S_SH+Samuel

__Lessons Lesson 2/11/07: Who Was Samuel?__

__Name of Ruler__ __Years in Power__ __Dates__ Samuel (Prophet) ? mid-to-early 1000s BCE Saul (‘King’) 22 (?) 1030-1010 BCE David (‘King’) 40 (?) 1010-970 BCE Solomon (‘King’) 40 (?) 970-930 BCE

Prior to the ‘kings’ of the Jews was the age of the Prophets and Jewish Priests. During this age, the major decision-makers in Jewish communities were prophets and priests, allowed to settle disputes and make other important decisions.

The Jews, as far as we know, probably started out in Egypt, where they seem to have done well for several hundred years (or so), being allowed to farm and practice their own faith by various relatively tolerant Pharaohs in the 1500s-1200s BCE or thereabouts. Sometime in that time period it seems that at least one Pharaoh turned intolerant, deprived the Jews of their rights, and enslaved them. At some point after being enslaved a young Jew named Moses incited his people to rebel and flee Egypt; they did so, and ended up wandering as nomads through the desert for a number of years. At some point, they came back toward Egypt but wanted to avoid it, so they bypassed it and settled where there were few inhabitants, in the land of what is now (approximately) Israel.

Their settlement into farming communities led them to enjoy some peace and stability – enough to eke out a life based on farming and raising livestock. Many of the separate communities were disconnected from each other, and had little identity as a people connected with each other. They devoted themselves to farming, while the prophets and priests continually encouraged them to pray to Yahweh and to study and practice the Jewish social codes. This is why this period is called the Age of the Prophets.

Eventually, neighboring kingdoms, such as the Egyptians and the Philistines, made war against various Jewish communities. There were efforts to defend themselves against their enemies, but not a united effort.

The prophet Samuel was well-liked and a modest fellow. He traveled extensively from village to village during his lifetime, talking about Jewish social codes and Yahweh, and his popularity as a prophet increased. Samuel’s parents were Elkanah and Hannah; both were prophets. This shows that women had an important role during the Age of the Prophets; they were respected as leaders and decision-makers. It was only later, when the Bible was written several times over in centuries after this, that women were ruled out of holding important political positions. But we’ll get to that another time. While Samuel was becoming popular it seems that there was more and more fighting with attackers – the Bible talks of the Philistine army, but recent archaeological evidence suggests that it was the Egyptian army that was mostly harassing the northern Israeli area that Samuel lived in. As Samuel aged, the Torah says that he would eventually appoint Saul as the first King of the Jews. This would end the Age of the Prophets, and the Jewish Kingship (or Monarchy) now begins. But it wasn’t quite that simple. There are two or three theories (at least) as to how Saul rose to become the first ‘king’ of the Jews. One is that, as the Bible says, Samuel’s two sons were both corrupt, and so Samuel turned to Saul, a popular farmer and community leader, to raise an army and defend the Jews. This is why, says the Bible, Samuel ‘appointed’ Saul as the first king, to create a powerful military defense of the Jews. A second possibility is that Samuel initiated the kingship because he wanted to strengthen the Jewish people and saw that the strong kingdoms around him all had a powerful king, and so the Jews would be better off with a strong kingship. A third possibility is that Saul rose to power independently of Samuel, eventually taking power and anointing himself king of the Jews regardless of what Samuel may have wanted. In any case, one point which the Torah clearly exaggerated, as archaeological evidence now shows, is the area of Samuel’s influence and of Saul’s ‘kingship.’ Both were relatively small, maybe only including those hilltops in visible range within Samuel’s home region of Ephraim. Later, writers of the Torah – who only wrote about Samuel and Saul hundreds of years after they lived – exaggerated their political influence and ‘rulership’ to make it look like they were more important or powerful than they really were. Next lesson we will talk about the kingships of Saul and of David, and how they reflected north-south geographical differences and many other factors. __Sources__: Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, __David and Solomon;__ Abram Leon Sachar, __A History of the Jews__; page on "Solomon" from __Wikipedia__.