Abstract:
In recent years a number of scholars argued that the bulk of the Old Testament originated during the Persian and Hellenistic eras. The literature thus is the product of elite groups living in Yehud. They created a “history of Israel” in order to impose their ideology on the ordinary people. This being the case it would be impossible to write a history of the Jewish people prior to these periods. The article focuses on biblical books such as Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Jonah, Ruth, Esther, the Joseph novel, the Daniel stories, and the frame narrative of Job. These narratives leave one with the impression that the bulk of the material could be classified as fiction. However, the stories have most probably been created and written to assist the elite and the low classes in their acceptance of and adjustment to the new situation. It is not merely literature which elites wrote and which they tried to impose on others by way of ideology control.
