Israelite highland settlement

In the early Iron Age, Canaan was characterized by a significant increase in a sedentary Israelite population in Samaria.^[1]

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (March 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions.

Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,168 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Peuplement des hautes terres par les Israélites]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|fr|Peuplement des hautes terres par les Israélites}} to the talk page.
For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

This article includes a list of references, related reading, or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (January 2019)

Thumb — Israelite sites in Canaan (in French) during the late 2nd millennium BC, based on Israel Finkelstein's book *The Bible Unearthed*

Archaeology

Archaeological field surveys conducted since the 1970s found a large increase in the settled population dating to the 12th century BC Late Bronze Age collapse. It is not known whether the Israelites arrived in the wake of conquests or the new villages were established by former nomads or displaced persons. A similar increase was not found in the surrounding lowland areas. According to archaeological evidence, these areas may have been inhabited by Canaanites or Sea People.

A 2005 book by Robert D. Miller applies statistical modeling to the sizes and locations of the villages, grouping them by economic and political features. He found highland groupings centered on Dothan, Tirzah, Shechem, and Shiloh. The tribal territory of Benjamin was not organized around any main town.

Remove ads

Biblical narrative

The Book of Joshua describes the conquest of Canaan, including the Fall of Jericho and the Battle of the Waters of Merom.

This evidence does not prove there was a conquest, but if the biblical reference to "daughter villages" means all villages closest to a specific town, the list of Canaanite towns not taken in the Book of Judges (Judges 1:27–35), which begins: "Nor did Manesseh drive out Bet Shean and her daughter-villages ...", the correspondence to the survey results is remarkably accurate. Towns not captured in the central zone were Taanach, Ibleam, Megiddo, Dor, Gezer, Aijalon, Shaalbim, and Jerusalem.

Remove ads

Israelite highland settlement

Archaeology

Biblical narrative

See also

References

Bibliography

Wikiwand - on