IndexIntroductionKnowledge and sourcesRelevant historiographyConclusion“All history is present history in the sense that the concerns of the present are bound in some way to influence the way history is made researched and written." ~ Paul Anthony Cartledge Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay IntroductionHistoriography can be one of the most effective, and probably the best, means to truly know the past. As Paul Anthony Cartledge's quote underlines, it is inevitable that people (both historians and lay people) are inclined to give their own interpretation of history, combining it with a specific narrative, philosophy, faith, personal opinion or even emotion. . Historiography offers the opportunity for those who wish to understand history as it actually happened to take a critical approach, examining not only the events of history but the way in which these events have been treated by history. This is not necessarily an easy process; particularly for ancient history, there are many challenges in distinguishing between history and historiography. However, the main benefit is clear: taking an approach that considers historiography can lead to a more robust, and even more relevant and accurate, picture of the past. With this in mind, this research paper examines the ancient Israelites in the context of the Ancient Near East; however, rather than simply presenting a historical picture of the Israelites in this ancient historical context, the article considers the historiography of the ancient Israelites in this context. This arguably provides more in-depth insight than any other historical approach. There are a great many scholarly articles, books, and other forms of research on the historiography of ancient Israel in the ancient Near East, and this research paper cannot come close to examining them all, let alone thoroughly. and concisely describing everything they have to say. While this article is certainly not exhaustive, the range of sources (in the sense of substance, style, and timing) provides a relatively holistic picture of this specific body of historiography and presents some of the most authoritative texts on the topic. To address the topic of ancient Israelite historiography in the context of the ancient Near East, the contribution turns first of all to the discussion of relevant knowledge and sources; this includes both a description of the sources used and a definition of terms. The article then turns to the historiography in question, examining ten unique scholarly sources to form a picture of the topic. Overall, the article shows that an accurate understanding of this historiography is perhaps the best way to understand the ancient Israelites. As one academic source states: “Not knowing the way forward means being lost. To forget how you got there is to be doubly lost… the double loss that results when you make insufficient effort to retrace the path that led to your current situation. The point at which to begin this volume, therefore, is with a look at the past." In other words, to avoid getting lost in the vast topic that is Ancient Israel, it is crucial to approach the history concerning the already completed topic – this is historiography at its best. As the author notes, understanding how the topic has been covered in the past will help us understand how to move forward in the future. The thought also calls to mind a particular set of lyrics from The Clash that ring true for history and archaeology: Wait a minute, my friend, don't mistake me for dead, while Babylon crumbles in the sand,a sweet flower blooms in my hand, another day is ending for you. In this historiography article, two things are clear: the history of ancient Israel is far from dead, and historiography offers the sweet flower of it. It is enough to pursue historiography for history to flourish in the hand. Knowledge and Sources As noted above, this article uses a variety of sources to accurately and concisely complete a historiography of the ancient Israelites in the context of the Ancient Near East. More specifically, the article discusses five journal articles and five academic history books, each of which covers the historiography of the ancient Israelites in one comprehensive discourse, and each of which has its own slightly different approach. Each of the resources will be discussed below and in detail below; However, for now it is worth focusing on the general composition of the historiography. The sources used in this article range from over seven decades ago (1940) to just a few years ago, so there is definitely a balanced view presented here as each has a slightly different point of view. Furthermore, most of the sources deal specifically with the historiography of the ancient Israelites in the ancient Near East, rather than historical accounts, so this article serves as a sort of secondary analysis of the findings found within these primary sources. Due to the limited scope and time frame of this article, this is the best way to achieve a balanced and holistic view of the historiography in question. Before continuing, it is also important to define the topic more specifically. Israelite historiography, for the purposes of this article, can be defined as “all writings about the people's past, from their origins to their development as a people and nation in Palestine and to their final fate at the hands of the imperial powers of the Near East.” . In other words, historiography in this case is all the documentation of this specific group of people within this specific geographic context. It is the experience of the Israelites, not only within themselves, but both in the familiar (i.e. Canaan) and foreign (i.e. Mesopotamia and Egypt) contexts in which they found themselves. Another conception of historiography in relation to the Old Testament is as “a form of narrative that refers to past events in the history of the nation in a chronological sequence from the time of human and national origins to the historical period of the author.” This is what makes this subset of historiography so fascinating: it has to do with the formation, solidification, and emergence of the Israelites as an ethnic group. It is an identity that, at least in some form, remains to this day. Relevant Historiography Now that the identification of sources and definition of the main concept in this article has been established, the discussion can now move to an overview of how academic literature treats the historiography of the ancient Israelites in the context of the Ancient Near East. The most complex aspect of historiography and the Bible is the question of whether to treat it as history or simply as text: “It is the task and opportunity of a new generation of historians to reflect once again on the foundational assumptions that guide the interpretation of the ancient Bible. texts and the way in which the historian reconstructs a past starting from them". In this way, one of the major questions of historiography in this context is how to treat the very texts that make up the history of the ancient Israelites. However, if anything, this makes historiography much more interesting: “This should… be regarded as a necessary development, requiring historians to be interested, at least on a practical level, also in epistemological and ontological questions.” In other words,historians should be as concerned with the theoretical implications of this story as with the narrative ones; however, this does not necessarily require a positivistic approach to the history of the Bible. With this in mind, the historiography of the ancient Israelites can be complicated to say the least. However, this complication in historiography need not interfere with the insight that historians are able to gain from this approach. As one academic observes: “For the first part of this spectrum there is no ancient distinction between myth, legend and history, so that in the current tradition the history of Israel's past begins with the creation,” with the intended expression being the foundation of '"corporate identity of the ancient Israelites, their social and moral values, their political and religious institutions, their relationship to the land and their place in the broad family of Near Eastern peoples." According to this conception, there is no need to distinguish between history and myth, since the narrative remains the same. This becomes even more important when you consider the fact that the biblical passages from Genesis to the end of 2 Kings were not written by a single author. author, but by many different writers over a large and far-reaching period of time. This makes the non-positivistic, narrative-focused approach to ancient Israelite historiography and history even more compelling. It is also the approach that is likely to lead to the greatest historical understanding, as it does not limit these passages, but instead expands them with external sources. This idea of ​​historiography is confirmed by another work by John Van Seters, who states that “Israeli historiography is not critical of its sources of information about the past, which may include origin myths and legends, although it reshapes them to your presentation. " In yet another work, the same author concludes that “history writing is a specific form of tradition in its own right… Any such explanation as a mere accidental accumulation of traditional material is inadequate.” In other words, the approach to Bible history need not be humanistic nor purely religious, as long as the historian (according to a historiographical approach) recognizes the influence that the subjective development of the history of the ancient Israelites has had on modern knowledge of what kind of development the ancient Israelites had in context of the ancient Near East? What does historiography say about this development? Answering these questions yields several interesting insights. First of all, the general theological theme of the history of the ancient Israelites is clear: "The theological nuances appear in a highly schematized narrative scheme." From the guilt of the kings for turning away from God in the eyes of the Deuteronomists to the exile of the people, the narrative is presented as "one long and coherent tale about the chosen people who completely and at all times broke the contract with... their God ." In other words, the main historiographical theme of the ancient Israelites in the ancient Near East is not only the formation of a people, but a formation and reform of the relationship of that group of people with their divinity. This claim is confirmed by another scholarly source, who states that the historiography of the ancient Israelites does not purport to be a communication from God, but instead "serves as a communication to the deity... Consequently, the public are neither future kings nor gods – it is the people of the alliance. " Furthermore, the historiography is not always positive, but for individuals and for the Israelites as a whole, which puts to rest some concerns of political or even theological bias: “Consequently this material would be a very ineffective political polemic… The Bible also makesclear at all times that its purpose is not to offer revelation of a particular person or group, but to serve as Yahweh's revelation of himself. This is confirmed by another scholar, who contrasts the theology of the ancient Israelites with that of their Mosopotamian neighbors: "The nature of the gods could not give any feeling of certainty and security in the cosmos... Man has always found himself faced with tremendous forces of nature, and nature, especially in Mesopotamia, proved cruel, indiscriminate [and] unpredictable.” In this way it is clear that the historiography of the Ancient Israelites is intimately tied to their theology, as it directly informs how they interact with other groups and become a people group themselves. But how do you know all this? How is historiography actually formed, especially nowadays? In response to these questions, there are two main sources that give insights to the historian: WF Albright of 1940, which can be considered one of the cornerstones of biblical historiography, and Mark W. Chavalas, who writes more than half a century later and who answers the Albright's positivism with a more social and historiographical approach. First, Albright states that there are four major groups of “ancient Near Eastern religious literature” that shed light on the ancient Israelites: “Egyptian, Mesopotamian (Sumerian-Akkadian), Horito-Hittite, and West Semitic (Canaanite, Aramaic, South Arabian).” From these sources, the historical scan conducts "decipherment and approximate translation, the development of grammatical and lexicographic study" and "detailed dialectical and syntactic research, accompanied by monographic studies of selected classes of documents". This is how historians are able to shape the knowledge they have about the ancient Israelites and the ancient Near East as a whole. However, the bigger problem is the way these sources are treated. As Albright continues, “In tackling the ancient Near East we must carefully evaluate the degree of confidence with which we can translate our documents and interpret our archaeological materials.” This is the very idea of ​​historiography. In this regard, Chavalas contrasts the modern approach to ancient history with that of the past: “Previous generations tended towards the study of theology and literary criticism, usually by theologians who often had no historical training. ;” in contrast, historians discussing the same story in more recent years “focus instead on socioeconomic, anthropological, and historiographical issues.” In other words, even the same sources described above can vary depending on the method of interpretation – be it theological, literary, anthropological or sociological. This applies not only to the modern historian, but also to the historians who wrote the texts in question. As Chavalas goes on to ask: “What was the relationship between the antiquarian writer and the concerns of his period? …Synchronic interests guided his interpretations but did not determine them.” In this way, any reading of biblical texts must be contextualized within its social context, both of the subject and of the original writer – not to mention the author of the secondary text. Therefore, biblical history is formed as much by interpretation as by original texts. Please note: this is just an example. Get a custom paper from our expert writers now. Get a Custom Essay Conclusion While far from exhaustive, this research-based discussion paper has examined the historiography of the ancient Israelites in the ancient Near East drawing on some of the most relevant and pertinent sources on the topic. In this examination, the article revealed (or, at the very least, reconfirmed) three essential truths about the story.