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108-734: According to the Book of Genesis ( Genesis 10:14 ) and the Books of Chronicles ( 1 Chronicles 1:12 ), the Casluhim were descendants of Mizraim (Egypt) son of Ham , out of whom originated the Philistines . The Egyptian form of their name is preserved in the inscriptions of the Temple of Kom Ombo as the region name Kasluḥet . In the Aramaic Targum s their region is called Pentpolitai understood to be derived from

216-614: A Hebrew -speaking ethnoreligious group consisting of tribes that inhabited much of Canaan during the Iron Age . The name of Israel first appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt , dated to about 1200 BCE. Modern scholarship considers that the Israelites emerged from groups of indigenous Canaanites and other peoples. They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language , which

324-460: A great flood to wipe out the rest of the world. When the waters recede, God promises he will never destroy the world with water again, making a rainbow as a symbol of his promise . God sees humankind cooperating to build a great tower city, the Tower of Babel , and divides humanity with many languages and sets them apart with confusion. Then, a generation line from Shem to Abram is described. Abram,

432-595: A Canaanite language known as Biblical Hebrew . The language's modern descendant is today the only surviving dialect of the Canaanite languages . Gary Rendsburg argues that some archaic biblical traditions and other circumstantial evidence point to the Israelites emerging from the Shasu and other seminomadic peoples from the desert regions south of the Levant , later settling in the highlands of Canaan. Several theories exist for

540-461: A bowl of stew. His mother, Rebekah, ensures Jacob rightly gains his father's blessing as the firstborn son and inheritor. At 77 years of age, Jacob leaves his parents and later seeks a wife and meets Rachel at a well. He goes to her father, his uncle , where he works for a total of 14 years to earn his wives, Rachel and Leah . Jacob's name is changed to Israel after his wrestle with an angel , and by his wives and their handmaidens he has twelve sons,

648-449: A common ancestry of Samaritan and Jewish patrilineages. Most of the former may be traced back to a common ancestor in what is today identified as the paternally inherited Israelite high priesthood ( Cohanim ), with a common ancestor projected to the time of the Assyrian conquest of the kingdom of Israel ." A 2020 study (by Agranat-Tamr et al.) stated that there was genetic continuity between

756-668: A connection with the biblical Land of Israel . Other groups claim continuity with the Israelites, including Pashtuns , British , Black Hebrew Israelites , Igbos Mormons , and evangelical Christians that subscribe to covenant theology . Some argue that some Palestinians descend from Israelites who were not exiled by the Romans. As of 2024, only one study has directly examined ancient Israelite genetic material. The analysis examined First Temple -era skeletal remains excavated in Abu Ghosh , and showed one male individual belonging to

864-487: A genealogical basis. Other scholars argue that the distinction is based on religion. For example, Troy W. Martin argues that biblical Jewishness is based on adherence to 'covenantal circumcision', regardless of ancestry ( Genesis 17:9–14 ). In Judaism , "Israelite", broadly speaking, refers to a lay member of the Jewish ethnoreligious group, as opposed to the priestly orders of Kohanim and Levites . In legal texts, such as

972-551: A long period of time. The involvement of multiple authors is suggested by internal contradictions within the text. For example, Genesis includes two creation narratives . By the early 1860s, the leading theory for the Pentateuch's composition was the old supplementary hypothesis. This theory held that the earliest portions, the so-called Book of Origins (containing Genesis 1 and most of the priestly laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers),

1080-493: A male heir, and the story is constantly complicated by the fact that each prospective mother— Sarah , Rebekah and Rachel —is barren. The ancestors, however, retain their faith in God and God in each case gives a son—in Jacob's case, twelve sons, the foundation of the chosen Israelites . Each succeeding generation of the three promises attains a more rich fulfilment, until through Joseph "all

1188-473: A man descended from Noah, is instructed by God to travel from his home in Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan . There, God makes a promise to Abram, promising that his descendants shall be as numerous as the stars, but that people will suffer oppression in a foreign land for four hundred years, after which they will inherit the land "from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates ". Abram's name

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1296-514: A number of variations and revisions of the documentary hypothesis have been proposed. The new supplementary hypothesis posits three main sources for the Pentateuch: J, D, and P. The E source is considered no more than a variation of J, and P is considered a body of revisions and expansions to the J (or "non-Priestly") material. The Deuteronomistic source does not appear in Genesis. More recent thinking

1404-615: A period of nominal independence for the Jewish people under the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE). Initially operating semi-autonomously within the Seleucid sphere, the Hasmoneans gradually asserted full independence through military conquest and diplomacy, establishing themselves as the final sovereign Jewish rulers before a prolonged hiatus in Jewish sovereignty in the region. Some scholars argue that Jews also engaged in active missionary efforts in

1512-549: A pillar of salt for going against his word. Lot's daughters, concerned that they are fugitives who will never find husbands, get Lot drunk so they can become pregnant by him, and give birth to the ancestors of the Moabites and Ammonites . Abraham and Sarah go to the Philistine town of Gerar , pretending to be brother and sister (they are half-siblings). The King of Gerar takes Sarah for his wife, but God warns him to return her (as she

1620-575: A series of inscriptions mention the " House of David ". They came from Israel's neighbors. Compared to the United Monarchy, the historicity of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah is widely accepted by historians and archaeologists. Their destruction by the Assyrians and Babylonians respectively is also confirmed by archaeological evidence and extrabiblical sources. Christian Frevel argues that Yahwism

1728-502: A single law code accepted by the entire community. The two powerful groups making up the community—the priestly families who controlled the Second Temple and who traced their origin to Moses and the wilderness wanderings, and the major landowning families who made up the "elders" and who traced their own origins to Abraham, who had "given" them the land—were in conflict over many issues, and each had its own "history of origins". However,

1836-594: A special relationship with one people alone (Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob). In Judaism , the theological importance of Genesis centres on the covenants linking God to his chosen people and the people to the Promised Land . The name Genesis is from the Latin Vulgate , in turn borrowed or transliterated from Greek Γένεσις , meaning 'origin'; Biblical Hebrew : בְּרֵאשִׁית , romanized:  Bərēʾšīṯ , 'In [the] beginning'. Genesis

1944-533: Is circumcision ; and the last, which does not appear until the Book of Exodus, is with Israel alone, and its sign is Sabbath . A great leader mediates each covenant ( Noah , Abraham, Moses), and at each stage God progressively reveals himself by his name ( Elohim with Noah, El Shaddai with Abraham, Yahweh with Moses). Throughout Genesis, various figures engage in deception or trickery to survive or prosper. Biblical scholar David M. Carr notes that such stories reflect

2052-553: Is about to lay the knife upon his son, "the Angel of the Lord" restrains him, promising him again innumerable descendants. On the death of Sarah, Abraham purchases Machpelah (believed to be modern Hebron ) for a family tomb and sends his servant to Mesopotamia to find among his relations a wife for Isaac; after proving herself worthy, Rebekah becomes Isaac's betrothed. Keturah , Abraham's other wife, births more children, among whose descendants are

2160-527: Is also known as a Sidra (or Sedra / s ɛ d r ə / ). The parashah is a section of the Torah (Five Books of Moses) used in Jewish liturgy during a particular week. There are 54 weekly parshas, or parashiyot in Hebrew, and the full cycle is read over the course of one Jewish year. The first 12 of the 54 come from the Book of Genesis, and they are: Israelites The Israelites were

2268-536: Is changed to "Israel", and through the agency of his son Joseph , the children of Israel descend into Egypt, 70 people in all with their households, and God promises them a future of greatness. Genesis ends with Israel in Egypt, ready for the coming of Moses and the Exodus (departure). The narrative is punctuated by a series of covenants with God, successively narrowing in scope from all humankind (the covenant with Noah ) to

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2376-399: Is changed to 'Abraham' and that of his wife Sarai to Sarah (meaning 'princess'), and God says that all males should be circumcised as a sign of his promise to Abraham. Due to her old age, Sarah tells Abraham to take her Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar , as a second wife (to bear a child). Through Hagar, Abraham fathers Ishmael . God then plans to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for

2484-432: Is divisible into two parts, the primeval history (chapters 1–11) and the ancestral history (chapters 12–50). The primeval history sets out the author's concepts of the nature of the deity and of humankind's relationship with its maker: God creates a world which is good and fit for humans, but when man corrupts it with sin, God decides to destroy his creation, sparing only the righteous Noah and his family to re-establish

2592-562: Is eliminated. This antiquity was needed to prove the worth of Israel's traditions to the nations (the neighbours of the Jews in the early Persian province of Judea), and to reconcile and unite the various factions within Israel itself. Describing the work of the biblical authors, John Van Seters wrote that lacking many historical traditions and none from the distant past, "They had to use myths and legends for earlier periods. In order to make sense out of

2700-416: Is interpreted by Christians as the " fall of man " into sin . Eve bears two sons, Cain and Abel . Cain works in the garden, and Abel works with meat; they both offer offerings to God one day, and God does not accept Cain's offering but does accept Abel's. This causes Cain to resent Abel, and Cain ends up murdering him. God then curses Cain . Eve bears another son, Seth , to take Abel's place in accordance to

2808-471: Is normally excluded). Since the name YHWH had not been revealed to them, they worshipped El in his various manifestations. (It is, however, worth noting that in the Jahwist source, the patriarchs refer to deity by the name YHWH, for example in Genesis 15.) Through the patriarchs, God announces the election of Israel, that is, he chooses Israel to be his special people and commits himself to their future. God tells

2916-441: Is really Abraham's wife) and he obeys. God sends Sarah a son and tells her she should name him Isaac ; through him will be the establishment of the covenant (promise). Sarah then drives Ishmael and his mother Hagar out into the wilderness (because Ishmael is not her real son and Hagar is a slave), but God saves them and promises to make Ishmael a great nation. Then, God tests Abraham by demanding that he sacrifice Isaac . As Abraham

3024-457: Is tenuously identified with Yahweh. However, modern scholarship interprets El as the subject, "El rules/struggles", from sarar ( שָׂרַר ) 'to rule' (cognate with sar ( שַׂר ) 'ruler', Akkadian šarru 'ruler, king' ), which is likely cognate with the similar root sara ( שׂרה ) "fought, strove, contended". Afterwards, Israel referred to the direct descendants of Jacob and gentiles (i.e. resident aliens ) who assimilated in

3132-630: Is that J dates from either just before or during the Babylonian Exile, and the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after. The almost complete absence of all the characters and incidents mentioned in primeval history from the rest of the Hebrew Bible has led a sizeable minority of scholars to conclude that these chapters were composed much later than those that follow, possibly in

3240-580: Is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament . Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word , Bereshit ( 'In the beginning' ). Genesis purports to be an account of the creation of the world , the early history of humanity, and the origins of the Jewish people . Genesis is part of the Torah or Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. Tradition credits Moses as

3348-665: The Babylonian Exile ( c.  598 BC  – c.   538 BC ). At the end of the 19th century, most scholars adopted the documentary hypothesis . This theory held that the five books of the Pentateuch came from four sources: the Yahwist (abbreviated as J), the Elohist (E), the Deuteronomist (D) and the Priestly source (P). Each source was held to tell the same basic story, with

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3456-615: The Berbers of North Africa were descended from Casluhim, the son of Mizraïm (قبط بن مصر). In Saadia Gaon 's Judeo-Arabic translation of the Pentateuch , the Sa'idi people (i.e. the people of Upper Egypt) are listed in the position of the Casluhim in Genesis 10:14 , while Albiyim is listed in the position of Pathrusim , however the ordering of Casluhim and Pathrusim sometimes vary in translations and

3564-613: The First Temple , marking the kingdom's demise. Subsequently, a segment of the Judahite populace was exiled to Babylon in several waves. Judeans were progenitors of the Jews, who practiced Second Temple Judaism during the Second Temple period . With the fall of Babylon to the rising Achaemenid Persian Empire , king Cyrus the Great issued a proclamation known as the Edict of Cyrus , encouraging

3672-546: The Garden of Eden . In the second chapter, God commanded the man that he is free to eat from any tree, including the tree of life, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil . Later, in chapter 3, a serpent , portrayed as a deceptive creature or trickster , convinces Eve to eat the fruit. She then convinces Adam to eat it, whereupon God throws them out and punishes them—Adam was punished with getting what he needs only by sweat and work, and Eve to giving birth in pain. This

3780-585: The Greco-Roman world , which led to conversions. Several scholars, such as Scot McKnight and Martin Goodman , reject this view while holding that conversions occasionally occurred. A similar diaspora existed for Samaritans but their existence is poorly documented. In 63 BCE, the Roman Republic conquered the kingdom. In 37 BCE, the Romans appointed Herod the Great as king of a vassal Judea . In 6 CE, Judea

3888-816: The J2 Y-DNA haplogroup, a set of closely-related DNA sequences thought to have originated in the Caucasus or Eastern Anatolia, as well as the T1a and H87 mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, the former of which has also been detected among Canaanites, and the latter in Basques, Tunisian Arabs, and Iraqis, suggesting a Mediterranean, Near Eastern, or perhaps Arabian origin. A 2004 study (by Shen et al.) comparing Samaritans to several Jewish populations (including Ashkenazi Jews , Iraqi Jews , Libyan Jews , Moroccan Jews , and Yemenite Jews ) found that "the principal components analysis suggested

3996-587: The Midianites . Abraham dies at a prosperous old age and his family lays him to rest in Hebron (Machpelah). Isaac's wife Rebekah gives birth to the twins Esau (meaning 'velvet'), father of the Edomites , and Jacob (meaning 'supplanter' or 'follower'). Esau was a couple of seconds older as he had come out of the womb first, and was going to become the heir; however, through carelessness, he sold his birthright to Jacob for

4104-535: The Mishnah and Gemara , ישראלי ( Yisraeli ), or Israelite, is used to describe Jews instead of יהודי ( Yehudi ), or Jew. In Samaritanism , Samaritans are not Jews יהודים ( Yehudim ). Instead, they are Israelites, which includes their Jewish brethren, or Israelite Samaritans. The history of the Israelite people can be divided into these categories, according to the Hebrew Bible : Efforts to confirm

4212-559: The Nineteenth Dynasty (i.e. reign of Ramesses II ) or the Eighteenth Dynasty , but this reading remains controversial. In the Hebrew Bible, Israel first appears in Genesis 32:29 , where an angel gives the name to Jacob after the latter fought with him . The folk etymology given in the text derives Israel from yisra , "to prevail over" or "to struggle with", and El , a Canaanite- Mesopotamian creator god that

4320-480: The Philistines , who were of Mycenaean Greek origin. As a result, intermarriage with other Semites was common. But what distinguished Israelite circumcision from non-Israelite circumcision was its emphasis on 'correct' timing. Israelite circumcision also served as a mnemonic sign for the circumcised, where their 'unnatural' erect circumcised penis would remind them to behave differently in sexual matters. Yom-Tov Lipmann-Muhlhausen suggests that Israelite identity

4428-625: The Sea Peoples , particularly the Dan(an)u . Nonetheless, they intermingled with the former nomads, due to socioeconomic and military factors. Their interest in Yahwism and its concern for the underprivileged was another factor. Possible allusions to this historical reality in the Hebrew Bible include the aforementioned tribes, except for Issachar and Zebulun, descending from Bilhah and Zilpah , who were viewed as "secondary additions" to Israel. El worship

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4536-427: The Second Temple period , "Israel" included the members of the united monarchy, the northern kingdom, and eschatological Israel. " Jew " (or " Judean ") was another popular ethnonym but it might refer to a geographically restricted sub-group or to the inhabitants of the southern kingdom of Judah. In addition, works such as Ezra-Nehemiah pioneered the idea of an "impermeable" distinction between Israel and gentiles, on

4644-484: The Second Temple period . This event marked a cataclysmic moment in Jewish history, prompting a reconfiguration of Jewish identity and practice to ensure continuity. The cessation of Temple worship and disappearance of Temple-based sects facilitated the rise of Rabbinic Judaism , which stemmed from the Pharisaic school of Second Temple Judaism, emphasizing communal synagogue worship and Torah study , eventually becoming

4752-413: The Torah's author . It was probably composed around the 5th century BC , although some scholars believe that primeval history (chapters 1–11), may have been composed and added as late as the 3rd century BC. Based on scientific interpretation of archaeological , genetic , and linguistic evidence, some mainstream Bible scholars consider Genesis to be primarily mythological rather than historical . It

4860-564: The Tribe of Levi . Josephus quoting Manetho identifies them with the Hyksos . Other scholars believe that the Exodus narrative was a " collective memory " of several events from the Bronze Age. In addition, it is unlikely that the Israelites overtook the southern Levant by force, according to archaeological evidence. Instead, they branched out of indigenous Canaanite peoples that long inhabited

4968-584: The Victorian crisis of faith as evidence mounted that the Earth was far older than six thousand years. It is a custom among religious Jewish communities for a weekly Torah portion , popularly referred to as a parashah , to be read during Jewish prayer services on Saturdays, Mondays and Thursdays. The full name, פָּרָשַׁת הַשָּׁבוּעַ , Parashat ha-Shavua , is popularly abbreviated to parashah (also parshah / p ɑː r ʃ ə / or parsha ), and

5076-403: The death penalty was legislated for these 'secret crimes', they functioned as a warning, where offenders would confess out of fear and make appropriate reparations. The historicity of the United Monarchy is heavily debated among archaeologists and biblical scholars: biblical maximalists and centrists ( Kenneth Kitchen , William G. Dever , Amihai Mazar , Baruch Halpern and others) argue that

5184-420: The land of Goshen . Jacob calls his sons to his bedside and reveals their future before he dies. Joseph lives to old age and tells his brothers before his death that if God leads them out of the country, then they should take his bones with them. In 1978, David Clines published The Theme of the Pentateuch . Considered influential as one of the first authors to take up the question of the overarching theme of

5292-519: The pharaoh of Egypt asks him to interpret a dream he had about an upcoming famine, which Joseph does through God. He is then made second in command of Egypt by the grateful pharaoh, and later on, he is reunited with his father and brothers, who fail to recognize him and plead for food as the famine had reached Canaan as well. After much manipulation to see if they still hate him, Joseph reveals himself, forgives them for their actions, and lets them and their households into Egypt, where Pharaoh assigns to them

5400-515: The "complexities of the Jewish soul". Names were significant in Israelite culture and indicated one's destiny and inherent character. Thus, a name change indicated a 'divine transformation' in one's 'destines, characters and natures'. These beliefs aligned with the Near Eastern cultural milieu, where names were 'intimately bound up with the very essence of being and inextricably intertwined with personality'. In terms of appearance, rabbis described

5508-457: The "general Southland" (i.e. modern Sinai and the southern parts of Israel and Jordan ), who abandoned their pastoral-nomadic ways. Canaanites who lived outside the central hill country were tenuously identified as Danites, Asherites, Zebulunites, Issacharites, Naphtalites and Gadites. These inhabitants do not have a significant history of migration besides the Danites, who allegedly originate from

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5616-448: The 16th to the 19th century treated the book of Genesis as factual. As evidence in the fields of paleontology , geology and other sciences was uncovered, scholars tried to fit these discoveries into the Genesis creation account. For example, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer in the 18th century believed that fossils were the remains of creatures killed during the flood. This literal understanding of Genesis fell out of favor with scholars during

5724-520: The 3rd century BC. As for why the book was created, a theory which has gained considerable interest, although still controversial, is that of Persian imperial authorisation. This proposes that the Persians of the Achaemenid Empire , after their conquest of Babylon in 539 BC, agreed to grant Jerusalem a large measure of local autonomy within the empire, but required the local authorities to produce

5832-487: The Biblical Jews as being "midway between black and white" and having the "color of the boxwood tree". Assuming Yurco 's debated claim that the Israelites are depicted in reliefs from Merneptah 's temple at Karnak is correct, the early Israelites may have wore the same attire and hairstyles as non-Israelite Canaanites. Dissenting from this, Anson Rainey argued that the Israelites in the reliefs looked more similar to

5940-663: The Bronze Age and Iron Age southern Levantines, which included the Israelites and Judahites. They could be "modeled as a mixture of local earlier Neolithic populations and populations from the northeastern part of the Near East (e.g. Zagros Mountains , Caucasians / Armenians and possibly, Hurrians )". Reasons for the continuity include resilience from the Bronze Age collapse , which was mostly true for inland cities such as Tel Megiddo and Tel Abel Beth Maacah . Elsewhere, European -related and East African -related components were added to

6048-466: The Exodus narrative. Israel's demographics were similar to the demographics of Ammon , Edom , Moab and Phoenicia . Besides their focus on Yahweh worship, Israelite cultural markers were defined by body, food, and time, including male circumcision , avoidance of pork consumption and marking time based on the Exodus, the reigns of Israelite kings , and Sabbath observance . The first two markers were observed by neighboring west Semites besides

6156-797: The Greek Pentapolis which locates the area as the north west in what is now the Cyrenaica region of Libya . Another name for their region is Pekosim used in Bereshit Rabbah 37. Josephus mentions the Casluhim in his Jewish Antiquities I, vi, 2 as one of the Egyptian peoples whose cities were destroyed during the Ethiopic War and who thus disappeared from history. Arab historian Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), citing Abu Bakr bin Yahya al-Suli , wrote that

6264-461: The Israelite community. Hebrew is a similar ethnonym but it is usually applied whenever Israelites are economically disadvantaged or migrants. It might also refer to their descent from Eber , the grandson of Noah . During the period of the divided monarchy, "Israelites" referred to the inhabitants of the northern Kingdom of Israel , but eventually, included the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah in post-exilic usage. In literature of

6372-521: The Israelites . Canaan State of Israel (1948–present) The first reference to Israel in non-biblical sources is found in the Merneptah Stele in c.  1209 BCE . The inscription is very brief and says: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is not". The inscription refers to a people , not an individual or nation state , who are located in central Palestine or the highlands of Samaria . Some Egyptologists suggest that Israel appeared in earlier topographical reliefs, dating to

6480-432: The Pentateuch, Clines' conclusion was that the overall theme is "the partial fulfilment—which implies also the partial nonfulfillment—of the promise to or blessing of the Patriarchs". (By calling the fulfilment "partial", Clines was drawing attention to the fact that at the end of Deuteronomy the people of Israel are still outside Canaan.) The patriarchs , or ancestors, are Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, with their wives (Joseph

6588-419: The Persian promise of greatly increased local autonomy for all provided a powerful incentive to cooperate in producing a single text. Genesis is an example of a work in the "antiquities" genre, as the Romans knew it, a popular genre telling of the appearance of humans and their ancestors and heroes, with elaborate genealogies and chronologies fleshed out with stories and anecdotes. Notable examples are found in

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6696-431: The Samaritans identify as "Israel", "B'nai Israel" or "Shamerim/Shomerim" (i.e. "Guardians/Keepers/Watchers"). Towards the end of the same century, the Neo-Babylonian Empire emerged victorious over the Assyrians, leading to Judah's subjugation as a vassal state . In the early 6th century BC, a series of revolts in Judah prompted the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II to lay siege to and destroy Jerusalem along with

6804-545: The Shasu. Based on biblical literature, it is implied that the Israelites distinguished themselves from peoples like the Babylonians and Egyptians by not having long beards and chin tufts. However, these fashion practices were upper class customs. In the 12th century BCE, many Israelite settlements appeared in the central hill country of Canaan, which was formerly an open terrain. These settlements lacked evidence of pork consumption, compared to Philistine settlements, had four-room houses and lived by an egalitarian ethos , which

6912-451: The age of the world since creation. This Anno Mundi system of counting years is the basis of the Hebrew calendar and Byzantine calendar . Counts differ somewhat, but they generally place the age of the Earth at about six thousand years. During the Protestant Reformation , rivalry between Catholic and Protestant Christians led to a closer study of the Bible and a competition to take its words more seriously. Thus, scholars in Europe from

7020-466: The analysis of the Abraham cycle, the Jacob cycle, and the Joseph cycle, and the Yahwist and Priestly sources . The problem lies in finding a way to unite the patriarchal theme of the divine promise to the stories of Genesis 1–11 (the primeval history ) with their theme of God's forgiveness in the face of man's evil nature. One solution is to see the patriarchal stories as resulting from God's decision not to remain alienated from humankind: God creates

7128-436: The ancestors of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and a daughter, Dinah . Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, rapes Dinah and asks his father to get Dinah for him as his wife, according to Chapter 34. Jacob agrees to the marriage but requires that all the males of Hamor's tribe be circumcised, including Hamor and Shechem. After this was performed and all the men were still weak, Jacob's sons Simeon and Levi murdered all

7236-404: The biblical account is more or less accurate, while biblical minimalists ( Israel Finkelstein , Ze'ev Herzog , Thomas L. Thompson and others) argue that Israel and Judah never split from a singular state. The debate has not been resolved, but recent archaeological discoveries by Eilat Mazar and Yosef Garfinkel show some support for the existence of the United Monarchy. From 850 BCE onwards,

7344-422: The biblical ethnogenesis of Israel through archaeology have largely been abandoned as unproductive. Many scholars see the traditional narratives as national myths with little historical value, but some posit that a small group of exiled Egyptians contributed to the Exodus narrative. William G. Dever cautiously identifies this group with the Tribe of Joseph , while Richard Elliott Friedman identifies it with

7452-400: The book into the following sections: It is not clear, however, what this meant to the original authors, and most modern commentators divide it into two parts based on the subject matter, a primeval history (chapters 1–11) and a patriarchal history (chapters 12–50). While the first is far shorter than the second, it sets out the basic themes and provides an interpretive key for understanding

7560-430: The disappearance of Israelite tribes from Galilee and Transjordan, it's plausible that many Israelites from Samaria survived and remained in the region. These survivors, contrary to Jewish tradition, are believed to have become the ancestors of the Samaritans, who followed Samaritanism . Research indicates that only a portion of this population intermarried with Mesopotamians settlers. In their native Samaritan Hebrew ,

7668-472: The entire book. The primeval history has a symmetrical structure hinging on the flood story (chapters 6–9) with the events before the flood mirrored by the events after. The ancestral history is structured around the three patriarchs Abraham, Jacob and Joseph. The stories of Isaac arguably do not make up a coherent cycle of stories and function as a bridge between the cycles of Abraham and Jacob. The Genesis creation narrative comprises two different stories;

7776-610: The exiles to return to their homeland after the Persians raised it as an autonomous Jewish-governed province named Yehud . Under the Persians ( c.  539–332 BCE ), the returned Jewish population restored the city and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. The Cyrus Cylinder is controversially cited as evidence for Cyrus allowing the Judeans to return. The returnees showed a "heightened sense" of their ethnic identity and shunned exogamy , which

7884-456: The first two chapters roughly correspond to these. In the first, Elohim , the generic Hebrew word for God, creates the heavens and the earth including humankind, in six days, and rests on the seventh . In the second, God, now referred to as " Yahweh Elohim" (rendered as "the L ORD God" in English translations), creates two individuals, Adam and Eve , as the first man and woman, and places them in

7992-426: The generations", with the first use of the phrase referring to the "generations of heaven and earth" and the remainder marking individuals. The toledot formula, occurring eleven times in the book of Genesis, serves as a heading which marks a transition to a new subject. The creation account of Genesis 1 functions as a prologue for the whole book and is not introduced with a toledot . The toledot divide

8100-514: The latter is disputed. Jews and Samaritans both trace their ancestry to the ancient Israelites. Jews trace their ancestry to tribes that inhabited the Kingdom of Judah, including Judah , Benjamin and partially Levi , while the Samaritans claim their lineage from the remaining members of Ephraim , Manasseh , and Levi who were not deported in the Assyrian captivity after the fall of Israel. Other groups have also claimed affiliation with

8208-652: The mainstream understanding is that it is the Pathrusim who are the Sahidic people and the Casluhim the people of eastern Libya. Matthew Poole suggests that Casluhim and Caphtorim were brother tribes who lived in the same territory, presumably in Crete . Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek Γένεσις , Génesis ; Biblical Hebrew : בְּרֵאשִׁית ‎ , romanized:  Bərēʾšīṯ , lit.   'In [the] beginning'; Latin : Liber Genesis )

8316-726: The males. Jacob complained that their act would mean retribution by others, namely the Canaanites and Perizzites. Jacob and his tribe took all the Hivite women and children as well as livestock and other property for themselves. Joseph , Jacob's favourite son of the twelve, makes his brothers jealous (especially because of special gifts Jacob gave him) and because of that jealousy they sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt . Joseph endures many trials including being innocently sentenced to jail but he stays faithful to God. After several years, he prospers there after

8424-571: The norm. In addition, royal inscriptions were scarce, along with imported and decorated pottery. The Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE . The records of Sargon II of Assyria indicate that he deported part of the population to Assyria. This deportation became the basis for the Jewish idea of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel . Some Israelites migrated to

8532-436: The origins of historical Israelites. Some believe they descended from raiding groups, itinerant nomads such as Habiru and Shasu or impoverished Canaanites, who were forced to leave wealthy urban areas and live in the highlands. The prevailing academic opinion is that the Israelites were a mixture of peoples predominately indigenous to Canaan, with additional input from an Egyptian matrix of peoples, which most likely inspired

8640-409: The patriarchs that he will be faithful to their descendants (i.e. to Israel), and Israel is expected to have faith in God and his promise. ("Faith" in the context of Genesis and the Hebrew Bible means an agreement to the promissory relationship, not a body of a belief.) The promise itself has three parts: offspring, blessings, and land. The fulfilment of the promise to each patriarch depends on having

8748-578: The predominant expression of Judaism. Concurrently, Christianity began to diverge from Judaism, evolving into a predominantly Gentile religion. Decades later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE) further diminished the Jewish presence in Judea , leading to a geographical shift of Jewish life to Galilee and Babylonia , with smaller communities scattered across the Mediterranean . Jews and Samaritans share

8856-493: The promises given at 3:15, 20. After many generations of Adam have passed from the lines of Cain and Seth, the world becomes corrupted by human sin and Nephilim , and God wants to wipe out humanity for their wickedness. However, Noah is righteous and blameless. So first, he instructs the Noah to build an ark and put examples of all the animals on it, seven pairs of every clean animal and one pair of every unclean. Then God sends

8964-516: The region, which included Syria , ancient Israel , and the Transjordan region . Their culture was monolatristic , with a primary focus on Yahweh (or El) worship, but after the Babylonian exile, it became monotheistic , with partial influence from Zoroastrianism . The latter decisively separated the Israelites from other Canaanites. The Israelites used the Canaanite script and communicated in

9072-569: The relationship between man and God. The ancestral history (chapters 12–50) tells of the prehistory of Israel , God's chosen people . At God's command, Noah's descendant Abraham journeys from his birthplace (described as Ur of the Chaldeans and whose identification with Sumerian Ur is tentative in modern scholarship ) into the God-given land of Canaan , where he dwells as a sojourner , as does his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob . Jacob's name

9180-415: The sins of their people. Abraham protests, but fails to get God to agree not to destroy the cities (reasoning with Abraham that not even ten righteous persons were found there; and among the righteous was Abraham's nephew Lot ). Angels save Abraham's nephew Lot (who was living there at the same time) and his family, but his wife looks back on the destruction, (even though God commanded not to) and turns into

9288-502: The sources later combined by various editors. Scholars were able to distinguish sources based on the designations for God. For example, the Yahwist source uses Yahweh, while the Elohistic and Priestly sources use Elohim. Scholars also use repeated and duplicate stories to identify separate sources. In Genesis, these include the two creation stories, three different wife–sister narratives , and

9396-527: The southern kingdom of Judah, while those Israelites that remained in Samaria, concentrated mainly around Mount Gerizim , came to be known as Samaritans . Foreign groups were also settled by the Assyrians in the territories of the conquered kingdom. The exiled Israelites from non-Judean regions faced assimilation into the Assyrian population, unlike their counterparts from Judea. While historical records indicate

9504-726: The text of surviving copies varies. There are four major groupings of surviving manuscripts: the Masoretic Text , the Samaritan Pentateuch (in Samaritan script ), the Septuagint (a Greek translation), and fragments of Genesis found in the Dead Sea Scrolls . The Dead Sea Scrolls are oldest but cover only a small proportion of the book. Genesis appears to be structured around the recurring phrase elleh toledot , meaning "these are

9612-511: The two versions of Abraham sending Hagar and Ishmael into the desert. According to the documentary hypothesis, J was produced during the 9th century BC in the southern Kingdom of Judah and was believed to be the earliest source. E was written in the northern Kingdom of Israel during the 8th century BC. D was written in Judah in the 7th century BC and associated with the religious reforms of King Josiah c.  625 BC . The latest source

9720-463: The variety of different and often conflicting versions of stories, and to relate the stories to each other, they fitted them into a genealogical chronology." Tremper Longman describes Genesis as theological history: "the fact that these events took place is assumed, and not argued. The concern of the text is not to prove the history but rather to impress the reader with the theological significance of these acts". The original manuscripts are lost, and

9828-497: The vulnerability felt by ancient Israelites and that "such stories can be a major way of gaining hope and resisting domination". Examples include: In both Judaism and Christianity , a genre of literature emerged dedicated to interpreting and commenting on the Genesis creation narrative, known as the Hexaemeron . By totaling the spans of time in the genealogies of Genesis, religious authorities have calculated what they consider to be

9936-473: The work of Greek historians of the 6th century BC: their intention was to connect notable families of their own day to a distant and heroic past, and in doing so they did not distinguish between myth , legend , and facts. Professor Jean-Louis Ska of the Pontifical Biblical Institute calls the basic rule of the antiquarian historian the "law of conservation": everything old is valuable, nothing

10044-510: The world and humans, humans rebel, and God "elects" (chooses) Abraham. To this basic plot (which comes from the Yahwist), the Priestly source has added a series of covenants dividing history into stages, each with its own distinctive "sign". The first covenant is between God and all living creatures, and is marked by the sign of the rainbow; the second is with the descendants of Abraham ( Ishmaelites and others as well as Israelites), and its sign

10152-401: The world" attains salvation from famine, and by bringing the children of Israel down to Egypt he becomes the means through which the promise can be fulfilled. Scholars generally agree that the theme of divine promise unites the patriarchal cycles, but many would dispute the efficacy of trying to examine Genesis' theology by pursuing a single overarching theme, instead citing as more productive

10260-417: Was Moses's successor. Most modern scholars agree that the Torah does not provide an authentic account of the Israelites' origins, and instead view it as constituting their national myth . However, it is supposed that there may be a "historical core" to the narrative. The Bible also portrays the kingdoms of Israel and Judah as the successors of an earlier United Kingdom of Israel , though the historicity of

10368-462: Was P, which was written during the 5th century in Babylon . Based on these dates, Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch did not reach its final, present-day form until after the Babylonian Exile. Julius Wellhausen argued that the Pentateuch was finalized in the time of Ezra . Ezra 7 :14 records that Ezra traveled from Babylon to Jerusalem in 458 BC with God's law in his hand. Wellhausen argued that this

10476-571: Was a regional variety of the Canaanite languages , known today as Biblical Hebrew . In the Iron Age , the kingdoms of Israel and Judah emerged. The Kingdom of Israel , with its capital at Samaria , fell to the Neo-Assyrian Empire around 720 BCE; while the Kingdom of Judah , with its capital at Jerusalem , was destroyed by the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 586 BCE. Some of the Judean population

10584-518: Was an independent socio-political entity for most of the 9th century BCE. Avraham Faust argues that there was continued adherence to the 'ethos of egalitarianism and simplicity' in the Iron Age II (10th-6th century BCE). For example, there is minimal evidence of temples and complex tomb burials, despite Israel and Judah being more densely populated than the Late Bronze Age. Four-room houses remained

10692-837: Was based on faith and adherence to sex-appropriate commandments. For men, it was circumcision. For women, it was ritual sacrifice after childbirth ( Leviticus 12:6 ). Genealogy was another ethnic marker. It was a matter of cultural self-identity rather than biological descent. For example, foreign clans could adopt the identity of other clans, which subsequently changed their status from "outsider" to "insider". This applied to Israelites from different tribes and gentiles. Saul Oylan argued that foreigners automatically became Israelite if they lived in their territory, according to Ezekiel 47:21–23 . That said, Israelites used genealogy to engage in narcissism of small differences but also, self-criticism since their ancestors included morally questionable characters such as Jacob. Both these traits represented

10800-547: Was central to early Israelite culture but currently, the number of El worshippers in Israel is unknown. It is more likely that different Israelite locales held different views about El and had 'small-scale' sacred spaces . Himbaza et al. (2012) states that Israelite households were typically ill-equipped to handle conflicts between family members, which may explain the harsh sexual taboos enforced against acts like incest , homosexuality , polygamy etc. in Leviticus 18–20 . Whilst

10908-425: Was composed in the time of King Solomon by a priest or Levite . This author used the Hebrew word elohim for God. This original work was expanded in the 8th century BC, with the name Yahweh used for God. In the 7th century BC, during the time of Jeremiah , the final parts of the Pentateuch were added, specifically the main parts of Deuteronomy. This would mean the Pentateuch achieved its final form before

11016-461: Was exemplified by the absence of elaborate tombs, governor's mansions, certain houses being bigger than others etc. They followed a mixed economy , which prioritized self-sufficiency , cultivation of crops , animal husbandry and small-scale craft production . New technologies such as terraced farming , silos for grain storage and cisterns for rainwater collection were simultaneously introduced. These settlements were built by inhabitants of

11124-637: Was exiled to Babylon , but returned to Israel after Cyrus the Great conquered the region. According to the Bible , the Israelites are the descendants of Jacob , a patriarch who was later renamed as Israel. Following a severe drought in Canaan , Jacob and his twelve sons fled to Egypt, where they eventually formed the Twelve Tribes of Israel . The Israelites were later led out of slavery in Egypt by Moses and conquered Canaan under Joshua 's leadership, who

11232-658: Was fully incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Judaea . During this period, the main areas of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel were Judea, Galilee and Perea , while the Samaritans had their demographic center in Samaria . Growing dissatisfaction with Roman rule and civil disturbances eventually led to the First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, which ended

11340-459: Was rooted in the culture of the Kingdom of Israel, who introduced it to the Kingdom of Judah via Ahab 's expansions and sociopolitical cooperation, which was prompted by Hazael 's conquests. Frevel has also argued that Judah was a 'vassal-like' state to Israel, under the Omrides . This theory has been rejected by other scholars, who argue that the archaeological evidence seems to indicate that Judah

11448-403: Was the newly compiled Pentateuch. Nehemiah 8 – 10 , according to Wellhausen, describes the publication and public acceptance of this new law code c.  444 BC . There was now a large gap between the earliest sources of the Pentateuch and the period they claimed to describe, which ended c.  1200 BC . Most scholars held to the documentary hypothesis until the 1980s. Since then,

11556-727: Was treated as a "permissive reality" in Babylon. Circumcision was no longer a significant ethnic marker, with increased emphasis on genealogical descent or faith in Yahweh. In 332 BCE, the Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great , and the region was later incorporated into the Ptolemaic Kingdom ( c.  301–200 BCE ) and the Seleucid Empire ( c.  200–167 BCE ). The Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule ushered in

11664-455: Was written anonymously, but both Jewish and Christian religious tradition attributes the entire Pentateuch —Genesis, Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy —to Moses . During the Enlightenment , the philosophers Benedict Spinoza and Thomas Hobbes questioned Mosaic authorship . In the 17th century, Richard Simon proposed that the Pentateuch was written by multiple authors over

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