In light of the false information going around on the web, mostly with anti-Semitic screeds, I thought it was time to give some information I didn't give on my Fact-Checking blog. The supporting data is in the bibliography.
There are two reasons for most of the ignorance. One is simply that schools don't teach Jewish history, even in AP courses, and that history is never a required subject. The other is that courses dealing with Jewish history do not use post-1995 data like I did, ignore DNA evidence, and know nothing about the intersection between the Bible and Olrik's work. That's aside from the fact that academic writers are so ignorant about Biblical Hebrew and Jewish classics.
So here's the real deal.
By 4000 BCE the Semitic language parent had developed in eastern Anatolia south of the Caucasus mountains, distinct from the nearby ergative isolate Hurrian or its ancestor, and also the Indic languages. A Jewish ancestor is set in this location at this time, when wine grapes were being domesticated and meteoric iron was being used. The J1 and J2 Neolithic Y-chromosome subclades begin to develop at this time in NE Anatolia, and they are the main subclades in men descended from Jewish males.
The Jewish culture begins about 2500 BCE with a small nucleus of people who move west, after environmental changes dessicate the edin which used to be watered by four rivers, of which only two survive today. At the time smelted iron was coming into use.
About 2350 BCE, the Hebrews of Ur have migrated west to the crossroads trading city of Haran, then southwest along the trade routes to the region of Numeira which is now in Jordan. Akkadian was used in diplomacy and trade all over southwest Asia.
By 2000 BCE, after the destruction of Ebla and the Gutian takeover of Mesopotamia, ties between the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean coast weakened. Communities in southeast Anatolia dissolved along with the trade routes that had supported them. Ugaritic, Canaanitic, and Hebrew began to develop and, coincidentally, the Indic Sea Peoples began to differentiate from each other, carrying the R1a Y-chromosome subclade of the Indo-Europeans (which also originated in NE Anatolia). Carbon steel and war chariots hitched to horses appeared by this time.
The patriarchs acquire land at Chevron and Shkhem, but have to migrate away from the latter after destroying the city’s men. The narrative behind the migration has similar elements to Greek saga, and the Achaean Greeks were partners with if not identical to the Pelishtim who settled in the Holy Land.
In the reign of Amenemhet III, the patriarchs migrate to Egypt, but are (illegally) forced into servitude when Canaanitic immigrants take over north Egypt, forming the 17th dynasty,which the Egyptians called Hyksos.
In 1628 BCE (a radiocarbon date) Thera erupts, part of a swarm of troubles during which the Israelites escape while their Hyksos oppressors try to pick up the pieces.
The Israelites roam the Sinai Peninsula for 38 years; they consolidate a legal system that subsequently survives 35 centuries of oppression and murder and proves the advantages of common law, which reconciles local tradition with culture-wide law, over civil codes like the Roman one. Not until the reign of Henry II, in England in the 1100s CE, will another common law code arise. Radiocarbon dating places the start of the reign of Ahmose I over a reunited Egypt at about the time of the Ingress.
Between 1500 and 1200 BCE, the Israelites begin to adapt one version of Ugaritic cuneiform to Hebrew, an easy job because Ugaritic is also a Semitic language and has already adapted cuneiform into a representation of its sound system, dropping logograms and determinants.
Between 1400 and 1100 BCE, the Aramaeans settle in the territory that takes their name, the Ionians (Achaeans) settle in a part of the Peloponnese known as Achaia, and they also colonize the western coast of the Holy Land where they are known under their Egyptian name of Pelishtim, leaving writings in Linear B.
About 1300 BCE is the middle date for the Time to Most Recent Common Ancestor of the Jewish kohanim according to 21st century genetics. This is the period of the central shrine at Shiloh, with a tabernacle and an ark of the covenant. Before this, people sacrificed in their settlements which were under frequent attack; that was the time of the bamot, which were prohibited in the Shiloh period.
About 1230 BCE (radiocarbon date) in a period of dessication, Merneptah of the Egyptian 19th dynasty sends soldiers to raid the Holy Land for grain, impacting both the Canaanites and Israelites. He puts up a stele about 1227 BCE which identifies them as distinct peoples living side by side.
Between 1200 and 1100 BCE, the Sea Peoples destroy Ugarit, Wilusa, Hattusas, and other cities. In the previous centuries, the Indo-European Greek/Pelishtim contingent have replaced the Linear B writing system adopted from the Palace Culture, with an adapted version of Ugaritic cuneiform they picked up during their residence in the Holy Land.
By 1100 BCE the Pelishtim bring the Shiloh central shrine cult to an end and Israelite settlements spring up on bare ground on the hilltops. They refuse to trade with the lowlands, making their own pottery and excluding wild pig, which was part of diets of the Holy Land from Neanderthal times to 900 BCE. Wild pigs survive in the highlands of Israel into the 21st century CE. Bamot are again established. Pottery styles in the north and south differ, hard evidence of cultural differences that will lead to the split monarchy.
By 900 BCE, the Israelite hilltop settlements dissolve. After the First Temple is built, the bamot are again prohibited forever. A previously united kingdom splits into Judea and all the rest of them.
By 800 BCE, the Jews have developed a distinctive system of writing seen on the Gezer calendar. Aramaic has replaced Akkadian as the language of trade and diplomacy. The Ionians colonize the western coast of Anatolia, unknowingly returning to their homeland, and begin shaping the Sea Peoples epic of the war they took part in that destroyed Wilusa.
By 690 BCE, the Assyrians take over the northern (Israelite) kingdom. They deport about 22,000 of the northern nobility, then import Assyrian-speaking people to whom the Israelite priests have to adapt their oral tradition.
By 600 BCE, the Aramaeans conquer Babylon and develop Neo-Babylonian, a hybrid of Aramaic and Akkadian. They conquer Assyria and Judea and deport about 22,000 of the Judean nobility.
By 500 BCE, the Jews return to the Holy Land and, with authorization from Persian rulers Daryavesh and Koresh, rebuild the temple. They now have a written version of the oral tradition in the wording that developed over the preceding 35 centuries. Its language is Biblical Hebrew, their pre-Captivity vernacular. Their current vernacular is Neo-Babylonian and they will adopt its non-cuneiform script for scrolls that can legally be read from in synagogue. They use Mishnaic Hebrew when running their courts and recording its enactments.
Jews continued to live in the Holy Land for the next 25 centuries, although they spread out worldwide. Two particular infusions were the medieval creation of the kabbalistic community in Tsfat, and the purchases of land from the Ottoman Empire after 1850. The latter is known as The Old Yishuv.
The New Yishuv happened, of course, in 1948. Immediately thereafter, the Jews of Yemen were brought to Israel, and later the Jews of Ethiopia. The Jews of India also immigrated to Israel.
The sad part is that all this information is out there on the web and nobody accesses it. A lot of it is on Jewish Virtual Library. The people who want to smear Jews refuse to learn the truth. But as I said the other week, people who don't hate Jews are equally ignorant because they, too, refuse to use the resources on the Web. We all of us need a better education and as the old saying goes, it's better to be silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. Keep your tongue between your teeth if you refuse to study up.
