ABSTRACT
Until about fifteen years ago, scholars were limited by the information provided in the biblical, text attributing, therefore, the emergence of the monarchy to an external factor, namely the Philistine pressure. This chapter discusses the emergence of monarchy in Israel. According to the text, the 'period of the judges' is an expression used to describe the period of time between the settlement in Canaan and the emergence of the monarchy. Rogerson argues that the Israelite groups were an association of small chiefdoms, and that, in turn, the emergence of the Israelite monarchy was a result of the eventual dominance of one chiefdom over the others. However, scholars who confined themselves to the biblical text attributed the emergence of monarchy to an external factor, seeing it as the direct result of the conflict with the Philistines. Frick regards the Philistines as a necessary condition of the emergence of the Israelite monarchy, though not a sufficient one on its own.
