Jews from ancient period Part I: The distant past

To begin with, Egypt is the cradle of human civilisation, records Diodorus Siculus, Greek Historian, in the first century CE in Book I of his Biblotheca Historica. Semitic people came from Arabia (Egypt) and migrated to North Africa. Semitic and Hemitic are inter-related. (Worrel) 2500 BCE ago, the Berber tribes of North Africa emigrated to the land of Canaan, comprising Palestine (including modern day Zionist State of) Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordon and Sinai region (Egypt) of Arabian Peninsula. Canaan was (the name of) son of Ham son of Noah (Hazrat Nuh). The immigrants of Arabia, as they are known, settled in “lowlands” of Canaan while their brethren, Phoenicians lived already on coast.

Phoenicians, followers of Noah, who were ancient Semitic people, lived in Canaan from 3000 BCE. Phoenicians and the emigrant Berbers were called Canaanites who were agricultural people. Originally, all the Canaanites followed the monotheistic religion of Noah and later of Abraham, through his two sons, Isaaq and Ishmail. The Prophet Abraham (2100 BCE) who was originally from trans-Euphrates (Iraq) and belonged to the earliest known civilisation of Near East and Far East, the Sumerians (5000 BC), had migrated to Canaan. Later idolatry and Sabaism dominated the Canaanites lives. In first century of Common Era, each tribe, group, in old world, of Near East and Far East, venerated its own deity or God with web of myths around, recorded Diodorus Siculus.

In 1520 BCE, Moses ( b Hazrat Musa) and his older brother, Aaron (Hazrat Harun) called them back to the monotheistic religion of Abraham. Moses was born in Egypt and he spoke to God under the tradition of Semitic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam from the Mount Sinai in Egypt (Kohi Tur in Arabic). Linguistically and geographically, Semitic applies to both Jews and Arabs. Moses was issueless. After the death of Moses, the religious preaching was performed by the highest spiritual priest of Jews, called Kohen and later it became mandatory that the Kohen must be the one among the descendants of Aaron (Hazrat Harun). In short, the office of Kohen became hereditary in Judaism. For four hundred years, the Kohen preaching was confined to religious affairs in Canaan but with Saul becoming the first king of Israelites, religion and politics got intermixed in Judaism.

They did not have any king and then after one hundred years, through their Prophet Samuel ( Shimoil), who was the king-maker, Saul (Talut in Arabic) was made the king of the Canaan and he killed Goliath ( Jalut) the king of Philistines. After Saul, in 1000-970 BC, David ( Hazrat Dawud) and then his son, Solomon ( Hazrat Sulaiman) became the kings of the (ancient) Israelites (ancestors of modern Jews) and the land of Canaan. In Solomon’s time, the kingdom extended to the territories of Hijaz, Yemen and Romans (Byzantine). ( Ibn Khalidun)

Earlier, Joshua or Yehoshua( in Hebrew) or Yusa Bin Nun( in Arabic) was a close attendant of Moses. He was leader of Israelites. After death of Moses, he launched a campaign of conquest from Egypt against the land of Canaan, Philistines, “homeland of Palestinians” (Catherwood), and distributed it among the twelve tribes who were called Ban i Israel or Israelites in English and they were the sons and grandsons of Jacob. (Ibn Khalidun) While twelve sons and grandsons of Jacob divided in twelve branches, his youngest son, Joseph ( Hazrat Yousuf, 1400 BCE) , one of the majestic Prophets in all Semitic Faiths, was rejected.

Moses and Aaron belonged to Levi, one of the twelve tribes which was priestly tribe. The tribes of Israelites had come from the East of Euphrates (in modern day Iraq) and they were also named Hebrews. Hebrew were invading people and Joshua had brought them to the land of Canaan. The tribes of the Israelites dispossessed the Canaanites, both Phoenicians and Philistines, (Arnold Toynbee), of their homeland land. The countries of Philistines (Palestine), Canaanites, Armenians, Edomites, Ammonites and Moabites fought against the invading tribes of the Israelites.

It was ingrained in their minds by their priests that they had ‘Promised Land’ which is found in a “Syriac fable” of Solomon which “ is a parable to the history of the Chosen People.” (Arnold Toynbee) The Land was promised to them by God through their Prophets, they believe. The Israelites “ were flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of the earth” which meant that “ the religion of Moses seems to be instituted for a particular country as well as for a single nation.”

For one hundred years after the dispossession of the Canaanites from their land, the Israelites, twelve tribes remained in that condition. “The conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with ... so many bloody circumstances that the victorious Israelites were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility with all their neighbours. They had been commanded to extirpate some of the most idolatrous tribes”.

(Gibbon) Toynbee writes that “ as late as fifth century BC, when all the great prophets had already said their say, the very name of Israel was unknown to Herodotus”, the father of the Historians of the world, “and the Land of Israel was still masked by the Land of the Philistines in the Herodotean panorama of the Syriac World. He writes of ‘the Land of the Philistines”--and Filastin or Palestine it remains to this day”. In first century of the Common Era, Greek Historian, Diodorus Siculus, although refers to Moses and Jews who migrated from Egypt after a famine, nowhere mentions of “Land of Israel” or “Promised Land” or “Israel” as such.

To revert to earlier narrative, “the death of Solomon heralded breakdown of ancient Syriac society” (Toynbee) as his son, and successor, Rehoboam (Re’ham in Arabic), “the tyrant” revolted and in 930 BC , and the Israelite tribes got permanently divided into two dynasties. Ten Northern tribes of the one dynasty, all sons and grandsons of Jacob, who lived in Sabastiya , that is, Nebulous ( Nablus , modern day Palestinian city in West Bank) capital of which was then Samaria of then Israeli kingdom, split away from the kingdom.

They were “rebels” who lived in Northern part of the kingdom. The remaining two tribes of the second dynasty or David’s dynasty, who were the children of Judah (or Yehuda, son of Jacob) and Benjamin (or Binyamin, another son of Jacob) lived with other groups in South of the kingdom, Palestine with Jerusalem (city of peace) as their capital. The division among Israelites originated from the debate who were the real descendants of Jacob.