According to the Biblical narratives the Exodus from Egypt, during the reign of King Merenptah of Egypt, marks Israel’s birth as a nation. As in the case of the book of Exodus, we encounter extremely complex historical problems in the books of Joshua and Judges. When we focus on what the popular tradition of Israel later represents as the unity of the twelve tribes of Israel it becomes clear that Israel was anything but that from the start. In the text of the Old Testament there are numerous indications that the patriot peoples and those who gathered at Shechem according to Joshua 24, where not the same people. According to Joshua 24, Joshua presents the people gathered at Shechem with the choice of becoming Yahweh worshippers or not: Joshua 24:15. Also a distinction should be made between the Joseph people and the Moses people as their early confessions of faith do not mention an exodus or a conquest and say nothing of Sinai.
Read Deuteronomy 6:20-25
“20 In the future, when your son asks you, ‘‘What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the LORD our God has commanded you?” 21 tell him: ‘‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. 22 Before our eyes the LORD sent miraculous signs and wonders—great and terrible—upon Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household. 23 But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land that he promised on oath to our forefathers. 24 The LORD commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the LORD our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today. 25 And if we are careful to obey all this law before the LORD our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”
Compare it to Deuteronomy 25:5-10
5 Then you shall declare before the LORD your God: ‘‘My father was a wandering Arabian, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. 6 But the Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labour. 7 Then we cried out to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. 8 So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders. 9 He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey; 10 and now I bring the first-fruits of the soil that you, O LORD, have given me.” Place the basket before the LORD your God and bow down before him.”
Then read Joshua 24:2-15
“Joshua said to all the people, ‘‘This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshipped other gods. 3 But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the River and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, 4 and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt. 5 ‘‘‘Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out. 6 When I brought your fathers out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. 7 But they cried to the LORD for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. Then you lived in the desert for a long time. 8 ‘‘‘I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land. 9 When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you. 10 But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand. 11 ‘‘‘Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho The citizens of Jericho fought against you, as did also the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites, but I gave them into your hands. 12 I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove them out before you—also the two Amorite kings. You did not do it with your own sword and bow. 13 So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.’ 14 ‘‘Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshipped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
When examining the nature of the “God of the Bible we have to follow the progressive changes in ways God was conceptualised, and found expression through the centuries of the history of Israel during the period before the year 621, before Christ.”. The idea that the Hebrew religion was sharply distinguished from neighbouring beliefs by its unwavering monotheism and a linear rather than a cyclical view of history is no longer universally accepted among scholars today. Anthropologists have even disposed the notion that the Hebrews had an unique self-image as the chosen people. There is a school of thought which says it was no different from other neighbouring peoples sense of destiny. The Hebrew, Babylonians and the Assyrians thus shared a perspective concerning time and history that was close, almost identical. All three states were closely organised round the ritual observance of the cycles of the sun and moon.
The division of the Hebrew state into twelve tribes for example is a deliberate replication of the twelve lunar months of the year so that each “tribe” can share the responsibility to maintain worship at the shrine at Shechem. Furthermore they all where strongly influenced by the Chaldean concept of the great year. In the third century before Christ the Babylonian Astrologer Berossus popularised a version of the doctrine of the great year in which the universe is eternal but periodically destroyed and recreated every Great Year. His cycle started with great floods and it ends with the entire cosmos that will be consumed by fire. Although the Babylonians believed that these cycles will endlessly be repeated The Hebrews shared the assumption of the vast majority of societies that history is a predetermined process of birth and decay, with a flood taking place towards the beginning of the cycle and fire towards the end. Societies that believe in a divine sequence of world history, repeatable or otherwise, believe that disasters such as war, flood, exile or even an future total cosmic destruction are markers that help them discover their place in the eternal scheme of things. The Jews however introduced the concept of the Great Week as mentioned in the creation.
The origin of the Jewish obsession with the number seven lies in the city Sumer. This Sumerian city of what is considered to be the first civilised society divided the lunar month of twenty eight days by the sacred number of the four seasons and came to the number seven which was coincidentally also the number of the planets they could observe in the night sky and so they believed it was an divine revelation. For most of these middle east cultures as well as the later Hebrews, Greeks, the main Indian religions and early Christians they like the Babylonians believe that mankind through its failure to observe divine law and human wickedness will reach a stage in a sequence catastrophes that would culminate in the destruction of the world., usually by fire. In other religions that are not tied to historical events such as Hinduism and Buddhism, there is only individual escape from the wheel of death and rebirth.
The facts of Joshua 24 were obviously reworked afterwards, more than once. It does not contain wholly fictitious information though, The tradition preserved in Deuteronomy 27 -28 also centres on Shechem and points in the same direction as does Joshua 24, namely a start of a new era. In latter history, Israel on various occasions rethought this event in a way which recalls Joshua 24 confirmed by Deuteronomy 29; 2 Kings 23:1-3; 2 Chronicles 23:16-21; Nehemiah 8-10. Joshua 24 contains a very old historical nucleus which serves as a basis for the theory of a federation of twelve tribes at Shechem. The unity of twelve tribes is a phenomenon that also occur among other peoples mentioned in the Old Testament see Genesis 2:20-24; 25:13-16; 36:10-14; 20-28. Similar federations of a religious nature can also be traced in Greek history. Such twelve tribe federations is thus also conceivable culturally and historically.
It was from Shechem that Abimelech launched his bid to become king of Israel Judges 9. It was at Shechem that Rehoboam was crowned king 1 kings 12:1 and Jeroboam made his first royal residence after the schism of the kingdom 1 Kings 12:25. From a traditional - historical angle, Shechem is an old patriarchal sanctuary or place of residence and that city continued to fulfil an important function in the latter history of Israel. However it must not be forgot that the inhabitants where El-worshippers. They worshipped El-berith Joshua 24:26 and Judges 9:46. That provided a bridge between he city and the newcomers that also where El worshippers. That is why although it occupies an important place in central Palestine it was not looted and destroyed by the marauding tribes that infiltrated Palestine during Joshua's time.
Also From this it becomes clear that the story of the division of the land into twelve tribal regions therefore has a later date and that at the time of Joshua does not refer to an actual historical event. The borders of the tribes do not indicate actual borders, but are merely a series of place names- see Joshua 19:2-8, 10-16, 17-23 and so on. These series of place names came from the lists compiled to indicate the twelve administrative districts of the to administrative districts of the time of Solomon. as in 1 kings 4:7-19. was written at It was from this viewpoint that the story of dividing the land into twelve tribal regions and the invasion was written, during Solomon's time and from the writers at the time cut off from the other tribes.
Yahweh writers who reworked the earlier writings would want us to believe that even before Israel's settlement in Canaan, they was organised as a confederacy of twelve tribes, united in part by a common ancestry but even more so by common participation in the covenant with Yahweh. In reality they formed close alliances with other nomad groups such as the Kenites (to whom Moses was related by marriage), the Kenizzites and the Jeremiahlites, who in due course appear to have been incorporated into the tribe of Judah. It was probably a breach of alliance on the part of another nomad group, the Amalekites, that was responsible for the bitter feud which Israel pursued against them from generation to generation. Alliance with such pastoral communities was very different from alliance with the settled agricultural population of Canaan, with its fertility cults so inimical to pure Yahweh-worship. Their covenant with Yahweh strictly prohibited the Israelites from making common cause with the Canaanites.
The different groups of people that gathered at Shechem formed a kind of religious alliance. Although in most respects they remained independent entities, they had one common characteristic: their faith in Yahweh as the only God. The visible token of their covenant unity was the sacred ark, housed in a tent-shrine. which was located in the centre of their encampment when they were stationary, but which preceded them on the march or in battle. They divided themselves into twelve tribe or groups so that each of these groups would for one month of the year be responsible for the service at the central sanctuary at Shechem.
More coming soon!