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 The Oxford History Of the Holy Land

H. G. M. Williamson was until recently Regius Professor of

Hebrew at Oxford University. His expertise in the texts of the Old
Testament is complemented by his active participation in the
archaeology of the biblical period in the Holy Land.

Robert G. Hoyland is Professor of Late Antique and Early

Islamic Middle Eastern History at New York University's Institute
for the Study of the Ancient World. His books include Arabia and
the Arabs (Routledge, 2001) and In God's Path (OUP, 2015). He
has conducted fieldwork both in Israel/Palestine and in
neighbouring regions of the Middle East.
The fifteen historians who contributed to The Oxford History of the Holy Land are
all distinguished authorities in their field. They are:

john j. collins,Yale Divinity School

avraham faust, Bar-Ilan University
†robert fisk, writer and journalist
lester l. grabbe, University of Hull
richard s. hess, Denver Seminary
carole hillenbrand, University of Edinburgh
robert g. hoyland, New York University
konstantin klein, University of Amsterdam
andré lemaire, École Pratique des Hautes Études
milka levy-rubin, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
nimrod luz, Kinneret College, Galilee
denys pringle, Cardiff University
adam silverstein, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
peter walker, Trinity School for Ministry
h. g. m. williamson, University of Oxford
The Oxford History Of The Holy
Land
Edited by
R O B E RT G . H OY LA N D
H. G. M. WILLIAMSON
 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom
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 Praise for The Oxford History of the
Holy Land

‘Three great world faiths have invested so many hopes and passions in
one relatively small part of the eastern Mediterranean seaboard and its
hinterland, that there are risks even in calling it by a single name. This
collective study of the “God-trodden land” is a richly informative, reliable,
and sane guide to its troubled history: one valuable contribution to
crafting it a more peaceful present and future.’
Diarmaid MacCulloch, University of Oxford

‘This book is a feast for lovers of the Holy Land. Serious and scholarly
with substantial bibliography’
Bible Lands, Winter 2019
‘The Oxford History of the Holy Land fills a valuable place on the shelf of
anyone interested in a more general overview of the significance of the
Holy Land.…The authors do an admirable job of giving a modern
academic historical overview that reconciles modern historical
perspectives with traditional views informed by different religious faiths.'
Neil Xavier O'Donoghue, Irish Theological Quarterly
‘One-stop shopping for tourists, graduate students, and Sunday school
teachers seeking reliable historical information.'
Kirkus Reviews
‘This is a remarkably elegant book, with its physical elegance matched by
a corresponding elegance of content provided by noted and highly
respected contemporary scholars in the archaeology and history of the
biblical period of the Holy Land.'
Dale E. Luffman, Association of Mormon Letters
 Contents

List of Maps

Introduction
1. The Birth of Israel
Avraham Faust
2. Iron Age: Tribes to Monarchy
Lester L. Grabbe
3. Israel and Judah, c.931–587 bce
André Lemaire
4. Babylonian Exile and Restoration, 587–325 bce
H. G. M. Williamson
5. The Hellenistic and Roman Era
John J. Collins
6. A Christian Holy Land, 284–638 ce
Konstantin Klein
7. The Coming of Islam
Milka Levy-Rubin
8. The Holy Land in the Crusader and Ayyubid Periods, 1099–1250
Carole Hillenbrand
9. The Holy Land from the Mamluk Sultanate to the Ottoman
Empire, 1260–1799
Nimrod Luz
10. From Napoleon to Allenby: The Holy Land and the Wider Middle
East
 Robert Fisk
11. Pilgrimage
Peter Walker with Robert G. Hoyland
12. Sacred Spaces and Holy Places
Richard S. Hess and Denys Pringle
13. Scripture and the Holy Land
Adam Silverstein

Further Reading
Index
 List of Maps

1.1 Map of the Holy Land in the earliest Israelite period

2.1 The Holy Land in the period of the Israelite monarchies
5.1 The cities of the Decapolis
5.2 Map of the Holy Land under Roman occupation in the first century
6.1 Map of the late antique Holy Land and neighbouring regions
8.1 Map of the Crusader states in Palestine, Syria, and Anatolia
12.1 Location of sacred spaces and holy places
 Introduction

In an aide-memoire following the First World War, the British Prime

Minister David Lloyd George wrote to his French opposite number
Georges Clémenceau that Palestine was to be ‘defined in accordance
with its ancient boundaries of Dan to Beersheba’. Lloyd George had
been steeped in the Bible from his childhood, so that it is
understandable, if politically astonishing, that he should have
allowed his instinctive memory to influence his approach to modern
political realities.
Different names and geographical definitions bedevil the history
of this part of the world and none can do justice to the sweep of
what we have set out to describe in the present volume. Precisely
for that reason we have deliberately chosen the title Holy Land, a
familiar name which has never featured on any map worth its salt. It
serves to indicate that our intention here is far from political—and
that is one good reason why we have called a halt in our historical
survey at just the point where Lloyd George was clarifying his
thoughts on the post-war settlement. But just as we have stopped
short of the modern era, so we have not included anything about the
thousands of years of occupation which preceded the biblical period.
The Carmel Caves, for instance, have yielded evidence of some of
the earliest human occupation known worldwide, a testimony to the
geographical centrality of the region as a link between Africa and
Europe. Jericho has often been called the word’s first city, and
archaeology has revealed much about human occupation throughout
the millennia since then.
The Holy Land, however, conjures up an approach to territory
which is more cultural, and specifically religious, than political,
however closely intertwined the two were until relatively recently.
This modest strip of land saw the birth of two world religions,
Judaism and Christianity, and was of central significance to a third
from its earliest days, Islam. It is sobering to recall that Jerusalem
has been taken by military force by adherents of each of these three
religions; no other city anywhere is of such central religious
importance to each. It was therefore inevitable that we should begin
our history with Abraham, whom each religion reveres. It is worth
reflecting that according to our texts he owned no property in this
land apart from a tomb, however, and that he had only limited
engagement with the resident population.
The expression ‘Holy Land’ itself occurs first, and then only once,
in the Hebrew Bible, at Zechariah 2:12: ‘The Lord will inherit Judah
as his portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem’.
These words were written quite late in the Old Testament /Hebrew
Bible period, after the return of the Judeans from their exile in
Babylon from 538 bce onwards. The area was no longer independent
at this time but divided between several provinces in the mighty
Persian Empire. Neither here nor elsewhere are precise geographical
divisions supplied. We are used to referring to the Holy Land in the
much earlier period as Canaan, but that too did not exist as a single
entity; it comprised a number of minor independent city-states under
the overarching hegemony of Egypt. Then came the Israelites, and
we eventually have two kingdoms during the first half of the first
millennium bce—Israel in the northern part and Judah (including
Jerusalem) in the south. But to the west, along part of the
Mediterranean coast, there were the Philistines, so that even then
the territory was not united. And in that period the nearest we come
to the expression ‘Holy Land’ refers initially to an area outside the
land of Israel altogether, namely God’s ‘holy abode’ on Mount Sinai in
Exodus 15:13, echoing the ‘holy ground’ where Moses encountered
God in the burning bush at Exodus 3:5. From there we approach our
more familiar usage when Psalm 78:54 reminds the worshippers in
the Jerusalem temple that God ‘brought them to his holy border, the
mountain that his right hand had won’.
 Still, this is thin pickings for what became so influential a name in
later centuries. It occurs a few times in early apocryphal Jewish
writings after the close of the Old Testament period and then more
frequently in the later rabbinic sources. It is completely absent,
however, from the foundation documents of the Christian faith in the
New Testament, and it did not become common Christian parlance
(as Terra Sancta) until the Middle Ages, no doubt reflecting the
attitude of European Crusaders and pilgrims. Accordingly, its use for
maps has tended to be restricted to those included in Bibles, where
the name is used anachronistically and without proper regard for
either ancient or modern political realities. Medieval Muslims took
some interest in the term because it appears in the Qur’an, where
Moses is recorded as instructing the Israelites to ‘enter the holy land,
which God has ordained for you’, though scholars were at odds over
the definition of this term. The legal scholar Muhammad al-Tabari (d.
923), for example, says he knows of four main possibilities: ‘Mount
Sinai and its environs’, ‘Jericho’, ‘al-Sham’ (which corresponds
roughly to our term ‘The Levant’), and ‘Palestine and part of Jordan’.
Yet the term did not enjoy circulation outside academic circles;
rather, attention was paid to specific cities and sites, especially
Jerusalem (simply called al-Quds, ‘holiness’, or Bayt al-Maqdis,
‘house of sanctity’) and the Temple Mount.
It fits with this spasmodic witness from antiquity that the region
is not carefully defined; in the biblical reference cited above it seems
to be restricted to Judah, a tiny part of what we usually mean by the
term. In subsequent centuries its implicit definition will have varied
according to the prevailing political and administrative
circumstances. As with the varying definitions of the extent of the
land in the Hebrew Bible, so subsequently the various regions within
the southern Levant may be included or excluded as appropriate.
While a basic working definition could be the land between the
Jordan river on the east and the Mediterranean on the west, and
between the Sinai desert in the south and the Hermon range in the
north, the territory to the east of the Jordan was sometimes an
integral part of the land as well, while at other times areas in the
north or the west were effectively excluded. As editors we have
deliberately allowed our contributors freedom to concentrate on the
natural geographical and national borders that suit their period of
study most appropriately (see Map 1.1). Equally, it should be added,
attention to some regions quite apart from the Holy Land itself has
sometimes been imperative in order to understand what was going
on there (Babylon in the biblical period, Europe at the time of the
Crusades, and Turkey during the Ottoman period, for instance); to
exclude such material could not be justified.
Two special features mark this History from some others and so
deserve comment. First, in addition to the expected historical survey
(which, incidentally, covers some 3,000 years, so that it cannot
always enter into great detail), we have included three chapters on
themes which transcend specific periods of history but which, in
their different ways, are important to each of the three major
religions and which, furthermore, contribute to the notion of a Holy
Land: pilgrimage, sacred space, and Scripture. These are huge
topics, of course, and so can effectively only be introduced here, but
without including them we should not be able to do justice to some
of the major underlying motives and values which drove the
significant political actors.
Second, it is likely that, for the early period at least, most readers’
knowledge will derive from the Bible, and for many this remains an
inspired source for religious belief and practice. Our greatly
increased knowledge of the ancient world both from archaeological
discoveries and from newly discovered texts of ancient Israel’s
neighbours shows that we have to tread carefully when assessing
the Bible from a purely historical point of view. It is far from our
intention to cause any offence or deliberately to challenge personal
beliefs, so we have asked all our authors to write with consideration
towards those for whom a strictly historical approach may be
unfamiliar. The fact remains, however, that these ancient texts were
not written according to the methods or standards of modern
historians and their purpose was religious, moral, or didactic, using
at the same time all the stylistic skills they could bring to their task.
We do not believe that the results of modern historical research are
in any way incompatible with the continuing use of the Bible as
scripture. Nevertheless, it seems only right to warn readers in
advance that the ‘story’ of ancient history may not always coincide
with inherited preconceptions. Our hope is that all may nevertheless
learn from, as well as enjoy, this summary of current understanding,
and that through such understanding appreciation of what each of
the faiths had to offer may be deepened without the hostile
fragmentation which has characterized much of the history we trace
here and which still, sadly, is prevalent in the modern world.
 1
The Birth of Israel
Avraham Faust

The Beginning of Israel: The Biblical Narrative

The well-known biblical story of Israel’s birth and emergence is the

story of a family, and how it became a people. Abraham left his
home in Mesopotamia and emigrated to Canaan. This is where he
lived with his wife, Sarah, and his children Isaac and Ishmael. His
grandchild (Isaac’s son)—Jacob—and his great-grandchildren went
down to Egypt, as an extended family or a lineage (hamulah). They
stayed there for a few generations, multiplied, were then enslaved,
and eventually left in the epic story of the Exodus, led by Moses.
After forty years of wandering in the Sinai desert, they finally
entered Canaan under the leadership of Joshua and conquered it.
Joshua’s campaign began with the conquest of Jericho, where the
Israelites, through the help of a local harlot by the name of Rahab,
conquered the city after encircling it for seven days, blowing rams’
horns until the city walls miraculously crumbled. This was followed
by the eventual conquest of the city of ‘Ai, and Joshua’s campaigns
against coalitions of kings in the southern and northern parts of
Canaan. Following the conquest, the land was divided between the
various tribes, named after Jacob’s descendants. Despite a few side-
stories that interrupt its flow (like the story of Judah and Tamar in
Genesis 38), the story is very clear, and the narrative flows quite
smoothly.
Problems with the Narrative

Still, the story is not completely uniform, and it includes some

intriguing features. Thus, although Abraham continued to live for
fifteen years after Jacob’s birth, the story never mentions them
meeting, and while Isaac, Abraham’s son and Jacob’s father, is
mentioned in connection with both figures, Abraham and Jacob
never interact. Another feature that raises some eyebrows lies in the
apparent contradiction between the account of the conquest in the
book of Joshua and the description of the land that was not
conquered (in both the books of Joshua and Judges). Thus, cities
like Gezer, Megiddo, and Ta’anach, are explicitly mentioned as being
conquered by Joshua (Josh. 12:12, 21), but also appear in the
description of the remaining land that was not conquered (Judg.
1:27, 29). These are but two examples out of many, and to such
inconsistencies one has to add the growing discrepancies between
the available historical and archaeological information we possess
and some parts of the biblical narrative. Thus, as we shall see below
under the section ‘Archaeological Background’, during much of the
period discussed, Canaan was under Egyptian rule, but this is not
acknowledged in the biblical stories. And while such discrepancies,
or missing data, might be explained one way or another, there are
even more direct contradictions between the biblical narrative and
the historical and archaeological data at our disposal; for example,
cities that are mentioned in the conquest stories in the Bible (like ‘Ai)
did not in fact exist at the time when the stories are supposed to
have taken place (we will discuss the chronology in more detail
below under ‘Chronological Framework’). Such discrepancies
gradually eroded the historical validity of the texts. The growing
understanding (beginning centuries ago, of course) that the texts
were written down many years after the events they were supposed
to describe took place, that they went through a long process of
transmission, and that they were extensively edited for various
(mainly theological) purposes, only exacerbated the texts’ reliability
problem, casting more doubts on the historicity of large portions of
the well-known narratives.
1.1 Map of the Holy Land in the earliest Israelite period

Other elements in the stories seem to be more in line with what is

known on the basis of modern research, and the process of the
Israelite settlement in the more mountainous parts of the country,
rather than in the valleys and plains, can be identified
archaeologically (perhaps in accordance with the information
supplied in Joshua 13:1–7, 17:18, and throughout the book of
Judges, where the mountainous regions are the core of the Israelite
settlement). The name Israel is attested in an Egyptian victory stela,
dated to this period (late thirteenth century bce). Other elements of
the narrative are to a large extent beyond the realm of modern
scholarship. Thus, while the background that is reflected in the
stories about the Patriarchs and Matriarchs can be (and is) debated,
their existence, and the historicity of the stories about these
individuals and their small families, is largely outside the scope of
scholarship. After all, we cannot expect to find documents or
artefacts related to individuals, or even a family, after almost 4,000
years, and as we shall see below under ‘The Israelite Settlement:
Assessing the Evidence’, even the exact background behind the
stories continues to elude scholars.
It seems, therefore, that while some parts of the biblical narrative
(at least some of its general outlines) appear to be in line with
modern research, other parts are seriously challenged (if not
completely undermined) by it, and some elements of the story
remain outside scholarship’s domain, or are, at best, at its fringes.
Consequently, there is not much agreement among scholars about
any aspect of Israel’s early history or the historicity of the Bible.
Some scholars view the biblical narrative as mostly reliable testimony
for history, while others deny any historical value to the texts, and
view them as a very late, literary creation which is of practically no
use for the study of the periods it purportedly describes. Most
scholars are located somewhere along a broad spectrum between
these two extreme views.
 So how can we proceed and reconstruct the story of Israel’s
emergence in Canaan? It appears that a combination of the vast
archaeological data we possess and the (more limited) historical
information at our disposal, through a very careful and critical
reference to the biblical narratives, can allow us to reconstruct
Israel’s development. While very little can be viewed as a consensus
among scholars, this chapter aims to present a plausible middle
ground between the two more extreme approaches. We will begin
our journey by presenting the chronological framework, and since
the biblical story, briefly summarized above, is probably familiar, we
will proceed by describing the situation in Canaan in the second
millennium bce, in the periods which are usually known by the names
Middle Bronze Age (roughly 2000/1900–1550 bce), Late Bronze Age
(roughly 1550–1200 bce), and Iron Age I (roughly 1200–970 bce). We
will then summarize the debate regarding the Israelite settlement,
and proceed to offer a broad reconstruction of the processes
through which Israel emerged in Canaan: we will review the group’s
early developments, until the formation of the monarchy in the Iron
Age II (in the tenth century, according to most scholars; see Chapter
2), and will suggest some possible insights into the way the biblical
story—as we know it today—evolved.

Chronological Framework

Attempting to synchronize the archaeological periods with the

biblical events and stories is not always a straightforward enterprise.
The dating of archaeological periods addressed in this chapter, while
relying on synchronisms with adjacent regions, was developed
largely independently of the biblical narratives, and stands on its
own. This statement might seem somewhat surprising, given how
much biblical archaeology developed in the shadow of the biblical
texts. Still, although nobody would deny that biblical texts influenced
the archaeological inquiry in the Holy Land, scholars were usually
critical (at least, by the standards of their time) and did not
simplistically accept the biblical framework. The dating of the
Israelite settlement in Canaan is a good example of this. The
Israelite settlement is dated by most scholars, from all schools of
thought, including those who accepted the historicity of the
conquest narratives in the book of Joshua, to (roughly) 1200–1000
bce, and its beginning is dated to the late thirteenth century at the
earliest. As we shall presently see, chronologies that are based on
the Bible alone date the conquest to about 1400 bce. This 200-year
gap suggests that archaeologists followed the archaeological data,
and rejected the biblical chronology when they found that the two
did not match (although this does not negate the significance of the
biblical chronology in influencing the general landscape of historical
reconstruction). Nowadays, many of the dates are decided on the
basis of scientific methods, mainly carbon 14 dating, which
somewhat changes the traditional dating of some periods.
Biblical chronology, of course, relies first and foremost on the
dates supplied in the Bible. One can create a chronological sequence
that incorporates the period of the Patriarchs, and even the descent
to Egypt and the slavery there, and a biblical chronology of the
period of the monarchy in Israel and Judah can also clearly be
compiled. The first part—that of the Patriarchs and the slavery in
Egypt—is of course much more problematic and relies on a few
sketchy and sometimes contradictory pieces of information, while
the chronology of the period of the monarchy is more reliable. The
most problematic feature, however, is the attempt to connect the
two parts—the period of the Patriarchs and the sojourn in Egypt on
the one hand and that of the monarchy on the other—something
which relies on just one verse. 1 Kings 6:1 states that the
construction of the Temple by Solomon was completed 480 years
after the Exodus. Since the construction of the Temple was dated by
many to around 960 bce (though it might well have been somewhat
later), then the Exodus, which ended the period of slavery in Egypt,
should have occurred in about 1440 bce, and the conquest of Canaan
(after forty years in the desert) at about 1400 bce. And the Patriarchs
lived a few hundred years earlier (the exact time of the Patriarchs
depends on which biblical verses one uses to create the chronology).
 The biblical chronology, however, is not only sketchy, but even the
available data are problematic on a number of counts. First of all,
many of the numbers that are mentioned in the texts seem
typological. Forty years, for example, is used quite often, and seems
to designate a lengthy period of time—perhaps a generation—rather
than an exact duration of time. Additionally, did the Patriarchs (and
other biblical figures) really live for so many years—175 years for
Abraham, for example? Or are the numbers exaggerated? Even the
480 years that supposedly separated the Exodus from the
completion of the temple in Jerusalem—the only figure that connects
the more reliable dates of the later monarchy with those of Israel’s
prehistory—seems typological, and a number of scholars have
pointed out that it might have been a result of a schematized
counting of twelve generations (of forty years each). Thus, a more
realistic figure for twelve generations would be 240–300 years, and
would date the Exodus, and by extension the settlement in Canaan,
to the thirteenth, even the late thirteenth century (we shall return to
this issue below under ‘Israel’s emergence’).
The problematic nature of the biblical chronology is exemplified
by the debate over the date of the patriarchal narratives. Even
scholars who consider the stories to reflect a specific historical
background vary greatly in dating them, and the dates supplied
cover approximately a millennium. This great variation is partly the
result of some scholars not accepting the biblical sequence of events
as such. Still, many of those who accept the biblical sequence of
events as broadly historical simply use its very unclear nature to
support the period in which they find more cultural and social
parallels to the background which is reflected in the stories. Most of
the latter, however, place them somewhere between 2000–1500 bce.
When discussing the Exodus and the settlement, the situation is
somewhat clearer. As noted, a literal reading of 1 Kings 6:1 would
place the Exodus in the fifteenth century bce, and the conquest of
Canaan at the beginning of the fourteenth, but we have seen that a
more critical reading of the verse will direct us to the thirteenth
century bce, and this seems to be more in line with the external
evidence at our disposal (see the following section).
We will now begin our archaeological survey, which supplies the
background for Israel’s emergence, at the beginning of the second
millennium bce—in the Middle Bronze Age.

Archaeological Background

During the Middle Bronze Age (roughly 2000/1900–1550 bce) Canaan

experienced intensive urbanization, especially in the low-lying parts
of the country, and to a more limited extent also in the highlands.
Many cities were surrounded by massive earthworks, which gave the
mounds their present form and to a large extent even created the
Levantine landscape of today, which is dotted by mounds. The
political structure of the era is not completely clear, but it is likely
that the country was divided between many independent or semi-
independent city-states. The period is regarded as representing a
demographic peak in the area more generally, and some scholars
estimate the population as about 140,000 (west of the Jordan).
Although the figure is far from certain, and is questioned on many
grounds, it does suggest, when compared with the demographic
estimates of other periods, the prosperity of the period, something
also reflected in the settlement remains uncovered by
archaeologists. The relations with Egypt during the time of the
Middle Kingdom are not clear. The Execration Texts are groups of
texts, uncovered in Egypt, in which names of local rulers in Canaan
were inscribed on bowls or figurines and were apparently used for
voodoo-like purposes, probably to secure their rulers’ loyalty to
Egypt. The existence of these texts might suggest that the Egyptians
felt some authority over the region but this is not certain. In the
later part of the Middle Bronze Age (known in Egyptian history as
the Second Intermediate Period) Asian/Canaanite dynasties (known
as the Hyksos) ruled over much of lower (northern) Egypt (the Nile
delta), and the region was extensively settled by Canaanites who
maintained close connections with Canaan itself.
 During the sixteenth century bce the Hyksos were ousted and
were replaced by the eighteenth dynasty (often referred to as the
‘Hyksos expulsion’)—an episode that also marks the beginning of the
new kingdom of Egypt. This triggered many campaigns into Canaan,
and many cities were devastated in the course of the century. Many
archaeologists consider this as the beginning of the Late Bronze Age
(roughly 1550–1200 bce). Although there is much continuity in
culture between the two periods, the settlement and demography
were greatly affected by the campaigns, and despite gradual
recovery during the Late Bronze Age the country did not recover its
Middle Bronze Age demographic peak until some point in the Iron
Age. Population estimates for the end of the Late Bronze Age (i.e.
after the recovery from the nadir of the sixteenth century) are
between 46,000–70,000, and although the figures are uncertain, the
comparison with the Middle Bronze Age estimate is quite telling.
Settlements were concentrated in the lower parts of the country, and
the highlands were only sparsely settled. From at least the fifteenth
century, the country was apparently nominally subjugated to Egypt,
and this situation prevailed through the nineteenth dynasty (roughly
the thirteenth century bce) and well into the time of the twentieth
dynasty (until the middle of the twelfth century or slightly later). As
part of their rule over Canaan, the Egyptians built garrisons in a few
places (e.g. Gaza, Jaffa, Beth Shean), and the rest of the country
was divided between many city-states, which were vassals of Egypt.
Egyptian sources, and especially the Amarna letters (fourteenth
century bce), supply a wealth of information on the political and
social organization in Canaan at the time, and we know of the
existence of many marginal groups which were active outside the
settlements, and whose activity led to severe unrest. Most notable
among these groups are the notorious Habiru, composed of outcasts
or exiled people from various backgrounds, who seem to have
caused much unrest throughout the country (such groups were
already known in earlier periods). It is a common accusation made
by vassal Canaanite princes that their opponents are collaborating
with the Habiru. Another group (or groups) mentioned in the
Egyptian sources is that of the Shasu—tribal groups of pastoral
nomads that were active outside the settled areas or on their fringes
in both Cisjordan (i.e. west of the river Jordan) and Transjordan (i.e.
east of it). Towards the end of the period—during the thirteenth and
early twelfth centuries—the Egyptians apparently strengthened their
hold over Canaan. Archaeologically, this is expressed, for example,
by the construction of the so-called Egyptian governors’ residencies.
The material culture of the period reflects the existence of many
social groups and social classes. Imported pottery is abundant, and
some scholars refer to a period of internationalism. Decoration on
local pottery is common and was probably used to convey
differences between classes and groups. While not many dwellings
have been excavated in their entirety, many public buildings,
including palaces and temples, are known to archaeologists,
reflecting the social distinctions and hierarchy that characterized this
period. This is also reflected in burials: hundreds of burials of various
types are known from this period, and the differences between them
were probably also used to convey social differences between
groups, families, and even individuals.
A series of events, beginning in the late thirteenth century and
ending around the middle of the twelfth century, marks the end of
the Late Bronze Age and the transition to the Iron Age in the region.
These include the fall of the Mycenean civilization, the demise of the
Hittite Empire, the destruction of various major cities like Ugarit, and
eventually Egypt’s withdrawal from Canaan and its political decline.
As far as Canaan is concerned, these large-scale changes (marking
the beginning of the Iron Age) were accompanied by a decline in
many of the urban centres that existed in Canaan—mainly in the
lower parts of the country—as well as by the emergence of two
additional phenomena: the Sea People, most notably the Philistines,
who came from somewhere in the Aegean world or its fringes and
settled in the southern coastal plain, and the Israelite settlement in
the highlands.
The term ‘Israelite settlement’ refers to hundreds of small sites
that were established during Iron Age I—beginning at some point in
the second half of the thirteenth century—in the highlands of
Canaan in both Cisjordan and Transjordan, and mainly in the area
north of Jerusalem, in the region of Samaria. Most of the
settlements were quite small, less than 1 hectare in size, and were
not densely settled. Many of the houses were long houses, of the
type that later crystallized into the well-known four-room house
which dominated the urban landscape of the kingdoms of Israel and
Judah in the Iron Age II (tenth–sixth centuries bce), and the
economy was based on a mixture of grazing, growing grains, and
the cultivation of olives and vines. The material culture uncovered in
these sites was quite rudimentary, and included a very limited
ceramic repertoire that was composed mainly of large pithoi (mainly
of the type known as the collared rim jar), cooking pots, and bowls.
The pottery was simple and undecorated and did not include
imported pottery, not even the highly decorated Philistine pottery
that was produced in the nearby southern coastal plain, and which
constituted nearly 50 per cent of the assemblage in many eleventh-
century sites there. Hardly any burials are known from these
villages, probably because the population buried their dead in simple
inhumations in the ground.
The association of these sites with the Israelites was based not
only on the (rough) temporal and (more exact) spatial
correspondence with the biblical testimony regarding the areas in
which the Israelites settled but also on the clear connections
between the culture unearthed in these settlements and the culture
of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah of Iron Age II, as well as the
reference in an Egyptian stela by a pharaoh called Merneptah to an
ethnic group that he called Israel. The stela is dated to the late
thirteenth century, and although the exact location of this group is
not stated, most scholars view it as referring to the settlement
phenomenon described above, or part of it.

The Israelite Settlement: The Growing Debate

While the Israelite identity of the settlers was not questioned until
recently, there was a major debate on the process through which the
settlements came to be. Albrecht Alt, a German biblical scholar,
noted as long ago as 1925 that there is a discrepancy between the
description of a military conquest of the entire country, as depicted
in the main narratives in the book of Joshua, and the situation on
the ground following the conquest as described in the narratives in
the books of Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and the descriptions of the
remaining land in Joshua 13:1–7, Judges 1:27–35, in which the
Israelites settled only parts of the country, mainly in the highlands.
Moreover, from the Egyptian sources that relate to Late Bronze Age
Canaan prior to the appearance of the Israelites, it appears that the
Canaanite centres of settlement were concentrated in the valleys,
the Shephelah (the low-lying region between the Judean hill country
and the coastal plain), and the coast, whereas the highlands were
only sparsely settled prior to the Israelite settlement. Comparing the
Late Bronze Age Canaanite settlement distribution with that of the
later Israelite settlement made it clear, argued Alt, that the Israelites
settled in less hospitable regions that were largely devoid of
Canaanite settlement anyway. This picture, of settlement in sparsely
populated and inhospitable regions, does not correspond with a
military conquest in which the conquerors annihilate the entire
country and can settle wherever they choose, but rather with a more
peaceful, and mostly non-confrontational process in which the
Israelites occupied the sparsely settled regions of the country simply
because they were not populated and so were available for
settlement. Alt, therefore, concluded that the Israelite settlement
was a long, gradual, and mainly peaceful process, in which pastoral
groups crossed the Jordan in search of pastoral lands, and gradually
settled in the relatively empty parts of the country.
While the process was mainly peaceful, it was accompanied by
occasional confrontations and wars. Towards the end of the Iron
Age, when Israel’s national history was composed in Jerusalem (by
the so-called Deuteronomistic school, that was probably active from
the seventh century bce onward), the various traditions that
commemorated the warring episodes (some historical, some clearly
more mythical in origin) were combined into the monumental history
of Israel. This period of Israel’s history was situated between the
Exodus and the period of the Judges, and attributed to a local hero
of the tribe of Ephraim: Joshua. According to Alt, therefore, the
conquest that is described in the book of Joshua never actually
happened. Due to the way it reconstructs the settlement process,
this school of thought is often called the peaceful infiltration school
(or theory).
William F. Albright, sometimes regarded as the doyen of biblical
archaeology in its golden age between the two World Wars, strongly
opposed this view. He claimed that the story in Joshua is historical,
at least in its general outlines, and that the Israelite tribes did
conquer Canaan by force. Albright introduced archaeology into the
debate, and argued that archaeological inquiry can prove the
historicity of the conquest. He suggested that scholars should
excavate Canaanite cities (mainly those mentioned in the conquest
narratives), and should the Late Bronze Age occupation be
devastated towards the end of this period, it would suggest that the
conquest traditions are historical. Albright went on to excavate the
mound of Tell Beit Mirsim in the southeastern (inner) Shephelah, and
was involved in additional projects, where evidence for violent
destruction of the Canaanite cities of the Late Bronze Age was
indeed unearthed. In light of its acceptance of the historicity of the
main narratives in the book of Joshua, this school came to be known
as the unified conquest school (or theory).
The debate between these two schools continued throughout
most of the twentieth century, more and more scholars joining in,
with figures like the German biblical scholar Martin Noth and the
Israeli archaeologist Yohanan Aharoni taking the leading role in the
peaceful infiltration school, and the American biblical scholar and
archaeologist George E. Wright, the American biblical scholar John
Bright, and the Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin taking the leading
role in the unified conquest school. Members of the latter school
stressed the sites in which the Canaanite cities were devastated and
destroyed around the end of the Late Bronze Age (e.g. Tell Beit
Mirsim, Hazor, Lachish, Bethel, and many others), while their
opponents emphasized the sites which did not even exist at the time
(e.g. Arad, ‘Ai, Jericho), and the large gap between the destruction
of some of the sites that were destroyed—about a century separates
the destruction of Hazor and Lachish—which does not allow these
destructions to be attributed to a single campaign.
Notably, while these two schools were the dominant ones during
most of the twentieth century, additional theories developed over
the years. In the 1960s, and mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, a new
approach was developed (mainly by George Mendenhall and Norman
Gottwald), which viewed the settlers as being mainly of Canaanite
descent, and as local peasants who rebelled against their overlords,
and fled to the highlands, where they met a small group of people
who did come from Egypt, and together they formed ‘liberated
Israel’. Although this view—called the peasants’ revolt or social
revolution—was not directly supported by many scholars, it greatly
influenced research and, indirectly at least, altered the academic
discourse.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s an even newer approach was
developed (separately, and with some differences) by the Israeli
scholars Israel Finkelstein and Shlomo Bunimovitz, who noted that
when viewed in the long term the settlement process of Iron Age I
was only part of a larger cyclic process of settlement and
abandonment in the highlands. This approach, which resulted from
the systematic study of the discoveries made in the many
archaeological surveys conducted in the highlands, noted that during
the Early Bronze Age (third millennium bce) the highlands were
densely settled, but that settlement declined drastically in the
Intermediate Bronze Age (late third millennium). Large-scale
settlement was resumed in the early second millennium (Middle
Bronze Age), but the new settlement phase persisted for only a
relatively short period of time, and during the Late Bronze Age, as
we have seen, settlement in the highlands was again very sparse.
Then, in Iron Age I, large-scale settlement in the highlands was
resumed. Identifying this pattern, it was argued, put the settlement
wave of Iron Age I in general, and Israel’s emergence in particular,
within a broader perspective, so that it should not be viewed as a
unique event, but rather as part of the cyclic process of settlement
and abandonment in the highlands. Moreover, Finkelstein argued
that settlement abandonment and decline (as between the Middle
Bronze and the Late Bronze Ages) does not mean that the
inhabitants died or left the region, but rather that they abandoned
their settled way of life, and became semi-nomads within the very
same region. Movement along the settlement–nomadic spectrum is a
well-known phenomenon in the Middle East. Nomadism occurs when
settlers change their main economic mode, increase their herds,
leave the permanent settlement and come to rely mainly on their
herds for subsistence. When the populations’ livelihood is based on
nomadic pastoralism, argued Finkelstein, they do not leave many
material remains—hence the rarity of finds attributed to this era in
the highlands. Such phenomena are known in the Middle East in
various periods, even for reasons as mundane as overtaxation and
recruitment to the army. The reason the Middle Bronze Age settlers
in the highlands might have reverted to a more nomadic way of life
does not concern us here, but according to the new theory the
population remained as nomads in the highlands during the
following centuries, only to resettle in the late thirteenth and twelfth
centuries bce. Thus, according to this view, the settlers were not
outsiders, but rather local pastoral nomads who settled down after a
few hundred years of a pastoral livelihood that did not leave much
by way of remains in the archaeological record of the highlands. Due
to its reference to long-term processes, and following its explicit
reference to the French Annales School, this approach is sometimes
called the ‘longue durée’ approach, or the ‘cyclic process’.
The last two schools of thought (the ‘social revolution’ and the
‘longue durée’ perspectives) viewed the settlers, or most of them at
least, as ‘local’ people (whether semi-nomads or settled population)
who lived in the region for many generations, and who for various
reasons settled down in the highlands (or moved there from the
lowlands, but not from outside Cisjordan). This new trend towards
viewing the settlers as ‘locals’, and not as a new population coming
from the outside, eventually led to the development of a new school
(‘approach’ would probably be a more accurate term), which viewed
the highland settlers as Canaanites, who for some reason simply
moved into the highlands and established new villages there.
According to this latter view the settlers were not revolting peasants
or settling nomads, but rather agriculturalists from the lowlands.
This last approach is best described as evolutionary.
As for the best name to call the settlers, views differed greatly.
Many called them Israelites, as the Merneptah stela clearly indicates
that Israel was in existence at the time. Others challenged the
‘Israeliteness’ of the settlers, suggesting that we cannot distinguish
Israelites from other groups that according to the Bible settled in the
highlands, viewing the settlers simply as Canaanites. Alternatively, a
large number of scholars followed the lead of the American scholar
William G. Dever in calling the settlers Proto-Israelites,
acknowledging that their later descendants were indeed Israelites,
but leaving the settlers’ identity in Iron Age I, and that of the Israel
that was mentioned in the Egyptian inscription, as an open question.

The Israelite Settlement: Assessing the Evidence

Notably, while strongly supporting their own preferred ‘theory’, many

scholars in the 1980s and 1990s came to view the settlement
process as a very complex development, accepting that it was not
monolithic. In other words, the debate became more concentrated
on the question as to which was the main mechanism through which
the settlers settled in the highlands, and many scholars agree that
all schools of thought are probably right to some extent, and that
not all the settlers came from the same background, or that they all
settled down following a similar process.
Still, in the course of the extensive study of the settlement
process that evolved in the late 1980s and early 1990s it became
apparent that two schools of thought were gradually abandoned and
were left with hardly any supporters: the unified conquest theory,
and the social revolution. As for the former, there are simply too
many sites which either did not exist at the time of the supposed
conquest or where Canaanite life continued as usual in Iron Age I.
Moreover, as already noted, the destruction of some of the sites that
were destroyed around the Late Bronze Age—Iron Age 1 transition
(and which were used by supporters of the unified conquest theory
to support their view) are separated by a hundred years; Hazor, for
example, was destroyed by fire (which actually fits the detailed
biblical description) at around 1250 bce, whereas Lachish was
destroyed around the middle of the twelfth century, hence ruling out
the possibility that they were destroyed in one military campaign,
opening up the question as to who actually was responsible for their
destruction, and even whether this can be attributed to the Israelites
at all. As for the social revolution theory, although it was very
influential, especially by (indirectly) influencing scholars to develop
additional scenarios in which Israel was no longer viewed as an
outsider, the entirety of the evidence weighs heavily against it. Not
only is there no supportive evidence for this scenario, but many finds
seem to make it very unlikely. Thus, for example, if Canaanites from
the lower strata of society were to rebel and flee to the highlands,
and since the Shephelah and the southern coastal plain were a
major hub of population during the later part of the Late Bronze
Age, we would expect to find a major concentration of settlement in
the nearby Hebron highlands. However, this region was relatively
sparsely settled in Iron Age I, and the main centres of population in
the highlands were further away from Canaanite settlements.
Supporters of this school also failed to explain the emergence of a
new identity group—Israel—as a result of a social revolution which
might be expected to replace the rulers or regime, but not to create
new ethnicities. Finally, supporters of this school failed to explain the
new material culture that evolved in the highlands.
The debate between the remaining theories regarding the main
source of population for the settlement process can be divided into
two aspects: (1) did the settlers come from within the population of
Cisjordan (as maintained by both the cyclic process and the
evolution theories) or from outside it (the peaceful infiltration
model)? (2) Did the settlers come from a semi-nomadic background
(peaceful infiltration and cyclic process) or did they come from the
sedentary population (evolution theory)? Obviously, those who
believe that the Israelites were sedentary also claim that they were
indigenous to Cisjordan.
Evaluating the Cyclic Process and the Local Nomads School:
The idea that all the nomads were local is unlikely. First, the end of
the Late Bronze Age was a period of decisive population movements,
which seem to have impacted the entire region. It is, therefore,
extremely unlikely that the highlands west of the Jordan were alone
left untouched by the social upheavals and migrations of the time.
Moreover, identifying the central hill country of Cisjordan as the
‘pool’ from which the settling population was drawn ignores the fact
that the Iron Age I settlement process was not unique to Cisjordan,
but took place also across large segments of the highlands east of
the Jordan River. Thus, even those who do not believe that a ‘foreign
intrusion’ of population is responsible for the settlement should not
exclude Transjordan as the possible place of origin of the settlers.
This means that a ‘local nomads’ theory, which limits the potential
origin of the settlers to Cisjordan, is unlikely, and does not fit the
historical and geographical contexts.
This leaves us with two possible theories: sedentary Canaanites
(the evolution theory) and the peaceful infiltration model.
Evaluating the Sedentary Canaanite Origin School: The
rationale in arguing for the Canaanite origins of the highlands
population was based, first and foremost, on a total rejection of their
nomadic origins. There are also some more positive arguments in
favour of a Canaanite origin as well. The negative argument is that
the idea of the nomadic origins of the Israelites was based on only a
simplistic reading of the biblical material and on some old-fashioned,
romantic notions of the desert and desert life, which have nothing to
do with reality. The positive argument is that the Iron Age I villages
show evidence of sophisticated agriculture; hence the settlers were
experienced farmers, and could not have been nomads.
 Both arguments, however, are very problematic. While nobody
would deny that romantic notions of desert life influenced previous
research, modern and sophisticated studies of Bedouin societies
illuminate the processes by which they settle down, and show that
there is nothing improbable about such processes. As for the
sophisticated agriculture argument, this is problematic on a number
of grounds. First of all, even if one accepts that pastoral nomads are
not expected to be familiar with sophisticated agriculture, there is no
reason to attribute the archaeological evidence of such agriculture to
the beginning of the settlement process. In fact, the finds are more
likely to date to the later phase. After all, even if the settlers were of
semi-nomadic origin, they could still be expected to master
agriculture after a few generations of settling down and practising it!
Even more disturbing is the fact that evidence of the very same
advanced agriculture is usually missing from Late Bronze Age
Canaanite settlements, from which supporters of this theory suggest
the settlers came. It is quite clear, therefore, that the attempts to
claim that the settlers could not have originated from pastoral
nomads are not substantiated by the available data, and the attempt
to connect them with the Late Bronze Age sedentary population
does not stand scrutiny. The dissociation of the Iron Age I villages
from the Late Bronze Age sedentary population is supported also by
the clear differences between the material culture of the highland
settlements and that of the Late Bronze Age in most respects.
Although there is similarity in the form of the vessels unearthed in
Iron Age I villages and the Late Bronze Age pottery forms (for
example of cooking pots and bowls), other forms are different (for
example those of the collared rim jars), and major differences can
be seen in the repertoire of ceramic vessels of the two different
periods. The Late Bronze Age ceramic assemblages were very rich
and diverse, while the ones of Iron Age I were very poor and
limited. The lack of decoration on Iron Age I pottery is another
major break between the two ceramic traditions. It must be stressed
that the ‘poor’ nature of the Iron Age I assemblages cannot be
attributed to its rural nature, as most villages in other periods, and
even Iron Age I villages elsewhere, exhibit more varied and
elaborate assemblages.
Moving to other types of material culture, the differences are
even more striking. The architecture in highland villages includes the
prototype of a building that developed into the famous four-room
house, which is a new form of long house, greatly deviating from the
Bronze Age tradition of courtyard houses and row houses.
Additionally, hardly any burials were found in the highland villages,
where the population apparently buried its dead in simple
inhumations in the ground. This greatly differed from the Late
Bronze Age tradition, in which hundreds of burials are known, of
dozens of different types, representing various different classes and
groups. It is quite clear that the material culture of the highland
settlers greatly differed from what is known about the earlier
sedentary population of the Late Bronze Age.
Finally, supporters of the evolution theory did not provide an
explanation as to why a new ethnic identity was created. After all,
the movement of Canaanite farmers from one site to another cannot
be expected on its own to have created new ethnicities or identity
groups.
The Peaceful Infiltration School: The unlikelihood of both the
‘longue durée’ and the evolution schools of thought leads us back to
the peaceful infiltration model as a central process in the emergence
of Israel, even if in a more sophisticated manner. Notably, some
scholars have suggested that various aspects of the archaeological
evidence might actually positively support the pastoral origin of the
settlers, for example the big courtyards that were reported in a
number of the early settlement sites (like Izbet Sartah and Giloh)
which probably served as corrals (the significance of sheep and
goats can also be seen in the animal remains in the settlement
villages). Many material traits, common in the highland villages, like
the poor and limited ceramic repertoire, the lack of decoration, and
the use of simple inhumations in the ground, and probably also the
ethos that lies behind them (of which more below under ‘The Shasu
and an All Israelite Identity in the Late Thirteenth and Early Twelfth
Centuries bce’), also correspond with the settlers’ supposed pastoral
background and are, conversely, not in line with a supposed
sedentary background. All these traits are in line with the suggestion
that the core group of the settlers came from a pastoral background,
like the Shasu—tribal groups of pastoral nomads that were active
outside the settled areas—who are mentioned in the Egyptian
sources of the second millennium bce.

Israel’s Emergence

The settlement process was, then, a complex one, and it involved

peoples of various origins who settled in the highlands over a long
period of time, and as a result of various differing processes.
Opinions about the emergence of Israel vary greatly. Some scholars
believe that the biblical narratives preserve much history while
others reject it outright. In the following, I will try to present a more
nuanced reconstruction of the settlement process, reconstructing
how Israel first appeared on the scene, and discussing how it
gradually evolved as various additional groups were assimilated into
it.

The Shasu and an All Israelite Identity in the Late

Thirteenth and Early Twelfth Centuries bce

As noted above, the evidence seems to suggest that the first group
of settlers was indeed an outsider group—probably of Shasu, as we
shall see later in this section, coming from somewhere in the east or
south. This group most likely crossed the Jordan peacefully, over a
period of time, while interacting with the local sedentary Canaanite
population, exchanging their herd product surpluses with grains
produced by the sedentary population, and supplementing their own
seasonal agriculture. This involved limited hostility, but only rarely
full-scale clashes. After some time, however, the pastoral groups
faced a very strong opposition from the Egyptian-Canaanite city-
state system in the region. The Egyptian Empire strengthened its
hold over the region at this time, and consequently prevented these
pastoral groups from interacting with the city-states of the lowlands.
The pastoralist Shasu, therefore, had to settle down in the relatively
vacant areas of the highlands, and to grow their own grains, since
they could not exchange it anymore with the settled population of
the lowlands. The Shasu, however, were not alone. Additional groups
of outcasts and displaced Canaanites were also shunned, and most
likely joined them in the process. Identities are always created in
contrast to other identities, and the highland settlers formed their
identity vis-à-vis the Egyptian-Canaanite system of the lowlands.
They took customs that they already practised, and which sharply
contrasted with the practices of the lowlanders, and made them into
symbols or ‘flags’ around which they could gather and strengthen
their difference from their ‘enemies’ or their ‘other’. Thus, while the
Late Bronze Age Canaanite societies made extensive use of
decoration on pottery and of imported ceramics for delivering
messages related to status and identity, it was no great
inconvenience for the pastoral population, who as far as we know
did not use decorated and imported pottery anyway (or, at least,
used it only sparsely) to make this avoidance into a binding type of
behaviour that could be used to mark the contrast between
themselves and the population of Egyptian-ruled Canaan. The very
traits chosen by the highlanders to mark their boundaries with the
lowlanders are in line with them being Shasu, and they clearly reflect
non-Canaanite habits (Canaanite groups did not completely avoid
decoration, but used differentiated styles of decoration to mark
themselves as different from other groups). A similar phenomenon
can be seen in the poor ceramic assemblage used by the settlers. It
is likely that the pastoral population used a very limited repertoire
prior to their settlement, and it is likely that this habit was now used
to demarcate the differences between the settlers in the highlands
and the Canaanite population. Similarly, various lines of evidence
(including what was apparently a Shasu cemetery that was
unearthed in Transjordan) suggest that the semi-nomadic Shasu
buried their dead in simple inhumations in the ground. This contrasts
with the elaborated and varied burials of Late Bronze Age Canaan,
and this difference was no doubt also used to demarcate the
boundaries between the groups.
An interesting common denominator to all the above traits is that
they appear to reflect an ethos, or an ideology, of simplicity or
egalitarianism. Such an ideology sharply contrasted with the ethos of
the Canaanite society of the Late Bronze Age and the hierarchical
Egyptian ruling system, as reflected in both the period’s material
culture as well as the Egyptian sources. This contrast served the
settlers well, as it stressed the differences between themselves and
the Egypto-Canaanite system that pushed them to the highlands.
Under such circumstances, in which the highlands were settled and
isolated from the lowland settlement, the core Shasu group could
easily have adopted some other groups that were similarly shunned
by the lowland system, with all these groups united ‘against’ their
common enemy or ‘other’, the Egypto-Canaanite system of the
lowlands. The Shasu and those who joined them are most likely the
group which Merneptah mentioned in his famous late thirteenth
century stela: Israel.
Over time the group grew in size as a result of both natural
growth and the joining of additional members. Still, although
composed of many sub-groups, with different histories and practices,
until the middle of the twelfth century bce the group as a whole
(Israel) maintained very definite boundaries (as reflected in the
archaeological record and in the distribution of the above-mentioned
traits), in order to assert its unified identity and mark itself off from
the Egypto-Canaanite system that dominated the lowlands. The
Egypto-Canaanite system was, therefore, the anvil on which Israel
crystallized and defined itself, and which helped the various groups
that gradually came to compose Israel to attain their common
identity.

The (Re)emergence of Local Identities in the Late Twelfth

century bce
In the mid-twelfth century (or slightly afterwards) Egypt withdrew
from Canaan. The highland group continued to grow, but did not
have much interaction with the weakened Canaanite centres of the
lowlands. While the common Israelite identity—shared by many sub-
groups—probably continued to exist, the settlers now tended to
stress local, regional, or tribal identities (sometimes also called
totemic identities), probably related to both the former, pre-Israelite
identities of the settlers and also to local development in the
highlands, at the expense of the more inclusive Israelite one. The
process continued over the course of the late twelfth and eleventh
centuries bce, with the local identities becoming ever more
pronounced and more important than the larger Israelite one. At this
stage these groups included not only the Shasu and some fringe,
Habiru-like groups, but also individuals and groups that came from
within Canaanite society, but which due to various political
circumstances made alliances with the highlanders. Those probably
included groups like Asher, which is the name of both one of Jacob’s
sons (and therefore one of Israel’s tribes) and a local tribe in
Canaan. It is perfectly possible that Asher was just a single local
group that at some point became part of Israel (and was later
viewed as part of the ‘family’, and added to the family tree, as
reflected in the biblical stories).

Stressing ‘Israel’ Again: The Eleventh and Early Tenth

Centuries bce

In the late eleventh and early tenth centuries, a new powerful ‘other’
became significant. The Philistines were newcomers from outside the
region, probably from somewhere (perhaps from more than one
place) within the Aegean world or its fringes. The Egyptian sources
mentioned the Philistines’ foreign origins, and the Bible locates their
origins in the Island of Crete (e.g. Amos 9:7, Jer. 47:4). Their foreign
origin is clearly expressed also in their material culture, which
included many foreign traits such as their locally produced Mycenean
IIIC1 pottery (also known as Philistine monochrome) which later
evolved into the bichrome Philistine pottery. In addition, one could
cite the use of hearths in their structures, the use of cooking jugs,
the high proportion of pork in their diet, and the list could go on.
The Philistines settled in the southern coastal plain as early as the
first half of the twelfth century bce, but they were probably confined
to the coastal plain because of their hostile relations with the
Egypto-Canaanite system. Gradually, especially towards the end of
the twelfth and in the eleventh century bce (after Egypt withdrew
from Canaan), they began to expand, and at some point started to
encroach on the highlands. The Philistines were the most powerful
group in Canaan in the eleventh century bce, with large and
elaborate cities—Ashkelon might have covered up to 60 hectares and
Ekron covered around 20 hectares, compared with Canaanite towns
of only a few hectares, and Israelite villages of about 1 hectare or
less. The size of the Philistine centres, and the finds unearthed in
them, reflect a very hierarchical and complex society, with public
buildings and an elaborate material culture. This powerful group’s
encroachment into the highlands resulted in a very asymmetrical
type of interaction between the complex, highly urbanized Philistines
and the simple villagers of the highlands. Under such circumstances,
however, the highlanders de-emphasized the importance of their
local identities, and re-stressed their more inclusive one—that of
‘Israel’—in order to face the common enemy. Thus, the highlanders
used existing features, like their egalitarian ethos, and their use of
simple and undecorated pottery, which were also very suitable for
defining themselves in contra-distinction to the highly hierarchical
Philistines with their decorated pottery, and invested new meaning in
them.
In addition, other traits, which had not hitherto served to mark
identity, were invested with new meanings, which could now serve
to highlight and stress the differences between themselves and the
non-local Philistines. These traits include, for example, the taboo on
pork, and circumcision. Pork was very popular among the Philistines,
probably a habit that they brought with them from outside the
region. One impact of this habit was that other groups, which did
not consume much pork to start with, completely avoided this meat
in order to differentiate themselves from the Philistines (and the
latter, interestingly enough, increased the percentage of pork in their
diet during the twelfth and eleventh centuries bce, probably for the
same reason, i.e. to demarcate boundaries). Pork avoidance was not
a good trait to demarcate Israelites from Canaanites (who also
consumed small quantities of pork), but it was a very good way to
demarcate the Israelites from the Philistines, and pork was therefore
strictly avoided in this context. As for circumcision, the Iron Age I
Philistines were probably uncircumcised (this not only is evidenced
by the biblical testimony but can also be seen in Egyptian sources).
Many of the local groups in Canaan, however, were circumcised, so
this trait, just like pork avoidance, became important only once the
Israelites interacted with the uncircumcised Philistines.
Thus the Philistines became another anvil on which Israelite
identity was forged and renegotiated.

Israel’s Development

It should be noted that throughout its history, additional groups

joined Israel. It is even possible that in the long run the number of
people who were of settled Canaanite origin exceeded those who
were of Shasu origin. What is important, however, is not the total
number of peoples who gradually joined in, or their relative
proportions within the Israel group, but the process by which the
new group was created, and how it defined itself. The first group
was, following the above reconstruction, composed of Shasu. Israel’s
ethos and self-identity were therefore based on that of this core
group. This might explain the importance of the nomadic ideals that
were memorialized in some parts of the Bible. As more groups joined
in, they too influenced Israel’s self-definition and added their own
stories and traditions, and in so doing gradually transformed Israel.
What is important for the present discussion, however, is that the
various new groups joined an existing one, and rather quickly
assimilated into it, that is they adopted its basic or core ethos and
history, while only slowly and gradually changing it.
A good comparison might be society in the USA today. This is an
English-speaking society. Still, if one examines the ancestors of
present-day Americans it becomes clear that most of them did not
speak English before arriving in North America (or before the
Europeans arrived in the case of Native Americans). So how come
that all their descendants speak English, and not any other
language? This is because the original group spoke English. All the
other groups which gradually assimilated into this group, while
constantly changing it, accepted its core traits. English was one such
trait, and hence every ‘new-comer’ adopted it. The same is true for
ancient Israel. Although most Israelites in the period of the
monarchy were perhaps of different origins, and not descendants of
Shasu, they nevertheless accepted the core values and history of the
original Israel as they merged into it, while gradually modifying it
and expanding its history, as we will see below under ‘The History of
Israel’. The Exodus story, to be discussed next, was one such story
and one which also became the story of all Israel.

The Exodus Group and the Exodus Story

While some scholars view the Exodus story as, generally speaking,
reliable historically, and others see it as a late invention with no
historical value whatsoever, most believe that the narrative has a
certain historical core, even if things did not take place in the
manner described in the Bible. According to this view, some of the
highland settlers (probably a small minority) came, one way or the
other, from Egypt. Though the size of this group is debated, most
scholars agree that it was in the range of a few thousands, or even
perhaps only hundreds. Still, despite the limited size of this group, it
appears that during the process of Israel’s ethno-genesis its story
became part of the common history of all the Israelites.
When and how did the Exodus story become a national epic? Was
the Exodus group part of Merneptah’s Israel? Most of those who
accept some historical core for the story of the Exodus from Egypt
date it to the thirteenth century, at the time of Ramesses II, while
others date it to the twelfth century, during the time of Ramesses
III. Clearly, if there was an Exodus in the thirteenth century this
group of people could have been part of Merneptah’s Israel.
However, despite the assumed significance of this group, it is likely
that it was incorporated at a later stage, only after Merneptah’s time,
or at least that it was not identical to Merneptah’s Israel. The way
divine names were used in antiquity was important as a means to
mark identity. Israel uses the theophoric component ‘El’, whereas the
Exodus group, which clearly brought with it some of what became
the history of Israel, was apparently devoted to the God YHWH, who
shows up in the many biblical names which end with -iah or which
begin with Je- or Jo-. Thus, it is likely that Israel preceded the arrival
of the Exodus group, or was at least initially separate from it, and it
is possible that the Exodus group was not Israel’s ‘core’ group, or at
least was only part of it.
The process by which all of Israel came to share this Exodus
history, which was really the history of only some of them, is
illustrated by the American archaeologist, William G. Dever:

The ‘Exodus–Conquest’ story is perhaps really about a small group … A

simple analogy may help us to understand this phenomenon. In mainstream
American tradition, we all celebrate Thanksgiving as though we ourselves
had come to these shores on the Mayflower. That is the myth; yet in fact,
most of us got here some other way…

While Dever’s words seem to give a general idea of how an

important story of one group can become that of a much larger one,
we still need to ask why the story of a possibly late-coming group
(or at least not the main group) was accepted by the other
components of Israel, and turned into a ‘national epic’, shared by all.
We have seen that Merneptah’s Israel defined itself against the
Egyptian Empire (which in a sense indirectly forced them to settle)
and its subordinated Canaanite city-states, and this in itself made
the Exodus story easy to accept by the original ‘core’ group. The
Egyptian oppression of Canaan, which lasted until about 1140 bce,
made the Canaanite groups also prone to accept the story. Memories
of oppression in Egypt, or by Egypt, were therefore shared by all
components of the emerging Israel (and to this one can also add the
memory of the so-called Hyksos expulsion), and this made the
reception of the Exodus story quite easy (regardless of the question
of what exactly constituted the story in its early stages).

The History of Israel

More stories and traditions were probably incorporated and evolved

in a similar fashion, and in a long drawn out process were combined
and edited so as to create the common history of all Israel, which (in
the final form known to us from the Bible) was written down only
centuries later.
While the core traditions were always integral parts of the group’s
history and values, new elements were being added all the time, and
gradually merging with the core traditions. Some new traditions
probably remained ‘local’ and did not ever become the tradition of all
Israel, while some others, probably those that better suited the
needs of the group at crucial junctions of its history, became more
widespread.
Thus, while some scholars raise strong points in support of the
historicity of the narratives about the Patriarchs, claiming that even
some details (like the price of slaves) are accurate, others have
pointed out that the stories about Abraham focus on the southern
part of the land of Israel, especially concentrating on sites that were
located in Iron Age II within the kingdom of Judah. The Jacob
stories, on the other hand, focus on the north, and mainly on sites
that were within the kingdom of Israel in Iron Age II. Abraham, who
also figures more in the stories which use YHWH (Yahweh) as God’s
name, was therefore interpreted by many as the original ancestor in
the traditions of southern groups. Jacob, who figures prominently in
the stories which use Elohim as God’s name, was interpreted as a
major figure in the history of northern groups. While clearly the
patriarchal figures cannot be associated directly with the Iron Age II
political entities (i.e. Jacob with the kingdom of Israel, and Abraham
with the kingdom of Judah), if one follows the above interpretation
then it is possible that the different stories were woven together in a
similar fashion to the process suggested above for the reception of
the Exodus story, in which different stories became central as time
went by and as needs changed, gradually incorporating more
traditions and stories into what became a (usually) coherent all-
embracing narrative.
This explanation can also help explain the intriguing fact that the
stories never mention any meeting between Abraham and Jacob. If
the story as we know it is composed of the amalgamation of
different local ‘ancestors’ into a single, chronologically evolving story,
no such meeting is to be expected. Another possibility is that stories
which took place over centuries were telescoped into the life of just
three figures. At an even later stage, the narrative of the conquest
most probably crystallized, incorporating many separate memories
and stories, some historical and some of which were regarded as
historical by the editor, but which were probably not (e.g. the story
of the conquest of ‘Ai).
While the process is shrouded in mystery, and we cannot be
positive regarding the truth of this reconstruction in general, or even
of its separate details, the above is a possible, indeed plausible,
reconstruction of the process by which the biblical story developed
into its current form, serving the evolving needs of Israel.
Is the story historical? As noted above, this is very difficult to
answer. Some parts clearly are, others are probably not, and
scholars still debate many issues. The scenario presented above is
also not certain, and only presents one possible way, plausible at
best, in which the story could have evolved.
This might be a good place to refer to the concepts of
‘archaeological truth’ and ‘historical truth’, as developed by the
Jewish thinker usually known as Ahad Ha’am (Asher Zvi Hirsch
Ginsberg, 1856–1927). In 1904 he published an article called
‘Moses’, in which he addressed the controversy over whether Moses
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believed that there was any sincerity in such a pretext; and he indeed was
one of those who had been most opposed to her purpose; asking scornfully
what advantage she supposed she was to get by going among strangers?
Was she better than the other girls, that she could not make herself
comfortable at home? Was there not plenty to do there, if that was what she
wanted? Was there not the parish, if she wanted more work? Roger had
been alike indignant and astonished. But the thing was done, and he was in
town, not very far off from where she was, with an hour or two to spare. He
went with a secret antagonism against everything he was likely to see. The
very name of the place nettled him. The ‘House!’ as if it was a penitentiary
or shelter for the destitute, which his sister had been obliged to find refuge
in. He was admitted on giving full particulars as to who he was, and
ushered into the bare little room, covered with dusty matting, with religious
prints of the severest character on the walls, and bookshelves full of school-
books. St. Monica was emblazoned on the door of it, which name offended
him too. Could not the foolish people call it the brown room, or the matted
room, or by any common appellation, instead of by the name of a saint,
whom nobody had ever heard of? Agnes came to him, not in the dress
which she wore out of doors, but in a simple black gown, fortunately for
her, for what avalanche of objections would have tumbled upon her head
had she come in to him in her cape and poke-bonnet! He was pleased to see
his sister and pleased by her delight at the sight of him, but yet he could not
smooth his brow out of displeasure. It gave him an outlet for the subdued
irritation with which he had received his dismissal from the Square.
‘Well, Agnes,’ he said, ‘so here you are in this papistical place. I had an
hour to spare, and I thought I would come and see you.’
‘I am so glad to see you, Roger. I was just thinking of them all at home.’
‘At home! You were anxious enough to get away from home. I wish
anyone knew why. I can’t fancy anything so unnatural as a girl wishing to
leave home, except on a visit, or if she is going to be married, or that sort of
thing—but to come to a place like this! Agnes, I am sure there is no one
belonging to you who knows why.’
‘Yes,’ said Agnes, quietly, ‘because I wanted to do something more, to
do some duty in the world, not to be like a vegetable in the garden.’
‘That is just the slang of the period,’ said wise Roger. ‘You can’t say
there is not plenty to do with all the children to look after; and one never
can get a button sewed on now.’
‘Louisa and Liddy were quite able to do all and more than all—why
should there be three of us sewing on buttons? And what were we to come
to—nothing but buttons all our lives?’
‘Why, I suppose,’ said Roger, doubtfully—‘what do girls ever come to?
You would have been married some time.’
‘And that is such a delightful prospect!’ cried Agnes, moved to sarcasm.
‘Oh, Roger, is it such an elevated life to jog along as papa—as we have seen
people do, thinking of nothing but how to get through the day, and pay the
bills, and have a good dinner when we can, and grumble at our neighbours,
the children running wild, and the house getting shabby?’ said Agnes,
unconsciously falling into portraiture, ‘and talking about the service of
God? What is the service of God? Is it just to be comfortable and do what
you are obliged to do?’
‘Well, I suppose it is not to make yourself uncomfortable,’ cried Roger,
shirking the more serious question. ‘Though, as for that, if you wished, you
could be quite uncomfortable enough at home. What do they mean by
calling a room after a woman, St. Monica? and all these crucifixes and
things—and that ridiculous dress—I am glad to see you have the sense not
to wear it here at least.’
‘I wear it when I go out; it is not ridiculous; one can go where one
pleases, that is, wherever one is wanted, in a Sister’s dress, and the roughest
people always respect it,’ said Agnes, warmly. ‘Oh, Roger, why should you
be so prejudiced? Do you know what kind of people are here? Poor
helpless, friendless children, that have got no home, and the Sisters are like
mothers to them. Is that no good? What does it matter about the name of the
room, if a poor destitute baby is fed and warmed, and made happy in it?
Children that would starve and beg and rob in the streets, or die—that
would be the alternative, if these Sisters with their absurd dresses and their
ridiculous ways, that make you so angry, did not step in.’
‘Well, I suppose they may do some good,’ said Roger, unwillingly. ‘You
need not get so hot about it; but you might do just as much good with less
fuss. And why should you shut yourself up in a penitentiary as if you had
done something you were ashamed of? Why should you slave and teach for
your living? We are not so poor as that. If the brothers all work,’ said
Roger, with a not unbecoming glow of pride, ‘there ought always to be
plenty for the sisters at home.’
‘But I must live my life too, as well as my brothers; and do what I can
before the night comes,’ said Agnes, with a little solemnity, ‘when no man
can work.’
Roger was subdued by the quotation more than by all her reasons. He
could not, as he said to himself, go against Scripture, which certainly did
exhort every man to work before the night cometh. Did that mean every
woman too?
‘The short and the long of it is,’ he said, half sulkily, half melted, ‘that
you were never content at home, Agnes. Are you contented here?’
That was a home question. Agnes shrank a little and faltered, avoiding a
direct reply.
‘You do not look very contented yourself. Have you been to see Cara?’
she said. ‘How is she? I have not heard a word of her since I came here.’
‘Oh, Cara is well enough. She is not like you, setting up for eccentric
work. She is quite happy at home. Miss Cherry is there at present, looking
after her. It is a handsome house, choke full of china and things. And I
suppose, from all I hear, she has a very jolly life,’ said Roger, with a certain
shade of moroseness creeping over his face, ‘parties and lots of friends.’
‘I daresay she does not forget the people she used to like, for all that,’
said Agnes, more kind than he was, and divining the uncontent in his face.
‘Oh, I don’t know. There are some people who never leave her alone,
who pretend to be old friends too,’ said Roger, ruefully. ‘And they live next
door, worse luck; they are always there. Other old friends have no chance
beside these Merediths.’
‘Oh!—is their name Meredith?’
‘Yes; do you know them? There is one, a palavering fellow, talks twenty
to the dozen, and thinks no end of himself—a sneering beggar. I don’t mind
the other so much; but that Oswald fellow——’
‘Oh!—is his name Oswald?’
‘I believe you know him. Do swells like that come a-visiting here?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Agnes, anxiously smoothing down suspicion; ‘there is a
name—much the same—in Sister Mary Jane’s list of subscriptions. Oh, yes;
and the gentleman carried a poor child to the hospital so very kindly. I
noticed the name, because—because there is a poet called Oswald, or
Owen, or something, Meredith. I wondered,’ said Agnes, faltering, telling
the truth but meaning a fib, ‘whether it could be the same.’
‘Quite likely,’ said Roger; ‘the very kind of fellow that would write
poetry and stuff—a sentimental duffer. To tell the truth,’ he added, with
immense seriousness, ‘I don’t like to have little Cara exposed to all his
rubbishing talk. She is as simple as a little angel, and believes all that’s said
to her; and when a fellow like that gets a girl into a corner, and whispers
and talks stuff——’ Roger continued, growing red and wroth.
Agnes did not make any reply. She turned round to examine the school-
books with a sudden start—and, oh me! what curious, sudden pang was
that, as if an arrow had been suddenly shot at her, which struck right
through her heart?
‘Cara should not let anyone whisper to her in corners,’ she said at last,
with a little sharpness, after her first shock. ‘She is too young for anything
of that sort; and she is old enough to know better,’ she added, more sharply
still. But Roger did not notice this contradiction. He was too much
interested to notice exactly what was said.
‘She is too young to be exposed to all that,’ he said, mournfully; ‘how is
she to find out at seventeen which is false and which is true? There now,
Agnes, see what you might have done, had not you shut yourself up here.
Nothing so likely as that Cara would have asked you to go and pay her a
visit—and you could have taken care of her. But you know how romantic
poor dear Miss Cherry is—and I should not be a bit surprised if that child
allowed herself to be taken in, and threw herself away.’
And would this be the fault of Agnes, who had shut herself up in the
House, and thus precluded all possibility of being chosen as the guardian
and companion of Cara? She smiled a little to herself, not without a touch
of bitterness; though, indeed, after all, if help to one’s neighbour is the chief
thing to be considered in life, it was as worthy a work to take care of Cara
as to teach the orphans their A B C. This news of Roger’s, however,
introduced, he did not well know how, a discord in the talk. He fell musing
upon the risk to which his little lady was exposed, and she got distracted
with other thoughts. She sat beside him, in her plain, long black gown,
every ornament of her girlhood put away from her; her hands, which had
been very pretty white hands, loosely clasped on the table before her, and
showing some signs of injury. It is only in romances that the hands of
women engaged in various household labours retain their beauty all the
same. Agnes had now a little of everything thrown in her way to do, and
was required not to be squeamish about the uses she put these pretty hands
to; and it could not be denied that they were a little less pretty already. She
looked down upon them in her sudden rush of thought and perceived this.
What did it matter to the young handmaid of the poor whether or not her
hands were as pretty as usual? but yet, with an instantaneous comparison,
her mind rushed to Cara, who had no necessity to soil her pretty fingers,
and to the contrast which might be made between them. What did it matter
that it was wicked and wrong of Agnes, self-devoted and aspiring to be
God’s servant, to feel like this? The wave of nature was too strong for her,
and carried her away.
‘Well, I must be going,’ said Roger, with a sigh. ‘I am glad that I have
seen you, and found you—comfortable. There does not seem much here to
tempt anyone; but still if you like it—I am coming back next Sunday. Aunt
Mary is pleased to have me, and they don’t seem to care at home whether
one goes or stays. I shall probably look in at the Square. Shall I tell Cara
about you? She knows you have gone away from home, but not where you
are. She might come to see you.’
‘I don’t want any visitors,’ said Agnes, with a little irritation of feeling,
which, with all the rest of her misdeeds, was laid up in her mind to be
repented of. ‘We have no time for them, for one thing; and half-measures
are of little use. If I do not mean to give myself altogether to my work, I had
better not have come at all. Do not mention my name to Cara. I don’t want
to see anyone here.’
‘Well, I suppose you are right,’ said Roger. ‘If one does go in for this
sort of thing, it is best to do it thoroughly. What is that fearful little cracked
kettle of a bell? You that used to be so particular, and disliked the row of the
children, and the loud talking, and the bad music, how can you put up with
all this? You must be changed somehow since you came here.’
‘I ought to be changed,’ said Agnes, with a pang in her heart. Alas, how
little changed she was! how the sharp little bell wore her nerves out, and the
rustle of the children preparing for chapel, and the clanging of all the doors!
She went with Roger to the gate, which had to be unlocked, to his
suppressed derision.
 ‘Have you to be locked in?’ the irreverent youth said. ‘Do they think you
would all run away if you had the chance?’
Agnes took no notice of this unkind question. She herself, when she first
arrived, had been a little appalled by the big mediæval key, emblem,
apparently, of a very tremendous separation from the world; and she would
not acknowledge that it meant no more than any innocent latch. When
Roger was gone she had to hasten upstairs to get her poke-bonnet, and rush
down again to take her place among her orphans for the evening service in
the chapel, which the House took pleasure in calling Evensong. She knelt
down among the rustling, restless children, while the cracked bell jangled,
and a funny little procession of priests and choristers came from the vestry
door. They were all the most excellent people in the world, and worthy of
reverence in their way; but no procession of theatrical supers was ever more
quaintly comic than that which solemnly marched half-way round the
homely little chapel of the House, chanting a hymn very much out of tune,
and ending in the best of curates—a good man, worthy of any crowning,
civic or sacred, who loved the poor, and whom the poor loved, but who
loved the ceremonial of these comic-solemn processions almost more than
the poor. With a simple, complaisant sense of what he was doing for the
Church, this good man paced slowly past the kneeling figure of the young
teacher, motionless in her black drapery, with her head bent down upon her
hands. No mediæval Pope in full certainty of conducting the most
impressive ceremonial in the world could have been more sincerely
convinced of the solemnising effect of his progress, or more simply
impressed by its spiritual grandeur; and no mediæval nun, in passionate
penitence over a broken vow, could have been more utterly bowed down
and prostrate than poor Agnes Burchell, guilty of having been beguiled by
the pleasant voice and pleasant looks of Oswald Meredith into the dawn of
innocent interest in that mundane person: she, who had so short time since
offered herself to God’s service—she, who had made up her mind that to
live an ideal life of high duty and self-sacrifice was better than the poor
thing which vulgar minds called happiness. The cracked bell tinkled, and
the rude choristers chanted, and all the restless children rustled about her,
distracting her nerves and her attention. All this outside of devotion, she
said to herself, and a heart distracted with vulgar vanities within! Was this
the ideal to which she had vowed herself—the dream of a higher life? The
children pulled at her black cloak in consternation, and whispered, ‘Teacher,
teacher!’ when the service began, and she had to stumble up to her feet, and
try to keep them somewhere near the time in their singing. But her mind
was too disturbed to follow the hymn, which was a very ecstatic one about
the joys of Paradise. Oh, wicked, wicked Agnes! what was she doing, she
asked herself—a wolf in sheep’s clothing amid this angelic band?
 CHAPTER XXVII.

THE WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING.

This was a time of great agitation for the two houses so close to each other,
with only a wall dividing the troubles of the one from the excitement of the
other, and a kind of strange union between them, linking them more closely
in the very attempt at disjunction. The greater part of the private commotion
which was going on, as it were, underground was concealed from Cara as
not a proper subject of discussion before her; but it was not necessary to
take any steps of the kind with Oswald, who, in his light-hearted
indifference, ignored it comfortably, and followed his own devices through
the whole without giving the other affairs a thought. After all, the idea of
anyone exciting him or herself over the question whether a respectable old
fogey, like Mr. Beresford, should go on paying perpetual visits to a
respectable matron like his mother, touched Oswald’s mind with a sense of
the ludicrous which surmounted all seriousness. If they liked it, what
possible harm could there be? He had not the uneasy prick of wounded
feeling, the sense of profanation which moved Edward at the idea of his
mother’s conduct being questioned in any way. Oswald was fond of his
mother, and proud of her, though he was disposed to smile at her absurd
popularity and the admiration she excited among her friends. He would
have thought it a great deal more natural that he himself should be the
object of attraction; but, granting the curious taste of society, at which he
felt disposed to laugh, it rather pleased him that his mother should be so
popular, still admired and followed at her age. He thought, like Mr.
Sommerville, that she was something of a humbug, getting up that pretence
of sympathy with everybody, which it was impossible anyone in her senses
could feel. But so long as it brought its reward, in the shape of so much
friendliness from everybody, and gratitude for the words and smiles, which
cost nothing, Oswald, at least, saw no reason to complain. And as for
scandal arising about Mr. Beresford! he could not but laugh; at their age! So
he pursued his easy way as usual, serenely lighthearted, and too much
occupied with his own affairs to care much for other people’s. In addition to
this, it must be added that Oswald was falling very deep in love. These
interviews between the hospital and the House were but meagre fare to feed
a passion upon; but the very slightness of the link, the oddity of the
circumstances, everything about it delighted the young man, who had
already gone through a great many drawing-room flirtations, and required
the help of something more piquant. He was very happy while they were all
so agitated and uncomfortable. Twice a week were hospital days, at which
he might hope to see her; and almost every morning now he managed to
cross the path of the little school procession, and, at least see her, if he did
not always catch the eye of the demure little teacher in her long cloak.
Sometimes she would look at him sternly, sometimes she gave him a semi-
indignant, sometimes a wholly friendly glance, sometimes, he feared, did
not perceive him at all. But that was not Oswald’s fault. He made a point of
taking off his hat, and indeed holding it in his hand a moment longer than
was necessary, by way of showing his respect, whether she showed any
signs of perceiving him or not. She went softly along the vulgar pavement,
with steps which he thought he could distinguish among all the others,
ringing upon the stones with a little rhythm of her own, about which he
immediately wrote some verses. All this he would tell to Cara, coming to
her in the morning before he set out to watch the children defiling out of the
House. And all the world thought, as was natural, that the subject of these
talks was his love for Cara, not his love, confided to Cara, for someone else.
As for Agnes, she not only saw Oswald every time he made his
appearance, whether she allowed him to know it or not, but she felt his
presence in every nerve and vein, with anger for the first day or two after
Roger’s visit, then with a softening of all her heart towards him as she
caught his reverential glance, his eager appeal to her attention. After all,
whispers to Cara, whom he had known all her life—little Cara, who even to
Agnes herself seemed a child—could not mean half so much as this daily
haunting of her own walks, this perpetual appearance wherever she was.
That was a totally different question from her own struggle not to notice
him, not to think of him. The fact that it was shocking and terrible on her
part to allow her mind to dwell on any man, or any man’s attentions, while
occupied in the work to which she had devoted herself, and filling almost
the position of a consecrated Sister, was quite a different thing from the
question whether he was a false and untrustworthy person, following her
with the devices of vulgar pursuit, a thing too impious to think of, too
humiliating. Agnes was anxious to acquit the man who admired and sought
her, as well as determined to reject his admiration; and, for the moment, the
first was actually the more important matter of the two. Herself she could
be sure of. She had not put her hand to the plough merely to turn back. She
was not going to abandon her ideal at the call of the first lover who held out
his hand to her. Surely not; there could be no doubt on that subject; but that
this generous, gentle young man, with those poetic sentiments which had
charmed yet abashed her mind, that he should be false to his fair exterior,
and mean something unlovely and untrue, instead of a real devotion, that
was too terrible to believe. Therefore, she did not altogether refuse to reply
to Oswald’s inquiries when the next hospital day brought about another
meeting. This time he did not even pretend that the meeting was accidental,
that he had been too late for making the proper inquiries in his own person,
but went up to her, eagerly asking for ‘our little patient,’ with all the
openness of a recognised acquaintance.
‘Emmy is better—if you mean Emmy,’ said Agnes, with great state.
‘The fever is gone, and I hope she will soon be well.’
‘Poor little Emmy,’ said Oswald; ‘but I don’t want her to be well too
soon—that is, it would not do to hurry her recovery. She must want a great
deal of care still.’
He hoped she would smile at this, or else take it literally and reply
seriously; but Agnes did neither. She walked on, with a stately air,
quickening her pace slightly, but not so as to look as if she were trying to
escape.
‘I suppose, as the fever is gone, she has ceased to imagine herself in
heaven,’ said Oswald. ‘Happy child! when sickness has such illusions, it is
a pity to be well. We are not so well off in our commonplace life.’
He thought she would have responded to the temptation and turned upon
him to ask what he meant by calling life commonplace; and indeed the wish
stirred Agnes so that she had to quicken her pace in order to resist the bait
thus offered. She said nothing, however, to Oswald’s great discomfiture,
who felt that nothing was so bad as silence, and did not know how to
overcome the blank, which had more effect on his lively temperament than
any amount of disapproval and opposition. But he made another valorous
effort before he would complain.
 ‘Yours, however, is not a commonplace life,’ he said. ‘We worldlings
pay for our ease by the sense that we are living more or less ignobly, but it
must be very different with you who are doing good always. Only, forgive
me, is there not a want of a little pleasure, a little colour, a little brightness?
The world is so beautiful,’ said Oswald, his voice slightly faltering, not so
much from feeling, as from fear that he might be venturing on dubious
ground. ‘And we are so young.’
That pronoun, so softly said, with such a tender emphasis and meaning,
so much more than was ever put into two letters before, went to the heart of
Agnes. She was trying so hard to be angry with him, trying to shut herself
against the insinuating tone of his voice, and those attempts to beguile her
into conversation. All the theoretical fervour that was in her mind had been
boiling up to reply, and perhaps her resolution would not have been strong
enough to restrain her, had not that we come in, taking the words from her
lips and the strength from her mind. She could neither protest against the
wickedness and weakness of consenting to live an ignoble life, nor
indignantly declare that there was already more than pleasure, happiness,
and delight in the path of self-sacrifice, when all the force was stolen out of
her by that tiny monosyllable—we! How dared he identify himself with
her? draw her into union with him by that little melting yet binding word?
She went on faster than ever in the agitation of her thoughts, and was
scarcely conscious that she made him no answer; though surely what he had
said called for some reply.
Oswald was at his wit’s end. He did not know what to say more. He
made a little pause for some answer, and then getting none, suddenly
changed his tone into one of pathetic appeal. ‘Are you angry with me? ‘he
said. ‘What have I done? Don’t you mean to speak to me any more?’
‘Yes,’ she said, turning suddenly round, so that he could not tell which of
his questions she was answering. ‘I am vexed that you will come with me.
Gentlemen do not insist on walking with ladies to whom they have not been
introduced—whom they have met only by chance——’
He stopped short suddenly, moved by the accusation; but unfortunately
Agnes too, startled by his start, stopped also, and gave him a curious, half-
defiant, half-appealing look, as if asking what he was going to do; and this
look took away all the irritation which her words had produced. He
proceeded to excuse himself, walking on, but at a slower pace, compelling
her to wait for him—for it did not occur to Agnes, though she had protested
against his company, to take the remedy into her own hands, and be so rude
as to break away.
‘What could I do?’ he said piteously. ‘You would not tell me even your
name—you know mine. I don’t know how to address you, nor how to seek
acquaintance in all the proper forms. It is no fault of mine.’
This confused Agnes by a dialectic artifice for which she was not
prepared. He gave a very plausible reason, not for the direct accusation
against him, but for a lesser collateral fault. She had to pause for a moment
before she could see her way out of the maze. ‘I did not mean that. I meant
you should not come at all,’ she said.
‘Ah! you cannot surely be so hard upon me,’ cried Oswald, in real terror,
for it had not occurred to him that she would, in cold blood, send him away.
‘Don’t banish me!’ he cried. ‘Tell me what I am to do for the introduction—
where am I to go? I will do anything. Is it my fault that I did not know you
till that day?—till that good child, bless her, broke her leg. I shall always be
grateful to poor little Emmy. She shall have a crutch of gold if she likes.
She shall never want anything I can give her. Do you think I don’t feel the
want of that formula of an introduction? With that I should be happy. I
should be able to see you at other times than hospital days, in other places
than the streets. The streets are beautiful ever since I knew you,’ cried the
young man, warming with his own words, which made him feel the whole
situation much more forcibly than before, and moved him at least, whether
they moved her or not.
‘Oh!’ cried Agnes, in distress, ‘you must not talk to me so. You must not
come with me, Mr. Meredith; is not my dress enough——’
‘There now!’ he said, ‘see what a disadvantage I am under. I dare not
call you Agnes, which is the only sweet name I know. And your dress! You
told me yourself you were not a Sister.’
‘It is quite true,’ she said, looking at him, trying another experiment. ‘I
am a poor teacher, quite out of your sphere.’
‘But then, fortunately, I am not poor,’ said Oswald, almost gaily, in
sudden triumph. ‘Only tell me where your people are, where I am to go for
that introduction. I thank thee, Lady Agnes, Princess Agnes, for teaching
me that word. I will get my introduction or die.’
 ‘Oh, here we are at the House!’ she cried suddenly, in a low tone of
horror, and darted away from him up the steps to the open door. Sister Mary
Jane was standing there unsuspicious, but visibly surprised. She had just
parted with someone, whom poor Agnes, in her terror, ran against; for in the
warmth of the discussion they had come up to the very gate of the House,
the entrance to that sanctuary where lovers were unknown. Sister Mary Jane
opened a pair of large blue eyes, which Oswald (being full of admiration for
all things that were admirable) had already noted, and gazed at him,
bewildered, letting Agnes pass without comment. He took off his hat with
his most winning look of admiring respectfulness as he went on—no harm
in winning over Sister Mary Jane, who was a fair and comely Sister, though
no longer young. Would Agnes, he wondered, have the worldly wisdom to
make out that he was an old acquaintance, or would she confess the truth?
Would Sister Mary Jane prove a dragon, or, softened by her own beauty and
the recollection of past homages, excuse the culprit? Oswald knew very
well that anyhow, while he walked off unblamed and unblamable, the girl
who had been only passive, and guilty of no more than the mildest
indiscretion, would have to suffer more or less. This, however, did not
move him to any regret for having compromised her. It rather amused him,
and seemed to give him a hold over her. She could not take such high
ground now and order him away. She was in the same boat, so to speak.
Next time they met she would have something to tell which he would
almost have a right to know. It was the establishing of confidence between
them. Oswald did not reckon at a very serious rate the suffering that might
arise from Sister Mary Jane’s rebuke. ‘They have no thumbscrews in those
new convents, and they don’t build girls up in holes in the walls now-a-
days,’ he said to himself, and, on the whole, the incident was less likely to
end in harm than in good.
Agnes did not think so, who rushed in—not to her room, which would
have been a little comfort, but to the curtained corner of the dormitory, from
which she superintended night and day ‘the middle girls,’ who were her
charge, and where she was always afraid of some small pair of peeping eyes
prying upon her seclusion. She threw off her bonnet, and flung herself on
her knees by the side of her little bed. ‘Oh, what a farce it was,’ she
thought, to cover such feelings as surged in her heart under the demure
drapery of that black cloak, or to tie the conventual bonnet over cheeks that
burned with blushes, called there by such words as she had been hearing!
She bent down her face upon the coverlet and cried as if her heart would
break, praying for forgiveness, though these same foolish words would run
in and out of her prayers, mixing with her heart-broken expressions of
penitence in the most bewildering medley. After all, there was no such
dreadful harm done. She was not a Sister, nor had she ever intended to be a
Sister, but that very simple reflection afforded the fanciful girl no comfort.
She had come here to seek a higher life, and lo, at once, at the first
temptation, had fallen—fallen, into what? Into the foolishness of the
foolishest girl without an ideal—she whose whole soul had longed to lay
hold on the ideal, to get into some higher atmosphere, on some loftier level
of existence. It was not Sister Mary Jane she was afraid of, it was herself
whom she had so offended; for already, could it be possible? insidious
traitors in her heart had begun to ply her with suggestions of other kinds of
perfection; wicked lines of poetry stole into her head, foolish stories came
to her recollection. Oh! even praying, even penitence were not enough to
keep out this strife. She sprang to her feet, and rushed to St. Cecilia, the
room which was her battleground, and where the noise of the girls putting
away their books and work, and preparing to go to tea, promised her
exemption, for a little while at least, from any possibility of thought. But
Agnes was not to be let off so easily. In the passage she met Sister Mary
Jane. ‘I was just going to send for you,’ said the Sister, benign but serious.
‘Come to my room, Agnes. Sister Sarah Ann will take the children to tea.’
Agnes followed, with her heart, she thought, standing still. But it would
be a relief to be scolded, to be delivered from the demon of self-reproach in
her own bosom. Sister Mary Jane seated herself at a table covered with
school-books and account-books, in the little bare room, laid with matting,
which was all the House afforded for the comfort of its rulers. She pointed
to a low seat which all the elder girls knew well, which was the stool of
repentance for the community. ‘My dear,’ said Sister Mary Jane, ‘did you
know that gentleman in the world? Tell me truly, Agnes. You are only an
associate: you are not under our rule, and there is no harm in speaking to an
acquaintance. But so long as anyone wears our dress there must be a certain
amount of care. Did you know him, my dear, tell me, in the world?’
Agnes could not meet these serious eyes. Her head drooped upon her
breast. She began to cry. ‘I do not think it was my fault. Oh, I have been
wrong, but I did not mean it. It was not my fault.’
‘That is not an answer, my dear,’ said Sister Mary Jane.
 And then the whole story came rushing forth with sobs and excuses and
self-accusations all in one. ‘It is the badness in my heart. I want to be above
the world, but I cannot. Things come into my mind that I don’t want to
think. I would rather, far rather, be devoted to my work, and think of
nothing else, like you, Sister Mary Jane. And then I get tempted to talk, to
give my opinion. I was always fond of conversation. Tell me what to do to
keep my course straight, to be like you. Oh, if I could keep steady and think
only of one thing! It is my thoughts that run off in every direction: it is not
this gentleman. Oh, what can one do when one’s heart is so wrong!’
Sister Mary Jane listened with a smile. Oswald’s confidence in her
beautiful eyes was perhaps not misplaced. And probably she was conscious
now and then of thinking of something else as much as her penitent. She
said, ‘My dear, I don’t think you have a vocation. I never thought it. A girl
may be a very good girl and not have a vocation. So you need not be very
unhappy if your thoughts wander; all of us have not the same gifts. But,
Agnes, even if you were in the world, instead of being in this house, which
should make you more careful, you would not let a gentleman talk to you
whom you did not know. You must not do it again.’
‘It was not meant badly,’ said Agnes, veering to self-defence. ‘He
wanted to know how little Emmy was. It was the gentleman who carried her
to the hospital. It was kindness; it was not meant for——’
‘Yes, I saw who it was. And I can understand how it came about. But it
is so easy to let an acquaintance spring up, and so difficult to end it when it
has taken root. Perhaps, my dear, you had better not go to little Emmy
again.’
‘Oh!’ Agnes gave a cry of remonstrance and protest. It did not hurt her
to be told not to speak to him any more—but not to go to little Emmy! She
was not sure herself that it was all for little Emmy’s sake, and this made her
still more unhappy, but not willing to relinquish the expedition. Sister Mary
Jane, however, took no notice of the cry. She put a heap of exercises into
Agnes’s hands to be corrected. ‘They must all be done to-night,’ she said,
calculating with benevolent severity that this would occupy all the available
time till bedtime. ‘One nail drives out another,’ she said to herself, being an
accomplished person, with strange tongues at her command. And thus she
sent the culprit away, exhausted with tears and supplied with work. ‘I will
send you some tea to St. Monica, where you can be quiet,’ she said. And
there Agnes toiled all the evening over her exercises, and had not a moment
to spare. ‘Occupation, occupation,’ said the Sister to herself; ‘that is the
only thing. She will do very well if she has no time to think.’
But was that the ideal life? I doubt if Sister Mary Jane thought so; but
she was old enough to understand the need of such props, which Agnes was
still young enough to have indignantly repudiated. For her part, Agnes felt
that a little more thought would save her. If she could get vain imaginations
out of her head, and those scraps of poetry, and bits of foolish novels, and
replace them with real thought—thought upon serious subjects, something
worthy the name—how soon would all those confusing, tantalising shadows
flee away! But, in the meantime, it is undeniable that the girl left this
interview with a sense of relief, such as it is to be supposed, is one of the
chief reasons why confession continues to hold its place, named or
nameless, in all religious communions more or less. Sister Mary Jane was
not the spiritual director of the community, though I think the place would
have very well become her; but it was undeniable that the mind of Agnes
was lightened after she had poured forth her burdens; also that her sin did
not look quite so heinous as it had done before; also that the despair which
had enveloped her, and of which the consciousness that she must never so
sin again formed no inconsiderable part, was imperceptibly dispelled, and
the future as well as the past made less gloomy. Perhaps, if any very
searching inspection had been made into those recesses of her soul which
were but imperfectly known to Agnes herself, it might have been read there
that there was no longer any crushing weight of certainty as to the absolute
cessation of the sin; but that was beyond the reach of investigation.
Anyhow, she had no time to think any more. Never had exercises so bad
come under the young teacher’s inspection; her brain reeled over the mis-
spellings, the misunderstandings. Healthy human ignorance, indifference,
opacity, desire to get done anyhow, could not have shown to greater
advantage. They entirely carried out the intentions of Sister Mary Jane, and
left her not a moment for thought, until she got to her recess in the
dormitory. And then, after the whisperings were all hushed, and the lights
extinguished, Agnes was too tired for anything but sleep—a result of
occupation which the wise Sister was well aware of too. Indeed, everything
turned out so well in the case of this young penitent, that Sister Mary Jane
deemed it advisable not to interfere with the visits to the hospital. If she
surmounted temptation, why, then she was safe; if not, other steps must be
taken. Anyhow, it was well that her highly-wrought feelings and desire of
excellence should be put to the test; and as Agnes was not even a Postulant,
but still in ‘the world,’ an unwise backsliding of this kind was less
important. No real harm could come to her. Nevertheless, Sister Mary Jane
watched her slim figure disappear along the street from her window with
unusual interest. Was it mere interest in little Emmy that had made the girl
so anxious to go, or was she eager to encounter the test and try her own
strength? Or was there still another reason, a wish more weak, more human,
more girlish? Agnes walked on very quickly, pleased to find herself at
liberty. She was proud of the little patient, whose small face brightened with
delight at the sight of her. And she did not like the sensation of being shut
up out of danger, and saved arbitrarily from temptation. Her heart rose with
determination to keep her own pure ideal path, whatever solicitations or
blandishments might assail her. And indeed, to Agnes, as to a knight of
romance, it is not to be denied that ‘the danger’s self was lure alone.’
 CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE FIRESIDE.

It is very hard to be obliged to alter our relationships with our friends, and
still more hard to alter the habits which have shaped our lives. Mr.
Beresford, when he was forbidden to continue his visits to his neighbour,
was like a man stranded, not knowing what to make of himself. When the
evening came he went to his library as usual, and made an attempt to settle
to his work, as he called it. But long before the hour at which with placid
regularity he had been used to go to Mrs. Meredith’s he got uneasy.
Knowing that his happy habit was to be disturbed, he was restless and
uncomfortable even before the habitual moment came. He could not read,
he could not write—how was he to spend the slowing-moving moments,
and how to account to her for the disturbance of the usual routine? Should
he write and tell her that he was going out, that he had received a sudden
invitation or a sudden commission. When he was debating this question in
his mind, Edward came in with a very grave face to say that his mother was
ill and unable to see anyone.
‘She said you had better be told,’ said Edward; ‘she has gone to her
room. She has a—headache. She cannot see anyone to-night.’
‘Mr. Sommerville has been with you; has he anything to do with your
mother’s headache?’
‘I think so,’ said Edward, angrily—‘old meddler; but she seems to think
we must put up with him. I wish my father would come home and look after
his own affairs.’
‘It was a mission from your father, then?’ Mr. Beresford was silent for a
moment, thinking with somewhat sombre dissatisfaction of the absent
Meredith. Would it be so pleasant to see him come home? Would the
unaccustomed presence of the master be an advantage to the house? He
could not be so insincere as to echo Edward’s wish; but he was moved
sympathetically towards the youth, who certainly was quite unsuspicious of
him, whatever other people might be. ‘Go upstairs and see Cara,’ he said;
‘she is in the drawing-room.’
 The young man’s face brightened. Oswald was absent; he was not as
usual in his brother’s way; and though Edward had agreed loyally to accept
what he supposed to be the state of affairs and school himself to look upon
Cara as his future sister, that was no reason—indeed it was rather the
reverse of a reason—for avoiding her now. He went upstairs with a kind of
sweet unhappiness in his heart. If Cara was not for him, he must put up with
it; he must try to be glad if she had chosen according to her own happiness.
But in the meantime he would try to forget that, and take what pleasure
heaven might afford him in her society—a modified imperfect happiness
with an after-taste of bitterness in it—but still better than no consolation at
all.
Cara was with her aunt in the drawing-room, and they both welcomed
him with smiles. Miss Cherry, indeed, was quite effusive in her pleasure.
‘Come and tell us all the news and amuse us,’ she said; ‘that is the chief
advantage of having men about. My brother is no good, he never goes out;
and if he did go out, he never comes upstairs. I thought Oswald would have
come this evening,’ Miss Cherry said, in a tone which for her sounded
querulous; and she looked from one to the other of the young people with a
curious look. She was not pleased to be left out of Cara’s confidence, and
when they excused Oswald with one breath, both explaining eagerly that
they had known of his engagement, Miss Cherry was if anything worse
offended still. Why should not they be open, and tell everything? she
thought.
‘Besides,’ said Cara, very calmly, ‘Oswald never comes here in the
evening: he has always so many places to go to, and his club. Edward is too
young to have a club. Why should people go out always at night? Isn’t it
pleasant to stay at home?’
‘My dear, gentlemen are not like us,’ said Miss Cherry, instinctively
defending the absent, ‘and to tell the truth, when I have been going to the
play, or to a party—I mean in my young days—I used to like to see the
lighted streets—all the shops shining, and the people thronging past on the
pavement. I am afraid it was a vulgar taste; but I liked it. And men, who can
go where they please—— I am very sorry that your mamma has a
headache, Edward. She is not seeing anyone? I wonder what James——?’
Here she stopped abruptly and looked conscious, feeling that to discuss her
brother with these young persons would be very foolish. Fortunately they
were occupied with each other, and did not pay much attention to what she
said.
‘Oh, Edward,’ said Cara, ‘stay and read to us! There is nothing I like so
much. It is always dull here in the evenings, much duller than at the Hill,
except when we go out. And Aunt Cherry has her work, and so have I. Sit
here—here is a comfortable chair close to the lamp. You have nothing
particular to do, and if your mother has a headache, she does not want you.’
‘I don’t require to be coaxed,’ said Edward, his face glowing with
pleasure; and then a certain pallor stole over it as he said to himself, she is
treating me like her brother; but even that was pleasant, after a sort. ‘I am
quite willing to read,’ he said; ‘what shall it be? Tell me what book you like
best.’
‘Poetry,’ said Cara; ‘don’t you like poetry, Aunt Cherry? There is a novel
there; but I prefer Tennyson. Mr. Browning is a little too hard for me. Aunt
Cherry, Edward is very good when he reads out loud. You would like to
hear “Elaine”?’
‘Ye-es,’ said Miss Cherry. She cast a regretful glance at the novel, which
was fresh from Mudie’s; but soon cheered up, reflecting that she was half
through the second volume, and that it would not be amusing to begin it
over again. ‘In my young days stories would bear reading two or three
times over,’ she said, unconsciously following out her own thought; ‘but
they have fallen off like everything else. Yes, my dear, I am always fond of
poetry. Let me get my work. It is the new kind of art-needlework, Edward. I
don’t know if you have seen any of it. It is considered a great deal better in
design than the Berlin work we used to do, and it is a very easy stitch, and
goes quickly. That is what I like in it. I must have the basket with all my
crewels, Cara, and my scissors and my thimble, before he begins. I hate
interrupting anyone who is reading. But you are only hemming, my dear.
You might have prettier work for the drawing-room. I think girls should
always have some pretty work in hand; don’t you think so, Edward? It is
pleasanter to look at than that plain piece of white work.’
‘I should think anything that Cara worked at pretty,’ said Edward,
forgetting precaution. Miss Cherry looked up at him suddenly with a little
alarm, but Cara, who was searching for the crewels, and the thimble and the
scissors, on a distant table, fortunately did not hear what he said.