The continuing threat of invasion by the Philistines created to some extent the conditions for a monarchy within Israel. A line of charismatic judges protected Israel before the adoption of kingship. Thus it is evident that the transition from a patriarchal and loosely united tribal government to a centralized government with a monarch required a lot of self-understanding, a strong stance against anti-monarchical views, and tolerance of royal ideology, which partly had to be appropriated by neighboring monarchies. Saul bridged that gulf well as he was chosen by Yahweh primarily as his nation's defender against the continuing threat of invasion. However, the introduction of the monarchy did not come without criticism, despite the subtle transition due to Saul's previous charismatic status. An incredible tension developed, as highlighted in I Samuel 7-15, between early pro-monarchist and later anti-monarchist sources. Anti-monarchist sentiments (1 Sam 8.7) reveal a reflexive criticism of the monarchy, which is probably of exiled origin. 1 Sam 8:11-18 revealed the root of criticism and the nature of kingship in the ancient world. The pious were not the dissenters, but rather the wealthy farmers who did not want to pay taxes to the centralized government. In Marx's ideology it is the economic loss of the Base that caused the religious or Superstructure criticism of the monarchy. Obviously if the monarchy was criticized from its conception there was some ideological justification for this. Whitelam notes: "The dissemination of a royal ideology containing important images, attitudes and ideals associated with kingship was carried out by a centralized bureaucracy and specialists." Textual form, expressing legitimacy and right...... middle of paper......value="7"> Information taken from the King and Kingship Lecture notes on Shiloh and Gilgal.Alt, A. "The Monarchy in Kingdoms" Israel and Judah", Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, Blackwell 1966. p.243."Monarchy in the kingdoms of Israel and Judah", p. 248."Monarchy in the kingdom of Israel and Judah", p. 249-50.BibliographyAlt, A. "The Monarchy in Kingdoms Israel and Judah", Essays on Old Testament History and Religion, Blackwell 1966.Day, "The Canaanite Inheritance of the Israelite Monarchy", King & Messiah in the Ancient Near East ( ed. J. Day), Sheffield 1998.Noth, "God, King and Nation in the Old Testament", The Laws in the Pentateuch and others Essays, Oliver & Boyd 1966.Whitelam, "King and Kingship", The Anchor Bible Dictionary (Volume IV), edited by D. N. Freedman, Double Day, 1992.