How Many monarchies were there in Ancient Israel? Identifying and stating the problem

Abstract

This article proposes a brief overview of the existing points of view concerning the emergence of the Ancient Israel state. The key question is the existence of the unified monarchy with Jerusalem as its capital which controlled the territories of Judea and Samaria. The scarcity of the archaeological findings makes this question dependent on how the historicity of the Biblical accounts on Saul, David and Solomon is seen. Some researches regard them as mythological while others as historical figures. Reconstructions of ancient history are never ideologically sterile, so the most important ideology here is Yahwism, a religious movement which gradually evolved from one step to another. Deuteronomist (the author of the Samuel-Kings cycle, most likely, a collective one) obviously adhered to his own version of Yahwism.