University of Cambridge
The Benjamin Region and the Judahite 'State': A History of the Long Seventh Century B.C.E.
Abstract
dc:description.abstractThe history of Benjamin in the so-called monarchic period has been the subject of considerable recent interest from both biblical scholars and archaeologists, but with relatively few broad syntheses that explore the economic and political foundations of Benjamin’s distinctiveness. In this thesis, I apply a historical materialist approach to the political and economic history of the Benjamin region from the late eighth through to the early sixth centuries BCE. I contend that Benjamin was, before 587 BCE, only loosely affiliated with the broader Judahite polity. Whilst the kingdom developed an administrative presence that likely extended into the region sometime between 720 and 701, relations between Judahite and Benjaminite elites were contingent and vulnerable to exogenous shocks. In the face of shifting economic and strategic priorities, royal economic initiatives — chiefly the re-allocation of agricultural surpluses — dwindled in Benjamin by the end of the seventh century, a phenomenon noted in recent analyses of seal-stamp impressions by Oded Lipschits and Ido Koch. This shift in the economic base likely had political consequences — including a decline in Judahite royal authority. Relatedly, redaction-critical analysis of Samuel-Kings and Jeremiah suggests that Judahite hegemonic claims never had a deep cultural or political penetration in the region before the Persian period. To use Gramscian terminology, Judahite rule was never political “common sense”, and the “spontaneous consent” of the local populace was never achieved. This, in part, accounts for both ideological fissures in biblical texts concerning Benjamin, and the eventual collapse of Judahite royal authority in the 580s, which paved the way for the region’s preferment under neo-Babylonian rule. The first two chapters establish the premises for historical reconstruction. Chapter I introduces the theoretical and methodological principles undergirding the thesis: a non-dogmatic historical materialism, informed both by the thought of Antonio Gramsci and scholarship on ‘state’ formation and political clientelism within ancient Levantine societies. The second chapter, a site-by-site breakdown of the key locales discussed in the thesis, establishes positions on vexed exegetical conundrums and problems of site-identification that will recur throughout the thesis. The subsequent two chapters discuss the social, economic and political history of the Benjamin region in the eighth and seventh centuries, with a focus on the question of the region’s level of economic and political integration into the kingdom of Judah. Having established something of the character of the Judahite-Benjaminite relationship, and the economic history of the region (with a focus on issues of resource allocation and class composition), the final chapter presents a careful reconstruction of the breakdown in Judahite authority in Benjamin that preceded the fall of Jerusalem, in relation to both material and literary evidence (particularly through a careful redaction-critical analysis of the prose narratives of Jeremiah). It will be proposed that it was the very fissures in regional political economy identified in earlier chapters that not only underlay the contingency and fragility of Judahite ‘rule’ in Benjamin, but also provided the material conditions for Benjamin's independent surrender to Babylon in the 580s.
Degree
thesis:*- Name dc:type.qualificationname
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Level dc:type.qualificationlevel
- Doctoral
- Grantor dc:publisher.institution
- University of Cambridge
- Year dc:date.issued
- 2025
Author and committee
dc:creator, dc:contributor.*- Author dc:creator
-
- Deans, Jacob
- Advisor dc:contributor.advisor
-
- MacDonald, Nathan
Subjects
dc:subject × 6Rights
dc:rightsIdentifiers
dc:identifier.*- DOI dc:identifier.doi
- https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.127244
- OAI identifier oai:identifier
- oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/398380