The tales in the books of Judges and Samuel are not just short stories. They are history. Indeed, in the books of Samuel they are beginning to be great history. There is in Israelite–Jewish literature of this period none of the aimlessness of pagan myth and chronicle. The narrative is set down with an overwhelming purpose, to tell the story, both elevating and minatory, of a people’s relationship with God, and because the purpose is so serious, the story must be accurate – that is, the writer must believe in it, in his heart. So it is history, and since it deals with the evolution of
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