Inquisitor:
These are the events of the Great Bronze Age Collapse on which the bible is silent. My contention is that it was written centuries laters and much later redacted and edited without any awareness of the impact the GBAC on their history.
Paleobotanists have determined that during the 150-year period beginning in 1250 – 1100 the entire region of the eastern Mediterranean began a prolonged drought. The temperatures were lower and while there may have been adequate rains in 3 out of 10 years, it was not enough to support the economies of the time. In virtually every society, towns and small city-states and their economies were dependent on the local production of agriculture and trade.
For instance, the most important tools and weapons of this period were made of bronze. Cypress was the center of cooper mining while other societies specialized in pottery, jewelry, ship building, fish, dyes, textiles and tin. When the underlying agriculture failed, it started to topple the social system everywhere.
Due to widespread wars and near universal starvation, great movements of people looking for relief occurred. Seafaring people from Europe and the western Mediterranean moved eastward. Great inland cities were destroyed never to be rebuilt. Settled cities, towns and hamlets across the entire Levant were attacked and destroyed. Scores of settlements in Canaan were burned during some part of the bronze age century collapse. The term bronze age is used because shortly after the eastern Mediterranean recovered, iron replaced bronze technology. The Hittite culture that invented the use of iron disappeared during the bronze age collapse.
Just prior to the bronze age collapse in Egypt, they launched a military campaign against rebellious Canaanite city-states in 1206BC. Pharoah Merneptah recorded his military exploits on a “stele” which is a tall stone monolith. On that stele, he claims to have exterminated many city-states as well as the seed of “Israel.” This is the first recorded name of Israel outside the Hebrew Bible. His wording indicates he defeated a nomadic people (tribe (s)) not a city, a town or a kingdom.
Importantly, from a Hebrew Bible perspective, is the fact that dominant rule of Egypt over the city-states of Canaan subsided as Egypt recalled their resources from Canaan to help in their 30-year long battle with invading people from the sea during the bronze age collapse. By the turn of the year 1100, Canaan was finally relatively free to evolve its own future but was never free of Egyptian cultures that believed Canaan was their land.
Another result of the relocation of populations is the arrival of various western cultures. The Egyptians placed some of their mercenary defenders, probably sea people, on the northern coast to provide protection from that direction. These were western Mediterranean people. Later, they became known to the Hebrews as “the Philistines.” Their numbers accumulated slowly over perhaps a few centuries. They brought with them their culture including their foods, ways of cooking, languages, building technology, beliefs and social organization. They were a vassal of Egypt and sometime served as a military force in service of the Egyptian administration of Israel and Judah. Eventually, they occupied five city-states, though not at the same time, that controlled a major part of the travel route connecting Africa with Asia and Europe called the Via Maris. The cities of the Philistines were Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gaza, Ekron, and Gath.
These hugely important historical realities that directly impacted young Israel are absent in the Hebrew Bible.
These are the events of the Great Bronze Age Collapse on which the bible is silent. My contention is that it was written centuries laters and much later redacted and edited without any awareness of the impact the GBAC on their history.
Paleobotanists have determined that during the 150-year period beginning in 1250 – 1100 the entire region of the eastern Mediterranean began a prolonged drought. The temperatures were lower and while there may have been adequate rains in 3 out of 10 years, it was not enough to support the economies of the time. In virtually every society, towns and small city-states and their economies were dependent on the local production of agriculture and trade.
For instance, the most important tools and weapons of this period were made of bronze. Cypress was the center of cooper mining while other societies specialized in pottery, jewelry, ship building, fish, dyes, textiles and tin. When the underlying agriculture failed, it started to topple the social system everywhere.
Due to widespread wars and near universal starvation, great movements of people looking for relief occurred. Seafaring people from Europe and the western Mediterranean moved eastward. Great inland cities were destroyed never to be rebuilt. Settled cities, towns and hamlets across the entire Levant were attacked and destroyed. Scores of settlements in Canaan were burned during some part of the bronze age century collapse. The term bronze age is used because shortly after the eastern Mediterranean recovered, iron replaced bronze technology. The Hittite culture that invented the use of iron disappeared during the bronze age collapse.
Just prior to the bronze age collapse in Egypt, they launched a military campaign against rebellious Canaanite city-states in 1206BC. Pharoah Merneptah recorded his military exploits on a “stele” which is a tall stone monolith. On that stele, he claims to have exterminated many city-states as well as the seed of “Israel.” This is the first recorded name of Israel outside the Hebrew Bible. His wording indicates he defeated a nomadic people (tribe (s)) not a city, a town or a kingdom.
Importantly, from a Hebrew Bible perspective, is the fact that dominant rule of Egypt over the city-states of Canaan subsided as Egypt recalled their resources from Canaan to help in their 30-year long battle with invading people from the sea during the bronze age collapse. By the turn of the year 1100, Canaan was finally relatively free to evolve its own future but was never free of Egyptian cultures that believed Canaan was their land.
Another result of the relocation of populations is the arrival of various western cultures. The Egyptians placed some of their mercenary defenders, probably sea people, on the northern coast to provide protection from that direction. These were western Mediterranean people. Later, they became known to the Hebrews as “the Philistines.” Their numbers accumulated slowly over perhaps a few centuries. They brought with them their culture including their foods, ways of cooking, languages, building technology, beliefs and social organization. They were a vassal of Egypt and sometime served as a military force in service of the Egyptian administration of Israel and Judah. Eventually, they occupied five city-states, though not at the same time, that controlled a major part of the travel route connecting Africa with Asia and Europe called the Via Maris. The cities of the Philistines were Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gaza, Ekron, and Gath.
These hugely important historical realities that directly impacted young Israel are absent in the Hebrew Bible.
