Tennessee WordSmith: A Liberal Dose, May 30, 2024 "A History of Israel and Palestine, Part 2"

May 30, 2024

Troy D. Smith

“A History of Israel and Palestine, Part 2”

Last time I defined The Levant: modern Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, and part of Syria… basically, the lands along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. I introduced you to the people of Canaan (basically The Levant), who were part of a larger language group called Semitic. There were several groups living in Canaan in the years between 2000 and 1500 BCE, all with similar culture and language. There were Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, and other -ites. To the east there were Amorites, Semitic people who founded the original Babylonian Empire (east of The Levant, in modern Iraq). To the south, in modern Saudi Arabia, there were Arabic tribes, sometimes called Ishmaelites, who were also Semitic. And eventually, there were Hebrews -whose ancestors, according to tradition, had come from the Semitic city-state of Ur.

To the north of Canaan there were two major non-Semitic kingdoms and empires: Assyrians (northeast, their principal cities being Assur and Nineveh) and the Hittites (due north). To the south lay Egypt. By 1500 BCE, Egypt dominated Canaan/The Levant and made it part of their empire. They built a fort near an abandoned city that had been inhabited off and on since 3000 BCE… the fort and the revived city, which became an important stop for Egyptian caravans, became the headquarters for Egyptians in Canaan.

It was called Gaza.

I’m sure you all know the Bible stories. According to them, around 2000 BCE Abram/Abraham and his family left Ur, directed by God to the land of Canaan which was promised to his descendants. Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph was later sold into slavery by his jealous brothers (to a caravan of passing Arabs/Ishmaelites) and ended up in Egypt. He rose to prominence there, and was joined by his father and his whole family. Eventually, though, all the Israelites were made into slaves by the Egyptians. 450 years later, Moses led their descendants -two or three million of them -out of bondage in Egypt (so this would have been roughly 1300 BCE) and back to the Promised Land of Canaan… where they conquered most of the Canaanite peoples, took the land, and eventually established the Kingdom of Israel (circa 1000 BCE) and, later, the breakaway southern Kingdom of Judah. At its height (biblically), the Kingdom of Israel would have covered all of modern Israel and the Palestinian territories, much of modern Jordan, and the southern half of Lebanon. The only unconquered part was a strip of land in the south, along the Mediterranean shore, which included Gaza. That land was Philistia, home of the Philistines.

Except… most historians, archeologists, and Bible scholars don’t think it happened quite that way. There is no historical or archeological evidence of millions of Hebrews living in Egypt at that time, serving as slaves, or appearing suddenly in Canaan. Scholars believe the Israelites never LEFT Canaan. There is plenty of evidence, however, of something else major happening in the region at around the same time the Bible tells us the Israelites were fighting and conquering their Canaanite neighbors… around 1200 BCE.

As we discussed, Egypt had been in control of Canaan for about 300 years at that point -so biblical stories of Egyptian oppression have the ring of truth to them, just not taking place in Egypt itself. In the 12^th century BCE, though, Egypt was attacked by a fierce group of “sea people” arriving by ship from the Mediterranean (probably from the Aegean Sea area). In the intense wars that followed, Egypt lost much of their possessions outside their own country, and was greatly weakened. Because of the intricate trade system in place, this caused a chain reaction- and almost all the major players in the region toppled, including Babylon and the Hittites, as well as (farther away) Troy and Mycenae (this is called the Late Bronze Age collapse). This led to a free-for-all in Canaan among the various peoples living there -and that is when the Israelites enter the historical record, eventually establishing their kingdom.

Some of the defeated Sea People settled in the area now known as Gaza, and probably intermarried with the Canaanites already there… and became known as Philistines. The word that we pronounce “Palestine” in English, by the way, is pronounced in Hebrew and Arabic more like fill-is-teen. Much later, in the fifth century BCE, Greek historian Herodotus would call the land Palaestine.

Hey, look at us, we covered another thousand years this week! The stage is now fully set. To be continued.

--Troy D. Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.

Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE