Why was “Old Poetry” Used in Hebrew Narrative? Historical and Cultural Considerations about Judges 5

Abstract

The poem of Judges 5 has been regarded as one of the oldest pieces of biblical literature. This chapter surveys two matters, namely the dating of Judges 5 and other examples of so-called told poetry,t and the prose contexts of the told poemst. Then, it links the two discussions by asking what the appearance of the poem's antiquity might have signified for those who included the poem in its narrative context. Detailed research on Ugaritic and Hebrew poetry pursued by H.L. Ginsberg and Umberto Cassuto continued well into the 1950s and 1960s. Steven Weitzman rejects appeals to distinctions between prose and poetry, and argues that the prose-poetry distinction is debatable. Second, according to Weitzman, the purpose of adding Judges 5 and Exodus 15 is to write God into the story or as he says of Judges 5 specifically, to promote allegiance to God.. Keywords: Hebrew narrative; Judges 5; old poems; prose contexts; Steven Weitzman