Abstract
In an effort to better understand Israel’s origins, scholarship has proposed several models for its emergence in the land, many of which call into question the idea of a pan-Israelite exodus from Egypt. In spite of their differences, these models adhere to a common set of presuppositions and ultimately conclude that Israel consisted of a group of geographical, economic, and/or political outsiders. Drawing on several theoretical insights regarding the nature of social power and the makeup of ancient states in my analysis of the Amarna letters, I propose another alternative. The polities and populations of the Late Bronze Age Levant were more diverse and fluid than is generally recognized. Social power was widely distributed and often negotiated among a range of political players in an “egalitarian” manner. Because of this, political entities and alliances took a number of forms, including those that consisted of populations that were defined by settled centers and those that were not. This reconstruction highlights several points of continuity between the Levantine landscape of the Late Bronze Age and the constituents of early Israel as they are depicted in some of the core passages in the Bible, suggesting that early Israel included a contingent of geographical, economic, and political insiders.
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Notes
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See also EA 138: 9–10, 122, where Rib-Addu reports that the Gublites wrote to him during his stay in Beirut.
- 4.
For the reading ši-b <u> -ti-ši, see Albright 1946: 23.
- 5.
As a political entity, this body attributes a number of important political activities to themselves throughout their letter that can be added to the act of communicating with the Egyptian king. They “do obeisance at the feet of the king” (lines 5–6), they “guard Irqata for him” (lines 9–10, see also line 30) by going to war against its enemies (lines 27–28), and they “keep the city gate barred until the breath of the king reaches” them (lines 39–41). In fact, contrary to the claim that the Egyptian king only communicated with the “hereditary princes” of his vassal cities, the elders report an occasion in which a messenger of the king addressed this body directly: “When the [ki]ng, our lord, sent D[UMU]-Biḫa, he said to [u]s, ‘Thus says the king: Guard Irqata.’” (lines 11–14).
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See also EA 73: 26–29; 74: 19–21; 76: 34–37; 81: 12–13; 84: 11–13; 87: 19–20; 104: 40–54; 105: 7–13; 114: 11–15; 116: 37–38; 118: 24–32; 138: 44–45, 80–93; 144: 22–30; 149: 54–63; 280: 9–24.
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- 8.
- 9.
See also EA 51: 5–6, where Addu-nirari recalls the time when the king of Egypt made his forefather Taku “a king in Nuḫašše” (i-na kur nu-ḫa-aš-še a-na LUGAL-ru-tú i-ip-p[u-š ]a-aš-šu; ll. 5–6). Contra Na’aman (1994: 412), who refers to Nuḫašše as a “kingdom,” implying that it was centralized under the leadership of a single king.
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For an example of this methodological approach, see Fleming 2012.
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Benz 2013: 533–9.
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Benz, B.C. (2015). In Search of Israel’s Insider Status: A Reevaluation of Israel’s Origins. In: Levy, T., Schneider, T., Propp, W. (eds) Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective. Quantitative Methods in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-04768-3_36
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