By Tyson Thorne

August 7, 2018
 

IntroJudges Large

The book of Judges chronicles Israel's history leading into the establishment of God's kingdom, ruled through human leaders. It reveals a disturbing trend in the peoples early days, a trend of forsaking God in favor of compromise with the nations around them. This repetitious rebellion lead them to failures in their relationship with God, failures in military might, and failures to be the separate and holy people God intended. In fact, there is archaeological evidence that reinforces the Bible's account. All of the pottery and other artifacts of this period show no differentiation between Israelite artifacts and those of the nation's around them.

Author and Date of Writing

The book of Judges does not claim to be authored by anyone, so the field is wide open for discussion. There are a few textual clues as to the time of writing, however, which may help us narrow down the possibilities. For example, in Judges 17.6, 18.1 and 19.1 we observe the use of the phrase, "In those days Israel had no king." This would indicate that the book was written after the establishment of the monarchy and Israel's form of government. That puts the date of writing at least 50 years after the events of Judges.

There are a couple other textual clues that we should note. The first is found in Judges 1.21: "The men of Benjamin, however, did not conquer the Jebusites living in Jerusalem." This would indicate the date of writing was some time before David conquered Jerusalem, about 1000 BC. This seems to be clear cut, until we get to Judges 17-21, which suggests that David's kingdom was already established. These two facts are hard to reconcile, unless the book had more than one author.

The prophet Samuel — the one who anointed David as King of Israel — is said to be the author of Judges by the Jewish Talmud. The timing is right for most of the books content, and it is possible that Samuel wrote the framework of the book, including the accounts of the judges themselves. The later passages would have been added later. But by whom? The book of First Chronicles (29.29) may indicate an answer: "King David’s accomplishments, from start to finish, are recorded in the Annals of Samuel the prophet, the Annals of Nathan the prophet, and the Annals of Gad the prophet."

Unless archaeology and other sources bring to light more evidence, the best guess as to the authorship is that Samuel wrote the bulk of the book around 1000 BC, and it was later edited and expanded by the prophet's Nathan and Gad.

Big Idea

God is the hero and champion of his people, faithful to them and to keeping his promises through both discipline (for their repeated compromises with the world around them) and forgiveness (providing them godly leadership to restore them).

 
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