Books by Dan'el Kahn
Sennacherib's Campaign Against Judah
The campaign of Sennacherib against Judah is one of the most... more Sennacherib's Campaign Against Judah
The campaign of Sennacherib against Judah is one of the most widely researched in Biblical Studies and Ancient Near East, and one that also poses scholarly challenges. Allusion to the event is found in Isaiah, Kings, and Chronicles, but there is no correlation between the Assyrian and Biblical descriptions of the same event. Dan’el Kahn offers a textcritical analysis of these Biblical passages that allude to the military events. Detecting repetitions, breaks in the narrative, and contradictions and inconsistencies in the texts, he traces and reconstructs different and discrete sources. Kahn demonstrates that the Biblical passages are based on earlier sources that were later edited and revised by a third hand. Based on historical events that are found in non-Biblical texts, he also offers new dates for the sources. He claims that the narrative was written for the book of Isaiah, arguing that it predates the version found in Kings
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Contents:
Reinhard Achenbach
Divine Warfare and Yhwh’s Wars: Religious Ideologies of War in the... more Contents:
Reinhard Achenbach
Divine Warfare and Yhwh’s Wars: Religious Ideologies of War in the Ancient Near East and in the Old Testament
Michal Artzy
Continuation and Change in the 13th–10th Centuries BCE: Bronze-Working Koine?
Michael Avioz
The Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7: Conditional or Unconditional?
Yigal Bloch
Assyro-Babylonian Conflicts in the Reign of Aššsur-rēša-iši I: The Contribution of Administrative Documents to History-Writing
Walter Dietrich
David and the Philistines: Literature and History
Frederick Mario Fales
Ḫanigalbat in the Early Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: A Retrospective View
Avraham Faust
Between Israel and Philistia: Ethnic Negotiations in the South during the Iron Age I
Gershon Galil
Solomon’s Temple: Fiction or Reality?
Yosef Garfinkel, Saar Ganor and Michael G. Hasel
The Iron Age City of Khirbet Qeiyafa after four Seasons of Excavations
Moshe Garsiel
Ideological Discordance between the prophets Nathan and Samuel as reflecting the Divergence between the Book of Samuel’s authors
Moti Haiman
Geopolitical Aspects of the Southern Levant Desert in the 11th–10th Centuries BCE
Larry G. Herr
Jordan in the Iron I and IIB Periods
Richard S. Hess
The Distinctive Value of Human Life in Israel’s Earliest Legal Traditions
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz
Yhwh’s Exalted House Revisited: New Comparative Light on the Biblical Image of Solomon’s Temple
Sandra Jacobs
נפש תחת נפש “A Life for A Life” and napšāte umalla
Dan´el Kahn
A Geo-Political and Historical Perspective of Merneptah’s Policy in Canaan
Aaron Koller
The Kos in the Levant: Thoughts on its Distribution, Function, and Spread from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age II
André Lemaire
West Semitic Epigraphy and the History of the Levant during the 12th–10th Centuries BCE
Yigal Levin
Ideology and Reality in the Book of Judges
Mario Liverani
Melid in the Early and Middle Iron Age: Archaeology and History
Aren M. Maeir
Insights on the Philistine Culture and Related Issues: An Overview of 15 Years of Work at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath
Alan Millard
Scripts and their uses in the 12th–10th Centuries BCE
John P. Nielsen
Nebuchadnezzar I’s Eastern Front
Troy Leiland Sagrillo
Šîšaq’s Army: 2 Chronicles 12:2–3 from an Egyptological Perspective
Itamar Singer
The Philistines in the North and the Kingdom of Taita
Ephraim Stern
Archaeological Remains of the Northern Sea People along the Sharon and Carmel Coasts and the Acco and Jezrael Valleys
Christoffer Theis and Peter van der Veen
Some “Provenanced” Egyptian Inscriptions from Jerusalem: A Preliminary Study of Old and New Evidence
Koert van Bekkum
Coexistence as Guilt: Iron I Memories in Judges 1
Assaf Yasur-Landau
Chariots, Spears and Wagons: Anatolian and Aegean Elements in the Medinet Habu Land Battle Relief
Ran Zadok
The Aramean Infiltration and Diffusion in the Upper Jazira, 1150–930 BCE
Wolfgang Zwickel
Cult in the Iron Age I–IIA in the Land of Israel
Wolfgang Zwickel
The Change from Egyptian to Philistine Hegemony in South-Western Palestine during the Time of Ramesses III or IV
Index of Authors
Index of Sources
Index of Subjects
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The proceedings of the conference “Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and L... more The proceedings of the conference “Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature” include the latest discussions about the political, military, cultural, economic, ideological, literary and administrative relations between Egypt, Canaan and Israel during the Second and First Millennia BC incorporating texts, art, and archaeology. A diverse range of scholars discuss subjects as wide-ranging as the Egyptian-Canaanite relations in the Second Intermediate Period, the ideology of boundary stelae, military strategy, diplomacy and officials of the New Kingdom and Late Period, the excavations of Beth-Shean and investigations into the Aruna Pass, and parallels between Biblical, Egyptian and Ancient Near Eastern texts. Such breadth in one volume offers a significant contribution to our understanding of the interactions between the civilizations of the ancient Near East.
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Preface
Abbreviations
Prof. Israel Eph`al
An Appreciation by Dan`el Kahn
Bibliography of... more Preface
Abbreviations
Prof. Israel Eph`al
An Appreciation by Dan`el Kahn
Bibliography of the Works of Israel Eph`al
Tsvi Abusch
Hunting in the Epic of Gilgamesh:
Speculations on the Education of a Prince
Shmuel Ahituv
Ezekiel and Egypt
Amnon Altman
What Kind of Treaty Tradition do the Sefire Inscriptions Represent?
Pinhas Artzi
"All the Nations and Many Peoples":
The Answer of Isaiah and Micah to Assyrian Imperial Policies
Amitai Baruchi-Unna
Crossing the Boundaries:
Literary Allusions to the Epic of Gilgamesh in the Account of
Esarhaddon's Egyptian Campaign
Mordechai Cogan
The Assyrian Stela Fragment from Ben-Shemen
M. A. Damdamayev
A Pugnacious Scribe from Uruk
Gershon Galil
A New Look at a Neo-Assyrian Sale of "Land and People"
Yair Hoffman
The Wandering Lament:
Micah 1:10-16
Wayne Horowitz and Takayoshi Oshima
New Light on an Old Find from Hazor
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz
"Shutting Up" the Enemy -
Literary Gleanings from Sargon's Eighth Campaign
Dan`el Kahn
Piankhy's Instructions to his Army in Kush and their Execution
Yehuda Kaplan
Recruitment of Foreign Soldiers into the Neo-Assyrian Army during the
Reign of Tiglath-pileser III
Jacob Klein
Four Early Mesopotamian 'Building' Inscriptions from the Moussaieff
Collection
Erle Leichty
Esarhaddon's Eastern Campaign
Edward Lipinski
The Hosts of the Mountain
M. P. Maidman
Peace and War at Nuzi:
A Prosographical Foray
Nadav Na'aman
The Suhu Governors' Inscriptions in the Context of Mesopotamian
Royal Inscriptions
Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni
The Chronology of the Idumean Ostraca in the Decade or So after the
Death of Alexander the Great and Its Relevance for Historical Events
Itamar Singer
On Siege Warfare in Hittite Texts
Hayim Tadmor
Assyria at the Gates of Tushpa
Nili Wazana
Are Trees of the Field Human?
A Biblical War Law (Deuteronomy 20:19-20) and Neo-Assyrian
Propaganda
Shigeo Yamada
Qurdi-Assur-lamur:
His Letters and Career
Ron Zadok
Neo-Assyrian Notes
Stefan Zawadski
Nebuchadnezzar's Campaign in the 30th Year (575 B.C.):
A Conflict with Tyre?
List of Contributors
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History of Ancient Israel by Dan'el Kahn
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The Last Days of the Kingdom of Israel, ed. Shuichi Hasegawa, Christoph Levin and Karen Radner (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft; Berlin: de Gruyter), 229–250., 2018
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During the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, mercenaries and foreign soldiers served as combatants
in the Eg... more During the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty, mercenaries and foreign soldiers served as combatants
in the Egyptian army. They were first attested during the reign of Psammetichus I and their
presence increased constantly. They came from mainland Greece, the Aegean Islands, Caria,
Lydia, Libya, Kush, Phoenicia, Aram, Israel, and Judah. They are mentioned on private ste-
lae, and in administrative and legal papyri, biblical books, classical sources, Egyptian and
Assyrian royal inscriptions, and their presence is also demonstrated by archaeological finds.
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The purpose of this article is to reconsider the date of King Josiah's death. I divided it into t... more The purpose of this article is to reconsider the date of King Josiah's death. I divided it into three sections: I. A short survey of the history of research. II. The relevance of Demotic Papyrus Berlin 13588 for the date of Psammetichus I's death and Necho's accession. III. Its significance for determining Egyptian-Judean Political Relations.
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In 2 Kgs and 2 Chron Josiah's death is described. While the Kings version is vague, the version i... more In 2 Kgs and 2 Chron Josiah's death is described. While the Kings version is vague, the version in 2 Chron and later traditions, for historiographic reasons, blame Josiah for disobeying the word of God and thus he was punished and die in battle. However, when reconstructing the historical reality based on extra-biblical sources, mainly Neo-Babylonian, it is possible to reject a war between Necho II and Josiah as the reason for his death. A reason for a meeting between both Kings at Megiddo is raised. Finally, the death of Josiah is regarded as capital punishment, based on Egyptian parallels, and a possible way of execution is then sought based on Egyptian practice.
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in: G. Galil, M. Geller and A. Millard (eds.), Homeland and Exile: Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honour of Bustenay Oded, (Vetus Testamentum, Supplements, 130; Leiden – Boston: Brill, 2009) 439-453.
"he introductory sentence of Zephaniah dates his prophecies to the reign of Josiah, King of Judah... more "he introductory sentence of Zephaniah dates his prophecies to the reign of Josiah, King of Judah, who reigned between 640–609 B.C.E. However, since introductory sentences may have been a later clariication or addition, their chronological value should not be taken for granted.
Most scholars accept the date in Zeph 1:1 and date the
prophecies to the reign of Josiah, prior to his religious reform (before 621 B.C.E.) or during it.
Attempts have also been made to date them on historical grounds to the reign of Jehoiakim or Zedekiah. Other attempts have been made to date the composition of the Book
of Zephaniah to “ater the early post monarchic-period”,
In this article I intend to show that the Oracles against the
Nations in the Book of Zephaniah indeed all it the historical reality in the period of the reign of Josiah (640–609 B.C.E.)"
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The Book of Isaiah by Dan'el Kahn
ABSTRACT
In the following article I will deal with one of Isaiah’s prophecies, Isaiah 11:11–16, w... more ABSTRACT
In the following article I will deal with one of Isaiah’s prophecies, Isaiah 11:11–16, whose date is debated. In this article, I will concur that the prophecy is not original to Isaiah, nor was there an early Isaianic core that was expanded in later periods. Other scholars suggested different dates for the prophecy, ranging from the reign of Josiah at the end of the Assyrian rule in the Levant until the Hasmonean Period. I will forward a different historical setting to the oracle than the hitherto given options. According to this understanding, the oracle was composed in the mid-7th century BCE and reflects the political situation during the reigns of Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria, and Manasseh, King of Judah, respectively
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Since early times, it has been clear that the Hezekiah-Sennacherib Narrative was composed from se... more Since early times, it has been clear that the Hezekiah-Sennacherib Narrative was composed from several sources. Scholars debated about the date of the various sources. Lately, a case has been made for dating Source B2 during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem, based on the historical reality of the list of conquered kingdoms in 2 Kgs 19:12–13. The identification of the king of Laʿir, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah whose fate was doomed (2 Kgs 19:13) as the King of the declining Assyrian kingdom of the last quarter of the seventh century BCE, as well as the destruction of “all the lands and their land (i.e., Assyria)” in Isa 37:18 point to the end of the struggle between the waning Assyrian kingdom and the rise of the Babylonian Empire.
The derisive song sung by the inhabitants of Judah (2 Kgs 19:21), mocking Sennacherib’s boast to having conquered all kingdoms (2 Kgs 19:10–13), when Jerusalem proudly withstood a prolonged siege, points to a time of composition during the winter of 588 and summer of 586 BCE, when Jerusalem’s hopes for survival were still high.
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in James Charlesworth (ed.), The Continuity of the Prophetic Genius of Isaiah (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2018), 35–72., 2018
Introduction
In this article I will raise some thoughts about the continuity of writing in First... more Introduction
In this article I will raise some thoughts about the continuity of writing in First Isaiah (Isa 1–39). Isaiah started to Prophesy during the last year of Uzziah. His last datable activity was recorded during Sennacherib's campaign against Judah in 701 BCE. However, it is clear that not all the material which is found in First Isaiah is to be dated to his time. It is possible to find additions of a later date in the text.
No scholarly consensus exists today regarding the appropriate methods by which the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, including the book of Isaiah, are to be analyzed. The diachronic classical methodology employed by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century critics sought to distinguish, by means of literary-historical considerations, between a given prophet's actual words and later additions to and revisions of that prophet's message added by scribes and exegetes, in order to reconstruct the different compositional stages of prophetic books. The study of the book of Isaiah has advanced immeasurably in the last decade within the 'traditional' literary-historical method. However, dating biblical texts based only on classical biblical research, such as intertextuality, the development of religious ideas or grammar, as is mostly done, is problematic.
In contrast, one of the main tendencies in contemporary Biblical studies is to read prophetic books as uniform and homogeneous literary works which are all late, at least as late as the time of their final production. Biblical scholarship has shifted in the last decades towards an aestethic-literary synchronic analysis. Thus, there has been an increasing tendency in recent scholarship to question whether it is even possible to perform such a reconstruction of the compositional stages of Proto-Isaiah. According to contemporary trend in Biblical studies, the original core of the book of Isaiah remains concealed behind the long process of reshaping and reformulation within the book. Scholars are reluctant to attempt reconstructing its compositional stages. Naturally, this tendency disregards the stages in the formation of the prophetic literature and their original ‘Sitz im Leben’. Others, combine the synchronic approach with a diachronic approach. As a consequence, there exists a growing trend in scholarship that views the prophetic books, including Isaiah, as a creation of the Persian and the Hellenistic periods. Such a viewpoint disregards the ancient origins of the prophetic literature, or views it as mere literature, without inquiring into the historical circumstances behind their composition.
It is commonly accepted that much of the material in Proto-Isaiah is not original to the prophet. The oracles in the Book of Isaiah are commonly dated to a variety of periods: Conservative scholars date most of the work to the eighth century, the period of Isaiah himself; others to a Josianic/"Assyrian redaction - end 7th century; to the Exilic or postexilic Persian period, whether composed by Deutero or Trito Isaiah (6/5th and 5/4th c. BCE); to the Hellenistic (4th-3rd centuries) or even late Hellenistic/ Maccabean period (ca. 150 BCE). This clearly affects the question of composition and understanding of the book. Furthermore, setting certain oracles in the wrong historical context hampers the understanding of the original intent of the prophecies.
In the following, I will survey various prophecies in the Book of First Isaiah and will date them chronologically according to historical events which they reflect. It seems that during the ministry of Isaiah, as well as during the decades after his death, there was a continuous and constant "Fortschreibung" i.e, updating, editing and composing of prophecies relevant to international relations, the fate of the exiles and God's intervention in these issues. On the other hand, the lack of major editing and additions dating to the Post Exilic Period (neither Persian nor Hellenistic) would point to the finalizing of the bulk of the Book of First Isaiah just a couple of decades before the earliest datable prophesies in Deutero-Isaiah mentioning Cyrus, King of Persia. This has ramifications on the editing process of the Book of Isaiah, a subject, which is highly debated in the past decades.
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Egypt and Canaan by Dan'el Kahn
in: Galil, G. Maeir, A. Gilboa A. and Kahn, D. The Ancient Near East in the 12th-10th Centuries BCE: Culture and History Proceedings of the Conference held at the University of Haifa, 2-5 May 2010 (AOAT 392; Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 2012): 255 – 268.
‘Israel’ is mentioned in the Merneptah Stela, dated to his 5th regnal year—1209/8 BCE in an extra... more ‘Israel’ is mentioned in the Merneptah Stela, dated to his 5th regnal year—1209/8 BCE in an extra-biblical source for the first time. Dozens of articles were written in order to explain the meaning of the name Israel, identify the origin and nature of ‘Israel’, locate this entity, and evaluate the veracity of the described events. Scholars based their research on grammatical and orthographical, structural, phonological, literary, lexicographical and art-historical arguments,in order to connect or disconnect this entity from the later entity known as ‘the peoples of Israel’, which is mentioned in the Bible. My purpose in dealing with the Merneptah stela and his campaign against Canaan and ‘Israel’ is based on its broader international geopolitical context. By this, I mean the relations of Egypt with the Levant, Libya and Kush from the end of Ramesses II’s reign, when Egypt was at the peak of its empire, till the early years of Ramesses III, some three decades later. I will base my analysis on Royal and Private Inscriptions, Temple reliefs, scarabs, and other archaeological finds.
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Egypt, Canaan and Israel: History, Imperialism, Ideology and Literature Proceedings of a Conference at the University of Haifa, 3-7 May 2009 Edited by S. Bar, D. Kahn, and J.J. Shirley
"The purpose of this paper is to review the
relationships between Egypt and the King-
dom of M... more "The purpose of this paper is to review the
relationships between Egypt and the King-
dom of Mitanni (also known as Naharin
in Egyptian sources) during the reign of
Amenhotep III, King of Egypt (c. 1390-
1352 BCE), and Tushratta, King of Mitan-
ni. It is commonly accepted that they were
peaceful during the reign of Amenhotep
III. However, reading texts carefully, dete-
rioration in relations and even a short
period of animosity between them can be
observed, though relations soon improved.
In this article I shall forward the evidence
and suggest a reason for this animosity."
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Ramesses III and the Philistines by Dan'el Kahn
Abstract
The royal sources (royal inscriptions, reliefs, topographical lists) of Ramesses III, ev... more Abstract
The royal sources (royal inscriptions, reliefs, topographical lists) of Ramesses III, even though using many literary clichés, the stereotypic depictions of the defeat and subjugation of Egypt's enemies: Kush, Amurru, Libya and against the Peoples of the Sea, as well as royal economic missions mentioned in Papyrus Harris I to Punt (77:8-78:1), Sinai (78:6-8), as well as a minor war against the Shasu of Se‘ir, ( Papyrus Harris I 76:10-11), an expedition to the Timna copper mines in the ‘Arabah (78:1-5), and Arabia, seem to be corroborated by archaeological finds, or at least are feasible to imagine. It is the purpose of this paper to consider the historicity of Ramesses III's claims regarding his military victories against the Northern Levant, i.e. against the Asiatics, Hittites, and even Trans-Euphratene polities (Naharina). It is claimed that the sources of Ramesses III, are not mere unhistorical copies (even though some are clearly based on artistic plagiates from earlier rulers), but depict actual events. If these descriptions can be regarded as authentic, they may shed additional light on Ramesses III achievements in the Northern Levant during his second decade of reign.
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Abstract
In this article I propose to show that in his eighth regnal year Ramesses III campaigne... more Abstract
In this article I propose to show that in his eighth regnal year Ramesses III campaigned against the Philistines on the Northern borders of Canaan and where halted by them. Ramesses was victorious in a pitched battle, routed them to their home and destroyed their kingdom – “the Land of Palestine”. This land was recently located in the Amuq plain in Southern Turkey – the ancient Kingdom of Alalakh.
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"English abstract:
The Historical Background of a Topographical List of Ramesses III
Topog... more "English abstract:
The Historical Background of a Topographical List of Ramesses III
Topographical lists are a literary and artistic genre which has been
discussed widely in scholarly literature. The potential of this genre for the study of historical geography of the Land of Canaan in the Bronze and Iron ages was identified immediately. Many scholars studied these lists and tried to identify archaeological tells with toponyms mentioned in the lists. However, in most cases, these lists could not be used to learn about the history of Canaan, since many of them were copied from prototypes dating from the days of Thutmosis III (1479–1425 BCE) and Ramesses II (1279–1212 BCE), and could only capsulate the historical reality during the reign of the latter. Furthermore, not enough attention was given to the physical setting of the list within the scene, the accompanying epigraphs and the corpus of royal texts. In this article I re-examine a topographical list of Ramesses III from his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu in western Thebes. I discuss the significance of the originality of the toponyms and their possible identification, the integration of the list within the scene of Pharaoh smiting his enemies, and its relation to the royal inscriptions of Ramesses
III. The list appears to be original and unique and reflects the outcome of the battle of Ramesses III against the Philistines and their allies."
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Abstract
It is the purpose of this article to address the identity of the auxiliary Asiatic tr... more Abstract
It is the purpose of this article to address the identity of the auxiliary Asiatic troops mentioned in the Elephantine Stele of Sethnakhte, founder of the Twentieth Dynasty. The identity of these auxiliaries will help to illuminate the political relations between Egypt and the Levant in the first quarter of the twelfth century bce. Furthermore, it is claimed that the royal texts, reliefs, and topographical lists of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu dealing with campaigning in Northern Syria—usually regarded as mere copies of earlier kings’ exploits—are genuine and shed light on a campaign Ramesses III conducted against Amurru and Hittite cities before his fifth regnal year, probably extending to the Euphrates. It may be that both Sethnakhte and Ramesses III were referring to the same Asiatic enemies.
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Books by Dan'el Kahn
The campaign of Sennacherib against Judah is one of the most widely researched in Biblical Studies and Ancient Near East, and one that also poses scholarly challenges. Allusion to the event is found in Isaiah, Kings, and Chronicles, but there is no correlation between the Assyrian and Biblical descriptions of the same event. Dan’el Kahn offers a textcritical analysis of these Biblical passages that allude to the military events. Detecting repetitions, breaks in the narrative, and contradictions and inconsistencies in the texts, he traces and reconstructs different and discrete sources. Kahn demonstrates that the Biblical passages are based on earlier sources that were later edited and revised by a third hand. Based on historical events that are found in non-Biblical texts, he also offers new dates for the sources. He claims that the narrative was written for the book of Isaiah, arguing that it predates the version found in Kings
Reinhard Achenbach
Divine Warfare and Yhwh’s Wars: Religious Ideologies of War in the Ancient Near East and in the Old Testament
Michal Artzy
Continuation and Change in the 13th–10th Centuries BCE: Bronze-Working Koine?
Michael Avioz
The Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7: Conditional or Unconditional?
Yigal Bloch
Assyro-Babylonian Conflicts in the Reign of Aššsur-rēša-iši I: The Contribution of Administrative Documents to History-Writing
Walter Dietrich
David and the Philistines: Literature and History
Frederick Mario Fales
Ḫanigalbat in the Early Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: A Retrospective View
Avraham Faust
Between Israel and Philistia: Ethnic Negotiations in the South during the Iron Age I
Gershon Galil
Solomon’s Temple: Fiction or Reality?
Yosef Garfinkel, Saar Ganor and Michael G. Hasel
The Iron Age City of Khirbet Qeiyafa after four Seasons of Excavations
Moshe Garsiel
Ideological Discordance between the prophets Nathan and Samuel as reflecting the Divergence between the Book of Samuel’s authors
Moti Haiman
Geopolitical Aspects of the Southern Levant Desert in the 11th–10th Centuries BCE
Larry G. Herr
Jordan in the Iron I and IIB Periods
Richard S. Hess
The Distinctive Value of Human Life in Israel’s Earliest Legal Traditions
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz
Yhwh’s Exalted House Revisited: New Comparative Light on the Biblical Image of Solomon’s Temple
Sandra Jacobs
נפש תחת נפש “A Life for A Life” and napšāte umalla
Dan´el Kahn
A Geo-Political and Historical Perspective of Merneptah’s Policy in Canaan
Aaron Koller
The Kos in the Levant: Thoughts on its Distribution, Function, and Spread from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age II
André Lemaire
West Semitic Epigraphy and the History of the Levant during the 12th–10th Centuries BCE
Yigal Levin
Ideology and Reality in the Book of Judges
Mario Liverani
Melid in the Early and Middle Iron Age: Archaeology and History
Aren M. Maeir
Insights on the Philistine Culture and Related Issues: An Overview of 15 Years of Work at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath
Alan Millard
Scripts and their uses in the 12th–10th Centuries BCE
John P. Nielsen
Nebuchadnezzar I’s Eastern Front
Troy Leiland Sagrillo
Šîšaq’s Army: 2 Chronicles 12:2–3 from an Egyptological Perspective
Itamar Singer
The Philistines in the North and the Kingdom of Taita
Ephraim Stern
Archaeological Remains of the Northern Sea People along the Sharon and Carmel Coasts and the Acco and Jezrael Valleys
Christoffer Theis and Peter van der Veen
Some “Provenanced” Egyptian Inscriptions from Jerusalem: A Preliminary Study of Old and New Evidence
Koert van Bekkum
Coexistence as Guilt: Iron I Memories in Judges 1
Assaf Yasur-Landau
Chariots, Spears and Wagons: Anatolian and Aegean Elements in the Medinet Habu Land Battle Relief
Ran Zadok
The Aramean Infiltration and Diffusion in the Upper Jazira, 1150–930 BCE
Wolfgang Zwickel
Cult in the Iron Age I–IIA in the Land of Israel
Wolfgang Zwickel
The Change from Egyptian to Philistine Hegemony in South-Western Palestine during the Time of Ramesses III or IV
Index of Authors
Index of Sources
Index of Subjects
Abbreviations
Prof. Israel Eph`al
An Appreciation by Dan`el Kahn
Bibliography of the Works of Israel Eph`al
Tsvi Abusch
Hunting in the Epic of Gilgamesh:
Speculations on the Education of a Prince
Shmuel Ahituv
Ezekiel and Egypt
Amnon Altman
What Kind of Treaty Tradition do the Sefire Inscriptions Represent?
Pinhas Artzi
"All the Nations and Many Peoples":
The Answer of Isaiah and Micah to Assyrian Imperial Policies
Amitai Baruchi-Unna
Crossing the Boundaries:
Literary Allusions to the Epic of Gilgamesh in the Account of
Esarhaddon's Egyptian Campaign
Mordechai Cogan
The Assyrian Stela Fragment from Ben-Shemen
M. A. Damdamayev
A Pugnacious Scribe from Uruk
Gershon Galil
A New Look at a Neo-Assyrian Sale of "Land and People"
Yair Hoffman
The Wandering Lament:
Micah 1:10-16
Wayne Horowitz and Takayoshi Oshima
New Light on an Old Find from Hazor
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz
"Shutting Up" the Enemy -
Literary Gleanings from Sargon's Eighth Campaign
Dan`el Kahn
Piankhy's Instructions to his Army in Kush and their Execution
Yehuda Kaplan
Recruitment of Foreign Soldiers into the Neo-Assyrian Army during the
Reign of Tiglath-pileser III
Jacob Klein
Four Early Mesopotamian 'Building' Inscriptions from the Moussaieff
Collection
Erle Leichty
Esarhaddon's Eastern Campaign
Edward Lipinski
The Hosts of the Mountain
M. P. Maidman
Peace and War at Nuzi:
A Prosographical Foray
Nadav Na'aman
The Suhu Governors' Inscriptions in the Context of Mesopotamian
Royal Inscriptions
Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni
The Chronology of the Idumean Ostraca in the Decade or So after the
Death of Alexander the Great and Its Relevance for Historical Events
Itamar Singer
On Siege Warfare in Hittite Texts
Hayim Tadmor
Assyria at the Gates of Tushpa
Nili Wazana
Are Trees of the Field Human?
A Biblical War Law (Deuteronomy 20:19-20) and Neo-Assyrian
Propaganda
Shigeo Yamada
Qurdi-Assur-lamur:
His Letters and Career
Ron Zadok
Neo-Assyrian Notes
Stefan Zawadski
Nebuchadnezzar's Campaign in the 30th Year (575 B.C.):
A Conflict with Tyre?
List of Contributors
History of Ancient Israel by Dan'el Kahn
in the Egyptian army. They were first attested during the reign of Psammetichus I and their
presence increased constantly. They came from mainland Greece, the Aegean Islands, Caria,
Lydia, Libya, Kush, Phoenicia, Aram, Israel, and Judah. They are mentioned on private ste-
lae, and in administrative and legal papyri, biblical books, classical sources, Egyptian and
Assyrian royal inscriptions, and their presence is also demonstrated by archaeological finds.
Most scholars accept the date in Zeph 1:1 and date the
prophecies to the reign of Josiah, prior to his religious reform (before 621 B.C.E.) or during it.
Attempts have also been made to date them on historical grounds to the reign of Jehoiakim or Zedekiah. Other attempts have been made to date the composition of the Book
of Zephaniah to “ater the early post monarchic-period”,
In this article I intend to show that the Oracles against the
Nations in the Book of Zephaniah indeed all it the historical reality in the period of the reign of Josiah (640–609 B.C.E.)"
The Book of Isaiah by Dan'el Kahn
In the following article I will deal with one of Isaiah’s prophecies, Isaiah 11:11–16, whose date is debated. In this article, I will concur that the prophecy is not original to Isaiah, nor was there an early Isaianic core that was expanded in later periods. Other scholars suggested different dates for the prophecy, ranging from the reign of Josiah at the end of the Assyrian rule in the Levant until the Hasmonean Period. I will forward a different historical setting to the oracle than the hitherto given options. According to this understanding, the oracle was composed in the mid-7th century BCE and reflects the political situation during the reigns of Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria, and Manasseh, King of Judah, respectively
The derisive song sung by the inhabitants of Judah (2 Kgs 19:21), mocking Sennacherib’s boast to having conquered all kingdoms (2 Kgs 19:10–13), when Jerusalem proudly withstood a prolonged siege, points to a time of composition during the winter of 588 and summer of 586 BCE, when Jerusalem’s hopes for survival were still high.
In this article I will raise some thoughts about the continuity of writing in First Isaiah (Isa 1–39). Isaiah started to Prophesy during the last year of Uzziah. His last datable activity was recorded during Sennacherib's campaign against Judah in 701 BCE. However, it is clear that not all the material which is found in First Isaiah is to be dated to his time. It is possible to find additions of a later date in the text.
No scholarly consensus exists today regarding the appropriate methods by which the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, including the book of Isaiah, are to be analyzed. The diachronic classical methodology employed by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century critics sought to distinguish, by means of literary-historical considerations, between a given prophet's actual words and later additions to and revisions of that prophet's message added by scribes and exegetes, in order to reconstruct the different compositional stages of prophetic books. The study of the book of Isaiah has advanced immeasurably in the last decade within the 'traditional' literary-historical method. However, dating biblical texts based only on classical biblical research, such as intertextuality, the development of religious ideas or grammar, as is mostly done, is problematic.
In contrast, one of the main tendencies in contemporary Biblical studies is to read prophetic books as uniform and homogeneous literary works which are all late, at least as late as the time of their final production. Biblical scholarship has shifted in the last decades towards an aestethic-literary synchronic analysis. Thus, there has been an increasing tendency in recent scholarship to question whether it is even possible to perform such a reconstruction of the compositional stages of Proto-Isaiah. According to contemporary trend in Biblical studies, the original core of the book of Isaiah remains concealed behind the long process of reshaping and reformulation within the book. Scholars are reluctant to attempt reconstructing its compositional stages. Naturally, this tendency disregards the stages in the formation of the prophetic literature and their original ‘Sitz im Leben’. Others, combine the synchronic approach with a diachronic approach. As a consequence, there exists a growing trend in scholarship that views the prophetic books, including Isaiah, as a creation of the Persian and the Hellenistic periods. Such a viewpoint disregards the ancient origins of the prophetic literature, or views it as mere literature, without inquiring into the historical circumstances behind their composition.
It is commonly accepted that much of the material in Proto-Isaiah is not original to the prophet. The oracles in the Book of Isaiah are commonly dated to a variety of periods: Conservative scholars date most of the work to the eighth century, the period of Isaiah himself; others to a Josianic/"Assyrian redaction - end 7th century; to the Exilic or postexilic Persian period, whether composed by Deutero or Trito Isaiah (6/5th and 5/4th c. BCE); to the Hellenistic (4th-3rd centuries) or even late Hellenistic/ Maccabean period (ca. 150 BCE). This clearly affects the question of composition and understanding of the book. Furthermore, setting certain oracles in the wrong historical context hampers the understanding of the original intent of the prophecies.
In the following, I will survey various prophecies in the Book of First Isaiah and will date them chronologically according to historical events which they reflect. It seems that during the ministry of Isaiah, as well as during the decades after his death, there was a continuous and constant "Fortschreibung" i.e, updating, editing and composing of prophecies relevant to international relations, the fate of the exiles and God's intervention in these issues. On the other hand, the lack of major editing and additions dating to the Post Exilic Period (neither Persian nor Hellenistic) would point to the finalizing of the bulk of the Book of First Isaiah just a couple of decades before the earliest datable prophesies in Deutero-Isaiah mentioning Cyrus, King of Persia. This has ramifications on the editing process of the Book of Isaiah, a subject, which is highly debated in the past decades.
Egypt and Canaan by Dan'el Kahn
relationships between Egypt and the King-
dom of Mitanni (also known as Naharin
in Egyptian sources) during the reign of
Amenhotep III, King of Egypt (c. 1390-
1352 BCE), and Tushratta, King of Mitan-
ni. It is commonly accepted that they were
peaceful during the reign of Amenhotep
III. However, reading texts carefully, dete-
rioration in relations and even a short
period of animosity between them can be
observed, though relations soon improved.
In this article I shall forward the evidence
and suggest a reason for this animosity."
Ramesses III and the Philistines by Dan'el Kahn
The royal sources (royal inscriptions, reliefs, topographical lists) of Ramesses III, even though using many literary clichés, the stereotypic depictions of the defeat and subjugation of Egypt's enemies: Kush, Amurru, Libya and against the Peoples of the Sea, as well as royal economic missions mentioned in Papyrus Harris I to Punt (77:8-78:1), Sinai (78:6-8), as well as a minor war against the Shasu of Se‘ir, ( Papyrus Harris I 76:10-11), an expedition to the Timna copper mines in the ‘Arabah (78:1-5), and Arabia, seem to be corroborated by archaeological finds, or at least are feasible to imagine. It is the purpose of this paper to consider the historicity of Ramesses III's claims regarding his military victories against the Northern Levant, i.e. against the Asiatics, Hittites, and even Trans-Euphratene polities (Naharina). It is claimed that the sources of Ramesses III, are not mere unhistorical copies (even though some are clearly based on artistic plagiates from earlier rulers), but depict actual events. If these descriptions can be regarded as authentic, they may shed additional light on Ramesses III achievements in the Northern Levant during his second decade of reign.
In this article I propose to show that in his eighth regnal year Ramesses III campaigned against the Philistines on the Northern borders of Canaan and where halted by them. Ramesses was victorious in a pitched battle, routed them to their home and destroyed their kingdom – “the Land of Palestine”. This land was recently located in the Amuq plain in Southern Turkey – the ancient Kingdom of Alalakh.
The Historical Background of a Topographical List of Ramesses III
Topographical lists are a literary and artistic genre which has been
discussed widely in scholarly literature. The potential of this genre for the study of historical geography of the Land of Canaan in the Bronze and Iron ages was identified immediately. Many scholars studied these lists and tried to identify archaeological tells with toponyms mentioned in the lists. However, in most cases, these lists could not be used to learn about the history of Canaan, since many of them were copied from prototypes dating from the days of Thutmosis III (1479–1425 BCE) and Ramesses II (1279–1212 BCE), and could only capsulate the historical reality during the reign of the latter. Furthermore, not enough attention was given to the physical setting of the list within the scene, the accompanying epigraphs and the corpus of royal texts. In this article I re-examine a topographical list of Ramesses III from his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu in western Thebes. I discuss the significance of the originality of the toponyms and their possible identification, the integration of the list within the scene of Pharaoh smiting his enemies, and its relation to the royal inscriptions of Ramesses
III. The list appears to be original and unique and reflects the outcome of the battle of Ramesses III against the Philistines and their allies."
It is the purpose of this article to address the identity of the auxiliary Asiatic troops mentioned in the Elephantine Stele of Sethnakhte, founder of the Twentieth Dynasty. The identity of these auxiliaries will help to illuminate the political relations between Egypt and the Levant in the first quarter of the twelfth century bce. Furthermore, it is claimed that the royal texts, reliefs, and topographical lists of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu dealing with campaigning in Northern Syria—usually regarded as mere copies of earlier kings’ exploits—are genuine and shed light on a campaign Ramesses III conducted against Amurru and Hittite cities before his fifth regnal year, probably extending to the Euphrates. It may be that both Sethnakhte and Ramesses III were referring to the same Asiatic enemies.
The campaign of Sennacherib against Judah is one of the most widely researched in Biblical Studies and Ancient Near East, and one that also poses scholarly challenges. Allusion to the event is found in Isaiah, Kings, and Chronicles, but there is no correlation between the Assyrian and Biblical descriptions of the same event. Dan’el Kahn offers a textcritical analysis of these Biblical passages that allude to the military events. Detecting repetitions, breaks in the narrative, and contradictions and inconsistencies in the texts, he traces and reconstructs different and discrete sources. Kahn demonstrates that the Biblical passages are based on earlier sources that were later edited and revised by a third hand. Based on historical events that are found in non-Biblical texts, he also offers new dates for the sources. He claims that the narrative was written for the book of Isaiah, arguing that it predates the version found in Kings
Reinhard Achenbach
Divine Warfare and Yhwh’s Wars: Religious Ideologies of War in the Ancient Near East and in the Old Testament
Michal Artzy
Continuation and Change in the 13th–10th Centuries BCE: Bronze-Working Koine?
Michael Avioz
The Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7: Conditional or Unconditional?
Yigal Bloch
Assyro-Babylonian Conflicts in the Reign of Aššsur-rēša-iši I: The Contribution of Administrative Documents to History-Writing
Walter Dietrich
David and the Philistines: Literature and History
Frederick Mario Fales
Ḫanigalbat in the Early Neo-Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: A Retrospective View
Avraham Faust
Between Israel and Philistia: Ethnic Negotiations in the South during the Iron Age I
Gershon Galil
Solomon’s Temple: Fiction or Reality?
Yosef Garfinkel, Saar Ganor and Michael G. Hasel
The Iron Age City of Khirbet Qeiyafa after four Seasons of Excavations
Moshe Garsiel
Ideological Discordance between the prophets Nathan and Samuel as reflecting the Divergence between the Book of Samuel’s authors
Moti Haiman
Geopolitical Aspects of the Southern Levant Desert in the 11th–10th Centuries BCE
Larry G. Herr
Jordan in the Iron I and IIB Periods
Richard S. Hess
The Distinctive Value of Human Life in Israel’s Earliest Legal Traditions
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz
Yhwh’s Exalted House Revisited: New Comparative Light on the Biblical Image of Solomon’s Temple
Sandra Jacobs
נפש תחת נפש “A Life for A Life” and napšāte umalla
Dan´el Kahn
A Geo-Political and Historical Perspective of Merneptah’s Policy in Canaan
Aaron Koller
The Kos in the Levant: Thoughts on its Distribution, Function, and Spread from the Late Bronze to the Iron Age II
André Lemaire
West Semitic Epigraphy and the History of the Levant during the 12th–10th Centuries BCE
Yigal Levin
Ideology and Reality in the Book of Judges
Mario Liverani
Melid in the Early and Middle Iron Age: Archaeology and History
Aren M. Maeir
Insights on the Philistine Culture and Related Issues: An Overview of 15 Years of Work at Tell eṣ-Ṣafi/Gath
Alan Millard
Scripts and their uses in the 12th–10th Centuries BCE
John P. Nielsen
Nebuchadnezzar I’s Eastern Front
Troy Leiland Sagrillo
Šîšaq’s Army: 2 Chronicles 12:2–3 from an Egyptological Perspective
Itamar Singer
The Philistines in the North and the Kingdom of Taita
Ephraim Stern
Archaeological Remains of the Northern Sea People along the Sharon and Carmel Coasts and the Acco and Jezrael Valleys
Christoffer Theis and Peter van der Veen
Some “Provenanced” Egyptian Inscriptions from Jerusalem: A Preliminary Study of Old and New Evidence
Koert van Bekkum
Coexistence as Guilt: Iron I Memories in Judges 1
Assaf Yasur-Landau
Chariots, Spears and Wagons: Anatolian and Aegean Elements in the Medinet Habu Land Battle Relief
Ran Zadok
The Aramean Infiltration and Diffusion in the Upper Jazira, 1150–930 BCE
Wolfgang Zwickel
Cult in the Iron Age I–IIA in the Land of Israel
Wolfgang Zwickel
The Change from Egyptian to Philistine Hegemony in South-Western Palestine during the Time of Ramesses III or IV
Index of Authors
Index of Sources
Index of Subjects
Abbreviations
Prof. Israel Eph`al
An Appreciation by Dan`el Kahn
Bibliography of the Works of Israel Eph`al
Tsvi Abusch
Hunting in the Epic of Gilgamesh:
Speculations on the Education of a Prince
Shmuel Ahituv
Ezekiel and Egypt
Amnon Altman
What Kind of Treaty Tradition do the Sefire Inscriptions Represent?
Pinhas Artzi
"All the Nations and Many Peoples":
The Answer of Isaiah and Micah to Assyrian Imperial Policies
Amitai Baruchi-Unna
Crossing the Boundaries:
Literary Allusions to the Epic of Gilgamesh in the Account of
Esarhaddon's Egyptian Campaign
Mordechai Cogan
The Assyrian Stela Fragment from Ben-Shemen
M. A. Damdamayev
A Pugnacious Scribe from Uruk
Gershon Galil
A New Look at a Neo-Assyrian Sale of "Land and People"
Yair Hoffman
The Wandering Lament:
Micah 1:10-16
Wayne Horowitz and Takayoshi Oshima
New Light on an Old Find from Hazor
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz
"Shutting Up" the Enemy -
Literary Gleanings from Sargon's Eighth Campaign
Dan`el Kahn
Piankhy's Instructions to his Army in Kush and their Execution
Yehuda Kaplan
Recruitment of Foreign Soldiers into the Neo-Assyrian Army during the
Reign of Tiglath-pileser III
Jacob Klein
Four Early Mesopotamian 'Building' Inscriptions from the Moussaieff
Collection
Erle Leichty
Esarhaddon's Eastern Campaign
Edward Lipinski
The Hosts of the Mountain
M. P. Maidman
Peace and War at Nuzi:
A Prosographical Foray
Nadav Na'aman
The Suhu Governors' Inscriptions in the Context of Mesopotamian
Royal Inscriptions
Bezalel Porten and Ada Yardeni
The Chronology of the Idumean Ostraca in the Decade or So after the
Death of Alexander the Great and Its Relevance for Historical Events
Itamar Singer
On Siege Warfare in Hittite Texts
Hayim Tadmor
Assyria at the Gates of Tushpa
Nili Wazana
Are Trees of the Field Human?
A Biblical War Law (Deuteronomy 20:19-20) and Neo-Assyrian
Propaganda
Shigeo Yamada
Qurdi-Assur-lamur:
His Letters and Career
Ron Zadok
Neo-Assyrian Notes
Stefan Zawadski
Nebuchadnezzar's Campaign in the 30th Year (575 B.C.):
A Conflict with Tyre?
List of Contributors
in the Egyptian army. They were first attested during the reign of Psammetichus I and their
presence increased constantly. They came from mainland Greece, the Aegean Islands, Caria,
Lydia, Libya, Kush, Phoenicia, Aram, Israel, and Judah. They are mentioned on private ste-
lae, and in administrative and legal papyri, biblical books, classical sources, Egyptian and
Assyrian royal inscriptions, and their presence is also demonstrated by archaeological finds.
Most scholars accept the date in Zeph 1:1 and date the
prophecies to the reign of Josiah, prior to his religious reform (before 621 B.C.E.) or during it.
Attempts have also been made to date them on historical grounds to the reign of Jehoiakim or Zedekiah. Other attempts have been made to date the composition of the Book
of Zephaniah to “ater the early post monarchic-period”,
In this article I intend to show that the Oracles against the
Nations in the Book of Zephaniah indeed all it the historical reality in the period of the reign of Josiah (640–609 B.C.E.)"
In the following article I will deal with one of Isaiah’s prophecies, Isaiah 11:11–16, whose date is debated. In this article, I will concur that the prophecy is not original to Isaiah, nor was there an early Isaianic core that was expanded in later periods. Other scholars suggested different dates for the prophecy, ranging from the reign of Josiah at the end of the Assyrian rule in the Levant until the Hasmonean Period. I will forward a different historical setting to the oracle than the hitherto given options. According to this understanding, the oracle was composed in the mid-7th century BCE and reflects the political situation during the reigns of Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria, and Manasseh, King of Judah, respectively
The derisive song sung by the inhabitants of Judah (2 Kgs 19:21), mocking Sennacherib’s boast to having conquered all kingdoms (2 Kgs 19:10–13), when Jerusalem proudly withstood a prolonged siege, points to a time of composition during the winter of 588 and summer of 586 BCE, when Jerusalem’s hopes for survival were still high.
In this article I will raise some thoughts about the continuity of writing in First Isaiah (Isa 1–39). Isaiah started to Prophesy during the last year of Uzziah. His last datable activity was recorded during Sennacherib's campaign against Judah in 701 BCE. However, it is clear that not all the material which is found in First Isaiah is to be dated to his time. It is possible to find additions of a later date in the text.
No scholarly consensus exists today regarding the appropriate methods by which the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible, including the book of Isaiah, are to be analyzed. The diachronic classical methodology employed by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century critics sought to distinguish, by means of literary-historical considerations, between a given prophet's actual words and later additions to and revisions of that prophet's message added by scribes and exegetes, in order to reconstruct the different compositional stages of prophetic books. The study of the book of Isaiah has advanced immeasurably in the last decade within the 'traditional' literary-historical method. However, dating biblical texts based only on classical biblical research, such as intertextuality, the development of religious ideas or grammar, as is mostly done, is problematic.
In contrast, one of the main tendencies in contemporary Biblical studies is to read prophetic books as uniform and homogeneous literary works which are all late, at least as late as the time of their final production. Biblical scholarship has shifted in the last decades towards an aestethic-literary synchronic analysis. Thus, there has been an increasing tendency in recent scholarship to question whether it is even possible to perform such a reconstruction of the compositional stages of Proto-Isaiah. According to contemporary trend in Biblical studies, the original core of the book of Isaiah remains concealed behind the long process of reshaping and reformulation within the book. Scholars are reluctant to attempt reconstructing its compositional stages. Naturally, this tendency disregards the stages in the formation of the prophetic literature and their original ‘Sitz im Leben’. Others, combine the synchronic approach with a diachronic approach. As a consequence, there exists a growing trend in scholarship that views the prophetic books, including Isaiah, as a creation of the Persian and the Hellenistic periods. Such a viewpoint disregards the ancient origins of the prophetic literature, or views it as mere literature, without inquiring into the historical circumstances behind their composition.
It is commonly accepted that much of the material in Proto-Isaiah is not original to the prophet. The oracles in the Book of Isaiah are commonly dated to a variety of periods: Conservative scholars date most of the work to the eighth century, the period of Isaiah himself; others to a Josianic/"Assyrian redaction - end 7th century; to the Exilic or postexilic Persian period, whether composed by Deutero or Trito Isaiah (6/5th and 5/4th c. BCE); to the Hellenistic (4th-3rd centuries) or even late Hellenistic/ Maccabean period (ca. 150 BCE). This clearly affects the question of composition and understanding of the book. Furthermore, setting certain oracles in the wrong historical context hampers the understanding of the original intent of the prophecies.
In the following, I will survey various prophecies in the Book of First Isaiah and will date them chronologically according to historical events which they reflect. It seems that during the ministry of Isaiah, as well as during the decades after his death, there was a continuous and constant "Fortschreibung" i.e, updating, editing and composing of prophecies relevant to international relations, the fate of the exiles and God's intervention in these issues. On the other hand, the lack of major editing and additions dating to the Post Exilic Period (neither Persian nor Hellenistic) would point to the finalizing of the bulk of the Book of First Isaiah just a couple of decades before the earliest datable prophesies in Deutero-Isaiah mentioning Cyrus, King of Persia. This has ramifications on the editing process of the Book of Isaiah, a subject, which is highly debated in the past decades.
relationships between Egypt and the King-
dom of Mitanni (also known as Naharin
in Egyptian sources) during the reign of
Amenhotep III, King of Egypt (c. 1390-
1352 BCE), and Tushratta, King of Mitan-
ni. It is commonly accepted that they were
peaceful during the reign of Amenhotep
III. However, reading texts carefully, dete-
rioration in relations and even a short
period of animosity between them can be
observed, though relations soon improved.
In this article I shall forward the evidence
and suggest a reason for this animosity."
The royal sources (royal inscriptions, reliefs, topographical lists) of Ramesses III, even though using many literary clichés, the stereotypic depictions of the defeat and subjugation of Egypt's enemies: Kush, Amurru, Libya and against the Peoples of the Sea, as well as royal economic missions mentioned in Papyrus Harris I to Punt (77:8-78:1), Sinai (78:6-8), as well as a minor war against the Shasu of Se‘ir, ( Papyrus Harris I 76:10-11), an expedition to the Timna copper mines in the ‘Arabah (78:1-5), and Arabia, seem to be corroborated by archaeological finds, or at least are feasible to imagine. It is the purpose of this paper to consider the historicity of Ramesses III's claims regarding his military victories against the Northern Levant, i.e. against the Asiatics, Hittites, and even Trans-Euphratene polities (Naharina). It is claimed that the sources of Ramesses III, are not mere unhistorical copies (even though some are clearly based on artistic plagiates from earlier rulers), but depict actual events. If these descriptions can be regarded as authentic, they may shed additional light on Ramesses III achievements in the Northern Levant during his second decade of reign.
In this article I propose to show that in his eighth regnal year Ramesses III campaigned against the Philistines on the Northern borders of Canaan and where halted by them. Ramesses was victorious in a pitched battle, routed them to their home and destroyed their kingdom – “the Land of Palestine”. This land was recently located in the Amuq plain in Southern Turkey – the ancient Kingdom of Alalakh.
The Historical Background of a Topographical List of Ramesses III
Topographical lists are a literary and artistic genre which has been
discussed widely in scholarly literature. The potential of this genre for the study of historical geography of the Land of Canaan in the Bronze and Iron ages was identified immediately. Many scholars studied these lists and tried to identify archaeological tells with toponyms mentioned in the lists. However, in most cases, these lists could not be used to learn about the history of Canaan, since many of them were copied from prototypes dating from the days of Thutmosis III (1479–1425 BCE) and Ramesses II (1279–1212 BCE), and could only capsulate the historical reality during the reign of the latter. Furthermore, not enough attention was given to the physical setting of the list within the scene, the accompanying epigraphs and the corpus of royal texts. In this article I re-examine a topographical list of Ramesses III from his mortuary temple at Medinet Habu in western Thebes. I discuss the significance of the originality of the toponyms and their possible identification, the integration of the list within the scene of Pharaoh smiting his enemies, and its relation to the royal inscriptions of Ramesses
III. The list appears to be original and unique and reflects the outcome of the battle of Ramesses III against the Philistines and their allies."
It is the purpose of this article to address the identity of the auxiliary Asiatic troops mentioned in the Elephantine Stele of Sethnakhte, founder of the Twentieth Dynasty. The identity of these auxiliaries will help to illuminate the political relations between Egypt and the Levant in the first quarter of the twelfth century bce. Furthermore, it is claimed that the royal texts, reliefs, and topographical lists of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu dealing with campaigning in Northern Syria—usually regarded as mere copies of earlier kings’ exploits—are genuine and shed light on a campaign Ramesses III conducted against Amurru and Hittite cities before his fifth regnal year, probably extending to the Euphrates. It may be that both Sethnakhte and Ramesses III were referring to the same Asiatic enemies.
In this paper I shall try to show that there were two kings with the name of wsr mAat
Ra stp.n Imn PA-di-BAstt mri Imn. The frst Pedubast is to be identifed as a Theban
ruler who ascended the throne in Shoshenq III’s 8th
regnal year. He bears once the
epithet sA Ist. The second Pedubast is also called wsr mAat Ra stp.n Imn PA-di-BAstt
mri Imn but has the northern epithet sA BAstt. This king probably ruled in Tanis at
the end of the 8th
century BC and might be identifed as Pedubast, the founder of
the disputed Tanite 23rd
Dynasty. Thus, we can reconstruct a chronology of the 23rd
Dynasty, which was based in Tanis (as recorded by Manetho) and ruled northern
Egypt from Heracleopolis Magna to the Delta between *715-*671/ *701-*657 BC1
as
semi-independent vassals of the 25th
Dynasty
In his 20th regnal year Piankhy was in control of Upper Egypt with an army stationed there. Nimlot, the King of Hermopolis (Middle Egypt), had been subjugated to Piankhy. Meanwhile, in the Western Delta, Tefnakht, the great chief of the Me(shwesh), extended his conquests Eastward, subjugating the Central and Eastern Delta , subsequently he threatened the Kingdom of Heracleopolis. When Nimlot, the ruler of Hermopolis, defected and subjugated himself voluntarily to Tefnakht, Piankhy decided to intervene in Egypt. Immediately he ordered his army commanders which were stationed in Egypt, to harass the districts of Hermopolis, blockade its capital, cut it off from food supplies, and prevent the movement of large groups of people until the main body of the army could get organized and retaliate. In the meantime Piankhy recruited a considerable army and sent it to Egypt as reinforcement to the troops who were already acting there.
This article will deal mainly with Piankhy's orders to this army and their execution. From the nature of these orders it is possible to deduce that:
1. The Kushite fighting methods fit the social structure of an organized kingdom.
2. A comparison of Piankhy's orders with their (partial) execution in the field hints to the authenticity of the orders."
the Kushite Elite during the millennia of Egyptian-Kushite interactions. While the ethnic make-up
of the kingdom of Kush was non-Egyptian, its ideology and cultural aspirations seemed Egyptian
in nature. The last thirty years have seen a shift from Egypto-centrism to Nubio-centrism. Recently
we witness attempts of reinterpretation of textual and archaeological and iconographic evidence for
the sake of a “Sudanic model”. It is the intent of this paper to reconsider the indigenous or Egyptian
origin of several of these cultural and religious elements, such as the Nubian Gods, Kushite Temples,
Burial practices, Priesthood, and the succession pattern in the 25th Kushite dynasty.
is the succession pattern in the 25th
Kushite dynasty ruling in Egypt and their descendents, the rulers of the Kingdom of Napata. It is the purpose of this
paper to address this problem anew. In the following
paragraphs I will forward a review of the prevailing
theories of succession in Kush. Then, I will argue that
the succession pattern in Kush was patrilineal accor-
ding to the right of primogeniture, i.e. the kingship
passed from father to the eldest surviving son based
on Egyptian religious beliefs and was not different
from the practice in the Ancient Near East.
coregencies contradict the principals of the strongly
Egyptian influenced Kushite religion and are used
only in rare cases to stabilize the Kingdom like in
the twelfth Dynasty. Then, I will review the evidence
(or lack of it) concerning coregencies during the
Kushite rule over Kush and Egypt from the reign
of Piankhy in Egypt in 734 BC until the expulsion
of the Kushites from Egypt under Tanutamun in
656 BC. I will deal with the solution of a divided
rule over the kingdom of Egypt and Kush, which
was suggested by Redford and adopted by many
scholars elsewhere.
The purpose of this article is to reevaluate the Assyrian attempts to conquer Egypt in the days of Taharqa, King of Kush (690-664 B.C.) during the reigns of Esarhaddon (681-669 B.C.) and Ashurbanipal (669 - ca. 630 B.C.) kings of Assyria. The historical backbone of this article is based on the Assyrian royal inscriptions. From these sources it becomes clear that the Assyrian war-machine conquered Egypt in a swift Blitzkrieg and tried to incorporate Egypt into the Assyrian realm. The fragmented Egyptian petty kingdoms, however, resisted the Assyrian occupation with the assistance of the Kushites. It is possible to shed additional light on the continuous struggle between the Assyrian overlords and the Egyptians from Queries to the Assyrian Sun god Shamash, letters from Babylonian scholars to the king of Assyria, Kushite royal inscriptions and Egyptian priestly commemorative stelae.
King of Kush (690-664 B.C.) are surveyed. The years between 690-683 are regarded as years of
peace, while Kushite intervention in the Levant from 683 and probably until 679 prompted Assyria
to react and gain control over the Levant and finally conquer Egypt. This conquest is reflected in the
Assyrian Royal Inscriptions and Annals of Esarhaddon. An extraordinary prayer by Taharqa to
Amun, previously dated by P. Vernus to 677/6-674/3 B. C., records Taharqa's defeat and the capture
of his crown-prince, Ushanhuru in 671 B.C. and Taharqa's request from Amun to guard the life of
his sons and concubines and to return things to their previous state of affairs.
According to the Assyrian sources, Sennacherib, King of Assyria (704–681 BCE) went on campaign to the West to quell a rebellion in 701 BCE. During his campaign he conducted a pitched battle against the forces of Egypt and Kush and won the war. However, according to the Biblical narrative the Assyrians suffered an enormous defeat by the angel of God. Furthermore, the Kushite ruler who came to the aid of the Judean forces was Tirhakah (=Taharqa), King of Kush, who ascended the throne of Egypt-and-Kush only eleven years later, in 690 BCE.
How then, can we explain the mentioning of Taharqa in the biblical account? Is the information that he was present in the events of 701 BCE an anachronism or is it historically reliable? Can his role in the events be determined? Who won the war – Sennacherib, King of Assyria or Taharqa, King of Kush (and his ally, Hezekiah, King of Judah)? Did Sennacherib conduct two campaigns against the Levant, as some have suggested? The purpose of the article is to address these questions.
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Since it is commonly held that Psammetichus II abstained from aggressive activity against Babylonia, I want to reconsider his policy (595-589 B.C.) toward the Levant and the Babylonian Empire.
1 No new data exists, leaving us only the (re)-
interpretation of the facts. In this article I shall review:
1. The Babylonian presence and activity in the Levant;
2. The anti-Babylonian conference in the fourth year of Zedekiah, King of Judah (most probably 593 B.C.);
3. Alleged Judean involvement in Psammetichus II’s campaign against Kush;
4. Psammetichus II’s campaign to Kush in his third year of reign (593 B.C.);
5. The Effect of the Egyptian Campaign to Kush on the Levant;
6. The campaign of Psammetichus to the land of Kharu in his fourth regnal year.
יב בירתא , known to us through several dozen
Aramaic documents, is debated. The texts were written
during the period of the first Persian domination
of Egypt and the 28th dynasty, between the early fifth
century and 399 BC. Through them, scholars have a
glimpse at the religious, economic, legal, and daily life
of a Judean community of several thousand people.
The terminus ante quem for the arrival of the Judeans
to Elephantine can be found on the two copies
of a petition for authorization to rebuild the temple. In
these petitions, the Judean petitioners claim their temple had been built under native Pharaonic rule and had
remained untouched by the Persian conqueror Cambyses
(526 BC), who destroyed the local Egyptian shrines.
It is thus clear that Judeans were already living at the
southern border of Egypt during the second half of the
sixth century, before the Persian conquest of Egypt.
In this article, I will scrutinize the different proposed
dates for the arrival of the Judeans, and their
intial settlement at Elephantine. It is my contention
that although Judeans arrived and settled in Egypt in
several waves during the history of the kingdom of Judah
as well as following its destruction, the foundation
of the Judean colony in Elephantine should most
probably be dated to the reign of Josiah, king of Judah
(640–609 BC). Raised here for the first time is the
suggestion that the foundation occurred as a result of
auxiliary forces sent by Josiah to aid Psammetichus I.
tionally accepted dates of this event. It is commonly held that Inaros rebelled on hearing about the death of Xerxes, King of Persia in 465/4 B.C. The ensuing struggle between Persia and Egypt, supported by Athenian allies, is commonly dated between 460/59 and 454 B.C. This reconstruction of dates and events is based on acceptance of the version given by Thucydides, his interpretation of the political situation in Greece and his chronological order of events. The reconstruction of the rebellion of Inaros here will be based on Diodorus Siculus, Thucydides and Ctesias, but also on Aramaic and Egyptian documents from Egypt written in demotic script.
Between the beginning of the seventh century BCE and the third century BCE Egypt was invaded about thirty times.
Tese invasions are documented in many sources of varied genres, origins, languages, and points of view. Te present
study is an attempt to evaluate the complexity of the war over Egypt in the discussed period.
Invading Egypt is a complex problem that challenged military leaders in ancient times. Nature had endowed Egypt
with many defenses. Over the years, man-made defenses were added to the natural ones. In spite of these difculties,
many leaders tried to invade Egypt. Some of them were tempted by the spoil of war; others were compelled to invade
by Egypt’s own foreign policy that put their vital interests in danger.
In order to maximize their chances to succeed, prospective invaders had to put together an army larger and/or better
trained and better equipped than that of the defender and to take into account all the obstacles both natural and man
made.
Once in Egypt the invader found himself (in most cases) in a war against the local ruler. Te opposing sides in this
war had entirely diferent objectives: the invader’s objective was a decisive victory over the defender. Tis includes: deci-
sive victories in all feld battles, the conquest of Memphis and, if needed, a pursuit afer the Egyptian ruler southwards.
Failing to achieve even one of these goals meant the failure of the entire campaign. On the contrary, all the defender
had to do was to prevent the invader from achieving at least one of his goals. Achieving this, the defender compelled
the invader to retreat. Tis dissimilarity dictated the tactics used by both sides: While the invader used (in most cases)
brute force, the defender was inclined to use non-violent tactics as well.
During the period covered in this article one can observe, on the one hand, constant evolution in weapons, origin of
the combatants and tactics, and on the other hand, abrupt changes that alter the balance of power between invaders and
defenders. Te evolution includes among others: Te introduction of triremes, and later larger warships, the introduc-
tion of Greek and Carian mercenaries, and the use of elephants. Te abrupt changes were the emergence of the Persian
Empire and the upgrade of Egypt’s line of defense by Chabrias.
The purpose of this paper is to survey the role of Arpad in the politics of 9th–8th centuries BCE in Northern Syria. Several stages in the development of the Kingdom of Arpad are identified. In stage 1 Arpad is a relatively independent state. Arame, its second king submitted to Assyria freely in 858 BCE and did not participate in subversive alliances. In stage 2 Arpad was subjugated to Assyria as was the rest of northern Syria and southern Anatolia. In stage 3 Arpad led the opposition to the Assyrian weakened hegemony and became independent from ca. 823 at the earliest. Stage 4 is characterized by the supremacy of Hazael, King of Aram-Damascus from 823 at the earliest and 805 at the latest. In Stage 5 (ca.800 BCE–754 BCE) the rise of the Kingdom of Hamath-and-Lu‘ash in the south and of Urartu in the North influenced the status of Arpad and the Assyrian ability to be involved in the Levant. After a few Assyrian campaigns against Hazrak (capital of Lu‘ash) its hegemony was broken. The Kingdom of Arpad could rise and thrive (stage 6: 754–744 BCE). Now Arpad could incorporate or be in close confederation with Hamath, creating a new entity, which was designated "all Aram". This can be inferred from the Sefîre treaty concluded between Bar-Ga’yah, king of KTK, and Mati‘-ilu, son of ‘Attaršumki, King of Arpad. In the final stage (stage 7) of the history of Arpad, Tiglath-Pileser III campaigned four years against Arpad, the capital of Arpad, (743–740 BCE) until it was conquered and was reduced into a province of the Assyrian empire.
PART II 1967 THE SIX DAY WAR;
PART III 1973 THE YOM KIPPUR WAR;
PART IV DOUBTS.
In den abschließenden Gesprächen wurde die Idee geboren, dass Bányai eine Überarbeitung seines Artikels unter Einbeziehung der Stellungnahmen verfasst und diese zur Kommentierung nochmals den Referenten zukommen lässt. Die jeweiligen Kommentare sind—mit Namenskürzeln gekennzeichnet—direkt nach dem betreffenden Absatz eingefügt worden bzw., sofern es sich um Literaturergänzungen handelt, in den Fußnoten beigefügt worden.
Mit dem erneuten Aufgreifen des Problems der Herrscherreihenfolge von Schabako und Schebitko und den Kommentaren zu den einzelnen Argumenten hoffen wir, die Diskussion auch in einem weiteren Rahmen anzustoßen.