History of ancient Israel and Judah

rdf:langString History of ancient Israel and Judah

rdf:langString The history of ancient Israel and Judah begins in the Southern Levant during the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age. "Israel" as a people or tribal confederation (see Israelites) appears for the first time in the Merneptah Stele, an inscription from ancient Egypt that dates to about 1208 BCE. According to modern archaeology, ancient Israelite culture developed as an outgrowth from the Canaanites. Two related Israelite polities known as the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah had emerged in the region by Iron Age II. According to the Hebrew Bible, a "United Monarchy" (consisting of Israel and Judah) existed as early as the 11th century BCE, under the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon; the country later would have split into two separate kingdoms: Israel (containing the cities of Shechem and Samaria) in the north and Judah (containing Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple) in the south. The historicity of the United Monarchy is debated as there are no archaeological remains of it that are accepted as consensus, but historians and archaeologists agree that Israel and Judah existed as separate kingdoms by c. 900 BCE and c. 850 BCE, respectively. Archaeological remains during that time does however, include Shoshenq I of the 22nd Dynasty of Egypt invading the Levant around 930-925 BCE, conquering many cities and settlements. Unlike the United Monarchy, archaeological evidence of the conquest have been found in various sites in the Levant. However, the 22nd Dynasty did not directly annex the Levant following the conquest and brought the Levant back into Egyptian domination for unknown reasons. It was theorized by Israel Finkelstein that Shoshenq I invaded the Levant in order to prevent the formation of a unified state under the Israelites, thus forming the basis of the biblical story of Jeroboam's Revolt. The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed around 720 BCE, when it was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire. While the Kingdom of Judah remained intact during this time, it became a client state of first the Neo-Assyrian Empire and then the Neo-Babylonian Empire. However, Jewish revolts against the Babylonians led to the destruction of Judah in 586 BCE, under the rule of Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II. According to the biblical account, the armies of Nebuchadnezzar II besieged Jerusalem between 589–586 BCE, which led to the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the exile of the Jews to Babylon; this event was also recorded in the Babylonian Chronicles. The exilic period, which saw the development of the Israelite religion (Yahwism) towards the distinct monotheism of Judaism, ended with the fall of Babylon to the Achaemenid Persian Empire around 538 BCE. Subsequently, Persian king Cyrus the Great issued a proclamation known as the Edict of Cyrus, which authorized and encouraged exiled Jews to return to the Land of Israel. Cyrus' proclamation began the exiles' return to Zion, inaugurating the formative period in which a more distinctive Jewish identity was developed in the Persian province of Yehud. During this time, the destroyed Solomon's Temple was replaced by the Second Temple, marking the beginning of the Second Temple period. During the Hellenistic period, Yehud was absorbed into the Hellenistic kingdoms that followed the conquests of Alexander the Great. The 2nd century BCE saw a successful Jewish revolt against the Seleucid Empire and the subsequent formation of the Hasmonean kingdom—the last nominally independent kingdom of Israel. The Hasmonean kingdom gradually began to lose its independence from 63 BCE onwards, under Pompey the Great. It eventually became a client state of the Roman Republic and later of the Parthian Empire. Following the installation of client kingdoms under the Herodian dynasty, the Roman province of Judaea was wracked by civil disturbances, which culminated in the First Jewish–Roman War. The Jewish defeat by the Roman Empire in this conflict saw the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE as well as the emergence of Rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. The name Judaea (Iudaea) then ceased to be used by the Greco-Romans. After the Bar Kokhba revolt of 135 CE, the majority of Jews in the Levant were expelled, after which Judaea was renamed by the Romans to Syria Palaestina.