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Burton Mack's 1996 article "On Redescribing Christian Origins" was a classic of the discipline. In my view, one of its most enduring contributions is its recognition that the centrality of the New Testament's view of Christian Origins survives despite a growing recognition that, technically, it ought to be sidelined – that it is protected by a "ring of fire." Further, he argued that the perseverance of this centrality was a major factor inhibiting the influence of New Testament studies on other disciplines. In this essay, I argue that the centrality of the Hebrew Bible's vision of Israelite origins as a starting point for contemporary debates, even among those who regard it as a fiction, is characterized by a similar avoidance of certain necessary recognitions and is inhibiting to a similar degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article weighs in on new debates about the affiliation of the tribe of Benjamin between Israel and Judah in the early monarchy. It points to two underappreciated aspects of the Hebrew Bible's account of tribal realities in the books of Kings: the anonymity of the ten tribes attributed to Israel in 1 Kgs 11–12, and how unusual the absence of a complete and detailed account of tribal arrangements in Kings is in the context of a Primary History as a whole. It argues that both of these realities reflect a deliberate effort to obscure Benjamin's northern origins and that, in fact, it is impossible to come up with a plausible list of ten Israelite tribes without Benjamin. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]