ROUGHLY EDITED COPY CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY EDUCATION NETWORK EXODUS DR. DAVID ADAMS #12 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. 10 E. 22nd Street Suite 304 Lombard, IL 60148 800-825-5234 *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> The Hebrews are the focus of the Bible. But how important were they when compared to some of the other peoples mentioned in the Bible? There are so many others. The Egyptians obviously and the Canaanites and more. But I guess the feeling, you know, is that I probably don't understand these peoples and their relationship to one another as well as I should. >> You're right, Eric, in suggesting that in the great scheme of things in the ancient world, the Hebrews were relatively insignificant. They were not one of the great nations of the world in ancient times. In fact, the Bible itself reminds us of that. God tells the Hebrews themselves in Deuteronomy Chapter 7 Verse 6, he says, "You are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. But it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you. For you are the fewest of all the peoples." So God himself says that he chose Israel because they were one of the least significant peoples. Afterall, if Israel was a mighty nation like Egypt or Babylon or one of the other great kingdoms of the ancient world, then perhaps we might be inclined to think that there was something in Israel that caused God to call them and to make them their own. This sort of reminds us of what St. Paul tells the Corinthians in the New Testament when he talks about the wisdom of the world and the great of the world and says to them in Chapter 1 Verse 27, "But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong." In the same way God chose the weak and the small and the foolish, the nation of Israel, to be his instrument so that he would be the one whose name would be glorified. And it would be clear to the world that Yahweh was the source of their strength and their salvation and not they themselves. In the Bible we do read a lot about the Hebrews because for obvious reasons the Bible is written from the perspective of the Hebrews. And whenever we hear about other peoples, it's usually because they come in contact with the Hebrews in some way. But we need to remember that the Bible is not trying to tell the cultural history of the ancient world. And so we often don't get a sense of who the major groups of people were and what they contributed to the development of the culture of the ancient world. So maybe the thing to do, Eric, to help you out here is to summarize briefly who the major nations were at this time and sort of give you one or two services that would highlight the important thing about each of those groups. And if you want to learn more, I prepared a document that's part of your course pack that's titled "The Peoples of the Ancient Near East" where I list all of these groups and give you a couple of paragraphs about them to help you connect them and remember who they are. I really don't expect you to remember all the information that's in that document. But you should at least know something about each of these groups of people and you should be able to identify them and where they are and the major thing that each of them contributed to the ancient world. So let's just walk through that, shall we? And let's begin with the people from Mesopotamia. First we have starting chronologically the Sumerians. And we've talked a lot about them. They were the first group to invent writing, as far as we know. They are the first documented nation in the history of the world. And they built up a tremendous empire throughout Mesopotamia. And it was at the end of their reign that Abraham came from that region. So whether Abraham was a Sumerian or an Akkadians, the group that followed them, is not clear. My own view was that he was probably not Sumerian because he appears to be Semitic. And the Sumerians were a non-Semitic people. But in any case, you remember the Sumerians as the people who invented writing and were the first and most ancient of the peoples of Mesopotamia. The next group to follow them were the Akkadians. This is Akkadian spelled A k k a d i a n, not A c c. The Akkadians were from a city called Akkad. And they controlled the empire that was roughly the same as that of the Sumerians. That dominated really central Mesopotamia and southern Mesopotamia. And they, too, ruled for a while. What distinguished them from the Sumerians was that this was a Semitic group. It was a group that was culturally related to the Hebrews. They spoke a language that was really the ancestor of the language of Babylon and Assyria but was reasonably closely related to biblical Hebrew, as well. It's very likely, as I said a moment ago, that Abraham was a member of this group of people when he left Ur of the Chaldees to go to Haran and then later to Canaan. The Akkadians after their kingdom broke up gave rise to two other great nations: The Babylonians, who were the empire of southern Mesopotamia and the Assyrians who were the empire of northern Mesopotamia. If you want to remember one thing about the Babylonians, it should probably be that they were the ones who carried the southern kingdom of Judah into exile. The Assyrians were the nation that carried the northern kingdom of Israel into exile. The Assyrians came to power slightly before the Babylonians, although these two groups vied for power over the course of a millennium or so. The last group from Mesopotamia that I think that we should mention are a group called the Amorites. They are a group that's not as well known as the Babylonians or Assyrians. Their capital was a little further north, the city called Mari, Mari on the Euphrates. The Amorites are important because one of their kings. Zimri-Lim left a great library of something like 20,000 documents that survived after the city was destroyed. And these documents date from roughly the time of the patriarchs, from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. And while the Amorites weren't living in Canaan, they weren't living too far away. And they were pretty closely connected with the Hebrews in terms of culture. They were more closely connected than the Babylonians and Assyrians were. And they are -- this body of tablets that were found at Mari tell us a tremendous amount about what life was like at the time of the patriarchs in the western part of Mesopotamia and that land. So they are a tremendous source of knowledge to us about what life was like in the patriarchal period. And so for that reason, the Amorites are important. Even though they are not mentioned directly in the book of Exodus as part of our story, they are important for our understanding of the story. So that summarizes the peoples from Mesopotamia. Let's move now to the people from Egypt. Well, here it's pretty easy. The main group are simply the Egyptians. You'll remember that we mentioned that Egypt was formed by two nations coming together, the nation of lower Egypt and the nation of upper Egypt. These two spread along the Nile with upper Egypt being to the south and lower Egypt being to the north. And the first pharaohs united the kingdom or these two kingdoms into one. And really the power of the pharaohs was exerted in holding these two kingdoms together. Because part of the story of the history of Egypt was the tendency to pull apart from these two groups that made up the Egyptian nation. But the Egyptians were power. They were wealthy. They controlled trade up and down the Nile River from those people who were further up the Nile, that is further south along the Nile. They had access to tremendous resources of gold and jewels in the Sinai Peninsula and in Sudan and Ethiopia, the modernizations of Sudan and Ethiopia. And so they developed a rich and vibrant culture that we have pretty well documented today. The other people group from Egypt that we should remember is the group known as the Hyksos, H y k s o s. The Hyksos. The Hyksos were a foreign group. They were a Semitic group closely related to the Hebrews in terms of culture who came into Egypt at some time, which is not entirely clear to us. And one way or another came to control the northeastern part of the Delta. The name Hyksos is Egyptian. And it means foreign rulers. Because they ruled over Egypt for a period of time. They are important to us in the biblical story because it was probably the Hyksos rulers of Egypt who made the Hebrews welcome and gave them positions of power and authority in the nation of Egypt there after perhaps Joseph had come down to Egypt originally. And when the Egyptians threw the Hyksos out of the country, it was probably at that time that the Hebrews came to be slaves in Egypt. Because they were closely related in terms of culture and language and perhaps even political affinity to the Hyksos. Although, we don't know that for certain. So the Hyksos are the foreign rulers of Egypt. The Semitic rulers of the Egypt. Now, let's turn to the people of the Levant. And remember, the Levant is the name for what we today call not only the modern state of Israel but Jordan and also Lebanon and Syria up to the southern part of Turkey along the coast. Basically all of those nations along the eastern Mediterranean coast. The best known of those nations is clearly the group that we call the Canaanites. Now, Canaanite really simply means someone from that region. It's a general term for a lot of different people. They were essentially the same cultural group as the Hebrews. They spoke the same language. They looked the same. They had most of the same customs. And the Hebrews were very, very closely related to the Canaanites in terms culture. So when we hear about Abraham and the patriarchs interacting with the Canaanites who were living in the land, they didn't have to learn a new language. They were at home in that culture. And again, Canaanite is a somewhat general term for anyone from that region, really a number of city states that were independent throughout that area. The Hittites are another group. And they are the group that occupies what is now Turkey, especially the eastern and southern part of Turkey. They were not a Semitic group. And they were not closely related to the Hebrews. But they are important to us for a number of reasons, even though they don't come directly into the biblical story. They had a lot of economic impact upon what happened in the region because they were very active traders up and down the coastline. They were often allies of the Egyptians against the groups from Mesopotamia. And so from time to time they would become involved in battles and wars that are fought between the various nations in that region. The third group that I would like to mention from the Levant is a group called the Habiru, H a b i r u, or sometimes spelled with a P instead of the B as Hapiru instead of Habiru. The name of this group sounds very much like Hebrews. And it's a very interesting group that is still controversial today. From what we've been able to determine, this group is really not a political group like a state or a nation so much as it is a social class. We believe today that the Habiru were a group of people who lived on the fringes of society. Who didn't live in cities but rather lived in the rural area. And they were frequently engaged in raiding. Either raiding caravans or trade or sometimes even raiding cities to plunder them. So they come into the biblical story indirectly. Because there's a group of letters from Canaan, from the kings of the Canaanite cities, written to the pharaohs in Egypt complaining about the Habiru and asking the pharaoh for help. And interestingly, this is just about the time that the Hebrews would have been entering the land, depending on when you date the exodus. So there's a lot of debate about the relationship between the Hebrews and the Habiru. Today most people think that the relationship is probably that the Canaanites would have understood the innovating Hebrews probably as one of the social groups that we know as Habiru. In other words, that the Hebrews would have been thought of as Habiru but that not all of the Habiru were Hebrews. They were sort of the -- the Hebrews might have been a subset of this bigger group called the Habiru. As far as the relationship between the name goes, it's a little unclear. Scholars disagree about whether these two words that sound alike are actually related to one another in the language or not. A fourth group that we need to know from Canaan are the Philistines. Now, the Philistines are also not a Semitic group. They originally came from either the Balkans in the north above Greece or perhaps from some of the islands of the eastern Aegean. They came about the year 1200 or so. Perhaps a little before. And they settled in the southern coastal area, that part of the world that we today call the Gaza Strip. In fact, Gaza was one of their five major cities. The Philistines are important because, of course, they often are engaged in fighting with the Hebrews, especially in the period of the judges and Samuel and David. You remember David slays Goliath who was a Philistine. But the other things that the Philistines contributed to the ancient near east is they were the ones that brought ironworking technology. So everything before that had been bronze and the Philistines, wherever they came from, they knew how to work in iron. And they brought with them that technology, which gradually spread from them throughout the rest of the ancient near east. The last group that I would like to mention from the Levant are called the Armeans. The Armeans or Aram as their nation was called had its capital in Damascus in modern Syria. And their land was roughly, generally speaking, equivalent to modern Syria. They were very closely related to the Hebrews. They interacted with the Hebrews quite a bit, especially after the division of the kingdoms in the time of the kings and the divided monarchy. We often read of the Armeans engaged either with the Hebrews fighting someone else or fighting between the Hebrews and the Armeans. Although, they are often referred to not as Armeans but just the people whose king was in Damascus or something like that. And they are important because they were so close culturally to the Hebrews. And by studying them we can learn a great deal about Hebrew culture, as well, because of their close affinity. So those are some of the main groups. And as I said, you should be generally aware of the names. You should perhaps know one or two of the most important things about each of these groups. But I certainly don't think that you would be able to remember everything that I've provided for you in that document on the peoples of the ancient near east. *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. ***