From the ongoing discussion on the manipulation of the peasants and other underclasses by the rich and centralised government, it would appear as if these groups were pliable that they could not organise resis- tance strategies. On the contrary, peasants engaged in several and relent- less revolts against the exploitative city-states. Most of them withdrew but not always physically from the city-states and from the society to become rebels resisting authority of the rulers. The behaviour of the groups variously known in the ancient Near East as the Habiru, Abiru,
21
Apiru, or Apitu shed light on the resistance strategies of the peasants. It is the same process through which Israel emerged as a rebellious movement against the socio-economic set up of the Canaanite city-state establishment. It is important therefore to highlight some general char- acteristic features of the Habiru groups as background to understanding the history of the emergence of Israel.
Although the debate is still raging over the true identity of the Habiru and their connection to Hebrews and Israelites, scholars have at least established that common to all people designated as Habiru in the an- cient Near East is the fact that they were ‘uprooted’ from their original political and social framework and forced to adapt to a new environment, for a while, but would soon come back to reintegrate into their original social, economic and political environment. The Habiru menace was not confined to one locality; it was a common scenario in the rest of the ancient Near East, as a reaction to various factors, chief among them being economic exploitation of the city-states; debt, heavy taxes, wars,
disasters, famine and prolonged military service among others.22 The
different traits and social behaviour of the Habiru in each area of West- ern Asia are the result of the adaptation to new circumstances. Condi- tions in the host environment therefore determined the overall behav- iour of the Habiru tribes.
These ‘tribes’, it should be understood were not real but were based upon fictive kinship and the tribal framework therefore was basically territorial in nature and included inhabitants of small towns and villages as well as nomads. All these variegated peoples formed a tribe although
they had no blood relations.23 Contrary to previously thought about the
Habiru as exclusively nomadic in nature, it is now conclusive that most of the people designated as the ‘Habiru’ insofar as their background can be ascertained, actually came from the sedentary population and not from among the nomads. The Habiru originated from the two major sectors of the ancient Near East: the urban and the tribal hence were an
22
Cf. M. B. Rowton, ‘Dimorphic Structure and the Problem of the ‘Apiru-ibrim’’. JNES 35, (1976), pp.13-20 (p.14); Cf. Nadav Naaman, Canaan in the Second Millennium B. C. E.
Collected Essays, Vol. 2. Indiana: Winona Lake, 2005, p. 253.
23
Cf. G. E. Mendenhall, ‘The Hebrew Conquest of Palestine’. BA 25 (1962), pp. 69-71; Mendenhall, The Tenth Generation: The Origins of the Biblical Tradition. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1973, pp. 174-178; Gottwald, The Tribes of Yahweh, 1979, pp. 294-298, (especially p.470).
intermediate social element between these two groups, justifying them
being called the ‘dimorphic’ structure.24
It was common in the ancient Near East that such individuals who were uprooted by the various factors I have mentioned above, sometimes moved from their homeland to neighbouring countries and served either in the public or in private sector for subsistence or wages until such a time when conditions improved back in the homeland. Some would migrate in search of pastures for their animals. Usually, however they did not migrate individually, but they formed a band (a group). These bands of immigrants were independent bodies and were restricted in number and unified often by a single prominent leader. Apart from the ring leader, so to speak, there was no other hierarchy or institutional organisation required for this tiny social structure and it is for this rea- son that none of the institutions that typify either clan or tribe ever ap- peared in connection to the Habiru. For sustenance, the Habiru bands
often engaged in predatory raids.25 That is why M. B. Rowton argues that
normally, ‘in tribal society, the most predatory elements were usually the small and poor tribes or tribal splinter groups. These lacked enough strength to assert their claim on pasture and as a result would turn to
brigandage’.26
Sedentary individuals with political ambitions would in some cases ap- peal to the Habiru brigands (those living in the peripheries of their so- cieties) whom they would recruit as mercenaries. On some occasions they served in the armies of established kingdoms and this route nor- mally opened the way for re-integration of the Habiru into sedentary society and may have been a stepping-stone to a military career for a
leader of a band.27 Due to a number of technicalities, the social status,
‘Habiru’-the ‘uprooted migrants’ did not last very long. The stability of
24
Cf. Rowton, ‘Dimorphic Structure and the Problem of the ‘Apiru-ibrim’’; Cf. Naaman,
Canaan in the Second Millennium, p. 254; Cf. J. Bottero, ‘Les Habiru les nomads et les sedentaires’, in Castillo, J.S. (ed.), Nomads and Sedentary Peoples. Mexico City, 1981: pp. 89-107, (pp. 96-97).
25
Cf. Naaman, Canaan in the Second Millennium, p. 254; Cf. Bottero, ‘Habiru’, in G. Ebeling and M. Meissner (eds.), Reallexikon der Assyriologie, IV. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972, pp. 14- 27, (26); Cf. Bottero, ‘Les Habiru’, p. 94.
26
Cf. Rowton, ‘Dimorphic Structure and Parasocial Element’, JNES 36 (1977), pp. 181-197, (193).
27
the organisation of these bands depended mainly on the personality of
their leader and cohesion of their members.28 Usually, the Habiru group
disintegrated as soon as their members married, had children, and when for instance, their number expanded to a degree that necessitated sup- port from a larger political group. Therefore the groups appear to have re-integrated themselves either into tribal society or (through military service) into urban society; they may have even formed the nucleus of an
entirely new tribe.29 It is equally well attested that individual refugees
would get re-integrated into the society through their service in ancient Near Eastern kingdoms.
From the foregoing discussion, each society therefore had its own ‘Habiru people’ so to speak. In general the phenomenon of the Habiru can be described as a circular process, one in which people were up- rooted from society in which they were born, lived for a while as foreign- ers in another country, and then were absorbed into their new environ-
ment.30 And this new environment due to socio-economic processes and
other factors produces its own Habiru, the ‘uprooted migrants’ who leave for another country where the same process happens. The process is cyclical in nature. Such a process is assumed to be the route through which ‘Israelite tribes’ settled in Canaan. Contrary to the assumption that Israelites were foreign to Canaan, who came through a conquest or peaceful infiltration from Egypt, it is now almost clear that they were part of the Canaanite populations, some of whom became Habiru, who wondered and later rejoined the other tribes in a peasant rebellion.
The Emergence of Israel in Canaan
There are basically three models postulated by scholars as well as hinted by the biblical narrative as possible ways through which Israel emerged and/or settled in Canaan. However the models still will break into finer
and minor ones.31
Although my interest is to discuss in detail, the peas-
28
C. Bottero, ‘Les Habiru’, pp. 93-106,
29
Cf. Naaman, Canaan in the Second Millennium, p. 255; Cf. Rowton, ‘Dimorphic Structure and Parasocial Element’, p. 194.
30
Cf. Naaman, Canaan in the Second Millennium, p. 255.
31
For more details on the three theories, see for example, W.H. Stiebing, Out of the Desert?
Archaeology and the Exodus/Conquest Narratives. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus, 1989; J.J. Bimson, ‘The Origins of Israel in Canaan: An Examination of Recent Theories’, The-
ant revolt model as articulated by Gottwald, which model I strongly sus- pect does not only provide us with the most likely scenario through which Israel came onto the scene but also resonates with the methodol- ogy guiding this research and the history of Zimbabwe, from the pre- colonial, colonial and to the post colonial era, as background, I will dis- cuss briefly the other two models proposed, namely, the Conquest model and the Infiltration model of settlement. These models agree in princi- ple that Israelites were foreigners, who invaded Canaan from outside.
The Conquest Model of Israelite Settlement
The Conquest Model is based upon the Exodus story through Joshua 1- 12 especially which presents a united front of twelve tribes of Israel who first under Moses and later under Joshua, fleeing from Egyptian slavery orchestrated a swift and bloody invasion into Canaan accompanied by miracles. According to the narrative, the conquest was led by Yahweh himself, who had promised to give them (Israelites, through Abraham) the land of Canaan (Gen 12:1). In other words, the theory leans closely to the biblical account of events. It interprets archaeological evidence in ways that support the authenticity of the stories in the Bible. The ar- chaeological school, known in some circles as the Baltimore school comprising American archaeologists, W.F. Albright, G.E. Wright, and J. Bright, is famous for suggesting that the archaeological evidence is tes- timony to at least the reliability of the biblical account of the conquest of the Israelites led by Joshua. Thus, for them, the Iron Age settlers were new nomadic immigrants who entered Canaan in around 1200 BCE, through a conquest. The premise of the argument was the resemblance between the names Habiru and Hebrew, the proximity of their location (as they had been a menace to Egyptian rule) as well as the close chrono- logical relationship between the Amarna Habiru and the Israelites which
brought about the immediate equation of the two groups.32 The main
melios 15, (1989), pp. 4-15; Bimson, ‘Merenptah’s Israel and Recent Theories of Israelite Origins’, JSOT 49, (1991), pp. 3-29.
32
Cf. W.F. Albright, ‘Archaeology and the Date of the Hebrew Conquest of Palestine’, BA-
SOR 58, (1935), pp. 10-18; Albright, ‘The Israelite Conquest of Palestine in Light of Ar- chaeology’, BASOR 74, (1939), pp. 11-23; G.E. Wright, Biblical Archaeology. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 2nd edn, 1962; J. Bright, A History of Israel. Philadelphia: Westmin-
ster Press, 3rd edn, 1981; Bright, Early Israel in Recent History Writing: A Study in Method.
problem with this theory is; the conquest model as illustrated in the book of Joshua can no longer be sustained, not only because the cities mentioned as being destroyed by Joshua in 1200 BCE such as Jericho
(Joshua 6) were already destroyed by this time,33 but also because the
majority of the conquest stories in the Book of Joshua (and of the Exodus)
are devoid of historical reality.34