1.
Hasmonean dynasty
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The Hasmonean dynasty was the ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during classical antiquity. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE the dynasty ruled semi-autonomously from the Seleucids in the region of Judea, some modern scholars refer to this period as an independent kingdom of Israel. In 63 BCE, the kingdom was conquered by the Roman Republic, broken up, the dynasty had survived for 103 years before yielding to the Herodian dynasty in 37 BCE. Even then, Herod the Great tried to bolster the legitimacy of his reign by marrying a Hasmonean princess, Mariamne, the dynasty was established under the leadership of Simon Maccabaeus, two decades after his brother Judah the Maccabee defeated the Seleucid army during the Maccabean Revolt. However, the power vacuum that enabled the Jewish state to be recognized by the Roman Senate c. 139 BCE was later exploited by the Romans themselves. Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II, Simons great-grandsons, became pawns in a war between Julius Caesar and Pompey the Great. The deaths of Pompey and Caesar, and the related Roman civil wars temporarily relaxed Romes grip on Israel and this short independence was rapidly crushed by the Romans under Mark Antony and Octavian. The installation of Herod the Great as king in 37 BCE made Israel a Roman client state, in AD6, Rome joined Judea proper, Samaria and Idumea into the Roman province of Iudaea. In AD44, Rome installed the rule of a Roman procurator side by side with the rule of the Herodian kings, an alternative view posits that the Hebrew name Hashmonai is linked with the village of Heshbon, mentioned in Joshua 15,27. Gott and Licht attribute the name to Ha Simeon, a reference to the Simeonite Tribe. Between 319 and 302 BC. Under Antiochus III the Seleucids wrested control of Israel from the Ptolemies for the final time and it was in Antioch that the Jews first made the acquaintance of Hellenism and of the more corrupt sides of Greek culture, and it was from Antioch that Judea henceforth was ruled. The books are considered part of the Biblical canon by the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches and apocryphal by most Protestants, the books include historical and religious material from the Septuagint that was codified by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians. The other primary source for the Hasmonean dynasty is the first book of The Wars of the Jews by the Jewish historian Josephus, Josephus account is the only primary source covering the history of the Hasmonean dynasty during the period of its expansion and independence between 110 to 63 BCE. The books of Maccabees use the names Judea and Israel as geographical descriptors throughout for both the land and people over whom the Hasmoneans would rule, the Talmud includes one of the Hasmonean kings under the description Kings of Israel. Scholars refer to the state as the Hasmonean Kingdom to distinguish it from the kingdoms of Israel. The Hellenization of the Jews in the period was not universally resisted. Generally, the Jews accepted foreign rule when they were required to pay tribute. Nevertheless, Jews were divided between those favoring Hellenization and those opposing it, and were divided over allegiance to the Ptolemies or Seleucids, when the High Priest Simon II died in 175 BCE, conflict broke out between supporters of his son Onias III and his son Jason
2.
Judea
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Judea or Judæa is the ancient Hebrew and Israelite biblical, the exonymic Roman/English, and the modern-day name of the mountainous southern part of Canaan-Israel. As a consequence of the Bar Kokhba revolt, in 135 CE the region was renamed and merged with Roman Syria to form Syria Palaestina by the victorious Roman Emperor Hadrian, a large part of Judea was included in Jordanian West Bank between 1948 and 1967. The name Judea is a Greek and Roman adaptation of the name Judah, nimrud Tablet K.3751, dated c.733 BCE, is the earliest known record of the name Judah. Judea was sometimes used as the name for the entire region, in 200 CE Sextus Julius Africanus, cited by Eusebius, described Nazara as a village in Judea. Judea was the used by English-speakers until the Jordanian occupation of the area in 1948. Jordan called the area ad-difa’a al-gharbiya, yehuda is the Hebrew term used for the area in modern Israel since the region was captured and occupied by Israel in 1967. The classical Roman-Jewish historian Josephus wrote, In the limits of Samaria and Judea lies the village Anuath and this is the northern boundary of Judea. The southern parts of Judea, if they be measured lengthways, are bounded by a village adjoining to the confines of Arabia, however, its breadth is extended from the river Jordan to Joppa. The city Jerusalem is situated in the middle, on which account some have, with sagacity enough. This country begins at Mount Libanus, and the fountains of Jordan, and reaches breadthways to the lake of Tiberias and its inhabitants are a mixture of Jews and Syrians. And thus have I, with all possible brevity, described the country of Judea, Judea is a mountainous region, part of which is considered a desert. It varies greatly in height, rising to an altitude of 1,020 m in the south at Mount Hebron,30 km southwest of Jerusalem, and descending to as much as 400 m below sea level in the east of the region. The climate, accordingly, moves between Mediterranean in the west and desert climate in the east, with a strip of steppe climate in the middle, major urban areas in the region include Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Gush Etzion, Jericho and Hebron. Geographers divide Judea into several regions, the Hebron hills, the Jerusalem saddle, the Bethel hills and the Judean desert east of Jerusalem, the hills are distinct for their anticline structure. In ancient times the hills were forested, and the Bible records agriculture, animals are still grazed today, with shepherds moving them between the low ground to the hilltops as summer approaches, while the slopes are still layered with centuries-old stone terracing. The Jewish Revolt against the Romans ended in the devastation of vast areas of the Judaean countryside, regardless, the Northern Kingdom was conquered into the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 720 BCE. Judea is central to much of the narrative of the Torah, with the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, the Babylonian Empire fell to the conquests of Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE. Judea lost its independence to the Romans in the 1st century BCE, by becoming first a tributary kingdom, then a province, queen Alexandra Salome had recently died, and a civil war broke out between her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II
3.
Land of Israel
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The Land of Israel is the traditional Jewish name for an area of indefinite geographical extension in the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions of the limits of this territory vary between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the land is referred as from Dan to Beersheba. According to the Book of Genesis, the land was first promised by God to the descendants of Abram, abrams name was later changed to Abraham, with the promise refined to pass through his son Isaac and to the Israelites, descendants of Jacob, Abrahams grandson. During the mandatory period the term Eretz Yisrael or the Land of Israel was part of the official Hebrew name of Mandatory Palestine, official Hebrew documents used the Hebrew transliteration of the word “Palestine” פלשתינה followed always by the two initial letters of Eretz Yisrael, א״י Aleph-Yod. The Land of Israel concept has been evoked by the founders of the State of Israel. It often surfaces in political debates on the status of the West Bank, Ezekiel, though generally preferring the phrase soil of Israel, employs eretz israel twice, respectively at Ezekiel 40,2 and Ezekiel 47,18. According to Anita Shapira, the term Eretz Yisrael was a term, vague as far as the exact boundaries of the territories are concerned. The Hebrew Bible provides three specific sets of borders for the Promised Land, each with a different purpose. And to their descendants after them, whilst Numbers 34, 1–15 describes the Land of Canaan which is allocated to nine, the expression Land of Israel is first used in a later book,1 Samuel 13,19. It is defined in detail in the exilic Book of Ezekiel as a land where both the tribes and the strangers in midst, can claim inheritance. The name Israel first appears in the Hebrew Bible as the name given by God to the patriarch Jacob, deriving from the name Israel, other designations that came to be associated with the Jewish people have included the Children of Israel or Israelite. The term Land of Israel occurs in one episode in the New Testament, the section in which it appears was written as a parallel to the earlier Book of Exodus. The passage describes the area as the land of the ten named ancient peoples living there. Genesis gives the border with Egypt as Nahar Mitzrayim – nahar in Hebrew denotes a river, never a wadi. Only the Red Sea and the Euphrates are mentioned to define the southern and eastern borders of the land promised to the Israelites. The Red Sea corresponding to Hebrew Yam Suf was understood in ancient times to be the Erythraean Sea, thus the entire Arabian peninsula lies within the borders described
4.
Hebron
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Hebron is a Palestinian city located in the southern West Bank,30 km south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judaean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level, the city is divided into two sectors, H1, controlled by the Palestinian Authority and H2, roughly 20% of the city, administered by Israel. All security arrangements and travel permits for local residents are coordinated between the Palestinian Authority and Israel via military administration of the West Bank, the settlers are governed by their own municipal body, the Committee of the Jewish Community of Hebron. In Judaism it is considered the second-holiest city after Jerusalem, while Islam regards it as one of the four holy cities. Hebron is a hub of West Bank trade, responsible for roughly a third of the areas gross domestic product. It is locally known for its grapes, figs, limestone, pottery workshops and glassblowing factories. The old city of Hebron is characterized by narrow, winding streets, flat-roofed stone houses, the city is home to Hebron University and the Palestine Polytechnic University. Hebron is attached to cities of ad-Dhahiriya, Dura, Yatta, Hebron Governorate is the largest Palestinian governorate with its population of 600,364. The name Hebron traces back to two Semitic roots, which coalesce in the form ḥbr, having reflexes in Hebrew and Amorite and denoting a range of meanings from colleague, in the proper name Hebron, the original sense may have been alliance. The Arabic term derives from the Quranic epithet for Abraham, Khalil al-Rahman Beloved of the Merciful or Friend of God, Arabic Al-Khalil thus precisely translates the ancient Hebrew toponym Ḥebron, understood as ḥaber. Archaeological excavations reveal traces of strong fortifications dated to the Early Bronze Age, the city flourished in the 17th–18th centuries BCE before being destroyed by fire, and was resettled in the late Middle Bronze Age. This older Hebron was originally a Canaanite royal city, abrahamic legend associates the city with the Hittites. In Biblical lore they are represented as descendants of the Nephilim, in settling here, Abraham is described as making his first covenant, an alliance with two local Amorite clans who became his ba’alei brit or masters of the covenant. The Hebron of the Bible was centered on what is now known as Tel Rumeida, Later, the biblical narrative has King David reign from Hebron for some seven years. It is there that the elders of Israel come to him to make a covenant before Elohim and it was in Hebron again that Absalom has himself declared king and then raises a revolt against his father David. It became one of the centers of the Tribe of Judah and was classified as one of the six traditional Cities of Refuge. It remained administratively and politically dependent on Jerusalem for this period, Jews also appear to have lived there after the return from the Babylonian exile. During the Maccabean revolt, Hebron was burnt and plundered by Judah Maccabee who fought against the Edomites in 167 BCE, the city appears to have long resisted Hasmonean dominance, however, and indeed as late as the First Jewish–Roman War was still considered Idumean
5.
Jerusalem
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Jerusalem is a city located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is considered a city in the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, the part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent, today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters. The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger, Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old Citys boundaries. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, the sobriquet of holy city was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesuss crucifixion there, in Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Mecca and Medina. As a result, despite having an area of only 0, outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, one of Israels Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the countrys undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the international community does not recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies. Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of importance, such as the Hebrew University. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, a city called Rušalim in the Execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba, the name Jerusalem is variously etymologized to mean foundation of the god Shalem, the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city. The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua, according to a Midrash, the name is a combination of Yhwh Yireh and the town Shalem. The earliest extra-biblical Hebrew writing of the word Jerusalem is dated to the sixth or seventh century BCE and was discovered in Khirbet Beit Lei near Beit Guvrin in 1961. The inscription states, I am Yahweh thy God, I will accept the cities of Judah and I will redeem Jerusalem, or as other scholars suggest, the mountains of Judah belong to him, to the God of Jerusalem
6.
Hebrew
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
7.
Yahweh
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Yahweh was the national god of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. By the end of the Babylonian exile, the existence of foreign gods was denied, and Yahweh was proclaimed as the creator of the cosmos. The Israelites originated as Bronze Age Canaanites, but Yahweh was not initially a Canaanite god, in this case a plausible etymology for the name could be from the root HWY, which would yield the meaning he blows, appropriate to a weather divinity. There is considerable but not universal support for the view that the Egyptian inscriptions refer to Yahweh, the question that arises is how he made his way to the north. A widely accepted hypothesis is that traders brought Yahweh to Israel along the routes between Egypt and Canaan, the Kenite hypothesis, named after one of the groups involved. Israel emerges into the record in the last decades of the 13th century BCE, at the very end of the Late Bronze Age. The milieu from which Israelite religion emerged was accordingly Canaanite and he lived in a tent on a mountain from whose base originated all the fresh waters of the world, with the goddess Asherah as his consort. This pair made up the top tier of the Canaanite pantheon, the tier was made up of their children. Baals sphere was the thunderstorm with its life-giving rains, so that he was also a fertility god, below the seventy second-tier gods was a third tier made up of comparatively minor craftsman and trader deities, with a fourth and final tier of divine messengers and the like. He subdues the ancient gods, shatters the forces of old, so Israel lives in safety, untroubled is Jacobs abode. Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread on their backs. After the 9th century BCE the tribes and chiefdoms of Iron Age I were replaced by ethnic nation states, Israel, Judah, Moab, Ammon and others, each with its national god, and all more or less equal. Thus Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, Milcom the god of the Ammonites, Qaus the god of the Edomites, the festivals thus celebrated Yahwehs salvation of Israel and Israels status as his holy people, although the earlier agricultural meaning was not entirely lost. Sacrifice was presumably complemented by the singing or recital of psalms, prayer played little role in official worship. Shiloh, Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, Ramah and Dan were also sites for festivals, sacrifices, the making of vows, private rituals. Yahweh-worship was famously aniconic, meaning that the god was not depicted by a statue or other image, pre-exilic Israel, like its neighbours, was polytheistic, and Israelite monotheism was the culmination of a unique set of historical circumstances. The original god of Israel was El, as the name demonstrates—its probable meaning is may El rule or some other sentence-form involving the name of El. Asherah, formerly the wife of El, was worshipped as Yahwehs consort, and various biblical passages indicate that her statues were kept in his temples in Jerusalem, Bethel, and Samaria
8.
Judaism
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Judaism encompasses the religion, philosophy, culture and way of life of the Jewish people. Judaism is an ancient monotheistic Abrahamic religion, with the Torah as its text, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the relationship that God established with the Children of Israel. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth-largest religion in the world, Judaism includes a wide corpus of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. Modern branches of Judaism such as Humanistic Judaism may be nontheistic, today, the largest Jewish religious movements are Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism. Major sources of difference between groups are their approaches to Jewish law, the authority of the Rabbinic tradition. Orthodox Judaism maintains that the Torah and Jewish law are divine in origin, eternal and unalterable, Conservative and Reform Judaism are more liberal, with Conservative Judaism generally promoting a more traditional interpretation of Judaisms requirements than Reform Judaism. A typical Reform position is that Jewish law should be viewed as a set of guidelines rather than as a set of restrictions and obligations whose observance is required of all Jews. Historically, special courts enforced Jewish law, today, these still exist. Authority on theological and legal matters is not vested in any one person or organization, the history of Judaism spans more than 3,000 years. Judaism has its roots as a religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Judaism is considered one of the oldest monotheistic religions, the Hebrews and Israelites were already referred to as Jews in later books of the Tanakh such as the Book of Esther, with the term Jews replacing the title Children of Israel. Judaisms texts, traditions and values strongly influenced later Abrahamic religions, including Christianity, Islam, many aspects of Judaism have also directly or indirectly influenced secular Western ethics and civil law. Jews are a group and include those born Jewish and converts to Judaism. In 2015, the world Jewish population was estimated at about 14.3 million, Judaism thus begins with ethical monotheism, the belief that God is one and is concerned with the actions of humankind. According to the Tanakh, God promised Abraham to make of his offspring a great nation, many generations later, he commanded the nation of Israel to love and worship only one God, that is, the Jewish nation is to reciprocate Gods concern for the world. He also commanded the Jewish people to one another, that is. These commandments are but two of a corpus of commandments and laws that constitute this covenant, which is the substance of Judaism
9.
Ancient Canaanite religion
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Canaanite religion was polytheistic, and in some cases monolatristic. Baalat or Baalit, the wife or female counterpart of Baal Baal Hadad, holy One, putative goddess of love. Resheph, god of plague and of healing Shachar and Shalim, twin mountain gods of dawn and dusk, Shalim was linked to the netherworld via the evening star and associated with peace Shamayim, god of the heavens, paired with Eretz, the land or earth. Shapash, also transliterated Shapshu, goddess of the sun, sometimes equated with the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash, yarikh, god of the moon and husband of Nikkal Canaanites believed that following physical death, the npš departed from the body to the land of Mot. Bodies were buried with goods, and offerings of food. Dead relatives were venerated and sometimes asked for help, none of the inscribed tablets found in 1929 in the Canaanite city of Ugarit has revealed a cosmology. Any idea of one is often reconstructed from the much later Phoenician text by Philo of Byblos, after much Greek, from the union of El Elyon and his consort were born Uranus and Ge, Greek names for the Heaven and the Earth. In Canaanite mythology there were twin mountains Targhizizi and Tharumagi which hold the firmament up above the earth-circling ocean, thereby bounding the earth. W. F. Albright, for example, says that El Shaddai is a derivation of a Semitic stem that appears in the Akkadian shadû and shaddāû or shaddûa, one of the names of Amurru. Philo of Byblos states that Atlas was one of the Elohim, harriet Lutzky has presented evidence that Shaddai was an attribute of a Semitic goddess, linking the epithet with Hebrew šad breast as the one of the Breast. The idea of two mountains being associated here as the breasts of the Earth, fits into the Canaanite mythology quite well, the ideas of pairs of mountains seem to be quite common in Canaanite mythology. The late period of this makes it difficult to tell what influences may have informed Philos writings. In the Baal Cycle, Baal Hadad is challenged by and defeats Yam, afterward, with the help of Athirat and Anat, Baal persuades El to allow him a palace. El approves, and the palace is built by Kothar-wa-Khasis, after the palace is constructed, Baal gives forth a thunderous roar out of the palace window and challenges Mot. Mot enters through the window and swallows Baal, sending him to the Underworld, with no one to give rain, there is a terrible drought in Baals absence. The other deities, especially El and Anat, are distraught that Baal has been taken to the Underworld, Anat goes to the Underworld, attacks Mot with a knife, grinds him up into pieces, and scatters him far and wide. With Mot defeated, Baal is able to return and refresh the Earth with rain and it is considered virtually impossible to reconstruct a clear picture of Canaanite religious practices. Although child sacrifice was known to surrounding peoples there is no reference to it in ancient Phoenician or Classical texts, the biblical representation of Canaanite religion is always negative
10.
Ancient Mesopotamian religion
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The religious development of Mesopotamia and Mesopotamian culture in general was not particularly influenced by the movements of the various peoples into and throughout the area. Rather, Mesopotamian religion was a consistent and coherent tradition which adapted to the needs of its adherents over millenia of development. The earliest undercurrents of Mesopotamian religious thought date to the 4th millennium BCE, in the 3rd millennium BCE objects of worship were personified and became an expansive cast of divinities with particular functions. Mesopotamian religion finally declined with the spread of Iranian religions during the Achaemenid Empire, as with most dead religions, many aspects of the common practices and intricacies of the doctrine have been lost and forgotten over time. Mesopotamian religion is thought to have been an influence on subsequent religions throughout the world, including Canaanite, Aramean, Mesopotamian religion has the oldest body of recorded literature of any religious tradition. Other artifacts can also be useful when reconstructing Mesopotamian religion, as is common with most ancient civilizations, the objects made of the most durable and precious materials, and thus more likely to survive, were associated with religious beliefs and practices. It has also inspired various contemporary Neo-pagan groups, in the fourth millennium BCE, the first evidence for what is recognisably Mesopotamian religion can be seen with the invention in Mesopotamia of writing circa 3500 BCE. The people of Mesopotamia originally consisted of two groups, Akkadian speakers and the people of Sumer, who spoke a language isolate and these peoples were members of various city-states and small kingdoms. The Sumerians left the first records, although it is not known if they migrated into the area in prehistory or whether they were its original inhabitants and they resided in southern Mesopotamia, which was known as Sumer, and had considerable influence on the Akkadian speakers and their culture. Akkadian names first appear in the lists of these states circa 2800 BCE. They created the first city-states such as Uruk, Ur, Lagash, Isin, Kish, Umma, Eridu, Adab, Akshak, Sippar, Nippur and Larsa, each of them ruled by an ensí. The Akkadian Empire endured for two centuries before collapsing due to decline, internal strife and attacks from the north east by the Gutian people. Following a brief Sumerian revival with the Third Dynasty of Ur, Assyria asserted itself in the north circa 2100 BCE in the Old Assyrian Empire and southern Mesopotamia fragmented into a number of kingdoms, the largest being Isin, Larsa and Eshnunna. In 1894 BCE the initially minor city-state of Babylon was founded in the south by invading West Semitic-speaking Amorites and it was rarely ruled by native dynasties throughout its history. Some time after this period, the Sumerians disappeared, becoming absorbed into the Akkadian-speaking population. Assyrian kings are attested from the late 25th century BCE and dominated northern Mesopotamia and parts of Anatolia, the Amorite dynasty was deposed in 1595 BCE after attacks from mountain-dwelling people known as the Kassites from the Zagros Mountains, who went on to rule Babylon for over 500 years. Assyria defeated the Hittites and Mitanni, and its growing power forced the New Kingdom of Egypt to withdraw from the Near East, the Middle Assyrian Empire at its height stretched from the Caucasus to modern Bahrain and from Cyprus to western Iran. During the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Mesopotamian Aramaic became the lingua franca of the empire, the last written records in Akkadian were astrological texts dating from 78 CE discovered in Assyria
11.
Folk religion
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The precise definition of folk religion varies among scholars. Sometimes also termed popular belief, it consists of ethnic or regional religious customs under the umbrella of a religion, the term folk religion is generally held to encompass two related but separate subjects. The first is the dimension of folk culture, or the folk-cultural dimensions of religion. Chinese folk religion, Folk Christianity, Folk Hinduism, and Folk Islam are examples of religion associated with major religions. Don Yoder argued that there were five separate ways of defining folk religion and this definition would view folk religion in Catholic Europe as the survivals of pre-Christian religion and the folk religion in Protestant Europe as the survivals of Medieval Catholicism. The fourth definition provided by Yoder stated that folk religion represented the folk interpretation and expression of religion and his fifth and final definition represented a practical working definition that combined elements from these various other definitions. Yoder described folk religion as existing in a society in relation to. Its relatively unorganized character differentiates it from organized religion and this term was first employed by a German Lutheran preacher, Paul Drews, in a 1901 article that he published which was titled Religiöse Volkskunde, eine Aufgabe der praktischen Theologie. Although developing within an environment, the term came to be adopted by German academics in the field of folkloristics. Over the coming decades, Georg Schreiber established an Institut für religiöse Volkskund in Munich while a department was established in Salzburg by Hanns Koren. Throughout the 20th century, many studies were made of folk religion in Europe, paying attention to such subjects as pilgrimage. In the Americas, the study of folk religion developed among cultural anthropologists studying the syncretistic cultures of the Caribbean and Latin America. The pioneer in this field was Redfield, whose 1930 book Tepoztlán, Yoder later noted that although the earliest known usage of the term folk religion in the English language was unknown, it probably developed as a translation of the German Volksreligion. One of the earliest prominent usages of the term was in the title of Joshua Trachtenbergs 1939 work Jewish Magic and Superstition, A Study in Folk Religion. Courses on the study of religion came to be taught at various universities in the United States, such as John Messengers at Indiana University. Although the subject of folk religion fell within the remit of scholars operating in both folkloristics and religious studies, by 1974 Yoder noted that U. S. He also lamented that many U. S. -based folklorists also neglected the subject of religion because it did not fit within the standard genre-based system for cataloguing folklore, the term folk religion came to be increasingly rejected in the 1990s and 2000s by scholars seeking more precise terminology. Yoder noted that one problem with the use of the folk religion was that it did not fit into the work of those scholars who used the term religion in reference solely to organized religion
12.
Monarchy
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The actual power of the monarch may vary from purely symbolic, to partial and restricted, to completely autocratic. Traditionally and in most cases, the monarchs post is inherited and lasts until death or abdication, occasionally this might create a situation of rival claimants whose legitimacy is subject to effective election. Finally, there have been cases where the term of a reign is either fixed in years or continues until certain goals are achieved. Thus there are widely divergent structures and traditions defining monarchy, Monarchy was the most common form of government until the 19th century, but it is no longer prevalent. Currently,47 sovereign nations in the world have monarchs acting as heads of state,19 of which are Commonwealth realms that recognise Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. The monarchs of Cambodia, Japan, and Malaysia reign, the word monarch comes from the Greek language word μονάρχης, monárkhēs which referred to a single, at least nominally absolute ruler. In current usage the word usually refers to a traditional system of hereditary rule. Depending on the held by the monarch, a monarchy may be known as a kingdom, principality, duchy, grand duchy, empire, tsardom, emirate, sultanate, khaganate. The form of societal hierarchy known as chiefdom or tribal kingship is prehistoric, the Greek term monarchia is classical, used by Herodotus. The monarch in classical antiquity is often identified as king, the Chinese, Japanese and Nepalese monarchs continued to be considered living Gods into the modern period. Since antiquity, monarchy has contrasted with forms of democracy, where power is wielded by assemblies of free citizens. In antiquity, monarchies were abolished in favour of such assemblies in Rome, much of 19th century politics was characterised by the division between anti-monarchist Radicalism and monarchist Conservativism. Many countries abolished the monarchy in the 20th century and became republics, advocacy of republics is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchies is called monarchism. In the modern era, monarchies are more prevalent in small states than in large ones, most monarchs, both historically and in the modern day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, the centre of the royal household and court. Growing up in a family, future monarchs are often trained for the responsibilities of expected future rule. Different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, and agnatic seniority. While most monarchs have been male, many female monarchs also have reigned in history, rule may be hereditary in practice without being considered a monarchy, such as that of family dictatorships or political families in many democracies. The principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of leadership
13.
Iron Age
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The Iron Age is an archaeological era, referring to a period of time in the prehistory and protohistory of the Old World when the dominant toolmaking material was iron. It is commonly preceded by the Bronze Age in Europe and Asia with exceptions, meteoric iron has been used by humans since at least 3200 BC. Ancient iron production did not become widespread until the ability to smelt ore, remove impurities. The start of the Iron Age proper is considered by many to fall between around 1200 BC and 600 BC, depending on the region, the earliest known iron artifacts are nine small beads dated to 3200 BC, which were found in burials at Gerzeh, Lower Egypt. They have been identified as meteoric iron shaped by careful hammering, meteoric iron, a characteristic iron–nickel alloy, was used by various ancient peoples thousands of years before the Iron Age. Such iron, being in its metallic state, required no smelting of ores. Smelted iron appears sporadically in the record from the middle Bronze Age. While terrestrial iron is abundant, its high melting point of 1,538 °C placed it out of reach of common use until the end of the second millennium BC. Tins low melting point of 231, similarly, recent archaeological remains of iron working in the Ganges Valley in India have been tentatively dated to 1800 BC. By the Middle Bronze Age, increasing numbers of smelted iron objects appeared in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, African sites are turning up dates as early as 1200 BC. Modern archaeological evidence identifies the start of iron production in around 1200 BC. Between 1200 BC and 1000 BC, diffusion in the understanding of iron metallurgy and use of objects was fast. As evidence, many bronze implements were recycled into weapons during this time, more widespread use of iron led to improved steel-making technology at lower cost. Thus, even when tin became available again, iron was cheaper, stronger, and lighter, and forged iron implements superseded cast bronze tools permanently. Increasingly, the Iron Age in Europe is being seen as a part of the Bronze Age collapse in the ancient Near East, in ancient India, ancient Iran, and ancient Greece. In other regions of Europe, the Iron Age began in the 8th century BC in Central Europe, the Near Eastern Iron Age is divided into two subsections, Iron I and Iron II. Iron I illustrates both continuity and discontinuity with the previous Late Bronze Age, during the Iron Age, the best tools and weapons were made from steel, particularly alloys which were produced with a carbon content between approximately 0. 30% and 1. 2% by weight. Steel weapons and tools were nearly the same weight as those of bronze, however, steel was difficult to produce with the methods available, and alloys that were easier to make, such as wrought iron, were more common in lower-priced goods
14.
Siege of Jerusalem (587 BC)
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In 589 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II laid siege to Jerusalem, culminating in the destruction of the city and its temple in the summer of 587 BC. Following the siege of 597 BC, the Neo-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar installed Zedekiah as tributary king of Judah, however, Zedekiah revolted against Babylon, and entered into an alliance with Pharaoh Hophra, the king of Egypt. Nebuchadnezzar responded by invading Judah and began a siege of Jerusalem in December 589 BC, during this siege, the duration of which was either 18 or 30 months, every worst woe befell the city, which drank the cup of Gods fury to the dregs. In 586 BC, after completion of the year of Zedekiahs reign, Nebuchadnezzar broke through Jerusalems walls. Zedekiah and his followers attempted to escape but were captured on the plains of Jericho, there, after seeing his sons killed, Zedekiah was blinded, bound, and taken captive to Babylon, where he remained a prisoner until his death. After the fall of Jerusalem, The Babylonian general, Nebuzaraddan, was sent to complete its destruction, Jerusalem was plundered, and Solomons Temple was destroyed. Most of the elite were taken into captivity in Babylon, the city was razed to the ground. Only a few people were permitted to remain to tend to the land, gedaliah was made governor of the remnant of Judah, the Yehud Province, with a Chaldean guard stationed at Mizpah. On hearing this news, the Jews who were in Moab, Ammon, Edom, gedaliah was assassinated two months later, and the population that had remained and those who had returned then fled to Egypt for safety. In Egypt, they settled in Migdol, Tahpanhes, Noph, the Babylonian Chronicles, published in 1956, indicate that Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem the first time putting an end to the reign of Jehoaichin, on 2 Adar 597 BC. There has been debate as to when the second siege of Jerusalem took place. Thieles reckoning is based on the presentation of Zedekiahs reign on an accession basis, which was occasionally used for the kings of Judah. In that case, the year that Zedekiah came to the throne would be his year, his first full year would be 597/596 BC, and his eleventh year. Since Judahs regnal years were counted from Tishri in autumn, that would place the end of his reign, a timeline for the final siege of Jerusalem is shown in the table below. Dates are taken from the 2011 From Abraham to Paul, A Biblical Chronology, a book by Andrew E. Steinnman
15.
Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy)
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The United Monarchy is the name given to the Israelite kingdom of Israel and Judah, during the reigns of Saul, David and Solomon, as depicted in the Hebrew Bible. This is traditionally dated between 1050 and 930 BCE, modern historians are divided on the historicity of the United Monarchy as described in the Bible. There is no evidence of a united Kingdom of Judah. According to standard source criticism, a number of source texts were spliced together to produce the current books of Samuel. The most prominent in the parts of the first book are the pro-monarchical source. In identifying these two sources, two separate accounts can be reconstructed, the anti-monarchical source describes Samuel to have thoroughly routed the Philistines, yet begrudgingly accepting that the people demanded a ruler, and thus appointing Saul by cleromancy. Textual critics also point to disparities in the account of Davids rise to power as indicative of separate threads being merged later to create an age of a united monarchy. David is thought by scholars to have been a ruler in Judah while Israel, comparatively immense, modern archaeology also supports this view. Most scholars believe the Books of Samuel exhibit too many anachronisms to have been a contemporary account, for example, there is mention of later armor, use of camels, cavalry, and iron picks and axes. According to the Book of Judges, the Israelite tribes previously lived as a confederation under ad hoc charismatic leaders called Judges. Abimelech was the first to be declared king by the men of Shechem and the house of Millo, and reigned over Israel for three years before he was killed during the Battle of Thebez. The Bible treats the notion of kingship as having been an anathema at the time, it being seen as one man put in a position of reverence and power, which in their faith was reserved for God. According to the Second Book of Samuel, due to his disobedience to God, Sauls reign was curtailed, the Masoretic Text says that Saul ruled for only two years. The Bible portrays Saul as having died in battle against the Philistines, Sauls heir, Ishbaal, took over rulership of Israel but, according to Samuel, ruled for only two years before he was assassinated. David, who had become king of Judah only, ended the conspiracy, a number of textual critics and biblical scholars have suggested that David was actually responsible for the assassination, and Davids innocence was a later invention to legitimize his actions. Israel rebels, according to Samuel, and appoints Davids son Absalom as their new king, the Bible then describes Israel as taking over Judah and ultimately forcing David into exile east of the Jordan. This section of the text, and the bulk of the remainder of the Books of Samuel, is thought by textual critics to belong to a single large source known as the Court History of David. Israel and Judah are portrayed in this source as quite distinct kingdoms, eventually, according to the Book of Samuel, David launches a counter-attack, and wins, although with the loss of Absalom
16.
Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, in the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known artifact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam
17.
West Bank
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The West Bank shares boundaries to the west, north, and south with Israel, and to the east, across the Jordan River, with Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant section of the western Dead Sea shore, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has a land area of 5,640 km2 plus a water area of 220 km2, consisting of the northwest quarter of the Dead Sea. As of July 2015 it has an population of 2,785,366 Palestinians, and approximately 371,000 Israeli settlers. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal under international law and this annexation was recognized only by Britain, Iraq and Pakistan. The term was chosen to differentiate the west bank of the River Jordan from the east bank of this river, the neo-Latin name Cisjordan or Cis-Jordan is the usual name for the territory in the Romance languages and Hungarian. The name West Bank, however, has become the standard usage for this entity in English. The analogous Transjordan has historically used to designate the region now roughly comprising the state of Jordan. From 1517 through 1917, the now known as the West Bank was under Ottoman rule as part of the provinces of Syria. At the 1920 San Remo conference, the victorious Allied powers allocated the area to the British Mandate of Palestine, the San Remo Resolution adopted on 25 April 1920 incorporated the Balfour Declaration of 1917. It and Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations were the basic documents upon which the British Mandate for Palestine was constructed. Faced with the determination of Emir Abdullah to unify Arab lands under the Hashemite banner, the West Bank area, was conquered by Jordan during the 1948 war with the new state of Israel. In 1947, it was designated as part of a proposed Arab state by the United Nations partition plan for Palestine. 1949 Armistice Agreements defined the boundary between Israel and Jordan. In 1950, Transjordan annexed the area west of the Jordan River, naming it West Bank or Cisjordan, Jordan ruled over the West Bank from 1948 until 1967. Jordans annexation was never recognized by the international community, with the exception of the United Kingdom. King Abdullah of Jordan had been crowned King of Jerusalem by the Coptic Bishop on 15 November 1948. and granted Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank, in June 1967, the West Bank and East Jerusalem were captured by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War. With the exception of East Jerusalem and the former Israeli-Jordanian no mans land, the Israeli settlements were, on the other hand, administered subsequently as Judea and Samaria Area directly by Israel. Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority officially controls a geographically non-contiguous territory comprising approx, 11% of the West Bank which remains subject to Israeli incursions
18.
Hebrew language
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Hebrew is a language native to Israel, spoken by over 9 million people worldwide, of whom over 5 million are in Israel. Historically, it is regarded as the language of the Israelites and their ancestors, the earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date from the 10th century BCE. Hebrew belongs to the West Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic language family, Hebrew is the only living Canaanite language left, and the only truly successful example of a revived dead language. Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language somewhere between 200 and 400 CE, declining since the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Aramaic and to a lesser extent Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among elites and it survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy, rabbinic literature, intra-Jewish commerce, and poetry. Then, in the 19th century, it was revived as a spoken and literary language, and, according to Ethnologue, had become, as of 1998, the language of 5 million people worldwide. After Israel, the United States has the second largest Hebrew-speaking population, with 220,000 fluent speakers, Modern Hebrew is one of the two official languages of the State of Israel, while premodern Hebrew is used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world today. Ancient Hebrew is also the tongue of the Samaritans, while modern Hebrew or Arabic is their vernacular. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Leshon Hakodesh, the modern word Hebrew is derived from the word Ivri, one of several names for the Israelite people. It is traditionally understood to be a based on the name of Abrahams ancestor, Eber. This name is based upon the root ʕ-b-r meaning to cross over. Interpretations of the term ʕibrim link it to this verb, cross over, in the Bible, the Hebrew language is called Yәhudit because Judah was the surviving kingdom at the time of the quotation. In Isaiah 19,18 it is called the Language of Canaan, Hebrew belongs to the Canaanite group of languages. In turn, the Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages, according to Avraham ben-Yosef, Hebrew flourished as a spoken language in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah during about 1200 to 586 BCE. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile. In July 2008 Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa which he claimed may be the earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating around 3000 years ago. The Gezer calendar also dates back to the 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic Period, classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew, the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that through the Greeks, the Gezer calendar is written without any vowels, and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places where later Hebrew spelling requires it
19.
Southern Levant
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The Southern Levant is a geographical region encompassing the southern half of the Levant. It corresponds approximately to modern-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan, some also include southern Lebanon. As a strictly geographical description, it is used by archaeologists and historians to avoid the religious. Like much of Southwestern Asia, the Southern Levant is a region consisting mostly of desert and dry steppe, with a thin strip of wetter. The Southern Levant has a history and is one of the areas of the world most intensively investigated by archaeologists. It is considered likely to be the first place that both early hominins and modern humans colonised outside of Africa, consequently, it has a rich Stone Age archaeology, stretching back as early as 1.5 million years ago. In the field of archaeology, the southern Levant is the region identified as Syria-Palestine. Dissertations using the terms ‘Israel’ and ‘Canaan’, the term Southern Levant has also been criticized as imprecise and an awkward name. The Southern Levant lies on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, in the region known variously as the Near East. It is bordered to the east, southeast and southwest by the Syrian, Arabian and Sinai deserts, some definitions include parts of these deserts in the region. The Litani River is commonly considered the line between the Southern Levant and the Northern Levant, or sometimes the Orontes River, also in central Lebanon. For the most part, the climate of the Southern Levant is arid or semi-arid, however a narrow strip along the coast experiences a temperate, Mediterranean climate due to its proximity to the sea. Across the region, precipitation is both highly seasonal―most rain falls between October and May, and hardly any in the subject to large, unpredictable interannual variation. Temperature is also variable, with cool winters and hot summers. The Jordan River bisects much of the region into the Cisjordan and Transjordan, the Jordan River terminates at the Dead Sea, whose banks, at 400 metres below sea level, are the worlds lowest point on dry land. Later phases are generally associated with periods and are named accordingly. The names given to them, derived from the Greek, are used widely for other regions. The different ages in turn are divided up into sequential or sometimes parallel chrono-cultural facies, sometimes called “cultures” or “periods”
20.
Hebrew Bible
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They are composed mainly in Biblical Hebrew, with some passages in Biblical Aramaic. The term does not comment upon the naming, numbering or ordering of books, the term Hebrew Bible is an attempt to provide specificity with respect to contents but avoid allusion to any particular interpretative tradition or theological school of thought. Hebrew Bible refers to the Jewish biblical canon, in its Latin form, Biblia Hebraica, it traditionally serves as a title for printed editions of the Masoretic Text. Many biblical studies scholars advocate use of the term Hebrew Bible as a substitute to terms with religious connotations. Hebrew Bible Old Testament without prescribing the use of either, however, he accepts that there is no reason why non-Christians should feel obliged to refer to these books as the Old Testament, apart from custom of use. Modern Christian formulations of this tension include Supersessionism, Covenant Theology, New Covenant Theology, Dispensationalism, in terms of canon, Christian usage of Old Testament does not refer to a universally agreed upon set of books but, rather, varies depending on denomination. The Hebrew Bible includes small portions in Aramaic, written and printed in Aramaic square-script, the books that constitute the Hebrew Bible developed over roughly a millennium. The oldest texts seem to come from the 11th or 10th centuries BCE and they are edited works, being collections of various sources intricately and carefully woven together. Since the 19th century, most biblical scholars have agreed that the Pentateuch consists of four sources which have been woven together and these four sources are J, D, E and P sources. They were combined to form the Pentateuch sometime in the 6th century BCE and this theory is now known as the documentary hypothesis, and has been the dominant theory for the past two hundred years. The Deuteronomist credited with the Pentateuchs book of Deuteronomy is also said to be the source of the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, several editions, all titled Biblia Hebraica, have been produced by various German publishers since 1906. Between 1906 and 1955, Rudolf Kittel published nine editions of it,1966, the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft published the renamed Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia in six editions until 1997. Since 2004 the Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft has published the Biblia Hebraica Quinta, other projects include, Hebrew University Bible Project Hebrew Bible, A Critical Edition Biblical canon Books of the Bible Non-canonical books referenced in the Bible Torah Brueggemann, Walter. An introduction to the Old Testament, the canon and Christian imagination, the People of Ancient Israel, an introduction to Old Testament Literature, History, and Thought, Harper and Row,1974. Sinai and Zion, An Entry into the Jewish Bible, archived from the original on 14 March 2012. The Ancient Near East, Volume I, Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press. An abridgement of Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament Noth, how the Bible Became a Book. The Old Testament, A Literary History, hebrew-English Tanakh, the Jewish Bible Complete, fully vocalized, contilated, Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, together with the classic English translation by the Jewish Publication Society
21.
Hezekiah
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Hezekiah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the son of Ahaz and the 13th king of Judah. Archaeologist Edwin Thiele has concluded that his reign was between c.715 and 686 BC and he is considered a very righteous king by the author of the Book of Kings. He is also one of the most prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Hebrew Bible and is one of the mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. Hezekiah enacted sweeping reforms, including a strict mandate for the sole worship of Yahweh. Isaiah and Micah prophesied during his reign, Hezekiah, more properly transliterated as Ḥizkiyyahu, or Ḥizkiyyah. It also spawns a number of nouns, including חוֹזֶק, חָזְקָה, חֶזְקָה strength, as well as the adjectives חָזָק, חָזֵק strong. Accordingly, חִזְקִיָּהוּ Ḥizkiyyahu can be said to mean something like Strengthened by Yahweh, the main account of Hezekiahs reign is found in 2 Kings 18–20, Isaiah 36–39, and 2 Chronicles 29–32 of the Hebrew Bible. Proverbs 25,1 mentions that it is a collection of King Solomons proverbs that were copied by the officials of King Hezekiah of Judah and his reign is also referred to in the books of the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Micah. The books of Hosea and Micah record that their prophecies were made during Hezekiah’s reign, Hezekiah was the son of King Ahaz and Abijah. His mother, Abijah, was a daughter of the high priest Zechariah, based on Thieles dating, Hezekiah was born in c.741 BC. He died from natural causes at the age of 54 in c.687 BC, according to the Hebrew Bible, Hezekiah assumed the throne of Judah at the age of 25 and reigned for 29 years. Some writers have proposed that Hezekiah served as coregent with his father Ahaz for about 14 years and his sole reign is dated by William F. Albright as 715–687 BC, and by Edwin R. Thiele as 716–687 BC. Hezekiah purified and repaired the Temple, purged its idols, in an effort to abolish what he considered idolatry from his kingdom, he destroyed the high places and bronze serpent, recorded as being made by Moses, which became objects of idolatrous worship. In place of this, he centralized the worship of God at the Jerusalem Temple, Hezekiah also resumed the Passover pilgrimage and the tradition of inviting the scattered tribes of Israel to take part in a Passover festival. He sent messengers to Ephraim and Manasseh inviting them to Jerusalem for the celebration of the Passover, the messengers, however, were not only not listened to, but were even laughed at, only a few men of Asher, Manasseh, and Zebulun came to Jerusalem. Nevertheless, the Passover was celebrated with solemnity and such rejoicing as had not been in Jerusalem since the days of Solomon. Hezekiah is portrayed by the Hebrew Bible as a great and good king, when Sargon II, the king of Assyria, died in 705 BC, states, including Judah, that were subject to Assyria saw an opportunity to throw off their subservience to the Assyrian kings. Hezekiah ceased to pay the tribute imposed on his father, in 703 BC Sennacherib, Sargons son and successor, began a series of major campaigns to quash opposition to Assyrian rule
22.
Sennacherib
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Sennacherib was the king of Assyria from 705 BCE to 681 BCE. He is principally remembered for his campaigns against Babylon and Judah. He was assassinated in obscure circumstances in 681 BCE, apparently by his eldest son, the primary preoccupation of his reign was the so-called Babylonian problem, the refusal of the Babylonians to accept Assyrian rule, culminating in his destruction of the city in 689 BCE. Further campaigns were carried out in Syria in the mountains east of Assyria, against the kingdoms of Anatolia and his death was welcomed in Babylon as divine punishment for the destruction of that city. He was also a builder, it was under him that Assyrian art reached its peak. Assyria began as a Bronze Age city-state or small kingdom on the middle-Tigris, the empires rise aroused the fear and hatred of its neighbours, notably Babylon, Elam and Egypt, and the many smaller kingdoms of the region such as Judah. Any perceived weakness on the part of Assyria led inevitably to rebellion, solving the so-called Babylonian problem was Sennacheribs primary preoccupation. Sennacheribs grandfather Tiglath-pileser III had made himself king of Babylon, creating a monarchy in which the Babylonians retained a nominal independence. This arrangement was never accepted by local leaders, particularly an important tribal chief named Marduk-apla-iddina. Marduk-apla-iddina paid tribute to Tiglath-pileser, but when Tiglath-pilesers successor Shalmaneser V was overthrown by Sargon II he seized the opportunity to crown himself king of Babylon, the next thirty years saw a repeating pattern of Assyrian reconquest and renewed rebellion. His relations, instead, were military, and culminated in his complete destruction of Babylon in 689 BCE. He destroyed the temples and the images of the gods, except for that of Marduk, the creator-god and divine patron of Babylon and this caused consternation in Assyria itself, where Babylon and its gods were held in high esteem. Sennacherib attempted to justify his actions to his own countrymen through a campaign of religious propaganda, in Babylon itself, Sennachribs answer to the Babylonian problem sparked an intense hatred that would eventually lead to a war for independence and the destruction of Assyria. Sennacherib was probably not the son of Sargon II, but he was groomed for royal succession. Sargon died in battle, and ancient sources give three different years for Sennacheribs first reign-year—705 BCE,704 BCE, and 703 BCE—suggesting that the succession was not smooth, Sennacheribs first campaign began late in 703 BCE against Marduk-apla-iddina, who had once more taken the throne of Babylon. The rebellion was defeated, Marduk-apla-iddina fled, and Babylon was taken, a puppet king named Bel-ibni was placed on the throne and for the next two years Babylon was left in peace. In 701 BCE, Sennacherib turned from Babylonia to the part of the empire. Ekron called on Egypt for help but the Egyptians were defeated, Sennacherib then turned on Jerusalem, Hezekiahs capital
23.
Assyria
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Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
24.
Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt
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The Twenty-sixth Dynasty of Egypt was the last native dynasty to rule Egypt before the Persian conquest in 525 BC. The dynastys reign is called the Saite Period after the city of Sais, where its pharaohs had their capital. This dynasty traced its origins to the 24th Dynasty, Psamtik I was probably a descendant of Bakenrenef, and following the Assyrians invasions during the reigns of Taharqa and Tantamani, he was recognized as sole king over all of Egypt. With the help of Greek mercenaries, Apries was able to hold back Babylonian attempts to conquer Egypt and their king, Cambyses II, captured and later executed Psamtik III. The 26th Dynasty may be related to the 24th Dynasty, Manetho begins the dynasty with, Ammeris the Nubian,12 years Stephinates,7 years Nechepsos,6 years Necho,8 years. When the Nubian King Shabaka defeated Bakenrenef, son of Tefnakht and this may be the man named Ammeris. Stephinates may be a descendant of Bakenrenef and he is sometimes referred to as Tefnakht II in the literature. Nechepsos has been identified with a king named Nekauba. Manethos Necho is King Necho I, Manetho gives his reign as 8 years, Necho was killed during a conflict with the Nubian king Tanutamun. Psamtik I fled to Nineveh – capital of the Assyrian Empire – and returned to Egypt when Assurbanipal defeated Tanutamun, scholars now start the 26th Dynasty with the reign of Psamtik I. Sextus Julius Africanus states in his often accurate version of Manethos Epitome that the dynasty numbered 9 pharaohs, beginning with a Stephinates, Africanus also notes that Psamtik I and Necho I ruled for 54 and 8 years respectively. History of Ancient Egypt Twenty-sixth Dynasty Family Tree Twenty-sixth Dynasty Timeline Late Period of ancient Egypt Achaemenid Empire Saite Oracle Papyrus Aidan Dodson, the Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt. The American University in Cairo Press, London 2004 Kenneth Kitchen, The Third Intermediate Period in Egypt,1986 ISBN 978-0-85668-298-8 Karl Jansen-Winkeln, Bild und Charakter der ägyptischen 26
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Neo-Babylonian Empire
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The Neo-Babylonian Empire, also known as the Chaldean Empire, was a period of Mesopotamian history which began in 626 BC and ended in 539 BC. During the preceding three centuries, Babylonia had been ruled by their fellow Akkadian speakers and northern neighbours, Assyria, a year after the death of the last strong Assyrian ruler, Assurbanipal, in 627 BC, the Assyrian empire spiralled into a series of brutal civil wars. Babylonia rebelled under Nabopolassar, a member of the Chaldean tribe which had migrated from the Levant to south eastern Babylonia in the early 9th century BC. This period witnessed an improvement in economic life and agricultural production, and a great flourishing of architectural projects. The Neo-Babylonian period ended with the reign of Nabonidus in 539 BC, to the east, the Persians had been growing in strength, and eventually Cyrus the Great conquered the empire. Babylonia was subject to and dominated by Assyria during the Neo-Assyrian period, the Assyrians of Upper Mesopotamia had usually been able to pacify their southern relations through military might, installing puppet kings, or granting increased privileges. Even though Aramaic had become the everyday tongue, Akkadian was retained as the language of administration, archaic expressions from 1500 years earlier were reintroduced in Akkadian inscriptions, along with words in the long-unspoken Sumerian language. Neo-Babylonian cuneiform script was modified to make it look like the old 3rd-millennium BC script of Akkad. Ancient artworks from the heyday of Babylonias imperial glory were treated with reverence and were painstakingly preserved. For example, when a statue of Sargon the Great was found during work, a temple was built for it. The story is told of how Nebuchadnezzar, in his efforts to restore the Temple at Sippar, had to make repeated excavations until he found the foundation deposit of Naram-Sin of Akkad, the discovery then allowed him to rebuild the temple properly. Neo-Babylonians also revived the ancient Sargonid practice of appointing a royal daughter to serve as priestess of the moon-god Sin, much more is known about Mesopotamian culture and economic life under the Neo-Babylonians than about the structure and mechanics of imperial administration. It is clear that for southern Mesopotamia, the Neo-Babylonian period was a renaissance, large tracts of land were opened to cultivation. Peace and imperial power made available to expand the irrigation systems. The Babylonian countryside was dominated by large estates, which were given to government officials as a form of pay, the estates were usually managed by local entrepreneurs, who took a cut of the profits. Rural folk were bound to these estates, providing both labour and rents to their landowners, urban life flourished under the Neo-Babylonians. Cities had local autonomy and received privileges from the kings. Centered on their temples, the cities had their own law courts, free laborers like craftsmen enjoyed high status and a sort of guild system came into existence, which gave them collective bargaining power
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Babylonian captivity
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The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a number of Judahites of the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylonia. After the Battle of Carchemish in 605 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, besieged Jerusalem, the dates, numbers of deportations, and numbers of deportees given in the biblical accounts vary. These deportations are dated to 597 BCE for the first, with others dated at 587/586 BCE, after the fall of Babylon to the Persian king Cyrus the Great in 539 BCE, exiled Judeans were permitted to return to Judah. According to the book of Ezra, construction of the second temple in Jerusalem began around 537 BCE. All these events are considered significant in Jewish history and culture, the return of the exiles was a gradual process rather than a single event, and many of the deportees or their descendants did not return. In the late 7th century BCE, the kingdom of Judah was a client state of the Assyrian empire, in the last decades of the century, Assyria was overthrown by Babylon, an Assyrian province. Egypt, fearing the rise of the Neo-Babylonian empire, seized control of Assyrian territory up to the Euphrates river in Syria. In the process Josiah, the king of Judah, was killed in a battle with the Egyptians at the Battle of Megiddo, after the defeat of Pharaoh Nechos army by the Babylonians at Carchemish in 605 BCE, Jehoiakim began paying tribute to Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon. Some of the nobility of Judah were taken to Babylon. In the following years, the court of Jerusalem was divided into two parties, in support of Egypt and Babylon, after Nebuchadnezzar was defeated in battle in 601 BCE by Egypt, Judah revolted against Babylon, culminating in a three-month siege of Jerusalem beginning in late 598 BCE. Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, died during the siege and was succeeded by his son Jehoiachin at the age of eighteen. The city fell on 2 Adar 597 BCE, and Nebuchadnezzar pillaged Jerusalem and its Temple and took Jeconiah, his court, jehoiakims uncle Zedekiah was appointed king in his place, but the exiles in Babylon continued to consider Jeconiah as their Exilarch, or rightful ruler. Despite warnings by Jeremiah and others of the party, Zedekiah revolted against Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar returned, defeated the Egyptians, and again besieged Jerusalem, Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city wall and the Temple, together with the houses of the most important citizens. Zedekiah and his sons were captured, the sons were executed in front of Zedekiah, Judah became a Babylonian province, called Yehud, putting an end to the independent Kingdom of Judah. Some time later, a member of the royal family assassinated Gedaliah and his Babylonian advisors. According to the book of Ezra, the Persian Cyrus the Great ended the exile in 538 BCE, the exile ended with the return under Zerubbabel the Prince and Joshua the Priest and their construction of the Second Temple in the period 521–516 BCE. He appointed there a king of his own choice and taking heavy tribute brought it back to Babylon, one of the tablets refers to food rations for Ya’u-kīnu, king of the land of Yahudu and five royal princes, his sons
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Biblical archaeology
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For the movement associated with William F. Albright and also known as biblical archaeology, see Biblical archaeology school. The principal location of interest is what is known in the relevant religions as the Holy Land, the scientific techniques used are the same as those used in general archaeology, such as excavation and radiocarbon dating. Biblical archaeology is polemical as there are a number of points of view regarding the nature of its purpose, a number of points of view from important archaeologists are included in the section on Expert Commentaries. In order to understand the significance of biblical archaeology it is first necessary to understand two basic concepts, archaeology as a framework and the Bible as an object for research. Archaeology is a science, not in the Aristotelian sense of cognitio certa per causas and it might be thought that archaeology would have to disregard the information contained within religions and many philosophical systems. This contemporary perception of the myth, mainly developed by Bultmann, has encouraged scientists such as archaeologists to examine the areas indicated by the biblical tales. Other authors prefer to talk about the archaeology of Palestine and to define the relevant territories as those to the east and west of the River Jordan and this indicates that biblical archaeology or that of Palestine is circumscribed by the territories that were the backdrop to the biblical stories. The raison d’etre of biblical archaeology derives from the fact that it allows an understanding of the peoples that inhabited the Holy Land and it allows an understanding of their history, culture, identity and movements. This makes it possible to know the location of the stories. Albright, G. Ernest Wright and Yigael Yadin, using this approach, introduced by P. Biblical archaeology lends fundamental support to exegetical studies, the geographical area that circumscribes the area of interest for biblical archaeology is obviously the biblical lands, also known as the Holy Land. Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece and Rome have greater connections with the stories from the New Testament, in the same way that the spatial criteria vary according to the various points of view of the different researchers, there are also a variety of dates that are of interest. This time period is considered by authorities to be too wide. The term Apostolic Church is taken to mean the period when Jesuss apostles were alive. This period ends with the death of John the Evangelist, the date of his death is not known. However, some consider that the authors of the Fourth Gospel. 8500–4300 BC Pre-Pottery Neolithic = c, 8500–6000 BC Pre-Pottery Neolithic A = c. The most important historical sources include Josephus, Origen, Eusebius, Egeria or Aetheria, was a Spanish woman who made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land between 381 and 384
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Historicity of the Bible
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This can be extended to the question of the Christian New Testament as an accurate record of the historical Jesus and the Apostolic Age. Many fields of study span the Bible and history, such fields range from archeology and astronomy to linguistics, Archaeological discoveries since the 19th century, like any evidence, is open to interpretation. But broadly speaking, they support to some of the Old Testaments historical narratives. The Bible exists in multiple manuscripts, none of them autographs, the early discussions about the exclusion or integration of various apocryphes involve an early idea about the historicity of the core. The Ionian Enlightenment influenced early patrons like Justin Martyr and Tertullian - both saw the texts as being different than the myths of other religions. Augustine was aware of the difference between science and scripture and defended the historicity of the biblical texts e. g. against claims of Faustus of Mileve. According to Barstad, to burden the Bible with our views of truth is not only anachronistic. Instead, the Bible should not be treated differently from historical sources from the ancient world. To determine the accuracy of a manuscript, textual critics scrutinize the way the transcripts have passed through history to their extant forms. The higher the volume of the earliest texts, the greater the textual reliability, multiple copies may also be grouped into text types, with some types judged closer to the hypothetical original than others. Differences often extend beyond minor variations and may involve, for instance, interpolation of material central to issues of historicity and doctrine, the meaning of the term history is itself dependent on social and historical context. Paula McNutt, for instance, notes that the Old Testament narratives do not record history in the sense that history is understood in the twentieth century. The past, for biblical writers as well as for readers of the Bible, has meaning only when it is considered in light of the present. Even from the earliest times, there was an awareness that parts of the scriptures could not be interpreted as a strictly consistent sequence of events, the Talmud cites a dictum ascribed to the third-century teacher Abba Arika that there is no chronological order in the Torah. During the modern era, the focus of Biblical history has also diversified, the project of biblical archaeology associated with W. F. A special challenge for assessing the historicity of the Bible is sharply differing perspectives on the relationship between history and theological meaning. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and he had earlier been effectively excommunicated by the rabbinical council of Amsterdam for his perceived heresies. By the end of the 19th century the scholarly consensus was that the Pentateuch was the work of authors writing from 1000 BCE to 500 BCE
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Mesha Stele
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The Mesha Stele is a stele set up around 840 BCE by King Mesha of Moab. Mesha describes his many building projects and it is written in the Phoenician alphabet. The stone was discovered intact by Frederick Augustus Klein, an Anglican missionary, at the site of ancient Dibon, Klein was led to it by a local Bedouin, although neither of them could read the text. Before it could be seen by another European, the year it was smashed by local villagers during a dispute over its ownership. A squeeze had been obtained by a local Arab on behalf of Charles Simon Clermont-Ganneau, the squeeze and the reassembled stele are now in the Louvre Museum. It is also one of four known contemporary inscriptions containing the name of Israel, the others being the Merneptah Stele, the Tel Dan Stele, and the Kurkh Monolith. Its authenticity has been disputed over the years but the stele is regarded as genuine, the stele is currently on display in France at the Louvre museum and Jordan has demanded its return. The stele is a block of basalt approximately one meter tall,60 cm wide and 60 cm thick. On 8 February 1870, George Grove of the Palestine Exploration Fund announced the find of the stele in a letter to The Times, on 17 February 1870, the 24-year-old Clermont-Ganneau published the first detailed announcement of the stele in the Revue de l’Instruction Publique. The previous year the Bani Hamida had been defeated by an expedition to Balqa led by Reşid Pasha, a squeeze of the full stele had been obtained just prior to its destruction. Pieces of the original stele containing most of the inscription,613 letters out of about a thousand, were recovered and pieced together. The remainder of the stele was reconstructed by Ganneau from the squeeze obtained by Caravacca, there is no authoritative full edition of the Moabite inscription. The translation used here is that published by James King, based on translations by M. Ganneau, line numbers added to the published version have been removed. I am Mesha, son of Chemosh-gad, king of Moab and my father reigned over Moab thirty years, and I have reigned after my father. And I have built this sanctuary for Chemosh in Karchah, a sanctuary of salvation, for he saved me from all aggressors, Omri was king of Israel, and oppressed Moab during many days, and Chemosh was angry with his aggressions. His son succeeded him, and he said, I will oppress Moab. In my days he said, Let us go, and I will see my desire upon him and his house, now Omri took the land of Madeba, and occupied it in his day, and in the days of his son, forty years. And Chemosh had mercy on it in my time, and I built Baal-meon and made therein the ditch, and I built Kiriathaim
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Mesha
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King Mesha of Moab was a king of Moab in the 9th century BC, known most famously for having the Mesha Stele inscribed and erected at Dibon. In this inscription he calls himself Mesha, son of Kemosh, the king of Moab, the two main sources for the existence and history of King Mesha are the Mesha Stele and the Hebrew Bible. Aside from these attestations, references to Mesha are scanty, an exception being the El-Kerak Inscription. The Books of Samuel record that Moab was conquered by David, later, after the split of Israel into two kingdoms, King Omri of the northern kingdom of Israel reconquered Moab after it had been lost subsequent to King Solomons reign. The Mesha Stele, named after the Moabite king who erected it, makes no mention of earlier history, the stele records Meshas liberation of Moab from under the suzerainty of Israel in c.850 BCE. If the latter is the case, the interpretation would be that Meshas deed caused Edom to withdraw from the coalition, in any case, the effect stated in the Bible is remarkable. And there came great wrath against Israel, and they withdrew from him and returned to their own land. The name Mesha is based on the Hebrew root meaning to save, the Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. III Pt. i, 2nd Ed. Boardman, Edwards, Hammond & Sollberger eds, Cambridge University Press,1982 Reading the Old Testament, Lawrence Boadt, Paulist Press,1984 The History and Religion of Israel, G. W
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Moab
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Moab is the historical name for a mountainous tract of land in Jordan. The land lies alongside much of the shore of the Dead Sea. The existence of the Kingdom of Moab is attested to by numerous archaeological findings, most notably the Mesha Stele, according to the Hebrew Bible, Moab was often in conflict with its Israelite neighbours to the west. Moab occupied a plateau about 3,000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean, or 4,300 feet above the Dead Sea, the northern boundary varied, but generally is represented by a line drawn some miles above the northern extremity of the Dead Sea. In Ezekiel 25,9 the boundaries are given as being marked by Beth-jeshimoth, Baal-meon, the principal rivers of Moab mentioned in the Bible are the Arnon, the Dimon or Dibon, and the Nimrim. The limestone hills which form the almost treeless plateau are generally steep, in the spring they are covered with grass and the table-land itself produces grain. In the north are a number of long, deep ravines, the rainfall is fairly plentiful and the climate, despite the hot summer, is cooler than the area west of the Jordan river, snow falling frequently in winter and in spring. The plateau is dotted with hundreds of dolmens, menhirs, and stone circles, the land is now occupied chiefly by Bedouin, though it contains such towns as al-Karak. The country of Moab was the source of natural resources, including limestone, salt. The Moabites occupied a place along the Kings Highway, the ancient trade route connecting Egypt with Mesopotamia, Syria. Like the Edomites and Ammonites, trade along this route gave them considerable revenue, the Moabites likely settled in the Transjordanian highlands. Whether they were among the nations referred to in the Egyptian language as Shutu or Shasu is a matter of debate among scholars. According to the account, Moab and Ammon were born to Lot and Lots elder and younger daughters, respectively, in the aftermath of the destruction of Sodom. The Bible refers to both the Moabites and Ammonites as Lots sons, born of incest with his daughters and these Amorites, described in the Bible as being ruled by King Sihon, confined the Moabites to the country south of the river Arnon, which formed their northern boundary. God renewed his covenant with the Israelites at Moab before the Israelites entered the promised land, Moses died there, prevented by God from entering the promised land. He was buried in a location in Moab and the Israelites spent a period of thirty days there in mourning. According to the Book of Judges, the Israelites did not pass through the land of the Moabites, after the conquest of Canaan the relations of Moab with Israel were of a mixed character, sometimes warlike and sometimes peaceable. With the tribe of Benjamin they had at least one severe struggle, in union with their kindred the Ammonites and the Amalekites
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Nimrud Tablet K.3751
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The tablet describes the first 17 years of Tiglath-Pileser IIIs reign, and was likely composed in or shortly after his 17th year. It contains the first known reference to Judah. The text consists of 50 and 35 lines of inscription on the two main pieces and it is the most detailed of Tiglath-Pileser III’s summary inscriptions, and contains the only known complete building account of Tiglath-Pileser III from Nimrud. Though it has the identification code K3751, where K stands for Kouyunjik, it was most probably actually discovered at Nimrud since it was inscribed by the excavators with S. E
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Cuneiform script
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Cuneiform script, one of the earliest systems of writing, was invented by the Sumerians. It is distinguished by its wedge-shaped marks on clay tablets, made by means of a blunt reed for a stylus, the name cuneiform itself simply means wedge shaped. Emerging in Sumer in the fourth millennium BC, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictograms. In the third millennium, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use grew smaller, the system consists of a combination of logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic and syllabic signs. Cuneiform writing was replaced by the Phoenician alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire. By the second century CE, the script had become extinct, between half a million and two million cuneiform tablets are estimated to have been excavated in modern times, of which only approximately 30,000 –100,000 have been read or published. Most of these have lain in these collections for a century without being translated, studied or published, the cuneiform writing system was in use for more than three millennia, through several stages of development, from the 34th century BC down to the second century CE. Ultimately, it was replaced by alphabetic writing in the course of the Roman era. It had to be deciphered as an unknown writing system in 19th-century Assyriology. Successful completion of its deciphering is dated to 1857, the cuneiform script was developed from pictographic proto-writing in the late 4th millennium BC. Mesopotamias proto-literate period spans roughly the 35th to 32nd centuries, the first documents unequivocally written in Sumerian date to the 31st century at Jemdet Nasr. Originally, pictographs were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a reed stylus or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic shape of the strokes. Proper names continued to be written in purely logographic fashion. The earliest known Sumerian king whose name appears on contemporary cuneiform tablets is Enmebaragesi of Kish, from about 2900 BC, many pictographs began to lose their original function, and a given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity. Cuneiform writing proper thus arises from the more primitive system of pictographs at about that time, by adjusting the relative position of the tablet to the stylus, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. Cuneiform tablets could be fired in kilns to provide a permanent record, many of the clay tablets found by archaeologists were preserved because they were fired when attacking armies burned the building in which they were kept
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Yosef Garfinkel
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Yosef Garfinkel is a professor of Prehistoric Archaeology and of Archaeology of the Biblical Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Yosef Garfinkel was born in 1956 in Haifa, Israel and he is a curator of the museum of Yarmukian Culture at Kibbutz Shaar HaGolan. Garfinkel specializes in the Protohistoric era of the Near East, the period of time when the world’s earliest village communities were established and he has excavated numerous Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites, including Gesher, Yiftahel, Neolithic Ashkelon, Shaar HaGolan, Tel ‘Ali and Tel Tsaf. Garfinkel is the author of 12 books and over 100 articles on ancient architecture, farming, water sources, pottery, art, religion, in 2007, he began conducting excavations at the fortified city of Khirbet Qeiyafa. This site is dated to the early 10th century BC, the period of the biblical King David, in the 2008 season an inscription was discovered written in ink on a pottery shard in a script which is probably Early Alphabetic/Proto Phoenician. This might be the earliest Hebrew inscription ever found, although the language of the inscription is still under debate. He is currently digging at Tel Lachish in search of Iron Age fortifications, Tel Lachish Khirbet Qeiyafa Tel Tsaf,2004,2006 Shaar HaGolan Yiftahel Neolithic Ashkelon Gesher Y. The Pottery Assemblages of Shaar HaGolan and Rabah Stages from Munhata, human and Animal Figurines of Munhata, Israel. Neolithic and Chalcolithic Pottery of the Southern Levant, Jerusalem, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University. Dance at the Dawn of Agriculture, excavations at a Neolithic Site in Israel. Gesher, A Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Site in the Central Jordan Valley, the Early Middle Bronze Cemetery of Gesher. Boston, American Schools of Oriental Research, Jerusalem, Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University. Prof. Yosef Garfinkel Homepage Prize Find, Oldest Hebrew Inscription Biblical Archaeology Review
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Israel Antiquities Authority
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The Israel Antiquities Authority is an independent Israeli governmental authority responsible for enforcing the 1978 Law of Antiquities. The IAA regulates excavation and conservation, and promotes research, the director-general is Shuka Dorfmann and its offices are housed in the Rockefeller Museum. The Israel Antiquities Authority plans to move into a new building for The National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel in Jerusalem, the Israel Department of Antiquities and Museums of the Ministry of Education was founded on July 26,1948, after the establishment of the State of Israel. It took over the functions of the Department of Antiquities of the British Mandate in Israel, originally, its activities were based on the British Mandate Department of Antiquities ordinances. IDAM was the authority responsible for the Israels antiquities and for the administration of small museums. It published the results of excavations in three journals, Booklet of the Department of Antiquities Hebrew, now defunct, Atiqot, still published, and Hadashot Arkheologiyot --still published, online. IDAM also funded and managed the Archaeological Survey of Israel and published the results of its work in maps covering 10 km² of the State of Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority was created from the IDAM by the Knesset in a 1990 statute. Amir Drori became its first director, the Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel is the future building of the IAA, aiming to concentrate all centralized administrative offices into one structure. The campus is planned on 20,000 square meters between the Israel Museum and the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem by Architect Moshe Safdie, unlike their peers around the world, the team in Israel is barred by Israeli law from working with human remains. Israel Antiquities Authority - official website, eisenbrauns - Official distributor for IAA publications in North America The Jay and Jeanie Schottenstein National Campus for the Archaeology of Israel on the Israel Antiquities Authority website
36.
Khirbet Qeiyafa
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Khirbet Qeiyafa is the site of an ancient fortress city overlooking the Elah Valley. The ruins of the fortress were uncovered in 2007, near the Israeli city of Beit Shemesh,30 km from Jerusalem and it covers nearly 2.5 ha and is encircled by a 700-meter-long city wall constructed of stones weighing up to eight tons each. Others are sceptical, and suggest it might represent either a North Israelite, the meaning of the Arabic name of the site, Khirbet Qeiyafa, is uncertain. Scholars suggest it may mean the place with a wide view, the modern Hebrew name, מבצר האלה, or The Elah Fortress was suggested by Foundation Stone directors David Willner and Barnea Levi Selavan at a meeting with Garfinkel and Ganor in early 2008. Garfinkel accepted the idea and excavation t-shirts with that name were produced for the 2008 and 2009 seasons, the name derives from the location of the site on the northern bank of Nahal Elah, one of six brooks that flow from the Judean mountains to the coastal plain. The Elah Fortress lies just inside a north-south ridge of hills separating Philistia, the ridge also includes the site currently identified as Tel Azekah. Past this ridge is a series of connecting valleys between two groups of hills. Tel Sokho lies on the ridge with Tel Adullam behind it. The Elah Fortress is situated on the ridge, overlooking several valleys with a clear view of the Judean Mountains. Behind it to the northeast is Tel Yarmut, from the topography, archaeologists believe this was the location of the cities of Adullam, Sokho, Azekah and Yarmut cited in Joshua 15,35. These valleys formed the border between Philistia and Judea, the site of Khirbet Qeiyafa was surveyed in the 1860s by Victor Guérin who reported the presence of a village on the hilltop. In 1875, British surveyors noted only stone heaps, in 1932, Dimitri Baramki, reported the site to hold a 35 square metres watchtower associated with Khirbet Quleidiya,200 metres east. The site was neglected in the 20th century and not mentioned by leading scholars. Yehuda Dagan conducted more intense surveys in the 1990s and documented the visible remains, the site raised curiosity in 2005 when Saar Ganor discovered impressive Iron Age structures under the remnants. Excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa began in 2007, directed by Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Israel Antiquities Authority, nearly 600 square metres of an Iron Age IIA city were unearthed. The initial excavation by Ganor and Garfinklel took place from August 12 to 26,2007 on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Institute of Archaeology. In November, with volunteers from the Bnai Akiva youth organization, the area was cleared, the identification provides a solid basis for identifying the site as biblical Shaarayim. In 2015 a plan to build a neighborhood on the site was cancelled and it can no longer be argued that the Kingdom of Judah developed only in the late eighth century BCE or at some other later date
37.
Stepped Stone Structure
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The Stepped Stone Structure is the name given to the remains at a particular archaeological site on the eastern side of the City of David, the oldest part of Jerusalem. The curved, 60ft high, narrow stone structure is built over a series of terraces, a casemate wall adjoins the structure from a northerly direction at the upper levels, and may have been the original city wall. Work continued with Kathleen Kenyon in the 1960s, and Yigal Shiloh in the 1970s–80s, Kathleen Kenyon dated the structure to the start of Iron Age II, Macalister believed it to be Jebusite. Israel Finkelstein et al. suggest that the part of the structure was substantially rebuilt in the Hasmonean period. It is hypothesized that the structure may be the Biblical Millo, a recent excavation by Eilat Mazar directly above the Stepped Stone Structure shows that the structure connects with and supports the Large Stone Structure. Mazar presents evidence that the Large Stone Structure was an Israelite royal palace in continuous use from the century until 586 BCE. The stepped stone support structure is built of fills, Large Stone Structure Millo City of David
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Large Stone Structure
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The name was given to the structure, as a result of its proximity with another site known as the Stepped Stone Structure, by the discoverer of the site, Eilat Mazar. Mazar, an Israeli archaeologist, announced the discovery on August fourth,2005, the archaeological dig was funded privately by Roger Hertog, an American banker. Since the only area of elevation than Ophel, the oldest part of Jerusalem, is just to its north. About two metres underneath the surface she discovered fourth to sixth century Byzantine Era artifacts including a preserved mosaic floor. The first of two notable finds at the site is a bulla of a government official named Jehucal, son of Shelemiah. This person seems to be mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah, the second bulla discovered at this site is that of another government official, Gedaliah, son of Pashhur, of that same time period, who also seems to be named in the Book of Jeremiah. As of 2005 the dig was ongoing, with progress limited by the current occupants of the land atop the ruins, according to the New York Times, Mazar continues to dig, but right now, three families are living in houses where she would most like to explore. One family is Muslim, one Christian, and one Jewish, comparable objects found in a Phoenician tomb at Achziv suggest that they may have decorated a sword handle. A quantity of luxury round, carinated bowls with red slip, the Stepped Stone Structure is the name given to the remains at a particular archaeological site on the eastern side of the City of David. It is a curved,60 ft high, narrow stone structure is built as a series of terraces and it was uncovered during a series of excavations by R. A. S. Macalister in the 1920s, Kathleen Kenyon in the 1960s, Kathleen Kenyon dated the structure to the start of Iron Age II, Macalister believed it to be Jebusite. Israel Finkelstein et al. suggest that the part of the structure was substantially rebuilt in the Hasmonean period. Mazar believes that the Stepped Stone Structure connects with and supports the Large Stone Structure, Mazar presents evidence that the Large Stone Structure was an Israelite royal palace in continuous use from the 10th century until 586 BC. The stepped stone support structure is built of fills, the Millo is described in the Bible as having been built by Solomon and repaired by Hezekiah, without giving an explanation of what exactly the Millo was. However it is mentioned as being part of the City of David, in the Book of Samuel, Millo is mentioned as boundary of King Davids construction while building up the City of David after the capture of Jerusalem from the Jebusites. The dig was sponsored by the Shalem Center, a foundation that was established in 1994 to promote Zionism, Eilat Mazar is a senior fellow at the foundation. In 2005 Amihai Mazar suggested that the site may be a Jebusite fortress—the fortress of Zion that the Books of Samuel claim was conquered by David, Eilat Mazar dated the site by the different types of pottery found above and below the buildings remains. The pottery below the foundation is dated by Eilat Mazar to the Iron Age I, due to the Law of superposition, this implies, according to Eilat Mazar, that the foundation—and hence the building—was constructed somewhere between Iron Age I and Iron Age II
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History of ancient Israel and Judah
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Israel and Judah were related Iron Age kingdoms of the ancient Levant. The Kingdom of Israel emerged as an important local power by the 10th century BCE before falling to the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 722 BCE and this, the last nominally independent Judean kingdom, came to an end in 63 BCE with its conquest by Pompey of Rome. East of the plain and the Shephelah is a ridge, the hill country of Judah in the south, the hill country of Ephraim north of that, then Galilee. To the east again lie the valley occupied by the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the wadi of the Arabah. Beyond the plateau is the Syrian desert, separating the Levant from Mesopotamia, to the southwest is Egypt, to the northeast Mesopotamia. The location and geographical characteristics of the narrow Levant made the area a battleground among the entities that surrounded it. Politically and culturally it was dominated by Egypt, each city under its own ruler, constantly at odds with its neighbours, and appealing to the Egyptians to adjudicate their differences. The Canaanite city-state system broke down at the end of the Late Bronze period, the name Israel first appears in the stele of the Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah c.1209 BCE, Israel is laid waste and his seed is no more. In the Late Bronze Age there were no more than about 25 villages in the highlands, the villages were more numerous and larger in the north, and probably shared the highlands with pastoral nomads, who left no remains. Other Aramaean sites also demonstrate a contemporary absence of pig remains at that time, unlike earlier Canaanite, in The Bible Unearthed, Finkelstein and Silberman summarised recent studies. They described how, up until 1967, the Israelite heartland in the highlands of western Palestine was virtually an archaeological terra incognita, since then, intensive surveys have examined the traditional territories of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh. These surveys have revealed the emergence of a new culture contrasting with the Philistine. This new culture is characterised by a lack of remains, by an abandonment of the Philistine/Canaanite custom of having highly decorated pottery. The Israelite ethnic identity had originated, not from the Exodus and a subsequent conquest and these surveys revolutionized the study of early Israel. There was no sign of violent invasion or even the infiltration of a clearly defined ethnic group, instead, it seemed to be a revolution in lifestyle. From then on, over a period of hundreds of years until after the return of the exiles from Babylon, after the period of Ezra there is no more biblical record of them. The Hebrew language, a dialect of Canaanite, became the language of the hill country, modern scholars therefore see Israel arising peacefully and internally from existing people in the highlands of Canaan. Unusually favourable climatic conditions in the first two centuries of Iron Age II brought about an expansion of population, settlements and trade throughout the region
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History of Israel
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The History of Israel encompasses the Jewish history in the Land of Israel, as well as the history of the modern State of Israel. Modern Israel and the West Bank are roughly located on the site of the ancient kingdoms of Israel and it is the birthplace of the Hebrew language and of the Abrahamic religions, and contains sites sacred to Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Samaritanism, Druze and Baháí Faith. Although coming under the sway of various empires and home to a variety of ethnicities, the area became increasingly Christian after the 3rd century and then largely Muslim following the 7th century conquest and until the middle of the 20th century. A Jewish national movement, Zionism, emerged in the late-19th century, Israeli independence in 1948 was marked by massive migration of Jews from both Europe and the Muslim countries to Israel, and of Arabs from Israel, followed by the extensive Arab–Israeli conflict. About 43% of the worlds Jews live in Israel today, the largest Jewish community in the world, since about 1970, the United States has become the principal ally of Israel. In 1979 an uneasy Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty was signed, based on the Camp David Accords, in 1993, Israel signed Oslo I Accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization, followed by establishment of the Palestinian National Authority and in 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed. Despite efforts to finalize the agreement, the conflict continues to play a major role in Israeli and international political, social. The economy of Israel was initially primarily socialist and the country dominated by social democratic parties until the 1970s, since then the Israeli economy has gradually moved to capitalism and a free market economy, partially retaining the social welfare system. Between 2.6 and 0.9 million years ago, at least four episodes of dispersal from Africa to the Levant are known. The oldest evidence of humans in the territory of modern Israel. The flint tool artifacts have been discovered at Yiron, the oldest stone tools found anywhere outside Africa, other groups include 1.4 million years old Acheulean industry, the Bizat Ruhama group and Gesher Bnot Yaakov. Other notable Paleolithic sites include caves Qesem and Manot, the oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are the Skhul and Qafzeh hominids, who lived in northern Israel 120,000 years ago. Around 10th millennium BCE, the Natufian culture existed in the area, during the 2nd millennium BCE, Canaan, part of which later became known as Israel, was dominated by the New Kingdom of Egypt from c.1550 to c. The first record of the name Israel occurs in the Merneptah stele, erected for Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah c.1209 BCE, Israel is laid waste and his seed is not. William G. Dever sees this Israel in the highlands as a cultural and probably political entity. Ancestors of the Israelites may have included Semites native to Canaan, the first use of grapheme-based writing originated in the area, probably among Canaanite peoples resident in Egypt. All modern alphabetical writing systems are descended from this writing, written evidence of the use of Classical Hebrew exists from about 1000 BCE. It was written using the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet, villages had populations of up to 300 or 400, which lived by farming and herding, and were largely self-sufficient, economic interchange was prevalent
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Natufian culture
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The Epipaleolithic Natufian culture /nəˈtuːfiən/ existed from around 12,500 to 9,500 BC in the Levant, a region in the Eastern Mediterranean. It was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture, the Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Natufians founded Jericho which may be the oldest city in the world, some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture, at Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world. Generally, though, Natufians exploited wild cereals, Dorothy Garrod coined the term Natufian based on her excavations at Shuqba cave in Wadi an-Natuf, in the western Judean Mountains. The Natufian culture was discovered by British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod during her excavations of Shuqba cave in the Judaean Hills, prior to the 1930s, the majority of archaeological work taking place in Palestine was biblical archaeology focused on historic periods, and little was known about the regions prehistory. She discovered a layer sandwiched between the Upper Palaeolithic and Bronze Age deposits characterised by the presence of microliths. She identified this with the Mesolithic, a period between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic which was well represented in Europe but had not yet been found in the Near East. A year later, when she discovered similar material at el-Wad Terrace, Garrod suggested the name the Natufian culture, as early as 1931, both Garrod and Neuville drew attention to the presence of stone sickles in Natufian assemblages and the possibility that this represented very early agriculture. Radiocarbon dating places this culture from the terminal Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene. The period is split into two subperiods, Early Natufian and Late Natufian. The Late Natufian most likely occurred in tandem with the Younger Dryas, the Natufian developed in the same region as the earlier Kebaran industry. It is generally seen as a successor, which evolved out of elements within that preceding culture, more generally there has been discussion of the similarities of these cultures with those found in coastal North Africa. In fact, Weiss et al. have shown that the earliest known usage of plants was in the Levant 23,000 years ago at the Ohalo II site. Loring Brace cross-analysed the craniometric traits of Natufian specimens with those of ancient and modern groups from the Near East, Africa. Settlements occur in the belt where oak and Pistacia species dominated. The underbrush of this woodland was grass with high frequencies of grain. The habitations of the Natufian are semi-subterranean, often with a dry-stone foundation, the superstructure was probably made of brushwood. No traces of mudbrick have been found, which became common in the following Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, the round houses have a diameter between three and six meters, and they contain a central round or subrectangular fireplace
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Prehistory of the Levant
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The prehistory of the Levant includes the various cultural changes that occurred, as revealed by archaeological evidence, prior to recorded traditions in the area of the Levant. Not only have many cultures and traditions of humans lived here, in addition, this region is one of the centers for the development of agriculture. The lithic assemblages relate to the Early Acheulian culture, later Acheulian sites include Gesher Benot Yaakov, Tabun Cave and others dated to the time span of ca. This layer contains the worlds first signs of domesticated dogs and controlled usage of fire, the Middle Palaeolithic period is represented in the Levant by the Mousterian culture, known from numerous sites through the region. The chronological subdivision of the Mousterian is based on the sequence of the Tabun Cave. Middle Paleolithic human remains include both the Neanderthals, and anatomically modern humans from Jebel Qafzeh and Skhul Cave, the Upper Palaeolithic period is dated in the Levant to ca. Epi-Palaeolithic period is characterized by significant cultural variability and wide spread of the microlithic technologies, beginning with the appearance of the Kebaran culture a microlithic toolkit was associated with the appearance of the bow and arrow into the area. Kebaran affiliated cultures spread as far as Southern Turkey, the latest part of the period is the time of flourishing of the Natufian culture and development of sedentism among the hunter-gatherers. This Culture existed from about 13,000 to 9,800 BCE in the Levant, a lot of archaeological excavations of this culture creates a relatively well defined understanding of these people. One of the most significant aspects of this Culture was their large community sizes, the Neolithic period is traditionally divided to the Pre-Pottery and Pottery phases. PPNA developed from the earlier Natufian cultures of the area, in addition, the Levant in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic was involved in large scale, far reaching trade. This is indicative of a large trade circle reaching as far as the Northern Fertile Crescent at Nemrut Dağ. The Ghassulian period created the basis of the Mediterranean economy which has characterised the area ever since, geographically the area is divided between a coastal plain, hill country to the East and the Jordan Valley joining the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea. Rainfall decreases from the north to the south, with the result that the region of Israel has generally been more economically developed than the southern one of Judah. A Hill Route, travelling through the Negev, Kadesh Barnea, to Hebron and Jerusalem, and thence north to Samaria, Shechem, Shiloh, Beth Shean and Hazor, and thence to Kadesh and Damascus. The Kings Highway, travelling north from Eilat, east of the Jordan through Amman to Damascus, the area seems to have suffered from acute periods of desiccation, and reduced rainfall which has influenced the relative importance of settled versus nomadic ways of living. Eventually they revert to fully nomadic cultures, which, when rainfall increases settle around important sources of water, the increased prosperity leads to a revival of inter-regional and eventually international trade. Warfare leads to opening the region to pandemics, with resultant depopulation, overuse of fragile soils, the urban development of Canaan lagged considerably behind that of Egypt and Mesopotamia and even that of Syria, where from 3,500 BCE a sizable city developed at Hamoukar
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Canaan
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Canaan was a Semitic-speaking region in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. The name Canaan occurs commonly in the Hebrew Bible, in particular, the references in Genesis 10 and Numbers 34 define the Land of Canaan as extending from Lebanon southward to the Brook of Egypt and eastward to the Jordan River Valley. References to Canaan in the Bible are usually backward-looking, referring to a region that had something else. The term Canaanites serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations—both settled, the Amarna Letters and other cuneiform documents use Kinaḫḫu, while other sources of the Egyptian New Kingdom mention numerous military campaigns conducted in Ka-na-na. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni and Assyrian Empires converged. Much of the knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo. The English term Canaan comes from the Hebrew כנען, via Greek Χαναάν Khanaan and it appears as KUR ki-na-ah-na in the Amarna letters, and knʿn is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of Hecataeus as Khna, scholars connect the name Canaan with knʿn, Kanaan, the general Northwest Semitic name for this region. An early explanation derives the term from the Semitic root knʿ to be low, humble, purple cloth became a renowned Canaanite export commodity which is mentioned in Exodus. The dyes may have named after their place of origin. The purple cloth of Tyre in Phoenicia was well known far, however, according to Robert Drews, Speisers proposal has generally been abandoned. The Late Bronze Age state of Ugarit is considered quintessentially Canaanite archaeologically, Jonathan Tubb states that the term ga-na-na may provide a third millennium reference to Canaanite while at the same time stating that the first certain reference is in the 18th century BC. See Ebla-Biblical controversy for further details, Mari letters A letter from Mutu-bisir to Shamshi-Adad I of the Old Assyrian Empire has been translated, It is in Rahisum that the brigands and the Canaanites are situated. It was found in 1973 in the ruins of Mari, an Assyrian outpost at that time in Syria, additional unpublished references to Kinahnum in the Mari letters refer to the same episode. Alalakh texts A reference to Ammiya being in the land of Canaan is found on the Statue of Idrimi from Alalakh in modern Syria. After a popular uprising against his rule, Idrimi was forced into exile with his mothers relatives to seek refuge in the land of Canaan, the other references in the Alalakh texts are, AT154 AT181, A list of Apiru people with their origins. All are towns, except for Canaan AT188, A list of Muskenu people with their origins, the letters are written in the official and diplomatic East Semitic Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, though Canaanitish words and idioms are also in evidence. May the king ask Yanhamu about these matters, may the king ask his commissioner, who is familiar with Canaan EA151, Letter from Abimilku to the Pharaoh, The king, my lord wrote to me, write to me what you have heard from Canaan
44.
Israelites
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The Israelites were a Semitic-speaking people of the ancient Near East, who inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods. The ancient Israelites are considered to be an outgrowth of the indigenous Canaanite populations that inhabited the Southern Levant, Syria, ancient Israel. In the period of the monarchy it was only used to refer to the inhabitants of the northern kingdom. The Israelites were also known as the Hebrews and the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the Jews are named after and also descended from the southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah, particularly the tribes of Judah, Benjamin and partially Levi. The word Jews is found in 2 Kings, Chronicles, and in passages in the Book of Jeremiah, the Book of Zechariah. The Kingdom of Israel, often called the Northern Kingdom of Israel, contained all the tribes except for the tribes of Judah, following its conquest by Assyria, these ten tribes were allegedly dispersed and lost to history, and they are henceforth known as the Ten Lost Tribes. Jewish tradition holds that Samaria was so named because the mountainous terrain was used to keep Guard for incoming enemy attacks. According to Samaritan tradition, however, the Samaritan ethnonym is not derived from the region of Samaria, thus, according to Samaritan tradition, the region was named Samaria after them, not vice versa. In Modern Hebrew, the Samaritans are called Shomronim, while in Samaritan Hebrew they call themselves Shamerim, in Judaism, an Israelite is, broadly speaking, a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious group, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites. In texts of Jewish law such as the Mishnah and Gemara, the term יהודי, meaning Jew, is rarely used, Samaritans commonly refer to themselves and to Jews collectively as Israelites, and they describe themselves as the Israelite Samaritans. The name Israel first appears in the Hebrew Bible in Genesis 32,29, the Hebrew Bible etymologizes the name as from yisra to prevail over or to struggle/wrestle with, and el, God, the divine. The name Israel first appears in non-biblical sources c.1209 BCE, the inscription is very brief and says simply, Israel is laid waste and his seed is not. The inscription refers to a people, not to an individual or a nation-state, in modern Hebrew, bnei yisrael can denote the Jewish people at any time in history, it is typically used to emphasize Jewish religious identity. From the period of the Mishna the term Yisrael acquired a narrower meaning of Jews of legitimate birth other than Levites. In modern Hebrew this contrasts with the term Yisraeli, a citizen of the modern State of Israel, the term Hebrew has Eber as an eponymous ancestor. It is used synonymously with Israelites, or as a term for historical speakers of the Hebrew language in general. Today, Jews and Samaritans both recognize each other as communities with an authentic Israelite origin, the terms Jews and Samaritans largely replaced the title Children of Israel as the commonly used ethnonym for each respective community. The name Yahweh, the god of the later Israelites, may indicate connections with the region of Mount Seir in Edom, the Canaanites were also the first people, as far as is known, to have used an alphabet
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