Nochmals zur Frühdatierung von Ri 19*

The essay substantiates an older thesis, according to which the so-called narrative of the outrage in Gibeah (Judg 19*) was written in circles around David as a propagandistic pamphlet, with the intention to win over the northern tribes to Jerusalem’s claim to power and to rally them against a competing claim from Benjamin. To this end, the study expands the list of observations that indicate that Judg 19* originated as an independent text, discusses questions of text-internal values of Judg 19–21, lays out further implications of the proposed dating, and critically examines recent studies on this complex.