The Emergence of Iron Age Israel: On Origins and Habitus

The question of Israel's origins is reexamined within the broader framework of Israel's emergence in the late second millennium BCE. Some methodological difficulties are outlined, and then the author's view of Israel's emergence as an ethnic group in the Iron Age is summarized. A more detailed discussion follows on the possible "origins" of the members of this group, and especially that of earliest Israel-the group that is mentioned in Merneptah's stele. It appears that while many individuals, families, and groups were involved in the process of Israel's ethnogenesis throughout the Iron Age, and that many of those who eventually became Israelites were of Canaanite origins, the first group was composed mainly of Shasu pastoralists. Other groups, probably including a small "Exodus" group that left Egypt, joined the process, and all were gradually assimilated into the growing Israel, accepting its history, practices and traditions, and contributing some of their own. Traditions and practices that were useful in the active process of Israel's boundary maintenance with other groups were gradually adopted by "all Israel." It appears that the story of the Exodus from Egypt was one such story. The Exodus-Conquest narrative(s), which describes the escape of the Israelites from Egypt, their 40 years' wandering and their conquest and settlement in Canaan, has resulted in a plethora of studies that examine the story as whole, as well as many of its components, in great detail. The present study touches on this thorny issue by attempting to reconstruct the "origin" of the Iron Age Israelites in general and that of Merneptah's Israel in particular, and by reconstructing the development of Israel as an ethnic group. While such a study cannot yield definite answers about the Exodus event, it does allow us to evaluate the possible significance of an Exodus group, and perhaps also the possible mechanisms that enabled the Exodus story to be accepted by the Israelites and to achieve its "national" standing.