IsraelitesTemplate:Efn were a Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group,<ref name="Sparks">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> consisting of tribes that inhabited parts of Canaan during the Iron Age.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Faust23">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":24">Template:Cite book</ref>
Template:Tribes of Israel
The name of Israel first appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE.<ref name="auto">Rendsburg, Gary (2008). "Israel without the Bible". In Frederick E. Greenspahn. The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship. NYU Press. pp. 11–12.</ref> Modern scholarship considers that the Israelites emerged from groups of indigenous Canaanites and other peoples.<ref name="auto1">Mark Smith in "The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel" states "Despite the long regnant model that the Canaanites and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and Canaanites in the Iron I period (c. 1200–1000 BCE). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from Canaanite culture ... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp. 6–7). Smith, Mark (2002). The Early History of God: Yahweh and Other Deities of Ancient Israel. Eerdmans.</ref><ref>Frevel, Christian. History of Ancient Israel. Atlanta, Georgia. SBL Press. 2023. p. 33. ISBN 9781628375138. "Israel developed in the land and not outside of it (in Egypt, in the desert, etc.)."</ref><ref name="Faust23" /> They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the Canaanite languages, and emphasized on the worship of Yahweh.<ref>Steiner, Richard C. (1997). "Ancient Hebrew". In Hetzron, Robert (ed.). The Semitic Languages. Routledge. pp. 145–173. Template:ISBN.</ref><ref name=":9" /> In the Iron Age, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged. The Kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Samaria, fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE;<ref name="Broshi 2001 174">Template:Cite book</ref> while the Kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem, was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Some of the Judean population was exiled to Babylon, but returned to Israel after Cyrus the Great conquered the region.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
According to the Bible, the Israelites are the descendants of Jacob, a patriarch who was later renamed as Israel. Following a severe drought in Canaan, Jacob and his twelve sons fled to Egypt, where they eventually formed the Twelve Tribes of Israel. The Israelites were later led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses and conquered Canaan under Joshua's leadership, who was Moses's successor. Most modern scholars agree that the Torah and Book of Joshua do not provide an authentic account of the Israelites' origins, and instead view it as constituting their national myth.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> However, it is supposed that there may be a "historical core" to the narrativeTemplate:SfnTemplate:Sfn and a wider core is supposed beginning with the Book of Judges. The latter portrays a period preceding the establishment of the United Kingdom of Israel, though the historicity of such unity is disputed.<ref name="Zachary">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="lipschits">Template:Cite book</ref> The United Kingdom, according to the Bible, split on the kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
Template:FurtherTemplate:History of Israel
The first reference to Israel in non-biblical sources is found in the Merneptah Stele in Template:Circa. The inscription is very brief and says: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not". The inscription refers to a people, not an individual or nation state,<ref name="Greenspahn2008">Template:Cite book</ref> who are located in central Palestine<ref name="Toorn">Van der Toorn, K. (196). Family Religion in Babylonia, Ugarit and Israel: Continuity and Changes in the Forms of Religious Life. Brill. pp. 181, 282.</ref> or the highlands of Samaria.Template:Sfn Some Egyptologists suggest that Israel appeared in earlier topographical reliefs, dating to the Nineteenth Dynasty (i.e. reign of Ramesses II) or the Eighteenth Dynasty,<ref name=":3">Van der Veern, Peter, et al. "Israel in Canaan (Long) Before Pharaoh Merenptah? A Fresh Look at Berlin Statue Pedestal Relief 21687". Journal of Ancient Egyptian Interconnections. pp. 15–25.</ref> but this reading remains controversial.<ref name=":5">Romer, Thomas (2015). The Invention of God, Harvard. p. 75.</ref><ref name=":6">Dijkstra, Meindert (2017). "Canaan in the Transition from the Late Bronze to the Early Iron Age from an Egyptian Perspective". In Grabbe, Lester, ed. The Land of Canaan in the Late Bronze Age. Bloomsbury. p. 62, n. 17</ref>
Afterwards, Israel refers to the direct descendants of Jacob,<ref name=":18">Template:Bibleverse</ref><ref name=":4">Template:Cite book</ref> a view that was reinforced by Second Temple Judaism.<ref name=":4" /> Some scholars suggest that the Israelite identity was much more inclusive and included gentiles (i.e. resident aliens) who assimilated in the Israelite community.<ref name=":18" /><ref name=":4" /> In fact, it was likely that tribal membership in Israel was based on one's self-declared allegiance or residency within an assigned tribal territory (Template:Bibleverse).<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":9" /><ref name=":19" /> Israel might also exclusively refer to a religious identity,<ref name=":33" /><ref name=":21" /><ref name=":14" /> with Troy W. Martin arguing that it was based on 'covenantal circumcision' rather than ancestry (Template:Bibleverse).<ref name=":14">Template:Cite journal</ref>
Israel was also known as Hebrew or son of Israel. These ethnonyms may refer to literal descent or as contextual-based ethnonyms. I.e. Hebrew referred to Israelites of immigrant or economically impoverished backgrounds.<ref>William David. Reyburn, Euan McG. Fry. A Handbook on Genesis. New York: United Bible Societies. 1997.</ref><ref name=":03">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Flavius Josephus - Antiquities of The Jews, Book I, Chapter VI, Paragraph 4: Template:Langx</ref> Son of Israel referred to citizens/members of the Israelite community after Israel's biological family transitioned from a clan to a society (Template:Bibleverse).<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> They were also known as son of God, reflective of the Hebrew Bible's attempt to portray Israel as a wayward son who is disciplined and nurtured by Yahweh.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In a secular context, Israel refers to a population with a distinct material culture in Iron Age Levant.<ref name=":9" /> During the period of the divided monarchy, it refers to the inhabitants of the northern Kingdom of Israel<ref name=":25">Cate, Robert L. (1990). "Israelite". In Mills, Watson E.; Bullard, Roger Aubrey. Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. p. 420.</ref> although it later included the inhabitants of the southern kingdom. Israel is also contentiously contrasted with Jew/Judea, with Samaritans being recognized as non-Jewish Israelites for example.<ref name=":26">Template:Cite book</ref>
After the Babylonians invaded Judah, they deported most of its citizens to Babylon, where they lived as "exiles". Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and established the First Persian Empire in 539 BCE.Template:Sfn One year later, according to traditional dating, Cyrus permitted the Judahites to return to their homeland.Template:Sfn This homeland was re-named as the Province of Yehud, which eventually became a satrapy of Eber-Nari.Template:Sfn
This period is covered by the entirety of the Book of Daniel.
Several theories exist for the origins of historical Israelites. Some believe they descend from raiding groups, itinerant nomads such as Habiru and Shasu or impoverished Canaanites, who were forced to leave wealthy urban areas and live in the highlands.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Toorn" /> Gary Rendsburg argues that some archaic biblical traditions and other circumstantial evidence point to the Israelites emerging from the Shasu and other seminomadic peoples from the desert regions south of the Levant, later settling in the highlands of Canaan.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The prevailing academic opinion is that the Israelites were a mixture of peoples predominately indigenous to Canaan, with additional input from an Egyptian matrix of peoples, which most likely inspired the Exodus narrative.<ref>Mittleman, Alan (2010). "Judaism: Covenant, Pluralism and Piety". In Turner, Bryan S., ed. The New Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 340–363, 346.</ref><ref name="Gottwald">Gottwald, Norman (1999). Tribes of Yahweh: A Sociology of the Religion of Liberated Israel, 1250–1050 BCE. A&C Black. p. 433. cf. 455–56.</ref><ref>Gabriel, Richard A. (2003). The Military History of Ancient Israel. Greenwood. p. 63: "The ethnically mixed character of the Israelites is reflected even more clearly in the foreign names of the group's leadership. Moses himself, of course, has an Egyptian name. But so do Hophni, Phinehas, Hur, and Merari, the son of Levi."</ref> Israel's demographics were similar to the demographics of Ammon, Edom, Moab and Phoenicia.<ref name="Gottwald" />Template:SfnTemplate:Page needed
Besides their focus on Yahweh worship, Israelite cultural markers were defined by body, food, and time, including male circumcision, avoidance of pork consumption and marking time based on the Exodus, the reigns of Israelite kings, and Sabbath observance. The first two markers were observed by neighboring west Semites besides the Philistines, who were of Mycenaean Greek origin. As a result, intermarriage with other Semites was common.<ref name=":9">Template:Cite book</ref> But what distinguished Israelite circumcision from non-Israelite circumcision was its emphasis on 'correct' timing.<ref name=":16">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":17">Template:Cite book</ref> Israelite circumcision also served as a mnemonic sign for the circumcised, where their 'unnatural' erect circumcised penis would remind them to behave differently in sexual matters.<ref name=":16" /> Yom-Tov Lipmann-Muhlhausen suggests that Israelite identity was based on faith and adherence to sex-appropriate commandments. For men, it was circumcision. For women, it was ritual sacrifice after childbirth (Template:Bibleverse).<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Genealogy was another ethnic marker. Whilst it was likely that Israelite identity was not exclusively based on blood descent,<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":9" /><ref name=":19">Template:Cite book</ref> the Israelites used genealogy to engage in narcissism of small differences but also, self-criticism since their ancestors included morally questionable characters such as Jacob. Both these traits represented the "complexities of the Jewish soul".<ref name=":9" />
Names were significant in Israelite culture and indicated one's destiny and inherent character. Thus, a name change indicated a 'divine transformation' in one's 'destines, characters and natures'. These beliefs aligned with the Near Eastern cultural milieu, where names were 'intimately bound up with the very essence of being and inextricably intertwined with personality'.<ref name=":17" />
In terms of appearance, rabbis described the Biblical Jews as being "midway between black and white" and having the "color of the boxwood tree".Template:Sfn Assuming Yurco's debated claim that the Israelites are depicted in reliefs from Merneptah's temple at Karnak is correct,<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> the early Israelites may have wore the same attire and hairstyles as non-Israelite Canaanites.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Dissenting from this, Anson Rainey argued that the Israelites in the reliefs looked more similar to the Shasu.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Based on biblical literature, it is implied that the Israelites distinguished themselves from peoples like the Babylonians and Egyptians by not having long beards and chin tufts. However, these fashion practices were upper class customs.<ref name=":15">Template:Cite encyclopedia</ref>
These settlements were built by inhabitants of the "general Southland" (i.e. modern Sinai and the southern parts of Israel and Jordan), who abandoned their pastoral-nomadic ways. Canaanites who lived outside the central hill country were tenuously identified as Danites, Asherites, Zebulunites, Issacharites, Naphtalites and Gadites. These inhabitants do not have a significant history of migration besides the Danites, who allegedly originate from the Sea Peoples, particularly the Dan(an)u.<ref name=":10" /><ref>Mark W. Bartusch, Understanding Dan: an exegetical study of a biblical city, tribe and ancestor, Volume 379 of Journal for the study of the Old Testament: Supplement series, Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003</ref> Nonetheless, they intermingled with the former nomads, due to socioeconomic and military factors. Their interest in Yahwism and its concern for the underprivileged was another factor. Possible allusions to this historical reality in the Hebrew Bible include the aforementioned tribes, except for Issachar and Zebulun, descending from Bilhah and Zilpah, who were viewed as "secondary additions" to Israel.<ref name=":10" />
El worship was central to early Israelite culture but currently, the number of El worshippers in Israel is unknown. It is more likely that different Israelite locales held different views about El and had 'small-scale' sacred spaces.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn
Himbaza et al. (2012) states that Israelite households were typically ill-equipped to handle conflicts between family members, which may explain the harsh sexual taboos enforced against acts like incest, homosexuality, polygamy etc. in Template:Bibleverse. Whilst the death penalty was legislated for these 'secret crimes', they functioned as a warning, where offenders would confess out of fear and make appropriate reparations.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
The historicity of the United Monarchy is heavily debated among archaeologists and biblical scholars: biblical maximalists and centrists (Kenneth Kitchen, William G. Dever, Amihai Mazar, Baruch Halpern and others) argue that the biblical account is more or less accurate, while biblical minimalists (Israel Finkelstein, Ze'ev Herzog, Thomas L. Thompson and others) argue that Israel and Judah never split from a singular state. The debate has not been resolved, but recent archaeological discoveries by Eilat Mazar and Yosef Garfinkel show some support for the existence of the United Monarchy.<ref name="Zachary" />
Compared to the United Monarchy, the historicity of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah is widely accepted by historians and archaeologists.<ref name="Finkelstein">Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Rp<ref name="Wright2">Template:Cite web</ref> Their destruction by the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively is also confirmed by archaeological evidence and extrabiblical sources.<ref name="Broshi 2001 174" /><ref name="BabylonianChronicles">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Atiqot98">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name="Finkelstein" />Template:Rp
Christian Frevel argues that Yahwism was rooted in the culture of the Kingdom of Israel, who introduced it to the Kingdom of Judah via Ahab's expansions and sociopolitical cooperation, which was prompted by Hazael's conquests.<ref name=":11">Template:Cite journal</ref> Frevel has also argued that Judah was a 'vassal-like' state to Israel, under the Omrides.<ref name=":11" /> This theory has been rejected by other scholars, who argue that the archaeological evidence seems to indicate that Judah was an independent socio-political entity for most of the 9th century BCE.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Avraham Faust argues that there was continued adherence to the 'ethos of egalitarianism and simplicity' in the Iron Age II (10th-6th century BCE). For example, there is minimal evidence of temples and complex tomb burials, despite Israel and Judah being more densely populated than the Late Bronze Age. Four-room houses remained the norm. In addition, royal inscriptions were scarce, along with imported and decorated pottery.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> According to William G. Dever, Israelite identity in the 9th-8th centuries BCE can be identified through a combination of archaeological and cultural traits that distinguish them from their neighbors. These traits include being born and living within the territorial borders of Israel or Judah, speaking Hebrew, living in specific house types, using locally produced pottery, and following particular burial practices. Israelites were also part of a rural, kin-based society, and adhered to Yahwism, though not necessarily in a monotheistic way. Their material culture was simple but distinct, and their societal organization was centered around family and inheritance. These traits, while shared with some neighboring peoples, were uniquely Israelite in their specific combination.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
With the fall of Babylon to the rising Achaemenid Persian Empire, king Cyrus the Great issued a proclamation known as the Edict of Cyrus, encouraging the exiles to return to their homeland after the Persians raised it as an autonomous Jewish-governed province named Yehud. Under the Persians (Template:Circa), the returned Jewish population restored the city and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. The Cyrus Cylinder is controversially cited as evidence for Cyrus allowing the Judeans to return.<ref name="MaryJ1">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Becking">Template:Cite book</ref> The returnees showed a "heightened sense" of their ethnic identity and shunned exogamy, which was treated as a "permissive reality" in Babylon.<ref name="Southward">Katherine ER. Southward, Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra, 9–10: An Anthropological Approach, Oxford University Press 2012 pp.103–203, esp. p.193.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Circumcision was no longer a significant ethnic marker, with increased emphasis on genealogical descent or faith in Yahweh.<ref name=":33">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":21">Template:Cite journal</ref> Jason A. Staples argues that the majority of contemporary Jews, regardless of theology, wished for the reunion of northern Israelites and southern Jews.<ref name=":26" />
In 332 BCE, the Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great, and the region was later incorporated into the Ptolemaic Kingdom (Template:Circa) and the Seleucid Empire (Template:Circa). The Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule ushered in a period of nominal independence for the Jewish people under the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE). Initially operating semi-autonomously within the Seleucid sphere, the Hasmoneans gradually asserted full independence through military conquest and diplomacy, establishing themselves as the final sovereign Jewish rulers before a prolonged hiatus in Jewish sovereignty in the region.<ref name=":032">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="auto12">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=":22">Template:Citation</ref><ref name="auto2">Template:Cite book</ref> Some scholars argue that Jews also engaged in active missionary efforts in the Greco-Roman world, which led to conversions.<ref name="Feldman">Louis H. Feldman, "The Omnipresence of the God-Fearers"Template:Webarchive, Biblical Archaeology Review 12, 5 (1986), Center for Online Judaic Studies.</ref><ref name="Cohen">Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (1989), pp. 55–59, Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, Template:ISBN.</ref><ref>A. T. Kraabel, J. Andrew Overman, Robert S. MacLennan, Diaspora Jews and Judaism: essays in honor of, and in dialogue with, A. Thomas Kraabel (1992), Scholars Press, Template:ISBN. "As pious gentiles, the God-fearers stood somewhere between Greco-Roman piety and Jewish piety in the synagogue. In his classic but now somewhat outdated study titled Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era, Harvard scholar George Foot Moore argued that the existence of the God-fearers provides evidence for the synagogue's own missionary work outside of Palestine during the first century C.E. The God-fearers were the result of this Jewish missionary movement."</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Several scholars, such as Scot McKnight and Martin Goodman, reject this view while holding that conversions occasionally occurred.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> A similar diaspora existed for Samaritans but their existence is poorly documented.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
In 63 BCE, the Roman Republic conquered the kingdom. In 37 BCE, the Romans appointed Herod the Great as king of a vassal Judea. In 6 CE, Judea was fully incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Judaea. During this period, the main areas of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel were Judea, Galilee and Perea, while the Samaritans had their demographic center in Samaria. Growing dissatisfaction with Roman rule and civil disturbances eventually led to the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, which ended the Second Temple period. This event marked a cataclysmic moment in Jewish history,<ref name=":52">Template:Cite book</ref> prompting a reconfiguration of Jewish identity and practice to ensure continuity. The cessation of Temple worship and disappearance of Temple-based sects<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> facilitated the rise of Rabbinic Judaism, which stemmed from the Pharisaic school of Second Temple Judaism, emphasizing communal synagogue worship and Torah study, eventually becoming the predominant expression of Judaism.<ref name=":42">Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=":52" /><ref name=":82">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Concurrently, Christianitybegan to diverge from Judaism, evolving into a predominantly Gentile religion.<ref name="Klutz 2002">Template:Cite book</ref> Decades later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE) further diminished the Jewish presence in Judea, leading to a geographical shift of Jewish life to Galilee and Babylonia, with smaller communities scattered across the Mediterranean.
Modern-day groups seen as descendants, or claiming connections
Jews and Samaritans share a connection with the biblical Land of Israel.<ref>R. Yisrael Meir haKohen (Chofetz Chayim), The Concise Book of Mitzvoth, p. xxxv. This version of the list was prepared in 1968.</ref><ref>The Ramban's addition to the Rambam's Sefer HaMitzvot.</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Some argue that some Palestinians descend from Israelites who were not exiled by the Romans.<ref name=":72">Gil, Moshe. [1983] 1997. A History of Palestine, 634–1099. Cambridge University Press. pp. 222–3: "David Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi claimed that the population at the time of the Arab conquest was mainly Christian, of Jewish origins, which underwent conversion to avoid a tax burden, basing their argument on 'the fact that at the time of the Arab conquest, the population of Palestine was mainly Christian and that during the Crusaders' conquest some four hundred years later, it was mainly Muslim. As neither the Byzantines nor the Muslims carried out any large-scale population resettlement projects, the Christians were the offspring of the Jewish and Samaritan farmers who converted to Christianity in the Byzantine period; while the Muslim fellaheen in Palestine in modern times are descendants of those Christians who were the descendants of Jews, and had turned to Islam before the Crusaders' conquest."</ref><ref name="Hider">A tragic misunderstanding – Times online, 13 January 2009.</ref>
As of 2024, only one study has directly examined ancient Israelite genetic material. The analysis examined First Temple-era skeletal remains excavated in Abu Ghosh, and showed one male individual belonging to the J2Y-DNA haplogroup, a set of closely-related DNA sequences thought to have originated in the Caucasus or Eastern Anatolia, as well as the T1a and H87mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, the former of which has also been detected among Canaanites, and the latter in Basques, Tunisian Arabs, and Iraqis, suggesting a Mediterranean, Near Eastern, or perhaps Arabian origin.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
A 2004 study (by Shen et al.) comparing Samaritans to several Jewish populations (including Ashkenazi Jews, Iraqi Jews, Libyan Jews, Moroccan Jews, and Yemenite Jews) found that "the principal components analysis suggested a common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish patrilineages. Most of the former may be traced back to a common ancestor in what is today identified as the paternally inherited Israelite high priesthood (Cohanim), with a common ancestor projected to the time of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel."<ref name="evolutsioon.ut.ee">Template:Cite web (855 KB), Hum Mutat 24:248–260, 2004.</ref>
A 2020 study (by Agranat-Tamr et al.) stated that there was genetic continuity between the Bronze Age and Iron Age southern Levantines, which included the Israelites and Judahites. They could be "modeled as a mixture of local earlier Neolithic populations and populations from the northeastern part of the Near East (e.g. Zagros Mountains, Caucasians/Armenians and possibly, Hurrians)". Reasons for the continuity include resilience from the Bronze Age collapse, which was mostly true for inland cities such as Tel Megiddo and Tel Abel Beth Maacah. Elsewhere, European-related and East African-related components were added to the population, from a north-south and south-north gradient respectively. Late Neolithic and Bronze Age Europeans and Somalis were used as representatives.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
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