Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Lloyd Barre <barre AT c-zone.net>]

Thanks, Andrew.

> **--------- Original Message follows... 

>[1] Given that there were twelve (or thirteen!) distinct tribes, we're
lucky we ended up with only two kingdoms! It could have split into many
more.

I suppose that might be regarded as lucky in some sense.

[2] The division into two kingdoms could have had a very old cause, as
Lloyd suggests, going back to Deborah, or even going all the way to the
"ten sons rejecting the eleventh" as someone said. But the cause could
also have been relatively recent: the USA was less than 100 years old
when it had its civil war.

A corporate, cultural identity that became a political one with the Divided 
Monarchy would have to take some time to develop, unless it can be shown to 
have been created artificially.  A distinct identity between the southern and 
northern tribes that seems in place at the time of the Song of Deborah 
indicates that this distinction must have predated the 12th century at the 
least.  While it is theoretically true that the distinction could have been 
consciously created by something like war as your parallel suggests, what 
would lead us to think that that was the case in regard to pre-monarchic 
Israel?  Did the removal of Egyptian rule in Palestine create it?  I don't 
see why or how.  Is it not more likely it goes back to separate migrations of 
the Arameans from Syria on the one hand and the Hebrews from the regions 
adjacent to southern Palestine on the other during the so-called Patriarchal 
era?  Note that the Ishmaelite who inhabited the Negev from the east of Egypt 
were though!
t to have descended from an Egyptian concubine (Hagar) and a Hebrew 
patriarch.  Why are these people thought of as very closely related in this 
Hebrew tradition?  Because they were, I should think.

[3] Perhaps the physical geography of the land played a role. Was it more
difficult for Northerners to travel to Jerusalem? Making them less likely
to accept Jerusalem-centered rulers?

I wonder.

Lloyd Barre

a.c.smith AT juno.com
http://www.lcms.org
http://www.lcms.com
http://www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/5680

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.
> ** Original Subject: The Origins of the Divided Monarchy
> ** Original Sender: Andrew C Smith <a.c.smith AT juno.com>
> ** Original Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 05:03:32 EST
> **---------

> 

Lloyd M. Barre, Ph.D.

barre AT c-zone.net
http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/AncientIsrael

"Do I dare
  Disturb the universe?"

  T.S. Eliot from, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." (1917)