HST 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Ionian Revolt, Jewish Diaspora, Persian Language
Hebrews & Canan
Land of Canaan
• The Promised Land
• Abundant Resources
o Purple dye – comes from sea snails
▪ Rare, expensive, worn by royalty and nobility
▪ Phoenicians are known for the purple dye
o Cedar timber
▪ Lebonon area
▪ Shipbuilding and grand buildings
▪ Protect against buds
o Precious stones
o Fertile land
▪ Support population
• Centrally located
o The middle of several major empires and in the path from Egypt to Mesopotamia
▪ Highly contested
o Center of trade
Hebrew Origin Story
• Old Testament
o Pentateuch: first 5 books of the bible
o Origin story for much of western culture
• Descendants of Abraham
o All of the Hebrews are descendants of Abraham
▪ Possibly Sumerian
o Promised by his God a grand kingdom for him and his descendants
o Left Sumeria and headed towards Canaan
o Wife Sarah is blessed with a child Isaac
▪ Has to sacrifice his son Isaac, but he doesn’t have to
o Islam says that the preferred son was Ishmael the son of his concubine not Isaac
o Isaac has a son named Jacob and Jacob changes his name to Israel which means
power of god
▪ Israel has sons and from his sons form the tribes of Israel
▪ 12 tribes began
• Migration to Egypt
o Pentateuch says it’s because of famine
o They end up as slaves of the Pharaohs
• Lead out by Moses
o Leader of Hebrews who leads them from Egypt to Canaan
▪ Motif to have a baby put on a river to get to better parents
o Hebrew law recorded in the Torah
▪ Moses is the law giver
▪ Told 10 commandments by God that govern the way Hebrews should behave
▪ Found in Leviticus and Dueteronomy
o 12 tribes and Canaan
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▪ They are returned to Canaan but Canaan is now occupied
The United Hebrew Kingdom
• Tribal judges
o Each tribe has their own judge who are elected
o Some are female like Deborah
o The need to fight the people in their land lead them to a single leader
• Fighting the Philistines
o Hebrews fought the occupants of Canaan which at some point was the Philistines
o Philistines were sea-fairing peoples
• Saul (1020 – 1000 BCE)
o The first king of the Hebrews, elected
o Known for his fights against the philistines and unifying the tribes
• David (1000 – 970 BCE)
o Most famous
o He kills a giant known as Goliath a philistine soldier
o He looks like he should be Saul’s successor because of this
o Saul requests a hundred Philistine foreskins
▪ David brings 200
o David becomes king and he forms a united Hebrew kingdom, fighting of the
Philistines
o Married to Saul’s daughter
o But then he marries a foreigner named Bathsheba (a Hittite)
▪ And has Solomon
▪ David chooses Solomon over his more legitimate heirs
• Solomon (970 – 930 BCE)
o Seen as one of the wisest and best kings
▪ But also a source of trouble
o Temple of Jerusalem
▪ Built by Solomon
▪ House the Ark of the Covenant
o Ark of the Covenant
▪ Contained the fragments of the 10 commandments
▪ If it was taken on the battlefield and they couldn’t lose
• Philistines take it, but then are plagued by mice and hemorrhoids, so
they give it back with 7 golden mice and hemorrhoids
o Strength but discontent
▪ He allowed a lot of non-Hebrews in
▪ He allowed a Phoenician city to trade with Hebrew culture
▪ His more legitimate heirs were also unhappy
o “Cutting baby in half”
▪ The kingdom of the Hebrews as the baby
▪ Solomon is saying he would rather cut it in half than give it up
▪ So if they were good heirs they would let it remain whole
The Divided Kingdom
• Civil war follows the death of Solomon
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