The Origin of the Jewish Nation
By Norman Gelb
Jewish Publication Society, 2010, 246 pages
ISBN: 978-0-8276-0913-6
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Kings of the Jews The Origin of the Jewish Nation By Norman Gelb Jewish Publication Society, 2010, 246 pages ISBN: 978-0-8276-0913-6 |
Reviewed by Israel Drazin - June 21, 2010
Norman Gelb narrates a difficult subject in a successful popular fashion. He tells the story of the kings of ancient Israel and two queens who ruled without husbands. He gives his readers what they want to know and what they should know in brief, easy to read English. He touches on the most important points of the monarchs' lives and how they impacted upon their people and history. He did all of this despite the many problems that he was facing.
It is difficult if not impossible to write a true non-controversial history of these kings and queens. Saul, reluctantly chosen by the prophet Samuel, although he despised the notion that his people should be ruled by a monarch, is generally considered Israel's first king. Yet, as Gelb makes clear, there was an individual during the earlier period of the judges, the period when the Israelite tribes were usually led by charismatic leaders, who proclaimed himself king and lived as a king for a short time.
Saul's son Ishbosheth was king after him for a couple of years. He was followed by David and Solomon. But then, until the Hasmonean kings and the kings in Herod's family, usually overlooked by people, but described by Gelb, the Land of Israel is divided and monarchs ruled in two kingdoms, Judea in the south and Israel in the north. Should the historian call the northerners Israelites and the southerners Judeans? Gelb simplifies and calls them all Jews, as most people think of them, and as he does in the book's title, even though the name Jews was not invented until several centuries after the last king of the divided kingdoms ruled. But these were not the only problems that Gelb had to face.
The history is difficult to tell because the documents that relate the history differ radically. Many of monarchs' stories are told in the biblical books of Kings and Chronicles, and in some of the biblical books of the Prophets. But each, without exception, tells different tales and gives different slants even when they narrate the same events. The Talmuds also elaborate on much of the history with ideas that are not in the three biblical sources, and the Talmuds use their version of the history to teach lessons the rabbis considered important. For example, many people are familiar with the story of David heroically killing the Philistine giant Goliath, which is in Kings. Yet Chronicles has another person do this deed. Kings describes in detail how David committed adultery with Bat Sheba and how he had her husband killed, but the story is not in Chronicles. And there is an opinion in the Talmud that David never did anything wrong.
But this is not all. A fifth source is the legends about the kings, such as the legend that Solomon could speak to animals. Gelb mentions legends sometimes, but identifies them as such. A sixth scientific source, made up of many strands, sociological and anthropological and excavations among others, has yielded additional information, such as ancient artifacts from the age of the kings. A seventh is documents from contemporary neighbor nations that comment upon the Israelite and Judean kings. For example, Kings records bad behaviors of the Israelite kings Omri and Ahab, but these other documents describe them as very successful rulers. Gelb incorporates this information in his story.
To complicate matters, both the Talmuds and modern scholarship recognize that there are problems with dating and other numbers. We do not know how long Saul ruled or the exact date that David assumed his throne, among other events. Furthermore, the numbers of years that each monarch ruled do not add up, resulting in both of the Talmuds and scholars admitting that there was some overlap, but they differ in how this occurred. Additionally, the Bible frequently rounds off numbers, for example it states in Exodus 1 that seventy members of Jacob's family traveled to Egypt and then names them, but the names are less than seventy. So, too, with the kings. Scripture states that both David and Solomon, for instance, ruled for forty years. Should these numbers be taken literally? As a result of this confusion over numbers we do not know for certain how long the northern nation of Israel lasted. While many scholars say exactly two hundred years, from 922 BCE to 722 BCE, Gelb opts for 931-722 because he allocated only thirty years to Solomon's reign.
But this does not end the difficulty. There are many scholars who question whether David and Solomon ever existed. How does an historian deal with this? And, since each of the seven above-mentioned sources was written to advance the agenda of its writer, which reference should an historian rely on?
Gelb offers his readers a clear sufficiently detailed narration of the history of the ancient monarchs for people who want a general understanding of the history of Judaism and its national leaders without resorting to the problems of scholarship. In a word, he gives them, as written earlier, what they want and what they need to know, and does it well. His primary source is Kings, the book that is better known to the general readership.
Just as he does not delve into the difficulties of scholarship, which his readers are not interested in hearing, Gelb avoids sermonizing about the history. He keeps to the facts as he sees them. However, a reader will see in Gelb's narration that the history of Judaism from its beginnings to the present era have one venomous black mark, a cancerous deadly stain. Virtually every evil that afflicted the Jews, from the days when they murmured and complained against their leader Moses, who was trying to help them, until the present, was the result of internal conflicts, unnecessary and destructive strife among themselves. The nation that Saul, David, and Solomon united would have remained strong if it remained unified and had not divided over a conflict about taxes. This resulted in the destruction of the northern kingdom in 722 BCE and the everlasting loss of ten of the twelve Jewish tribes. Similarly, in 70 CE, the nation and its Temple would not have been destroyed by the Romans and Jews would not have needed to suffer 2,000 years of exile if the several conflicting groups, who not only disagreed, but literally killed one another, would have faced Rome united.
Thus, Gelb's history is interesting, and instructive.
