BACKGROUND THOUGHTS ON TRIBES & GUILDS Discussing the possibility of the Rechabites and the Levites being organized along guild lines, I began to ponder the nature of the Hebrew tribal structure. I presume that most of the participants on this list do not believe in the LITERAL truth of Jacob/Israel having 12 sons. Below is an excerpt from even a very church-oriented article about the likelihood that the 12 tribes were not LITERALLY related to each other:
www.seekerschurch.org/sermons/19961020.htm Sermon for Recommitment Sunday at Seekers Church October 20, 1996 by Deborah Sokolove "But however exclusive that story may appear at times, in fact many individuals -- and sometimes whole groups -- were adopted into the Covenant. One theory regarding the origin of the 12 tribes is that they were not, in fact, literally descended from Jacob and the small band that went down to Egypt. Rather, at least some of the tribes were peasant groups that had continued to live in Canaan, and joined up with the refugees under Moses and Joshua, taking on their story of liberation and defiance of their Egyptian overlords. The Bible's own testimony records that Moses' own wife, Zipporah, was the daughter of a Midianite priest, and that both she and her father Jethro traveled with those who escaped from Egypt." [END OF TEXT] There is considerable discussion about the Tribe of Dan being a descendant of the "Sea People" who were ship-born intruders into the land of Palestine. Some explain the "12 tribes" as being a Palestinian form of amphictyony: www.healthekids.net/course.phtml?course_id=568 Many scholars see the biblical story of the tribes as a mythical concoction. The idea of 12 tribes confederating around a central shrine (amphictyony) was common in ancient Asia Minor and Greece. Whatever the truth, the legend of the 12 endures as a strong theme in Jewish lore. [END OF TEXT] www.hebrewhistory.org/factpapers/39-IbirthOfIsrael.html By Samuel Kurinsky Hebrew History Federation The Infiltration Model of Israelite Settlement "The "Infiltration Model" of Israelite settlement derives from a theory launched by Albrecht Alt in a set of essays published in 1925. Alt argued that the twelve-tribe confederacy (or "Amphictyony," a sacral league of tribes formed during the period of Judges), was not the one detailed in Exodus and in Numbers but a Canaanite confederacy that predated Israel.... The Alt theory was revised and expanded by his student, Martin Noth (and was henceforth referred to as the Alt-North theory), who considered Israelite occupation an essentially peaceful process in which pastoral peoples separately and independently took root in the occupied areas between agricultural Canaanite communities to which they had traditionally dispersed seasonally. According to this view, the twelve-tribe amphictyony came into being after and not prior to the settlement. With further modifications, the Alt-North theory found a sympathetic acceptance by a number of archeologists, including Prof. Benjamin Mazar, the dean of modern Israeli archaeologists. He held that the early Israelites were generally stock-breeders (some archeologists persist in terming them "nomads"), originating from Transjordan and the Negev, who, after coming to terms, by war or alliance with the Canaanite population composed of three ethnic strains (Hivites based in Shehem, Hittites in Hebron, and Jebusites in Jerusalem), gradually adapted to village life. Footnote 3 " "Footnote 3: Benjamin Mazar, The Early Biblical Period, Historical Studies (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1986). The first three of fifteen articles relate to Israelite settlement." [END OF CLIP] But if we do accept the idea that the twelve tribes were not literally related to each other as descendants of a single man (Jacob/Israel), then we are left in the dark as to when the first formulations of "twelve" were put together. Is it purely coincidental that the tribes of Jacob and the tribes of Ishmael BOTH represented 12? Or was the number 12 an astronomical or religious idea that was to be supported by notion of exactly 12 tribes.... aggregating the multiple families and clans and guilds of the known groups from the region into a somewhat arbitrary collection of 12 "units" or "tribes". The fact that some of the O.T. lists of the 12 tribes sometimes adds some names, while skipping others, would show that there is some "flex" in the notion of what constituted THE 12 tribes. Perhaps the best indication of this flexible notion of tribes comes from Deborah's song (Judges 5:14-18). The tribes mentioned are: 1) Ephraim 2) Benjamin 3) Machir 4) Zebulun 5) Issachar 6) Reuben 7) Gilead 8) Dan 9) Asher 10) Zebulun 11) Naphtali The tribe of Levi is also missing from mention. This would make 12. But there is also no mention of: Gad, Simeon, Judah or the other half-tribe of Joseph. We also find the names Machir and Gilead is mentioned, but these two don't conform to any of the typical references to a tribe. Naturally, a more old-fashioned audience can make a nice string of "special pleadings" for why Joseph or Levi isn't mentioned.... and why Machir and Gilead should be used as "stand ins" for the normal tribal names. But the absence of Judah and Simeon seems irredeemable no matter how you look at it.... except that Deborah didn't consider this battle to be part of Judah's and Simeon's scope of interest. But on this list, we are used to taking a more jaundiced view to such pleadings. Typically, the lack of Simeon and Judah from Deborah's text is used to support the idea that Judah and Simeon are a later addition to the Hebrew confederation. And that bible texts that describe 12 tribes coming from the loins of Jacob are where poetic license has *really* been employed....to get to the nice round number of 12... and to provide a mythical ancestry that joins all the confederation members together. Having reached this kind of perspective regarding the relative recency of the "Twelve Tribes", we are still left with the question as to who WERE these 12 tribes? We are tempted to wonder if they represented 12 groupings of clans or tribes during the Persian Period... but this creates the awkwardness of the 10 Tribes of the North..... who theoretically shouldn't have influenced the writings of post-captivity texts... since there really wasn't an Israel with 10 intact tribes at the time. So the next level of analysis might be to wonder if the 12 tribes is a rather artificial treatment of various clan and even **guild** groupings - - as they would be known to the pre-exiliic or post-exilic writers. And once we are able to consider that the "tribes of Jacob" might not represent a full 12 ethnic or clan groups, we are free to entertain other ideas. If the "twelve tribes" comes from a re-juggling and re-combining of FEWER (or greater) than 12 tribes, we are compelled to look at the texts for "fossils" for where various lists might have come from. Since the combination of the tribe of Benjamin and Judah are frequently found together... and since we know that the priestly class represents yet ANOTHER full tribe (the tribe of Levi).... it is tempting to wonder if the term "Benjamin" might refer to the "Levite" class of the House of Levi. This is just an example of how from ONE group we might get more than ONE "reference" or "term". I'm not going to try to prove or disprove this thesis right now, but I wanted to list an example of how a clear-eyed view regarding the mythology of "twelve tribes" might affect how we analyze Old Testament texts and their references to the Levites, the Priests, and other tribes and guilds that interact with these groups. If you think this is an unusually speculative approach, I should remind the reader that if those tribes coming back from Babylonian captivity represented Judah, Benjamin AND the Levites (which represents 3 tribes).... how is it that the "lost tribes" of Israel are referred to as TEN.... instead of as NINE? There is clearly something out of kilter with the O.T. treatment of clans and tribes.... and I believe I will be able to make some suggestions as to how to understand these sometimes arbitrary tribal conventions in a completely in a new and informative light. George Brooks Tampa, FL For private reply, e-mail to George Brooks <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: "unsubscribe Orion." Archives are on the Orion Web site, http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il. (PLEASE REMOVE THIS TRAILOR BEFORE REPLYING TO THE MESSAGE)