Early Israelites: Early Israelites: hat does the Bible hide and to what extent can we trust the WHoly Scriptures? The “archaeology” of biblical texts yielded many interesting and surprising discoveries. As it turned out, the Israelites (Northern Hebrew tribes) and Judahites (Southerners) had Early Israelites: completely different ancestors, who arrived in Canaan and then left the Nile Delta at different times. The Northerners and the Southerners made their Exodus from Egypt at different centuries as well, and History One Peoples, Two Two Peoples, One History conquered their places in Canaan independently. So what – or who – is responsible for the contradictions between facts mentioned in the Old Testament and archaeological findings of the last decades? Rediscovery of the Origins of Ancient Israel The authors of the Bible merged the family trees and narratives of both peoples to create a common genealogy and history. But where the archaeologists look for the history of Early Israel, are in fact the hidden and different pasts of two West Semitic peoples. About the Author: Professor Igor P. Lipovsky is a distinguished scholar of Near Eastern History. He is the author of numerous books and articles written in English and Russian, and has taught at universities in Russia, Israel, and the United States. “This book is a true breakthrough in biblical studies.” — Los Angeles Times “The author offers the most interesting and attractive vision of biblical history published in the last decades.” — The New York Times Book Review LIPOVSKY IGOR P. “This book sheds new light on the origins of ancient Israel.” — The Boston Globe IGOR P. LIPOVSKY EARLY ISRAELITES: TWO PEOPLES, ONE HISTORY REDISCOVERY OF THE ORIGINS OF ANCIENT ISRAEL IGOR P. LIPOVSKY American Academy Press Washington, D.C. AMERICAN ACADEMY PRESS EARLY ISRAELITES: TWO PEOPLES, ONE HISTORY. Copyright © 2012, 2019 by Igor P. Lipovsky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible New International Ver- sion, copyright 1984, 2011. International Bible Society. Printed and bound in the United States of America SECOND REVISED EDITION. Originally published in 2012 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lipovsky, Igor P., 1950- Early Israelites: two peoples, one history / Igor P. Lipovsky – 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Jews-History-2000-1000 B.C.E.-Historiography. 2. Bible O.T. Exodus- Criticism, interpretation, etc. 3. Palestine-Ethnology. 4. Canaanites-History. 5. Jews-Origin. I. Title. ON THE COVER: Semi-nomadic Western Semites from Beni Hasan tomb painting. 19th century B.C.E. (Egypt) ISBN: 978-0-578-53630-9 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019910210 American Academy Press For my wife, Helen Lipovsky (Muldt), with love and gratitude. Here is the book I promised you so long ago. Acknowledgments I would like to thank my friends and colleagues from the faculty of Judaic Studies at Yale and Princeton Universities, who read a good part of the book and made many valuable criticisms and helpful suggestions. I owe thanks to the Harvard Divinity School for the encour- aging support and generous contribution to the publication of this book. I am truly grateful to the British translator and writer, John Nicolson, who helped me with translating part of my book from Russian. My profound thanks also go to my family, above all to my son Daniel, whose support and help made this book possible. My thanks to him are both richly deserved and most sincerely intended. v Contents Introduction: Where did the ancient Semites come from? ........................................................................ 1 Chapter One: The beginning of Jewish history .......................13 1. The origins of biblical patriarchs.....................................13 2. Family or tribal group? .....................................................19 3. Adoption of the cult of El .................................................21 4. The family tree of Hebrews and their relatives .............23 Chapter Two: The Southerners and the Northerners ............35 1. Jacob and Israel: the two forefathers of the Hebrew tribes .........................................................35 2. When was the story of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob written? ........................................42 3. Who were the biblical Hittites? .......................................45 4. Creation of common genealogy and history ..................51 Chapter Three: In the Egypt of the Hyksos .............................59 1. What does the Bible hide? ................................................59 2. West Semitic nomads settle the Nile Delta ....................63 3. Who were the Hyksos? .....................................................64 4. Hyksos’ connections with Canaan ..................................68 5. What did the Egyptian pharaohs conceal? .....................73 6. The Amorites: the new rulers of the Nile country ......77 vii Early Israelites: Two Peoples, One History 7. The ‘house of Joseph’ and ‘house of Jacob’ in Egypt ....85 8. The fall of the Hyksos and first exodus of the Western Semites .....................................................87 Chapter Four: The ‘house of Joseph’ in Canaan, 15th-13th centuries B.C.E. ..............................................................93 1. The Amarna letters on Habiru and Sutu ........................96 2. Egyptian rule and Hurrian presence in Canaan ..........112 3. The emergence of Israel .................................................119 Chapter Five: The second exodus of the Western Semites from Egypt .....................................................................123 1. Ramesses II: the oppressor pharaoh .............................123 2. When did the biblical Exodus happen? ........................130 3. Moses’s mission ...............................................................133 Chapter Six: On the path to the old homeland ......................149 1. The birth of monotheism ...............................................152 2. Religious and tribal conflicts ........................................157 3. Alliance with the Midianites and confrontation with the Amalekites ...............................161 4. The strengthening of Egypt and split of Moses’ tribes ................................................................166 Chapter Seven: The peoples of pre-Israelite Canaan ...........177 1. The West Semitic population ........................................178 2. The primordial pre-Semitic peoples .............................181 3. Indo-Europeans ...............................................................184 4. Hurrians ............................................................................188 viii Contents Chapter Eight: The re-conquest of Canaan ............................193 1. Moses’s people join the Israelite tribal league .............193 a) Return to the rite of circumcision .........................201 2. The re-conquest of Canaan in the light of biblical and archaeological data .....................................205 3. The struggle for Canaan: three time periods ...............208 4. Israelites and Canaanites: peaceful co-existence and intermarriage ...........................................................212 5. The Northerners and the Southerners – their separate conquests in Canaan ..............................219 6. The fate of the tribe of Reuben .....................................223 7. Settlement on the land ...................................................226 Chapter Nine: In the days when there was no king in Israel ...........................................................................229 1. The judges and their gods ..............................................229 2. The disintegration of the Israelite tribal confederation .........................................................236 3. The tribe of Dan: West Semitic or Indo-European? ...............................................................246 4. The Philistine threat .......................................................252 Selected Bibliography .................................................................255 Index ..............................................................................................261 ix Introduction Where did the Ancient Semites come from? The ancient Near East was a world dominated by Semitic peo- ples. Akkad, Assyria, Babylonia, Phoenicia, Israel, and the Syr- ian kingdoms were all results of the Semites’ activities. Although Sumer, the very first state in the world, was not of Semitic ori- gin, its inhabitants had been fully assimilated by the Semites in the earliest times and had become an integral part of their world. Egypt resisted the supremacy of the Semitic peoples for consid- erably longer, but it too eventually adopted their language and culture. The Indo-Europeans appeared on the scene at a later stage. More importantly, their first states, including the Hittite Empire, remained on the periphery, on the northern and eastern boundaries of the Near East. The same was true of the Hurri- ans, an ancient non-Semitic people whose ethnic origin remains unclear to the present day. Today, there are few who doubt that the original homeland of the ancient Semites should be sought in the Near East. But where exactly?