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So we noted in a preceding segment thatthe earliest references
to Israel,and to many places that would become partof Israel, are
found in Egypt.We noted that the execration texts callforthe
destruction of various places, curseson them.And the Merneptah
Stele announces thedemise ofIsrael at the hand of an Egyptian
ruler,Merneptah.And the line is, Israel is wasted, itsseed is no
longer.And defeat, as we see both in theexecration texts and in the
MerneptahStele, defeat or subjugation, conquest,destruction, soon,
stands at the beginning of Israel'shistory.And as we shall see, it
marks thepivotal moments later in Israel's historythe events
withoutwhich, the Biblical writings, as we know
them atleast, would never have seen the light ofday.Now Israel's
experience of defeat isclosely tied to therise and the fall of
empires throughoutthe ancient Near East.So it's necessary that we
devote ourattention first to the story of thoseempires.Over many
millenia, reaching back intoprehistoric times, major urbancenters
popped up at various places all
over the map.In fact, some of the most ancient citiesand
settlementsin human history are found within the landof Israel.An
example, let me mention here, is thecity of Jericho.This town,
located not far from Jerusalem,is knownto biblical readers for the
battle ofJericho inwhich Joshua and all Israel brought thecity
down
with blowing the horns and the walls cametumbling down.Everybody
knows Joshua and the battle ofJericho, the song.The place was
inhabited though since10,000 B.C.,with a settlement appearing there
near thespring.It's called Ein as-Sultan.And although the
population was quite
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are still a mystery, systems of writingwereembraced already in
the second half of the4th century, so very early in the
history.Famous cities like Kish and Uruk and Ur,Lagash,
Nippur,Girsu, and on and on, developed highlystratified and complex
societies.And in Egypt we can witness the, the useof writing
systemsand the complex societies that go alongwith them, not long
thereafter.So almost at the same time, two majorcenters of
civilization are emerging.One in the East around Mesopotamia and
theother one on the North of Africa andEgypt.The complexity of
these societies is due,andthis is the important point, to
theirpopulation size.Population sizes that were made possibleby the
presence of rivers.And writing was adopted in these societies
for administrative and accounting purposesat the beginning.And
of course in Egypt and elsewhere youseehow writing also takes on
more magical andcommemorative functions.But the earliest texts that
we have areaccounting textsfor the purposes of the temple
economies,and so forth.So now, let's take a closer look atEgypt's
imperial presence in Canaan.We will focus our attention on the end
of
the secondmillennium, a few centuries before thekingdom of
Israel and Judah.In this next segment I'm going to gothrough that,
but now what we have donehere is to understand that the
bigcivilization centers are in Mesopotamia,and in Egypt.And Canaan
itself, although it has veryold cities, was notpart of those great
civilizational centersfrom which the empires would emerge.
