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LECTURE 5: SMALL PEOPLES AROUND THE LEVANT

Phoenicia (nonstandardly, Phenicia; pronounced /fɨˈnɪʃiə/^[1], Greek: Φοινίκη: Phoiníkē, Latin: Phœnicia) was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, Syria and Israel. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean between the period of 1550 BC to 300 BC. Though ancient boundaries of such city-centered cultures fluctuated, the city of Tyre seems to have been the southernmost. Sarepta (modern day Sarafand) between Sidon and Tyre, is the most thoroughly excavated city of the Phoenician homeland. The Phoenicians often traded by means of a galley, a man-powered sailing vessel. They were the first civilization to create the bireme.

It is uncertain to what extent the Phoenicians viewed themselves as a single ethnicity. Their civilization was organized in city-states, similar to ancient Greece. Each city-state was an independent unit politically, although they could come into conflict, be dominated by another city-state, or collaborate in leagues or alliances. Tyre and Sidon were the most powerful of the Phoenician states in the Levant, but were not as powerful as the North African ones.

The Phoenicians were also the first state level society to make extensive use of the alphabet, and the Canaanite-Phoenician alphabet is generally believed to be the ancestor of all modern alphabets. Phoenicians spoke the Phoenician language, which belongs to the group of Canaanite languages in the Semitic language family. Through their maritime trade, the Phoenicians spread the use of the alphabet to North Africa and Europe where it was adopted by the Greeks, who later passed it on to the Romans and Etruscans.^[2] In addition to their many inscriptions, the Phoenicians wrote many books, which have not survived. Evangelical Preparation by Eusebius of Caesarea quotes extensively from Philo of Byblos and Sanchuniathon.

Stories of their emigrating from various places to the eastern Mediterranean are probably founded in 'oral fact', but researchers are pursuing DNA tests to verify this assertion. A written reference, Herodotus's account (written c. 440 BC) refers to a memory from 800 years earlier, which may be subject to question in the fullness of genetic results. (History, I:1).

This is a legendary introduction to Herodotus' brief retelling of some mythical Hellene-Phoenician interactions. Though few modern archaeologists would confuse this myth with history, a grain of truth may yet lie therein. (For the theory that the history of Phoenician seafaring starts with the arrival of the Sea Peoples to the shores of present-day Lebanon, see the relevant article.)

In terms of archaeology, language, and religion, there is little to set the Phoenicians apart as markedly different from other local cultures of Canaan, because they were Canaanites themselves. However, they are unique in their remarkable seafaring achievements. Indeed, in the Amarna tablets of the 14th century BC they call themselves Kenaani or Kinaani (Canaanites). Note, however, that the Amarna letters predate the invasion of the Sea Peoples by over a century. Much later in the 6th century BC, Hecataeus of Miletus writes that Phoenicia was formerly called χνα, a name Philo of Byblos later adopted into his mythology as his eponym for the Phoenicians: "Khna who was afterwards called Phoinix". Egyptian seafaring expeditions had already been made to Byblos to bring back "cedars of Lebanon" as early as the third millennium BC.

Archaeologists argue that the Phoenicians are simply the descendants of coastal-dwelling Canaanites, who over the centuries developed a particular seagoing culture and skills. Other suggestions are that Phoenician culture must have been inspired from external sources (Egypt, North Africa etc.), that the Phoenicians were sea-traders from the Land of Punt who co-opted the Canaanite population; or that they were connected with the Minoans, or the Sea Peoples or the Philistines further south; or even that they represent the maritime activities of the coastal Israelite tribes like Dan, who from the Song of Deborah in Judges, are listed as being "amongst their ships".

The Middle East Phoenician - Aramaic derivative 'Semitic language' gave some evidence of invasion at the site of Byblos, which may suggest origins in the highly disputed 'wave of Semitic migration' that hit the Fertile Crescent between ca. 2300 and 2100 BC, some scholars, including Sabatino Moscati believe that the Phoenicians' ethnogenesis included prior non-Semitic people of the area, suggesting a mixture between two populations. Both Sumerian and Akkadian armies had reached the Mediterranean in this area from the beginning of recorded Hebrew history, but very little is known of Phoenicia before it was conquered by Thutmoses III of Egypt around 1500 BC. The Amarna correspondence (ca. 1411-1358 BC) reveals that Amorites and Hittites were defeating the Phoenician cities that had been vassals to Egypt, especially Rib-Addi of Byblos and Abi-Milku/Abimelech of Tyre, but between 1350 and 1300 BC Phoenicia was reconquered by Egypt. Over the next century Ugarit flourished, but was permanently destroyed at the end of it (ca. 1200 BC).

Historian Gerhard Herm asserts that, because the Phoenicians' legendary sailing abilities are not well attested before the invasions of the Sea Peoples around 1200 BC, that these Sea Peoples would have merged with the local population to produce the Phoenicians, whom he says gained these abilities rather suddenly at that time. There is also archaeological evidence that the Philistines, often thought of as related to the Sea Peoples, were culturally linked to Mycenaean Greeks, who were also known to be great sailors even in this period.

The question of the Phoenicians' origin persists. Archaeologists have pursued the origin of the Phoenicians for generations, basing their analyses on excavated sites, the remains of material culture, contemporary texts set into contemporary contexts, as well as linguistics. In some cases, the debate is characterized by modern cultural agendas. Ultimately, the origins of the Phoenicians are still unclear: where they came from and just when (or if) they arrived, and under what circumstances, are all still energetically disputed.

Spencer Wells of the Genographic Project has conducted genetic studies which demonstrate that male populations of Lebanon and Malta and other areas which are past Phoenician settlements, share a common m89 chromosome Y type,^[5] while male populations which are related with the Minoans or with the Sea Peoples have completely different genetic markers. This implies that Minoans and Sea Peoples probably didn't have any ancestral relation with the Phoenicians.[2][3] The Phoenician's nickname "Purple People" came from the purple dye they manufactured in Mesopotamia and Mogador.

Fernand Braudel remarked in The Perspective of the World that Phoenicia was an early example of a "world-economy" surrounded by empires. The high point of Phoenician culture and seapower is usually placed ca. 1200 – 800 BC.

Many of the most important Phoenician settlements had been established long before this: Byblos, Tyre, Sidon, Simyra, Aradus and Berytus all appear in the Amarna tablets; and indeed, the first appearance in archaeology of cultural elements clearly identifiable with the Phoenician zenith is sometimes dated as early as the third millennium BC.

This league of independent city-state ports, with others on the islands and along other coasts of the Mediterranean Sea, was ideally suited for trade between the Levant area, rich in natural resources, and the rest of the ancient world. Suddenly, during the early Iron Age, in around 1200 BC an unknown event occurred, historically associated with the appearance of the Sea Peoples from the north who were perhaps driven south by crop failures and mass starvation following the eruption at the island Thera. The powers that had previously dominated the area, notably the Egyptians and the Hittites, became weakened or destroyed; and in the resulting power vacuum a number of Phoenician cities established themselves as significant maritime powers.

Authority seems to have stabilized because it derived from three power-bases: the king; the temple and its priests; and councils of elders. Byblos soon became the predominant center from where they proceeded to dominate the Mediterranean and Erythraean (Red) Sea routes, and it is here that the first inscription in the Phoenician alphabet was found, on the sarcophagus of Ahiram (ca. 1200 BC). However, by around 1000 BC Tyre and Sidon had taken its place, and a long hegemony was enjoyed by Tyre beginning with Hiram I (969-936 BC), who subdued a rebellion in the colony of Utica^{[citation needed]}. The priest Ittobaal (887-856 BC) ruled Phoenicia as far north as Beirut, and part of Cyprus. Carthage was founded in 814 BC under Pygmalion (820-774 BC). The collection of city-kingdoms constituting Phoenicia came to be characterized by outsiders and the Phoenicians themselves as Sidonia or Tyria, and Phoenicians and Canaanites alike came to be called Zidonians or Tyrians, as one Phoenician conquest came to prominence after another.

The Phoenicians were amongst the greatest traders of their time and owed a great deal of their prosperity to trade. The Phoenicians' initial trading partners were the Greeks, with whom they used to trade wood, slaves, glass and a Tyrian Purple powder. This powder was used by the Greek elite to colour clothes and other garments and was not available anywhere else. Without trade with the Greeks they would not be known as Phoenicians, as the word for Phoenician is derived from the Ancient Greek word phoinikèia meaning "purple".

In the centuries following 1200 BC, the Phoenicians formed the major naval and trading power of the region. Phoenician trade was founded on Tyrian Purple, a violet-purple dye derived from the Murex sea-snail's shell, once profusely available in coastal waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea but exploited to local extinction. James B. Pritchard's excavations at Sarepta in present day Lebanon revealed crushed Murex shells and pottery containers stained with the dye that was being produced at the site. The Phoenicians established a second production center for the purple dye in Mogador, in present day Morocco. Brilliant textiles were a part of Phoenician wealth, and Phoenician glass was another export ware.

From elsewhere they obtained other materials, perhaps the most important being silver from Iberian Peninsula and tin from Great Britain, the latter of which when smelted with copper (from Cyprus) created the durable metal alloy bronze. Strabo states that there was a highly lucrative Phoenician trade with Britain for tin.

The Phoenicians established commercial outposts throughout the Mediterranean, the most strategically important being Carthage in North Africa, directly across the narrow straits in Sicily and the island of Malta in the center of the Mediterranean; carefully selected with the design of monopolizing the Mediterranean trade beyond that point and keeping their rivals from passing through. Other colonies were planted in Cyprus, Corsica, Sardinia, the Iberian Peninsula, and elsewhere. They also founded innumerable small outposts a day's sail away from each other all along the North African coast on the route to Iberia's mineral wealth.

The date when several of these cities were founded has been very controversial. Greek sources put the foundation of many cities very early. Gades (Cadiz) in Spain was traditionally founded in 1110 BC, while Utica in Africa was supposedly founded in 1101 BC. However, no archaeological remains have been dated to such a remote era. The traditional dates may reflect the establishment of rudimentary way stations that left little archaeological trace, and only grew into full cities centuries later. (The World of the Phoenicians, Sabatino Moscati, 1965). Alternatively, the early dates may reflect Greek historians' belief that the legends of Troy (mentioning these cities) were historically reliable.

Phoenician ships used to ply the coast of southern Spain and along the coast of Portugal. It is often mentioned that Phoenicians ventured north into the Atlantic ocean as far as Great Britain, where the tin mines in what is now Cornwall provided them with tin, although no archaeological evidence supports this belief and reliable academic authors see this belief as hollow (see Malcolm Todd - 1987, reference below). They also sailed south along the coast of Africa. A Carthaginian expedition led by Hanno the Navigator explored and colonized the Atlantic coast of Africa as far as the Gulf of Guinea; and according to Herodotus, a Phoenician expedition sent down the Red Sea by pharaoh Necho II of Egypt (c. 600 BC) even circumnavigated Africa and returned through the Pillars of Hercules in three years.

The Phoenicians were not an agricultural people, because most of the land was not arable; therefore, they focused on commerce and trading instead. They did, however, raise sheep and sell them and their wool.

Cyrus the Great conquered Phoenicia in 539 BC. Phoenicia was divided into four vassal kingdoms by the Persians: Sidon, Tyre, Arwad, and Byblos, and prospered, furnishing fleets for the Persian kings. However, Phoenician influence declined after this. It is also reasonable to suppose that much of the Phoenician population migrated to Carthage and other colonies following the Persian conquest, as it is roughly then (under King Hanno) that we first hear of Carthage as a powerful maritime entity. In 350 or 345 BC a rebellion in Sidon led by Tennes was crushed by Artaxerxes III, and its destruction was described, perhaps too dramatically, by Diodorus Siculus.

Alexander the Great took Tyre in 332 BC following the Siege of Tyre. Alexander was exceptionally harsh to Tyre, executing 2000 of the leading citizens, but he maintained the king in power. He gained control of the other cities peacefully: the ruler of Aradus submitted; the king of Sidon was overthrown. The rise of Hellenistic Greece gradually ousted the remnants of Phoenicia's former dominance over the Eastern Mediterranean trade routes, and Phoenician culture disappeared entirely in the motherland. However, its North African offspring, Carthage, continued to flourish, mining iron and precious metals from Iberia, and using its considerable naval power and mercenary armies to protect its commercial interests, until it was finally destroyed by Rome in 146 BC at the end of the Punic Wars.

As for the Phoenician homeland, following Alexander it was controlled by a succession of Hellenistic rulers: Laomedon (323 BC), Ptolemy I (320), Antigonus II (315), Demetrius (301), and Seleucus (296). Between 286 and 197 BC, Phoenicia (except for Aradus) fell to the Ptolemies of Egypt, who installed the high priests of Astarte as vassal rulers in Sidon (Eshmunazar I, Tabnit, Eshmunazar II). In 197 BC, Phoenicia along with Syria reverted to the Seleucids, and the region became increasingly Hellenized, although Tyre actually became autonomous in 126 BC, followed by Sidon in 111. Syria, including Phoenicia, were seized by king Tigranes the Great from 82 until 69 BC when he was defeated by Lucullus, and in 65 BC Pompey finally incorporated it as part of the Roman province of Syria.

From the 10th century BC, their expansive culture established cities and colonies throughout the Mediterranean. Canaanite deities like Baal and Astarte were being worshipped from Cyprus to Sardinia, Malta, Sicily, Spain, Portugal, and most notably at Carthage in modern Tunisia.

The Phoenicians are credited with spreading the Phoenician alphabet throughout the Mediterranean world. It was a variant of the Semitic alphabet of the Canaanite area developed centuries earlier in the Sinai region, or in central Egypt. Phoenician traders disseminated this writing system along Aegean trade routes, to coastal Anatolia, the Minoan civilization of Crete, Mycenean Greece, and throughout the Mediterranean.

This alphabet has been termed an abjad or a script that contains no vowels. A cuneiform abjad originated to the north in Ugarit, a Canaanite city of northern Syria, in the 14th century BC. Their language, Phoenician, is classifed as in the Canaanite subgroup of Northwest Semitic. Its later descendant in North Africa is termed Punic.

The earliest known inscriptions in Phoenician come from Byblos and date back to ca. 1000 BC. Phoenician inscriptions are found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cyprus and other locations, as late as the early centuries of the Christian Era. In Phoenician colonies around the western Mediterranean, beginning in the 9th century BC, Phoenician evolved into Punic. Punic Phoenician was still spoken in the 5th century CE: St. Augustine, for example, grew up in North Africa and was familiar with the language.

Phoenician culture had a huge effect upon the cultures of the Mediterranean basin in the early Iron Age. For example, in Greece, the tripartite division between Zeus, Hades and Poseidon, seems to have been influenced by the Phoenician division between Baal, Mot and Yam. Stories like the Rape of Europa, and the coming of Cadmus also draw upon Phoenician influence. The recovery of the Mediterranean economy after the late Bronze Age collapse, seems to have been largely due to the work of Phoenician traders and merchant princes, who re-established long distance trade between Egypt and Mesopotamia in the 10th century BC. Phoenician motifs are also present in the Orientalising period of Greek art, and Phoenicians also played a formative role in Etruscan civilisation in Tuscany. Phoenician temples in various Mediterranean ports sacred to Phoenician Melkart, during the classical period, were recognised as sacred to Hercules. The Ionian revolution was led by philosophers such as Thales of Miletus or Pythagoras, both of whom had Phoenician fathers.

This is the architect of the Temple, Hiram Abiff of Masonic lore. They are vastly famous for their purple dye.

Later, reforming prophets railed against the practice of drawing royal wives from among foreigners: Elijah execrated Jezebel, the princess from Tyre who became a consort of King Ahab and introduced the worship of her gods.

Long after Phoenician culture had flourished, or Phoenicia had existed as any political entity, Hellenized natives of the region where Canaanites still lived were referred to as "Syro-Phoenician", as in the Gospel of Mark 7:26: "The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth..."

The word Bible itself ultimately derives through Greek from the word Byblos which means Book, and not from the Hellenised Phoenician city of Byblos (which was called Gebal), before it was named by the Greeks as Byblos. The Greeks called it Byblos because it was through Gebal that bublos (Bύβλος ["Egyptian papyrus"]) was imported into Greece. Present day Byblos is under the current Arabic name of Jbeil (جبيل Ǧubayl) derived from Gebal.

In 2004, two Harvard University educated geneticists and leading scientists of the National Geographic Genographic Project, Dr. Pierre Zalloua and Dr. Spencer Wells identified the haplogroup of the Phoenicians as haplogroup J2, with avenues open for future research.^[8] As Dr. Wells commented, "The Phoenicians were the Canaanites—and the ancestors of today's Lebanese."^[9] The male populations of Tunisia and Malta were also included in this study and shown to share overwhelming genetic similarities with the Lebanese-Phoenicians.

The urban development of Canaan lagged considerably behind that of Egypt and Mesopotamia and even Syria, where from ca. 3500 BC a sizable city developed at Hamoukar. This city, which was colonised, probably by people coming from Uruk, perhaps saw the first connections between Syria and Southern Mesopotamia that were repeated throughout history. Urban development again began, culminating in the Early Bronze Age development of sites like Ebla, which by ca. 2300 BC was incorporated once again into the Akkadian empire of Sargon the Great and Naram-Sin of Akkad (Biblical Accad). Sumerian references to the Mar.tu ("tent dwellers" - considered to be Amorite) country West of the Euphrates date from even earlier than Sargon, at least to the reign of Enshakushanna of Uruk. The archives of Ebla show reference to a number of Biblical sites, including Hazor, Jerusalem, and as a number of people have claimed, to Sodom and Gomorrah mentioned in Genesis as well. The collapse of the Akkadian Empire saw the arrival of peoples using Khirbet Kerak Ware pottery,^[15] coming originally from the Zagros Mountains, east of the Tigris. It is suspected by some ^[16]that this event marks the arrival in Syria and Canaan of the Hurrians, possibly the people later known in the Biblical tradition as Horites.

John Bright^[17]and William F. Albright^[18] have suggested that contact during the early Isin-Larsa period of Amorite states lies behind the Abraham stories of the patriarchal traditions. However, since the critiques of Jon Van Seters and Thomas L. Thompson, these views have failed to find a consensus.

Today it is thought that Canaanite civilization is a response to long periods of stable climate interrupted by short periods of climate change. During these periods, Canaanites profited from their intermediary position between the ancient civilisations of the Middle East — Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Minoan Crete — to become city states of merchant princes along the coast, with small kingdoms specializing in agricultural products in the interior. This polarity, between coastal towns and agrarian hinterland, was illustrated in Canaanite mythology by the struggle between the storm god, variously called Teshub (Hurrian) or Ba'al Hadad (Aramaean) and Ya'a, Yaw, Yahu or Yam, god of the sea and rivers. Small walled market towns characterized early Canaanite civilization surrounded by peasant farmers growing a range of local horticultural products, along with commercial growing of olives, grapes for wine, and pistachios, surrounded by extensive grain cropping, predominantly wheat and barley. Harvest in early summer was a season when transhumance nomadism was practiced — shepherds staying with their flocks during the wet season and returning to graze them on the harvested stubble, closer to water supplies in the summer. Evidence of this cycle of agriculture is found in the Gezer Calendar and in the Biblical cycle of the year.

Periods of rapid climate change generally saw a collapse of this mixed Mediterranean farming system; commercial production was replaced with subsistence agriculural foodstuffs; and transhumance pastoralism became a year-round nomadic pastoral activity, whilst tribal groups wandered in a circular pattern north to the Euphrates, or south to the Egyptian delta with their flocks. During the periods of the collapse of Akkad and the First Intermediary Period in Egypt, the Hyksos invasions and the end of the Middle Bronze Age in Babylonia, and the Late Bronze Age collapse, trade through the Canaanite area would dwindle, as Egypt and Mesopotamia withdrew into their isolation. When the climates stabilized, trade would resume firstly along the coast in the area of the Philistine and Phoenician cities. The Philistines, while an integral part of the Canaanite milieu, do not seem to have been ethnically homogenous with the Canaanites; the Hurrians, Hittites, Aramaeans, Moabites, and Ammonites are also considered distinct from generic Canaanites or Amorites, in scholarship or in tradition (although in the Biblical Book of Nations, "Heth", (Hittites) are a son of Canaan). As markets redeveloped, new trade routes that would avoid the heavy tariffs of the coast would develop from Kadesh Barnea, through Hebron, Lachish, Jerusalem, Bethel, Samaria, Shechem, Shiloh through Galilee to Jezreel, Hazor and Megiddo. Secondary Canaanite cities would develop in this region. Further economic development would see the creation of a third trade route from Eilath, Timna, Edom (Seir), Moab, Ammon and thence to Damascus and Palmyra. Earlier states (for example the Philistines and Tyrians in the case of Judah and Israel, for the second route, and Judah and Israel for the third route) tried generally unsuccessfully to control the interior trade.

Eventually, the prosperity of this trade would attract more powerful regional neighbors, such as Ancient Egypt, Assyria, the Babylonians, Persians, Ancient Greeks and Romans, who would attempt to control the Canaanites politically, levying tribute, taxes and tariffs. Often in such periods, thorough overgrazing would result in a climatic collapse and a repeat of the cycle (eg. PPNB, Ghassulian, Uruk, and the Bronze Age cycles already mentioned). The fall of later Canaanite civilization occurred with the incorporation of the area into the Greco-Roman world (as Iudaea province), and after Byzantine times, into the Arab, Ottoman^[clarify] and Abbasid Caliphates. Aramaic, one of the two lingua francas of Canaanite civilization, is still spoken in a number of small Syrian villages, whilst Phoenician Canaanite disappeared as a spoken language in about 100 AD.

During the 2nd millennium BC, Ancient Egyptian texts use the term Canaan to refer to an Egyptian province, whose boundaries generally corroborate the definition of Canaan found in the Hebrew Bible, bounded to the west by the Mediterranean Sea, to the north in the vicinity of Hamath in Syria, to the east by the Jordan Valley, and to the south by a line extended from the Dead Sea to around Gaza (Numbers 34). Nevertheless, the Egyptian and Hebrew uses of the term are not identical: the Egyptian texts also identify the coastal city of Qadesh in Syria near Turkey as part of the "Land of Canaan", so that the Egyptian usage seems to refer to the entire levantine coast of the Mediterranean Sea, making it a synonym of another Egyptian term for this coastland, Retenu.

There is uncertainty about whether the name Canaan refers to a specific ethnic group wherever they live, the homeland of this ethnic group, or a region under the control of this ethnic group, or perhaps any of the three.

At the end of what is referred to as the Middle Kingdom era of Egypt, was a breakdown in centralised power, the assertion of independence by various nomarchs and the assumption of power in the Delta by Pharaohs of the 17th Dynasty. Around 1674 BC, these rulers, whom the Egyptians referred to as "rulers of foreign lands" (Egyptian, Heqa Khasut), hence "Hyksos" (Greek), came to control Lower Egypt (northern Egypt), evidently leaving Canaan an ethnically diverse land.

Among the migrant tribes who appear to have settled in the region were the Amorites. In the Old Testament, we find Amorites mentioned in the Table of Peoples (Gen. 10:16-18a). Evidently, the Amorites played a significant role in the early history of Canaan. In Gen. 14:7 f., Josh. 10:5 f., Deut. 1:19 f., 27, 44, we find them located in the southern mountain country, while in Num. 21:13, Josh. 9:10, 24:8, 12, etc., we hear of two great Amorite kings residing at Heshbon and Ashtaroth, east of the Jordan. However, in other passages such as Gen. 15:16, 48:22, Josh. 24:15, Judg. 1:34, etc., the name Amorite is regarded as synonymous with "Canaanite" — only "Amorite" is never used for the population on the coast.

In Egyptian inscriptions Amar and Amurru are applied strictly to the more northerly mountain region east of Phoenicia, extending to the Orontes. In the Akkadian Empire, as early as Naram-Sin's reign (ca. 2240 BC), Amurru was called one of the "four quarters" surrounding Sumer, along with Subartu, Akkad, and Elam, and Amorite dynasties also came to dominate in Mesopotamia, including at Babylon and Isin. Later on, Amurru became the Assyrian term for the interior of south as well as for northerly Canaan. At this time the Canaanite area seemed divided between two confederacies, one centred upon Megiddo in the Jezreel Valley, the second on the more northerly city of Kadesh on the Orontes River.

In the centuries preceding the appearance of the Biblical Hebrews, Canaan and Syria became tributary to the Egyptian Pharaohs, although domination by the sovereign was not so strong as to prevent frequent local rebellions and inter-city struggles. Under Thutmose III (1479–1426 BC) and Amenhotep II (1427–1400 BC), the regular presence of the strong hand of the Egyptian ruler and his armies kept the Syrians and Canaanites sufficiently loyal. Nevertheless, Thutmose III reported a new and troubling element in the population. Habiru or (in Egyptian) 'Apiru, are reported for the first time. These seem to have been mercenaries, brigands or outlaws, who may have at one time led a settled life, but with bad-luck or due to the force of circumstances, contributed a rootless element of the population, prepared to hire themselves to whichever local mayor or princeling prepared to undertake their support. Although Habiru SA-GAZ (a Sumerian ideogram glossed as "brigand" in Akkadian), and sometimes Habiri (an Akkadian word) had been reported in Mesopotamia from the reign of Shulgi of Ur III, their appearance in Canaan appears to have been due to the arrival of a new state in Northern Mesopotamia based upon Maryannu aristocracy of horse drawn charioteers, associated with the Indo-Aryan rulers of the Hurrians, known as Mitanni. The Habiru seem to have been more a social class than any ethnic group. One analysis shows that the majority were, however, Hurrian, though there were a number of Semites and even some Kassite adventurers amongst their number. The reign of Amenhotep III, as a result was not quite so tranquil for the Asiatic province, as Habiru/'Apiru contributed to greater political instability. It is believed that turbulent chiefs began to seek their opportunities, though as a rule could not find them without the help of a neighboring king. The boldest of the disaffected nobles was Aziru, son of Abdi-Ashirta, a prince of Amurru, who even before the death of Amenhotep III, endeavoured to extend his power into the plain of Damascus. Akizzi, governor of Katna-(Qatna?) (near Hamath), reported this to the Pharaoh, who seems to have sought to frustrate his attempts. In the next reign, however, both father and son caused infinite trouble to loyal servants of Egypt like Rib-Addi, governor of Gubla (Gebal), not the least through transferring loyalty from the Egyptian crown to that of the expanding neighbouring Hittites under Suppiluliuma I.

Egyptian power in Canaan thus suffered a major setback when the Hittites (or Hatti) advanced into Syria in the reign of Amenhotep III, and became even more threatening in that of his successor, displacing the Amurru and prompting a resumption of Semitic migration. Abd-Ashirta and his son Aziru, at first afraid of the Hittites, afterwards made a treaty with their king, and joining with other external powers, attacked the districts remaining loyal to Egypt. In vain did Rib-Addi send touching appeals for aid to the distant Pharaoh, who was far too engaged in his religious innovations to attend to such messages.

In the el Amarna letters (~1350 BC) sent by governors and princes of Canaan to their Egyptian overlord Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) in the 14th century BC — commonly known as the Tel-el-Amarna tablets — we find, beside Amar and Amurru (Amorites), the two forms Kinahhi and Kinahni, corresponding to Kena' and Kena'an respectively, and including Syria in its widest extent, as Eduard Meyer has shown. The letters are written in the official and diplomatic Akkadian language, though "Canaanitish" words and idioms are also in evidence.

In the El Amarna letters(~1350 BC), we meet with the Habiri in northern Syria. Itakkama wrote thus to the Pharaoh,

"Behold, Namyawaza has surrendered all the cities of the king, my lord to the SA-GAZ in the land of Kadesh and in Ubi. But I will go, and if thy gods and thy sun go before me, I will bring back the cities to the king, my lord, from the Habiri, to show myself subject to him; and I will expel the SA-GAZ."

Similarly Zimrida, king of Sidon- (named 'Siduna'), declared, "All my cities which the king has given into my hand, have come into the hand of the Habiri." The king of Jerusalem, Abdi-Heba, reported to the Pharaoh,

"If (Egyptian) troops come this year, lands and princes will remain to the king, my lord; but if troops come not, these lands and princes will not remain to the king, my lord."

Abdi-heba's principle trouble arose from persons called Iilkili and the sons of Labaya, who are said to have entered into a treasonable league with the Habiri. Apparently this restless warrior found his death at the siege of Gina. All these princes, however, maligned each other in their letters to the Pharaoh, and protested their own innocence of traitorous intentions. Namyawaza, for instance, whom Itakkama (see above) accused of disloyalty, wrote thus to the Pharaoh,

"Behold, I and my warriors and my chariots, together with my brethren and my SA-GAZ, and my Suti ?9 are at the disposal of the (royal) troops to go whithersoever the king, my lord, commands." ^[19]

Just after the Amarna period a new problem arose which was to trouble the Egyptian control of Canaan. Pharaoh Horemhab campaigned against Shasu (Egyptian = "wanderers") or living in nomadic pastoralist tribes, who had moved across the Jordan to threaten Egyptian trade through Galilee and Jezreel. Seti I (ca. 1290 BC) is said to have conquered these Shasu, Semitic nomads living just south and east of the Dead Sea, from the fortress of Taru (Shtir?) to "Ka-n-'-na". After the near collapse of the Battle of Kadesh, Rameses II had to campaign vigorously in Canaan to maintain Egyptian power. Egyptian forces penetrated into Moab and Ammon, where a permanent fortress garrison (Called simply "Rameses") was established. After the collapse of the Levant under the so called "Peoples of the Sea" Ramesses III (ca. 1194 BC) is said to have built a temple to the god Amen in "Ka-n-'-na." This geographic name probably meant all of western Syria and Canaan, with Raphia, "the (first) city of the Ka-n-'-na,", on the southwest boundary toward the desert. Some archaeologists have proposed that Egyptian records of the 13th century BC are early written reports of a monotheistic belief in Yahweh noted among the nomadic Shasu. Evidently, belief in Yahweh had arisen among these nomadic peoples. By the reign of King Josiah (around 650 BC).^[20][21] Yahweh had displaced the polytheistic family of "El" as the principle God amongst those living in the high country of Israel and Judah.

Some believe the "Habiru" signified generally all the nomadic tribes known as "Hebrews." and particularly the early Israelites, who sought to appropriate the fertile region for themselves, but the term was rarely used to describe the Shasu. Whether the term may also include other related peoples such as the Moabites, Ammonites and Edomites is uncertain. It may not be an ethnonym at all; see the Habiru article for details.

The part of the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible often called the Table of Nations describes the Canaanites as being descended from an ancestor called Canaan (Hebrew: כְּנַעַן‎, Knaan), saying (Genesis 10:15–19):

Canaan is the father of Sidon, his firstborn; and of the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, Hivites, Arkites, Sinites, Arvadites, Zemarites, and Hamathites. Later the Canaanite clans scattered, and the borders of Canaan reached [across the Mediterranean coast] from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then [inland around the Jordan Valley] toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

The Biblical scholar, Richard Friedman, argues that this part of Genesis showing the origin of the Canaanites was written by the hypothetical Priestly Source^[22][23].

The Sidon whom the Table identifies as the firstborn son of Canaan has the same name as that of the coastal city of Sidon, in Lebanon. This city dominated the Phoenician coast, and may have enjoyed hegemony over a number of ethnic groups, who are said to belong to the "Land of Canaan".

Similarly, Canaanite populations are said to have inhabited:

• the Mediterranean coastlands (Joshua 5:1), including Lebanon corresponding to Phoenicia (Isaiah 23:11) and the Gaza Strip corresponding to Philistia (Zephania 2:5).
• the Jordan Valley (Joshua 11:3, Numbers 13:29, Genesis 13:12).

During the Canaanite Period of the Archaeology of Israel, the cities of Canaan were ruled by vassals of the Egyptian Empire. The Table of Nations calls Canaan the "son of Ham", whose ethnicities, e.g. Egypt ("Mitzrayim"), are associated with Africa (Genesis 10:6).

A Biblical story involving Canaan seems to refer to the ancient discovery of the cultivation of grapes around 4000 BC around the area of Ararat, which is associated with Noah.^[24] After the Flood, Noah planted a vineyard, made wine but became drunk. While intoxicated, an incident occurred involving him and his youngest son, Ham. Afterward, Noah cursed Ham's son Canaan (but not Ham, for reasons that are not stated) to a life of servitude (a possible pun on the Hebrew word "Can" meaning serviteur). He is to serve his brothers (who were not cursed either due to the respect they exhibited towards their inebriated father) and also his uncles Shem and Japheth (Genesis 9:20–27). Noah's curse is typically interpreted to apply to the descendants of the mentioned figures. "Shem" includes the Israelites, Moabites, and Ammonites, who dominated the Canaanite inland areas around the Jordan Valley.

The Canaanites (Hebrew: כנענים, Standard Knaanim Tiberian Kəna‘anîm) are said to have been one of seven regional ethnic divisions or "nations" driven out before the Israelites following the Exodus. Specifically, the other nations include the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites (Deuteronomy 7:1).

According to the Book of Jubilees, the Israelite conquest of Canaan, and the curse, are attributed to Canaan's steadfast refusal to join his elder brothers in Ham's allotment beyond the Nile, and instead "squatting" on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, within the inheritance delineated for Shem.

The Bible describes God cautioning the Israelites against the sexual idolatry of the Canaanites and their fertility cult (Leviticus 18:27). Thus the Land of the Canaanites, defined as including these seven groups, was deemed suitable for conquest by the Israelites partly on moral grounds (Deuteronomy 20:16–17). One of the 613 mitzvot (precisely n. 596) prescribes that no inhabitants of the cities of six Canaanite nations, the same as mentioned in 7:1, minus the Girgashites, were to be left alive.

By the time of the Second Temple, "Canaanite" in Hebrew had come to be not an ethnic designation, so much as a general synonym for "merchant", as it is interpreted in, for example, Zechariah 14:21.

It has been argued that the Israelites were themselves Canaanites, and that "historical Israel", as distinct from "literary" or "Biblical Israel" was a subset of Canaanite culture ^[25]. "Canaan" when used in this sense refers to the entire Ancient Near Eastern Levant down to about 100 AD, including the kingdoms of Israel and Judah^[26]. For example, Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the 'Canaanites' and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and 'Canaanites' in the Iron I period (ca. 1200-1000 BC). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from 'Canaanite' culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp6-7)^[27].

Unlike Mesopotamia or Ancient Egypt, where documentation exists that is rich and varied, the documentation about Canaan is very sparse. The only sources that come from inside the region are from Syria - with Bronze Age cuneiform archives of Ebla, Mari, Alalakh and Ugarit. Iron Age materials are even more scarce, as writing then was mostly on papyrus, of which, unlike Egypt, none of which has survived the humid climates of the most populous parts of the region.

The material of the Bible cannot be ignored historically, but ever since the ground-breaking publication of Thomas L. Thompson's 1974 monumental and painstaking study "Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives"^[28], has established a backbone for epigraphers, archaeologists and Old Testament scholars that cannot be ignored^[29], any debate on the historicity of the Canaanites as presented in Genesis has to take into account that the Biblical narratives represent a compilation of many individual sources of information, and according to Biblical minimalism, the process of editing these sources into a coherent narrative cannot have occurred at the earliest before the 7th or possibly the 6th century BC.^{[30][31][32][33]} (this assertion is widely disputed by both conservative scholars, however). The writers or editors of these Biblical texts had access to a very wide variety of source materials ^[34][35], most of which were contemporary or near contemporary with the time of writing. These included religious and literary texts, songs, geographic and topographical information, traditional folk legends, propaganda and annalistic and chronological information of specific events. This material had an unknown and generally variable credibility ^[36][37]. The intention of the writers was not to produce an objective modern historical account^[38][39][40], but instead to present a rationalisation for the theological and genealogical emergence of the monotheistic entity called Israel, bound in a specific covenant with a single divinity. Genesis was never intended to be a manual for archaeological excavation, as the anachronisms were of no concern to its contemporary audience, for whom the texts had meaning^[41].

The Philistines (Hebrew פלשתים, plishtim) (see "other uses" below) were a people who inhabited the southern coast of Canaan, their territory being named Philistia in later contexts. Their origin has been debated among scholars, but modern archaeology has suggested early cultural links with the Mycenean world in mainland Greece.^[1] Though the Philistines adopted local Canaanite culture and language before leaving any written texts, an Indo-European origin has been suggested for a handful of known Philistine words (See Philistine language).

If the Philistines are to be identified as one of the "Sea Peoples" (see Origins below), then their occupation of Canaan would have to have taken place during the reign of Ramesses III of the Twentieth Dynasty, ca. 1180 to 1150 BC. Their maritime knowledge presumably would have made them important to the Phoenicians.

In Egypt, a people called the "Peleset" (or, more precisely, prst), generally identified with the Philistines, appear in the Medinet Habu inscription of Ramesses III^[6], where he describes his victory against the Sea Peoples, as well as the Onomasticon of Amenope (late Twentieth Dynasty) and Papyrus Harris I, a summary of Ramesses III's reign written in the reign of Ramesses IV. Nineteenth-century Bible scholars identified the land of the Philistines (Philistia) with Palastu and Pilista in Assyrian inscriptions, according to Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897).

The Philistines occupied the five cities of Gaza, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, and Gath, along the coastal strip of southwestern Canaan, that belonged to Egypt up to the closing days of the Nineteenth Dynasty (ended 1185 BC). The biblical stories of Samson, Samuel, Saul and David include accounts of Philistine-Israelite conflicts. The Philistines long held a monopoly on iron smithing (a skill they possibly acquired during conquests in Anatolia), and the biblical description of Goliath's armor is consistent with this iron-smithing technology.

This powerful association of tribes made frequent incursions against the Hebrews. There was almost perpetual war between the two peoples. The Philistine cities were ruled by seranim (סְרָנִים, "lords"), who acted together for the common good, though to what extent they had a sense of a "nation" is not clear without literary sources. After their defeat by the Hebrew king David, who originally for a time worked as a mercenary for Achish of Gath, kings replaced the seranim, governing from various cities. Some of these kings were called Abimelech, which was initially a name and later a dynastic title.

The Philistines lost their independence to Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria by 732 BC, and revolts in following years were all crushed. Later, Nebuchadrezzar II of Babylon eventually conquered all of Syria and the Kingdom of Judah, and the former Philistine cities became part of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. There are few references to the Philistines after this time period. However, Ezekiel 25:16, Zechariah 9:6, and I Macabees 3 make mention of the Philistines, indicating that they still existed as a people in some capacity after the Babylonian invasion. Eventually all traces of the Philistines as a people or ethnic group disappear. Subsequently the cities were under the control of Persians, Jews (Hasmonean Kingdom), Greeks (Seleucid Empire), Romans, and subsequent empires.

The name "Palestine" comes, via Greek and Latin, from the Philistines; see History of Palestine.

Most authorities agree that the Philistines are not autochthonous to the regions of Israel/Palestine which the Bible describes them inhabiting. The Bible contains roughly 250 references to the Philistines or Philistia, and repeatedly refers to them as "uncircumcised", unlike the Semitic peoples, such as Canaanites, which the Bible relates encountered the Israelites following the Exodus. (See, e.g., 1 Samuel 17:26, 17:36; 2 Samuel 1:20; Judges 14:3).

It has been suggested that the Philistines formed part of the great naval confederacy, the "Sea Peoples," who had wandered, at the beginning of the 12th century BC, from their homeland in Crete and the Aegean islands to the shores of the Mediterranean and repeatedly attacked Egypt during the later Nineteenth Dynasty. Though they were eventually repulsed by Ramesses III, he finally resettled them, according to the theory, to rebuild the coastal towns in Canaan.

Papyrus Harris I details the achievements of the reign of Ramesses III. In the brief description of the outcome of the battles in Year 8 is the description of the fate of the Sea Peoples. Ramesses tells us that, having brought the imprisoned Sea Peoples to Egypt, he "settled them in strongholds, bound in my name. Numerous were their classes like hundred-thousands. I taxed them all, in clothing and grain from the storehouses and granaries each year." Some scholars suggest it is likely that these "strongholds" were fortified towns in southern Canaan, which would eventually become the five cities (the Pentapolis) of the Philistines (Redford 1992, p. 289). Israel Finkelstein has suggested that there may be a period of 25-50 years after the sacking of the Philistine cities and their reoccupation by the Philistines. It is quite possible that for the initial period of time, the Philistines were housed in Egypt, only subsequently late in the troubled end of the reign of Rameses III would they have been allowed to settle Philistia.

The connection between Mycenean culture and Philistine culture was made clearer by finds at the excavation of Ashdod, Ekron, Ashkelon, and more recently Tell es-Safi (probably Gath), four of the five Philistine cities in Canaan. The fifth city is Gaza. Especially notable is the early Philistine pottery, a locally-made version of the Aegean Mycenaean Late Helladic IIIC pottery, which is decorated in shades of brown and black. This later developed into the distinctive Philistine pottery of the Iron Age I, with black and red decorations on white slip known as Philistine Bichrome ware. Also of particular interest is a large, well-constructed building covering 240 square meters, discovered at Ekron. Its walls are broad, designed to support a second story, and its wide, elaborate entrance leads to a large hall, partly covered with a roof supported on a row of columns. In the floor of the hall is a circular hearth paved with pebbles, as is typical in Mycenean megaron hall buildings; other unusual architectural features are paved benches and podiums. Among the finds are three small bronze wheels with eight spokes. Such wheels are known to have been used for portable cultic stands in the Aegean region during this period, and it is therefore assumed that this building served cultic functions. Further evidence concerns an inscription in Ekron to PYGN or PYTN, which some have suggested refers to "Potnia," the title given to an ancient Mycenaean goddess. Excavations in Ashkelon, Ekron, and Gath reveal dog and pig bones which show signs of having been butchered, implying that these animals were part of the residents' diet.

One name the Greeks used for the previous inhabitants of Greece and the Aegean was Pelasgians, but no definite connection has been established between this name and that of the Philistines. The theory that the Sea Peoples included Greek-speaking tribes has been developed even further to postulate that the Philistines originated in either western Anatolia or the Greek peninsula.

There is some limited evidence in favor of the assumption that the Philistines did originally speak some Indo-European language. A number of Philistine-related words found in the Bible are not Semitic, and can in some cases, with reservations, be traced back to Proto-Indo-European roots. For example, the Philistine word for captain, seren, may be related to the Greek word tyrannos (which, however, has not been traced to a PIE root). Some of the Philistine names, such as Goliath, Achish, and Phicol, appear to be of non-Semitic origin, and Indo-European etymologies have been suggested. Recently, an inscription dating to the late 10th/early 9th centuries BC with two names, very similar to one of the suggested etymologies of the popular Philistine name Goliath (Lydian Alyattes) was found in the excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath. The appearance of additional non-Semitic names in Philistine inscriptions from later stages of the Iron Age is an additional indication of the non-Semitic origins of this group.

The Hebrew tradition recorded in Genesis 10:14 states that the "Pelishtim" (פְּלִשְׁתִּים, Standard Hebrew /pəlištim/, Tiberian Hebrew /pəlištîm/) proceeded from the "Pathrusim" (פַּתְרֻסִים) and the "Casluhim" (כַּסְלֻחִים), who descended from Mizraim (מִצְרַיִם, Egypt), son of Ham. The Philistines settled "Pelesheth" (פְּלֶשֶׁת, Standard Hebrew /pəléšet/ or /pəlášet/, Tiberian Hebrew /pəléšeṯ/ or /Pəlāšeṯ/) along the eastern Mediterranean coast at about the time when the Israelites settled in the Judean highlands. Biblical references to Philistines living in the area before this, at the time of Abraham or Isaac (e.g. Gen. 21:32-34), are generally regarded by modern scholars to be anachronisms.

The Philistines are spoken of in the Book of Amos as originating in Caphtor: "saith the LORD: Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt? and the Philistines from Caphtor, and Aram from Kir?" (Amos 9:7). Later, in the 7th century BC, Jeremiah makes the same association with Caphtor. "For the LORD will spoil the Philistines, the remnant of the country of Caphtor, (Jeremiah 47:4). Scholars variously identify the land of Caphtor with Cyprus and Crete and other locations in the eastern Mediterranean.

The history of Ancient Israel and Judah is known to us from classical sources including Judaism's Tanakh or Hebrew Bible (known to Christianity as the Old Testament), the Talmud, the Ethiopian Kebra Nagast, the writings of Nicolaus of Damascus, Artapanas, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus supplemented by ancient sources uncovered by archaeology including Egyptian, Moabite, Assyrian, Babylonian as well as Israelite and Judean inscriptions. William Dever ^[1] suggests that rather than there being just one history there are in fact multiple histories and that we can distinguish nine types of history of Israel and Judah as follows.

1. Theological history – the relationship between the God(s) and their believers.
2. Political history – usually the account of “Great Men”, is generally episodic, chauvinistic and propagandist
3. Narrative history – a running chronology of events, purporting to be factual but always very highly selective
4. Socio-cultural history – a history of institutions, including their social underpinnings in family, clan, tribe and social class and the state
5. Intellectual history – the literary history of ideas and their development, context and evolution as expressed through texts and documents
6. Cultural history – is based upon a larger context of overall cultural evolution, demography, socio-economic and political structure and ethnicity
7. Technological history – a history of the techniques by which humans adapt to, exploit and make use of the resources of their environment
8. Natural history – is a geographic history of how humans discover and adapt to the ecological understandings of their natural environment
9. Material history – as shown in the study of artifacts as correlates of human changes in behaviour.

The history of the region later claimed by the states of Judah and Israel offers particular problems for the modern historian. Because of the association of this area with the scriptural accounts found in the Bible, there is a tendency to view the history of the southern Levant from an almost purely Biblical perspective, giving scant attention to the post Biblical period. Archeology of the area has tended to be viewed principally through the Biblical account^[2], making it difficult to understand the history of this important area within the modern archaeological context of the Ancient Near Eastern region as a whole.

It has been argued that the Israelites were themselves Canaanites, and that "historical Israel", as distinct from "literary" or "Biblical Israel" was a subset of Canaanite culture. "Canaan" when used in this sense refers to the entire ancient Levant down to about 100 AD, including the kingdoms of Israel and Judah^[3]. For example, Mark Smith ^[4] states "Despite the long regnant model that the 'Canaanites' and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and 'Canaanites' in the Iron I period (ca. 1200-1000). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from 'Canaanite' culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp6-7).

Smith continues, “The change in the scholarly understanding of early Israel’s culture has led to a second major change in perspective, which involves the nature of the Yahwistic cult. With the change in perspective concerning Israel’s ‘Canaanite’ background, long held views on the Israelite religion are slowly eroding. Baal and Asherah are part of Israel’s ‘Canaanite’ heritage, and the emergence of Israelite monolatry was an issue of Israel breaking from its own Canaanite past,and not simply of avoiding ‘Canaanite’ neighbours. Although the Biblical witness accurately represent the existence of Israelite worship of Baal and perhaps Asherah as well, this worship was not so much a case of Israelite syncretism with the religious practices of ‘Canaanite’ neighbours, as some Biblical passages depict it, as it was an instance of old Israelite religion.” P.7.

Some writers consider the different source materials to be in conflict. See The Bible and history for further information. This is a controversial subject, with implications in the fields of religion, politics and diplomacy.

The nature and precise dates of events and the precision by which they may be stated are subject to continuing discussion and challenge. There are no biblical events whose precise year can be validated by external sources before the possible attack by Pharaoh Shoshenk I, identified with the Biblical Shishak (=striker) in 925 BCE. This record, however, shows the Pharaoh's raid was directed more against Israel rather than Jerusalem, as the Bible suggests, and no rulers of the area are listed in Egyptian records. The first independent confirmation of the Biblical record is the early 9th century BCE with the rise of Omri, King of Israel. Therefore all earlier dates are extrapolations and conjecture. Further, the Bible does not render itself very easily to these calculations: mostly it does not state any time period longer than a single lifetime and a historical line must be reconstructed by adding discrete quantities, a process that naturally introduces rounding errors. The earlier dates presented here and their accuracy reflect a maximalist view, in that it uses the Bible as its sole source.

Others, known as minimalists, often dispute that some of the events happened at all, making the dating of them moot: for instance, if the very existence of the United Kingdom is in doubt, it is pointless to claim that it disintegrated in 928 BCE. Philip Davies ^[5], for example, shows how the canonical Biblical account can only have been composed for a people with a long literate tradition such as found only in Late Persian or early Hellenistic times, and argues that accounts of earlier periods are largely reconstructions based upon largely oral and other traditions. Minimalists tend to accept those events that have independent archaeological corroborations; see for example Mesha Stele. Their argument comes in the earlier period where the Biblical account seems most at odds with what has been discovered by modern archaeology.

Another problem is caused by disagreements about terminology of historical periodisation. For example the period at the end of the Early Bronze Age or the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age is called EB-MB by Kathleen Kenyon^[6], MB I by William Foxwell Albright, Middle Canaanite I by Yohanan Aharoni^[7], and Early Bronze IV by William Dever and Eliezer Oren.

The Book of Genesis traces the beginning of Israel to three patriarchs of the Jewish people, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the last also known as Israel from which the name of the land was subsequently derived. Jacob, called a "wandering Aramaean" (Deuteronomy 26:5), the grandson of Abraham, had travelled back to Harran, the home of his ancestors, to obtain a wife. Whilst returning from Haran to Canaan, he crossed the Jabbok, a tributary on the Arabian side of the Jordan River (Genesis 32:22-33). Having sent his family and servants away, that night he wrestled with a strange man at a place henceforth called Peniel, who in the morning asked him his name. As a result, he was renamed "Israel", because he has "wrestled with God." and became in time the father of twelve sons, by Leah and Rachel (daughters of Laban), and their maidservants Bilhah and Zilpah. The twelve were considered the "Children of Israel." These stories of the origins of the Israelites locate them first on the east bank of the Jordan. The stories of Israel move to the west bank with the story of the sacking of Shechem (Genesis 34:1-33), after which the hill area of Canaan is assumed to have been the historical core of the area of Israel.

William F. Albright, Nelson Glueck and E. A. Speiser, located these Genesis accounts at the end of Middle Bronze I and beginning of Middle Bronze II based on three points: personal names, mode of life, and customs^[8]. Other scholars, however, have suggested later dates for the Patriarchal Age as these features were long-lived characteristics of life in the Ancient Near East. Cyrus Gordon^[9], basing his argument on the rise of nomadic pastoralism and monotheism at the end of the Amarna Age, suggested that they more properly apply to the Late Bronze Age. John Van Seters, on the basis of the widespread use of Camels, of Philistine kings at Gerar, of a monetarised economy and the purchase of land, argued the story belongs to the Iron Age. Other scholars (particularly, Martin Noth and his students) find it difficult to determine any period for the Patriarchs. They suggest that the importance of the biblical texts are not necessarily their historicity, but how they function within the Israelite society of the Iron Age.

More recently, neutron activation analysis studies conducted of the hilltop settlements by Jan Gunneweg ^[10]of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem which are associated with the Early Iron Age I and II, show evidence of a movement of settlers into the area from a north-easterly direction in accord with these early stories^[11]

The Biblical book of Genesis relates how some of the descendants of Israel became Egyptian slaves. There are various modern explanations given for the circumstances under which this occurred. A few historians believe that this may have been due to the changing political conditions within Egypt. In 1650 BCE, northern Egypt was conquered by tribes, apparently a mixture of Semitic and Hurrian peoples, known as the Hyksos by the Egyptians. The Hyksos were later driven out by Ahmose I, the first king of the eighteenth dynasty. Ahmose I reigned approximately 1550 - 1525 BCE, founding the 18th Egyptian dynasty which ushered in a new age for Egypt which we call the New Kingdom. Ahmose destroyed the Hyksos capital at Avaris and the succeeding Pharaohs conquered the Hyksos city of Saruhen^[12](near Gaza), and destroyed Canaanite confederations at Megiddo, Hazor and Kadesh. Thutmose III established Egypt's empire in the western Near East, destroying a Canaanite confederation at Megiddo and taking the city of Joppa, and extending it from the Sinai to the Euphrates bend, the area later thought to have been the size of the Empire of Solomon. The Egyptian Empire was maintained in the area of what was to emerge as Israel and Judah until the reign of Rameses VI in about 1150 BCE. From then on, the chronology can only roughly be given in approximate dates for most events, until about the 9th century BCE^[13].

• 1440 BCE The Egyptian reign of Amenhotep II, during which the first mention of the Habiru (possibly the Hebrews) is found in Egyptian texts ^[14]. Recently discovered evidence (see Tikunani Prism) indicates that many Habiru spoke Hurrian, the language of the Hurrians. The Habiru were possibly a social caste rather than an ethnic group^[11][15], yet even so they may have been incorporated into early Israelite tribal groups ^[16].
• c.1400 First mention of the Shasu (or "wanderers") in Egyptian records, located just south of the Dead Sea. The Shasu contain a group with a Yahwistic name, although the Egyptian inscription of Amenhotep III, at the Soleb temple, "Yhw in the land of the Shasu", does not use the determinative for God, or even for people, but only for the possible name of a place.
• 1350-1330 BCE The Amarna correspondence gives a detailed account of letters exchanged during the period of Egyptian domination in Canaan during the reign of Pharaoh Akhenaton. Local mayors such as Abdi Khepa of Jerusalem and Labaya of Shechem were jockeying for power, and attempting to get the Pharaoh to act on their behalf. Akhenaton is reported to have dispatched a regiment of Medjay police to the region, to maintain order. This period is also one of the extension of Hittite power into Northern Syria for the first time, and is noticeable for the spread of a pandemic through the region.
• 1300 BCE Some Bible commentaries place the birth of Moses around this time. ^{[17] [18]}
• 1292 BCE Egypt's 19th dynasty began with the reign of Ramesses I. Ramesses II (1279-1213 BCE) filled the land with enormous monuments, and signed a treaty with the Hittites after ceding the northern Levant to the Hittite Empire. He conducted a campaign throughout the territory of what was later to emerge as Israel, after the revolt of Shasu following the Battle of Kadesh, establishing an Egyptian garrison in what was later to be Moab.
• Circa 1200 BCE, the Hittite empire of Anatolia was conquered by allied tribes from the west. The northern, coastal Canaanites (called the Phoenicians by the Greeks) may have been temporarily displaced by so-called "People of the Sea", but returned when the invading tribes showed no inclination to settle. ^[19]
• 1187 BCE The attempted invasion of Egypt by Sea People. Amongst them were a group called the P-r-s-t (first recorded by the ancient Egyptians as P-r/l-s-t) generally identified with the Philistines. They appear in the Medinet Habu inscription of Ramses III^[20], where he describes his victory against the Sea Peoples. Nineteenth-century Bible scholars identified the land of the Philistines (Philistia or Peleshet in Hebrew meaning "invaders") with Palastu and Pilista in Assyrian inscriptions, according to Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897). Other groups than the Philistines, were the Tjekker, Denyen and Shardana, and the vigorous counter-attack by Pharaoh Rameses III saw most Canaanite sites in what was later to be Israel and Judah destroyed. Later in the reign of this Pharaoh, Philistines and Tjekker, and possibly also Denyen, were allowed to resettle the cities of the coastal road which became known in the Biblical Exodus account as "the Way of the Philistines". The name is used in the Bible to denote the coastal region inhabited by the Philistines. The five principal Philistine cities were Gaza, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Ashkelon. Modern archaeology has suggested early cultural links with the Mycenean world in mainland Greece. Though the Philistines adopted local Canaanite culture and language before leaving any written texts, an Indo-European origin has been suggested for a handful of known Philistine words.
• 1150 BCE Internal troubles within Egypt lead to the withdrawal of the last Egyptian garrisons at Beth Shean, the Jordan Valley, Megiddo and Gaza, during the reign of Rameses VI.

The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and its chronology are much-debated. It is believed by Kenneth A. Kitchen ^[21] that the Exodus took place in the reign of Ramesses II due to the named Egyptian cities in Exodus: Pithom and Rameses. Evidence for an Israelite presence in Palestine has been found from only six years after the end of the reign of Rameses II, in the Merneptah Stele.

The period of the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th Dynasty was a particularly confusing one. Egyptian records document the rise of Asiatics from the region to high places within the Egyptian court. Chancellor Bay temporarily occupied the role of kingmaker, and Pharaoh Siptah's mother came from the region. After the death of Queen Twosret Meryamun, the country lapsed into chaos, and it appears Asiatics despoiled a number of Egyptian temples before being expelled by the first king of the 20th Dynasty, Pharaoh Setnakhte. These events may lie behind the Exodus account of Osarseph given by Manetho reported later by Josephus.

A totaling of the reigns of the kings of Judah between the fourth year of the reign of Solomon, when he is supposed to have built the Temple, to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, gives 430 years. This would suggest the building of the temple by united monarchy under Solomon, occurred in 1016 BCE. According to Kings 6:1, a total of 480 years is supposed to have lapsed between the Exodus and the dedication of this temple, giving a date of 1496 BCE, suggested by Redford^[22]to have been the 9th year of Hatshepsut's reign. According to Exodus 12:40, the sojourn in Egypt is supposed to have lasted 430 years, with the result that the descent of Israel and his family must have taken place in the reign of Senwosret I's in 1926 BCE. Adding together the very long life-spans of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, would date Abraham's arrival in Canaan in 2141 BCE, and his descent into Egypt in 2116 BCE, during the 10th Kerakleopolitan Dynasty. The sojourn in Egypt would then have occupied the entire period of the 12th to the 18th Dynasty. As Numbers 32:13 allocates 40 years to the Wandering in Sinai, the conquests by Joshua must have occurred just prior to the reign of Thutmose III, when all of Canaan was possessed by Egypt. .Even more astounding, according to this chronology is the placement of Judges from 1456 to 1150, almost exactly the period of the Egyptian Empire in Asia. Unfortunately Egyptian sources say nothing about Israel, Joshua or his successors, and the Bible says nothing of the Amenophids, Thutmosids or Ramessids of this period.^[23]

Clearly, the development of the Israelites in Canaan is far more complex than the picture given in the Bible.^[24] Research into settlement patterns suggest that the ethnogenesis of Israel as a people was a complex process involving mainly native pastoralist groups in Canaan (perhaps including Habiru and Shasu), with some infiltration from outside groups, such as Hittites and Arameans from the north as well as southern Shasu groups such as the Kenites- some of whom may have come from areas controlled by Egypt. Genetically, Palestinian Jews show closest connections with Kurdish people, and other groups from Northern Iraq, suggesting that this is the area from which most of their ancestors originally came, a fact confirmed archaeologically from the Khirbet Kerak period, down to the end of the Middle Bronze Age period, with the spread of the Hurrians (Biblical Horites), and in the Early Iron Age I period with the spread of Shasu (=Egyptian) and Ahlamu (=Assyrian Akkadian, i.e.wandering Aramaeans). ^[25][26][27]

Exodus goes on to say that after leaving Egypt, nearly three million^{[citation needed]} Israelites wandering in the desert for a generation, the Israelites invaded the land of Canaan, destroying major Canaanite cities such as Ai, Jericho and Hazor. The paradigm that has Ramses II^[21] as Exodus Pharaoh also has the conquest of Canaan and the destruction of Jericho and other Canaanite cities around 1200 BCE, despite the fact that Ai and Jericho seem to have been uninhabited at this time, having been destroyed at about 1550 BCE. Many others of the sites mentioned in the Book of Joshua also seem to have been unoccupied at this time, being synchronously present only in the seventh century BC, suggested by Mattfield^[28] as the likely date for the composition of this account. Many other groups are known to have played a role in the destruction of urban centres during the late Bronze Age, such as the invading Sea Peoples, among whom the Philistines were one, and the Egyptians themselves. Feuds between neighboring city-states probably have played a role as well.^[11][26]

Dever suggests that there were about 300 newly founded small agricultural villages from lower Galilee to the Negev in the 13th-12th century BC (usually considered the time of Judges), all of them conspicuously absent from previous Late Bronze Age towns and settlement along the coast. The population rose from 12,000 at the end of the Bronze Age to 55,000 by the end of the 12th century, to 75,000 in the end of the 11th century the period of David and Solomon, with the vast majority in the north.

By the 8th century Israel, just before the collapse, one century after the Omrides, population in the north had grown more than fivefold, to about 350,000. At the time of the Omrides it may have been even more, as Israel had lost Hazor, Dan and Bethsaida to Damascus, and the sacking of Megiddo and Taanach by Hazael of Damascus had led to a depopulation of the Jezrael. Under the Omrides Israel was the most populous state of the Levant, probably surpassing even Damascus, but after the wars with Damascus and the coup of Jehu, it was probable that Aramaean Damascus had become the larger state. Thus under the Omrides the population of Israel may have been about 500,000.

The south was much less populated. Judea which before the collapse of the north had been low, grew 500% to 120,000. This means the previous size of Judea had been about 24.000 people, in the south with 96,000 coming as refugees from the north (about 1/3rd of the total of the previous population). This would suggest that the population of Judea was less than 1/20th that of the northern kingdom.

But this enormous population did not last. The Assyrian campaign against Hezekiah, and the plague with which it was associated (Hezekiah himself narrowly escaped) reduced the population by nearly 50,000 so that by the end of the monarchy Judah's population based fairly accurately upon surveys at the time was about 75,000, with 20% of this (about 15,000) living in Jerusalem.

The Book of Jeremiah reports a total of 4,600 went into exile in Babylon. The Book of Kings suggests that it was ten thousand, and then eight thousand. Finkelstein suggests that 4,600 represented the heads of households and 8,000 was the total, whilst 10,000 is a rounding upwards of the second number. Jeremiah also hints that an equivalent number may have fled to Egypt. Given these figures, Finkelstein suggests that 3/4 of the population of Judah did not move.

The returnees at the time of Ezra and Nehemiah are said to be 50,000, possibly over a period of 100 years. Thus about 50% of the total population in the Persian period, in the truncated territory of Yahud, estimated at about 100-150,000 was of the "new" post exilic monotheism, and 50% practiced the old Canaanite pre-exilic polytheism. Given that Yehud did not include Bethsheva or Hebron, which were ruled by the Idumaeans, it is possible that the population within the border of old Judea was twice that (about 240,000), with the population of Israel nearly 10 times that of the south, the total population living within the borders of monarchial Israel and Judah at the end of the Persian period together may have numbered as many as 3 million, the number recorded roughly at the time of the Jewish Revolt. At this time it was estimated that Jews may have been 1/10th of the total population of the Empire, of between 50-60 million, and that the number of Jews in Diaspora, largely living in Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor (modern Turkey) was equal to the numbers living in Palestine.

If the Israelites returned to Canaan circa 1200 BCE^[21], this was a time when the great powers of the region were neutralized by troubles of various kinds. This was the time of the "Peoples of the Sea" during which Philistines, Tjekker and possibly Danites settled along the coast from Gaza in the south to Joppa in the north. The entire Middle East fell into a "Dark Age" from which it took centuries to recover". Recovery seems to have occurred first in trading cities of the Philistine area, passing northwards to the Phoenicians, before moving inland to affect the interior areas of the Judean and Samarian hills, the historic core of Judea and Israel. According to the Biblical account, in their initial attacks under Joshua, the Hebrews occupied most of Canaan, which they settled according to traditional family lines derived from the sons of Jacob and Joseph (the "tribes" of Israel). No formal government existed and the people were led by ad hoc leaders (the "judges" of the biblical Book of Judges) in times of crisis. Around this time, the name "Israel" is first mentioned in a contemporary archaeological source, the Merneptah Stele.

The withdrawal of the Egyptian garrisons in about 1150 BCE created a power vacuum in the region in which the Canaanite tribes tried to destroy the developing power-base of the Israelite tribes of the northern and central highland areas. According to the Bible, the Israelite response was led by Barak, and the Hebrew prophetess Deborah, who mustered some of the Israelite tribes in a common defence. Some authors ^[29] consider that the early text of the "Song of Deborah" demonstrates that the core of the Israelite state was the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh, Machir, and Benjamin, with additional groups (for example Dan, Asher and Judah^{[disambiguation needed]}) added later. The Bible shows that in this case the Canaanites were defeated, and the core of Israel extended north into Galilee and Jezreel. Judges 4-5

As the wealth returned to the region with the end of the Late Bronze Age collapse, and trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia recovered, so new interior trade routes opened up, notably that running from Kadesh Barnea in the south, through Hebron to Jerusalem and Lachish to Samaria, Shiloh and Shechem and on through Galilee to Megiddo and the Plain of Jezreel. This new route threatened the trade monopoly of the Philistines, who sought to dominate the inland routes, either directly, through military intervention against the growing strength of the tribes of Israel, or indirectly, through promoting and employing mercenaries to positions of power, as Achish of Gath later employed David. As outlined in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 7, Israel, to effectively resist the Philistine menace was allowed to call for a King. Contrary to the instructions concerning whose duty it was to judge, Israel asked for a King to judge them (I Samuel 8:6, 20). According to the Books of Samuel, one of the last of the judges, the nation appealed for a king because Samuel's sons, who had been appointed judges over Israel, misused the office. Although he tried to dissuade them, they were resolute and Samuel anointed Saul ben Kish from the tribe of Benjamin as king. Samuel's pronouncement of the kind of King they would receive seems to be in direct contrast to the one described in Deuteronomy 7. Unfortunately no independent evidence for the existence of Saul or these events has ever been found, although the Early Iron Age I period was certainly a phase of rapid Philistine expansionism, as the Biblical account would seem to propose.

Increasing pressure from the Philistines and other neighboring tribes, according to the Bible, forced the Israelites to unite under the king Saul in c. 1050 BCE. The Bible describes how Saul was defeated by the Philistines, and, in his place, David, originally a shepherd from Hebron, who, while serving Saul, managed to secure an independent power base (through victory in battle) in Jerusalem. David seized Jerusalem from the earlier Jebusite rulers, who were possibly a tribe of Canaanites, and took the throne in 1000 BCE. Although there is debate about the chronology of this period, as Jerusalem seems to have been an unwalled village at best, Solomon, son of David, supposedly took the throne in 965 BCE. According to the Bible, this united kingdom lasted until c. 920 BCE when it split into the Kingdom of Israel in the north, and the Kingdom of Judah in the South as a result of irreconcilable differences between the northern and southern regions of the earlier united monarchy. As a result, two states developed separately, with Israel, the northern state, being culturally dominant. Jonathan N. Tubb ^[30] argues that the two states that developed were identical culturally to the secondary Canaanite states of the Middle Eastern Iron Age II period.

Around 920 BCE, according to the Biblical account Jeroboam led the revolt of the northern tribes, and established the Kingdom of Israel (1 Kings 11-14). B. S. J. Isserlin ^[31] in his examination of the Israelites, shows from an analysis of geographical setting of the origins of the Israelites and their neighbors; the political history of the monarchy; socio-economic structure; town-planning and architecture; trade, craft and industry; warfare; literacy, and art and religion, that the Kingdom of Israel was typical of the secondary Canaanite states established at about this time.

Economically the state of Israel seems to have been more developed than its southern neighbour. Rainfall in this area is higher and the agricultural systems more productive. According to the Biblical account, which cannot be checked by outside sources, there were 19 separate rulers of Israel. Politically the state of Israel seems much less politically stable than Judah, maintaining a form of charismatic leadership by merit and competition between ruling families seem to have depended much more on links with outside powers, Tyre, Aram and Assyria, to maintain their authority. This need to placate powerful neighbours was demonstrated from early in the reign of Jeroboam, when, despite reputedly establishing fortifications at Tirzah, Shechem and Penuel, Israel was invaded by Egyptian Pharaoh Sheshonk I (the Biblical Shishak), of the Libyan 22nd Dynasty. The kingdom of Israel appears to have been most powerful in the first half of the ninth century BC, during which time, Omri (a. 885-874 BC) founded a new dynasty with its capital city at Samaria, with support from the Phoenician city of Tyre. Omri's son and successor, supposedly linked through dynastic marriage with Tyre, contributed 2,000 chariots, and 10,000 soldiers to a coalition of states which fought and defeated Shalmaneser III at Qarqar in 853 BC. Twelve years later, Jehu, with assistance from the kingdom of Aram, centred in Damascus, organised a coup in which Ahab and his family were put to death. The Bible makes no reference to the fact, but Assyrian sources refer to Jehu as being a monarch of the house of Omri, which may indicate that this coup was the result of struggles within the same ruling family. Jehu is shown kneeling to the Assyrian monarch in the black obelisk of Shalmaneser III, the only monarch of either of the two states for which any portrait survives.

As a result of these changes, Israel, like its southern neighbour fell within the influence of Aramaean Damascus. King Hazael led the Arameans in battle against the forces of King Jehoram of Israel and King Ahaziah of Judah. After defeating them at Ramoth-Gilead, Hazael repelled two attacks by the Assyrians, seized Israelite territory east of the Jordan, the Philistine city of Gath, and sought to take Jerusalem as well (2 Kings 12:17). A monumental Aramaic inscription discovered at Tel Dan is seen by most scholars as having been erected by Hazael, after he defeated the Kings of Israel and Judah^{[disambiguation needed]}. Recent excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath have revealed dramatic evidence of the siege and subsequent conquest of Gath by Hazael. To end this domination from its two northern neighbours that Judah appealed to Tiglath Pileser III for Assyrian intervention, which ultimately, in 720 BC led to the fall of Israel to the Assyrians, under Sargon, and the incorporation of Israel into the Assyrian empire. Israel fell to the Assyrians in 721 BCE and was taken into captivity. 2 Kings 17:3-6. Despite the attempt by Assyrians to decapitate the Israelite kingdom by settling people on its eastern frontier with the Medes, archaeological evidence shows that many people fled south at this time to Judah, whose capital city Jerusalem seems to have grown by over 500% at this time. This seems to have been a time during which many northern traditions were incorporated within the region of Judah.

This period of Israel's eclipse seems to have coincided with the rise of a line of independent prophets, Amos, Joel, Hoshea and Elijah, Elisha and Isaiah, highly critical of the monarchs of Israel. The spiritual tradition that was later to coalsece in the Biblical story, would, according to many Biblical scholars, here have its origins.

The major problems in the history of the divided monarchy is that the Septuagint, the Hebrew Masoretic text, and Josephus all have different figures^[32]. There is a further problem in that it is unknown if the two kingdoms used the same calendar. Furthermore it is unclear whether the number of years reigned refer only to full years, part years, or from new year to new year. Although the Mesopotamian New Year was from Spring Equinox to Spring Equinox, it is not known what was the period for counting by the time at the end of the Kingdom that these records were recorded. This is compounded by the possibility of a shift during the period to a new calendrical system, and by possible periods of coregency amongst kings. There are also possible copyist errors, which may explain why the Biblical dates seem internally inconsistent^[33]. In 922 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel was divided. Judah, the southern Kingdom, had Jerusalem as its capital and was led by Rehoboam, leading to war with Israel, which according to the Bible, continued during the reigns of Abijiah and Asa of Judah, during whose reign Israel penetrated to Ramah, 5 km north of Jerusalem. Asa is supposed to have sent a delegation to Ben Hadad I, son of Tab-rimmon of Damascus, king of Aram, to attack Israel from the rear.

The Dynasty of Omri brought an end to the war with Judah, and cemented a dynastic alliance through Queen Athaliah, daughter of Ahab and Jezebel of Tyre.

During the reign of Ahaz, the population of Jerusalem seems to have grown enormously, possibly as a result of the arrival of many Israelite refugees fleeing from the north, with the result that the city grew from a small local market town to a sizable city. By the reign of Hezekiah, his son, the population seems to have swelled to over 500%^[34]. Hezekiah undertook a number of major works, including the expansion of the city wall to include the new population at Jerusalem and Lachish, the digging of the well of Siloam, to give the city an independent source of water within the city limits, and a major expansion of the temple. Phillip Davies^[35] and others suggest that at this time Jerusalem established its own scribal school for the first time, gathering the previously oral tradition into what became known as the J Source. The Bible also claims that Hezekiah undertook major religious reforms, attempting unsuccessfully to centralise Judean religious practices in the temple and eliminate the worship of the Nehushtan serpent, which may have been in place since the days of Moses. Hezekiah also seems to have been fascinated by the stories of Solomon, making a collection of the wisdom attributed to this monarch.

Hezekiah's ambitions seem to have been overstretched, when, in part prompted by promises of aid from the monarchs of the Egyptian 26th Dynasty, he took leadership of a coalition with Philistines, asserted independence from Assyria, attempting to unify Judah and Israel. This lead to disaster. Lachish was razed to the ground and its population taken in slavery to Assyria. Sennacherib boasted he had shut Hezekiah up in Jerusalem like a bird in a cage. The Bible speaks of the angel of the lord having smitten the besieging Assyrians, and the account certainly does read as if there was some kind of plague (Hezekiah himself is spoken of as having been afflicted but recovered). Nevertheless, the Assyrians extracted an enormous tribute which seems to have pauperised the Judean population for a generation, and led to the complete reversal of all of Hezekiah's reforms.

Hezekiah's son Manasseh, through the careful cultivation of the Assyrian monarch Esarhaddon, and his son, Ashurbanipal, seem to have led to a recovery of Judah's fortunes to a degree, despite the universally bad publicity the monarch has in the Bible. For instance it is known that Manasseh spent time with Esarhaddon in Babylon, and accompanied the latter in his invasion of Egypt.

Manasseh's son, Ammon, had an insignificant reign before passing the throne to his infant son Josiah. In 633 BC, the finding of a book of Law (a "Sefer Torah") by the priest Hilkiah, which was claimed to be composed by Moses, led to major reforms of the state cult. Since Martin Noth showed on internal grounds that this Deuteronomist was largely composed by someone during the reign of Josiah, making the king a "hero" (i.e. Messiah), and was closely connected to the Shiloah priesthood. This period saw the eclipse and collapse of the Assyrian Empire, which led Josiah to attempt to once again follow in the path of Hezekiah, centralising all worship in Jerusalem, and instituting the Passover. As before he was tempted into a power-politics too big for Judah, and he died in battle resisting the advance of Pharaoh Necho's forces attempting to aid the Assyrians at Harran.

Judah fell to the Babylonians in 587 BCE and was taken into captivity. 2 Kings 25:1-9.

In 722 BCE, nearly twenty years after the initial invasions and deportations, the Assyrian King Sargon finally finished what Tiglath-Pileser III began in 740 BCE. He completed the conquest of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by taking captive the capital Samaria after a three year siege (which happed to kill Shalmaneser V) and deporting the remaining Israelites, including the ruling class, to the cities of the Medes and other disputed areas, generally believed to be in or near the vicinity of conquered lands occupied by the Assyrian Empire. Conversely, peoples from those lands were deported to Samaria. Thus, the Israelites of the Northern Kingdom were dispersed amongst the nations by being planted in the epicenter of the human migration tides of Eurasia. It is believed they were ultimately assimilated into new cultures, and eventually became unaware of their original identity. According to First Century Jewish Rabbis ^[36] and the historian Flavius Josephus ^[37], they had yet returned to the land of Israel even up to the time of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple. With the Kingdom of Judah being dispersed once more from their homeland in 70 CE, there is little evidence the Northern Kingdom Israelites ever returned in any substantial representation to rejoin the Jews of the Southern Kingdom before or after that time.

• 586 BCE. Conquest of Judah (Southern Kingdom) by Babylon. Part of Judah's population, primarily the nobility, was exiled to Babylon.
• 722 & 586 BCE. The First Dispersion, or Diaspora. Jews were either taken as slaves in what is commonly referred to as the Babylonian captivity of Judah, or they fled to Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, or Persia.^[38]
• 587 BCE Lachish letters, ostraca, classical Hebrew on 21 potsherds
• 559 BCE. Cyrus the Great became King of Persia.^[39]
• 539 BCE. The Babylonian Empire fell to Persia under Cyrus.
• 550-333 BCE. The Persian Empire ruled over much of Western Asia, including Israel.

Like most imperial powers during the Iron Age, King Cyrus allowed citizens of the empire to practice their native religion, as long as they incorporated the personage of the Persian Great King into their worship (either as a deity or semi-deity, or at the very least the subject of votive offerings and recognition). Further, Cyrus took the bold step of ending "state slavery".^{[citation needed]} These reforms are reflected in the famous Cyrus Cylinder and Biblical books of Chronicles and Ezra, which state that Cyrus released the Israelites from slavery and granted them permission to return to the Land of Israel.

• 539 BCE. Cyrus allowed Sheshbazzar, a prince from the tribe of Judah, and Zerubbabel, to bring the Jews from Babylon back to Jerusalem. Jews were allowed to return with the Temple vessels that the Babylonians had taken. Construction of the Second Temple began.^[40][41] See also Ezra 1 in Biblical Hebrew, Ezra 6:3 in Biblical Aramaic, Isa 44:24-45:4.
• 520-516 BCE. Under the spiritual leadership of the Prophets Haggai and Zechariah, the Second Temple was completed. At this time the Holy Land is a subdistrict of a Persian satrapy (province) known as Yehud.
• c. 450 - 419 BCE Elephantine papyri of Jewish military colony in Egypt demonstrate in letters to the temple at Jerusalem that at this time some Jews were polytheistic, as letters specify that Yahweh was considered to have Anat as his consort.^[42]
• 444 BCE. The reformation of Israel was led by the Jewish scribes Nehemiah (Neh 1-6) and Ezra (Neh 8). Ezra instituted synagogue and prayer services, and canonized the Torah by reading it publicly to the Great Assembly that he set up in Jerusalem. Ezra and Nehemiah flourished around this era. ^[43] (This was contemporary with the Classical period of Ancient Greece)
• 428 BCE Samaritans build their temple on Mount Gerizim

• 331 BCE. The Persian Empire was defeated by Alexander the Great. The Empire of Alexander the Great included Israel. However, it is said that he did not attack Jerusalem directly, after a delegation of Jews met him and assured him of their loyalty by showing him certain prophecies contained in their writings.
• 323 BCE. Alexander the Great died. In the power struggle after Alexander's death, the part of his empire that included Israel changed hands at least five times in just over twenty years. Babylonia and Syria were ruled by the Seleucids, and Egypt by the Ptolemies.
• 281-246 BCE Ptolemy II Philadelphus: also ruled Israel, Septuagint translation begun in Alexandria, beginning of the Pharisees party, and other Jewish Second Temple sects such as the Sadducees and Essenes. ^[44]
• 174-163 BCE Antiochus IV Epiphanes: attempted complete Hellenization of the Jews, see also 1 Maccabees.

• 168-142 BCE. The Maccabee Rebellion, Hanukkah and the Hasmonean Kingdom (164-63) ^[45]
• 160-60 BCE Somewhere around this time, the community at Qumran began, from whom came the Dead Sea Scrolls.
• 134-104 BCE John Hyrcanus, Ethnarch & High Priest of Jerusalem, "Age of Expansion", annexed Trans-Jordan, Samaria, Galilee, Idumea. Forced Idumeans to convert to Judaism, hired non-Jewish mercenaries, etc.

• 63 BCE Pompey conquered Jerusalem and the region and made it a client kingdom of Rome
• 57-55 BCE Aulus Gabinius, proconsul of Syria, split Hasmonean Kingdom into Galilee, Samaria & Judea with 5 districts of Sanhedrin/Synedrion (councils of law)^[46]
• 40-39 BCE Herod the Great appointed King of the Jews by the Roman Senate^[47]
• Circa 4 BCE Jesus and John the Baptist are born
• 4 BCE-39 CE Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee & Perea
• 6 CE Herod Archelaus, ethnarch of Judea, deposed by Augustus; Samaria, Judea and Idumea annexed as Iudaea Province under direct Roman administration^[48], capital at Caesarea, Quirinius became Legate (Governor) of Syria, conducted first Roman tax census of Iudaea, opposed by Zealots^[49]
• 7-26 CE Brief period of peace, relatively free of revolt and bloodshed in Iudaea & Galilee^[50]
• 9 CE Pharisee leader Hillel the Elder dies, temporary rise of Shammai
• 18-36 CE Caiaphas, appointed High Priest of Herod's Temple by Prefect Valerius Gratus, deposed by Syrian Legate Vitellius
• 26-36 CE Pontius Pilate, governor of the Roman province of Iudaea, John the Baptist beheaded and Jesus crucified during his rule, also deposed by Vitellius^[51]
• 37-41 CE Crisis under Caligula^[52]
• 41-44 CE Herod Agrippa I appointed "King of the Jews" by Claudius
• 48-100 CE Herod Agrippa II appointed "King of the Jews" by Claudius, seventh and last of the Herodians

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

In 69, Vespasian seized the throne after a civil war. By 70, the Romans had occupied Jerusalem. Titus, son of the Roman Emperor, destroyed the Second Temple on the 9th of Av, ie. Tisha B'Av (656 years to the day after the destruction of the First Temple in 587 BCE). Over 100,000 Jews died during the siege, and nearly 100,000 were taken to Rome as slaves. Many Jews fled to Mesopotamia (Iraq), and to other countries around the Mediterranean. In 73 the last Jewish resistance was crushed by Rome at the mountain fortress of Masada; the last 900 defenders committed suicide rather than be captured and sold into slavery.

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai escaped from Jerusalem. He obtained permission from the Roman general to establish a center of Jewish learning and the seat of the Sanhedrin in the outlying town of Yavneh (see Council of Jamnia). This is generally considered the beginning of Rabbinic Judaism, the period when the Halakha became formalized. Some believe that the Jewish canon was determined during this time period, but this theory has been largely discredited, see also Biblical canon. Judaism survived the destruction of Jerusalem through this new center. The Sanhedrin became the supreme religious, political and judicial body for Jews worldwide until 425, when it was forcibly disbanded by the Roman government, by then officially dominated by the Christian Church.

In 132 the Bar Kokhba's Revolt began led by Simon bar Kokhba and an independent state in Israel was declared. By 135 this revolt was crushed by Rome. The Romans, seeking to suppress the names "Judaea" and "Jerusalem", reorganized it as part of the province of Syria-Palestine.

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