Andrew Tobolowsky: Memory and Meaning

Andrew Tobolowsky, “The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel,” The Ancient Near East Today 11 no. 4 (April 2023):

In other words, the idea that any kind of tradition simply distills the memory of a nation, and keeps it stable for centuries belongs (or ought to belong) to another era of scholarship. Today, we must acknowledge that whatever survives, survives because those who wrote it found meaning in it, and that that meaning shaped how the story was told. More broadly, in any generation, visions of identity are always being reshaped by time and circumstance, and traditions of identity reshaped to match. Thus, the twelve tribes tradition may well have roots in more ancient realities, though how different these were from the paradigm remains an open question. As we have it, however, the tradition is primarily a reflection of how the authors of these texts saw themselves and their world.