Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous
Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 19:3 (Summer 1976)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous
JETS 19:3 (Summer 1976) p. 249
Book Reviews
Old Testament
A History of Israel in Old Testament Times. By Siegfried Herrmann, tr. John Bowden. London: SCM Press; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975, 364 pp., £6.00/$15.50.
With the translation of Professor Herrmann’s History, which was originally published in German in 1973, the English-speaking world has available an able exposition of the critical OT scholarship current in Germany. The author sets out his task as an OT scholar as “to combine the disparate material in a continuous narrative sequence and to distil from it what is historically probable or at least credible.” He follows in the tradition of Albrecht Alt, to whom the book is dedicated, and of Martin Noth, although in some areas, such as the historicity of Moses’ role in the wilderness wanderings, Herrmann is more conservative than Noth.
As an introduction, Herrmann briefly presents the geographical setting of Israel, the history of its neighboring countries, and a discussion of the extra-biblical evidence available for comparison with the Biblical text. The book is then divided into three sections covering “the birth of the people of Israel,” “the kingdoms of Israel and Judah,” and “Israel in the hands of the great powers.” A number of helpful excursuses are incorporated into the text, including discussion of the location of Ur of the Chaldees and the contents and importance of the inscription on the Moabite stone as two random examples.
The book’s first section starts with a discussion of Genesis 10, which Herrmann claims to represent the second millennium political situation in which a list of the major northern and southern powers, represented by,the offspring of Japheth and Hain respectively, is followed by the “third power, represented
JETS 19:3 (Summer 1976) p. 250
by the descendants of Shem. Against this interpretation, the chapter could also be the genealogy it claims to be with the order of families as a literary device in which the area of main concern is placed last (cf. Amos 1 f.). In his following discussion of the patriarchs, Herrmann stresses the need to take the Biblical account seriously, although he then takes the patriarchs to be part of the Aramaean movement of the late second millennium. This late date necessitates a late date for the Exodus.
Herrmann holds the view that, following a time in the wilderness, the tribes met at Kadesh and then separately entered the land, not from the south to north and then westward from Transjordan, as recorded in the Bible, but rather from west to east, with each tribe moving individually and over a long period into the land. Th...
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