Israelites

The name of Israel first appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE. Modern archaeology suggests that the Israelites branched out from the Canaanites through the development of Yahwism, a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centred on the national god Yahweh. Because of this, they can be described as an ethnoreligious group. They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the Canaanite language, known today as Biblical Hebrew. In the Iron Age, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged. The Kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Samaria, fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE; while the Kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem, was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. Some of the Judean population was exiled to Babylon, but returned to Israel after Cyrus the Great conquered the region.

According to the Bible, the Israelites are the descendants of Jacob, a patriarch who was later renamed as Israel. Following a severe drought in Canaan, Jacob and his twelve sons fled to Egypt, where they eventually formed the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Israelites were later led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses and conquered Canaan under Joshua's leadership, who was Moses's successor. Most modern scholars agree that the Torah does not provide an authentic account of the Israelites' origins, and instead view it as constituting their national myth. However, it is supposed that there may be a "historical core" to the narrative. The Bible also portrays the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as the successors of an earlier United Kingdom of Israel, though the historicity of the latter is disputed.

Jews and Samaritans both trace their ancestry to the ancient Israelites. Jews trace their ancestry to tribes that inhabited the Kingdom of Judah, including Judah, Benjamin and partially Levi, while the Samaritans claim their lineage from the remaining members of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Levi who were not deported in the Assyrian captivity after the fall of Israel. Other groups have also claimed affiliation with the Israelites.

The first reference to Israel in non-biblical sources is found in the Merneptah Stele in c. 1209 BCE. The inscription is very brief and says: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not". The inscription refers to a people, not an individual or nation state, who are located in central Palestine or the highlands of Samaria. Some Egyptologists suggest that Israel appeared in earlier topographical reliefs, dating to the Nineteenth Dynasty (i.e. reign of Ramesses II) or the Eighteenth Dynasty, but this reading remains controversial.

In the Hebrew Bible, Israel first appears in Genesis 32:29, where an angel gives the name to Jacob after the latter fought with him. The folk etymology given in the text derives Israel from yisra, "to prevail over" or "to struggle with", and El, a Canaanite-Mesopotamian creator god that is tenuously identified with Yahweh. However, modern scholarship interprets El as the subject, "El rules/struggles", from sarar (שָׂרַר) 'to rule' (cognate with sar (שַׂר) 'ruler', Akkadian šarru 'ruler, king'), which is likely cognate with the similar root sara (שׂרה) "fought, strove, contended".

Afterwards, Israel referred to the direct descendants of Jacob and gentiles who assimilated in the Israelite community. Hebrew is a similar ethnonym but it is usually applied whenever Israelites are economically disadvantaged or migrants. It might also refer to their descent from Eber, the grandson of Noah.

During the period of the divided monarchy, "Israelites" referred to the inhabitants of the northern Kingdom of Israel, but eventually, included the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah in post-exilic usage.

In literature of the Second Temple period, "Israel" included the members of the united monarchy, the northern kingdom, and eschatological Israel. "Jew" (or "Judean") was another popular ethnonym but it might refer to a geographically restricted sub-group or to the inhabitants of the southern kingdom of Judah. In addition, works such as Ezra-Nehemiah pioneered the idea of an "impermeable" distinction between Israel and gentiles, on a genealogical basis. Other scholars argue that the distinction is based on religion.

In Judaism, "Israelite", broadly speaking, refers to a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious group, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites. In legal texts, such as the Mishnah and Gemara, ישראלי (Yisraeli), or Israelite, is used to describe Jews instead of יהודי (Yehudi), or Jew. In Samaritanism, Samaritans are not Jews יהודים (Yehudim). Instead, they are Israelites, which includes their Jewish brethren, or Israelite Samaritans.^{[full citation needed]}

 

The history of the Israelite people can be divided into these categories, according to the Hebrew Bible:

Pre-Monarchic Period (unknown to c. 1050 BCE)
The Israelites were named after their ancestor, Jacob/Israel, who was the grandson of Abraham. They were organized into 12 tribes: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph (or Tribe of Ephraim and Tribe of Manasseh) and Benjamin. Originally, they went to Egypt after a famine in Canaan but were enslaved by the Egyptians. They escaped and organized themselves as a kritarchy, where they followed laws given by Moses. Afterwards, the Israelites conquered Canaan and fought with several neighbors until they established a monarchic state.
• This period is covered by Genesis 12 to 1 Samuel 8.

United Monarchy (c. 1050–930 BCE)
As a monarchic state, the Israelite tribes were united by the leadership of Saul, David and Solomon. The reigns of Saul and David were marked by military victories and Israel's transition to a mini-empire with vassal states. Solomon's reign was relatively more peaceful and oversaw the construction of the First Temple, with the help of Phoenician allies. This Temple was where the Ark of the Covenant was stored; its former location was the City of David.
• This period is covered by 1 Samuel 8 to 1 Kings 11 or alternatively, 1 Chronicles 10 to 2 Chronicles 9.

Divided Monarchy (c. 930–597 BCE)

 

The monarchic state was divided into two states, Israel and Judah, due to civil and religious disputes. Eventually, Israel and Judah met their demise after the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions respectively. According to the Biblical prophets, these invasions were divine judgments for religious apostasy and corrupt leadership.

• This period is covered by 1 Kings 12 to 2 Kings 25 or alternatively, 2 Chronicles 10 to 2 Chronicles 36. The Book of Jonah narrates the prophet Jonah going to the Neo-Assyrian Empire to deliver a divine message.

Exilic Period (c. 597–538 BCE)

 

After the Babylonians invaded Judah, they deported most of its citizens to Babylon, where they lived as "exiles". Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and established the First Persian Empire in 539 BCE. One year later, according to traditional dating, Cyrus permitted the Judahites to return to their homeland. This homeland was re-named as the Province of Yehud, which eventually became a satrapy of Eber-Nari.

• This period is covered by the entirety of the Book of Daniel.

Persian Period (c. 539–331 BCE)
In 537–520 BCE, Zerubbabel became Yehud's governor and started work on the Second Temple, which was stopped. In 520–516 BCE, Haggai and Zechariah goaded the Judahites to resume work on the Temple. Upon completion, Joshua became its high priest. In 458–433 BCE, Ezra and Nehemiah led another group of Judahites to Yehud, with Artaxerxes's permission. Nehemiah rebuilt the temple after some unspecified disaster and removed foreign influence from the Judahite community. That said, some Judahites elected to stay in Persia, where they almost faced annihilation.
• This period is covered by the entirety of the Book of Ezra, Book of Nehemiah, the Book of Esther, the Book of Haggai, the Book of Zechariah, and the Book of Malachi.

 

Efforts to confirm the biblical ethnogenesis of Israel through archaeology has largely been abandoned as unproductive. Many scholars see the traditional narratives as national myths with little historical value, but some posit that a small group of exiled Egyptians contributed to the Exodus narrative. William G. Dever cautiously identifies this group with the Tribe of Joseph, while Richard Elliott Friedman identifies it with the Tribe of Levi. Josephus quoting Manetho identifies them with the Hyksos. Other scholars believe that the Exodus narrative was a "collective memory" of several events from the Bronze Age.

In addition, it is unlikely that the Israelites overtook southern Levant by force, according to archaeological evidence. Instead, they branched out of indigenous Canaanite peoples that long inhabited the region, which included Syria, ancient Israel, and the Transjordan region. Their culture was monolatristic, with a primary focus on Yahweh (or El) worship, but after the Babylonian exile, it became monotheistic, with partial influence from Zoroastrianism. The latter decisively separated the Israelites from other Canaanites The Israelites used a Canaanite script known as Biblical Hebrew. The script's modern descendant Hebrew is today the only surviving dialect of the Canaanite languages.

Origins

 

Several theories exist for the origins of historical Israelites. Some believe they descended from raiding groups, itinerant nomads such as Habiru and Shasu or impoverished Canaanites, who were forced to leave wealthy urban areas and live in the highlands. The prevailing academic opinion is that the Israelites were a mixture of peoples predominately indigenous to Canaan, with additional input from an Egyptian matrix of peoples, which most likely inspired the Exodus narrative. Israel's demographics were similar to the demographics of Ammon, Edom, Moab and Phoenicia.^{[page needed]}

Besides their focus on Yahweh worship, Israelite cultural markers were defined by body, food and time. This included male circumcision, avoidance of pork consumption and marking time based on the Exodus, the reigns of Israelite kings, Sabbath observance etc. The first two markers were observed by neighboring west Semites besides the Philistines, who were of Mycenaean Greek origin. As a result, intermarriage with other Semites was common.

 

Genealogy was another factor that differentiated the Israelites. It was a matter of cultural self-identity rather than biological descent. For example, foreign clans could adopt the identity of other clans, which subsequently changed their status from "outsider" to "insider". This applied to Israelites from different tribes and gentiles. Saul Oylan argued that foreigners automatically became Israelite if they lived in their territory, according to Ezekiel 47:21–23. That said, Israelites used genealogy to engage in narcissism of small differences but also, self-criticism since their ancestors included morally questionable characters such as Jacob. Both these traits represented the "complexities of the Jewish soul".

In terms of appearance, the Hebrew Bible records figures, such as David, Esau and the lovers in the Song of Songs, as being "ruddy", "white and ruddy" and "clear as the moon", which aligned with descriptions of Levantine phenotypes in ancient Egyptian and Greek sources. Rabbis, on the other hand, described the Biblical Jews as being "midway between black and white" and having the "color of the boxwood tree".

Israelite men, like other western Semites, have full, round beards according to Egyptian and Assyrian inscriptions. In contrast, their neighbors, such as Babylonians and Egyptians, have long beards and chin tufts respectively but this was an upper-class custom. Joseph's act of shaving (Genesis 41:14) was thought to resemble the Egyptian custom. Merneptah's Karnak reliefs indicate that the early Israelites dressed like other Canaanites, in terms of attire and hairstyle, compared to other groups like the Shasu.

Early Israelite settlements

In the 12th century BCE, many Israelite settlements appeared in the central hill country of Canaan, which was formerly an open terrain. These settlements lacked evidence of pork consumption, compared to Philistine settlements, have four-room houses and lived by an egalitarian ethos, which was exemplified by the absence of elaborate tombs, governor's mansions, certain houses being bigger than others etc. They followed a mixed economy, which prioritized self-sufficiency, cultivation of crops, animal husbandry and small-scale craft production. New technologies such as terraced farming, silos for grain storage and cisterns for rainwater collection were simultaneously introduced.

These settlements were built by inhabitants of the "general Southland" (i.e. modern Sinai and the southern parts of Israel and Jordan), who abandoned their pastoral-nomadic ways. Canaanites who lived outside the central hill country were tenuously identified as Danites, Asherites, Zebulunites, Issacharites, Naphtalites and Gadites. These inhabitants do not have a significant history of migration besides the Danites, who allegedly originate from the Sea Peoples, particularly the Dan(an)u. Nonetheless, they intermingled with the former nomads, due to socioeconomic and military factors. Their interest in Yahwism and its concern for the underprivileged was another factor. Possible allusions to this historical reality in the Hebrew Bible include the aforementioned tribes, except for Issachar and Zebulun, descending from Bilhah and Zilpah, who were viewed as "secondary additions" to Israel.

El worship was central to early Israelite culture but currently, the number of El worshippers in Israel is unknown. It is more likely that different Israelite locales held different views about El and had 'small-scale' sacred spaces.

Monarchic period

United Monarchy

 

The historicity of the United Monarchy is heavily debated among archaeologists and biblical scholars: biblical maximalists and centrists (Kenneth Kitchen, William G. Dever, Amihai Mazar, Baruch Halpern and others) argue that the biblical account is more or less accurate, biblical minimalists (Israel Finkelstein, Ze'ev Herzog, Thomas L. Thompson and others) argue that Israel and Judah were always independent states. An intermediate view is that Judah was a 'vassal-like' state to Israel, under the Omrides. The debate has not been resolved but recent archaeological discoveries by Eilat Mazar and Yosef Garfinkel show some support for the existence of the United Monarchy.

From 850 BCE onwards, a series of inscriptions mention the "House of David". They came from Israel's neighbors.

Kingdoms of Israel and Judah

 

Compared to the United Monarchy, the historicity of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah is widely accepted by historians and archaeologists.^{: 169–195} Their destruction by the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively is also confirmed by archaeological evidence and extrabiblical sources.^: 306 Christian Frevel argues that Yahwism was rooted in the culture of the Kingdom of Israel, who introduced it to the Kingdom of Judah via Ahab's expansions and sociopolitical cooperation, which was prompted by Hazael's conquests.

Later history

The Cyrus Cylinder is controversially cited as evidence for Cyrus allowing the Judeans to return to Yehud. The returnees showed a "heightened sense" of their ethnic identity and shunned exogamy, which was treated as a "permissive reality" in Babylon. Circumcision was no longer a significant ethnic marker, with increased emphasis on genealogical descent or faith in Yahweh.

Exiled non-Judean Israelites were not given the same treatment and assimilated with the local Assyrian population. They were a minority, with the majority remaining in Israel. Contrary to Jewish tradition, the latter were progenitors of the Samaritans, who followed Samaritanism. Only some of the population intermarried with Assyrian settler-colonists, according to genetic and archaeological evidence. In their native Samaritan Hebrew, the Samaritans identify as "Israel", "B'nai Israel" or "Shamerim/Shomerim" (i.e. "Guardians/Keepers/Watchers").

Judeans were progenitors of the Jews, who followed Second Temple Judaism. Their religion, particularly the Pharisaical variant, was influenced by Idumeans (or Edomites), who were a significant demographic during the Hasmonean era. They assimilated and intermingled with their neighbours, the Judeans, and later founded the Herodian dynasty, who shaped Judea, Jerusalem and the Second Temple. Some scholars argue that Jews also engaged in active missionary efforts in the Greco-Roman world, which led to conversions. Several scholars, such as Scot McKnight and Martin Goodman, reject this view while holding that conversions occasionally occurred.

Despite their differences, Jews and Samaritans share a connection with the biblical Land of Israel,. Other groups claim continuity with the Israelites, including Pashtuns, British, Black Hebrew Israelites, Mormons, and evangelical Christians that subscribe to covenant theology. Some argue that Palestinians descend from Israelites who were not exiled by the Romans.

 

A 2004 study (by Shen et al.) comparing Samaritans to several Jewish populations (including Ashkenazi Jews, Iraqi Jews, Libyan Jews, Moroccan Jews, and Yemenite Jews) found that "the principal components analysis suggested a common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish patrilineages. Most of the former may be traced back to a common ancestor in what is today identified as the paternally inherited Israelite high priesthood (Cohanim), with a common ancestor projected to the time of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel."

A 2020 study (by Agranat-Tamr et al.) stated that there was genetic continuity between Bronze Age and Iron Age southern Levantines, which included the Israelites and Judahites. These southern Levantines could be "modeled as a mixture of local earlier Neolithic populations and populations from the northeastern part of the Near East (e.g. Hurrians, Caucasians etc.)". Reasons for the continuity include resilience from the Bronze Age collapse, which was mostly true for inland cities such as Tel Megiddo and Tel Abel Beth Maacah. Elsewhere, Zagros/Caucasian-related inflow continued whilst European-related and East African-related components were added to the population, from a north-south and south-north gradient respectively.

• Demographic history of Palestine
• God-fearers
• Groups claiming affiliation with Israelites
• Hebrews
• Jacob in Islam
• Segmentary society
• Twelve Tribes of Israel
• Who is a Jew?