Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Israelite Content in the Bible
- 3 Writing from Judah
- 4 An Association of Peoples in the Land (The Book of Judges)
- 5 The Family of Jacob
- 6 Collective Israel and Its Kings
- 7 Moses and the Conquest of Eastern Israel
- 8 Joshua and Ai
- 9 Benjamin
- 10 Israelite Writers on Early Israel
- Part III Collaborative Politics
- Part IV Israel in History
- Bibliography
- Index of Biblical Texts
- Index of Near Eastern Texts
- Subject Index
9 - Benjamin
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Israelite Content in the Bible
- 3 Writing from Judah
- 4 An Association of Peoples in the Land (The Book of Judges)
- 5 The Family of Jacob
- 6 Collective Israel and Its Kings
- 7 Moses and the Conquest of Eastern Israel
- 8 Joshua and Ai
- 9 Benjamin
- 10 Israelite Writers on Early Israel
- Part III Collaborative Politics
- Part IV Israel in History
- Bibliography
- Index of Biblical Texts
- Index of Near Eastern Texts
- Subject Index
Summary
As the distinct identities of Israel and Judah become increasingly significant in biblical and historical investigation, the importance of Benjamin likewise increases. This one people occupied the land where the kingdoms of Israel and Judah met, in the highlands just north of Jerusalem, which the land allotments of Joshua attribute to both Judah and Benjamin. Benjamin is associated with Ephraim in the Song of Deborah (Judg. 5:14), but the books of Kings claim it for Judah from the first division between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. Dispute over Benjamin's alignment has been renewed between Nadav Na'aman (2009b), who maintains the view of Kings, and Philip Davies, who concludes that Benjamin belonged to Israel until its end in 720. In the Bible, Benjamin is isolated from the other Israelite peoples in key respects, including the separation of its ancestral birth narrative from all the others (Gen. 35:16–20) and the tale of war between Benjamin and all Israel in Judges 20.
The most effective way to understand Benjamin may therefore be to take more seriously this distinct character, to let this people take its own place in the history reflected in biblical writing, as more than simply territory to be won or lost in competition between Israel and Judah – though won and lost it must have been. According to the Bible, Benjamin was somehow a people apart. Other Israelite peoples may likewise merit consideration in separate terms, not essentially different from Benjamin within Israel. At the least, Benjamin's distinctness played out in a unique way because of its location in crucial territory between Jerusalem and the Ephraim highlands, the nexus of conflict between Israel and the house of David. Nevertheless, the very name suggests something more unusual, and the full weight of Benjamin's strange character may be appreciated best by beginning with the fact that its name is shared with a major tribal group from early second-millennium Syria. From this material, we will move to the biblical texts.
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- Chapter
- Information
- The Legacy of Israel in Judah's BibleHistory, Politics, and the Reinscribing of Tradition, pp. 144 - 161Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012