Note: For the following discussion, the English translation of the volume (by Chiara Peri and Philip R. Davies) will be quoted: Mario Liverani 2005, Israel’s History and the History of Israel, London: Equinox.

Using Liverani’s own words, the stated purpose of this volume is “to write … a new version of the history of Israel, starting from the results of textual and literary criticism as well as from data collected by archaeology and epigraphy. In doing this I have felt free to change the Biblical plot, while keeping a properly historical approach.” (p. xvi)

The main novelty of this book (novelty which has been greatly discussed and at times criticized by its reviewers) is in its plan: indeed, the history of Israel is divided into two main phases, entitled “normal history” and “invented history”. The “normal” one, which is even considered as “quite insignificant”, “not particularly important, particularly interesting, nor consequential” includes the events from the twelfth century until the fall of Jerusalem in 585 BC. After an “intermezzo”, the “invented history” starts with the period following the exile and the return to Palestine of Judeans “not fully assimilated to the imperial world, their attempt to create a temple-city (Jerusalem) on a Babylonian model and to gather around it a whole nation (Israel, in the broader sense)”. These processes, according to Liverani, led to the rewriting of an otherwise ‘ordinary’ history “with the aim of creating a suitable context for those archetypes that they intended to revitalize: united kingdom, monotheism and single temple, law, possession of the land, holy war, and so on. The whole history of Israel, therefore, had to be characterized by a very special calling.” (p. xvii)

The volume ends with the reform of Ezra (398 BC), as a symbolic date: “the finalization of the drafting of the Law, the end of prophetism, the end of Deuteronomistic historiography, the rise to power of the priesthood in Jerusalem, national self-identification based on religion rather than politics - these are all interlinked phenomena (…) It is a period entirely characterized by relations between the Temple and the Diaspora, and totally unlike the era of monarchic autonomy to which the earlier events belong.” (p. 364)

According to Liverani, polytheism developed in parallel with the rise of complex societies (i.e. the so-called “urban revolution”), following the creation of stronger socio-economical stratification and the establishment of a controlling elite. The author synthetizes the theories expressed by various scholars, according to which monotheism was the result of environmental conditioning - while others proposed that monotheism could have been a reprise of the revolution of the ‘heretical’ Egyptian Pharaoh Amenophis IV (see for example Assmann 1998). Some, finally, highlighted the influence of Zoroastrian religion, whose dualism (evil vs good) might be considered as a form of monotheism. In Liverani’s words, “The pantheon is a hypostasis and a legitimation of these complex societies (and of the elite).” (p. 206) [For a synthesis of recent contributions on the concepts of polytheism and monotheism in the ancient Near East see also Pongratz-Leisten 2011].

He believes that, in polytheism, what matters is not the number of gods but rather their typology, and their relationship with the human worshippers. When confronted with monotheism, Liverani highlights how this “new” form or religion leads to the suppression of all the other divine entities, thus also removing their distinctive features. It is (also) for this reason that “a monotheistic faith (especially in a dualistic form) is usually less tolerant and respectful of other religions than polytheism” (p. 252) [On the “inclusivity” and “openness” of polytheism, see also Bettini 2014. On Buccellati’s conception of polytheism compared to monotheism, see “When on High”, chapter 3].

A first step towards monotheism in Israel is connected by Liverani to Hezekiah’s religious reform, interpreted as a mobilization of the moral resources of the country in the face of the new and serious Assyrian danger. Such reform (2 Kgs 18.4; 2 Chronicles 29-31) was of a Yahwistic character, and it entailed the suppression of those shrines which belonged to the agricultural religion (in particular of the “high places”, i.e. the bāmôt). According to Liverani, this reform “marked a first move in transforming Yahweh from the national god to an exclusive one. One can well imagine how the reform will have been received painfully, and resisted, by a population used to its fertility cults. In fact, Hezekiah’s successor, Manasseh (687-642), reintroduced religious pluralism, rebuilding the bāmôt and other symbols of the fertility cults.” (p. 156)

Liverani identifies the roots of Yahwistic monotheism in Josiah’s plan to found a united kingdom of Judah-Israel in the decades between the collapse of Assyria and the rise of the Babylonian empire. Commenting on the “Deuteronomistic history” (that encompasses the books of Joshua, Judges, 1-2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings), Liverani sees the essence of this work “in following, over the centuries, the history of the relationship between Yahweh and his people, explaining the positive or negative fortunes of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel in terms of loyalty or the disloyalty to the covenant. On every one of the ‘historical’ kings, succeeding each other in parallel in Judah and Israel, from Solomon to Josiah himself, a verdict was given, based not on their effective political accomplishments but on their will and ability to apply the fundamental principle of the covenant - in other words, on their action in favour or against the exclusiveness of Yahweh worship and its centralization in Jerusalem. (…) The climax was reached in the reform of Josiah that affirmed unambiguous loyalty to the covenant, centralized the whole worship in the single temple of Jerusalem, and attempted to unify politically the entire population of Yahweh worshippers.” (pp. 179-180) [On the origin of Biblical Monotheism, see also Smith 2001].

The rise of monotheism in Israel is without doubts the result of a long process, despite the presentation given in the Bible according to which it was already achieved since the very origins of the history of Israel (see, for example, the self-presentation of Yahweh to Moses in Ex. 3.13-14).

Liverani proposes to separate the two strands of the deity Yahweh and the ethical perspective that generates monotheism. “Yahweh had for long time been a deity among many others, in the sense that his believers were conscious of the existence of many other gods, equally all existing and ‘real’.

The route via henotheism (a single god for ‘us’, but not universally) runs through at least two courses. The first is the character of the ‘national god’ (…) typical of the Iron Age and of tribal descent. The second is confrontation with the god Assur and the Assyrian emperor that requires unambiguous, exclusive fidelity (…). With the substitution of the ‘one emperor’ with the ‘one god’ we are in the age of Josiah and his reforms.” (p. 205)

In Liverani’s opinion, the Diaspora caused a reinforcement of national henotheism as a powerful way of self-identification [on henotheism in Israel, see also Whatham 1899], as well as a process of identity-absorption (by comparison with the Babylonian religion, where several deities were identified with functions or aspects of one and the same god, Marduk).

Thus, religion in Israel became “an expression of shared moral values, a point of reference for the distinction between good and evil, justice and injustice, truth and falsehood” which entailed a direct contact within the individual and the divine. If, then, it was an ethical religion, then it also aimed at becoming universal - since the basic ethical values are universally shared: Liverani mentions, as an example of this, Is. 43.10-12 (see also Liverani’s §10.3, “From Ceremonial Worship to Ethical Religion”).

In his chapter 17, Liverani draws a history of temples in Palestine and, in doing so, he highlights similarities and difference with Babylonian ones (especially in §17.1). [For Buccellati’s discussion on temples in the Biblical and the Mesopotamian world, see “When on High”, chapter 20].

Originally, temples in Palestine - similarly to the ones in Mesopotamia - conceived as “houses” and dwellings of the gods. Their architectural plan comprised a vestibule, a sanctuary and an inner sanctum but, differently from their Mesopotamian counterpart, they were not surrounded by functional buildings such as storehouses, shops, archives and rooms for the priests. This difference was due to the different functions played by these structural in the two different environment: while in Mesopotamia the temple functioned as a redistribution centre and a basis of the country’s economy, in Palestine it had only a strictly cultic role.

Indeed, the Syro-Palestinian temple played no political role; it was a sort of annexe to the royal palace, priests were palace employees (maintained by the king) and the king played the leading role in the major religious ceremonies. Also in an economic context, the temple role was more ceremonial than productive, insofar as it owned no land, nor slaves to work it. Indeed, similarly to Mesopotamian temples it held festivals and took care of daily rites as well as sacrifices - receiving sacrificial victims and then dividing their meat among the officiants.

During the Babylonian exile, Judeans came into contact with a very different reality: they observed temples which were complex organizations, endowed with considerable economic and political power and architecturally imposing. Priests and temple scribes constituted a distinct managerial class, that organized the economy of the civic centres - especially in those cities that were not capitals and therefore had no royal palace.

Thus, according to Liverani when the Judean priesthood returned to Jerusalem and set to rebuild the old Solomonic temple, it had the Babylonian model in mind - a model that had the advantage of compensating for the weakness of the surviving Davidic monarchy, and ensured that priests could manage the new national community (thus including its political decisions and legislative/social policies).[See, however, see Buccellati, “When on High”, §6.8 (with the Notes in this website), that argues against possible strong influences of Mesopotamian/Babylonian religion on the Judean one “given that the attude of the exiles in Babylon is polemical at best.”]

The volume tackles the issue whether the Bible should be considered as a literary or a historical document. Such major question has several implications: if the Old Testament is to be intended as a literary work, then the question of its chronology must be addressed (whether it entails materials to be dated entirely from the post-exilic era or also earlier ones). If one opts for considering it a historical document instead, the question of a possible “bias” connected to the ideology of its authors must be discussed.

Liverani does not intend to paraphrase the Bible, nor to criticize it: he acknowledges the recent discussions on the subject of the historicity of the Bible, and he maintains that the biblical narratives can no longer serve us as a canvas when we try to write a history of Israel. He is willing to take into account the results of literary criticism of the texts and their dating, and rejects the skepticism of those who deny the very possibility of writing a history of Israel. The enterprise is possible, among other things, thanks to archaeology and the numerous documents from the ancient Near East that are now at our disposal.