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In compiling the history of ancient Israel and Judah, there are many available sources. These include texts such as the Jewish Tanakh (the Christian Old Testament), the Talmud, the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast, the writings of Nicolaus of Damascus, Artapanas, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus, and other minor authors and citations. Also there is archaeological evidence including Egyptian, Moabite, Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions.

Introduction

Some writers see these sources as being in conflict. See The Bible and history for several views as to how the sources may be reconciled. This is a controversial subject, with implications in the fields of religion, politics and diplomacy.

This article attempts to give a scholarly view which would currently be supported by most historians. The precise dates and the precision by which they may be stated are subject to continuing discussion and challenge. There are no biblical events whose precise year can be validated by external sources before the early 9th century BCE (The rise of Omri, King of Israel). Therefore all earlier dates are extrapolations. Further, the Bible does not render itself very easily to these calculations: mostly it does not state any time period longer than a single life time and a historical line must be reconstructed by adding discrete quantities, a process that naturally introduces rounding errors. The accuracy in which dates are represented here reflects a maximalist view, namely one that believes in the historical accuracy of the core stories of the Bible.

Others, known as minimalists dispute that many of the events happened at all, making the dating of them moot: if the very existence of the united kingdom is in doubt, it is pointless to claim that it disintegrated in 922 BCE. However, many of the events from the 9th century onward do have corroborations; see for example Mesha Stele.

Early history

The Mousterian Neanderthals were the earliest inhabitants of the area known to archaeologists, and have been estimated to date to c. 200,000 BCE. The first anatomically modern humans to live in the area were the Kebarans (conventionally c. 18,000 - 10,500 BCE, but recent paleoanthropological evidence suggests that Kebarans may have arrived as early as 75,000 BCE and shared the region with the Neanderthals for millennia before the latter died out). They were followed by the Natufian culture (c. 10,500 BCE - 8500 BCE), the Yarmukians (c. 8500 - 4300 BCE) and the Ghassulians (carbon dated c. 4300 - 3300 BCE). (Note that not one of these names appears in any classical sources, and were all devised as conventions in recent times by archaeologists, to refer to the lowest strata of remains.)

The Semitic culture followed on from the Ghassulians. People became urbanized and lived in city-states, one of which was Jericho. The area's location at the center of routes linking three continents made it the meeting place for religious and cultural influences from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. It was also the natural battleground for the great powers of the region and subject to domination by adjacent empires, beginning with Egypt in the late 3rd millennium BCE. Traditions regarding the early history found in later works such as the the Book of Jubilees, the Kebra Nagast and commentaries of Rashi, Philo and the Sepher Hayashar of Ibn Ezra refer to the early inhabitants as the sons of Shem and also speak of an invasion by the people known as Canaanites descended from Ham.

The Book of Jubilees states that the land was originally allotted to Shem and Arphaxad (ancestor of the Hebrews) when it was still vacant, but was wrongfully occupied by Canaan and his son Sidon. The Kebra Nagast speaks of the Canaanites invading existing cities of Shem and Ibn Ezra, similarly notes that they had seized land from earlier inhabitants. Rashi mentions that the Canaanites were seizing land from the sons of Shem in the days of Abraham. The Tanakh does not directly mention Shemite presence in the land before the Canaanites although late Canaanite arrival is implied in Genesis 12:6 where the expression "the Canaanite were then in the land" carries the connotation of then but not before as opposed to then but not now as Canaanites were present up and until the second Temple period by which time Genesis had certainly been written.

The patriarchal period

The patriarchal period begins with Abraham. Most Bible commentaries place the events surrounding Abraham (originally known as Abram) circa 1800 BCE, give or take 100 years. The account of his life is found in the Book of Genesis, beginning in Chapter 11, at the close of a genealogy of the sons of Shem (which includes among its members Eber, the eponym of the Hebrews).

His father Terah came from Ur Kasdim. His father moved his family, including his son Abram, from Ur Kasdim to the city of Haran.

According to Genesis, God called Abram to faith and obedience. Abram married his half-sister Sarai. He and his extended clan then moved to the land of Canaan. The Bible goes on to say that God called Abram to go to "the land I will show you", and promised to bless him and make him (though hitherto childless) a great nation. Trusting this promise, Abram journeyed down to Shechem, then to a spot between Bethel and Ai. He then moved to the oaks of Mamre in Hebron.

The name Abraham was given to Abram (and the name Sarah to Sarai) at the same time as the covenant of circumcision (chapter 17), which is practiced in Judaism and Islam to this day. At this time Abraham was promised not only many descendants, but descendants through Sarah specifically, as well as the land where he was living, which was to belong to his descendants. The covenant was to be fulfilled through Isaac, though God promised that Ishmael would become a great nation as well.

Some modern historians dispute the historical accuracy of the patriarchal narratives in the Bible, and hold these events to be largely, or perhaps entirely, mythical. Others consider them to be largely historical, and presented in terms reflecting the understanding of the times.

Abraham's grandson Jacob was later renamed Israel, and according to the Biblical account, his twelve sons became the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel**

Egyptian domination

The narrative behind how the Israelites became slaves, or if they did at all, is still unclear in many sources. A few historians believe that this may have been due to the changing political conditions within Egypt. In 1650 BCE, Egypt was conquered by tribes, apparently Semitic, known as the Hyksos by the Egyptians. The Hyksos were later driven out by Ahmose I, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty. Ahmose I reigned approximately 1550 - 1525 BCE, founded the 18th Egyptian dynasty, and a new age for Egypt, the New Kingdom. Thutmose III established Egypt's empire in the western Near East. From then on, the chronology can only roughly be given in approximate dates for most events, until about the 7th century BCE.

  • 1440 BCE The Egyptian reign of Amenhotep II, during which the first mention of the Habiru (possibly the Hebrews) is found in Egyptian texts *. Recently discovered evidence (see Tikunani Prism) indicates that many Habiru spoke Hurrian, the language of the Hurrians. The habiru were probably a social caste rather than an ethnic group (Finkelstein 2001, Van de Mieroop 2003), yet even so they may have been incorporated into early Israelite tribal groups.
  • c.1400 First mention of the Shasu in Egyptian records, located just south of the Dead Sea. The Shasu contain a group with a Yahwistic name.
  • 1300 BCE Some Bible commentaries place the birth of Moses around this time. [http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/moses.html
  • 1295 BCE Egypt's 19th dynasty began with the reign of Ramesses I. Ramesses II (1279-1213 BCE) filled the land with enormous monuments, and signed a treaty with the Hittites after losing the northern Levant to the Hittite Empire.

Ancient Israelite History begins with the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. This event and its chronology are much-debated. It has long been believed that the Exodus took place in the reign of Ramesses II, but this is speculative- the cities named in Exodus as those built by the Israelites- Pithom and Rameses- were built during his reign, and documents from his reign referring to habiru being used in the building of these cities provide circumstantial evidence in favor of this view, although the Exodus may have happened over a long period of time. Evidence for an Israelite presence in Egypt has been found from about a century after the reign of Rameses II, suggesting the process was much more complex than the picture given in the Bible. (Bietak 2001) Research into settlement patterns suggest that the ethnogenesis of Israel as a people was a complex process involving mainly native pastoralist groups in Canaan (including habiru and shasu), with some infiltration from outside groups, such as Hittites and Arameans from the north as well as southern shasu groups such as the Kenites- some of whom may have been enslaved in Egypt. (Dever 2001, 2003, Mazar 1990)

Wandering Years and Conquest

Exodus goes on to say that after leaving Egypt and wandering in the desert for a generation, the Israelites invaded the land of Canaan, destroying major Canaanite cities such as Jericho and Hazor. The paradigm that has Ramses II as Exodus Pharaoh also has the conquest of Canaan and the destruction of Jericho and other Canaanite cities around 1200 BCE. Jericho and Ai were unsettled at this time, suggesting the accounts of their destructions were etiological (the name "Ai" means "ruin," and the site would have been a prominent ruin during the Iron Age, naturally giving rise to a tale about its destruction); other sites mentioned were destroyed at this time, and the Israelites may have played a role in the destruction of some- Hazor is often cited as a possibility, although this is uncertain. Many other groups are known to have played a role in the destruction during this period, such as the invading Sea Peoples, among whom the Philistines were one, and the Egyptians themselves. Feuds between neighboring city-states may have played a role as well. (Dever 2004, Finkelstein 2001, LaRue 1968)

Period of the Judges

The Hebrews migrated into Canaan circa 1200 BCE, a time when the great powers of the region were neutralized by troubles of various kinds. In their initial attacks under Joshua, the Hebrews occupied most of Canaan, which they settled according to traditional family lines derived from the sons of Jacob and Joseph (the "tribes" of Israel). No formal government existed and the people were led by ad hoc leaders (the "judges" of the biblical Book of Judges) in times of crisis. Around this time, the name "Israel" is first mentioned in a contemporary archaeological source, the Merneptah Stele.

1200 BCE. The Hittite empire of Anatolia was conquered by allied tribes from the west. The northern, coastal Canaanites (called the Phoenicians by the Greeks) may have been temporarily displaced, but returned when the invading tribes showed no inclination to settle. *

Circa 1185 BCE the Sea People, as they were called by the Egyptians, swept across Asia Minor and the Mediterranean. They invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign, but were repelled. Amongst them were a group called the P-r-s-t (first recorded by the ancient Egyptians as P-r/l-s-t) generally identified with the Philistines. They appear in the Medinet Habu inscription of Ramses III*, where he describes his victory against the Sea Peoples. Nineteenth-century Bible scholars identified the land of the Philistines (Philistia or Peleshet in Hebrew meaning "invaders") with Palastu and Pilista in Assyrian inscriptions, according to Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897).

The name is used in the Bible to denote the coastal region inhabited by the Philistines. The five principal Philistine cities were Gaza, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Ashkelon. Modern archaeology has suggested early cultural links with the Mycenean world in mainland Greece. Though the Philistines adopted local Canaanite culture and language before leaving any written texts, an Indo-European origin has been suggested for a handful of known Philistine words.

1140 BCE the Canaanite tribes tried to destroy the Israelite tribes of northern and central Canaan. According to the Bible, the Israelite response was led by Barak, and the Hebrew prophetess Deborah. The Canaanites were defeated.

The United Monarchy

Increasing pressure from the Philistines and other neighboring tribes forced the Israelites to unite under one king. The notion of kingship was for a long time anathemetised, as it was seen as one man being put in a position of reverence and power that in their faith was reserved for the one true God. According to the Bible, it was Samuel, one of last of the judges, to whom the nation appealed for a king. Although he tried to disuade them, they were resolute and Samuel anointed Saul ben Kish from the tribe of Benjamin as the first king of the Israelites in approximately 1020 BCE. It was his successor, David c.1006 BCE, who was responsible for consolidating the monarchy and creating the first Hebrew state.

David waged several successful military campaigns, annexing Philistia, Edom, Moab, Ammon, and parts of ancient Aram (roughly modern Syria) known as Aram-Zobah, and Aram-Damascus. Aram itself became a vassal state of Israel under David.

Perhaps the most important event of David's reign was his capture of Jerusalem from the Canaanite Jebusites. By moving his capital from Hebron and making Jerusalem his capital, David ensured its lasting importance as a religious center.

David was succeeded by his son Solomon around 965 BCE. Solomon's reign was largely peaceful and the kingdom prospered, becoming an international power and a center of culture and trade. But maintaining his splendid court life and ambitious building projects, including the First Temple at Jerusalem, proved burdensome to his people. Some Hebrews were used as forced labor and territory was ceded to Tyre in return for supplying craftsmen and materials. He was criticized for tolerating the pagan religious practices of the many non-Hebrew wives he had acquired from diplomatic marriages.

However, on Solomon's death in c. 926 BCE tensions between the northern and southern tribes mounted. When Solomon's successor Rehoboam dealt tactlessly with the economic complaints of the northern tribes the kingdom split: the kingdom of Israel in the north (including the cities of Shechem and Samaria), and the kingdom of Judah in the south (containing Jerusalem). Most of the non-Hebrew provinces fell away.

The period of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah

In 922 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel was divided. Judah, the southern Kingdom, had Jerusalem as its capital and was led by Rehoboam. It was populated by the tribes of Judah and Benjamin

Jeroboam led the revolt of the northern tribes, and established the Kingdom of Israel, consisting of Ten tribes: Zebulun, Issachar, Simeon, Asher, Naphtali, Dan, Levi, Joseph, Reuben and Gad , with Samaria as its capital. [http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/Judah.html

Israel fell to the Assyrians in 721 BCE; Judah fell to the Babylonians a little over a century later, in 587 BCE.

The period of captivity

In 722 BCE, the Assyrians, under Shalmaneser, and then under Sargon, conquered Israel (the northern Kingdom), destroyed its capital Samaria, and sent many of the Israelites into exile and captivity. The ruling class of the northern kingdom (perhaps a small portion of the overall population) were deported to other lands in the Assyrian empire and a new nobility was imported by the Assyrians.
  • 729-687 BCE. Reign of king Hezekiah of Judah. He is noted in the Bible for initiating reforms that outlawed, or enforced Jewish laws against, idolatry (in this case, the worship of Ba'alim and/or Asherah, among other traditional Near Eastern divinities). *
  • 687-638 BCE. Reign of King Manasseh.
  • 638-637 BCE. Reign of king Amon.
These two kings reversed Hezekiah's reforms and officially revived idolatry. According to later rabbinical accounts, Manasseh placed a grotesque, four-faced idol in the Holy of Holies.
  • 637-607 BCE. The reign of king Josiah was accompanied by a religious reformation. According to the Bible, while repairs were made on the Temple, a 'Book of the Law' was discovered (possibly the book of Deuteronomy). *
  • 612 BCE. Nabopolassar of Babylonia attacked and destroyed the Assyrian capital city of Nineveh, regaining Babylonia's independence. The Assyrian empire was destroyed.
  • 587 BCE. Babylon, under king Nebuchadnezzar II, seized Jerusalem. The First Temple was destroyed; the date was the 9th of Av, or Tisha B'Av. *
  • 586 BCE. Conquest of Judah (Southern Kingdom) by Babylon. Part of Judah's population, primarily the nobility, was exiled to Babylon.
  • 722 & 586 BCE. The First Dispersion, or Diaspora. Jews were either taken as slaves in what is commonly referred to as the Babylonian captivity of Judah, or they fled to Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, or Persia. *
  • 559 BCE. Cyrus the Great became King of Persia. *
  • 539 BCE. The Babylonian Empire fell to Persia under Cyrus.
  • 550-333 BCE. The Persian Empire ruled over much of Western Asia, including Israel.

Rebuilding the Temple

  • 537 BCE. Cyrus allowed Sheshbazzar, a prince from the tribe of Judah, to bring the Jews from Babylon back to Jerusalem. Jews were allowed to return with the Temple vessels that the Babylonians had taken. Construction of the Second Temple began.**
  • 520-515 BCE. Under the spiritual leadership of the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the Second Temple was completed. At this time the Holy Land is a subdistrict of a Persian satrapy (province).

  • 444 BCE. The reformation of Israel was led by the Jewish scribes Nehemiah and Ezra. Ezra instituted synagogue and prayer services, and canonized the Torah by reading it publicly to the Great Assembly that he set up in Jerusalem. Ezra and Nehemiah flourished around this era. ** (This was the Classical period in Greece)

The legacy of Alexander the Great and the dawn of Rabbinic Judaism

  • 331 BCE. The Persian Empire was defeated by Alexander the Great. The Empire of Alexander the Great included Israel.* However, it is said that he did not attack Jerusalem directly, after a delegation of Jews met him and assured him of their loyalty by showing him certain prophecies contained in their writings.
  • 323 BCE. Alexander the Great died. In the power struggle after Alexander's death, the part of his empire that included Israel changed hands at least five times in just over twenty years. Babylonia and Syria were ruled by the Seleucids, and Egypt by the Ptolemies.
  • 301 BCE. Ptolemy I Soter became the first Ptolemaic ruler of Israel.
  • 250 BCE. The beginning of the Pharisees party (rabbinic, or modern, Jews), and other Jewish sects such as the Sadducees and Essenes. *
  • 198 BCE. Armies of the Seleucid King Antiochus III (Antiochus the Great) ousted Ptolemy V from Judea and Samaria.
  • 180-142 BCE. The Maccabee Rebellion, Hanukkah and the Hasmonean Kingdom *
  • 160 BCE-60 BCE Somewhere around this time, the community at Qumran began. From whom came the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Roman conquests

In 63 BCE, Pompey conquered the region and made it a client kingdom of Rome. In 6 CE, Caesar Augustus made it a Roman province under a procurator.

From 40 BCE - 4 BCE, Herod the Great is King of Judea.

In 20 BCE, Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great is born.

In 4 BCE - 4, Jesus is born.

From 4 BCE - 6, Herod Archelaus is Ethnarch.

From 26 to 36 Pontius Pilate was the governor of the Roman province of Judea.

In 66, the Great Jewish Revolt broke out, lasting until 73. In 67, Vespasian and his forces landed in the north of Israel, where they received the submission of Jews from Ptolemais to Sepphoris. The Jewish garrison at Yodfat (Jodeptah) was massacred after a two month siege. By the end of this year, Jewish resistance in the north had been crushed.

In 69, Vespasian seized the throne after a civil war. By 70, the Romans had occupied Jerusalem. Titus, son of the Roman Emperor, destroyed the Second Temple on the 9th of Av, ie. Tisha B'Av (656 years to the day after the destruction of the First Temple in 587 BCE). Over 100,000 Jews died during the siege, and nearly 100,000 were taken to Rome as slaves. Many Jews fled to Mesopotamia (Iraq), and to other countries around the Mediterranean.

After 70 the Romans, seeking to suppress the name "Judaea", reorganized it as part of the province of Syria-Palestine. In order to worsen the humiliation of the defeated Jews, the Latin name Palaestina was chosen for the area, after the Philistines, whom the Romans identified as the worst enemies of the Jews in history. From then on the region was known as Palestine.

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai escaped from Jerusalem. He obtained permission from the Roman general to establish a center of Jewish learning and the seat of the Sanhedrin in the outlying town of Yavneh. Judaism survived the destruction of Jerusalem through this new center. The Sanhedrin became the supreme religious, political and judicial body for Jews worldwide until 425 CE, when it was forcibly disbanded by the Roman government, by then officially dominated by the Christian Church. *

In 73 the last Jewish resistance was crushed by Rome at the mountain fortress of Masada; the last 900 defenders committed suicide rather than be captured and sold into slavery.

In 132 Simon bar Kokhba led a revolt and declared an independent state in Israel. By 135 this revolt was crushed by Rome.

200 BCE- 100 CE. At some point during this period the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible, Old Testament) was canonized.

See also

Notable people

Old Testament genealogy

The following chart shows the genealogy of Israel in relation to the peoples of the world:

Partial list of kings of Israel

Archealogist Finkelstein in The Bible Unearthed pg. 20 has differing years: David 1005-970 BCE Solomon 970-931 BCE Jeroboam 1st 931-909 BCE Omri 884-873 BCE Ahab 873-852BCE Joash above as Jeohash 800-784 BCE Jeroboam 2nd 788-747 BCE See above listing for further dating and lineage.

Partial list of kings of Judah

Notable places

Religious places and objects

See also

References

External links

  • Biblical History The Jewish History Resource Center - Project of the Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Ancient Israel and Judah | History of the Middle East | Old Testament topics

Historia del antiguo reino de Israel | Na Veitarataravi ni Veigauna vaka i Isireli kei Jiuta | Oldtidens Israel | Starożytny Izrael

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "History of ancient Israel and Judah".

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