Hebrew Bible judges
Judges in the Hebrew Bible שופטים |
---|
Italics indicate individuals not explicitly described as judges |
Book of Exodus |
Book of Joshua |
Book of Judges |
First Book of Samuel |
The judges
Role
A cyclical pattern is regularly recounted in the Book of Judges to show the need for the various judges: apostasy of the Israelite people, hardship brought on as punishment from God, crying out to the Lord for rescue.[1][page needed]
The story of the judges seems to describe successive individuals, each from a different tribe of Israel, described as chosen by God to rescue the people from their enemies and establish justice.
While judge is a literalistic translation of the
Historicity and timeline
The biblical scholar
Working with the chronology in Judges, Payne points out that although the timescale of Judges is indicated by Jephthah's statement (Judges 11:26) that Israel had occupied the land for around 300 years, some of the judges overlapped one another. Claiming that Deborah's victory has been confirmed as taking place in 1216 from archaeology undertaken at Hazor, he suggests that the period may have lasted from c. 1382 to c. 1063.[10]
Bill T. Arnold and H.G.M. Williamson wrote that if
all the figures given in Judges (years of oppression, years the judges led Israel, years of peace achieved by the judges) are treated as consecutive, then the total duration of the events described in Judges is 410 years. If we accept a date of 1000 BCE for the beginning of David's reign over all Israel, which puts the beginning of Eli's leadership of Israel at about 1100 BCE, then the judges period would begin no later than 1510 BCE – impossible even for those who date the conquest to the fifteenth century BCE[11]
There is also doubt among some scholars about any historicity of the Book of Judges.[12]
Judges mentioned in the Hebrew Bible
In the
The Book of Judges also recounts the story of Abimelech, an illegitimate son of Gideon, who was appointed as a judge-like leader by the citizens of the city of Shechem. He was later overthrown during a local conflict, and the classification of Abimelech as a judge is questionable.[15]
The biblical text does not generally describe these leaders as "a judge", but says that they "judged Israel", using the verb שָׁפַט (š-f-t).[16][page needed] Thus, Othniel "judged Israel forty years" (Judges 3:11), Tola "judged Israel twenty-three years" (Judges 10:2), and Jair judged Israel twenty-two years (Judges 10:3).
According to the Book of Judges, Deborah (Hebrew: דְּבוֹרָה, Dəḇōrā, "bee") was a prophetess of the God of the Israelites, the fourth Judge of pre-monarchic Israel and the only female judge mentioned in the Bible.
See also
Notes
References
- ^ Boling & Nelson 2006.
- ^ Judges 12:7–15.
- ^ Gordon 1962, pp. 296–7.
- ^ Coogan 2009, p. 178.
- ^ Malamat 1971, p. 129.
- ^ Alter, Robert. The Hebrew Bible.
- ^ Kitchen 2003, pp. 219–20.
- ^ Thompson 2000, p. 96.
- ^ Grabbe, Lester (2017). Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and How Do We Know It?. Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-0-567-67043-4. p. 118: “The book is generally too problematic to use as a historical source.” p. 117-118: “Two points relating to history, however, can be made about the book of Judges: first, the picture of a tribal society without a unified leadership engaging in uncoordinated local actions seems to fit the society of the hill country in IA I, as evidenced by the archaeology….Secondly, perhaps the one exception to the historical ambiguity of the text is the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 (cf. Knauf 2005b).”
- ^ Payne 1996, pp. 630–31.
- ^ Arnold & Williamson 2005, p. 590.
- ^ Brettler 2002, p. 107; Davies 2006, p. 26; Thompson 2000, p. 96.
- ^ Exodus 18:13–26.
- ^ "Judges of Ancient Israel". Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 8 April 2021.
- ^ Judges 9:1–57.
- ^ Hauser 1975.
Bibliography
- Arnold, Bill T.; ISBN 978-0-8308-1782-5.
- Boling, Robert G.; Nelson, Richard D. (2006). "Judges". In Attridge, Harold W.; Meeks, Wayne A. (eds.). The HarperCollins Study Bible (rev. ed.). HarperCollins Publishers.
- ISBN 978-0-415-16216-6.
- ISBN 978-0-19-533272-8.
- ISBN 978-1-85075-737-5.
- Drum, Walter (1910). Herbermann, Charles G.; Pace, Edward A.; Pallen, Condé B.; Shahan, Thomas J.; Wynne, John J. (eds.). Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 8. New York: Encyclopedia Press (published 1913). pp. 547–549.
This article incorporates text from this public-domain publication.
. In - Gordon, Cyrus H. (1962). Greek and Hebrew Civilizations.
- Hauser, Alan J. (1975). "The 'Minor Judges': A Re-Evaluation". Journal of Biblical Literature. 94 (2): 190–200. JSTOR 3265729.
- ISBN 978-0-8028-4960-1.
- Malamat, A. (1971). Mazor, Benjamin (ed.). Judges. Givatayim, Israel: Rutgers University Press. pp. 129–163.
- Payne, J. P. (1996). "Book of Judges". In ISBN 978-0-8308-1439-8.
- Thompson, Thomas L. (2000). Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written & Archaeological Sources. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-11943-7.
Further reading
- Wolf, C. U. (1962). "Judge". The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. Abingdon Press.