I'm taking a long term look at one of the most contended patches of land....Israel.

I'm going to try to get to the bottom of who was where and when...and more importantly why.

The roots of the Abrahamic religions sprout from that neck of the woods, even though TT's statement "All religions are Pharoic in origin." is perhaps the most telling one. I'm still going to try to make sense of it all.

I'll start here....The Carmel caves and work on from there.

Feel free to add comments and brief paragraphs that might point me onwards.

May 15th, 1948.....Israel Lives!!

Well i believe Palestine should be MUSLIM, since The Byzantines had it before the Muslims. (Who conquered the land). As i posted somewhere the switching of land. Roman - Byzantine (A.K.A Greco-Romano) then Muslim.

Fine, but I'm looking at the whole history of that area....errrr...and Palestine IS muslim as far as I know.




Yes I'm aware of that date, and so was my father when they tried to kill him for being there. I'll be quite a while reaching 1948 I suspect.

How about we leave Half of it Muslim and Half Jewish?

I am well aware that Jews killed British servicemen. I used to work with a man in the mid 1980s who 40 years before was on duty in the King David Hotel when the Irgun blew it up. This man was dug out of the wreckage. Of course, I do not condone the Irgun but the fact remains that Israel coming back into existence was a direct fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy (read the last verse of Amos).

let me see:
1700 BC, after deporting his Son from an Egyptian woman (which become father of the arab nations),
Abraham is prepared to secrefice Isaac, and when his wife Sara find out, she dies immidiatly.
Abraham buys a burial plot in Israel, setting first permanent foothold in Israel(which, unlike agriculture land, can't be sold). this is, though, after Aberaham had land in Israel for some decades.
1523 BC ,Jacob leave Israel for Egypt.
1300 BC, leaving Egypt,
450 BC, after 857 of ruling all of Israel, there is deportation to babylon.
70 years later, after Babylon is taken over by the Persia, jews return to Israel
70 AD, 450 years later, romans take over Israel fully, destroy the temple , and start deporting the jews.
1948AD and on, Israel is reestablished.

Arab rule over Israel:
380 BC, when Jews go back to Israel, a pagan arab king claimed the land. amounting less then 70 years in parts of Israel.
631AD, the muslims take over Israel.
1921AD Britain take over Israel. if we ignore the Crusaders rule over Israel, since it was partial rule, we get 1290 years.

total Jewish rule of Israel: 200+ 850+450+60 = 1560 years, in all of which, Israel is our only land, under which it florish, as homeowners, who invest in their home.
total Arab rule over Israel: 70+1290 = 1360 years, in all of which, Israel is just another teritory, not even getting the status of a province, as it is kept in such low conditions, as an occupier exploiting taken land.

summing it, the jewish rule is longer, it is exclusive - not just a trophy, and it is the current status.

The Byzantines were Christians.

Thank you. Thats a base of dates I can work with, excuse me if I don't follow your dateline as true, it's not me calling you wrong, just that I'm aware the official history of the UK sometimes does not match what really seems to be our history. I'm assuming the same is true elswhere.

(ps. This thread is not a Israel bash, I'm genuinely interested in the history of that area.)

not a problem.

regarding the validity of the data:
- the Abrahamic ruling period over Israel indeed has only one source that I know about,
- the 1st temple period can be counted in the bible, it was also counted in 50 year periods(Yovel), which was very significant in religious worship, and there is Egyptian evidence that in ~1200BC Israeli tribes were already settled. the destruction of Judea is also documented, in babilonian records
- the 2nd temple started in known historical period, when Persia took over the Babylonian empire, and gave religious freedom (naming it Yehud province), has the Greek and Roman documentation, and it's ending point is also known and documented.

of course it's not about bashing, it's about learning history.

Thank you ae21, those links are brilliant. It’s going to take some time for the datelines to be fixed in my mind though. Dam it’s good to have a source on the spot in that area.

All this has come about from a simplified map in a book I own. Gwnne Dyer ~ War. (It’s the history of war as an institution) and it shows the migration of people between 2000-700BC, which is a pretty big chunk of history,
It shows The Armenians crossing the Tigris and Euphrates from the east, the Semites moving up from the south, and the Philistines (where you are) moving into Egypt (presumably fleeing), because the Sea Peoples of Thracia are making inroads on your area too from the Mediterranean.
A busy period.

The Merneptah Stele was a great help, I’d not heard of it before. It seems to indicate that Isir/Israel was a nomadic or semi nomadic existence then, which seems to fit my map, they’d be unable to stand against organised armies, and the safety(?) of Egypt would be a good bet.

Would they have had to submit to slave status in Egypt I wonder?

I may have been right in that speculation, I'm bumping into more and more refrences that back that up.

There's supposed to be not much written about the Israel population in Egypt - I've a speculation about that too.

This snippet was of interest though.

"The Hebrews who entered Egypt in the time of Jacob and Joseph became Israelites through their common heritage as they endured their prolonged slavery under the pharaohs. When they finally settled in the Promised Land, other groups with similar ethnic origins and status to the Israelites were already populating the more barren parts of the Levant. These stateless peoples had remained 'wanderers' and were therefore true Habiru/Hebrews, whereas their ancestral kin, the Israelites, regarded themselves as a distinctive entity - 'the chosen people'."
- David M. Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible from Myth to History (1995), p. 209

They entered knowing they'd have to become slaves?

[Edit] This is turning out to be fun. Who said history is boring?

well, the question is, what is the basis of information.
from the Merneptah Stele we see that the reference to Israel is as a known nation, and not a city, or nation-state. it also use this particular victory to glorify Egypt, which is strange if we are talking of a small nomadic tribe living in faraway Israel. but if the bible story is true, this match perfectly.

the word used in the stele: isir, has intresting trunslation - strait (when Israel is strait-God, meaning strait in the eyes of God ). again, this is how the Egyptions call them. if we look at the name Hebrew, we find similar meaning - "other side", but here there can be a confusion with the word Heber (band), for example Heber-Kini - the group of kin.

the roaming into Egypt is said to be due to heavy drout. it is common for semi-nomadic people to cross boarders even today - wherever you can heard your sheep, you go.

as for enslavement, the bible talk of a "new king who didn't know Israel", which can be due to the an invasion that took place beforehand.
the bible also claim that there was no orgenized kingdom and army for a long time, until shaul kingdom, which explain the Stele: the Egyptions came, won every army they found, and destroied the cities, but since the Israeli army was ad-hoc, it didn't lead to dispursement, since any later attacker would have found similar resistance. also, when attacking semi-nomadic nation, it is hard to destroy infrastructure. it can be done by Salting the land, but it is prohibitivy expensive, and as I know, only the Romans did this.

Wherever possible I'm looking for refrences that confirm each other, though I know the internet can not be wholy trusted, it's really my only source aside from you.


For now I'm going to dipute the Israel as a nation.

[wikipedia]Israel is wasted, its seed is no longer.Israel is wasted, its seed is no longer.

As the stela mentions just one line about Israel, it is difficult for scholars to draw a substantial amount of information about what "Israel" means in this stela. The stela does make clear that Israel, at this stage, refers to a people since a hieroglyphic determinative for "country" is absent regarding Israel.

I prefer tribe or clan.

I'll still lay good odds on a generalised fleeing invaders. But yes, Israel at that time were (it seems) nomadic. (and they'd have been goats not sheep, sheep as a species are entirely man made of recent history -or at least that's what I was taught at school. Minor point. Ignore it.


I'm -at this point- loathe to use the bible as a refrence. I don't trust the King James version one iota. Finding the real things that happened, then seeing how that stacks against the bible is a better way. I am finding that there are paralels though

Ae21.
How does this stack up as a source?

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsourc...ory/hebpat.html

Here's the map that started me thinking.

wool making sheep are with us from before Abraham time.



or, as other scolars think - the contrary: since all other places, the "country" and "nation" hieroglyphs were used correctly, and here only "nation" is used, suggesting this was a known nation.
I'm talking of the hebrew bible source - not the king Games transalation, or any other.
this source is suspected, like any documentation, but references and etymologies found are evidance and can't be ignored.

in the map you found, there is long time periods, and low attension to detail, which make it less meaningfull.
the semite migration starting 40th centuryBC
the philistines coming at around Exodus time from the mideterenian sea (the bible claim their origin to be an island), using two arrows.
and the Hitties invasion also reached all the way to Israel. started in 18th century BC.
but it's showing Global trends in a great way.

I tend to generalise, and pay more attention to trends, rather than absolute dates.


I've got a mental image of the ancient middle east of city states (varying size and power) with nomadic tribes such as the Israelites "filling in the gaps between cities".
It's a turbulent time. Might is right, and only well defended cities like Jehricho forming stable centers of 'civilisation'.

I'll keep digging now you've set me on the right roads. Thanks.

Searches for pre 1500bc Israel are fruitless so far. The best bet is the Israelites (or the group of people that will become Israelites) are part of the peoples that took control of Egypt for a while.
Until the Exodus, they just are not mentioned. Elswhere in the middle East, it's basically one thing after another. With empires waxing and waning, and land changing hands as often as armies could be mustered.

I'm concentrating on 1500bc and the Exodus.

There is a lot of contention about this event...Did they leave or were they pushed? Was Moses an Egyptian General who had fallen out of favor?

All good fun here.

I do know one thing though...you can stick what they taught me in sunday school in the orifice of your choice.

this is a problem with history - in some cases it help you find what happened, but in many cases, you get lost in a sea of theories, some of which extremely far fetched. no-one know what happened, so a theories means little, only documents evidence and cross-reference can be judged. some theories take vauge resemblance in names, and build huge towers on it.

we know that Egypt was attacked, but who did? the Egyptians called them sea people, one of which were the philistines, but most theories don't include the Israelites. one reason for that is that Raamses gave a list of nations, and they have no similarity to Israelites names, unless you ignore sound and spelling, add and substract silibuls, and get something you claim is proof.

there are other theories concerning people called Apiru/Hapiru/Habiru, some think that they are a nation that came from the area of Iran, some claim they took over Egypt, other think it was a term used to decribe a class - people who have no land or property. some think it's a name for desert pirates. some belive they have relation to the Israelites, but are not sure what the relation was - decendants, part of a group, or a false identification.

eventually either a theory has enough factual ground, or it remain vauge theory, and build a nice academic career for someone.
and in the end - variations of the bible story simply have more factual evidance then opposing theories, despite the huge funding they got.

You are 100% correct in thinking I'm getting swamped.

I've built up my own picture of what went on around then (just before the exodus). I'm going with the (what will become) Israelites, being part of a goup of peoples that took control of Egypt -or at least the Northern part- but were ousted by An Egyptian Pharoh trying to unite Egypt. I believe the Hebrews/Israelites were not yet a cohesive peoples. Only when the Exodus began and they united under one name and one deity did the peoples we have come to know as Israelites came into being.

I'm still sifting through tales of leprosy carrying pigs being a factor, and just who Moses actually was....also the one we call Moses was the first to introduce the current "God" by all accounts.