User:Ioe bidome/Canaanites

History

Canaan, or at least israel, was first inhabited approximately 1.5 million years ago. Northwest semitic speakers first inhabited Canaan in 2500 BCE.^{[citation needed]} Canaan was conquered by Egypt in 1500s BCE, fought at least one war over the area, but lost control of it during the bronze age collapse in the 12th century BC. It is (allegedly) during the 13th century BC that the Exodus from Egypt and conquest of Canaan happened. Canaan then became mostly independent tribes and city states, before uniting into several kingdoms. Canaan was then conquered by the Neo-Assyrian empire in 720, then the Neo-Babylonian empire in the 580's, and finally the Achaemenids in the 530s. The Achaemenids themselves were conquered by Alexander the Great of Macedon in the 330s.

History according to the Bible

All of the Canaanites except Israel trade their origins back to the eponymous son of Ham, Canaan. After Ham's act, Noah curses Canaan to forever be the slaves of the Israelites, for some reason. The Israelites went to Egypt and were enslaved there for who knows how long, but they returned and began conquering a bunch of stuff including:

• Jericho
• Lachish
• Hazor

The depiction of Israel's neighbors is relatively uniform (italics in original):

Having learned something about a particular group’s pottery, iconography, art, language, and history, and then starting on the “biblical representation” sections, I discovered a similar pattern almost every time: the neighbor has shameful origins; they have a bad religion; they fought with Israel; and the prophets hate them, predicting doom.

Notable Biblical Canaanite groups

Moabites

The Moabites are a Canaanite tribe mentioned in the bible.

Their god beat Yahweh

In 2 Kings 3:26-27 we get this:

And when the king of Moab saw that the battle was too sore for him, he took with him seven hundred men that drew swords, to break through even unto the king of Edom: but they could not. Then he took his eldest son that should have reigned in his stead, and offered him for a burnt offering upon the wall. And there was great indignation against Israel: and they departed from him, and returned to their own land.

So the king of Moab sacrificed his eldest son, and then the Israelites suffered a "Great indignation"? Sounds like a defeat to us. This incident is apparently mentioned in the Mesha Stele, which is dated to the ninth century, but from the Moabite perspective. No child sacrifice is mentioned on the stone, however. The date may also be different than the one traditionally used.

Amalekites

See the main article on this topic: Amalekites

Less a tribe and more "whoever is threatening Israel at the moment".

Edomites

The Edomites are a Canaanite tribe mentioned in the bible. They existed to the south of Judah, and fought the Israelites in various wars. They were conquered by the Israelites and assimilated in the 2nd century BCE. The god Yahweh may have been imported from them.

Ammonites

Not to be confused with The extinct mollusc group

The Ammonites are a Canaanite tribe mentioned in the Bible. They existed to the west of the northern kingdom Israel, and north of Moab. Like most other Canaanite tribes, they fought the Israelites at least once. The Israelites hated them and the prophet Zephaniah actually wished for them to be destroyed.

Other cultures that lived in the levant and surrounding area

These cultures are either closely related to the "Biblical" Canaanites or lived in approximately the same area as them.

Ugaritics

The Ugaritics northwest semitic people that lived in the city of Ugarit

Arameans

The Arameans were a group of tribes and kingdoms. The most notable such kingdom is Aram-Damascus, which was the one that called the Neo-Assyrian empire for help.

Phoenicians

See the main article on this topic: Phoenicia

The Phoenicians were the people who made all those voyages. They also founded a number of important locations:

• Tyre, the city that Ezekial said Nebuchnadnezzar II would destroy but didn't
• Carthage, which fought three wars with Rome

The eeeevil wife of Ahab, Jezebel, was from Phoenicia.

Philistines

The Philistines were a group that lived in Canaan. They were the remnants of the Sea Peoples who settled in Israel.

Sources to use later

• Coogan, Michael D. (1978). Stories from Ancient Canaan. Westminster Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3108-5. 
• Lemche, Niels-Peter (1991). The Canaanites and their Land: The Tradition of the Canaanites. Continuum. ISBN 978-0-567-45111-8. 
• Smith, Mark S. (2002). The Early History of the Israel people. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-9004119437. 
• Rollston, Chris A. (2010). Writing and Literacy in the World of Ancient Israel: Epigraphic Evidence from the Iron Age. Society of Biblical Literature. ISBN 9781589831070. 
• André, Lemaire (2012). "The Moabite Stone A Facsimile of the Original Inscription". Reeves and Turner. 
• Routledge, Bruce (2004). Moab in the Iron Age: Hegemony, Polity, Archaeology. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 9780812238013. 
• Dever, William (2003). Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From?. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-0975-9. 
• Bishop Moore, Megan; Kelle, Brad E. (2011). Biblical History and Israel's Past: The Changing Study of the Bible and History. Eerdmans. ISBN 978-0-8028-6260-0. 
• Cline, Eric H. (2009). Biblical Archaeology: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199741076.