Judges: background and purpose
The Book of Judges, the third of the series of five books that reflect the theological viewpoint of the Deuteronomic historian, covers the history of the Israelite tribes from the death of Joshua to the rise of the monarchy, a period comprising nearly 200 years (c. 1200–c. 1020 bce). Though the internal chronology of Judges points to a period of about 400 years, the editor may have arbitrarily used the formula of 40 years for a generation of rule by a judge; and he may have compiled the list in the form of a series of successive leaders who actually may have led only a particular tribe or a group of tribes during the same generation as another judge. In other words, the reign of two or more judges may well have overlapped.
The Deuteronomic “theology of history”
The Deuteronomic “theology of history” shows through very clearly in Judges: unless the people of the Covenant remain faithful and obedient to Yahweh, they will suffer the due consequences of disobedience, whether it be an overtly willful act or an unthinking negligence in keeping the Covenant promise. The Deuteronomist worked out a formula for his theology of history that was based in a very dramatic way on the historical events of the period: (1) obedience to Yahweh brings peace and well-being; (2) a period of well-being often involves a slackening of resolve to keep the commandments of Yahweh or outright disobedience; (3) disobedience leads to a weakness of the faith that had bound the community together and thus leaves the community open to repression and attacks from external enemies; and (4) external repression forces the community to reassess its position and ask the cause of the calamities, thus leading to repentance and eventual strength to resist all enemies.
Canaanite culture and religion
The Israelite tribes during the period of the guidance and leadership of Moses and Joshua mainly had to contend with nomadic tribes; in their contacts with such groups, they absorbed some of the attitudes and motifs of the nomadic way of life, such as independence, a love of freedom to move about, and fear of or disdain for the way of life of settled, agricultural, and urban peoples.
The Canaanites, with whom the Israelites came into contact during the conquest by Joshua and the period of the Judges, were a sophisticated agricultural and urban people. The name Canaan means “Land of Purple” (a purple dye was extracted from a murex shellfish found near the shores of Palestine). The Canaanites, a people who absorbed and assimilated the features of many cultures of the ancient Near East for at least 500 years before the Israelites entered their area of control, were the people who, as far as is known, invented the form of writing that became the alphabet, which, through the Greeks and Romans, was passed on to many cultures influenced by their successors—namely, the nations and peoples of Western civilization.
The religion of the Canaanites was an agricultural religion, with pronounced fertility motifs. Their main gods were called the Baalim (Lords), and their consorts the Baalot (Ladies), or Asherah (singular), usually known by the personal plural name Ashtoret. The god of the city of Shechem, which city the Israelites had absorbed peacefully under Joshua, was called Baal-berith (Lord of the Covenant) or El-berith (God of the Covenant). Shechem became the first cultic centre of the religious tribal confederacy (called an amphictyony by the Greeks) of the Israelites during the period of the judges. When Shechem was excavated in the early 1960s, the temple of Baal-berith was partially reconstructed; the sacred pillar (generally a phallic symbol or, often, a representation of the ashera, the female fertility symbol) was placed in its original position before the entrance of the temple.
The Baalim and the Baalot, gods and goddesses of the Earth, were believed to be the revitalizers of the forces of nature upon which agriculture depended. The revitalization process involved a sacred marriage (hieros gamos), replete with sexual symbolic and actual activities between men, representing the Baalim, and the sacred temple prostitutes (qedeshot), representing the Baalot. Cultic ceremonies involving sexual acts between male members of the agricultural communities and sacred prostitutes dedicated to the Baalim were focussed on the Canaanite concept of sympathetic magic. As the Baalim (through the actions of selected men) both symbolically and actually impregnated the sacred prostitutes in order to reproduce in kind, so also, it was believed, the Baalim (as gods of the weather and the Earth) would send the rains (often identified with semen) to the Earth so that it might yield abundant harvests of grains and fruits. Canaanite myths incorporating such fertility myths are represented in the mythological texts of the ancient city of Ugarit (modern Ras Shamra) in northern Syria; though the high god El and his consort are important as the first pair of the pantheon, Baal and his sexually passionate sister-consort are significant in the creation of the world and the renewal of nature.
The religion of the Canaanite agriculturalists proved to be a strong attraction to the less sophisticated and nomadic-oriented Israelite tribes. Many Israelites succumbed to the allurements of the fertility-laden rituals and practices of the Canaanite religion, partly because it was new and different from the Yahwistic religion and, possibly, because of a tendency of a rigorous faith and ethic to weaken under the influence of sexual attractions. As the Canaanites and the Israelites began to live in closer contact with each other, the faith of Israel tended to absorb some of the concepts and practices of the Canaanite religion. Some Israelites began to name their children after the Baalim; even one of the judges, Gideon, was also known by the name Jerubbaal (“Let Baal Contend”).
As the syncretistic tendencies became further entrenched in the Israelite faith, the people began to lose the concept of their exclusiveness and their mission to be a witness to the nations, thus becoming weakened in resolve internally and liable to the oppression of other peoples.