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Home , Babylonian captivity, Hebrews, Jewish diaspora, Jewish history, Temple in Jerusalem

The Times of the

Marshall High School Mr. Cline Western Civilization I: Ancient Foundations Unit Two DC * The Kingdoms of the Lands • Historical Interpretation of Jewish Texts

• Modern historians are at odds as to what to make of the .

• On the one hand, there is no evidence that the Hebrew people were ever in ; and though the attributed these books to , modern scholars have identified as many as four different authors of the Torah.

• On the other hand, the authors of the Torah were still quite ancient, some of them dating back as far as 900 BC; and while the Torah's account might not be accurate from a strictly historical perspective, it certainly tells us a great deal about the ancient Hebrews and their beliefs.

• There is less ambiguity about some of the later books in the Tanakh.

• The Nevi'im, or books of prophets, recount the history of the Jewish people after entering the .

• Unlike the Torah, many of these stories can be backed up with archaeological evidence. * The Kingdoms of Lands • Historical Interpretation of Jewish Texts

• For instance, the book of records the conquest of under the leadership of Moses' successor, Joshua.

• The account mentions several cities that archaeologists have since uncovered, including the famous walled city of , which remains one of the oldest walled cities we've ever found, though we've yet to find any trumpets.

• The and Kings record the ascent of the first kings of Israel (, and ), and there is evidence that King David at least might have actually existed.

• Several books of the Nevi'im record the oppression of the Hebrews by various peoples, pretty much all of whom have been matched to real civilizations, whose own records often validate the Hebrew account. * The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands • The Jewish People: A History of Oppression

• Between the books of the Nevi'im and the efforts of modern archaeologists, we know that the Hebrews fell under the control of many empires over the years, including the Babylonians, Assyrians, , Moabites, and Romans.

• Some of these conquerors were quite intent on wiping out the Hebrew people and their faith.

• Both the Assyrians and Babylonians made a practice of relocating conquered peoples from their homelands into somewhere deep within the empire.

• By doing so, they hoped to break down those people's cultural identity and assimilate them as Assyrians or Babylonians.

• Yet, the faith and identity of the Hebrews withstood these attempts.

• The Hebrews considered these periods of oppression and captivity as 's punishment for their disobedience. * The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands • The Jewish People: A History of Oppression

• They maintained their faith despite the best efforts of their oppressors.

• In a time when so many other faiths and peoples were absorbed into great empires, the survival of the Hebrews and their faith as a distinct people is actually quite remarkable.

• The persistence of the Jewish faith can be directly attributed to the factors we noted at the beginning of this lesson.

• The Hebrews had one God and refused to the of their conquerors.

• The Hebrews refused to conform to the society of their conquerors.

• Their steadfast faith in a single God kept their untainted, and their refusal to marry non- helped them maintain their ethnic identity. * The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands • The Jewish People: A History of Oppression

• Yet, most importantly, the Jews had a holy book containing all the wisdom, laws and beliefs of their culture.

• While other, less literate might change with the times, the Jewish religion was preserved in writing.

• The Impact of Jewish Oppression on the Modern World

• Yet, this constant oppression did not leave totally unchanged. We can see its mark in the continued Jewish desire to reclaim their homeland, a movement known today as .

• We can read the tale of oppression in Jewish rituals, like the Seder, commemorating their in Egypt, and the menorah, which recalls the Jewish revolt against the . * The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands • The Impact of Jewish Oppression on the Modern World

• Yet, perhaps the clearest impact of oppression upon the Jews is the Jewish prophesy of the Messiah, a savior who would rescue the Jews from oppression and restore them to the glory God promised so long ago.

• In the beginning of the , many Jews thought they'd found their Messiah in and established the Christian religion.

• Later, the peoples of the would further adapt the Jewish faith to found .

• Yet, the majority of Jews remained true to the original covenant between God and Abraham, preserving the ancient faith of Judaism to this day. * The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands

• United under a single monarch, King Saul, the slowly conquered their neighbors; Canaanites, Hittites and Philistines.

• By 1004 BC, Saul's successor, King David, had carved out the borders of the kingdom of Israel and established as its capital. David's son, King Solomon the Wise, built an amazing temple to hold the .

• After centuries of wandering, the Ark finally had a home.

• Yet stability would prove short-lived.

• Around 950 BC, ten of the twelve tribes of Israel rebelled against their extravagant kings, breaking the kingdom in two.

• To the north, the ten tribes formed the Kingdom of Israel, while to the south, Solomon's dynasty continued to rule the .

• This division could not have come at a worse time, for it left the Israelites vulnerable to the new empires emerging to the east.

* The Kingdoms of the Bible Lands

• The Hebrews had been fortunate that their rise to statehood had taken place during a time of weakness for Egypt and , however this period came to an end in 924 B.C. when the Egyptian Shoshenq invaded and imposed tribute on Israel and Judah.

• In the next century, both kingdoms were rebellious vassals of . Israel was destroyed in 722, but Judah survived for about another 150 years longer.

• In the next century, both kingdoms were rebellious vassals of Assyria. Israel was destroyed in 722, but Judah survived for about another 150 years, when the Babylonians captured it (The ), tore down the temple, and deported the inhabitants to Mesopotamia.

• This began a 3,000 year period in the where the search for a homeland for Jewish people began, and the Jewish people were scattered across the globe. This is known as the Jewish

* The Phoenicians

• One of the first great seafaring peoples of history, the Phoenicians pioneered trade routes across the Mediterranean, creating new links between and the Near East. Their voyages of exploration may have taken them as far as the British Isles and tropical Africa.

• The Phoenicians were descended from the Canaanites, a Semitic speaking people who inhabited the during the Bronze Age

• Although they were mostly under the domination of Egypt, and never formed any large states of their own, they have a major place in history because of what you read here (they invented the alphabet)

• As it was much easier to learn than other early writing systems, such as Egyptian hieroglyphics and Mesopotamian cuneiform, it made possible the growth of literacy that is the foundation of western civilization

• The homeland of the Phoenicians was the coast of modern Lebanon and , where there are the best natural harbors in the eastern Mediterranean. Small ports began to develop here in around 2000 B.C. trading cedar, wood, ivory and dye with Egypt and Mesopotamia * The Phoenicians

• The purple dye was obtained from the murex shellfish, and was such an important export that it probably gave the Phoenicians their names, derived from the Greek word for red (phoinix)

• The Phoenicians established trading colonies throughout the Mediterranean and possibly even in coastal Europe, where they may have been the cause of the break off from Proto German from the Proto Indo European language

• These colonies became independent city states, ruled by hereditary kings, like Hiram of Tyre, who supplied King Solomon with the timber craftsmen necessary to build the . But, by the 6th century B.C., these cities had changed their government to rule by elected magistrates.

• The most important of these colonies/ city states was in northern Africa (modern day Tunisia)

• The Phoenicians travels were very influential on the Greeks who adopted their alphabet, and much of their religion, and learned and traded with the outside world through them * The Phoenicians

• In the 8th century, the explosive growth of the Assyrian empire and its demand for metals and exotic products, led to the increase and farther travels of the Phoenicians, but also led to the domination of them by the Assyrians who regulated their trade and exacted high tributes for the privilege of trading.

• After the fall of the Assyrian empire, first passed to control under , and then Persian control before being conquered by the Greeks and becoming Hellenized, losing their distinctive cultural identity.

• :14—The son of a woman of the daughters of Dan, and his father [was] a man of Tyre, skillful to work in gold, silver, brass, iron, stone, timber, royal purple(from the Murex), blue, and in crimson, and fine linens; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which shall be put to him... * The Phoenicians

• Many of the fraternal societies of the 19th century, including the freemasons, trace their origins to the Knights Templar, whose headquarters, while Jerusalem was the capital of an European Christian kingdom, was Solomon’s temple.

• Many felt that the Templars had gained some secret knowledge of the Temple while resident there, and had developed secret ceremonies that demonstrated and passed down that knowledge.

• The initiation ceremony of the Freemasons includes a ceremony that is said to have existed into antiquity, possibly to the Templars residence in the Temple, where the Chief Stone Mason and architect of the temple, Hiram Abuff, is murdered, and this is dramatically reenacted by participants in the ceremony.

• Hiram Abuff is most likely the Phoenician King of the City of Tyre, Hiram, who provided the building materials to Solomon in order to complete his temple.

* End of the Bronze Age

• Bronze, as you may recall, is made of copper and tin. These two metals are rarely found anywhere near one another. And, though copper is easy to find, tin is a relatively rare metal.

• At the end of the Bronze Age, the tin needed to make bronze could no longer be acquired

• With the collapse of the Bronze Age around 1200 B.C., trade networks fell apart. This had many consequences for Bronze Age civilizations.

• One of the most catastrophic was that they could no longer acquire the tin they needed to make bronze.

• Differences Between Iron and Bronze

• Deprived of their choice metal, ancient metallurgists cast about to find a new material to work with. What they came up with was iron.

• Iron was hardly a new discovery. It is the most common element on Earth.

• You may recall the Hittites had been smelting iron since at least 2000 B.C. * End of the Bronze Age

• Differences Between Iron and Bronze

• Yet for 800 years, ancient metallurgists preferred to work with bronze.

• The reasons are simple:

• Ancient metallurgists did not understand the properties of iron as they did bronze.

• Iron is not much harder than bronze.

• Bronze and tin are relatively easy to extract from ore, whereas iron ore requires a much more energy intensive and complicated process to smelt.

• Bronze can be easily melted in a pot over a fire while working iron requires a specialized furnace.

• These factors were enough to dissuade most ancient metallurgists from using iron while they had the makings of bronze at their disposal. * End of the Bronze Age

• Differences Between Iron and Bronze

• However, deprived of tin by the collapse of trade, those metallurgists began learning how to work with iron.

• It was then that they made an important discovery.

• Invention of Steel

• It was found that a small amount of carbon added to iron made steel

• While wrought iron was not much stronger than bronze, a small addition of carbon (about 2%) could turn iron into steel.

• This discovery was probably accidental. Fires generate a great deal of carbon. Each time they put the iron back into the fire to work, they added a bit more carbon to the metal.

• Steel is one of the hardest substances on the planet. It is certainly much stronger than bronze. * End of the Bronze Age

• Invention of Steel

• This added strength meant that less steel had to be used to make effective tools, weapons or armor, making steel a lighter alternative.

• This strength also allows steel to hold an edge better than bronze.

• By 1100 B.C., iron had replaced bronze as the metal of choice in the Near East. Another three centuries would see it spread across Europe.

• Steel vs. Bronze

• Even once trade had resumed, and tin was once more readily available, the superiority of steel had come to be recognized. Steel was cheaper, stronger and lighter than bronze.

• Although it had lost its position of primacy, the special properties of bronze would guarantee its continued use in a variety of applications. * End of the Bronze Age

• Steel vs. Bronze

• Where iron rusts quickly and completely, bronze only rusts on the surface, making it the metal of choice for outdoor applications, from doors to fountains to statues, as well as horse bits, buckles and anything else that might be exposed to moisture.

• Moreover, because two pieces of iron can easily rust themselves together, bronze was used to make sheaths and scabbards for steel blades.

• Bronze also offers less friction than iron, making it ideal for wheel bearings and door hinges.

• Finally, the resonant qualities of bronze guaranteed its continued use in the making of bells, gongs and chimes.

• The transition from bronze to iron had important implications for the cultures of the time.

• With iron tools, stone work became much easier, resulting in an explosion of stone architecture replacing the old mud brick design. * End of the Bronze Age

• Steel vs. Bronze

• The abundance of iron ore throughout the globe meant that a civilization did not need to have an extensive trade network to equip its soldiers with superior metal weapons.

• Moreover, steel weapons could be produced much more cheaply, allowing aspiring empires to equip larger armies.

• Perhaps most importantly for the Near East, in steel, the people of Mesopotamia had discovered something that the Sumerians had not.

• For cultures that had spent centuries slavishly attempting to duplicate the achievements of an earlier civilization, this was a .

• Perhaps the Sumerians hadn't known everything after all. And it is at this point that we begin to see cultures diverge from the Sumerian model, and begin to create their own unique styles and forms.