Israel emerging

The Jews started as tribal people in Canaan, the area currently covered by Israel and Palestine. Tribal means there were no states. For a long time, the area was under Egyptian control. The earliest known reference to a land named Israel is on an Egyptian stone engraving dating from around 1200 BC. It lists the enemies the Pharaoh Merneptah allegedly defeated during his campaigns. Among the defeated nations was Israel, which had revolted against its Egyptian overlords. The engraving does not provide any detail, so perhaps there was a skirmish or two with a few local hill dwellers.

After 1150 BC, Egypt suffered droughts, food shortages, unrest, corruption, and endless bickering in the royal court, causing it to retreat from Canaan.¹ Storytelling made the events more spectacular over time, transforming the retreat of the Egyptian army and its causes into an epic drama, with The Lord sending plagues to Egypt to make the Egyptians release the Israelites, Moses freeing Israelites from Egyptian oppression featuring an ireful and fiery cloud that split the Red Sea and drowned the Egyptian army.

The people of Canaan lived from agriculture, which required territorial defence that states could best provide. Several small kingdoms emerged. Among them were Israel and Judah. This situation lasted until new imperial powers emerged on the scene four centuries later. At first, the Israelites were polytheists. They worshipped several gods and goddesses. One of them was Yahweh. Archaeological finds indicate El was the supreme deity in the Canaanite belief system, but also the generic word for god. The goddess Asherah was his wife.² The names El and Yahweh could depict the same deity, so possibly there was more devotion to Yahweh than other deities early on. The Song of Deborah suggests so.

States and kings can use religion to justify themselves. It matters a lot whether a powerful entity like a god or a goddess supports the state and the king, for only the stupid defy the gods. And you do not want to be an idiot, do you? The kings of Judah, and perhaps also Israel, thus promoted a national religion around Yahweh. Other kingdoms in the region also adopted national deities. Milcom was the deity of Ammon, while Moab had Chemosh to defeat its foes and supply the country with blessings (1 Kings 11:33). Even today, the United States calls itself One Nation Under God out of fear that without divine protection, it would soon collapse and overrun by its enemies.

Yahweh thus became the deity of the state religion in Judah and possibly Israel. Many still worshipped other gods, as having multiple options is more prudent. If Yahweh forsakes you, perhaps Baal or some other deity can help you. The Jewish Bible testifies to tensions between those who still worshipped other gods and goddesses alongside Yahweh and those insisting on worshipping Yahweh alone. As Yahweh had become the favourite deity of the Israelites, El became the generic word for god, and Asherah became Yahweh’s wife. Archaeological findings, for instance, records of Jews living in Egypt, testify to this.

Writing the Bible

As time passed by, new empires arrived on the scene and set their eyes on Canaan. The Assyrians overran Israel in 720 BC. The Babylonians conquered Judah in 597 BC after taking over the Assyrian Empire. The Babylonians deported many inhabitants while others fled to Egypt. The Jewish communities in Egypt, Babylon, and Judah became dispersed. The authors of the Jewish Bible tried to reconnect them by showing that they share a common heritage. They belonged to a larger group, a nation or tribe, a family with common ancestors. The Jewish Bible likely became a compilation of tales from these communities and royal archives of the former kingdom of Judah. The Jewish Bible depicts the history of Israel and Judah from the perspective of Judah.

The Persians later conquered the Babylonian Empire. The Persian emperor Cyrus the Great allowed the Jewish people to return to Canaan. He commissioned the rebuilding of the Jewish temple. Those still living in the area were not keen on a group of religious zealots entering their land. They opposed the plan, and a political struggle unfolded. After seven decades, Ezra and Nehemiah succeeded in rebuilding the temple. Jewish society was on the brink of being wiped out. Israel and Judah existed no longer. The remaining Jews were in danger of mixing with the surrounding population. Jewish leaders had to find a way to keep their people together. Marrying outside the community became frowned upon, and the Jews became a seclusive group. The authors of the Jewish Bible aimed to preserve Jewish identity around a common religion, history and cultural heritage.

The Jewish religion gradually became monotheist after a monotheist religion named Zoroastrianism became the official religion in the Persian Empire. The prophet Zoroaster believed in a good creator and an opposing evil power. And it had considerable influence. It brought Judaism monotheism, messiahs, free will, heaven, hell, and, of course, that horned fellow named Satan. Zoroastrianism not only affected Judaism. Some of the Greek philosophers around 400 BC were also monotheists.

Before that time, the Jews were henotheists, which means they believed other gods existed but only worshipped Yahweh, or at least should. That is why the commandment is ‘you shall have no other gods before me’ rather than ‘you shall believe there is only one God.’ Yahweh was a jealous one and did not appreciate offerings to other gods, such as Baal. Most texts in the Jewish Bible have that henotheist perspective.

The Jews wrote most of their scriptures between 600 BC and 300 BC, but there are older parts from the royal archives from Judah. The earliest source could be the Song of Deborah. Possibly, it dates from the 12th century BC. Little evidence supports the historical account in the Jewish Bible dealing with the time before the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. That does not mean that these stories are entirely fictional. David may have been king of Judah and not of a united kingdom like the Jewish Bible says. Archaeologists uncovered a 9th-century BC stone engraving with lettering BYTDWD in Northern Israel, possibly referring to the House of David. Another engraving found in the former kingdom of Moab contains these same letters.

Creating a nation

The authors of the Jewish Bible used the idea of a unified kingdom to promote unity between people from Israel and Judah. A shared history made the inhabitants of Israel and Judah and their offspring all descend from one great nation. The purpose of the Jewish Bible was to create a Jewish nation around a shared history and religion. That can be a reason to imagine a unified kingdom that once existed. If you go back in time to before the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the history of the Jews becomes murky. No written records exist from these times. The tales about Abraham, Isaac, and Moses may have been legends from different communities merged into a single narrative to promote a single Jewish nation.¹

The survival of the Jewish people has been hanging by a thread for a long time. They were a small nation crushed by great powers. They always hoped for a Messiah who would save them from oppression like Moses once did. Great powers came and went, but the Jewish people remained. After more than 2,500 years, the Jews are still around, so their nation-building project proved a successful long-term survival strategy. They even managed to reclaim their original homeland. It is also remarkable that Judaism stood at the cradle of Christianity and Islam. And so, the Jews have played a central role in world history. Today, Jews have an imposing power over many parts of the world. It is an impressive feat, considering their numbers. What do they still need a Messiah for?

Historical analysis

How do historians and scholars look at the Jewish Bible? Apart from the lack of archaeological evidence, they find the account of early Jewish history in the Jewish Bible too neat to be correct. It presents an agreeable genealogical line extending from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob, who had twelve sons who just happened to become the twelve tribes of the nation. Jacob and his family went to Egypt during the days of Joseph. Later, Egypt began to oppress the Israelites, and they escaped under the leadership of Moses. The Egyptians kept records, and they tell nothing about the Exodus. One might at least expect an Egyptian stone engraving telling how the Pharao victoriously cast out 600,000 Israelites via the Red Sea with the help of the great god Ra who split the waters and left the Israelites to drown.

Moses passed the mantle on to Joshua, who brought Israel into the Promised Land. After Joshua died, a series of judges took over. They governed Israel and saved it from its enemies. Each judge came from a different tribe of Israel, which is also unbelievably neat. Then came Saul, Israel’s first king. He was not up to the task, so David replaced him. After the death of David’s son, Solomon, his successor, the kingdom split in two. The descendants of David ruled only in the South, Judah. The northern part, called Israel, had several dynasties.

The simplicity is deceptive. It is possible that many of the people described in the Jewish Bible have lived but originally had very little to do with each other and have been brought together to create a single history of Israel. Abraham may not have been the father of Jacob, Moses may not have been the brother of Miriam, and David may not have been the successor of Saul. These stories may originally have been local tales from tribes and petty kingdoms that later became part of the Jewish nation. Thus, you can see the Jewish Bible as a nation-building project rather than an account of history,¹ so you should not expect it to be factual. The stories in the Jewish Bible come from several sources and have been written and rewritten several times over the centuries.

Textual analysis

It shows how the authors of the Jewish Bible wove the story of Isaac and Rebecca into the broader history of Israel. Biblical scholars try to uncover the construction process of the texts. They look at different sources within biblical texts, additions and other editing techniques. Genesis 26 tells about Isaac living in the Philistine land of Gerar, west of Judah.

Isaac’s wife, Rebecca, was attractive. When his neighbours asked him about Rebecca, he claimed she was his sister, so Isaac followed Abraham’s footsteps. Isaac feared the Philistine men in Gerar would kill him and take his beautiful wife. One day, the King of the Philistines, Abimelech, gazed out his window and spotted Isaac and Rebecca fondling. He demanded an explanation. Abimelech feared one of his subjects might have slept with her, which could make his kingdom subject to divine retribution.

Abimelech then issued a decree stating that whoever touched Isaac or his wife shall be put to death. Rebecca would become one of the matriarchs, a crucial figure in Israel’s history. Isaac prospered among the Philistines and eventually became mightier than them. Everywhere Isaac went in the waterless environs of Abimelech’s kingdom, he discovered water sources, and his success aroused jealousy among local inhabitants. That amount of luck captures the imagination.

Instead of fighting for his territories, Isaac moved on and ended up in Beer-Sheba in the south. Abimelech visited Isaac there. The Philistine king blessed him. Isaac invited him for a feast. After eating and drinking all night long, they exchanged oaths of peace. Later that day, in another stroke of unbelievable luck, Isaac’s servants found another water source. Isaac named this well Beer-Sheba, referring to his treaty with the Philistines. The story also had a political agenda, which was showing that Beersheba was part of Israel.

A closer look at Genesis 26

Genesis 26 contains two kinds of material, which are the story about Isaac’s clan and how he came to possess towns in the far south and Beer-Sheba, and the broader narrative of the book of Genesis, which links this story with the other parts of Genesis to make it a coherent history of the nation. There are multiple ways of looking at the text. Hence, different scholars may come to different conclusions. One way of viewing Genesis 26 is as follows, with the parts that link the story into a broader narrative underlined:

1 Now there was a famine in the land—besides the previous famine in Abraham’s time—and Isaac went to Abimelek king of the Philistines in Gerar. 2 The Lord appeared to Isaac and said, ‘Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land where I tell you to live. 3 Stay in this land for a while, and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and will confirm the oath I swore to your father Abraham. 4 I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed me and did everything I required of him, keeping my commands, my decrees and my instructions.’

6 So Isaac stayed in Gerar. 7 When the men of that place asked him about his wife, he said, ‘She is my sister,’ because he was afraid to say, ‘She is my wife.’ He thought, ‘The men of this place might kill me on account of Rebecca because she is beautiful.’ 8 When Isaac had been there a long time, Abimelek king of the Philistines looked down from a window and saw Isaac caressing his wife Rebecca. 9 So Abimelek summoned Isaac and said, ‘She is really your wife! Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’?’ Isaac answered him, ‘Because I thought I might lose my life on account of her.’ 10 Then Abimelek said, ‘What is this you have done to us? One of the men might well have slept with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us. 11 So Abimelek gave orders to all the people: ‘Anyone who harms this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.’

12 Isaac planted crops in that land and the same year reaped a hundredfold because the Lord blessed him. 13 The man became rich, and his wealth continued to grow until he became very wealthy. 14 He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. 15 So all the wells that his father’s servants had dug in the time of his father Abraham, the Philistines stopped up, filling them with earth. 16 Then Abimelek said to Isaac, ‘Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us.’

17 So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar, where he settled. 18 Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them. 19 Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and discovered a well of fresh water there. 20 But the herders of Gerar quarrelled with those of Isaac and said, ‘The water is ours!’ So he named the well Esek because they disputed with him. 21 Then they dug another well, but they quarrelled over that one also; so he named it Sitnah. 22 He moved on from there and dug another well, and no one quarrelled over it. He named it Rehoboth, saying, ‘Now the Lord has given us room and we will flourish in the land.’

23 From there he went up to Beersheba. 24 That night the Lord appeared to him and said, ‘I am the God of your father Abraham. Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bless you and will increase the number of your descendants for the sake of my servant Abraham.’ 25 Isaac built an altar there and called on the name of the Lord. There he pitched his tent, and there his servants dug a well.

26 Meanwhile, Abimelek had come to him from Gerar, with Ahuzzath his personal adviser and Phicol the commander of his forces. 27 Isaac asked them, ‘Why have you come to me, since you were hostile to me and sent me away?’ 28 They answered, ‘We saw clearly that the Lord was with you; so we said, ‘There ought to be a sworn agreement between us’—between us and you. Let us make a treaty with you 29 that you will do us no harm, just as we did not harm you but always treated you well and sent you away peacefully. And now you are blessed by the Lord.’ 30 Isaac then made a feast for them, and they ate and drank. 31 Early the next morning the men swore an oath to each other. Then Isaac sent them on their way, and they went away peacefully. 32 That day Isaac’s servants came and told him about the well they had dug. They said, ‘We’ve found water!’ 33 He called it Shibah, and to this day the name of the town has been Beersheba.

34 When Esau was forty years old, he married Judith daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and also Basemath daughter of Elon the Hittite. 35 They were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebecca.

The first five verses are part of the broader narrative, except the first part of verse 1. In verse 6, the story itself starts. Abraham comes up in verses 15 and 18. The intervention of The Lord in verses 24 and 25 is also part of the broader narrative. The mention of Esau at the end is part of the encompassing story. And that raises the question, where were Jacob and Esau all that time? They were adults at the end of Genesis 25. One explanation is that Genesis 26, without the underlined parts, once was a separate story.

The stories about their sons Jacob and Esau seem wrapped around the story of Isaac and Rebecca and their dealings with the king of the Philistines to create a broader narrative. Genesis 25 contains the story about the birth of Esau and Jacob and how Esau sold his birthright to Jacob. That story resumes at the end of Genesis 26. In Genesis 27, Jacob seized his father’s blessing with his mother’s help. These interweaving narratives come from different sources.

One is the P-source or priestly source. It tells an independent story of Israel. The authors merged it into the narrative. According to the P-source, Jacob did not flee for Esau because of stealing the birthright but because he was in danger of a mixed marriage. The P-source describes how Esau married a Hittite woman and how Rebecca asked Isaac to send Jacob away so he would find a woman who would not make her life miserable.

There is an older account of Isaac and Rebecca and how they came to possess Beersheba. Around it is wrapped a story of their children, where Isaac is the son of Abraham and the father of Esau and Jacob. Another small story tells how Rebecca sent Jacob off to find wives from her own family. Another source tells about how Jacob stole the birthright from his brother Esau. The authors of the Jewish Bible thus wove an older story and two other sources into a broader narrative.¹

Theories from scholars

There is reason to believe the P-source is a late source dating from after the exile in Babylon. It deals with the identity of Israel and its relation to others. Mixed marriages outside the Jewish people became a huge issue after the defeat of Judah. Marrying within the clan or the nation helped to continue a community defined by a common culture. Therefore, the marriages of Esau to Hittite women caused concern for Rebecca.

Another source is the J-source or Jahwist source. A part of Genesis 25 comes from the J-source. It tells about the birth of Jacob and Esau. It continues in Genesis 27 and 28 with how Jacob stole the birthright of Esau and pursued the deal with the help of his mother, Rebecca. Jacob then had to flee for Esau. According to the J-source theory, the J-source has incorporated an older source into the broader narrative. Later, the P-source altered the reason why Jacob had to flee.

The formation of the earliest sources, the histories of Israel, whether it be the history of Israel’s ancestors and the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or the exodus leaving Egypt and the conquest of the land, are built upon the linking of stories from separate individual representatives of clans brought together to create the idea of a Jewish nation. Many scholars suppose the first chapters of the Jewish Bible – the Jews call it Torah – consist of four sources spliced together.¹

There is more to say about the research of scholars into the Jewish Bible, but for our purpose, this short explanation suffices. It gives us an idea of how the first chapters of the Jewish Bible describing Israel’s earliest history emerged and how scholars look at the texts and arrive at their conclusions. If you are shocked to find out that much of the Jewish Bible is a fairy tale and the remainder is not an accurate account of what transpired, I can only say that Jews are good at fabricating stories. After all, they run Hollywood.

Latest revision: 4 November 2023

Featured image: Torah scroll (public domain)

1. The Bible’s Prehistory, Purpose, and Political Future. Wright, Jacob L. (2014). Coursera.
2. “El the God of Israel-Israel the People of YHWH: On the Origins of Ancient Israelite Yahwism”. In Becking, Bob; Dijkstra, Meindert; Korpel, Marjo C.A.; et al. Only One God?: Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah. Dijkstra, Meindert (2001).