Free The Invention of Ancient Israel by Keith W. Whitelam

recent important work of the Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein (1988). However, it is a construction of the past, an invention of Israel, which mirrors perceptions of contemporary Palestine of the 1920s at a time of increasing Zionist immigration.
    Alt’s innovative insight was to recognize that in order to overcome the deficiencies of the Hebrew Bible for understanding the process of Israelite origins, it was necessary to investigate ‘the history of [the] country’s territorial divisions in complete independence of other aspects of the problem’ (1966: 136). By this means, he intended to understand the settlement of the Israelites in Palestine at the end of the Late Bronze Age (thirteenth century BCE), the conditions which preceded it, and its effects upon the settlement history of Palestine. Alt, in effect, proposed to address the problem from the perspective of la longue durée by using Egyptian and cuneiform materials to construct ‘the political geography of Palestine’ (1966: 137). Hisfindings stressed the important role played by small city-states with their ‘petty’ princes in defining this political geography: the Pharaoh exercised power through them and only dealt directly with them. The full development of this political system resulted in the extreme fragmentation of Palestine into a number of small city-states consisting of little more than the land surrounding the city and a few neighbouring villages. He drew an important regional distinction between the political geography of the coastal lowlands, where the majority of these city-states were located, and the highlands of Palestine where the lack of good arable land resulted in the fact that ‘the settlement of the mountains, and the development of an advanced culture there, had not at this stage reached the same level’ (1966: 149). He drew upon the Amarna archives concerning Labaya at Shechem to conclude that ‘the existence of a political unity in the mountains north of Jerusalem is unmistakable’ (1966: 153). This contrast between the plains and the highlands, which has been very influential in perceptions of the region, for him, ‘clearly go back to a different political structure: in the first, groups of city-states close together, in the second, an extensive territory under a single ruler’ (1966: 154). Jerusalem is characterized as an important exception in the hill country of a city-state that failed to extend its territorial control over a wide area.
    He contends that with the collapse of Egyptian power at the end of the Late Bronze Age the ‘political map of Palestine is completely changed’ (1966: 157) leaving approximately only half a dozen states in the area. This can only be explained, according to Alt, by a complete shift of political power in the region. The dramatic decline of imperial Egypt is an insufficient explanation for the new forms of political life and territorial units which emerged at this time. Nor can it be explained by indigenous developments in response to the decline in imperial Egyptian control: ‘When native politics were left to develop in their own way, their obvious course was to preserve the state of affairs that had grown up in the country over many centuries’ (1966: 157). Alt’s assumption is that the change can only be brought about by external influence, thereby denying inherent value to the internal history of the region. It is an assumption, as we have seen, that pervades the discourse of biblical studies: an assumption that coincides with common presentations of the events taking place in Palestine contemporary with Alt’s research. Palestine for Alt, as for contemporary Western politicians, notably the British, was incapable of developing ‘new forms of political life’: ‘Theimpetus towards the general re-ordering of the political organization of Palestine cannot therefore have come from there’ (1966: 158).