Unity and diversity in early Israel before Samuel

Abstract

"The period of the judges needs to be opened for a thorough re-examination of its form and structure. This applies not only to the so-called "office" of the judge' and to the theory of a tribal confederation, two ideas that have been in the fore- front during recent discussions of this period; it applies even more basically to the presupposition that the period must of necessity have had some organizational focus giving coherence and unity to Israel as a whole made up of numerous con- stituent elements. This latter idea is of crucial import for the study of this period since, if the need for a structured religious and/or political relationship is taken for granted, it predisposes scholars to search and interpret the literature along certain lines—namely, those that lead to "organizational" theories"