Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jonathan D. Safren" <yonsaf AT beitberl.beitberl.ac.il>]

Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG wrote:

> In your scenario, surely the question that remains is not "why the
> divided monarchy?" but "why the united monarchy?" In other words, if
> the Israelites had such a diverse origin, what made them (even
> temporarily) into a single united people, with a single language and
> at least to some extent a single faith?

What made the Israelites unite into a single monarchy was external dangers, 
especially
the Philistines, but also the Ammonites, on the one hand, but also the 
aggressive
characters of Saul and David, on the other.
They all would have spoken similar NW Semitic dialects to begin with, and 
living
together with their Canaanite neighbors, differences would have tended to 
become
smaller, though one can still detect dialectal differences between North and 
South, or
between various tribes. Don't fortget that the Philistines also adopted 
Canaanite
language and eventually material culture, though retaining ancestral names 
like
Achish/Anchises and contributing words to Hebrew such as seren/tyrannos.
The "single faith" was not so single, with much syncretism andeven local 
YHWHs (e.g.
"YHWH of Samaria"). A united monarchy would have contributed to its spread, 
though
there were probably other factors as well.
Sincerely,
Jonathan D. Safren
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl College
Beit Berl Post Office 44905
Israel