Criteria and methods for reconstructing the events of the history of the Ancient Israel

Abstract

The article offers a set of criteria aimed for the reconstruction of the events of the history of ancient Israel. The author argues that these criteria might help the researchers to work out a balanced approach and help to avoid extremities of both “fundamentalist” and “hypercritical” approach (in the first instance, the Biblical texts are considered to preserve the historically true information whereas in the second instance the information preserved in the Biblical texts is rejected as a priori false). Every kind of reconstruction offers a kind of approximation, however, not the “truth”. Therefore, all available data should be put in a broad context and all the reasonable interpretation made on their basis, should be taken into account. One-sided approach like with archeological data, which may totally overwhelm the research results must be avoided. In this context it is crucial to understand how exactly and to which extent the Biblical texts can be trusted. Here, narrative analysis criteria can be of some help: the highest degree of historical reliability can be expected in the presentation of events, which offer the author most difficulties in their description. At the same time the level of his personal involvement in the events described can show how close he could be to the time, when the event was witnessed by others. The ways and methods of applying these criteria to the critical interpretation of the history of ancient Israel are illustrated in the article on a number of examples.