Citations:ergatism


 * 1981,, “The Uneasy Compromise: Israel between League and Monarchy” in Traditions in Transformation: Turning Points in Biblical Faith (Festschrift honoring ), eds. Baruch Halpern and Jon Douglas Levenson, , ISBN 0931464064, chapter iii, § i , :
 * It is of course true that Israel initiated a monarchic system, under pressure from the Philistine pentapolis, at Saul’s time. But Israel had suffered military and economic constraint before. What was the impetus at Saul’s time? Who supported the departure from the constitution of the league? Surely some groups opposed the change. Who were the opposition? And what restraint did the league then impose on the king? The view that emerges from the histories is one of a whole nation rushing down to Gilgal, swept along in the grip of some spontaneous mass inspiration, to enthrone an obscure Benjaminite. But this is precisely how nations do not function. Cool heads, and entrenched elites, do exist. In short, the shift from league to monarchy must be reconstructed on the basis of Israel’s politics, of domestic and foreign relations, and not as it has in the past — as a gift dropped from heaven, as a machina ex deo, or as a case of historical ergatism.