THE interest and importance of the Book of Judges lie chiefly in the knowledge
which it gives us of the state of society and religion in Israel in the early
centuries of its settlement in Palestine, for which Judges and Samuel are our
only sources. In addition to this, parts of the book are of preeminent
historical value: in particular, ch. I, which contains by far the oldest and
most trustworthy account of the invasion of Canaan; and ch. 5,
the Song of Deborah, the only contemporary monument of Israelitish history
before the Kingdom.
In the following commentary matters of history, antiquities, and especially
the social and religious life of the people in this period, are properly given
the largest place; not only for their intrinsic interest, but because the
knowledge of these things is indispensable to any right understanding of the
history of Israel and of its religion. The work of the prophets can only be
comprehended in its relation to the national religion of Israel. But before
there was a national religion, there was a common religion of the Israelite
tribes which was one of the most potent forces in the making of the nation. What
this religion was, which they brought with them into Canaan, and what changes it
underwent in contact with Canaanite civilization and
the religions of the land, we learn in no small part from the Book of Judges;
while here and there, as in the Song of Deborah, we have glimpses of a remoter
past, the adoption of the religion of Yahweh by the tribes at Horeb, the work of
Moses.
About
the Author -- The International Critical Commentary (ICC): Judges
George F. Moore ---
George Foot Moore (Oct. 15, 1851 - May 16, 1931)—one of the
most important American teachers of religion; born in West Chester, Pennsylvania
and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Moore graduated from Yale in 1872 and from Union Theological Seminary in
1877, was ordained to the Presbyterian ministry in 1878, and became professor of
Hebrew in Andover Theological Seminary in 1883. In 1902 he went to Harvard and
was made professor of the history of religion just two years later.
Moore's work was of importance in four fields—the shaping of U.S.
scholarship, the reshaping of U.S. concepts of religion, the study of the Hebrew
Bible, and the study of tannaitic Judaism. He did much to shape the concept of
religion as a universal human activity of which the various religions are
particular instances, and the study, one of the "humanities." This conception
was important for the ecumenical movement, cooperation between Christians and
Jews, reorientation of missions from conversion to social work, and introduction
of courses on the history of religion into college curricula.
In the study of the Hebrew Bible Moore not only introduced German methods,
standards, and conclusions, but added his own common sense and enormous
learning. Beside his many articles in the Andover Review and Cheyne's
Encyclopaedia Biblica, his Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Judges (1895)
remains most valuable. Finally, his Judaism in the First Centuries of the
Christian Era: The Age of the Tannaim (3 vols., 1927–30, 19662) is an
outstanding study of rabbinic Judaism. Although it too much neglects the
mystical, magical, and apocalyptic sides of Judaism, its apology for tannaitic
teaching as a reasonable, humane, and pious working out of biblical tradition is
conclusive and has been of great importance not only for Christians, but also
for Jewish understanding of Judaism.
About
the Author -- The International Critical Commentary (ICC): Judges