Baruch Halpern

The Constitution of the Monarchy in Israel

The birth of the West stems from the rejection of tradition. All our evidence for this influence comes from the Axial period, 800-400 BCE. Baruch Halpern explores the impact of changing cosmologies and social relations on cultural change in that era, especially from Mesopotamia to Israel and Greece, but extending across the Mediterranean, not least to Egypt and Italy. In this volume he shows how an explosion of international commerce and exchange, which can be understood as a Renaissance, led to the redefinition of selfhood in various cultures and to Reformation. The process inevitably precipitated an Enlightenment. This has happened over and over in human history and in academic or cultural fields. It is the basis of modernization, or Westernization, wherever it occurs, and whatever form it takes.

The Dynamics of Iron Age Cosmologies

From Gods to God

Deborah W. Hobson

Three major essays by Baruch Halpern, Brian Peckham and Paul E. Dion deal with traumatic changes in Israelite culture, in particular the transition from the traditional culture of Israel in Iron Age IIA (tenth-ninth centuries) to a new, more widely literate culture in the eighth-seventh centuries BCE. These essays throw into relief changes in legal, political and religious culture in Judah in the last 150 years of its independence. Their combined implications for the origins of Western law and civilization, and for the models from which Reformation and Enlightenment political theory were drawn, are substantial.

Law and Ideology in Monarchic Israel

The Emergence of Israel in Canaan

Kenneth Sacks

Cultural Contact explores adaptation, resistance and reciprocity in Axial-Age Mediterranean exchange, a discussion begun in antiquity. Real progress requires relearning the Mediterranean as a historical system. These essays illustrate the problems such study must overcome.

A Periplos

Cultural Contact and Appropriation in the Axial-Age Mediterranean World

Hershel Shanks

William G. Dever

Peter Kyle McCarter

This work is composed of three outstanding lectures about the emergence of the ancient Israelites and their religion presented at a symposium held at the Smithsonian Institution in the fall of 1991. Professors William Dever, Baruch Halpern, and P. Kyle McCarter Jr., specialists in the fields of biblical archaeology and Near Eastern studies, present provocative theories on the arrival of the Israelites in ancient Canaan and the provenance of their religion. Did the Israelites enter Canaan according to the books of Joshua and Judges or were they already there as part of the indigenous population? Is there any reality to the biblical account of the Exodus? Where and when did belief in the God Yahweh originate? Edited under the aegis of Shanks, the well-known editor of Biblical Archaeological Review and Bible Review, this work can easily be understood by interested lay readers. Highly recommended for larger collections. Robert A. Silver, Shaker Heights P.L., Ohio. Library Journal.

The Rise of Ancient Israel

Deborah Whitney Hobson

André Lemaire

A comprehensive treatment of the history and components of Kings represents a departure from standard single-authored commentaries on it. Focusing on composition, sources, literary techniques, peoples and characters in the text, and on later transmission and reception of it affords students of the Books with a new resource, and sound bibliography.

Sources, Composition, Historiography and Reception

The Books of Kings

The Hebrew Bible and History

The First Historians

Matthew Joel Adams

This collaborative commentary on, or dictionary of, Kings, explores cross-cutting aspects of Kings ranging from the analysis of its composition, historically regarded, to its transmission and reception. Ample attention is accorded sources, figures and peoples who play a part in the book. The commentary deals with Kings treatment in translation and role in later ancient literature. While our comments do not proceed verse by verse, the volume furnishes guidance, from contributors highly qualified to advance contemporary discussion, on the book's historical background, its literary intentions and characteristics, and on themes and motifs central to its understanding, both of itself and of the world from which it arose. This volume functions as a meta-commentary, offering windows into the secondary literature, but assembling data more fully than is the case in individual commentaries.

The Bible portrays King David as an exceptional man and a paragon of godly devotion. But was he? Some scholars deny that he existed at all. Did he? This challenging book examines the written and archaeological evidence critically in an effort to paint an accurate picture of one of the Bible's central figures. Neither defending nor rejecting the traditions about David, Baruch Halpern, a leading scholar of biblical history and the ancient Near East, traces the origins and development of David's persona. Because the biblical text clearly responds to concerns that can only be contemporary with David himself, we can believe that David was both real and a central actor in the historical drama of ancient Israel. Yet at the same time, the written record also shows that contemporaries understood David's character to be much more unsavory than the tradition has hitherto allowed. Halpern digs beneath the layers of tradition to understand David as an individual, as a person. The man he uncovers turns out to have been complex, ambiguous, and--above all--surprising. According to Halpern, the image of David grew over time. He was the founder of the dynasty that perpetuated the texts about him, and they progressively exaggerated his accomplishments. But in the earliest writings David remains a modest figure, as this book shows for the first time. To understand David as a human being, one must keep in mind that he was primarily a politician who operated in a rough-and-tumble environment in which competitors were ready literally to slit throats. Halpern's work raises many provocative questions: Was David an Israelite or a Philistine? Was Solomon really David's son? Did David take the throne ofIsrael by the consent or against the will of the people? How many murders did he commit on his way to the crown? Indeed, was David someone it would have been wise to even invite to dinner? The challenging arguments in "David's Secret Demons are sure to provoke all kinds of discussion among biblical scholars and general readers alike. In addition--a big bonus--Halpern's accessible, at times humorous prose will itself draw readers everywhere into the compelling story of David found between these covers.

Baruch Halpern

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