Jewish history began about 4,000 years ago (c. 17th century BCE) with the patriarchs - Abraham, his son Isaac and grandson Jacob. Documents unearthed in Mesopotamia, dating back to 2000- 1500 BCE, corroborate aspects of their nomadic way of life as described in the Bible.
The Book of Genesis relates how Abraham was summoned from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan to bring about the formation of a people with belief in the One God. When a famine spread through Canaan, Jacob (Israel), his twelve sons and their families settled in Egypt, where their descendants were reduced to slavery and pressed into forced labor.
After 400 years of bondage, the Israelites were led to freedom by Moses who, according to the biblical narrative, was chosen by God to take his people out of Egypt and back to the Land of Israel promised to their forefathers (c. 13th-12th centuries BCE). They wandered for 40 years in the Sinai desert, where they were forged into a nation and received the Torah (Pentateuch), which included the Ten Commandments and gave form and content to their monotheistic faith.
The exodus from Egypt (c.1300 BCE) left an indelible imprint on the national memory of the Jewish people and became a universal symbol of liberty and freedom. Every year Jews celebrate Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost) and Succot (Feast of Tabernacles), commemorating events of that time.
During the next two centuries, the Israelites conquered most of the Land of Israel and relinquished their nomadic ways to become farmers and craftsmen; a degree of economic and social consolidation followed. Periods of relative peace alternated with times of war during which the people rallied behind leaders known as 'judges,' chosen for their political and military skills as well as for their leadership qualities. The weakness inherent in this tribal organization in face of a threat posed by the Philistines (sea-going people from Asia Minor who settled on the country's Mediterranean coast) generated the need for a ruler who would unite the tribes and make the position permanent, with succession carried on by inheritance.
In compiling the history of ancient Israel and Judah, there are many available sources, including the Jewish Tanakh (partially the Old Testament, it also consists of the book of the prophets, and the five books of Moses) and other Jewish texts such as the Talmud, the Ethiopian book of history known as the Kebra Nagast, the writings of historians such as Nicolaus of Damascus, Artapanas, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus, other writings, and archaeological evidence including Egyptian, Moabite, Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions.
Depending on their interpretation, some writers see these sources as being in conflict. See The Bible and history for several views as to how the sources are best reconciled. This is a controversial subject, with important implications in the fields of religion, politics and diplomacy.
This article from Wikipedia attempts to give a conservative scholarly view which would currently be supported by most historians. The precise dates and the precision by which they may be stated are subject to continuing discussion and challenge.
There are no biblical events whose precise year can be validated by external sources before the early 9th century BCE (The rise of Omri, King of Israel). Therefore all earlier dates are extrapolations.
Further, the Bible does not render itself very easily to these calculations: mostly it does not state any time period longer than a single life time and a historical line must be reconstructed by adding discrete quantities, a process that naturally introduces rounding errors. The accuracy in which dates are represented here reflects a maximalist view, namely one that believes in the historical accuracy of the core stories of the Bible.
Others, known as minimalists dispute that many of the events happened at all, making the dating of them moot: if the very existence of the united kingdom is in doubt, it is pointless to claim that it disintegrated in 922 BCE. However, many of the events from the 9th century onward do have corroborations; see for example Mesha Stele.
The Mousterian Neanderthals were the earliest inhabitants of the area known to archaeologists, and have been carbon-dated to c. 200,000 BCE. The first anatomically modern humans to live in the area were the Kebarans (conventionally c. 18,000 - 10,500 BCE, but recent paleoanthropological evidence suggests that Kebarans may have arrived as early as 75,000 BCE and shared the region with the Neanderthals for millennia before the latter died out). They were followed by the Natufian culture (c. 10,500 BCE - 8500 BCE), the Yarmukians (c. 8500 - 4300 BCE) and the Ghassulians (carbon dated c. 4300 - 3300 BCE). (Note that not one of these names appears in any classical sources, and were all devised as conventions in recent times by archaeologists, to refer to the lowest strata of remains.)
The Semitic culture followed on from the Ghassulians. People became urbanized and lived in city-states, one of which was Jericho. The area's location at the center of routes linking three continents made it the meeting place for religious and cultural influences from Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Asia Minor. It was also the natural battleground for the great powers of the region and subject to domination by adjacent empires, beginning with Egypt in the late 3rd millennium BCE.
Traditions regarding the early history found in later works such as the Kebra Nagast and commentaries of Rashi, Philo, and numerous others, (besides of course, the Tanakh) refer to the early inhabitants as the sons of Shem and also speak of an invasion by the people known as Canaanites descended from Ham.The Book of Jubilees states that the land was originally allotted to Shem and Arphaxad (ancestor of the Hebrews) when it was still vacant, but was wrongfully occupied by Canaan and his son Sidon. Jubilees makes this, then, the true justification for the later war to drive out the Canaanites.
The Kebra Nagast, however, speaks of the Canaanites invading existing cities of Shem and Ibn Ezra, similarly notes that they had seized land from earlier inhabitants. Rashi mentions that the Canaanites were seizing land from the sons of Shem in the days of Abraham.
The patriarchal period begins with Abraham. The Bible places the events surrounding Abraham (originally Abram) circa 1800 BCE, give or take 100 years. The account of his life is found in the Book of Genesis, beginning in Chapter 11, at the close of a genealogy of the sons of Shem (which includes among its members Eber, the eponym of the Hebrews).
His father Terah came from Ur Kasdim. His father moved his family, including his son Abram, from Ur Kasdim to the city of Haran.
Abram declared his belief in the One God, initiating the beginning of Judaism. Abraham married Sarai. He and his extended clan then moved to the land of Canaan. According the the Bible, God called Abram to go to "the land I will show you", and promised to bless him and make him (though hitherto childless) a great nation. Trusting this promise, Abram journeyed down to Shechem, then to a spot between Bethel and Ai. He then moved to the oaks of Mamre in Hebron.
The name Abraham was given to Abram (and the name Sarah to Sarai) at the same time as the covenant of circumcision (chapter 17), which is practiced in Judaism and Islam to this day. At this time Abraham was promised not only many descendants, but descendants through Sarah specifically, as well as the land where he was living, which was to belong to his descendants. The covenant was to be fulfilled through Isaac, though God promised that Ishmael would become a great nation as well.
Some modern historians dispute the historical accuracy of the patriarchal narratives in the Bible, and hold these events to be largely, or perhaps entirely, mythical. Others consider them to be largely historical, and presented in terms reflecting the understanding of the times.
Abraham's grandson Jacob was later renamed Israel, and according to the Biblical account, his twelve sons became the fathers of the twelve tribes of Israel
The narrative behind how the Israelites became slaves, or if they did at all, is still unclear. A few historians believe that this may have been due to the changing political conditions within Egypt. In 1600 BCE, Egypt was conquered by tribes, apparently Semitic, known as the Hyksos by the Egyptians. The Hyksos were later driven out by Kamose, the last king of the seventeenth dynasty. Between 1540-1070 BCE, Ahmose I founded the 18th Egyptian dynasty, and a new age for Egypt, the New Kingdom. Thutmose III established Egypt's empire in the western Near East. From then on, the chronology can only roughly be given in approximate dates for most events, until about the 7th century BCE.
The Hebrews migrated into Canaan circa 1200 BCE, a time when the great powers of the region were neutralized by troubles of various kinds. In their initial attacks under Joshua, the Hebrews occupied most of Canaan, which they settled according to traditional family lines derived from the sons of Jacob and Joseph (the "tribes" of Israel). No formal government existed and the people were led by ad hoc leaders (the "judges" of the biblical Book of Judges) in times of crisis. Around this time, the name "Israel" is first mentioned in a contemporary archaeological source, the Merneptah Stele.
1200 BCE. The Hittite empire of Anatolia was conquered by allied tribes from the west. The northern, coastal Canaanites (called the Phoenicians by the Greeks) may have been temporarily displaced, but returned when the invading tribes showed no inclination to settle.
Circa 1185 BCE the Sea People, as they were called by the Egyptians, swept across Asia Minor and the Mediterranean. They invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign, but were repelled. Amongst them were a group called the P-r-s-t (first recorded by the ancient Egyptians as P-r/l-s-t) generally identified with the Philistines. They appear in the Medinet Habu inscription of Ramses III, where he describes his victory against the Sea Peoples. Nineteenth-century Bible scholars identified the land of the Philistines (Philistia or Peleshet in Hebrew meaning "invaders") with Palastu and Pilista in Assyrian inscriptions, according to Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897).
The name is used in the Bible to denote the coastal region inhabited by the Philistines. The five principal Philistine cities were Gaza, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Ashkelon. Modern archaeology has suggested early cultural links with the Mycenean world in mainland Greece. Though the Philistines adopted local Canaanite culture and language before leaving any written texts, an Indo-European origin has been suggested for a handful of known Philistine words.
1140 BCE the Canaanite tribes tried to destroy the Israelite tribes of northern and central Canaan. According to the Bible, the Israelite response was led by Barak, and the Hebrew prophet Deborah. The Canaanites were defeated.
Increasing pressure from the Philistines and other neighboring tribes forced the Israelites to unite under one king. The notion of kingship was for a long time anathemetised, as it was seen as one man being put in a position of reverence and power that in their faith was reserved for the one true God. According to the Bible, it was Samuel, one of last of the judges, to whom the nation appealed for a king. Although he tried to disuade them, they were resolute and Samuel anointed Saul ben Kish from the tribe of Benjamin as the first king of the Israelites in approximately 1020 BCE. It was his successor, David c.1006 BCE, who was responsible for consolidating the monarchy and creating the first Hebrew state.
David waged several, successful military campaigns, annexing Philistia, Edom, Moab, Ammon, and parts of ancient Aram (roughly modern Syria) known as Aram-Zobah, and Aram-Damascus. Aram itself became a vassal state of Israel under David.Perhaps the most important event of David's reign was his capture of Jerusalem from the Canaanite Jebusites. By moving his capital from Hebron and making Jerusalem his capital, David ensured its lasting importance as a religious center.
David was succeeded by his son Solomon around 965 BCE. Solomon's reign was largely peaceful and the kingdom prospered, becoming an international power and a center of culture and trade. But maintaining his splendid court life and ambitious building projects, including the First Temple at Jerusalem, proved burdensome to his people. Some Hebrews were used as forced labor and territory was ceded to Tyre in return for supplying craftsmen and materials. He was criticized for tolerating the pagan religious practices of the many non-Hebrew wives he had acquired from diplomatic marriages.
However, on Solomon's death in c. 926 BCE tensions between the northern and southern tribes mounted. When Solomon successor Rehoboam dealt tactlessly with the economic complaints of the northern tribes the kingdom split in to halves: the kingdom of Israel in the north (including the cities of Shechem and Samaria), and the kingdom of Judah in the south (containing Jerusalem). Most of the non-Hebrew provinces fell away.
In 922 BCE, the Kingdom of Israel was divided. Judah, the southern Kingdom, had Jerusalem as its capital and was led by Rehoboam. It was populated by the tribes of Judah, Benjamin, and Simeon (and some of tribe of Levi). Simeon and Judah later merged, and Simeon lost its separate identity.
Jeroboam led the revolt of the northern tribes, and established the Kingdom of Israel, consisting of nine tribes: Zebulun, Issachar, Asher, Naphtali, Dan, Menasseh, Ephraim, Reuben and Gad (and some of Levi), with Samaria as its capital.
Israel fell to the Assyrians in 721 BCE; Judah fell to the Babylonians a little over a century later, in 597 BCE.
In 722 BCE, the Assyrians, under Shalmaneser, and then under Sargon, conquered Israel (the northern Kingdom), destroyed its capital Samaria, and sent many of the Israelites into exile and captivity. The ruling class of the northern kingdom (perhaps a small portion of the overall population) were deported to other lands in the Assyrian empire and a new nobility was imported by the Assyrians.
These two kings reversed Hezekiah's reforms and officially revived idolatry. According to later rabbinical accounts, Manasseh placed a grotesque, four-faced idol in the Holy of Holies.
In 63 BCE, Pompey conquered the region and made it a client kingdom of Rome. In 6 CE, Caesar Augustus made it a Roman province under a procurator.In 66, the Great Jewish Revolt broke out, lasting until 73.
In 67, Vespasian and his forces landed in the north of Israel, where they received the submission of Jews from Ptolemais to Sepphoris. The Jewish garrison at Jodeptah was massacred after a two month siege. By the end of this year, Jewish resistance in the north had been crushed.
In 69, Vespasian seized the throne after a civil war. By 70, the Romans had occupied Jerusalem. Titus, son of the Roman Emperor, destroyed the Second Temple on the 9th of Av, ie. Tisha B'Av (656 years to the day after the destruction of the First Temple in 587 BCE). Over 100,000 Jews died during the siege, and nearly 100,000 were taken to Rome as slaves. Many Jews fled to Mesopotamia (Iraq), and to other countries around the Mediterranean.
After 70 the Romans, seeking to suppress the name "Judaea", reorganized it as part of the province of Syria-Palestine. The Latin name, Palaestina, was chosen in honour of the Philistines, who had occupied the coastline much earlier. From then on the region was known as Palestine.
Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai escaped from Jerusalem. He obtained permission from the Roman general to establish a center of Jewish learning and the seat of the Sanhedrin in the outlying town of Yavneh. Judaism survived the destruction of Jerusalem through this new center. The Sanhedrin became the supreme religious, political and judicial body for Jews worldwide until 425 CE, when it was forcibly disbanded by the Roman government, by then officially dominated by the Christian Church.
In 73 the last Jewish resistance was crushed by Rome at the mountain fortress of Masada; the last defenders are thought to have committed suicide rather than be captured and sold into slavery.
200 BCE- 100 CE. At some point during this period the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible, Old Testament) was canonized.
ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF ALL FILES
CRYSTALINKS MAILING LIST, NEWSLETTER, UPDATES