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Israelites

The Israelites (/ˈɪzrəlaɪts, -riə-/;[1][2] Hebrew: בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Bənēy Yīsrāʾēl, transl. 'Children of Israel') were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.[3][4] They were also an ethnoreligious group.[5]

For the citizens of the modern State of Israel, see Israelis. For other uses of "Israelite", see Israelite (disambiguation).

The name of Israel first appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE.[6] Modern scholarship considers that the Israelites emerged from groups of indigenous Canaanites and other peoples.[7][8][4] They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the Canaanite languages, known today as Biblical Hebrew.[9] In the Iron Age, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged. The Kingdom of Israel, with its capital at Samaria, fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE;[10] while the Kingdom of Judah, with its capital at Jerusalem, was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE.[11] Some of the Judean population was exiled to Babylon, but returned to Israel after Cyrus the Great conquered the region.[12][13]


According to the Bible, the Israelites are the descendants of Jacob, a patriarch who was later renamed as Israel. Following a severe drought in Canaan, 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 by Moses and conquered Canaan under Joshua's leadership, who was Moses's successor. Most modern scholars agree that the Torah does not provide an authentic account of the Israelites' origins, and instead view it as constituting their national myth. However, it is supposed that there may be a "historical core" to the narrative.[14][15][16] The Bible also portrays the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as the successors of an earlier United Kingdom of Israel, though the historicity of the latter is disputed.[17][18]


Jews and Samaritans both trace their ancestry to the ancient Israelites.[19][20][21][22] Jews trace their ancestry to tribes that inhabited the Kingdom of Judah, including Judah, Benjamin and partially Levi, while the Samaritans claim their lineage from the remaining members of Ephraim, Manasseh, and Levi who were not deported in the Assyrian captivity after the fall of Israel. Other groups have also claimed affiliation with the Israelites.

Demographic history of Palestine

God-fearers

Groups claiming affiliation with Israelites

Hebrews

Jacob in Islam

Segmentary society

Twelve Tribes of Israel

Who is a Jew?

Brand, Chad; Mitchell, Eric (2015). . B&H Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8054-9935-3.

Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary

(1973). Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-09176-4. LCCN 72076564. OCLC 185400934.

Cross, Frank Moore

Dever, William (2003). . Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-0975-9. Archived from the original on 1 July 2023. Retrieved 14 August 2015.

Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?

(2005). Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel. Wm. B. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2852-1. Retrieved 7 February 2016.

Dever, William G.

Faust, Avraham (2015). . In Levy, Thomas E.; Schneider, Thomas; Propp, William H. C. (eds.). Israel's Exodus in Transdisciplinary Perspective: Text, Archaeology, Culture, and Geoscience. Springer. pp. 467–482. ISBN 978-3-319-04768-3. Archived from the original on 21 October 2021. Retrieved 31 March 2023.

"The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: On Origins and Habitus"

Flusser, David (2009). . Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-2458-5.

Judaism of the Second Temple Period

Goldenberg, David M. (11 April 2009). . Princeton University Press. pp. 90–91. ISBN 978-1-4008-2854-8. OCLC 1162398032.

The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

(2004). A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period. T&T Clark International. ISBN 978-0-567-04352-8. Archived from the original on 1 July 2023. Retrieved 14 August 2015.

Grabbe, Lester L.

Grabbe, Lester L., ed. (2008). . T&T Clark International. ISBN 978-0-567-02726-9.

Israel in Transition: From Late Bronze II to Iron IIa (c. 1250–850 B.C.E.)

Hasegawa, Shuichi; Levin, Christoph; Radner, Karen, eds. (2018). . Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. ISBN 978-3-11-056660-4.

The Last Days of the Kingdom of Israel

Joffe, Alexander H. (2002). "The Rise of Secondary States in the Iron Age Levant". Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. 45 (4): 425–467. :10.1163/156852002320939311. JSTOR 3632872.

doi

(2013). Jews and Samaritans: The Origins and History of Their Early Relations. OUP USA. ISBN 978-0-195-32954-4.

Knoppers, Gary N.

McNutt, Paula (1999). . Westminster John Knox Press. ISBN 978-0-664-22265-9. Archived from the original on 1 July 2023. Retrieved 14 August 2015.

Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel

(1979). "SMR". Lisan al Arab. Vol. 21. Al-dar al-Misriya li-l-talif wa-l-taryamar. ISBN 978-0-866-85541-9.

Manzur, Ibn

Mendels, D. (1987). . Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum. J.C.B. Mohr. ISBN 978-3-16-145147-8. Retrieved 7 December 2020.

The Land of Israel as a Political Concept in Hasmonean Literature: Recourse to History in Second Century B.C. Claims to the Holy Land

Moore, Megan Bishop; Kelle, Brad E. (2011). . Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-6260-0.

Biblical History and Israel's Past

Na'aman, Nadav (2011). "The Exodus Story: Between Historical Memory and Historiographical Composition". . 11: 39–69. doi:10.1163/156921211X579579.

Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions

Pummer, Reinhard (2016). . Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8028-6768-1.

The Samaritans: A Profile

Redmount, Carol A. (2001) [1998]. . In Coogan, Michael D. (ed.). The Oxford History of the Biblical World. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 58–89. ISBN 978-0-19-513937-2. Archived from the original on 3 April 2023. Retrieved 26 June 2023.

"Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt"

Tetley, M. Christine (2005). . Eisenbrauns. pp. 105–. ISBN 978-1-57506-072-9.

The Reconstructed Chronology of the Divided Kingdom

Thavapalan, Shiyanthi (21 October 2019). . BRILL. pp. 69–70, 74. ISBN 978-90-04-41541-6. OCLC 1114270506.

The Meaning of Color in Ancient Mesopotamia

Tubb, Jonathan N. (1998). . University of Oklahoma Press. p. 40. ISBN 0-8061-3108-X.

Canaanites