Contents
Introduction
Assumption of Reliability
Historical Biblical Canonical Background
Archeological Background
Ancient Near East Material
    Egyptian
    Hittite
    Canaanite
    Mesopotamian
Biblical Context
Biblical Theological Themes/Motifs
    Theology- Character of God
    Theology- Attributes of God
    A People Defined by Faith
    Holiness Matters
    God Will Send a Savior
Critical-interpretive issues
    One Text or Many
    Author, Compiler, Editor or Redactor
    Time and Occasion
Conclusion
Bibliography
​

Introduction

The Book of Judges is more than a simple collection of Jewish folktales. The book forms a narrative bridge in the current shape of the Old Testament. Judges link the Pentateuch and the conquest of the land with the establishment of the kingdom of Israel. James Smith calls Judges “a book about apostasy.”[1] This view is a fair assessment if a bit incomplete. While the book appears at first as an anthology of Jewish folktales, the stories reveal a society’s inability to stay holy through their own effort. However, when viewed in tandem with the Torah, some evident truths jump out at the audience.
It is a work that tells the story of God’s working and long-suffering for a community that continues to illustrate their need for repentance and salvation. The author of Judges uses stories to convey teachings to his audience. The narrative genre is a means by which the author communicates and not the message itself. The stories are not fairy tales but are reflections of real people in a highly chaotic world.

The Assumption of Reliability

This incredible book has inspired several debates concerning the creation of the text. The discussions contain a fair amount of debate concerning authorship and editing. The various scholars first postulate an author and then center on what may have happened within the author’s time that might justify the book’s creation. A challenge with these approaches is that the author of the text is anonymous. Therefore, there is a considerable risk of circular reasoning in that the debater first assumes the timeframe of the author and then uses these same assumptions to find contextual justifications for the initial assertion.
The terms author, compiler, editor, or redactor can complicate the discussion of the background of a book because each label brings with it a particular set of connotations. Every person who interacts with the text may have different purposes and uses that shape what they do with the text. Even if the author and editor have the same goal, each person interacting with the text has their own cultural and historical context in which they abide that may shape their contributions to the text. The debates on what layer came from who or in which order texts link can move those studying the text into a perpetual state of hypothetical reductions. These fragments of texts rely on many subjective assumptions for their existence and rob the sections of context clues.
Another exploration of the text may protect from endless subjective deconstruction. If the scholar begins with the assumption that he or she has access to the version of the text that God intend, then any seams or edits that appear in the text are intentional and ripe for exploration and not artifacts of the “real text” lost to time. Kenneth Kitchen correctly declares that “we must deal with the biblical record in the same way, using what we actually possess (objectively—we have nothing else!).”[2] This is the assumption taken in this exploration.
This assumption of reliability springs from the idea that God can and would interact with His creation to get His message to His community. The author illustrates this activity within this narrative. Additionally, the assumption of reliability also comes from the observation that God continues to use a faithful community of prophets, scribes, and other men and women of God as trusted conveyers of His message to their generation and those who will follow them. This idea is also attested to within Judges.
When exploring the theories surrounding editing or redacting, It is reasonable also to expect those entrusted with this text may even act to aid future generations by further clarifying and emphasizing the text’s elements. These aids are not likely seeking to improve the text. The changes might be to enable the audience to understand certain context clues that the first audience understood almost automatically because they come from the same culture and time as the author. Kenneth Kitchen points out that the author “drew on the historical traditions available to him, selecting appropriate cases by which to exemplify his theme.” [3] Over time certain cultural traditions or even place names may change, and a later person entrusted with the text may well insert something so as not to have an understanding lost to time.
This approach the material assumes that those people entrusted with the work through time shared the same purpose as an original author. Next, because of their shared goals, any changes made were not an attempt to subvert the work of those who came before. Instead, they may seek to help faithfully transmit the ideas from those who came before to the contemporary audience.
In this view, those accused of being editors or redactors might be more like translators. They may seek to pass on the institutional understanding of previous generations to their current generation. Their insertions may not be extra material or new ideas. These insertions could be a means to archive earlier insights so as not to be lost to time or even cultural shifts. This idea means that identifying these potential layers does not create a superfluous textual artifact to be stripped off in our search for an original work. Instead, they give a record of the text’s historical background elements, which those entrusted with the text’s transmission did not want future audiences to lose sight of.

Historical Biblical Canonical Background

The Book of Judges covers a period of significant transition for the emerging nation of Israel and the surrounding region. In their commentary on Judges and Ruth, Cundall and Morris describe this period as when a nation is “welded together from a rabble of slaves and other diverse groups.”[4] The narrative begins where Joshua leaves off. Instead of the story of Joshua ending with a fairy tale, “and they lived happily ever after ending,” we find, in Judges, an almost dystopian account of the descendants of those who made the Sinai Covenant.
Those who were recipients of the Instructions of Moses are not shown making the choice that he and his successor, Joshua, had pleaded with them to make. Instead of a nation through which the rest of the world would be blessed, the reader sees a people in perpetual disobedience. James Smith observes, “book traces the roots of that apostasy to the failures of the tribes to carry out the orders of God in their dealings with the Canaanites.”[5] This observation is apparent because it so clearly intertwines in the text. The spiral toward even worse apostasy is within the text not only because of its historical accuracy. The element links to the authorial purpose of all entrusted with the texts. The author needs the audience to clearly see that failure to stay connected with Yahweh leads to suffering and destruction.
For a modern audience, Herbert Wolf points out that “one problem that perplexes the reader of Judges is the apparent approval of cruelty and killing.”[6] Judges describe acts of violence that are either commanded by God or at least tolerated by Him. However, the tone of the work suggests more to the story. In a curious twist, it appears that God uses unexpected methods to advance his purpose. For example, in the “Gideon and Samson stories, these foreigners can also be Yahweh’s means for achieving his purposes for Israel.”[7] So the reader must not label things “good” and “evil” simply by the way it benefits the nation of Israel. Instead, the reader must use another source to identify those things God would declare good and evil.
This challenge is always the challenge of narrative elements of the Bible that link to historical events. When reading about something in the Biblical narrative, a follower of Christ must ask, “Is this descriptive or prescriptive?” When Jephthah sacrificed his daughter,(Judges 11:34-40) is the audience supposed to celebrate him and follow his obedience or mourn at the description of an Israelite leader performing a human sacrifice? When viewed in light of the Torah, this behavior is understood as detestable behavior. Their behavior and the general state of the land were antithetical to the “high ideals and austere moral standards” [8] that they swore to follow when they settled into the “environment dominated by Canaanite culture and religion.”[9] Wolf points out simply that “As the book progresses, Israel’s plight worsens.”[10]
Mixing with the local culture and religion is the blatant sin woven throughout Judges. This willful disobedience is why James Smith calls Judges “a book about apostasy.”[11] They reject their covenant before Moses as recorded in the Torah and then to Joshua in the Book that shares his name. This rebellion comes to its head in their call for a king like all the other nations. The author wants the reader to understand this in light of the declaration recorded in the Pentateuch that Yahweh would be their king. 
Although the degeneration begins almost immediately after the death of Joshua, the accounts within the book cover a “period of 410 years if viewed consecutively.” However, a certain amount of overlap is reasonably assumed. Some scholars compress this based on their view of the “date assigned to the Exodus. There are two major views of that date: 1446 b.c. and 1290 b.c.” [12] Either theory, the longer or shorter window, places the events within the books during a pivotal time for a large region of the world. This time is during an event called the Late Bronze Age Collapse. [13]

Archeological Background

The period before the Judges was one of international trade and travel. The bronze for which the period is named and used everywhere was a product that required international trade. Modern metallurgical analysis shows that the essential components needed were gathered from islands in the Mediterranean and mines in modern-day Afghanistan. The early city-states and ancient neat east empires had relied on that for over a thousand years. In Canaan, the Late Bronze “towns do not seem to have been surrounded by fortifications. This may be due to Egyptian restrictions placed on their subjects.”[14] Even if tied to its client status, this condition still illustrated the land’s security. Then, suddenly, the archeological record shows that everything broke down.
Ancient near east empires that lasted for hundreds or even a couple of thousand years were not simply conquered and assimilated. These nations disintegrated, leaving nothing but ruin behind. The sudden collapse has benefited modern archeologists by creating a time capsule in their abandoned ruins.[15] One example of this is the el‘Amarna letters. These letters to Egypt from a client state show “social unrest during the Amarna period (1391–1335 BCE) is parallel to the social unrest described in Joshua-Judges (1250–1000 BCE).”[16]
Sala notes that a “series of destructions in the main centers of the Levant indicates that the political, economic, and social structures of the region—and the wider eastern Mediterranean—underwent a crisis.”[17] This rapid “destruction at Hazor, Lachish, and elsewhere in the late thirteenth century b.c.”[18] suggests that warfare had a hand in the change. The “Sea Peoples,” whose descendants mix with Canaanites to produce the Philistines, have often been blamed for the destruction. There may well have been other things at work that the Sea Peoples were also responding to. While warfare was a major factor, “additional factors contributed to the collapse of the Bronze Age sociopolitical system in the Levant.”[19]
Rainey and Notley say, “None can deny that these destruction levels represent outbreaks of unprecedented violence throughout the region.”[20] The result would likely have been refugees, warring and marauding bands, and chaos. This speculation is not only confirmed in the archeological record but in the Book of Judges as well. Additionally, the Archeological record might also line up with a prophetic promise. Kitchen suggests that “In terms of general reliability—and much more could have been instanced than there was room for here—the Old Testament comes out remarkably well, so long as its writings and writers are treated fairly and evenhandedly.”[21]
Arnold observes that “as settlement patterns shifted and many urban centers were destroyed or abandoned throughout the area, including Egypt, Anatolia, and the Aegean.”[22] The result would look like what had been promised in the Pentateuch, where the Israelites would take possession of houses they did not build and vineyards they did not plant (Deuteronomy 6:10–11, ESV). While it is reasonable to assume that this occurred, it would be difficult to see in Archeology. This difficulty is because the house built with a Canaanite floorplan would still look like a Canaanite dwelling to an archeologist even if the Israelites moved in and lived there for a few generations.
 
Ancient Near East Material

Egyptian

More than just a national foil to Moses in the Exodus account, Egypt is deeply connected with Israel. The area of Canaan was a bridge between three continents. This centrality gave the land a strategic value and an economic benefit when everything was stable. However, the strategic value made the region a coveted prize by the great nations surrounding it. Egypt, the Hittites, and other ancient near east powers would battle for it as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans did hundreds of years after the Judges’ writing.
The Military power of Egypt and the fact that it had the shortest logistical path gave an advantage to Egypt. This idea goes a long way to explain their close relationship with Canaan. We see this not only in the Bible but also in the Amarna Letters. Notley and Rainey point to these letters to show “events documented for the Levantine littoral during the fourteenth century BC are closely linked to the events in Egypt. [23]
Works such as the Stories of Sinuhue have an epic feeling similar to specific stories of Judges within the book. However, their writings do not appear to have the same scope. The work is helpful in that it confirms that some aspects of the Genesis narrative correspond to the cultural and legal norms of the time. Other texts, such as The Annals of Ramesses III, provide an epic tale with parallels to “The Saga of Samson (Judg 13:1–16:31).[24]Matthews and Benjamin point out that “Annals exaggerate the accomplishments of rulers to demonstrate their power to feed and protect the people assigned.”[25] The stories of the Judges seem to follow a similar path except for the heroes in Judges, which show apparent flaws and not in an overly optimistic light.

Hittite

Canaan’s neighbors to the north and part-time occupiers were the Hittites. The disintegration of this empire happens during the course of Judges. The Hittite Empire was still a force to be reckoned with during Joshua’s conquest, but by the time Samuel hears God’s call, the Hittites are no more.[26] Their nation “collapsed around 1190 BC under Suppiluliuma II (1200–1182 BC.”[27] The “Hittite Laws appear in the Deuteronomic Code (Deuteronomy 12–26) and the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26),”[28] but there are still certain significant distinctives in the Torah. The Hittite code is still strongly caste-based, and the compassion and grace elements of the Torah are also lacking. Other Hittite writings provide evidence of a functioning legal system even before Moses and his Ten Commandments.

Canaanites

While Canaanites refer to several tribal groups geographically situated in Canaan, the Philistines ultimately end the book of Judges as the main opposition to God’s people in the land. Ramesses III calls them the Pu-l-śa-tá of the northern war.[29] As a group, they are a mix of Canaanite and other Mediterranean groups. This group was the primary antagonist up to the establishment of the Kingdom. David ultimately subdues the Philistines. Certain ancient authors attribute “the wave of destruction… to the arrival and settlement of the so-called Sea Peoples.”[30] The culture of the Philistines is a mix of Canaanite and Greek ideas. In both groups, epic stories about their heroes like Jason or Ulysses, demigods like Hercules, or gods like Zeus or Apollo have certain parallels with the accounts of the Judges. However, similar is not the same. It is unclear whether these tales were believed or were the stories viewed more akin to fairytales. However, the Book of Judges is presented as an accurate account of real people. Kitchens reminds us that the author did “not to invent history, but to use real history to illustrate deity’s dealings with humanity.”[31]

Mesopotamian

Wolf points out that the “Book of Judges might be called “epic” literature.”[32] Therefore, Writings such as the Epic of Gilgamesh would be similar to those of the Enuma Elish stories. On a closer examination, these epic stories are more closely linked to elements within the Pentateuch and not Judges specifically. There may not be a direct parallel to Judges, but there is a fantastic body of texts that can help provide a solid background. The Assyrian tale of the Annals Iduram, the Code of Hammurabi, and the Code of Ur-Nammu and Shulgi all shed light on the background of the world in which the text came to be.

Biblical Context

There are more than a few moments where characters, with whom the audience wants to side, perform some rather wretched acts. Modern audiences are often surprised by acts of violence that seem justified in the Bible. The challenge is related to the genre. Judges is primarily a narrative work. With a Biblical narrative, there is a risk of confusing the descriptive with the prescriptive. Certain main characters do quite a bit of questionable behavior. The author assumes that the audience will compare the behavior not directly against the atrocities of the other nations but against the call of the covenant. The question is not if Samson is as evil as the Philistines. It is as if he is as faithful as Joseph.
The Torah illustrates people trusting in God despite hardship. The Patriarchs had direct faith in Yahweh and He worked through them even when they failed. In Exodus 19, God offers the Israelites a chance to be God’s nation of priests, but they reject it and instead choose to be a nation with priestly intercessors. They do not want the same direct access to God, as was demonstrated by the Patriarchs. They wanted something else. They promise to be faithful to that priesthood. However, they begin to worship the Golden Calf in less than a couple months. The pattern continues in Judges.
The sinfulness of the Israelites results in oppression. They cry out for someone else to save them but do not repent and submit themselves. It is part of the failed pattern. Even after deliverance through a judge, the people fail to pick up the offered role of being a nation of priests. They continue to want an intercessor like Moses and Aaron and not to be directly and faithfully connected to God as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were.

Biblical Theological Themes/Motifs

Moving past a superficial read, the audience is continually reminded that this book is more than a record of failures. Wolf, in his commentary, suggests that “the primary purpose of the Book of Judges is to show that Israel’s spiritual condition determined its political and material situation.”[33] This observation is also a partial answer. Throughout history, there have been enumerable stories of people failing to uphold a moral standard. There is virtually no limit to these sorts of tales.
The author collects these specific stories for a purpose. Searching the themes and elements woven within the whole text gives clues toward the purpose. Together, they reveal the author’s call for the reader to return to God. Judges tell the story foretold by Moses. It is the story of the fulfillment of Deuteronomy 32: 16-17.
In Judges, the reader finds the children of Israel chasing after foreign gods, forsaking Yahweh, and rejecting His covenant. In response to their rejection of God, they were being devoured, again as foretold in the Law of Moses in Deuteronomy 31:16-18. With their failure, the author asks the reader to heed Moses’s pleading. He called across time for a generation to “return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul (Deuteronomy 30:2, ESV).” This verse is the application of Judges. Strong notes that God acts for the ultimate good in the Scriptures and that “The penalties he inflicts upon transgression are not vindictive but vindicative.”[34]
This application is also the first theological message that God offers hope for redemption despite failure. This redemptive hope is tied to God’s long-suffering character, as revealed in the narrative. The people do not show just one period of disobedience but a continuing period lasting generations through which God continually shows mercy, even when they do not deserve it.
 
Theology- Character of God

Theology proper is the study of those things we know about God. The book of Judges provides the reader with insights into God’s character. The first theological truth of Judges is that God is Good and Holy in a way humanity is not. It may seem odd that a work focused on a community’s descent into depravity is really about God’s goodness, but that is precisely what the author does.
The author uses the narrative to “illustrate the apostasy, lawlessness, immorality, disunity, and legalism which characterized most of the 324 years of the period of the Judges.”[35] While it contains several Jewish folk heroes in the telling, the one character in every story throughout the book is Yahweh. He is the constant protagonist even while the objects of his care continually reject Him.
The story repeats, generation after generation. Smith points out that the author’s use of “oppression and deliverance sets a literary pattern for those which follow in the Book of Judges.”[36] This critical pattern points to a promise of supernatural salvation based on an appeal to a merciful God and not on establishing one’s worthiness. Indeed, this work does not illustrate that God helps those who help themselves. Instead, the author focuses on God’s trustworthiness even while the rescuers and the rescued themselves look more and more like the nations they were living among, not the holy nation the covenant called them to be. They began adopting Canaanite customs “epitomized by their ultimate desire to have a royal structure like the nations that surround them.”[37]
The Pattern in Judges tells the story of God’s faithfulness among a people who continue to make the same kind of sinful choice similar to the one made in the Garden. There is a cycle of willful disobedience and sin, which results in suffering. People often cry out in despair, and God sent a saving judge. The judge’s work would result in stability for the people. The author uses these stories of failure to warn the reader, but more significantly, to point the reader to Yahweh.
The author wants us to understand that these words were being “directly spoken by ‘the God of Israel.’” Smith correctly identifies this as God’s attempt to remind “his apostate people of his gracious acts in the past.”[38] With just a short message, he “stressed the relationship which existed between God and Israel, a relationship which the Lord himself had initiated.”[39] This idea suggests an understanding of salvation similar to the salvation through grace taught in the New Testament, and, to a lesser degree, the pattern illustrates the futility of humanity’s ability to stay holy through their works.

Theology- Attributes of God

There are several attributes of God implied in the narrative. The author illustrates the first theological attribute by the history of Judges and the companion narratives in the Torah linked to Judges. The period of the Judges extends beyond the lifespan of a human. This observation implies that Yahweh lives beyond human timeframes. The extended span covers the period from Joshua’s death to the monarchy’s dawn.[40] Further, the author of Judges directly links Yahweh with the God of creation at the beginning of the Pentateuch. This greater time span illustrates God’s eternal nature.
In that time, His Holiness and Sovereignty are illustrated by His unchanging character shown by His perpetual goodness. God intercedes in Judges in the same way he does in Joshua’s time. His behavior and motivations are also the same as in the time of the Patriarchs. Ultimately the failure of the Israelites under Judges is a direct parallel to the failures under Moses, Noah, and Adam. All these stories share a central protagonist, and His goals remain unchanged,
Lastly, we see God working supernaturally throughout the narrative. The physical laws of the universe do not bind Him. Further, He is revealed to know knowledge that transcends the physical universe. How God knows a community’s hearts as He enables and empowers His Judges alludes to his omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Judges shed light on these crucial theological ideas, and it also points to other doctrinal truths as well.

A People Defined by Faith

Indeed, Wolf correctly observes that “Israel was his own special people, and he did not abandon them,”[41] but the narrative also shows something else. Another vital element is that God’s people are neither defined nor limited to a specific tribal group. In his book, Including the Stranger, Firth notes that “a key theme running through Joshua was the fact that the people of God could not be reduced to something defined by ethnicity.”[42] This theme is also consistently throughout Judges.
Just as being a biological descendant of the Patriarchs did not guarantee inclusion in the community of faith, neither did being outside that family exclude you from Yahweh’s care. In Judges, Firth notes that “along with the more stereotypical references to foreigners, both the Gideon and Samson stories continue to develop the motif of foreigners as figures through whom Yahweh works.”[43] For example, the judge, Shamgar, has a foreign name, and “for that reason scholars think he probably was a Gentile.” Further, he is called “the son of Alnath,” who is a Canaanite goddess.[44] In Deborah’s Song recorded in Judges chapter five, Deborah celebrates “that Yahweh wins battles for Israel through foreigners and not merely through Israelites,”[45] noting both Shamgar and Jael, the Kenite wife in her song. God uses even more than the faithful for His purpose.

Holiness Matters

The narrative shows that God does more than allow the persecution of the His people. He, at times, is shown even working actively against the rebellious Israelites. For example, Gideon’s narrative illustrates that even God uses foreign armies for his purpose. Firth notes that
“after Israel does evil, Yahweh gave them into the power of Midian, who then oppressed Israel for seven years (Judg. 6:1).”[46] That God is willing to use pagan nations to discipline Israel shows that for Him, the holiness of His people matters more than their comfort.  
While it is not the central theme, it is evident in the narrative that for God’s people, holiness matters. Firth points out that “Israelites act as Canaanites, and thus move away from Yahweh’s purposes for his people.”[47] “Toleration of pagan ways led to accommodation, integration and finally apostasy.”[48] Repeatedly God’s people are warned not to follow after other gods or copy the cultures of those within the land. They were called to be a blessing to the nations surrounding them. The rejection of their calling removes that blessing from those around them. Therefore, apostasy and syncretism are sins destructive to their people and the nations surrounding them. 

God Will Send the Savior

God will indeed send a savior. As addressed earlier, Judges follows the descent of a holy community rescued from Egypt, but that, over time, becomes no different from the rebellious people they were to replace. [49] However, this is the setting and not the central promise of the text. It is a work meant to point toward the Messiah while reminding the reader to be faithful to their commitment to God, continually hoping in that trustworthy God. Even in the most profound rebellion, submission to God points toward restoration.
As Paul describes grace in Romans, we see it fleshed out in the narrative. Stories like Gideon’s “reveal clearly the methods of faith. God delights in teaching his people absolute dependence on him[50].” Smith also points to this grace focus by looking at the message delivered by a prophet recorded in Judges Chapter 6. The prophet begins his “messenger formula: ‘Thus says Yahweh.’” [51] This phrase points to the idea that he is more than just a moralist upset by the decay of his society.
 
Critical-interpretive issues

A work’s style and structure can provide insight into elements an author may have sought to emphasize. These clues aid in identifying the author’s purpose and intended message. As Webb points out, “authorial purpose would have to emerge from a consideration of the objective and formal characteristics of the text as a whole.”[52] The scope of that search must be established when looking for these clues.
Therefore, one of the early decisions that need to be made by a scholar before they approach a work like Judges is to define the boundaries of their principle study. This idea does not negate the importance of contextual clues outside those boundaries. Decisions about the scope and nature of the survey help focus research on increasing the likelihood of discovering the authorial purpose. How can we identify the units that comprise our modern-day book of Judges?  

One Text or Many

Judges might be a part of an extensive work yet separated for some reason. For example, there is a strong case that the Torah is split into five sections because the media technology of the time required the limitation of a scroll’s size. If this is the case with Judges, the separation might be intentionally selected or done arbitrarily. Martin Noth “argued that the division of the historical complex Deuteronomy—2 Kings into ‘books’ was a secondary development.”[53] Many, like Noth, approach Judges as “part of the ‘Deuteronomic History’ which includes the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings.”[54]
Even rabbinic tradition recorded in the Talmudic Mishnah points to shared authorship of three of these works when it declares “‘Samuel wrote his [own] book, and Judges and Ruth’ (שמואל כתב ספרו ושפטים ורות).”[55] Of course, shared authorship would not specifically answer the question about the necessity of a division between the books.
Another observation is the similarity between the first part of Judges and the Book of Joshua. There is a bit of intentional overlap. It could be that the beginning of Judges was supposed to close out Joshua or added to Judges to transition the reader into the next book. This usage is similar to transitions like the end of Deuteronomy going into the beginning of Joshua and the end of Judges going into Samuel. Here the logic of valuing the “institutional endorsement which has guaranteed its preservation and brought it”[56] to us seems valuable.
As he reports, “It has never seriously been proposed that the book of Judges is, in fact, an entirely arbitrary unit of this kind, even by scholars who have had little or no interest in the separate books as such.”[57] Looking at the modern form of Judges as a viable literary unit still seems reasonable because that is how it was received.
Judges might be considered an autonomous work, yet even independent; it might be a collection of texts with their own authors and authorial intent. Even if it is a quilt of works sown together, the pattern is the product of the purposes of the quilter or compiler. Looking further and further into the choices made by those who put together Judges, as received, leads to the study of the book’s style and form.
The book could be “called ‘epic’ literature, a form associated with the heroic age.”[58] Webb also reminds us that the textual structure of a work “plays a central role in more traditional literary criticism.”[59] Elements linking Judges to the book of Joshua and the Pentateuch reinforce the idea that these earlier works can be used as a lens to help the reader understand this work.
The structure argues that the book is intentionally connected. An introduction followed by narratives that carry this idea through the work is evidence of an author’s intent. This exploration concludes that the modern form of Judges is a single work. In Judges, an introduction establishes the central theme, “but it falls to the stories of the various judges to develop them.”[60] When examining a text, the goal is to discover the message and purpose often hidden behind it. The meaning here ties to the Scriptures that preceded it.
This link is noted by Wolf when he says, “Liberal scholars build Judges around a Deuteronomic core tied in with Pentateuchal criticism.”[61] The text, closely tied to the Torah and the rest of the scriptures should be viewed through that relationship. Judges may be in the style of epic literature, but the purpose is to teach spiritual truths. The stories and lessons of the Patriarchs offer a stark contrast to the lives described in Judges. For example, in these comparisons, Samson’s failure is even more stark when compared to Joseph’s faithfulness. The next reasonable question is if this form is the same shape as initially received or is the product of numerous rewrites throughout its history.

Author, Compiler, Editor, or Redactor

Before addressing the complex discussion concerning a Biblical work’s formation, it is essential to handle something on its face so simple that it is often overlooked in the debate. Yet this observation goes a long way toward answering certain textual criticism. The observation concerns the necessary connection between the work of an author and compiler with this book specifically. McKenzie correctly observes that “the biblical authors conducted research into traditional materials and collected stories and traditions” before writing their work. This research would include whatever Scriptures the author had access to at that time.
A work that covers several generations would naturally require people’s interactions across that span of time to be available to the author, who would eventually compile this account in a text. These likely interactions inspire debates among scholars, as does the means of transmission of the text throughout time. These discussions offer opportunities to explore the text for clues to authorial intent by examining the author’s choices in the text’s composition. This idea complicates the debate because the work of a single author like Samuel or even a later compiler could likely appear the same.
Wolf points out, “The tripartite structure of the book complicates the question of its authorship.”[62] Noth did not hold to the suggestion that it was the author of Samuel the composed Judges. He believed that “Judges 3:7–12:15 was composed by the Deuteronomist himself by combining a collection of stories about local tribal heroes with a short list of judge-figures.”[63] Noth recognizes the importance of the link to the Torah. It could be that incorporating “judge figures” requires another coauthor.
Richter and others build on Noth’s thinking but viewed Judges as the work of two or more distinct voices. They tend to view each of these revisors as a separate voice using their composition to respond to a contemporary issue. For example, one might work during the reorganization under Josiah and focus on those issues; another might be post-Exile and therefore focus on sin and failure. D.W. Gooding seems to trump much of the debate with a solid observation. He said, “Whatever the sources used, compiling them into their present form was the work of one unifying mind.”[64] This understanding leads to the discussion moving from the “who” to the “when.”

Time and Occasion

The question of when the work was written is difficult to ascertain because elements within the text would have naturally been passed down through the generations until it reached the earliest suggested author: Samuel. As referenced before, Samuel is the author traditionally ascribed to Judges, but he lived several hundred years after Joshua and the earliest Judges. He would have received textual or oral accounts of the various Judges and would have woven them into a quilt.
Samuel’s authorship does not negate the possibility of later editors inserting clarifying statements to preserve contextual understanding. However, it seems less likely that a believer in the truth of the scripture would insert fictional stories to justify their positions. There is also the very real likelihood that a later compiler might gather and compile various religious texts together.
It could be that moving from a scroll-based medium to a book-based medium would necessitate the shift. It would also seem likely if there were an attempt to recognize a specific canon as the Temple is built or to standardize the work to head to various Synagogues during the diaspora. These become the most commonly suggested times. McKenzie notes that there is little dissent to the idea that the Historical books were “actually constituent parts of two larger works, which are, in turn, closely related to one another.”[65] But the writing of Judges would need to predate the completions of this Historical work even though, as Webb says at that time, “it is not clear to what extent they recognized it as a literary unit with its own unique message, that is, as a conceptual unit.”[66]
Wolf holds that it began being passed down as “Oral tradition…for the period from 1200–1000 b.c., with initial writing coming in the next two centuries.”[67] This position seems close to the traditional view. Samuel’s authorship would push the date closer to 1000 B.C. and suggest it began in written form. This time period was also a relative Golden Age for Israel in that they had the Unified Kingdom under David, and it was the time of the Building of the First Temple. Traditional dating lines up with this and seems reasonably justified.
Stone points out that the “author appears to have been a Judean supporter of the Davidic monarchy.”[68] Samuel would fulfill this requirement, as would others from this time. Many modern scholars are convinced of a late date for Deuteronomy. They tend to date Deuteronomy as a response to the destruction of Jerusalem. For example, Wolf suggests, “A Deuteronomic recension in the late seventh century put the book in its basic form, though final editing is reserved for the postexilic period.”[69] This idea is because he assumes that the author of Deuteronomy was not Moses but a much later writer.
Curiously, as one author admits, there is an “absence of any strong ideology of centralization of worship and the absence of claims for the sacred status of Jerusalem.”[70] This observation seems a better argument for authorship before Solomon’s Temple than post-Exile, because post-Exile works like Ezra-Nehemiah or Ezekiel all look at the importance of rebuilding the Temple.
The comparing of both theories of authorship, Noth’s Deuteronomist and Mishnah’s Samuel illustrate that either way, Judges depend on the preexistence of the Pentateuch. This approach may not answer precisely when the text was written or by whom, but it reinforces the idea that the Torah is the lens through which we view Judges. Ultimately, if the study’s purpose is to gain insight into the text, then knowing which Scriptures should be used to help understand a passage may be more valuable.

Conclusion

​The author of Judges does not want us to view Judges apart from Torah. Judges is primarily a narrative work. With a Biblical narrative, there is a risk of confusing the descriptive for the prescriptive. There is quite a bit of questionable behavior done by certain main characters. Using the Instructions of Moses as a guide helps guard us against error. They move us past an ethnocentric understanding and into a call for faithful reliance on the real central figure of Judges: Yahweh.
The narrative of Judges, just like our own lives, is to be measured out by the Law of Moses. After all the Chaos and confusion, Arnold note that “new settlements can fill the economic and political power vacuum and give rise to the Hebrew kingdoms of Israel and Judah as well as other biblical nations.”[71] The Chaos that swirls around the people in the story is like the chaos in our own life. Our sin can undoubtedly add to the Chaos, but what the Book of Judges promises is that even if the world as we know it is falling apart, He is Faithful and will rescue us.
 

 
BibliographyBiblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia: With Werkgroep Informatica, Vrije Universiteit Morphology; Bible. O.T. Hebrew. Werkgroep Informatica, Vrije Universiteit. (Logos Bible Software, 2006).
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016).
Septuaginta: With Morphology, electronic ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979).
Aland, Kurt et al., The Greek New Testament, Fourth Revised Edition (with Morphology) (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1993; 2006).
Arnold, Elizabeth, “Climate and Environment of the Levant,” in Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, ed. Jonathan S. Greer, John W. Hilber, and John H. Walton (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2018).
Caiafa, Luigi, “Mesopotamia, Archaeology Of, Middle Bronze through Iron Age,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
Cundall, Arthur E. and Morris, Leon, Judges and Ruth: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 7, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1968).
Firth, David G. Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets, ed. D. A. Carson, vol. 50, New Studies in Biblical Theology (London; Downers Grove, IL: Apollos; IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2019).
Fuhr Jr, Richard Alan. and Köstenberger, Andreas J., Inductive Bible Study: Observation, Interpretation, and Application through the Lenses of History, Literature, and Theology (Nashville, TN: B&H, 2016).
Kitchen Kenneth A., On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006).
Matthews, Victor H. and Benjamin, Don C. Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East, 4th ed. (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2016).
McKenzie, Steven L., Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010).
Rainey, Anson F. and Notley, R. Steven Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible (Jerusalem: Carta Jerusalem, 2015),
Sala, Maura “Beit Mirsim, Tell,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
Smith, James E. The Books of History, Old Testament Survey Series (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1995), 119.Utley, Robert James, The Gospel according to Luke, vol. Volume 3A, Study Guide Commentary Series (Marshall, TX: Bible Lessons International, 2004).
Stone, Lawson G., “Judges,” in Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, ed. Philip W. Comfort, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2012), 190.
Strong, Augustus Hopkins, Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907).
Webb, Barry G., The Book of the Judges: An Integrated Reading, vol. 46, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987).
Wolf, Herbert “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992.


[1] Smith, James E., The Books of History, Old Testament Survey Series (Joplin, MO: College Press, 1995), 119.

[2] Kitchen, K. A., On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006), 499.

[3] Ibid., 218.

[4] Cundall, Arthur E. and Morris, Leon, Judges and Ruth: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 7, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1968), 36.

[5] Smith, James E. The Books of History, Old Testament Survey Series , 1995), 119.

[6] Wolf, Herbert “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1992), 380.

[7] Firth, David G. Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets, ed. D. A. Carson, vol. 50, New Studies in Biblical Theology (London; Downers Grove, IL: Apollos; IVP Academic: An Imprint of InterVarsity Press, 2019), 78.

[8] Cundall and Morris, Judges and Ruth: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 7, 36.

[9] Ibid..

[10] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, ed., 378.

[11] Smith, The Books of History, Old Testament Survey Series, 119.

[12] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, ed., 376.

[13] Arnold, Elizabeth “Climate and Environment of the Levant,” in Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, ed. Jonathan S. Greer, John W. Hilber, and John H. Walton (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic: A Division of Baker Publishing Group, 2018), 26.

[14] Rainey, Anson F. and Notley, R. Steven Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible (Jerusalem: Carta Jerusalem, 2015), 29.

[15] Ibid., 29–30.

[16] Matthews, Victor H. and Benjamin, Don C., Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East, 4th ed. (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2016), 156.

[17] Sala, Maura “Beit Mirsim, Tell,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

[18] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, ed., 376.

[19] Sala, “Beit Mirsim, Tell,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary.

[20] Rainey and Notley, Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible, 31.

[21] Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, 500.

[22] Arnold, “Climate and Environment of the Levant,” in Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, ed., 26.

[23] Rainey and Notley, Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible, 29–30.

[24] Matthews and. Benjamin, Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East, 161.

[25] Ibid..

[26] Caiafa, Luigi, “Mesopotamia, Archaeology Of, Middle Bronze through Iron Age,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).

[27] Sala, “Beit Mirsim, Tell,” ed. John D. Barry et al., The Lexham Bible Dictionary.

[28] Matthews and. Benjamin, Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East, 121.

[29] Rainey and Notley, Carta’s New Century Handbook and Atlas of the Bible, 31.

[30] Firth, Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets, 83.

[31] Kitchen, On the Reliability of the Old Testament, 218.

[32] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, ed., 379.

[33] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, vol. 3, 378.

[34] Augustus Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1907), 294.

[35] Smith, The Books of History, Old Testament Survey Series, 197.

[36] ibid., 134.

[37] Firth, Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets,), 83.

[38] Ibid..

[39] Smith, The Books of History, Old Testament Survey Series, 150.

[40] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 376.

[41] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 380.

[42] Firth, Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets, 53.

[43] Ibid., 79.

[44] Smith, The Books of History, Old Testament Survey Series,  139.

[45] Firth, Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets, 77.

[46] Ibid.,78.

[47] Ibid., 82.

[48] Smith, The Books of History, Old Testament Survey Series, 133.

[49] Firth, Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets, 66.

[50] Smith, The Books of History, Old Testament Survey Series, 155.

[51] Ibid., 150.

[52] Webb, Barry G., The Book of the Judges: An Integrated Reading, vol. 46, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1987), vol. 46, 29.

[53] Ibid., 46, 19.

[54] Cundall and Morris, Judges and Ruth: An Introduction and Commentary, vol. 7, 20.

[55] Webb, The Book of the Judges: An Integrated Reading, vol. 46, 17.

[56] Ibid.,  17–18.

[57] Ibid., 19.

[58] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel,  379.

[59] Webb, The Book of the Judges: An Integrated Reading, vol. 46, 33.

[60] Firth, Including the Stranger: Foreigners in the Former Prophets, 66.

[61] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 377.

[62] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 377.

[63] Steven L. McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: William. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2010), 11.

[64] Webb, The Book of the Judges: An Integrated Reading, vol. 46, 34.

[65] McKenzie, Introduction to the Historical Books: Strategies for Reading, 13.

[66] Webb, The Book of the Judges: An Integrated Reading, 18.

[67] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 377.

[68] Lawson G. Stone, “Judges,” in Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, ed. Philip W. Comfort, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2012), 190.

[69] Wolf, “Judges,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 & 2 Samuel, 377.

[70] Stone, “Judges,” in Cornerstone Biblical Commentary: Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 190.

[71] Arnold, “Climate and Environment of the Levant,” in Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts, ed., 27.