© Charles Chandler

 

The story of the conquest, as told in the Book of Joshua, actually sounds a lot more like the campaign of Merneptah in ~1208 bce, and the desolation in Deborah's time would seem to correspond with the Bronze Age Collapse, ~1200 bce.

 

Before passing, Jacob issued his selective blessings on the tribes of Israel.¹ The likeliest time for this to occur would have been just after the Exodus,^2:121 which of course would be impossible if Jacob came two generations before Moses, but quite expected if he presided over the main Exodus beginning in 1312 bce. His worst curses were heaped upon Simeon and Levi, for the violence that they had perpetrated. The conventional chronology gives no reason for violence in Jacob's lifetime, but the Levites (i.e., the ones with the Egyptian names) had to fight their way through hostile tribes to get to the Promised Land. Jacob gave his best blessings to Judah and Joseph, favoring the tribes settled in territories with the strongest ties to Egypt, and thus showing his loyalty to the pharaoh.

 

 

 

 

All the more curious is that the story of the oppression prior to the Exodus tells of life in the delta, which would be in the 1200s bce. Next we hear of the brutal conquest of Canaan in the Book of Joshua, which would have actually been Merneptah's campaign against the Sea Peoples coalition, leaving the destruction noted by Deborah.³

 

 

 

 

And Atenism didn't take over Canaan in one fell swoop — it happened in waves. In 1329 bce, the high priests from Amarna arrived. In 1312 bce there was a somewhat more substantial Exodus due to Horemheb's persecution of Atenists in Egypt. But it wasn't until 1288 bce (after Ramose had passed) that the Bedouins pressed forcibly into Canaan.^4:409 And that's when the Israelites left Canaan and sought refuge in Egypt, courtesy of Seti I and later Ramesses II (as described in the section on ). So all through the 1200s bce, the Israelites and the Hebrews were two different groups of people. And the 1200s bce concluded with the scattering of the Israelites by Merneptah. Only then did the Israelites and Hebrews have enough in common to consider themselves brethren — they both worshiped a sun god, and both had been suppressed.

 

From Deborah onward, the judges were Judaeans. It wasn't until much later, under the reign of King Josiah (641~609 bce), that those abiding by Mosaic Law re-asserted themselves, removing idols of Baal and Asherah from the temples.⁵ So we have to remind ourselves that prior to Josiah, the judges and priests (and even King Solomon) worshiped Baal and Asherah.⁶ The Deuteronomic Reform under Josiah preserved the essence of Atenism. But it also simplified the history, and wove various Judaean, Israelite, and Hebrew threads together into a colorful fabric, rich in contrasts. The weaving continued through the Babylonian Captivity (597~538 bce) and on into the Second Temple period (538~70 bce), when Yahweh and Elohim were finally consolidated into an organized monotheism, and thus a recognizably Jewish theology emerged. Most scholars agree that most of the heavy editing of the Tanakh was completed by the 300s bce, and has changed little since then.