The term "ancient Israel" is used by scholars to refer to the tribes, kingdoms and dynasties formed by ancient Jewish people in the Levant.
The history of ancient Israel is reconstructed by scholars from three sources: archaeological excavations, the Hebrew Bible and texts that are not in the Hebrew Bible. Nebuchandezzar II's conquest of Jerusalem is known to have happened, but the use of the Hebrew Bible can be challenging for scholars.
The earliest mention of the word Israel comes from an inscription on a stele in Thebes, which was built by the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Merneptah.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish people fled Egypt as refugees before arriving in the Levant, where they started conquering territory from the local population. It would have been more than 3000 years ago, but it's not clear when this would have happened. Modern-day scholars disagree on whether there is any truth to this biblical account. Some scholars think that there was no exodus from Egypt, while others think that some Jewish people could have left in the second century B.C.
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In his papers and lectures, Hoffmeier pointed out that people from the Levant lived in ancient Egypt at different points in the history of the country. The ancient city of Ramesses was mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, but it was abandoned about 3,100 years ago.
According to the Hebrew Bible, a man named David rose to become Israel's king after defeating a giant named "Goliath" in a battle.
The First Temple is said to be the first purpose-built temple in which to worship God, and was built by Solomon after King David died. The Ark of the Covenant contained tablets with the 10 Commandments and was located in Jerusalem.
The Hebrew Bible is where most of what scholars know about King David comes from. The fragment of an inscription found at the archaeological site of Tel Dan mentions the House of David, which is over 2,800 years old. Although the meaning of the words is debated by scholars, many think it is evidence that a ruler named David really existed.
There is not much evidence for King David's vast kingdom. Israel Finkelstein, a professor at Tel Aviv University, wrote in 2010 that Jerusalem appears to have been a small city around 3000 years ago.
Over a century of archaeological explorations in Jerusalem failed to reveal evidence for any meaningful 10th-century building activity, Finkelstein wrote in a paper published in 2010 in the book. One cult? One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives is a book. King David's kingdom was more modest than the one described in the Hebrew Bible, according to Finkelstein.
A team of archaeologists have excavated the site over the last decade. The site is believed to have been controlled by King David. They claim to have found a palace that may have belonged to King David.
The kingdom split into two after King Solomon died, the northern kingdom retaining the name Israel, and the southern kingdom Judah, which was dominated by the tribe of Judah. According to the Hebrew Bible, there were grievances over taxes and free labor that played a role in the break up.
According to the Hebrew Bible, at the time of the break up of the kingdom of Judah, an Egyptian pharaoh named Shishak launched a military campaign in the Levant and took war loot back home.
According to ancient Egyptian records, a pharaoh named Sheshonq I ruled Egypt. According to these records, Sheshonq launched a military campaign into the Levant and conquered a number of settlements. It is not clear whether he attacked Jerusalem. Many scholars think that the names Sheshonq and Shishak refer to the same pharaoh.
Israel and Judah fought each other for two centuries. The non-Jewish kingdom of Moab was located in modern-day Jordan. A ninth-century B.C. stele, created by a king of the Moabite tribe, discusses the conflict between Israel and Moab.
The Assyrian Empire grew in size between the ninth and seventh centuries B.C. and conquered the borders of Egypt. Israel and Judah were in contact with the Assyrian Empire. The obelisk of the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III is in the British Museum.
The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III launched a military campaign that conquered several during the rule of Israel's King Pekah. The new king named Hoshea took control of what was left of Israel after the assassination of Pekah.
The Assyrian campaign against Israel was part of a larger war in which Israel and Judah fought against each other, according to accounts recorded in the Hebrew Bible.
The Hebrew Bible says that Hoshea had to pay tribute to the Assyrians. He was defeated by Assyrian forces around 723 B.C. Israel's remaining territory was incorporated into the Assyrian Empire. Many people were deported to Assyria. The Hebrew Bible says that Judah was the last Jewish kingdom.
The siege of Jerusalem in 701 B.C. was the result of a military campaign against Judah that began in 705 B.C. According to the Hebrew Bible, Taharqa, a ruler who ruled both Nubia and Egypt, may have helped end the siege. The Hebrew Bible says that at one point, the angel of the Lord put to death a hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians. There were dead bodies when the people got up the next morning.
The Assyrians wrote about the failure to take Jerusalem. They don't specify why, only saying that Hezekiah was trapped in Jerusalem and that the Assyrian king captured other cities. According to the Assyrian texts, Hezekiah paid a huge tribute to Sennacherib before the Assyrian king left.
Judah was destroyed by the Assyrian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar II conquered much of Assyria and laid siege to Jerusalem nearly a century after the failed siege of Jerusalem. His forces conquered the city in 587 B.C., destroyed the First Temple, and deported many of Judah's inhabitants to Iraq. Nebuchadnezzar II recorded these events in the Hebrew Bible and the Cuneiform tablets.
The Ark of the Covenant was located in the First Temple. Some ancient writers said that the ark was brought back to Babylon, while others said it was hidden away. After the destruction of the First Temple, a number of stories were spun about the location of the lost Ark.
Some of the lives of some of the Jewish deportees have been revealed in a number of tablets from Iraq. Many of these tablets were purchased by private collectors on the antiquities market, raising concerns that some may have been stolen.
The tablets were written by Babylonians on behalf of the Jewish people who lived in the village of Judea.
The tablets show that the exiles and their descendants adopted the local language, script and legal traditions of Babylonia a short time after arriving there.
The Babylonians were conquered by the ancient Persians in 539 B.C., and the Persian king Cyrus the Great gave the Jews permission to return to Jerusalem.
Alexander the Great destroyed the Persian Empire in the fourth century B.C., but he was able to conquer the empire even before he died.
Alexander died in 323 B.C. and his empire fell apart quickly. The empire formed by Seleucus Nicator eventually controlled ancient Israel. The Seleucid family line passed down the Empire for about 250 years.
The Seleucid Empire began to weaken during the 2nd century B.C., and a line of Jewish rulers descended from a priest named Simon Maccabeus. The Hasmonean dynasty is a line of rulers. The territory that was once controlled by Israel and Judah was taken over by the Hasmoneans by 100 B.C.
The success of the Hasmonean dynasty was short-lived. Roman power grew in the eastern Mediterranean during the first century B.C., taking territory in Anatolia during the late second and early first centuries B.C. Pompey the Great was the Roman general who took advantage of the Hasmonean civil war to launch a military expedition. Jerusalem fell to Pompey in 63 B.C. and from that point on the territories that the Hasmoneans controlled were effectively under Roman rule.
The Romans did not impose Roman rule directly over the former Hasmonean territories. The territories were controlled by a number of Jewish rulers.
Herod the Great lived from 73 B.C. to 4 B.C. The Roman general Mark Antony was a key supporter of Herod and supplied the military strength necessary to cement Herod's position as king of Judea. Antony forced Herod to give up land to Cleopatra VII.
Herod was the greatest builder in the Holy Land, planning and overseeing the execution of palaces, fortresses, theatres, amphitheatres, harbours and the entire city of Caesarea.
The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587 B.C., and Herod built a replacement called the Second Temple.
According to biblical literature, Herod tried to kill Jesus when he was a baby, as he perceived the baby to be a threat to his rule. The story says that he killed all the infants in Bethlehem in order to kill Jesus. Some scholars are skeptical of these claims.
Some scholars think that a group called the Essenes established a retreat at Qumran. Thousands of fragments from 900 manuscripts were found in 11 caves near Qumran in the 1940s and 1950s. Some of the scrolls contain parts of the Hebrew Bible, while others do not.
Rome took control of the area after Herod died around 4 B.C. The parts were governed by Pontius Pilate, who was appointed by Rome.
Tensions between the Jews and Roman rulers increased and came to a head in A.D. 66. The siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Second Temple were the result of a rebellion in A.D. 70. The last major stronghold for the rebels was at Masada, which fell after a Roman siege.
The ancient Jewish writer Josephus wrote that the Zealots took their own.
Over the decades there were more rebellions. The rebellion was defeated in A.D. 136. The Roman writer was named Cassius Dio. The last rebellion led to the desolation of the Jewish population.
The number of men who were killed in the various raids and battles and the number of those who died from disease and fire was past the time when the whole of Judaea was desolate. The translation was from volume VIII of the Leib Classical Library. People who lived during this rebellion are buried with the treasure.
The Jewish diaspora spread throughout the world. Jerusalem is the capital of the modern state of Israel.
The Israel Museum in Jerusalem has a lot of artifacts from Israel's ancient and modern history. Archeologists plan to restart excavations at Masada in 2023, with more information on their finds and plans on the excavation website.
David Yeroushalmi is the author of Light and Shadows: The Story of Iran and the Jews.
Ancient Israel in Sinai: The Evidence for the Authenticity of the Wilderness Narrative was published in 2005.
Kratz and Spieckermann wrote "One God?" One cult? One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives was published in 2010.
The War That Made the Roman Empire: Antony, Cleopatra and Octavian was written by Barry and published by Simon and Schuster.
The True Herod was written by Geza.
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