No, the Tanach refutes this claim. The Tanach names the Canaanites as the original inhabitants of the land. {Gen. 12.} The word Hebrew means migrant, with this migrant tribe being descended from the migrant, Chaldean Abraham. As with the Romans, Abraham had no legitimate claim to the land. Several centuries after his death his Hebrew descendants, later known as Jews, returned to Canaan with the laughable claim that God had deeded the land to them for the price of their foreskins. However the truth of the matter was that the Hebrews "took over, slaughtered and enslaved "and brought unrest to the region" in order to possess it, as did the Assyrians, Egyptians, Philistines, Babylonians etc.
The Hebrew Bible / Old Testament : Sparkcharts
fascinating...except that is stating that the old testament is "fact", when it is not.
i do not believe religious writings of any type to have a solid foundation in fact.
indeed, many prominent jewish historians and other historians of a non-jewish nature regard the "Exodus" from Egypt as a historical non-starter, which at its very best contains only a small kernel of truth or historical fact
people who take the bible as some form of archaeological fact are rather bizarre indeed...
archaeology is based on science and facts while religious theology, is not.
most more secular archaelogists, such as Dever, Herzog, Finklestein, and others, state, my belief, that the Israelite tribes were in fact, Canaanite in origin, since Canaan was in many ways considered a subservient province of Egypt.
I tend to agree with them that while there may have been a tribe to have been enslaved within Egypt proper that eventually found its way into Canaan, the majority of Israelites evolved from within Canaan...
or does it not seem rather preposterous, that after unleashing all measures of plague and magic against the egyptians, a bunch of folks left, waltzed through the sea, which parted, then wandered in the desert for 40 years, when they could have just followed the coast, and in a couple of weeks marched north into a great and bountiful plain in what later became the gallillee and Samarian areas?
you can walk from the Suez Canal to Ashdod in Israel and it is 100 miles. (i would advise taking some suncreen and perhaps a parasol, though, and a couple bottles of Smartwater and some snacks.)
I don't know about you, but my mom who is 63 years old, still aerobic walks 10 miles a day in two and a half hours.
surely we jews could have found our way from the red sea to Ashdod in less than 40 years, no?
while it is always amusing watching Yul Brenner chase Charlton Heston and the Jews through the Universal Studios version of the Bible, it did not actually happen that way, my friend. :smile:
no, the critical consensus is that the ISraelites evolved from within the land and culture of Canaan.
there is zero evidence to suggest that the jews came from mesopotamia or egypt even, and if there were israelities who came from egypt proper it represented only a very small portion of them.
considering i just had passover seder on wednesday night, and most of my family spent it laughing hysterically eating brisket and totally forgetting the four questions, accidentally confusing the blessings on the wine and the bread, and having a grand old time, i would say i am much mroe comfortable with the reality of science and archaeology when it comes to Jewish hystery than alot of religious hocus pocus.
it is a fact that, as written in the Bible, that a very sizeable portion of the Israelites worshipped the Canaanite god "Baal", who was most notably "Yaweh's" arch-enemy, . the god "El" was who Abraham worshipped (el was later associated with "Yahweh".
In fact, "Yahweh", or our "God" was considered by the Canaanites to be a storm god.
like most religions, early judaism, was comprised of many sects, and really was nothing more than a cult, which essentially is what all religions are anyway when you get right down to it.
If you look in the bible where the god "Yahweh" is first mentioned, you will notice it occurs mainly in the Midian south of "israel".
Most non-religious based scholars believe, as do i, that there many indeed have been another tribe of semitic peoples that came out of slavery in Egypt, northwards into the land of ISrael, and with them they brought their own stories of "Yahweh" who had "delivered" them from bondage...as this "cult" spread, he was considered to be a god who delivered them from egypt and not merely as a Storm God...considering how easy it is to create a myth in modern times, imagine how easy it was back then...
by that time, he became associated with "deliverance" and the exodus...which became central to the Jerusalem Cult (The Exodus theme)
but in the bible, the Exodus did not become central to judaism until reforms 700 years later
"Yahweh" had promised King David that one of his sons would always sit on the throne of Jerusalem as long as David worshipped him, and thus the Temple of Jerusalem was David's shrine to "yahweh".
and in fact Jew's still worshipped a queen or fertility goddess as well, known as Asherah, and even the Bible referred to another "Goddess", Anatyahu,as the "Queen of Heaven"
it is a known fact that jews worshipped many other gods and goddesses during the time, but only the "covenenant" was made with yahweh.
you may go by the old testament if you'd like, my friend, but even as a jew, i'll take the scientific approach, thanks very much
indeed...and *WISELY* sound minds prevailed a long time ago in Judaism since there has not been a Jewish stoning in years...unlike Iran
you need a biblical theocracy to enforce a stoning, which does not exist in Judaism today.
when was the last stoning in Judaism?
