite war (Judg. 19–21).
Once the Israelites disbanded as a people and dispersed into their allotted lands, their attempts to occupy prime areas held by the indigenous [Settlement] people generated conflicts for individual families and communities. Weary of war and conflict, perhaps, the Israelites began to settle among these people, to compromise with them, and to interact culturally. After all (the Israelites may have reasoned) these people knew how to dry farm the rugged hills of Canaan; whatever these people were doing it was working.
One of the essential things the indigenous people did to ensure the fertility of the land, their animals, and their women was to invoke the benevolence of local gods (generally manifestations of Baal). They shared with their Israelite neighbors how they persuaded the gods to provide the bounty they needed to survive. And these immoral methods had alluring side benefits.
In adopting these pagan practices, the Israelites defied their covenant with Yahweh, and they failed or were reluctant to break down the pagan altars of the people of the land. For this reason, Yahweh said, “I will not drive them [the pagan inhabitants] out before you, but they shall become thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare to you” (Judg. 2:3).[6]
Occupying the Land
Judges 1 describes the initiative of the tribes of Judah and Simeon as the first to go up into the land to occupy their allotments. They defeated ten ’elephs (“thousands”) of Canaanites and Perizzites at Bezek.[7] They also captured and burned Jerusalem (Judg. 1:8). Successive battles occurred against Hebron, Debir, and towns in the Negev and along the coast.
In these early forays into the coastal plain, Judah claimed military victories over Gaza, Ashkelon, and Ekron, Canaanite towns that in a matter of one or two generations would define the Philistine heartland. The absence of any mention of Philistines in this early account in Judges suggests these engagements occurred in a narrow window of time not many years after the Conquest ended, c. 1130 BC, and before the emergence of the Philistine hegemony began in the 11th century BC.#judges1
Though the text reports early victories over towns along the coast, the Israelites could not occupy them and were forced to withdraw into the hills after the raids. (Again, note the complete absence of any mention of Egyptian presence at towns that had been of vital interest to them, such as Joppa, as late as the mid- to latter 12th century BC.)
The archaeological evidence, the testimony of the book of Joshua, and new insights into the nature of the book of Judges support the beginning of the period of the Judges c. 1130 BC and ending about one hundred years later when Saul was anointed king.
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[1] See K. Lawson Younger, Jr. (2020: 17) and his bibliography, pp. 71–83. See also B. Webb’s (2012: 35–53) review of scholarly works on Judges. He believes Judges is a prophetic work, a view supported by interpreters from antiquity. D. Block (1999: 51–54) believes the book of Judges is an extended sermon (or a series of sermons) in which the preacher selected his material to illustrate his thesis of a progressive moral decline within Israel.
[2] The Danite migration can be dated by the lifetime of Jonathan, son of Gershom and grandson of Moses (Judg. 18:30–31); he agreed to serve as priest to the tribe of Dan. The Benjaminite war can be dated by the service life of Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron, who ministered before the ark in the time of the internecine war (Judg. 20:27–28). Both individuals, Jonathan and Phinehas, may have been children in the period of the Israelite Wandering. If this understanding of the text is correct (and the three-person genealogies are accurate), the Danite migration and the Benjaminite war occurred not many years after the Conquest had ended.
[3] K. Younger (2002: 22) believes each judge may symbolize an aspect of Israel’s experience. Thus, Younger says, the text illustrates the relevance of local events as though they were applicable to all of Israel.
[4] One group (the Associates for Biblical Research) disagrees. Committed to the 15th century chronology (citing 1 Kgs. 6:1), they claim the Israelite reoccupation of Shiloh occurred centuries earlier. However, they have presented no evidence that contradicts Finkelstein’s dating. See The Bible and the Origins of Ancient Israel, chs. 25, 26 for details.
[5] Twice (apparently) Joshua convened Israel at Shechem (Josh. 23, 24) both times near the end of his days.
[6] Josephus (Antiq. 5:132–135) says the Israelites in their tribal areas quickly lost their martial spirit.
[7] “Ten ’elephs” [translated “thousand”] may equate to as many as 150 enemy troops or as few as 60.
[8] Compare Judg.10:7 and 13:1–2 where the author records that the five Philistine lords dominated the coastal plain in the days of Jephthah and Samson.