Dr. Christine Hayes, Yale Online Lecture 12.
The Deuteronomistic History: Life in the Land (Joshua and Judges). Italicized paragraphs below are from her book related to the course.
The book of Judges is set in the transitional period between the death of Joshua and the establishment of the monarchy (1200–1020 B.C.E.) and is an imaginative and embellished reconstruction of that transition (see Map 3). The stories depict local tribal skirmishes rather than confrontations between nations. This depiction probably reflects the reality of the two centuries when the land of Canaan was evolving from the city-states of the Bronze Age to the emerging nations of Israel, Philistia, and Aram. Like Joshua, the book of Judges consists of various sources incorporated into a Deuteronomistic framework. It is in fact a collection of individual stories that center on local heroes, several of whom are socially marginal (the illegitimate son of a prostitute, for example, a bandit, and an irregular Nazirite). These stories have a folkloristic flavor, and they are full of drama and local color: the story of Ehud against the Moabites (Jud 3), Deborah against the Canaanites (Jud 4–5), Gideon against the Midianites (6–9), Jephthah against the Ammonites (Jud 11), and Samson against the Philistines (Jud 13–16). Chapters 17 and 18 tell the story of Micah and his idolatrous shrine, and chapters 19–21 contain the gruesome story of the Levite’s concubine and the civil war of the tribes of Israel against the tribe of Benjamin.
Elizabeth Hayes, Christine. Introduction to the Bible (The Open Yale Courses Series) (pp. 198-199). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
In short, it is the view of the Deuteronomistic editor, expressed here in the preface to Judges, that Israel’s crises are caused by her infidelity to Yahweh through the worship of Canaanite gods. For this sin Yahweh sells Israel to her enemies. Then, moved to pity he raises leaders (= judges) to deliver her. Sin, punishment, repentance, and deliverance through divinely appointed leaders is the recurring pattern of this book. However, a Deuteronomistic perspective is not always apparent in the individual stories themselves, which, as mentioned above, appear to be pre-Deuteronomistic folktales about the exploits of local heroes.
Elizabeth Hayes, Christine. Introduction to the Bible (The Open Yale Courses Series) (p. 201). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
However, the book of Judges as a redacted whole seems to suggest a progression toward kingship. The final chapters of Judges document Israel’s slow slide into disorder and, ultimately, civil war. Chapter 18 opens with the ominous statement that recurs throughout the final four chapters: “In those days there was no king in Israel” (18:1; also 19:1 and 21:25). In addition, it is said that “everyone did as he pleased” or “everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (21:25). By the end of the book, the Israelites find themselves spiraling out of control in an orgy of violence and rape and, in the final chapter, all-out civil war.
Elizabeth Hayes, Christine. Introduction to the Bible (The Open Yale Courses Series) (p. 202). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition.
