This work offers a reconstruction of the politics of ancient Israel within the wider political environment of the ancient Near East. Gottwald begins by questioning the view of some biblical scholars that the primary factor influencing Israel's political evolution was its religion.

In this volume, Norman Gottwald reconstructs the politics of ancient Israel within the larger political environment of the ancient Near East. He questions the prevailing view that the Hebrew Bible, supported by archeological evidence when necessary, should be the primary source to diagram the evolution of Israel's political history. Along with a thorough and nuanced discussion of the matrix of ancient Near Eastern politics, Gottwald suggests how the monarchies of Israel and Judah developed. With imaginative and masterful insight, Gottwald tackles head-on the problems of religion, power, and politics in the history of ancient Israel. Volumes in the Library of Ancient Israel draw on multiple disciplines--such as archaeology, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and literary criticism--to illuminate the everyday realities and social subtleties these ancient cultures experienced. This series employs sophisticated methods resulting in original contributions that depict the reality of the people behind the Hebrew Bible and interprets these insights for a wide variety of readers.

A powerful contribution to the study of the politics and religion of Ancient Israel featuring a new approach that doesn't focus on biblical exegesis alone and includes commentary from some of the world's top experts in Jewish and bible studies.

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In this volume, Nathaniel Levtow articulately interacts with Mesopotamian and Israelite iconoclastic traditions, locating Israelite polemics against cult images among a spectrum of ancient West Asian literary genres and ritual practices that target the embodied deities of political opponents. Levtow argues that Israelite parodies of Mesopotamian iconic cult were not unique expressions of aniconic monotheism but assertions of Israelite political potency during and shortly after the Babylonian Exile. By interpreting Israelite icon parodies in this context, Levtow rejects the idea of “idolatry” as a static, native Israelite descriptive category and highlights the ability of Israelite writers to compose authoritative classifications of cult that profoundly influenced ancient and modern understandings of iconic worship practices. He concludes that biblical representations of iconic cult reveal dynamic acts of Israelite social formation and exemplify the enduring power of the cult image in ancient West Asian societies.

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