The Narnia 3 Book Review Blog

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McNutt, Paula. Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1999. xiv + 284 pp. (cloth), $24.95.

This work is in the Library of Ancient Israel series (Douglas A. Knight, ed.), and represents an excellent chronological presentation of the society of ancient Israel.

Following the standard archaeological periods (Bronze Age, Iron Age, Babylonians period, etc.) the author, professor of Religious Studies at Canisius College in New York, brings together Biblical, archaeological and extra-biblical data to describe the ?social history.? By ?social History? the author has sought to ?instead of concentrating predominately on national events, leading individuals, political institutions, and ?high culture?? to rather emphasize the ?broader and more basic issues such as social organization, conditions in cities and villages, life stages, environmental contexts, power distribution according to class and status, and social stability and instability? (ix). It is a presentation of a ?micro? view rather than the standard ?macro? view of solciety inAncient Israel.

The author has an stimulating discussion of ?sources? for this type of study, and a good part of that discussion is reserved for the status of the Scripture as an accurate and reliable source of information. The author clearly rejects inspiration and inerrancy and views the Old Testament as a work which was ?collected and edited? over a period of time (5) and posits that the ?portion of the Bible we tend to refer to as ?historical?... probably reached its final form in the context of the Jewish religious community sometime after the fall of Judah to the Babylonians? (5). However, the author also is critical of the ?minimalist? view that rejects the Bible out of hand as a source document (9). While she feigns to take a position on the controversy (ibid.), she clearly adopts a position that the information contained in the Biblical text can only rise to a level of epistemological reliability when it is confirmed with ?extra-biblical evidence.?

That being said, the author takes a decidedly problematic position in her reconstruction of the ?Origins of Ancient Israel.? Here she posits that Israel really begins to form in Iron Age I (1200-1000 BC) not in what is normally called the ?Patriarchal Age? or Middle Bronze (2000-1550 BC). Her opinion is that the ?so-called patriarchal/ancestral period is a literary construct, not a period in the actual history of the ancient world. The same is the case for the ?exodus? and the ?wilderness period,? and more and more widely for the ?period of the judges??(42). She arrives at this conclusion because there is ?no extra-biblical evidence that has established any historical correlations with the biblical texts? (ibid.). In presenting her arguments she often falls into a fallacy of the ?sweeping generalization? with her repeated use of such phrases as ?it is now widely agreed? (42), ?it is now generally recognized? (40, 41) providing little support and virtually no contrary conservative opinion.

In terms of format this work has excellent indexes and is well-documented, although it is devoid of references to works by conservative scholars. The type font is a bit light and hard on the eyes. The lack of any maps, charts, illustrations or photographs, is also a negative feature.

Those criticisms notwithstanding, the book is a stimulating study and will prove enlightening to the discerning reader, as do the other works in this series. The emphasis on ?social history? is a needed one for backgrounds and exegetical thoroughness, although we might hope for a future work by an author who holds the Scripture in higher regard. The reader will certainly want to supplement their reading in this area with Edwin Yamuchi?s Peoples of the Old Testament Word (Baker, 1994).