Historical Perspective

Grabbe concedes, “The biblical text should always be considered: It is one of the sources for the history of ancient Israel and needs to be treated like any other source” (Grabbe, Ancient Israel, 224). His principles of historical method—and similar principles by Provan, Long, and Longman—clarify the basic approaches to history. In particular:

• All potential sources should be considered.

• Preference should be given to primary sources—those contemporary or nearly contemporary with the events described. This favors archaeology and inscriptions, and gives the Bible a secondary place.

• The context of the historical structures must always be recognized. This is especially true of the division between Judah and Israel.

• Each episode or event has to be judged on its own merits. This requires evaluation and investigation of each piece of data on its own.

• All reconstructions are provisional, always open to be replaced by better evidence or a more complete theory.

• All reconstructions require proof. One cannot have a default position and expect others to accept it.

Provan, Long, and Longman suggest (Biblical History, 146–47):

• Late dating of the Historical Books is far from certain. Even if a work was written long after the events, this does not mean that it does not carry valid historical memory.

• Having a theological slant does not make void a text’s historical content—all history writing has a slant or bias for which the reader must account.

• Conclusions drawn from archaeological finds are often far from being obvious.

For Provan, Long, and Longman, the history of interpretations concerning Israel’s past is largely “a history of indefensible starting points and not entirely coherent argument” (A Biblical History of Israel, 25). They insist that data—including the Bible—should be considered innocent until proven guilty. The task is to verify a text, not to falsify it—to believe the text until one has reason not to.

The Mari Treaty and Tell Leilan provide some material evidence to confirm the Genesis narratives (Kitchen, Reliability, 323–24). The Mari treaty form includes witnesses, oath, stipulations, ceremony, and curse(s). Isaac’s treaty with Gerar includes the same elements.

Kitchen notes: “The idea that the treaties of Abraham and Isaac are mere literary doublets is nothing more than an artificial fiction created by a false distinction between nonexistent forces.… There are no ‘doublets’ or triplets here, and none need be found in the Genesis examples either, except on flawed a priori theory” (Kitchen, Reliability, 323–24). Kitchen also points out that Egyptian execration texts show that there were pastoral tribes outside the urban areas around 1900 bc (Kitchen, Reliability, 334). Further, such evidence comes from the Egyptian Tale of Sinuhe. Abraham and Isaac are tribal chiefs similar to those these texts describe.

Provan, Long, Longman, and Kitchen all come to a similar conclusion. Kitchen puts it this way: “The main features of the patriarchal narratives either fit specifically into the first half of the second millennium or are consistent with such a dating” (Kitchen, Reliability, 372).