Meteoric iron was known in predynastic Egypt, and was used for tools and weapons in the third millennium BC. In the fourteenth century BC iron was extensively used for weapons. After the Hittite monopoly of iron was broken by the destruction of their empire c.1200 BC, iron replaced bronze for tools and weapons. By the tenth century BC iron was the principal metal for plough-tips and sickles, as well as for weapons.
Israelites: The Conquest (c.1250-c.1200 BC)
Biblical tradition traces the Israelites back to a group of nomads led by the first patriarch (‘clan ruler’) Abraham. Born in Mesopotamia, Abraham rejected the polytheistic worship of those around him and came to believe in one God (monotheism). Abraham moved from Mesopotamia to Canaan because he believed that God had told him to do so.
Abraham had two sons: Ishmael, who became the father of the Arab people, and Isaac. Isaac married Rebecca, who gave birth to twins: Esau and Jacob. Esau became the ancestor of the Edomites; and Jacob fathered twelve sons who became the ancestors of the twelve tribes.
A famine forced Jacob and his family to migrate to Egypt in search of food. Eventually a pharaoh came to power who reduced the Hebrews to slavery. God commanded Moses – who, although a Hebrew himself, had grown up in the pharaoh’s court – to lead the people out of Egypt and back to Canaan.
After three months the people reached a mountain in the wilderness of Sinai. Moses ascended to the top of the mountain and received the Ten Commandments from God. The people set out again and eventually came to a place called Kadesh-barnea in the southwestern Negev.
After Moses’ death, Joshua assumed leadership and began preparations for an invasion of western Palestine. Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River into Canaan and laid siege to the city of Jericho. When the people marched around the walls of Jericho seven times, the walls collapsed and the city was captured. With subsequent victories at Ai, Debir, Eglon, Gibeon, Hazor, Hebron, Lachish and Libnah, virtually the whole land fell into their hands.
Few, if any, of the details of this account can be verified by other sources. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Joshua are not mentioned in any non-biblical records. Nor is there any reference to an Israelite sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus, or the conquest of Palestine in any ancient source contemporary with the period when these events are said to have occurred.
The Book of Exodus tells us that the Israelites built the cities of Pithom (=Per Atum) and Raames (=Pi Rameses), which is the time of Rameses II (c.85; r.c.1279-c.1213 BC). Not surprisingly, the Egyptian sources are silent about the exodus of the Israelites. Merneptah (r.c.1213-c.1203 BC) mentions the Israelites as already living in Canaan. Except for the Merneptah inscription there is no mention of Israel or the Israelites in non-biblical sources before the ninth century BC. Attempts to link the Habiru (a homeless people) to the Hebrews have been unsuccessful, but some of the Habiru may have been Hebrews and some Hebrews may have been Habiru.
It is argued that the early books of the Bible, written centuries after the events described, preserve only what the Israelites came to believe about themselves, and that archaeological evidence often contradicts the details of the biblical account; it is even argued that the Israelites were not nomadic invaders but indigenous peoples in the Palestinian hills. It is generally agreed, however, that c.1200 BC the Israelites emerged as a distinct group of people.
Judges (c.1200-c.1020 BC)
The books of Joshua and the Judges give different versions of the story of Israel’s settlement in Canaan. Joshua describes a swift and almost total conquest of Canaan by all the people acting together, followed by the division of the land between the twelve tribes. Judges, however, says that the land was allotted first, and only later after the death of Joshua was it conquered by local tribal chieftains or warlords (judges) leading isolated campaigns to free the Israelites from recurrent oppression by the local people.
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