Major Saviors,Minor Judges: The Historical Background of the Northern Accounts in the Book of Judges *

Abstract

This article follows up on a recent series of papers by the author on North Israelite heroic stories in the book of Judges. This article examines the short accounts of the ‘minor judges' and then adds them to the more developed stories of the major saviors in order to reach an overall geographical setting for these traditions. This study suggests that both originated in the Northern Kingdom and that they were set down in writing in the early to mid-eighth century. They create a map that is a mosaic of continuous territory which includes the central hill country west of the Jordan River, the Jezreel Valley and regions immediately to its north, and the Gilead—the area that was conceived as the core terrain of the Northern Kingdom in its early days. The compilation of this material was part of a larger Northern endeavor aimed at preserving the foundation myths, early royal traditions and heroic tales of Israel.