Ancient Hebrews in Palestine-Israel | Middle East And North Africa

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EARLY HEBREWS

Canaanite God Resheph
The formation of the Jewish people is usually traced back to Exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt, possible under Moses, in about 1200 B.C. The word Hebrew is derived from the Egyptian word Habiru . It was the name given to a serving class of people who had been in Egypt for many generations. Sometimes the word Israelite is used to describe the early Hebrews.

Present-day Israel at the time of the first Hebrews boasted fertile valleys with active trade routes and cultural communications with neighboring Phoenicians, Arameans, Philistines and Moabites. The Roman historian Tacitus thought Crete was homeland of the Jews. He based his assertion on the that Judeans sounded liked Ideans, the inhabitants of Mt. Ida, Crete's highest mountain.

Gerald A. Larue wrote in “Old Testament Life and Literature”: “A sketch of the history of Palestine can be told with lamps recovered from excavations. One lamp from the Early Bronze Age and is simply a saucer in which oil (olive or animal) was poured and a wick, possibly of flax, was draped over the edge and set alight. Later, in the early part of the Middle Bronze Age (2200 - 1570 B.C.) the saucer was squared and wicks were laid in the corners of the dish. By the time of the Hyksos the saucer was folded inward on one side to form a channel for the wick, and by the time of the Hebrew invasion it had become the custom to elevate the spout and give the saucer a slight base (lamp in third tier) . The Hebrews adopted this lamp but began to thicken the base (lamp at the rear on the bottom right platform) . The six lamps in the foreground are from the Hellenistic period. The three on the left were made on a wheel and the spout was added. The three on the right (Delphiniform lamps) were made in two halves in molds and then brought together and sealed at the seam. By the Hellenistic period the open saucer lamps had been abandoned in favor of the closed lamp with a central opening through which oil was poured into the lamp and a spout in which the wick was placed. [Source: Gerald A. Larue, “Old Testament Life and Literature,” 1968, infidels.org]

Websites and Resources: Virtual Jewish Library jewishvirtuallibrary.org/index ; Judaism101 jewfaq.org ; torah.org torah.org ; Chabad,org chabad.org/library/bible ; Yivo Institute of Jewish Research yivoinstitute.org ; Bible and Biblical History: ; Biblical Archaeology Society biblicalarchaeology.org ; Bible History Online bible-history.com Bible Gateway and the New International Version (NIV) of The Bible biblegateway.com ; King James Version of the Bible gutenberg.org/ebooks ; Jewish History: Jewish History Timeline jewishhistory.org.il/history Jewish History Resource Center dinur.org ; Center for Jewish History cjh.org ; Jewish History.org jewishhistory.org ; Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu

Early Hebrews in Israel

Ancient Egypytian depction of a Berber, Nubian, Asiatic (maybe Hebrew) and Egyptian

Semitic tribes probably arrived in Palestine, known in the early days as Canaan (modern-day Syria. Lebanon, the West Bank, Jordan and Israel) at a very early date. Some scholars believe that Hebrews arrived in Canaan around 2000 B.C. Other scholars believe they arrived around 1200 B.C.

Most scholars believe the Hebrews did not conquer Canaan with a sudden military campaign as is depicted in the Bible but rather arrived in the region through the slow infiltration of semi-nomadic people from the desert. Some believe the Hebrews originally came from Egypt, and this gave birth to the Exodus story. In Canaan they settled among other Semitic peoples. Around the time the Hebrews were thought to have arrived the forests on the slopes of the Judean and Samaritan hills were quickly cut down and converted the slopes into irrigated terraces. The people that lived in Israel at that time practiced institutionalized slavery.

Other scholars believe that the first Israelites evolved out of people already with Canaan. They suggest that they were shepherd and herders who began forming their own communities in the hills outside the major towns. As they expanded they fought with other tribes in the area over water rights, which might have provided the historical kernels for the battles described in Joshua and Judges.

The fight for possession of Palestine today often draws on history to stake its claims. Jews often asserts their connection Abraham who arrived around 2000 B.C. The Palestinians have asserted they are the modern-day successors the Canaanites, who lived in Palestine before Abraham arrived. The aim of both sides is to show they were there first. Neither side has any historical or archaeological evidence to back up their claims.

In 2019, after 14 years of digging, archaeologists excavating in the Holy Land announced that they have found the biblical city of Ai, a Caananite stronghold that was captured by the Israelites (according to the book of Judges). [Source: Candida Moss, Daily Beast, April 7, 23, 2019]

Exodus, Moses and the Hebrews

Gerald A. Larue wrote in “Old Testament Life and Literature”: “After what appears to be an extended period of time, the Hebrews increased in numbers and became a mighty multitude, and a pharaoh who was indifferent to the Joseph traditions inherited the throne and persecuted the Hebrews, pressing them into virtual enslavement. Moses, a desert refugee from Egyptian justice, became associated with the Kenite people. On the slopes of Mount Sinai in a dramatic encounter with Yahweh, he was commissioned to act as deliverer of the Hebrews. [Source: Gerald A. Larue, “Old Testament Life and Literature,” 1968, infidels.org ]

Moses

“In the clash with Pharaoh, the god-king's power was overshadowed by Yahweh through a series of horrendous events in which the Nile was turned to blood and plagues involving frogs, gnats, flies, cattle, boils, hail, locusts and darkness are ultimately climaxed by the death of all the first-born children of Egypt (Read Exod. 7-11). This final act, associated in tradition with the Passover festival, persuaded Pharaoh to release the Hebrews. Shortly after the Hebrews departed, Pharaoh changed his mind and pursued them. At the Sea of Reeds, Yahweh permitted the Hebrews to pass through the waters unscathed but overwhelmed the Egyptians.

“The Hebrews pressed into the wilderness to Mount Sinai where the law was given and there they entered a covenant with Yahweh (Read Num. 14:39f.). After an abortive attempt to seize Canaan by penetrating from the south, they moved eastward and, after many setbacks, took up a position on the eastern side of the Jordan, just north of the Salt Sea. Here Moses died, and under his successor, Joshua, the attacks on Canaan were launched.

Merneptah Stela (1250 B.C.): Oldest Description if the Jews in Egypt

The late-13th-century B.C.Merneptah Stele, now in the Cairo Museum, has long been considered the earliest reference to the Hebrews (ancient Jews) outside of the Bible, the Exodus from Egypt and Settlement of the Jews in the Land of Canaan.

According to Biblical Archaeology: “The Merneptah Stele has long been touted as the earliest extrabiblical reference to Israel. The ancient Egyptian inscription dates to about 1205 B.C. and recounts the military conquests of the pharaoh Merneptah. Near the bottom of the hieroglyphic inscription, a people called “Israel” is said to have been wiped out by the conquering pharaoh. This has been used by some experts as evidence of the ethnogenesis of Israel around that time.” [Source: Biblical Archaeology, January 17, 2012]

“Does the Merneptah Stele Contain the First Mention of Israel? According to an article published in 2012 by Manfred Görg, Peter van der Veen and Christoffer Theis, the name-ring on the right may indeed read “Israel,” and they date it almost 200 years earlier than the reference to Israel on the Merneptah Stele. [Source: Biblical Archaeology, January 17, 2012 ++]

When Did the Hebrews (Israelites) Arrive in Palestine

Abercrombie wrote: “When exactly the Israelite tribes settled or conquered the hill country of Palestine is somewhat debated due in part to a lack of conclusive evidence. Certainly in the twelfth century B.C. we begin to find evidence of a variant type of village culture in the hill country composed of small unfortified settlements, pillared houses, numerous silos, limited pottery repertoire and presence of collared-rim storage jar. There appear to be numerous such sites particularly but not exclusively north of Jerusalem in the tribal inheritance of Ephraim and Manasseh; in fact, there is a definite growth in settled population all along the hill country spur in Iron I. This culture pattern may extend into the lowlands at some sites later in the early Iron Age (Megiddo). [Sources: John R. Abercrombie, University of Pennsylvania, James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (ANET), Princeton, Boston University, bu.edu/anep/MB.html |*|]

Canaanites and Shasu leader from Egyptian pharaoh Ramses III's tile collection

“Early in The Late Iron Age, major sites (Megiddo, Hazor, and Gezer) show extensive construction on what appears to be similar plans. Other facilities are added in the next century expanding the types of "monumental" structures. Perhaps the most interesting of the new sites, the royal capital at Samaria, further amplifies our information about the Israelite culture in the ninth-eighth centuries. As for sites further to the south along the hill country spur, they also show a planned society with fortified cities, well-laid out streets, pillared houses, large warehouses, and complex water-systems. We have good evidence of industrial and agricultural activities, much more so than in the Bronze Age. Towards the end of The Late Iron Age, the material culture declines percipitously as sites are destroyed and are either abandoned or rebuilt on a more modest scale. Intrusive material particularly Mesopotamia also becomes more common place at a number of tells (Megiddo and Hazor). Finally, almost all the known Iron Age cities from Jerusalem southward are either destroyed or abandoned by the beginning of the sixth century. |*|

“The "historical" books of the bible remain the primary witness to the culture of Israel and Judah. The text, almost a polemic of the southern tribes against the religiosity of the northern tribes and other neighboring peoples, was composed mostly during this period and is written in part to chronological deity's actions in history. Care must be taken in using the text for historical reconstruction, however. First, it is hardly a complete history of the region and focuses mostly on Judaean society particularly in and around Jerusalem. Some of these works are obviously secondary sources or summaries (e.g. Kings and Chronicles), whereas others may be closer to first-hand accounts ( e.g. Prophetic material). Second, the work as a whole is polemical and fails to present a modern, objective historical description of what happened in the past. Modern historians using current ideas in historiography, nevertheless, can work with these and other materials, including archaeological remains and other extra-biblical witnesses, to develop a sparse outline of the history of the descendants of Jacob.” |*|

Divisions Within the Hebrew Realm

Jewish history was shaped almost as much by internal rivalries as it was by threats from the outside. Gopnik wrote in The New Yorker: The southern Kingdom of Judah and the northern Kingdom of Israel, which we might have imagined as agreeable sister kingdoms, were, in the centuries around 900-700 B.C., warring adversaries, though a single deity, one of many names, was shared between them. The oldest deity, El — “Israel” is usually interpreted to mean “One who struggles with God” — got replaced over time by the unnameable deity Yahweh, who originally had a female companion, and then by a more metaphysical maker, Elohim. [Source: Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, August 21, 2023; Book: “Why the Bible Began,” by Jacob L. Wright]

In his book “Why the Bible Began,” the scholar Jacob L. Wright traces the narrative rivalries and divisions that formed the Hebrew Scriptures. Wright stresses the extent of the disruption that occurred when Israel was subjugated by the Assyrians while Judah maintained self-rule for more than a century afterward. (A blink in Biblical time, perhaps, but it’s an interval like the one that separates us from the Civil War.) It was during this period, he argues persuasively, that a fundamental break happened, leaving a contrapuntal discord in the Bible between the southern “Palace History” and the “People’s History” of the dispossessed northern scribes. The Palace History conjured up Saul and David and Solomon and the rest, still comfortably situated within a “statist,” dynastic Levantine court; the People’s History, by contrast, was aggressively indifferent to monarchs, real or imagined, and concentrated instead on popular figures, Moses and Miriam, the patriarchs and the prophets. The Jewish tradition of celebrating non-dynastic figures of moral or charismatic force — a practice mostly unknown, it would seem, in the rest of the ancient world — begins in the intersection of dispossessed Israelites and complacent Judaeans.

The northern and the southern narratives were, Wright says, constantly being entangled and reëntangled by the Biblical writers, as a kind of competition in interpolation. So, for instance, Aaron the priest is interpolated latterly as Moses’ brother in order to align the priestly court-bound southern caste with the charismatic northern one. Again and again, what seems like uniform storytelling is revealed to be an assemblage of fragments, born from defeat and midwifed by division.

People and Life 12th-to-7th Century B.C. Palestine

John R. Abercrombie of the University of Pennsylvania wrote: “The Bronze Age culture does not suddenly disappear in the twelfth century. In fact, culture changes very little in the first half of the early Iron Age at sites like Megiddo or Beth Shan. This may suggest that there is no significant cultural break throughout the entire region at the beginning of the Iron Age. As one examines later levels at these and other sites, however, the Bronze Age culture begins to alter. Primary burial practices slowly disappears in favor of secondary burial (Tell el-Farah S or Zeror) by the tenth century. Courtyard houses, a common Bronze Age form, is replaced by pillared houses at a number of sites in The Late Iron Age. Egyptianized artifacts are less common in the late Iron Age except for sites along the immediate coast. Bronze weapons and forms are replaced by iron weapons. New the late Iron Age artifacts begin to appear throughout the entire region. Thus, gradually, it seems, many of the characteristic forms and contexts of Bronze Age culture become less evident in later levels of The Late Iron Age, although it would be incorrect to conclude that the Bronze Age culture, we call Canaanite, disappeared entirely due to points of continuity that continue unabated from Bronze Age to Iron Age (e.g. compare the artifacts in Shrine 1 Sarepta with the temple of stratum VII-VI Beth Shan). [Sources: John R. Abercrombie, University of Pennsylvania, James B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts (ANET), Princeton, Boston University, bu.edu/anep/MB.html |*|]

“By the middle of the ninth century, Assyria is exercising some hegemony over the region of Palestine. The Battle of Qarqar (853) may have been a temporary set back for Assyria, but by 840/841 the Assyria King Shalmeneser III is accepting tribute from the Israel King Jehu. In the eighth century, Assyria campaigns throughout the region controlling the political life of the small principalities. Israel continues to try an exercise some independence which leads eventually to its demise in 722/21 when Sargon conquers Israel's capital. A number of Israel's key cities (Hazor and Megiddo) had been captured a decade before by Tiglath-pileser. |*|

Egyptian depiction of Asiatics (probably Canaanites, possibly Hebrews)

“Judah remains alone and politically suppressed by Assyria in the seventh century. In 701, Sennacherib attacked most of Judah and even laid siege to Jerusalem. From that point on Judah remains a loyal vassal of Assyria until the reign of Josiah. By then, Assyria was beginning to decay from within, and King Josiah of Judah attempts to play political broker in this region eventually leads to his death at the hands of Egyptian King Necco at the battle of Megiddo (609). By then, Assyria no longer exists for all practice purposes as the Chaldean kings conquered the domains that once were part of Assyria's empire.” |*|

Transition from the Hebrews to the Tribes of Israel

Gerald A. Larue wrote in “Old Testament Life and Literature”: “From time to time new groups were grafted into the family tree of Hebrew tribes, and the heritage of the larger group became that of the adopted ones, as when the Calebites united with the tribe of Judah (Josh. 14:6-15, 15:13). When confronted by common problems or enemies, tribal federations were formed (see Judg. 4-5). On the other hand, when a famine or food shortage occurred, one group might leave to seek new territory (Gen. 13). [Source: Gerald A. Larue, “Old Testament Life and Literature,” 1968, infidels.org ]

“Tribal activity in Canaan is portrayed as a twelve-tribe federation often called an amphictyony, after Greek tribal federations.20 However, clear distinctions between Greek and Hebrew patterns must be recognized. Greek cities united in an amphictyony centered about a shrine where peoples from the surrounding cities worshiped and where decisions affecting the participating members were made. The Hebrew amphictyony was centered in the Ark of Yahweh, a moveable shrine. Some scholars have argued that a primitive amphictyonic ritual was observed at the shrine at Sliechem,21 but the hypothesis rests only upon probabilities. A six-tribe federation, which preceded the twelve-tribe grouping, has also been postulated involving the Leah tribes: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, udah, Zebulun and Issachar.22

“ Sometimes the tribes are listed genealogically (Gen. 35:23; I Chron. 2:1-2) sometimes in cultic formation (Num. 2-3; Deut. 27:12); and sometimes geographically (Num. 34:14-28; I Chron. 6:54 ff.; Ezek. 48:1 ff.). Usually twelve tribes are mentioned, but the identification of the tribes varies: in one Dinah is listed in place of Benjamin (Gen. 29-30), and in Chronicles both halves of the tribe of Manasseh are counted (I Chron. 2-3; 6:54-80). Some lists mention only ten tribes (Deut. 33:6 ff.; II Sam. 19:43); one gives eleven tribes (I King 11:31); and in Gen. 46:48 ff. there are thirteen.

Gezer Almanac

The Gezer Almanac is the oldest example of written Hebrew. Discovered in Tell el-Jazari ancient Gezer, 30 kilometers northwest of Jerusalem by R. A. S. Macalister in 1908, It is written on a slab of limestone, 11.1 centimeters long and 7.2 centimeters wide and contains seven lines of writing dated approximately to 925 B.C. It is currently in a Syria/Palestine collection. [Source: kchanson.com ***]

The Gezer Almanac reads:
1) two months of harvest, two months of planting [August–September October–November]
2) two months of late planting [December–January]
3) a month of hoeing flax [February]
4) a month of barley harvest [March]
5) a month of harvest and feasting [April]
6) two months of (vine) pruning [May–June]
7) a month of summer fruit [July] edge Abijah scribe's name [Source: Gibson 1973:2]

Two months—this is a dual form. Late planting—this is a rare term; see Amos 7:1. Flax was grown in the ancient Near East as early as Early Bronze IV. It has a variety of uses: its fibers can be spun to make linen (see Genesis 41:42; Leviticus 6:10; John 19:40), and the seeds can be cold-pressed to make linseed oil (used for both cooking and medicine). Barley is a hearty grain that has a shorter growing season than wheat and is also better at surviving drought and strong heat. The grain was used in cooking (e.g., bread) and the stalks were used as fodder for animals. lt has been found in Israelite archaeological sites from both the early and late Iron Age eras. See Exodus 9:31; Leviticus 27:16; Ruth 1:2; John 6:9; Revelation 6:6. Summer fruit—see 2 Samuel 16:1; Jeremiah 40:10; Amos 8:1-2. Abijah—in all liklihood, this is the name of the scribe. His name means “Yah is my father.” This name appears in the Bible for several different individuals, including a king of Judah (see 1 Kings 14:31). ***

Image Sources: Wikimedia, Commons, Schnorr von Carolsfeld Bible in Bildern, 1860

Text Sources: Internet Jewish History Sourcebook sourcebooks.fordham.edu “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “ Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); “Old Testament Life and Literature” by Gerald A. Larue, New International Version (NIV) of The Bible, biblegateway.com; Wikipedia, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Times of London, The New Yorker, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, and various books and other publications.

Last updated March 2024