(Image credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) (opens in new tab)īetween the ninth and seventh centuries B.C., the Assyrian Empire, originally from the region that is now northern Iraq, grew in size and conquered an empire that stretched from modern-day Iraq to the borders of Egypt. Here, one of a series of panels showing Tiglath-pileser III campaigns in southern Iraq. stele created by a Moabite king discusses the conflict between Israel and Moab it is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. Israel also fought against a non-Jewish kingdom called Moab, which was located largely in modern-day Jordan. Israel and Judah co-existed for about two centuries, although they often fought each other. Many scholars believe that the names Shishak and Sheshonq refer to the same pharaoh. However, it's unclear from the surviving evidence whether he successfully attacked Jerusalem. Sheshonq launched a military campaign into the Levant and conquered a number of settlements, according to these records. The Hebrew Bible says that at the time of the breakup an Egyptian pharaoh named Shishak launched a military campaign in the Levant, where he carried out a successful raid of Jerusalem (capital of the kingdom of Judah) and took war booty back home.Īncient Egyptian records say that around this time a pharaoh named Sheshonq I ruled Egypt. Accounts in the Hebrew Bible suggest that grievances over taxes and corvée labor (free labor that had to be done for the state) played a role in the breakup. Northern & southern kingdomsĪfter King Solomon's death in around 930 B.C., the kingdom split into a northern kingdom, which retained the name Israel, and a southern kingdom called Judah, named after the tribe of Judah that dominated the new kingdom. They even claim to have found a palace that may have belonged to King David, Live Science reported in 2013. The site is located west of Jerusalem, and the excavators believe it was controlled by King David. Over the last decade, a 3,000-year-old site called Khirbet Qeiyafa has been excavated by a team of archaeologists. Finkelstein wrote that King David's kingdom was likely a more modest state than the one described in the Hebrew Bible. "Over a century of archaeological explorations in Jerusalem - the capital of the glamorous biblical United Monarchy - failed to reveal evidence for any meaningful 10th-century building activity," Finkelstein wrote in a paper published in 2010 in the book " One God? One Cult? One Nation: Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives (opens in new tab)" (De Gruyter, 2010). Jerusalem appears to have been sparsely populated around 3,000 years ago, Israel Finkelstein, a professor at Tel Aviv University, wrote in 2010. However, a number of archaeologists have noted that evidence for King David's supposedly vast kingdom is scarce. Although the meaning of the words is debated by scholars, many think it's evidence that a ruler named David really existed. However, fragments of an inscription found at the archaeological site of Tel Dan in 1993 mention a "House of David." The fragmented inscription dates back over 2,800 years. Most of what scholars know about King David comes from the Hebrew Bible. The temple was located in Jerusalem and contained the Ark of the Covenant, which held tablets inscribed with the 10 Commandments. Recent archaeological excavations show that smaller temples also existed in Israel at the time the First Temple was flourishing. King David then led a series of military campaigns that made Israel a powerful kingdom centered at Jerusalem, according to the Hebrew Bible.Īfter King David's death, possibly around 3,000 years ago, his son Solomon took over the kingdom and constructed what is now called the First Temple - supposedly the first purpose-built temple in which to worship God. (Image credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images) (opens in new tab)Īccording to the Hebrew Bible, a man named David rose to become Israel's king after slaying a giant named Goliath in a battle that led to the rout of a Philistine army. King David bearing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem, in the early 16th century.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |