Luke’s prologue presses the question raised in Part I (“What is a Gospel?”) into new territory: what about the many other writings that variously recorded Jesus’s life and/or teachings not included in the New Testament canon? Many of them also accrued the title “Gospel,” generally conformed to the definition outlined in Part I, and populated the literary landscape of early Christianity into Origen’s own day. This chapter considers how, in Origen’s view, one may distinguish the four received Gospels from the many others, and how he understands Luke (in particular) to have participated in this process of discernment in the way he hands on the traditions he receives. Origen cannot accept that Luke’s own language allows one to reduce his intent with these narratives to matters of plain facticity. Something, as Luke says, had “come to pass among us,” something of which he and his tradents had become fully convinced, something that had made of them all servants of its proclamation: “attendants of the word.” In other words, the very writing of these stories becomes, in Origen’s view, a form of “spiritual reading” of Jesus’s early life.

During the Iron IIA, we witness a surprising settlement wave in the Negev Highlands after a millennium during which the area was devoid of occupation. This is accompanied by drastic settlement transformations in the Beersheba Valley and an unparalleled peak in Aravah copper production. The evidence suggests that these changes are connected and can be explained by the expansion of the highland polity into the south. Initially, the Beersheba–Arad valley was taken over, and the groups that were affiliated with Israel flourished, whereas settlements of groups considered hostile were destroyed and their population transferred to other areas. Subsequently, the Israelites took control – directly or indirectly – over the lucrative copper production of the Aravah (Edom), where fortifications were now built, and where many lines of evidence show that the region was now economically connected with the north. The highland polity also took control of the Negev Highlands, building dozens of fortified settlements to control the roads to the copper mines of the Aravah and to secure the taxes from caravans crossing the area with the Arabian trade. The entire system functioned together and was oriented to the north (and many LFS buildings were unearthed there, cf., Excursus 6.1).