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Concept
Israelites
Summary
The Israelites (ˈɪzrəlaɪts,_-riə-; , Bənēy Yīsrāʾēl, ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.
The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE. According to the modern archaeological account, the Israelites and their culture branched out of the Canaanite peoples and their cultures through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centred on the national god Yahweh. They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the Canaanite language, known today as Biblical Hebrew.
According to the Bible, the Israelites are the descendants of Jacob, who was later renamed 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 and subsequently brought back to Canaan by Moses; they eventually conquered Canaan under the leadership of Joshua. 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 accepted that this narrative does have a "historical core" to it.
A tribal period was followed by the rise of two Israelite kingdoms: Israel and Judah. The Bible portrays Israel and Judah as the successors of an earlier United Kingdom of Israel, although its historicity is disputed. 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 was exiled to Babylon, but returned to Israel after Cyrus the Great conquered the region.
Jews and the Samaritans are the modern descendants of the ancient Israelites.
Official source
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