History of the Kingdom of Israel

The framework of this history of the Kingdom of Israel is based on information provided by epigraphic sources. They show that the religion and the ethnic identity of Israel connect traditions of semi-nomadic tribes of the Cisjordanian highland with conceptions and practices of pastoralists living in Transjordan, Midian, Negeb, and Sinai. They are known as Shasu in Egyptian texts, which provide the earliest written sources. The book is divided in six chapters. The first one deals with the proto-history of Israel in the second millennium B.C., starting with the mention of the Joseph-El and Simeon tribes in the Egyptian Execration texts of the 19th-18th centuries B.C. Jacob-El, Reuben, and Israel appear somewhat later, as well as the Shasu of the Yahwe-El area in Northern Sinai. The figure of Moses is related to this region and dates presumably from the second half of the 12th century B.C., when the period of the Judges starts. Graeco-Aegean Philistines settled in Canaan in the late 12th century were a serious menace to the confederation of Israelite tribes whose elders decided ca. 980 B.C. to adopt a royal government system. The first king was Saul, followed by his son Ishbaal. The u