Judges Summary

Title:	This book is titled based upon the history being described; the period of 'Judges'.   This book deals with the period between the time of Joshua's death and the beginning of the reign of Israel by kings.
Author:	The author of the book of Judges is not really known.  No where does the author identify himself.  Though the authorship can not be solidly validated, Hebrew tradition gives credit to the judge / priest Samuel as the author.  Samuel actually has authored several of the books of the Old Testament.
Date:	If Samuel is in fact the author,  the book had to be written during his lifetime.  The events of this book appear to have all occurred prior to his lifetime but was obviously related to him by his teacher and mentor, Eli.   The time period would place the authorship between 1070 BC and 1030 BC.
Main Theme	During the time of the Judges, the nation of Israel is in a continuous downward spiral in both their physical and spiritual lives.   The name of the game of Israel is 'Apostasy'.
Location:	Judges takes place during the entire land of Canaan where the twelve tribes had settled including the 2 1/2 tribes who had settled east of the Jordan.
History	Joshua took Israel across the Jordan River in approximately 1406 BC and Saul became King in approximately 1050 BC.  This leaves a period of 356 years during which the people of Israel would fall into oppression by neighboring nations, they would intermarry, worship their idols and suffer at the hands of their oppressors.  They would then call out to God who would raise up a judge to lead them out of their oppression.  Israel would be somewhat obedient during the time of the judge, but as soon as the judge died, so would Israel's attitude of obedience to God.  They went through this cycle over and over again with each period of oppression worse than the one before.  Their disobedience is 'Apostasy'.  Their apostasy leads to anarchy within Israel which leads to the very last verse, Judges 21:25 "In those days there was no king in Israel.  Everyone did what was right in his own eyes."
Major Characters:	Deborah
	Gideon
	Abimelech
	Jephthah
	Samson