Approximately the first half of the Hebrew Bible consists of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History — a series of nine books which might be seen as the narrative backbone of the Hebrew Bible. For those who have taken themselves as the Bible’s audience, the story told in the Primary History provides orientation: Who are we? Who are we to worship? How shall we then live?
Genesis begins with the broadest possible subject: the origin of the entire universe, spoken into existence in an orderly fashion by a deity who created human beings as his image-bearers. The first humans find themselves in conflict with the creator, and as humanity reproduces and fills the earth, the humans find themselves in conflict with one another. Fed up with human’s evildoing, the deity floods the earth, destroying all but a single family, who begin again the task of populating the world. The descendants of this family grow into the various nations of the world. Turning from the universal to the particular, the deity calls a man named Abram, calling him to leave his native land and set out for a land he is promised. Abraham has a son named Isaac, who in turn has a son named Jacob, who is traditionally regarded as the progenitor of the Israelites. Jacob’s roughly twelve sons become the roughly twelve tribes of Israel, and Genesis pays particularly close attention to Joseph, the progenitor of the northern tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Joseph is enslaved and sold into Egypt, where he rises into great prominence. As Genesis draws to a close, the Israelites have moved into Egypt, where things seem to be going well for them.
Exodus begins, and the family of Jacob grows into a large ethnic group. They are enslaved by the Egyptians, until God raises up a deliverer, Moses, who confronts Pharaoh and initiates a series of plagues against Egypt. The Israelites are set free from Egyptian control, and exit Egypt into the Sinai, where they encounter their deity in a terrifying burning mountain theophany. The deity gives them laws, and provides for the establishment of a central cult centered around a large tabernacle, or tent, maintained by priests.
The book of Leviticus is almost entirely what we would call “legal” material, but it is still embedded within the over-arching story. Repeatedly, God speaks to Moses, saying, Tell the people of Israel … and then we find ourselves looking at a few verses or a few chapters of legal material. This book overwhelmingly concerns itself with priestly matters: the proper order of sacrifices, ritual purity, the various feasts of the Jewish calendar, the qualifications and duties of the priesthood, and related matters.
The Israelites have left Egypt in Exodus 15, and it would appear that all the action from that point occurs during, and all the laws of Leviticus are given within the space of little more than a year. For Numbers begins “on the first day of the second month of the second year”, with God commanding the taking of a census of the Israelites. The people are numbered, their encampments described, and the roles of various Levite groups spelled out. A variety of legal material appears. On the twentieth day of the month, the Israelites leave the Wilderness of Sinai and set out for the Wilderness of Paran. After a preliminary excursion into Canaan results in the people displaying a lack of trust in God, God announces that this generation will not inherit the land of Canaan, but must die off in the desert, at which point the next generation will enter the land. The narrative of Numbers concludes as the Israelites conquer kingdoms in the Transjordan and prepare to enter the land of Canaan.
Next is the book of Deuteronomy, which is mostly a law code, presented as a speech given by Moses on the eve of the invasion of Canaan. While Leviticus is more concerned with priestly matters, Deuteronomy is more concerned with what we might call “civil” law, though there was no hard distinction between “religious” and “secular” matters for the writer of Deuteronomy. The book presents the divine law as the key to national flourishing, and toward the end has a dramatic recitation of blessings and curses, blessings for those who follow the law, and curses for those who forsake it. The book ends with the death of Moses, who passes his authority to his successor Joshua.
The book of Joshua does just what it says on the tin: it tells the story of Joshua, who affirms the importance of the law of Moses, leads the Israelites into the land of Canaan, defeats the local rulers, and apportions the land among the twelve tribes.
After the death of Joshua, the Book of Judges depicts the Israelite tribes as living in a stateless society, alternating between domination by foreigners and periods of independence under local warlords traditionally known as judges. Looking back toward Deuteronomy and Joshua, the book portrays the changing fortunes of Israel as a function of changes in the relationship between the Israelites and their deity. Looking forward, the book laments, In those days, each one did what was right in his own eyes, because there was no king in the land.
The book or books of Samuel begin with the birth narrative of Samuel, a judge of Israel who functions in a manner much like both a priest and prophet as well. During Samuel’s time, the people of Israel begin to clamor for a king. Surprisingly, to those who have read Judges, both Samuel and God are displeased with this request, but God obliges the people, and has Samuel anoint Israel’s first king, Saul. Saul’s performance as king is unsatisfactory, and as a result, God chooses David to be king instead. Saul, however, is still alive and ruling, and their complex and dramatic relationship provides some of the most dramatic narrative material in the Bible.
Repeatedly, David turns down opportunities to kill Saul, and escapes from Saul’s attempts to kill him. Eventually, though, both Saul and his son Jonathan meet their deaths. After Saul’s death, the kingdom splits — the north under the kingship of Saul’s son Ishbaal, the south under David. Ishbaal is assassinated, and David becomes king over a reunited twelve-tribe kingdom of Israel. Later, David’s son Absalom rebels against him, attempting to take control of the kingdom, but David’s troops rally and Absalom dies. The book of Samuel draws to a close as David nears his death.
Kings begins with the death of David, who is followed by Solomon, after whom the united kingdom of Israel is split into a northern and southern kingdom — the northern called Israel, and the southern called Judah. Kings then follows the succession of kings in both kingdoms, evaluating them in the same sort of moral categories found in Deuteronomy, tracing their story beyond the destruction of the northern kingdom in 722 and to the destruction of the southern kingdom in 587/6. The book ends with the Judahite elite in exile.