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All right. We were reaching the end of Joshua, and we are going to be moving on to Judges
today. And the Bible describes the early Israelite socio-political unit as the tribe. And this
is what is going to be featured in the last part of the Book of Joshua. We are going to
see that tribes are territorial units. A tribe is attached to a territory. Within the tribe
you have clan elders, and the clan elders are the ones who dispense justice. They make
decisions regarding the general welfare of the tribe. So the second half of the Book
of Joshua--so the first half recounts the conquest, and then the second half recounts
the division of the land among the 12 tribes, who, it is claimed, were descended from the
12 sons of Jacob. We have a couple of different lists of the tribes in the Bible, so if you
take a look some time, you might want to compare the list that is in Genesis 29 or 30. It is
pretty much the same list that is in Genesis 49. These are in [a list of] blessings. Patriarchs
will very often give blessings of all their children, so you look at the names of the
children and you will see the list of twelve. You have the six sons of Leah. You have the
four sons of the two concubines, Bilhah and Zilpah, and the two sons of Rachel, Joseph
and Benjamin. And that is probably the oldest list that we have. But if you compare it to
Numbers 26 and the list that is in Joshua with the distribution of the land, you will
see that Levi or Levi is not included, presumably because the Levites, who were to function
as a priestly class in Israel, they have no land allotment. They are supported through
the cultic practices and the perquisites that come from the sacrifices. And so instead of
the Levites, we find that there are tribes named for the two sons of Joseph. So there
is no Joseph tribe per se. Joseph's two sons are Ephraim and Manasseh, and this is how
we then reach the Number 12. So there is no Levi in the later lists, but the Joseph tribes
have been split into Ephraim and Manasseh, if you will, who are said to be the two sons
of Joseph. So the consensus is, the scholarly consensus
is, that what you have in Canaan is an alliance of tribes, perhaps not precisely twelve, you
know. At different times there might have been a different number and different groups
that came together at different times. But you have these tribes who are worshiping Yahweh,
perhaps not exclusively as we have seen. And they have some loose obligations of mutual
defense in these different alliances. The Book of Joshua presents this very idealized
portrait of these twelve tribes who are preexistent. They come into the Land of Canaan already
formed basically as twelve tribes. They are united with one another by their covenant
with Yahweh, and they conquer the land in concert. But there are other elements of the
biblical narrative, as we have already begun to talk about, and will continue to talk about
today as we move into Judges, which really suggest there was much more sporadic cooperation
among the tribes. You never have more than one or two really acting in concert until
the very end of the Book of Judges. And so this suggests that there really was no super-tribal
government or coordination at this early stage. The Ark is said to have circulated among the
different tribal territories, it did not rest permanently in the territory of one tribe
until somewhat late in the period--it comes to rest at a place called Shiloh. Shiloh.
And it seems that only in extraordinary cases would you have the tribes acting together,
perhaps by decision of the tribal elders. But superimposed upon the authority of the
elders is the authority of certain inspired individuals. And these are known as judges,
and it is the exploits of these individuals that are recorded in the Book of Judges. And
we will turn to the Book of Judges now.