Discover the Forgotten History of Israel and Judah

Discover the Forgotten History of Israel and Judah

0:00 Biblical Legends
1:35 Exodus and the Emergence of Israel
5:45 The Kingdom of David and Solomon
8:20 The Temple of Solomon
10:16 Division
12:15 The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah
14:58 The Destruction of the Temple
18:15 The Babylonian Captivity and its Aftermath
20:42 The History of the Hebrews

There are few ancient historical traditions that have seeped so much into popular culture as have those of the Israelites. One doesn’t need to be Jewish or Christian to be well aware of the story of Moses and his parting of the Red Sea or of the supposed reign of wise King Solomon. The story of David and Goliath has become a common way of referring to someone going up against a much more powerful foe or daunting challenge and emerging victorious. They might seem like Biblical legends, but for the individuals who wrote them down in Judaea in the Levant between the sixth and first centuries BCE these were meant to be part of their history, a representation of their collective past.

Sources:


Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Stories (New York, 2001).

Zecharia Kallai, ‘Judah and Israel – A Study in Israelite Historiography’, in Israel Exploration Journal, Vol. 28, No. 4 (1978), pp. 251–261.

Nadav Na’aman, ‘Historical and Chronological Notes on the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah in the Eighth Century B.C.’, in Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 36, Fasc. 1 (January, 1986), pp. 71–92.

J. J. M. Roberts, ‘The Divided Monarchy’, in Susan Niditch (ed.), The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Ancient Israel (London, 2016), pp. 197–212.

Omer Sergi, ‘The Emergence of Judah as a Political Entity between Jerusalem and Benjamin’, in Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins, Bd. 133, H. 1 (2017), pp. 1–23.