The Invention of Ancient Israel (7 page)

As the social and political context, the modern nation state, which has thus far sustained modern biblical historiography and its critical methods, fractures and is transformed, so we can expect even more radical attacks upon the model it has imposed upon the past. This is likely to mean an increasing divergence between text and artifact rather than the convergence for which many biblical scholars hope. Davies (1992) has outlined the ways in which the consensus within biblical studies has fractured in recent years. He draws out some of the profound implications for biblical studies of new literary studies
of the Hebrew Bible and the revisionist historical work of the mid- to late 1980s. As noted above, the shifts are not restricted to biblical studies alone but go way beyond this to include the wider environment of historical studies. It is vital to try to recognize the cultural and political factors which have shaped biblical studies and which have combined with ancient presentations of the past to provide the master narrative which forms our standard ‘biblical histories' of ancient Israel. Biblical criticism, no less than Orientalism, arises out of the period of European colonialism and is intricately linked with it. As Young (1990: 119) has pointed out, the most significant fact since the Second World War has been the decline of European colonialism and the subsequent questioning of its history. Sasson's insight into the cultural and political setting of research into the history of ancient Israel is particularly noteworthy: ‘In the last quarter of this century, however, altered historiographic perceptions in post-war Germany and in post-Vietnam America have contributed to fracturing the models which informed the heretofore dominant reconstructions of Israel's early past' (Sasson 1981: 17). It is the implications of this fracturing of such models, helping to expose the political and religious assumptions that have underpinned the construction of the past in biblical studies, which are central to this study.

The crisis of confidence which has accompanied the production of major histories of ancient Israel in recent years helps to illustrate just how far the consensus has fractured in less than a decade. The selfdoubts which characterized Soggin's (1984) attempt to compose a ‘master story', at least doubts about the pre-state period (1984: 19), were in marked contrast to the overly confident works that had characterized the late 1950s and the 1960s. This attempt to address seriously some of the methodological difficulties facing historical research on early Israel was taken further by Miller and Hayes (1986). Their volume marked a significant turning point in the writing of Israelite history from a biblical perspective. The authors acknowledge the problems with biblical texts relating to the pre-monarchic period, so that they are not willing to venture into historical constructions for these periods. Even when they begin their construction of the period of David, they acknowledge that this can only be a ‘best guess' (Miller and Hayes 1986: 26), thereby undermining Soggin's ‘datum point' (1977: 332), the reign of David, as the starting point of the historical venture. The candour and clarity in their presentation of the problems which they have faced and the reasons for the choices
they have made have ensured that Miller–Hayes has become the standard modern presentation of the history of Israel and Judah. It is a work, which the authors acknowledge was conceived as working within accepted parameters, ‘firmly anchored in the tradition of Wellhausen–Alt–Noth–Albright' (Hayes 1987: 7). It represents, then, the pinnacle of historical works which stand in the broad tradition of the type of historiography which has dominated biblical studies throughout this century (Hayes 1987: 6–7). Yet, in retrospect, it illustrates all too clearly the ever-increasing problem of ancient Israelite history as a history of the gaps continually forced to abandon its ‘sure results' and the firm ground from which the enterprise can begin. Long (1987: 10), in reviewing the volume, has posed the question in its starkest form: ‘Should one even try to write a modern critical history of Israel largely on the basis of a single amalgamated, culturally self-serving, and essentially private version of that history?'
³³
The reappraisal of biblical narratives, which has continued with increasing vitality and self-confidence, has continued to contribute to the fracturing of the consensus.

The major implication for historical research has been to signal the death of ‘biblical history', which is gradually being replaced by the growing recognition of Palestinian history as a subject in its own right.
³⁴
A history of the region increasingly divorced from biblical studies: a broad-based thematic conception of history concerned with the economy, demography, settlement, religions and ideologies of Palestine as a whole. A history of the region concerned with its various micro-environments in which what little we know of Judah and Israel plays an important but by no means dominant or unique role. If the research on early Israel published from the mid- to late 1980s, particularly the studies of Lemche (1985), Ahlström (1986), Coote and Whitelam (1987), and Finkelstein (1988), has taught us anything, it is that the proposals were not radical enough. The various studies are misleading because they reveal nothing of the so-called emergence of Israel, since we are unable to attach ethnic labels to the material culture of the region at this time, but are concerned rather with the settlement and transformation of Palestinian society in general: they too have been misled by the search for the nation state in the guise of Israel imposed by the general context of biblical studies. So in a way our complainant on IOUDAIOS is correct in that some people's history will be removed – not, I believe, an objective history that ever happened but a shaping of the past projected by some ‘biblical' writers and perpetuated by modern
‘biblical historians', cloaked in the aura of impartiality. Yet it is important to bear in mind that, however self-critical and reflective, the historian not only works with partial texts but inevitably produces a partial text. This, too, is a partial text which tries to come to terms with the modern context in which it arises while trying to free the past realities that are ancient Palestine from the Late Bronze Age to the Roman period from the domination of an imagined past imposed upon it by the discourse of biblical studies.

Thus we return to the profound problem posed by Césaire, echoed by Young (1990), of how to write a ‘new' history when all history is European, male, and white.
³⁵
The attempt to provide an alternative conception of the past to that which has emerged from the discourse of biblical studies over the last century or more can only give partial voice to those populations who have been silenced by our modern studies. It is obvious that any counter-history is contingent and partial. What is most important, however, is the exposure of the wide-ranging implications of the search for ancient Israel within nineteenth- and twentieth-century biblical studies. For, as Inden (1986: 445) says of Indian history, a deconstruction of the discourse in which students of India have been inducted is a necessary first step: only after the nature and implications of this discourse have been exposed can Indologists hope to think their way out of it. The problem of Palestinian history has remained unspoken within biblical studies, silenced by the invention of ancient Israel in the image of the European nation state. Only after we have exposed the implications of this invention will Palestinian history be freed from the constraints of biblical studies and the discourse that has shaped it.

2

Denying Space and Time to Palestinian History

Introduction

The concepts of space and time are so familiar, yet so crucial, to the historian that they hardly seem worthy of detailed consideration. It is assumed that these matters ought not to detain the historian or the reader for long since they function as givens, providing merely the temporal and geographical limits of the subject matter. Chronology, it is often said, is the backbone of history while the spatial realities are the stage on which such history is played out. However, the consideration of time and space is not such a simple matter for the historian that it can be passed over quickly as a prelude to the more important task of construction. Time and space are social products which, like the construction of the past, are tied to notions of identity and authority. The differing Christian, Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim conceptions of time are ample illustration of its ideological implications. The long-running dispute in the Balkans over the use of the name Macedonia demonstrates how crucial the definition of space is to identity. These twin concepts, then, are crucial to our pursuit of an ancient Palestinian history and to our appreciation of why such a history has rarely been given voice in academic discussions.

Robert Alter (1973: 19), in discussing the importance of the symbolism of Masada, states that there is a ‘certain appropriateness' in the link between ancient events and modern politics ‘given the peculiarity of Israel's location in history and geography'. Alter does not elaborate on this ‘peculiarity' since it seems enough to assert it so that the reader will accept that we are dealing with a very special, if not unique, entity. Herrmann expresses this notion of Israel's uniqueness more explicitly:

Herrmann's view that this is ‘a corner of the world' exposes his Eurocentrism. Furthermore, the notion that Israel points beyond itself, whatever that might mean, reveals an underlying theological assumption which connects the history of Israel directly with divine action in the mundane realm. Similar phrases, expressing Israel's special place in time and space, can be found in many different academic and popular works suggesting that Herrmann is repeating a widespread belief in Israel's unique relationship to time and space. As we have already seen, the importance of perceptions of the past for shaping identity and the competing nature of such perceptions of the past mean that the concepts of space and time are of vital importance to our undertaking. Both concepts are, like ‘the past', ideological constructs to be manipulated, often as part of a hidden discourse, in the construction of social identity while denying competing identities which might lay claim to that same time and space. In the current context, such views cannot be divorced from the contemporary struggle and conflict between the modern state of Israel and the Palestinians of the occupied territories or those in exile. It is for this reason that the use of the term ‘Palestine' or the phrase ‘Palestinian history' in academic discourse is bound to be contentious. Said (1986: 30) notes that ‘there is no neutrality, there can be no neutrality or objectivity about Palestine'. The discourse of biblical studies in reconstructing a past that impinges upon affirmations and denials in the present cannot claim to remain above or outside contemporary political struggles. This becomes apparent when the contrast is drawn between a broad regional history of
ancient Palestine in contrast to or, it might be more correct to say, in competition with standard ‘biblical histories' of ancient Israel. The discourse of biblical studies has professed to remain aloof from this contemporary political situation while all along denying time and space to any Palestinian claim to the past. It is a discourse which has allocated time, particularly the Late Bronze–Iron Age transition and the Iron Age, as well as geographical space to Israel: other entities such as the Canaanites, the Philistines, or any indigenous groups might inhabit this time and space but it is only on Israel's terms.

The Denial of Palestinian Space

The concept of space in historical terms is no more static than the notion of time which is more usually seen to be at the heart of historical investigation. It has become increasingly recognized that the definition and control of space has formed a crucial role in Europe's construction of its Other, a counterpoint to its own self-definition as rational, powerful, and stable. The discussion of the use of the term ‘Palestine' is inevitably an intricate part of the same Orientalist discourse and its construction of the Orient. Biblical studies has not remained aloof from this discourse with its representation of the Orient, including Palestine, as Europe's essential Other. It is possible to trace Orientalist presuppositions through some of the most influential works in biblical studies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The standard ‘biblical histories' of Israel invariably begin with a chapter devoted to geography, the definition of space, ostensibly as an objective presentation of geographical information designed to provide the reader with essential background knowledge. The interrelationship between biblical scholarship's search for ‘ancient Israel' and the rise of the European nation state and nationalism should alert us to some of the problems of trying to define the spatial dimensions of our subject matter.

The choice of terminology for the region, the meaning with which it is invested, implicitly or explicitly, denies any other perception of the past or present. These are intertwined in such a way that it is the present which has priority in defining and determining the past. The problem for the historian is not simply a question of the description of the physical boundaries of the space, but the naming of that space. It is the choice of nomenclature which carries with it so many implications, so many denials or assertions, that are both crucial and controversial. The long-standing Israeli occupation of the West Bank
arid Gaza, the Palestinian
intifada
, and the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and a homeland make the choice of this term controversial. The dramatic developments at the beginning of September 1993 with the signing of an accord between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, followed by the gradual and difficult implementation of the Gaza-Jericho First policy, have only served to add further weight and significance to the problematic definition of space.
¹
The question of ‘Palestine' and ‘Palestinian history'
vis-à-vis
‘Israel' and ‘Israelite history' cannot be divorced from contemporary claims and counter-claims to the past. The various attempts to define the physical boundaries of Palestine are of less significance than its use as an image in scholarly and popular literature.