The Politics of Ancient Israel (review)

This book is part of a series that surveys for scholars and the general public important aspects of ancient Israel’s social history, using the sophisticated methods of many disciplines. After a few introductory remarks about “politics as an interpretive mine field” and the need for self-conscious awareness about the historian’s own ideological reading of the evidence, Gottwald sets out his methodological basis for conceptualizing Israel’s politics with the aid of the sociology of political power. He discusses the problems and dangers of using the meager biblical sources for the major phases of his political trajectory from the prestate period, through the consolidation of state power in the monarchies, to the period of imperial domination under Babylon, Persia and the Hellenistic rulers, during what he calls “colonial times.” Most of the biblical sources stem from this last period, however much they may refer to earlier times. The question then becomes the degree to which the biblical narratives about its political history actually reflect useful information about the earlier tribal and monarchic times. Gottwald assumes that they do, sufficient to “critically imagine” the politics of earlier periods.

Gottwald then sets out the Hebrew Bible’s own view of its political past, giving a brief critical assessment of the presentation of each period and the extent to which the accounts are believable or are motivated by religious or other ideological concerns. To the biblical presentation, Gottwald adds an account of the ancient Near Eastern political matrix, extending from 3000 B.C.E. down to the Hellenistic period and covering the whole region from Mesopotamia, to Anatolia and Syria-Palestine, to Egypt, with the geopolitical location of Judah and Israel within this matrix.

Having set forth all of these preliminary considerations, Gottwald then undertakes to “critically imagine” the politics of the successive periods: the decentralized prestate, tribal period, the centralized single state, followed by the two rival states, at first independent and then under foreign domination, and finally the period of “colonial” politics. In this imaginative reconstruction, Gottwald tries to assess the impact and interaction of other social agencies and institutions, namely, religious, economic, and cultural, on the political sphere. He concludes that Israel’s political structures and strategies were typical of small Near Eastern states on the periphery of larger dominant states, with religion not playing any exceptional role in the politics of the Israelite states. He states: “I have concluded that no special ‘covenant’ politics, in contrast to covenant traditions in society and religion, are discernible in the conduct of the Israelite states and that there was no distinctive Israelite polity involving the regular participation of its members, who remained ‘subjects’ rather than ‘citizens’ of their respective states”; and “I have concluded that what proved to be distinctive of ancient Israel was not its politics but rather its literature and religion, . . . and that this specialness of Israel, which is not detectable during the monarchy, emerged only over the centuries following the fall of the states.”

Most critical historians will share a large measure of agreement with these conclusions about “ancient Israel.” Yet significant differences in method and perspec tive remain. For instance, what becomes immediately apparent from the works cited is that this is an American discussion with European studies ignored, except for a few that have appeared in translation. Furthermore, on the important topic of identity and ethnicity, Gottwald failed to make any reference to K. Sparks, Ethnicity and Identity in Ancient Israel (1998), whose work is heavily dependent upon sociology and whose conclusions are quite different from those of Gottwald. Concerning his presentation of the Near Eastern matrix, it covers such a long period and so much territory in so few pages as to be almost useless. Concern for third and second millennia B.C.E. as back ground for ancient Israel belongs to an era of scholarship long past. It would have been more helpful to focus upon the recent studies of the small Aramean and Transjordanian states of...