Judges, Judges

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It appears in the Tanakh and in the Christian Old Testament. Its title refers to its contents; it contains the history of Biblical judges (not to be confused with modern judges), who helped rule and guide the ancient Israelites, and of their times.

Both academic views and traditional thought hence view the narrative of the judges as ending at Samson, picking up again at 1 Samuel 1:1 to consider Eli, and continuing through to 1 Samuel 7:2. As for the stories at the end of the Book, which are set in the same time period as the judges but discuss people other than the judges, there is much affinity between these and the Book of Ruth, and many people believe Ruth originally belonged amongst them. There were thirteen Biblical Judges.

It is for this reason that many textual critics also treat 1 Samuel 1:1-7:2, which discusses Eli and Samuel, as having originally been part of the Judges section of the Deuteronomic History narrative.

Hence 2:6-3:7 is viewed as the original introduction by the Deuteronomist to the Judges period, spinning the later stories to imply that the history of the period involved the Israelites repeatedly turning to worship of other gods, suffering for it, and being alleviated of their suffering by five great leaders, and Abimelech; whereas the original source texts were independent and without the Deuteronomist's alterations, some could be regarded as parallel local events rather than sequential national ones.

The Deuteronomist here is believed to have combined together six earlier separate texts, one for each of the five Great Judges and one for Abimelech, adding passages to join them together (4:1a, 8:29-31, 10:17-18, and 1), sometimes interrupting the narrative to do so.

The presence of 3:31, placing Shamgar in the list of Judges, is believed to be a later recension, created in order to remove Abimelech from being counted amongst the judges without disturbing the total number, in order that someone so apparently wicked not taint the role.

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