The Religion of Israel III: Origins of Ancient Israel

Dever's Synthesis on the Origins of Israel

At this point it may be well to revisit Dever's attempt at an explanation of the origins of what he terms "proto-Israel," Israel as it developed from Canaanite culture at the end of the Late Bronze Age and the beginning of the early Iron Age (Iron I). As we saw, Dever reviewed (Who Where) the archaeological data and came to the conclusion (with essentially all other archaeologists) that "the biblical tradition grew out of earlier Canaanite culture (168)." But, Dever asked, what led to this development? Dever's theory, based on the data, is that while Israelite culture grew out of Canaanite culture, at the same time Israelite culture arose as "a radical protest" against what remained of Canaanite culture at the end of the Late Bronze Age.

The Religion of Israel I: Issues, Canaanite Origins

To this point we have, with related digressions, been discussing 1) Eliade's theory of archaic ontology, 2) the development of human thought through history based on archaic ontology and 3) reactions to perceived inadequacies in archaic ontology. This study has not been exhaustive, of course, and has focused on models largely provided by Christopher Dawson in his Progress and Religion. For example, we have noted that, in what Dawson calls the “World Religions” (the classic civilizational traditions of India, China, Persia and Greece), there arose a reaction to archaic ontology that focused on the issues of human mortality and the problem of evil. The archaic traditions had sought to explain these problems through variations on the myth of reincarnation--essentially an expression of faith in a solution at the same time that it was a recognition of the inability of human reason alone to provide a definitive answer. But these mythic explanations proved unsatisfactory for many, leading to the rise of movements such as Buddhism and Taoism, to cite two examples, which are properly understood as attempts to short circuit and escape the cosmic cycles that had come to be taken in a literal manner. Needless to say, the failure of these new salvific doctrines to address the nature of mythic expression was a serious weakness, one which was attacked by new movements of thinkers who had discovered and been intoxicated by the power of formal logic but had failed to understand its limitations (the Greek Sophists are one famous example).

We will turn now to Israel as an example of a response to these problems that approached a clear break with myth, without definitively achieving such a break. This in turn will lead us, after returning once more to Greek thought, to the Christian solution.