Hidden Polemic in the Conquest of Dan: Judges Xvii-Xviii

Abstract

Polemic is manifest throughout the diverse writings of the Old Testament. Ideological battle is waged in the scriptural corpus against the world of beliefs and outlooks within which the Bible was created and for the shaping of a new Weltanschauung. Moreover, since this literature was written over a period of approximately a thousand years, it is obvious that ideological debates appear in the Bible itself. The various types of scripture-whether historiographic or law-giving, wisdom literature, psalms or prophecy-are all clearly polemical in nature. For the reader it is evident what the author of a particular text prefers and what he