Book contents
- The Bible’s First Kings
- The Bible’s First Kings
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The United Monarchy in the Bible and Contemporary Scholarship
- Part II The Archaeology of the Tenth Century BCE
- Part III A New Paradigm
- Chapter 13 The (Re)Appearance of Solomon
- Chapter 14 David’s Empire?
- Chapter 15 From Tribe to Empire to State
- Chapter 16 Israel’s Highland Polity
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 14 - David’s Empire?
The Highland Polity in Historical and Anthropological Perspective
from Part III - A New Paradigm
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 January 2025
- The Bible’s First Kings
- The Bible’s First Kings
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part I The United Monarchy in the Bible and Contemporary Scholarship
- Part II The Archaeology of the Tenth Century BCE
- Part III A New Paradigm
- Chapter 13 The (Re)Appearance of Solomon
- Chapter 14 David’s Empire?
- Chapter 15 From Tribe to Empire to State
- Chapter 16 Israel’s Highland Polity
- Afterword
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The chapter discusses empires from a broader historical and anthropological perspective, defining the topic and revealing several false assumptions that led the entire discussion of the United Monarchy astray. The chapter shows that while scholars were often using the Roman or even the British empire as a model when assessing the United Monarchy, most empires had a different form, rising very quickly – often evolving not from “states” but from simpler forms of sociopolitical organization, in what is sometimes referred to a stateless empires – and then dissolving just as quickly, often a generation or two after their foundation. Both the very rapid growth of such empires and their rapid disintegration means that although such empires were common, they did not exist long enough to have material manifestations resembling Assyria or Rome. As examples, the chapter looks at the empires founded by Shaka and Genghis Khan as models of empires that seem to serve as better antecedents to the United Monarchy. The chapter concludes that the reconstruction of the United Monarchy presented in the book is very much in line with what is known historically and anthropologically about empires.
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- The Bible's First KingsUncovering the Story of Saul, David, and Solomon, pp. 273 - 290Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025