I finished Niels Peter Lemche's Ancient Israel. I have four items:
1. I was disappointed with something that Lemche said on page 216:
"The Old Testament mentions a few examples of human sacrifice; thus, for example, in 2 Kings 3, king Mesha of Moab sacrifices his son in time of dire need. The story, however, can hardly be regarded as a historical report, since it is part of the legendary Elijah-Elisha cycle. Similar considerations apply to the narrative about Jephthah's daughter (Judg. 11.34-40), who had to be sacrificed by her father in fulfillment of a 'vow' when he returned from war and she was the first to greet him on his return. The story is a fairytale, a legend which had travelled throughout the cultures in the Mediterranean region. Moreover, neither of the two narratives can be claimed to be concerned with sacrifices of the first-born; in both tales the point is quite different."
What I disliked about Lemche's statement here was that he appeared to dismiss the value of these stories in teaching us about human sacrifice in ancient Israel. So the stories may not be historical. They still may tell us that human sacrifice was on the radar of Israelite writers, meaning that it was a reality in ancient Israel and the ancient Near East.
In other cases, Lemche says that a story may be unhistorical, and yet present a historical reality. On pages 134-135, he says that the story in Judges 9 about Abimelech is "obviously more of a saga than a historical account", and yet it may still portray a historical reality---that "the tribe of Manasseh may have known a more authoritative leadership figure than was provided by the groups of 'elders.'" Because the story about Naboth in I Kings 21 is part of the Elijah legends, Lemche does not believe that it can "be used as a direct historical source relevant to events in the days of Ahab, that is, in the first half of the ninth century BCE" (page 151). But he does think that the story may reveal the historical "change in power relationships between the state and the traditional social structure to the advantage of the state", as well as the "arbitrariness [of] the royal administration...for which the ordinary Israelite had no remedy" (page 151). So why can't the stories of Mesha and Jephthah be portraying a historical reality in the area of human sacrifice---even if the details of the stories themselves did not actually happen in history?
(Regarding Lemche's position on whether or not ancient Israel had human sacrifice, on page 217, he seems to express agnosticism about the extent of the practice---whether or not it was limited to the elites.)
2. On pages 212-213, Lemche speculates about the Ark of the Covenant. He says that it could have been a throne for the deity with "mythological beings"---"the type of throne that was well known in the Near East"---and it went with the Israelites into battle. David retrieved it, and Solomon housed it in the Temple. In exile, however, there emerged the idea that the Ark was a box constructed by Moses for the Law---which promoted the Law as Mosaic.
I would like to write a post about the Ark of the Covenant at some point because I wonder what scholars say about its origins. I'm also curious as to whether or not other nations had a portable sanctuary for God when they went out to battle, such as an idol.
3. On pages 218-219, Lemche talks about the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. Lemche refers to a scholarly view that the Passover "celebrated the birth of the young animals" and was thus from the nomadic Israelites, whereas the Days of Unleavened Bread "celebrated the barley harvest" and was thus from the agrarian Canaanites. Lemche entertains the possibility that nomadic Israelites kept Passover and agrarian Israelites kept the Days of Unleavened Bread, but he settles on the view that both were observed in "the Israelite villages of the pre-national period (and presumably long before the Bronze Age society)". But, for Lemche, Josiah was the one who made the barley and animal festivals into "one of Israel's great historically founded pilgrimage festivals" (see II Kings 23:22).
4. I like something that Lemche says on pages 254-255 about God's revelation of himself to Elijah in I Kings 19, in which the LORD was not in the thunderstorm, but rather in the still small voice:
"One might say that a religion which described Yahweh as the god who brought water for the fields had no use for a Yahweh who 'strips the bark off the trees' (Ps. 29.9) and, likewise, that a religion which praised Yahweh as the maintainer of the cosmos did not require a Yahweh who manifested himself in an earthquake."
This actually fits with today---Earth Day. Like Rosemary Ruether, did the author of I Kings 19 want a God who was more ecologically-friendly?