Theology Today - Vol 38, No. 1 - April 1981 - BOOK REVIEW - The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E.

107 - The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E.

The Tribes of Yahweh:
A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E.
By Norman K. Gottwald
New York, Orbis, 1979. 916 pp. $29.50.

In a time when the New Right is making a powerful impact on church and state, this book shows the vitality of the political and theological Left. Here is a massive work on liberation theology, written with a definite Marxist slant. A recognized Old Testament scholar and until recently a member of the faculty at Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, the author is a seasoned political activist. His interest in the sociology of ancient Israel was influenced by three, year-long sojourns in Israel, by involvement in the civil rights movement and antiimperialist efforts, and by immersion in the theories of Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Karl Marx. Significantly, the book is dedicated "to the memory and honor of the first Israelites, "who gave the world a paradigm of social liberation. The inscription is accompanied by a poignant tribute to the people of Vietnam.

Gottwald's thesis is that in the period before David, ancient Israel broke away from the statist-hierarchic structures of Canaan and. under the aegis of Yahweh, created an egalitarian society. The socio-economic tribal confederacy known as "Israel" lasted only two centuries ( 1250-1050), for with the rise of the monarchy the people lapsed into the oppressive social and imperial structures against which they had once revolted--with only a few great prophets protesting.

Of the various models for understanding the Israelite occupation of Canaan (conquest, immigration, revolt), the author favors George Mendenhall's view of the "inside job" done by peasants in revolt against the Canaanite power structure, though he rightly insists on a more realistic appraisal of the power exercised by "the lower classes." His major concern, however, is not just to provide such a thesis, but to reach a sociological understanding of the religion of liberated Israel and even to overcome the weaknesses inherent in biblical theology. Israel's religion, he insists, was bound up with its social system as a liberated, egalitarian society. Thus he suggests a "socio-economic demythologization" of Israelite religion, translating theological realities into social equivalents. In his view, "Yahweh" means -the historically concretized,

108 - The Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250-1050 B.C.E.

primordial power to establish and sustain social equality." Similarly, "Chosen People" means "the distinctive self-consciousness of a society of equals created in the intertribal order and demarcated from a primarily centralized and stratified surrounding world." "Covenant," he maintains, is "the bonding of decentralized social groups in a larger society of equals committed to cooperation without authoritarian leadership and a way of symbolizing the locus of sovereignty in such a society of equals." And "eschatology "is "the sustained commitment of fellow tribesmen to a society of equals with the confidence and determination that this way of life can prevail against great environmental odds" (p. 692).

This study goes beyond purely literary and historical studies of the past by opening the new horizon of sociological investigation. The author has learned from leading sociologists and profited especially from Marxist analysis. "I hold it be the most coherent and promising understanding for developing research strategies in the social sciences," he testifies (p. 633). His book, though verbose and repetitious, deserves to be compared with the work of Max Weber, the pioneer in the sociological study of ancient Judaism.

There are, however, at least two major difficulties. The first is methodological. The relatively obscure pre-monarchic period, to which access is gained through fragmentary materials redacted in the monarchic period or later, is unfortunately the focus. I wonder whether the period was as ideally egalitarian and socially creative as he maintains (contrast the editorial judgment at the end of the book of Judges: "in those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone used to do what was right in his own eyes."), and whether reconstruction is an ideal retrojection based on contemporary experience of social revolution and such a philosophy of history.

The second difficulty is theological. Though sociology can help us to understand the social and down-to-earth character of the ancient Israelite religion, the author reduces theology to sociology without remainder. Apparently "Yahweh" is no more than a function of the social process, and any supra-historical dimension of divine "transcendence" is excluded in scientific principle. If this is the case, sociological analysis ceases to be a tool of interpretation and becomes a dominant perspective (and a rather Marxist one at that) which enables us to understand the past and its potential paradigmatic meaning for modern people who are further advanced in social evolution.

This book is not easy reading. It is fascinating and ponderous, intriguing and doctrinaire. But above all, it is a creative accomplishment that challenges us with a radical view of Israel's history-and our own.

Bernhard W. Anderson
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, New Jersey