History of Israel

Israel, also known as the Holy Land or Palestine, is the birthplace of the Jewish people, the place where the final form of the Hebrew Bible and Christianity. In the course of history, the region has come under the sway of various empires and, as a result, has historically hosted a wide variety of ethnic groups. Today it contains sites that are sacred to many Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, Islam, Druzism, and the Baháʼí Faith.

First known in the historical record as Canaan, the area became a hotbed of competing civilisations and cultures, including that of the Israelites, resulting in the emergence of the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel, Judah and Philistia. The region was subsequently invaded, conquered and administered to varying degrees by Assyria, Babylonia, Persia and Macedonian Greece. A brief era of independence under Hasmonean rule ended when the region was incorporated into the Roman Republic. With the advent and rise of Christianity and its adoption by the Greco-Roman world under the Roman Empire in the 4th century, Christians became a majority in the Levant until the Muslim conquest of the Levant in the 7th century. The region then saw the intermittent warfare of the Crusades and the Mongol invasion. From the 13th century, the region was part of the Mamluk Sultanate, and, from the 16th century, a province of the Ottoman Empire.

The late 19th century saw the widespread consolidation of a Jewish nationalist movement known as Zionism, as part of which ''aliyah'' (Jewish return to the Land of Israel from the diaspora) increased. During World War I, the Sinai and Palestine campaign of the Allies led to the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. Britain was granted control of the region by League of Nations mandate, in what became known as Mandatory Palestine. The British government publicly committed itself to the creation of a Jewish homeland. Arab nationalism opposed this design, asserting Arab rights over the former Ottoman territories and seeking to prevent Jewish migration. As a result, Arab–Jewish tensions grew in the succeeding decades of British administration.

In 1948, the Israeli Declaration of Independence sparked the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, which resulted in the 1948 Palestinian exodus and subsequently led to waves of Jewish emigration from other parts of the Middle East. Today, approximately 43 percent of the global Jewish population resides in Israel. In 1979, the Egypt–Israel peace treaty was signed, based on the Camp David Accords. In 1993, Israel signed the Oslo I Accord with the Palestine Liberation Organization, which was followed by the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority. In 1994, the Israel–Jordan peace treaty was signed. Despite efforts to finalize the peace agreement, the conflict continues to play a major role in Israeli and international political, social, and economic life.

Prehistory

The oldest evidence of early humans in the territory of modern Israel, dating to 1.5 million years ago, was found in Ubeidiya near the Sea of Galilee. Flint tool artefacts have been discovered at Yiron, the oldest stone tools found anywhere outside Africa. Other groups include 1.4 million years old Acheulean industry, the Bizat Ruhama group and Gesher Bnot Yaakov.

In the Mount Carmel area at el-Tabun, and Es Skhul, Neanderthal and early modern human remains were found, showing the longest stratigraphic record in the region, spanning 600,000 years of human activity, from the Lower Paleolithic to the present day, representing roughly a million years of human evolution. Other notable Paleolithic sites include caves Qesem and Manot. The oldest fossils of anatomically modern humans found outside Africa are the Skhul and Qafzeh hominids, who lived in northern Israel 120,000 years ago. Around 10th millennium BCE, the Natufian culture existed in the area.

Canaan (2000 - 1000 BCE)

The Canaanites are archaeologically attested in the Middle Bronze Age (2100–1550 BCE).Jonathan M Golde
''Ancient Canaan and Israel: An Introduction,''
OUP, 2009 pp. 3–4. There were probably independent or semi-independent city-states. Cities were often surrounded by massive earthworks, resulting in the archeological tells common in the region today. In the late Middle Bronze Age, the Nile Delta in Egypt was settled by Canaanites who maintained close connections with Canaan. During that period, the Hyksos, dynasties of Canaanite/Asiatic origin, ruled much of Lower Egypt before being overthrown in the 16th century BCE.

During the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), there were Canaanite vassal states paying tribute to the New Kingdom of Egypt, which governed from Gaza. In 1457 BCE, Egyptian forces under the command of Pharaoh Thutmose III defeated a rebellious coalition of Canaanite vassal states led by Kadesh's king at the Battle of Megiddo.

In the Late Bronze Age there was a period of civilizational collapse in the Middle East, Canaan fell into chaos, and Egyptian control ended. There is evidence that urban centers such as Hazor, Beit She'an, Megiddo, Ekron, Ashdod and Ashkelon were damaged or destroyed. Two groups appear at this time, and are associated with the transition to the Iron Age (they used iron weapons/tools which were better than earlier bronze): the Sea Peoples, particularly the Philistines, who migrated from the Aegean world and settled on the southern coast, and the Israelites, whose settlements dotted the highlands.

Ancient Israel (1200 - 550 BCE )

Early Israelites (Iron Age I)

The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel (as ') occurs in the Egyptian Merneptah Stele, erected for Pharaoh Merneptah (son of Ramesses II) c. 1209 BCE, which states "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not." Archeological evidence indicates that during the early Iron Age I, hundreds of small villages were established on the highlands of Canaan on both sides of the Jordan River, primarily in Samaria, north of Jerusalem. These villages had populations of up to 400, were largely self-sufficient and lived from herding, grain cultivation, and growing vines and olives with some economic interchange. The pottery was plain and undecorated. Writing was known and available for recording, even in small sites. William G. Dever sees this "Israel" in the central highlands as a cultural and probably political entity, more an ethnic group rather than an organized state.

Modern scholars believe that the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centred on a national god Yahweh. According to McNutt, "It is probably safe to assume that sometime during Iron Age I a population began to identify itself as 'Israelite'", differentiating itself from the Canaanites through such markers as the prohibition of intermarriage, an emphasis on family history and genealogy, and religion. Monotheism, the belief in a single all-powerful law-giving God, is thought to have evolved among the Israelites gradually, over the next few centuries, from a number of separate cults, leading to the first versions of the religion now known as Judaism.

The first grapheme-based writing originated in the area, probably among Canaanites resident in Egypt. This evolved into the Phoenician alphabet from which all modern alphabetical writing systems are descended. The Paleo-Hebrew alphabet was one of the earliest and evidence of its use exists from about 1000 BCE (see the Gezer calendar), while the language spoken was Biblical Hebrew.

Philistine cooking tools and the prevalence of pork in their diets, and locally made Mycenaean pottery—which later evolved into bichrome Philistine pottery—all support their foreign origin. Their cities were large and elaborate, which—together with the findings—point out to a complex, hierarchical society.

Israel and Judah (Iron Age II)

The Hebrew Bible, which included the territories of Judah and Israel, was founded in the late 11th century BCE by king Saul. Following Saul's death, David ascended to the throne, conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital, and enlarged the kingdom's borders to include neighboring kingdoms. After his death, Solomon inherited his empire and constructed the First Temple in Jerusalem. According to the biblical narrative, around 930 BCE, following the death of Solomon, the kingdom split into a southern Kingdom of Judah and a northern Kingdom of Israel.

Archeologists have debated whether the united monarchy ever existed,The debate is described in Amihai Mazar, "Archaeology and the Biblical Narrative: The Case of the United Monarchy" (see bibliography), p.29 fn.2: "For conservative approaches defining the United Monarchy as a state “from Dan to Beer Sheba” including “conquered kingdoms” (Ammon, Moab, Edom) and “spheres of influence” in Geshur and Hamath cf. e.g. Ahlström (1993), 455–542; Meyers (1998); Lemaire (1999); Masters (2001); Stager (2003); Rainey (2006), 159–168; Kitchen (1997); Millard (1997; 2008). For a total denial of the historicity of the United Monarchy cf. e.g. Davies (1992), 67–68; others suggested a ‘chiefdom’ comprising a small region around Jerusalem, cf. Knauf (1997), 81–85; Niemann (1997), 252–299 and Finkelstein (1999). For a ‘middle of the road’ approach suggesting a United Monarchy of larger territorial scope though smaller than the biblical description cf.e.g. Miller (1997); Halpern (2001), 229–262; Liverani (2005), 92–101. The latter recently suggested a state comprising the territories of Judah and Ephraim during the time of David, that was subsequently enlarged to include areas of northern Samaria and influence areas in the Galilee and Transjordan. Na’aman (1992; 1996) once accepted the basic biography of David as authentic and later rejected the United Monarchy as a state, cf. id. (2007), 401–402". but recent evidence suggests that a polity ruled by David and Solomon did exist. However this is not universally accepted and the extent of this rule is likely smaller than that suggested in the Bible.

Historians and archaeologists agree that the northern Kingdom of Israel existed by 900 BCE and the Kingdom of Judah existed by 850 BCE.The Pitcher Is Broken: Memorial Essays for Gosta W. Ahlstrom, Steven W. Holloway, Lowell K. Handy, Continuum, 1 May 1995
Quote: "For Israel, the description of the battle of Qarqar in the Kurkh Monolith of Shalmaneser III (mid-ninth century) and for Judah, a Tiglath-pileser III text mentioning (Jeho-) Ahaz of Judah (IIR67 = K. 3751), dated 734–733, are the earliest published to date."Finkelstein, Israel, (2020)
"Saul and Highlands of Benjamin Update: The Role of Jerusalem"
in Joachim J. Krause, Omer Sergi, and Kristin Weingart (eds.), ''Saul, Benjamin, and the Emergence of Monarchy in Israel: Biblical and Archaeological Perspectives'', SBL Press, Atlanta, GA, p. 48, footnote 57: "...They became territorial kingdoms later, Israel in the first half of the ninth century BCE and Judah in its second half..." The Kingdom of Israel was the more prosperous of the two kingdoms and soon developed into a regional power; during the days of the Omride dynasty, it controlled Samaria, Galilee, the upper Jordan Valley, the Sharon and large parts of the Transjordan. Samaria, the capital, was home to one of the largest Iron Age structures in the Levant. The Kingdom of Israel's capital moved between Shechem, Penuel and Tirzah before Omri settled it in Samaria, and the royal succession was often settled by a military coup d'état. The Kingdom of Judah was smaller but more stable; the Davidic dynasty ruled the kingdom for the four centuries of its existence, with the capital always in Jerusalem, controlling the Judaean Mountains, most of the Shephelah and the Beersheba valley in the northern Negev.

In 854 BCE, according to Assyrian records (the Kurkh Monoliths), an alliance between Ahab of Israel and Ben Hadad II of Aram-Damascus managed to repulse the incursions of the Assyrians, with a victory at the Battle of Qarqar. This is not reported in the Bible which describes conflict between Ahab and Ben Hadad. Another important discovery of the period is the Mesha Stele, a Moabite stele found in Dhiban, now in the Louvre. In the stele, Mesha, king of Moab, tells how Chemosh, the god of Moab, had been angry with his people and had allowed them to be subjugated to the Kingdom of Israel, but at length, Chemosh returned and assisted Mesha to throw off the yoke of Israel and restore the lands of Moab. It refers to Omri, king of Israel, to the god Yahweh, and may contain another early reference to the House of David. Jehu, son of Omri, is referenced by the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III.

Assyrian invasions

Tiglath-Pileser III of Assyria invaded Israel in around 732 BCE. The Kingdom of Israel fell to the Assyrians following a long siege of the capital Samaria around 720 BCE. The records of Sargon II of Assyria indicate that he captured Samaria and deported 27,290 inhabitants to Mesopotamia. It is likely that Shalmaneser captured the city since both the Babylonian Chronicles and the Hebrew Bible viewed the fall of Israel as the signature event of his reign. The Assyrian deportations became the basis for the Jewish idea of the Ten Lost Tribes. Foreign groups were settled by the Assyrians in the territories of the fallen kingdom. The Samaritans claim to be descended from Israelites of ancient Samaria who were not expelled by the Assyrians.

It is believed that refugees from the destruction of Israel moved to Judah, massively expanding Jerusalem and leading to construction of the Siloam Tunnel during the rule of King Hezekiah (ruled 715–686 BCE). The tunnel could provide water during a siege and its construction is described in the Bible. The Siloam inscription, a plaque written in Hebrew left by the construction team, was discovered in the tunnel in 1880s, and is today held by the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.
During Hezekiah's rule, Sennacherib, the son of Sargon, attempted but failed to capture Judah. Assyrian records say that Sennacherib levelled 46 walled cities and besieged Jerusalem, leaving after receiving extensive tribute. The Bible, which claims that an angel of God saved Jerusalem, destroying the Assyrian camp over-night, also refers to tribute, and suggests that Hezekiah was aided by Taharqa, king of Kush (now Sudan), in repulsing the Assyrians. The Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt were Nubian Pharaohs and they probably defeated the Assyrians. Sennacherib had a 12 meter by 5-metre frieze erected in his palace in Nineveh (now in Iraq) depicting his victory at Lachish, the second largest city of Judah.

The writings of four different "prophets" are believed to date from this period: Hosea and Amos in Israel and Micah and Isaiah of Judah. These men were mostly social critics who warned of the Assyrian threat and acted as religious spokesmen. They exercised some form of free speech and may have played a significant social and political role in Israel and Judah. They urged rulers and the general populace to adhere to god-conscious ethical ideals, seeing the Assyrian invasions as a divine punishment of the collective resulting from ethical failures.

Under King Josiah (ruler from 641 – 619), the Book of Deuteronomy was either rediscovered or written. The Book of Joshua and the accounts of the kingship of David and Solomon in the book of Kings are believed to have the same author. The books are known as Deuteronomist and considered to be a key step in the emergence of monotheism in Judah. They emerged at a time that Assyria was weakened by the emergence of Babylon and may be a committing to text of pre-writing verbal traditions.

Babylonian period (587 - 538 BCE)

During the late 7th century BCE, Judah became a vassal state of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. In 601 BCE, Jehoiakim of Judah allied with Babylon's principal rival, Egypt, despite the strong remonstrances of the prophet Jeremiah. As a punishment, the Babylonians besieged Jerusalem in 597 BCE, and the city surrendered. The defeat was recorded by the Babylonians. Nebuchadnezzar pillaged Jerusalem and deported king Jehoiachin, along with other prominent citizens, to Babylon; Zedekiah, his uncle, was installed as king. A few years later, Zedekiah launched another revolt against Babylon, and an army was sent to conquer Jerusalem.

In 587 or 586 BCE, King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the First Temple and razed the city. The Kingdom of Judah was abolished, and many of its citizens were exiled to Babylon. The former territory of Judah became a Babylonian province called Yehud with its center in Mizpah, north of the destroyed Jerusalem. Tablets that describe King Jehoicahin's rations were found in the ruins of Babylon. He was eventually released by the Babylonians. According to both the Bible and the Talmud, the Davidic dynasty continued as head of Babylonian Jewry, called the "Rosh Galut" (exilarch or head of exile). Arab and Jewish sources show that the ''Rosh Galut'' continued to exist for another 1,500 years in what is now Iraq, ending in the eleventh century.

Second Temple period (6th century BCE–2nd century CE)

Persian period (538–332 BCE)

In 538 BCE, Cyrus the Great of the Achaemenid Empire conquered Babylon and took over its empire. Cyrus issued a proclamation granting religious freedom to all peoples subjugated by the Babylonians (see the Cyrus Cylinder). According to the Bible, Jewish exiles in Babylon, including 50,000 Judeans led by Zerubabel, returned to Judah to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. The Second Temple was subsequently completed c. 515 BCE. A second group of 5,000, led by Ezra and Nehemiah, returned to Judah in 456 BCE. The first was empowered by the Persian king to enforce religious rules, the second had the status of governor and a royal mission to restore the walls of the city. The country remained a province of the Achaemenid empire called Yehud until 332 BCE.

The final text of the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) is thought to have been written during the Persian period (probably 450–350 BCE). The text was formed by editing and unifying earlier texts. The returning Israelites adopted an Aramaic script (also known as the Ashuri alphabet), which they brought back from Babylon; this is the current Hebrew script. The Hebrew calendar closely resembles the Babylonian calendar and probably dates from this period.

The Bible describes tension between the returnees, the elite of the First Temple period, and those who had remained in Judah. It is possible that the returnees, supported by the Persian monarchy, became large landholders at the expense of the people who had remained to work the land in Palestine, whose opposition to the Second Temple would have reflected a fear that exclusion from the cult would deprive them of land rights.Jack Pasto
''Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine,''
Routledge (1997) 2nd.ed 2013 p.14. Judah had become in practice a theocracy, ruled by hereditary High Priests and a Persian-appointed governor, frequently Jewish, charged with keeping order and seeing that tribute was paid.

A Judean military garrison was placed by the Persians on Elephantine Island near Aswan in Egypt. In the early 20th century, 175 papyrus documents recording activity in this community were discovered, including the "Passover Papyrus", a letter instructing the garrison on how to correctly conduct the Passover feast.

Hellenistic period (333–64 BCE)

In 333 BCE, the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great defeated Persia and conquered the region. After his death in 322 BCE, his generals divided the empire and Judea became a frontier region between the Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt. After a century of Ptolemaic rule, eventually Judea became part of the Seleucid Empire in 200 BCE at the battle of Panium (fought near Banias on the Golan Heights).

Under the Hellenistic kingdoms, Judea was ruled by the hereditary office of the High Priest of Israel as a Hellenistic vassal.Green, p. 501. The first translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Greek Septuagint, was made in 3rd century BCE Alexandria, during the rule of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, for the Library of Alexandria.

Hellenistic rulers generally respected Jewish culture and protected Jewish institutions. However, Antiochus IV issued decrees forbidding traditional Jewish practices and began a campaign of persecution against devout Jews. In 167 BCE, a Seleucid official ordered a public sacrifice to the Greek gods. Mattathias, a Hasmonean priest, killed a Hellenized Jew who volunteered and then killed the Seleucid official. Afterwards, he fled with his sons and followers to the wilderness of Judea. This was the start of the Maccabean Revolt.

The Books of the Maccabees (written soon after) describe the uprising and the end of Seleucid rule. These books were not part of the sacred Jewish canon and the Hebrew originals were lost (Greek translations survived).
The revolt was led by Judas Maccabeus, son of Mattathias, who conquered Jerusalem in 164 BCE and re-established worship at the temple. The Jewish holiday Hanukkah commemorates the recovery of the temple. Ultimately, a vassal Jewish kingdom was established by the Hasmoneans (the family of Judas Maccabeus).

Seleucid power was in decline and the Hasmonean leader John Hyrcanus was able to create an independent Jewish kingdom, and double the kingdom's size. He subjugated the Edomites and converted them to Judaism. Under John Hyrcanus and his sons, Aristobulus I and Alexander Jannaeus, Hasmonean territory continued to expand. Some scholars argue that the Hasmonean dynasty institutionalized the final Jewish biblical canon.
Under Hasmonean rule, the Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes emerged as the principal Jewish social movements. As part of the struggle against Hellenization, the Pharisee leader Simeon ben Shetach established the first schools based around meeting houses. This led to the emergence of Rabbinical Judaism. Justice was administered by the Sanhedrin, a Rabbinical assembly and law court whose leader was known as the Nasi. The Nasi's religious authority gradually superseded that of the Temple's high priest, who under the Hasmoneans was the king himself. The Hasmoneans had good relations with the Roman Republic, however growing tension between Pharisees and Sadducees led to a conflict over the succession to Janneus, in which the warring parties invited Roman intervention on their behalf.

Early Roman period (64 BCE–2nd century CE)

In 64 BCE the Roman general Pompey conquered Syria and intervened in the Hasmonean civil war in Jerusalem, restoring Hyrcanus II as High Priest and making Judea a Roman vassal kingdom. During the siege of Alexandria in 47 BCE, the lives of Julius Caesar and his protégé Cleopatra were saved by 3,000 Jewish troops sent by Hyrcanus II and commanded by Antipater, whose descendants Caesar made kings of Judea.
From 37 BCE to 6 CE, the Herodian dynasty, Jewish-Roman client kings of Edomite origin, descended from Antipater, ruled Judea. Herod the Great considerably enlarged the temple (see Herod's Temple), making it one of the largest religious structures in the world. At this time, Jews formed as much as 10% of the population of the entire Roman Empire, with large communities in North Africa and Arabia. Despite the fame of the temple, Rabbinical Judaism, led by Hillel the Elder, began to assume popular prominence over the Temple priesthood. The Romans gave the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem permission not to display an effigy of the emperor, the only religious structure in the Roman Empire that was exempt. Special dispensation was granted for Jewish citizens of the Roman Empire to pay a tax to the temple.

Augustus made Judea a Roman province in 6 CE, deposing the last Jewish king, Herod Archelaus, and appointing a Roman governor. There was a small revolt against Roman taxation led by Judas of Galilee and over the next decades tensions grew between the Greco-Roman and Judean population centered on attempts to place effigies of emperor Caligula in synagogues and in the Jewish temple.

According to Christian scripture, Jesus was born in the last years of Herod's rule in the Judean city of Bethlehem. Jesus is thought to have been a Galilean Jewish reformer from Nazareth, and was executed in Jerusalem by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate between 25 and 35 CE. All his key followers, the Twelve Apostles, were Jews (and regarded themselves as Jews) including Paul (5–67 CE) who took critical steps towards creating a new religion, defining Jesus as the "Son of God". In the year 50 CE, the Council of Jerusalem decided to abandon the Jewish requirement of partial circumcision of the foreskin and adherence to the Torah, creating a form of Judaism highly accessible to non-Jews and with a more universal notion of God. Another Jewish follower, Peter, is believed to have become the first Pope.

In 64 CE, the Temple High Priest Joshua ben Gamla introduced a religious requirement for Jewish boys to learn to read from the age of six. Over the next few hundred years this requirement became steadily more ingrained in Jewish tradition.

Jewish–Roman wars

First Jewish-Roman War (63-72 CE)

Growing dissatisfaction with direct Roman rule led to the eruption of a Jewish revolt, subsequently known as the First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE). The revolting Jews named their state "Israel". The contemporary Jewish military leader and historian Josephus authored a detailed account of the revolt's events, including the sieges of Jotapata and Gamla by Vespasian, the siege of Jerusalem (69–70 CE) by Titus, and the desperate last stand at Masada under Eleazar ben Yair (72–73 CE).

The revolt's failure had profound demographic, theological, political, and economic consequences. Many Jews died fighting and under siege during the revolt, and a sizable portion of the population was either expelled from the country or displaced. The destruction of Jerusalem and the temple necessitated a reshaping of Judaism to ensure its survival. Judaism's Temple-based sects, most notably the Sadducees, vanished. The Pharisees, led by Yochanan ben Zakai, obtained Roman permission to establish a school at Yavne. Their teachings became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism, which eventually became the mainstream form of Judaism.

According to Christian tradition, most Christians, at this time a sub-sect of Judaism, fled to Pella during the revolt. After the war Jews continued to be taxed in the Fiscus Judaicus, which was used to fund a temple to Jupiter. An arch commemorating the victory was erected in Rome and still exists.

Kitos war (115–117 CE)

Tensions and attacks on Jews around the Roman Empire led to a massive Jewish uprising against Rome from 115 to 117. Jews in Libya, Egypt, Cyprus and Mesopotamia fought against Rome. This conflict was accompanied by large-scale massacres of both sides. Cyprus was so severely depopulated that new settlers were imported and Jews banned from living there.

Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE)

In 131, Roman emperor Hadrian re-founded Jerusalem as a Roman colony under the name "Aelia Capitolina" and constructed a Temple of Jupiter on the site of the former Jewish temple. Jews were banned from living in Jerusalem itself (a ban that persisted until the Arab conquest).

In 132 CE, the Bar Kokhba revolt erupted. The uprising was led by a Jew named Simon Bar Kokhba, who ruled as '' nasi'', and was viewed by some of the rabbis of the period as the long-awaited messiah. Based on the Bar Kokhba revolt coinage, the independent Jewish state was named "Israel". It has been suggested that a rabbinical assembly which convened during the revolt decided which books could be regarded as part of the Hebrew Bible