Israelites. The Israelites were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE. According to the modern archaeological account, 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 the national god Yahweh.
They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the Canaanite language, known today as Biblical Hebrew. According to the Bible, the Israelites are the descendants of Jacob, who was later renamed Israel.
Following a severe drought, 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 and subsequently brought to Canaan by Moses; they eventually conquered Canaan under the leadership of Joshua.
Modern scholars agree that the Bible does not provide an authentic account of the Israelites' origins, and instead view it as constituting their national myth. However, it is accepted that this narrative does have a historical core to it. A tribal period was followed by the rise of two Israelite kingdoms: Israel and Judah. The Bible por
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE. According to the modern archaeological account, 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 the national god Yahweh.
They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the Canaanite language, known today as Biblical Hebrew. According to the Bible, the Israelites are the descendants of Jacob, who was later renamed Israel.
Following a severe drought, 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 and subsequently brought to Canaan by Moses; they eventually conquered Canaan under the leadership of Joshua.
Modern scholars agree that the Bible does not provide an authentic account of the Israelites' origins, and instead view it as constituting their national myth. However, it is accepted that this narrative does have a historical core to it. A tribal period was followed by the rise of two Israelite kingdoms: Israel and Judah. The Bible por
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