The book of Judges has largely been viewed by scholarship as a pro-monarchial book. Support for this position has focused on the epilogue of the book where there is a refrain repeated four times that laments the lack of a king in Israel (Judg 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25). The difficulty that has remained, however, is that there are two episodes in the body of the book that have been viewed as largely anti-monarchial: Gideon's response to the men of Israel in 8:23 and the portrayal of Abimelech in ch. 9. Gordon Oeste, in a revised version of his doctoral dissertation, believes that this apparent difficulty can be answered. What he proposes is a “multi-disciplinary approach using the tools of narrative, rhetorical, and social-scientific analysis [which] will provide data that support theories holding to a monarchic context for Judg 9” (p. 2). His thesis claims that the negative portrayal of the rule of Abimelech was used to legitimate the monarchy by delegitimizing local power bases that were similar to Abimelech's. He believes that this “negative analogy was then utilized to legitimize the role, function, and authority of a centralized monarchy” (p. 2).

The first chapter serves as the prolegomena for the book. After he advances the above thesis he discusses what he calls the importance of having multiple sight lines, which is the same as a multidisciplinary approach. One of the ways that Judg 9 is viewed is through narrative analysis. This type of analysis is necessary to understand how the storyteller conveys his message. He also outlines his assumptions: coherence and the recoverability of authorial intent. Besides narrative analysis the other approaches used are rhetorical and social-scientific analysis. These approaches are combined to understand the monarchic context of the passage.

Chapter two notes two tensions generally discussed within the study of Judg 9. The first has to do with the reader's response to the chapter and how the reader tries to make sense of the different elements of the story. The second tension deals with reconciling the presentation of kingship in this chapter with the presentation of kingship in the rest of the book. The remainder of the chapter surveys how different approaches have dealt with these two tensions. Oeste notes that the “differing interpretations of Judg 9 can be attributed, in large part, to the differing methods that scholars have applied to the chapter. Yet . . . very few scholars have applied more than one method to the same chapter or narrative block in Judges” (p. 54).

The third chapter provides a narrative analysis of Judg 9. He does this by first setting this chapter within the context of the Gideon narrative and the kingship motif within it. He then discusses the narrative structure of Judg 9. He notes five elements to the storyline of the Abimelech narrative: exposition (9:1-6), complication (9:7-15, 16-22), change (9:23-24), unraveling (9:25-55), and ending (9:56-57). Oeste believes that the structure “illustrates the dangers of utilizing kinship ties as a basis for power, both for those seeking power, and for those who support their rise” (p. 115). Jotham's fable, for instance, illustrates the dangers of promoting an illegitimate king.

Oeste spends the fourth chapter engaging in a rhetorical analysis of Abimelech. He argues that the rhetorical structure “allows readers not only to appreciate the literary artistry of the passage, but also to recognize how this literary artistry has been harnessed to achieve the persuasive aims of its implied author” (p. 119). The key elements to the rhetorical context, which he also refers to as the argumentative context, are the dangers of elevating both kinsman and unworthy people to positions of leadership.

The fifth chapter discusses the social world of Judg 9. He begins by noting the difficulty of the modern reader in understanding the cultural aspects of a chapter like this one. He advocates a social-scientific analysis of that text and advances two different contexts in which this is to be applied. The first context is the socio-cultural world described in the text. The second is the socio-cultural context “presupposed by the rhetoric of the text-the world of the implied author and his implied audience” (p. 175). The summation of this analysis is that there is a warning within this chapter against those who seek power illegitimately.

In the sixth and final chapter Oeste summarizes the conclusions of his multidisciplinary approach to Judg 9. He recaps the contribution that each method makes towards understanding the chapter and then combines them to argue that the narrative further argues “for a centralized monarchy embodied in a human king” (p. 236). He further states that this helps to make sense of the tension between the epilogue and this chapter: “Both parts of the book of Judges illustrate the chaos that comes without proper leadership” (p. 236).

There are several admirable features to this work, but I will only mention three here. The first is that Oeste is well-versed in the scholarship on Judges, and his presentation of the different positions is clear and charitable. One of the most helpful aspects of this book is the way that Oeste discusses the history of scholarship. Most surveys of the literature just go through various works chronologically, but Oeste analyzes works according to their methodology. He looks at redactional, social-scientific, ideological, and literary-holistic studies. With this he is able to show the contribution that each of these types of studies have made to understanding both the overall narrative and Judg 9 in particular.

The second admirable feature of the work is that it recognizes one of the greatest difficulties in the study of Judges, the tension within scholarship and interpretation between the synchronic view of the book being largely pro-monarchial and the diachronic assumption that there are anti-monarchial texts present within the book. This tension has only become stronger with the rise of synchronic studies in the book, and Oeste advances one of the most comprehensive and cogent arguments on how to understand the view of monarchy throughout the entirety of the book of Judges, not just in an individual part of it.

The third is that Oeste stays focused on his thesis and argues towards it. In a larger monograph like this it is common for the author to lose sight of the overall intended goal and go off on tertiary things, but Oeste stays focused and draws his content back to how Judg 9 functions as a warning against the promotion of both familial relations and unworthy individuals to leadership positions illegitimately. Oeste's writing is clear, and he makes a solid case towards his thesis.

While the overwhelming majority of this work is very clear and helpful there are three critiques that I would like to make of Oeste's work. First, Oeste believes that Judg 9 is a single narrative unit. He puts it within the context of the Gideon narrative, but says that it functions on its own as an individual unit. This is difficult to prove, especially since this is the only hereditary leadership found within the book of Judges and none of the normal formulaic elements that are common to the other leaders in the book are used to describe Abimelech. There is no doubt that this unit can be studied on its own, which Oeste does quite well, but to advance that it is intentionally set apart within the overall narrative of Judges is more difficult to prove.

Second, he assumes that the majority position among scholars is that Judg 9 is as an anti-monarchial text. This is not the case. The majority of scholarship views Judg 9 as anti-Abimelech, not anti-monarchial. There is an odd tension, however, in that most works that focus on Judg 9 start with the assumption, like Oeste does, that the majority of scholarship views this chapter as anti-monarchial. This chapter provides a very interesting test-case among scholarship in that most scholars are under the impression that the prevailing understanding of the chapter is anti-monarchial, but in actuality the prevailing opinion is that this chapter is anti-Abimelech.

The third feature of the book that could be improved upon is that it could contain a greater discussion of how Gideon's response in Judg 8:23 is to be understood within the framework of monarchy within the book as a whole. Oeste does explore how this text relates to Judg 9 but not how it relates to the book as a whole. Furthermore, Gideon's response in 8:23 is the text predominately viewed by scholarship as the most anti-monarchial of the book (if not the most anti-monarchial of the OT). This text could have been dealt with in more detail.

Despite these relatively minor critiques, this is a well-argued work that gives a compelling argument and answer to one of the most perplexing questions in the study of Judges. This work would benefit any serious student or scholar working through the book of Judges or the reader with an interest in the study of the monarchy in ancient Israel.

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