Gibeah: The Search for a Biblical City

This work is a cross-disciplinary study of Israel’s first capital city from topographical, archaeological, historical, and literary perspectives. Challenging William F. Albright’s claim that the ancient city is to be identified with Tell el-Ful, the book develops the case for a location instead at modern Jeba, to the northeast of Jerusalem—a site-change which bears important consequences for several scholarly theories relating to Gibeah. Among these are the inquest into the historicity and literary composition of the story of Judges 19–21 and the nature of Saul’s kingship. Both of these texts are treated thoroughly as preparation for a concluding investigation into the meaning of the prophet Hosea’s references to Israel’s sins “in the days of Gibeah.”