Talk:Jewish history/Archive 1

Jewish history stub:
Welcome and please use where applicable the new . Thanks. IZAK 10:51, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hasmonean Dynasty Dates
What's the correct date for the rule of the Hasmonean Dynasty? The main article gives it as 140 to 37 BCE; this article says 165 to 63. A source would be preferable. --Simetrical 00:40, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

167 - 37 BCE see 216.99.54.249 (talk) 01:36, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

announcing policy proposal
This is just to inform people that I want Wikipedia to accept a general policy that BC and AD represent a Christian Point of View and should be used only when they are appropriate, that is, in the context of expressing or providing an account of a Christian point of view. In other contexts, I argue that they violate our NPOV policy and we should use BCE and CE instead. See Neutral point of view/BCE-CE Debate for the detailed proposal. Slrubenstein  |  Talk  22:55, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

History of Judaism
Is there a History of Judaism page? There is a consensus arising from discussion of the History of Christianity that there is scholarly debate as to the extent of the indirect influence of Zoroastrianism on Christianity. Since the influence was indirect, via Judaism, it was agreed that a reference to this issue should be made in History of Christianity, with the different POVs as to the extent of the Zoroastrian influence being mentioned in the history of Judaism. I put the appropriate material in this article, but on reviewing the talk page, it appears that this may be the wrong article. If my additions should be moved, I would welcome having them moved, as long as they can be properly referenced in History of Christianity. Robert McClenon 15:46, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Historical persecution by Jews?
Just to warn readers of this page than an entry named Historical persecution by Jews full of antisemitic spam has been created. It should be either deleted either merged with this article, allowing for a NPOV. I hope Wikipedians will react quickly to such weak attempts at revisionism. Kaliz 19:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC) Same comment for Contemporary persecution of non-Jews by Jews
 * If it existed why should it be deleted. Facts can't be POV. 12.220.47.145 17:10, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
 * There are similar articles for persecution by many different religions (Christian, Muslim, and Hindu that I know of for sure). The article appears to be relatively NPOV.  Although it is tagged, and may contain some POV stuff that I just don't recognize.  That article doesn't appear to be very antisemitic at all.  I also don't see any attempts at revisionism, there is no references to the holocaust at all.  I don't know much about ancient history (i'm a western hemisphere history buff myself) so maybe i'm just missing something here.  --MateoP 18:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Suggestion for addition
Big fan of the "History of the Jews..." series. It is well covered. One place that is not covered, however, is Haiti. Here are a few sources to start out, if anyone is interested in writing an article (i will do so myself, eventually). Note that the article which appears in Jewish Social Studies is available on ebscohost. --MateoP 20:42, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/ethnic/jewsinhait.htm http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/ethnic/jewshistory.htm http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/misctopic/ethnic/listjews.htm


 * Glad you like the series. Great idea to add Haiti, it would probably best fit under History of the Jews in Latin America, which currently covers the Carribean as well. Why don't you start adding material? --Goodoldpolonius2 20:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
 * Ok, good, I wasn't aware of that article. That would be a good starting point until enough information is compiled to warrant a full article.  --MateoP 01:57, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

Romania
Unfortunately there's no refference to the history of Jews in Romania. Much of the community is nowadays gone but a rich history exists,which many of you might be interested to discover.Anyone up for it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Radufan (talk • contribs) 12:31, 30 January 2006

Jewish WIKIVERSITY
NEW: On Wikiversity there is now a "Jewish Studies School." Will it become a "duplication" of many things on Wikipedia? What should it's goals and functions be? Please add your learned views. Thank you. IZAK 09:12, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Objection to the use of this image
I object to the use of the image containing the map of the Hasmonean Kingdom set against the background of the so-called present-day borders of Israel. The image is also being used in the articles on Hanukkah, on Maccabees, on Judas Maccabeus, on Hasmonean and on the Golan Heights. But these are not the internationally recognised borders of Israel. The image suggests that the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem are integral parts of the state of Israel, whereas this is subject to international disputes. To present these borders as undisputed facts, is to lessen the quality of information provided by Wikipedia. I therefore decided to remove this image. In a (very swift) reaction by a Wikipedia administrator, he accused me of "blatant vandalism". That is absurd. I'm in the habit of using Wikipedia as a source of factual, unbiased information. Ocasionally, I make a small contribution to try to enhance the factual accuracy of an article. To enhance an article is not vandalism. It is what I thought Wikipedia was all about. There are undoubtedly many images available that could be used in these articles that depict the borders of Israel, while clearly marking the disputed Palestinian Territories and the Golan Heights as disputed entities. Why would an unbiased encyclopedia, out of of all the available options, choose an image that is provided by the Israeli Foreign Ministry? If it is Wikipedia's standard policy to discourage user participation in this agressive way, then in my view, it fails in its stated purpose. --82.215.24.131 13:34, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Change "six thousand" to "four thousand"
The Khazar conversion theory has been refuted by genetic testing of Kohanim that show no genetic link between those Kohanim from the Khazar and the rest of the Jews.

I have changed the opening "nearly six thousand years" to "nearly four thousand years". Nothing in any way meaning "Jewish history" can go back to before Abraham, by all traditional and modern systems at 1900 Before Present at the earliest. The "Six Thousand" number seems to confuse the beginings of Jewish histroy with the Hebrew calendar date.

Sukkoth 18:10, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Should be "at least 2,900 years"
Well I haven't read the whole article yet, so I won't even attempt to edit it, but Sukkoth clearly didn't go far enough. In short, see Hebrews

More specifically, if we're talking about a particular ethnic group, rather than the history of Judaism - let's call them Hebrews, for the sake of argument (and there's room for discussion on that point also) - then that history could "arguably" start at around the beginning of the fourteenth century BCE, with the tribal movement of what would become (biblical) Israelis into the northern hill country from Transjordan. Such an event, if accepted as the start of a people known as Hebrews, would make the history under discussion around 3500 years old. Not "over four thousand years".

Either way, when Israelites emerged in the land, they didn't come pre-equipped with a Jewish faith, which they developed (or adopted from interaction with a neighbouring tribe moving into what would become Judah from the northern Negev) much later.

If we're talking about Judaism as a system of religious thought based in a group of people living in said hill country, then there is a very well received scholarly viewpoint (as expressed in, for instance, the Oxford Illustrated History of the Bible, pp. 7-10) that we would have to move several hundred years forward in time to find the distinct existence of anything unequivocally linked to Judaism. This would be the inscription of Mesha, king of Moab, from around 850 BCE, which mentions both the Israelite king and YHWH. Any scraps of evidence before that date are both sparse and speculative.

This inscription testifies to the existence of Transjordanian outposts of Israel, where YHWH was worshiped, and from this fact we can safely assume the likely existence of the worship of YHWH in Israel at least as early as the tenth or eleventh century BCE, but nothing outside the Old Testament can take us remotely as far as 4,000 years ago. Danny Dayus (talk) 00:31, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Skipping too much
There is too much of a gap between ancient Jewish history and modern--as if the culture went directly from Moses to the modern day with no diversions. I think there has to be some more attention paid to the period between the destruction of the Temple and the modern era (1800- onwards). Too much general history is missed. The article on the History of the Jews and the Crusades is woefully inadequate, I would use as example.

Cheers to all, nonetheless: this is a good looking article.

Varangian 14:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Reworded for consistency
I reworded some of the phrasing here to be consistent with other parts of the article. The passage under Islamic history first states it to be a bloody one, and then calls it relatively benign compared to Europeans. Characterizing the former as ethnic cleansing does discredit to events occuring among the latter, and widespread killing of Jews in these regions did not occur. --Shlomo Mizrahi 06:31, 28 Jan 2007 (UTC)

Jewish history overview
Originally posted to Wikipedia_talk:Talk_page_guidelines

While the contents of this article are nominally correct the tone of the evil Persian and Roman Emipires singling out the Jews for cruelty is a little too much. They did this to everyone who challenged their tax base. The author(s) really are writing with a post Nazi slant that is detrimental to the quality of the article. While not an expert I know enough about Roman Imperial history to react to this choice of wording. The Jewish Messiah movements characterized by John the Baptist and Jesus son of Joseph? and Mary among others threatened the status quo of both the wealthy Jews and the Romans and as a result were ruthlessly (by modern standards) put down. To imply this was special treatment is just wrong. A purely historical Jewish history would be refreshing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.254.145.206 (talk) 19:45, 4 May 2007 (UTC).


 * Write one then. Jake the Editor Man  ( talk  ) 22:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Reference problems
There are exactly 8 sources mentioned in the footnotes, and most of the article is completely unsourced. I have tagged the article with unreferenced because most of the material remains unsourced and unattributed to sources.--Sefringle 03:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi! I think a problem here is that the article was created before footnote style sourcing got into widespread use, so most of the sources are in the "references and further reading" section, and the footnotes cover only a few additions. I believe if the "references and further reading" section is included the sources do cover the material. However, I agree moving completely to footnote-style sourcing is important to making this a high-quality article. Best, --Shirahadasha 06:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Copyedit needed
Kielce pogrom --HanzoHattori 10:41, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Jewish Land?
Is there any source outside of the Old Testament that can confirm that the Israelites occupied "The Land of Israel?", because it seems to me that it is just inferred in this article (there are no citations I can see) and I'm just genuinely curious. --Nimnom 03:35, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


 * New discussions are usually added at the bottom. There are plenty of finds from archeological excavations such as seals, bullas, coins, as well as historical chronicles such as Merneptah Stele, etc. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:28, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Jews in India, China, Yemen, etc.
I'm not sure how to include it, but even before the Arab period there were Jewish traders in India ( and Yemen (there was even briefly a Jewish kingdom in Yemen, although I doubt it created many conversions, likely only among the elite). Later on there were Jews in China as well.  To get a complete overview of Jewish history I think this should be included, but again, I'm not sure how.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.52.215.67 (talk) 15:24, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

41 years
41 years wandering in the wilderness, not 40? zafiroblue05 | Talk 14:52, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Khazars
I am troubled by this edit, accompanied by the edit summary "Nothing in DNA research indicates any Mongol or Turkic ancestry in Ashkenazic Jews". It's hard to prove a negative of this sort ("nothing in DNA research...") and the claim in the summary isn't cited. I've left the edit alone, however, because there's no cite for anything in the paragraph anyway, and the Khazars article isn't very helpful in this regard either. Still, I think we can do better and I'd love to see some cleanup on this section. Any takers? :-) Isaacsf (talk) 22:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Disabilities (disambiguation)
Help! Apparently some think that the express "Jewish disabilities" means that there's something wrong with the Jews! --Ludvikus (talk) 15:13, 2 May 2008 (UTC))

"Shattering a 'national mythology'" about 70CE and 135CE expulsions
I'm sure there is good historical evidence for the exiles under the Roman and that information obviously belongs in the article. Nevertheless, it would appear from this Haaretz book-review that many modern historians believe the exiles did not happen. I'd like to insert the following (or something similar, at a suitable position) since it appears to be a fair representation of a significant (perhaps major) thread of modern Israeli historical understanding:

''Tel Aviv University historian, Professor Shlomo Sand, under the influence of other historians who have dealt with the same issue in recent years, argues that the Roman exile of the Jewish people is actually a Christian myth - divine punishment of the Jews for having rejected the gospel of Jesus. In his book "Matai ve'ech humtza ha'am hayehudi?" ("When and How the Jewish People Was Invented?"; Resling, Hebrew, March 2008), Professor Sand sets out to prove that the Jews now living in Israel and other places in the world are not descendants of the ancient people who inhabited the Kingdom of Judea during the First and Second Temple period. He says that the Romans did not exile entire populations and physically could not have done so in any case.   on the local blacklist

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Blacklisted Links Found on Jewish history
Cyberbot II has detected links on Jewish history which have been added to the blacklist, either globally or locally. Links tend to be blacklisted because they have a history of being spammed or are highly inappropriate for Wikipedia. The addition will be logged at one of these locations: local or global If you believe the specific link should be exempt from the blacklist, you may request that it is white-listed. Alternatively, you may request that the link is removed from or altered on the blacklist locally or globally. When requesting whitelisting, be sure to supply the link to be whitelisted and wrap the link in nowiki tags. Please do not remove the tag until the issue is resolved. You may set the invisible parameter to "true" whilst requests to white-list are being processed. Should you require any help with this process, please ask at the help desk.

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 * Triggered by  on the local blacklist

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Contentious Statement
I'm going to remove the following unsourced contentious statement from the article: "In the Soviet Union, many Jews were involved in the October Revolution and belonged to the communist party." While it may be true, it is not decidedly notable. Further, it was used in Nazi, anti-semitic and anti-communist propaganda, therefore such claims should be approached cautiously. It should be considered to be a topic of a sensitive nature and if it can be backed up, it should be done in a specific manner and with reliable sources. --Typenolies (talk) 00:04, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

It is notable, certainly. There was a higher percentage of commissars of Jewish origin than in the population of the Russian Empire as a whole; this is not in dispute. As to its relevance, there is a view widely shared by many historians ( divergent as Sidney Hook and Paul Johnson ) which sees the rise of Stalin as partly a reaction to this situation, elements in the Army and the population as a whole being anti-Semitic. There is room for expansion on this subject. But, as ever, nothing should be put in Wikipedia without properly sourcing it. 95.147.120.9 (talk) 08:27, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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"Between ... and"
While "and" seemed right to me, I did some searching, and concluded that it is right.


 * http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/584985.html
 * http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000180.htm
 * https://oilpatchwriting.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/choosing-between/

— Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:33, 10 September 2016 (UTC)

Needs reliable sources
It is unclear from this article which of its sources are historical, and which are biblical, cultural or otherwise religious. Any sources that are not historical should be removed, and the information that relies upon them either removed or validated from a proper, undisputed source.

Example: reference 10 is to [מרדכי וורמברנד ובצלאל ס רותת "עם ישראל - תולדות 4000 שנה - מימי האבות ועד חוזה השלום", ע"מ 95. (Translation: Mordechai Vermebrand and Betzalel S. Ruth - "The People of Israel - the history of 4000 years - from the days of the Forefathers to the Peace Treaty", 1981, pg. 95). It is unclear what this history is, or the sources upon which it relies, as I have been unable to track it down online. Similarly, a link to an article in www.haaretz.com - which is apparently Israel's oldest daily newspaper. This is not necessarily a reliable source on the history of Israel, and in fact the linked article page features links to other articles that contradict it.

Would it be possible please for someone who knows the subject to begin trawling through some of the references? Ambiguosity (talk) 09:38, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Not a new problem. This article has a template since 2010 which points out: "This article improperly uses one or more religious texts as primary sources without referring to secondary sources that critically analyze them. Please help improve this article by adding references to reliable secondary sources, with multiple points of view. "

I'll take a look on some of the sources, though I am not familiar with all of them.:
 * Citation 3 is taken from the public-domain International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, edition 1915. It does not seem to be a good source. The editor was James Orr (1844-1913), a fundamentalist theologian and a founding father of the fundamendalist movement. He did not believe in Biblical inerrancy, but he did advocate "the infallibility of the Bible". The articles of this encyclopedia were written by writers associated with Evangelicalism. It is far from a secular or objective look at the Bible.
 * Citation 5 is taken from the works of Israel Finkelstein and Nadav Na'aman (with his name misspelled in the citation). Finkelstein (1949-) is a famous archaeologist and has published works on the contrast between the Bible and the archaeological record, and on the possible identities and motives of the human writers behind several books of the Biblical canon. Na'aman (1939-) is a professional historian who spend decades teaching Jewish history at the Tel Aviv University. They are experts in their field and seem like quality sources to me.
 * Citation 7 is a long quotation from a 2002 dictionary of archaeology, describing various historical theories on the identity and origins of the Israelites. It is a secular source and seems to be of decent quality.
 * Citation 8 is a quotation of Ann Killebrew, which concerns the ongoing debate about the "scarcity of pig bones" in a number of highland sites researched by archaeologists. Whether it points to some kind of taboo against eating pigs or was based on other factors. It is a secular source and seems quite objective.
 * Citation 9 links to an Israeli website. It uses the Torah (Bible) as a historical source and treats Joshua, David, and Solomon as historical figures. They could be clueless or biased, but this in not an expert source.
 * Citation 18 links to the Secret History by Procopius. It is a 6th-century Byzantine history by one of the most famous historians of his era. But it primarily expresses his hatred and frustration with emperor Justinian I, empress Theodora, general Belisarius, and the general's wife and imperial favorite Antonina. It contains vivid descriptions of the Empire under their control, and their scandalous personal lives. The reliability of the work has been much debated.
 * Procopius even claims that Justinian was not human, but a demon in human form: "That Justinian was not a man, but a demon, as I have said, in human form, one might prove by considering the enormity of the evils he brought upon mankind. For in the monstrousness of his actions the power of a fiend is manifest. Certainly an accurate reckoning of all those whom he destroyed would be impossible, I think, for anyone but God to make. Sooner could one number, I fancy, the sands of the sea than the men this Emperor murdered. Examining the countries that he made desolate of inhabitants, I would say he slew a trillion people. For Libya, vast as it is, he so devastated that you would have to go a long way to find a single man, and he would be remarkable." See: http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/proc/shp/shp21.htm
 * Citation 21 links to a History of the Byzantine State by George Ostrogorsky (1902-1976). Ostrogorsky was one of the most famous Byzantinists of the 20th century. His works were secular, but may now be a bit dated. Note that Ostrogorsky was Russian, but spend most of his career in Yugoslavia.
 * Citation 22 links to an Oxford History of Byzantium (2002), reportedly edited by Byzantinist Cyril Mango (1928-). Mango is a leading historian when it comes to Byzantine history and seems to be secular. Note that Mango is British, but spend part of his career teaching in the United States. He used to teach at the University of California, Berkeley. Dimadick (talk) 14:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Semi-protected edit request on 26 February 2018
Please change "In Poland," to "In German-occupied Poland," in order to describe historical realities accurately, to preserve consistency of terminology used (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Poland_(1939%E2%80%931945)#German-occupied_Poland ) and to prevent readers' misinterpretation and/or confusion. Zbigniew Radzikowski (talk) 03:37, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. I assume you're referring to the second mention of Poland in the third paragraph. The text earlier in that paragraph makes quite clear that Poland was occupied at the time, so this seems redundant. In any event, it is a fact that this happened in Poland, and Wikipedia must take care not to alter its content based on trends or prevailing political attitudes. Rivertorch  FIREWATER  05:02, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

The argument “The text earlier in that paragraph makes quite clear that Poland was occupied at the time” is not valid. The text earlier reads: “…and until 1941 Hitler occupied almost all of Europe, including Poland” does not make clear that Poland was occupied well beyond 1941, that is until 1945 (End of WWII) to be precise. Therefore, the proposed usage of commonly recognized and used term, also in Wikipedia, "German-occupied Poland" will make text accurate, prevent misinterpretation and confusion. Zbigniew Radzikowski (talk) 20:25, 26 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment. Thank you for following up. I agree that the "until 1941" wording is potentially confusing, but I'm not confident that the best way to resolve it is by changing "Poland" to "German-occupied Poland". I'll leave your request open and see what others think, and I would suggest that (per my earlier response) consensus be established before effecting a change. Rivertorch  FIREWATER  05:59, 27 February 2018 (UTC)

I think a larger issue is that the paragraph in the lead is nearly identical to the content of the Holocaust section. ~ Amory  (u • t • c) 19:55, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

If, for some difficult to understand reasons, the expression “German-occupied Poland” cannot be used then, as an alternative proposal, the sentence could be rephrased as follows: “More than one million Jews were murdered in gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp alone, see the full List_of_Nazi_concentration_camps.” This way provided information is acurate without any ambiguities. Zbigniew Radzikowski (talk) 23:45, 28 February 2018 (UTC)

Editing restrictions for new editors
I'm still unsure about the intended scope of the WP:ARBPIA discretionary sanctions. Do these sanctions affect all articles about Jewish history, including this article? Jarble (talk) 21:07, 15 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Jarble. The short answer is no, the restrictions in WP:ARBPIA and WP:ARBPIA3 don't generally apply to articles about Jewish history. They do apply, however, to articles about Jewish history that intersect with the Arab-Israeli conflict. For example, no restrictions apply to editing an article about a Jewish organization in 19th-century Europe, unless it was a Zionist organization, in which case it's probably best to assume the restrictions apply. In a long article on a subject not directly related to the conflict, such as this one, the restrictions only apply when editing sections related to the Arab-Israel conflict (e.g., no restrictions apply when editing the sections on the Middle Ages, but assume they apply when editing the sections on Zionism or the establishment of the State of Israel). I hope that makes things a little clearer. If you have any specific questions or concerns, I recommend asking one of the administrators who is active in enforcing the restrictions, posting a question on the talk page of the article in question, or just editing conservatively (a special 24-hour 1RR restriction applies to ARBPIA articles) and discussing controversial edits. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:59, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

I do have a problem with this line.
“The archaeological evidence of the largely indigenous origins of Israel in Canaan, not Egypt, is "overwhelming" and leaves "no room for an Exodus from Egypt or a 40-year pilgrimage through the Sinai wilderness".[5]“

This line argues that there is no room for the Exodus story however, I have seen some non-religious sources shed some light for the Exodus.

Like some scholars have compared the story of Exodus to the Shasu people.

(They do admit the evidence might have problems thought.)

I am basically just throwing this idea out there. CycoMa (talk) 02:19, 9 January 2020 (UTC)


 * See The Exodus: there were one or more historical events which served as basis for the Exodus story, but it is mythologized history. It is not reliable historiography, as told in the Bible. So, yeah, they saved the Exodus, but ruined the Bible. Tgeorgescu (talk) 04:31, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Just wanted to throw that out there. CycoMa (talk) 04:36, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

NPOV
This article would benefit from additional support from authors and editors to make it useful. As it stands I don't feel comfortable with recommending people read this as a background in the subject... and so it stands out to me as an example of a page that needs help. The primary source text for much of the history is the Hebrew Bible, and it makes sense that the Biblical account should be included, and then critically contrasted with what is known from other sources. There is an attempt to do this—for example the section on the origins include the lack of archaeological evidence showing an Israelite presence in Egypt... yet fails to include linguistic evidence (such as the word "amnan" in Hebrew, related to the Egyptian god Amen) nor the context of the time, i.e. the end of the Amarna Dynasty in Egypt and its associated monotheism. I don't know how to go about improving the quality. I fear that every change will be reverted as political. I wonder what the best way is to proceed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.78.162.145 (talk) 17:42, 29 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Canaan was occupied by Egypt, so that explains the origin of that word: the ancestors of the Hebrews learned it from their occupation forces. Yup, the correspondence between Canaanite leaders and the government in Egypt has been found and analyzed. The Hebrews were the offspring of the Canaanites, they did not come from Egypt and they did not build the pyramids. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:54, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

Cyrus's decree
Tgeorgescu (talk) 18:47, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

"Ancient history" section omits oldest information, has other issues
This article completely omits Monarchic period Yahwism and the collapse into monotheism. It also has a ten-year-old notice stating that the article contains information from a religious text that is not backed up with secondary sources; the religious story is still presented first as though it is the historical version. The article also uses "YHWH" instead of the word Yahweh. There seems to be some religious bias baked into the article. I might try to fix some of this later if I decide that going through the headache is worth it... Ikjbagl (talk) 16:35, 30 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I agree that it would be good to include the theological shift, though more specifically it is not so much a shift from, say, pantheism to an exclusive monotheism but, as the Hebrew religion is by definition monotheistic, rather it was a gradual transition from a potential polytheism (El and Yaweh, distinctly, among other gods), to a henotheistic or monolatristic theology (Only El/Yahweh is worshipped as a single deity elevated above other gods) and ultimately to exclusive monotheism (El/Yahweh as the only, singular, extant deity).


 * As to the "baked" in religion, though the religious heritage of Jews cannot be fully extricated from the cultural one, it does not automatically designate their religion-filled historical documents as unreliable on their own. Now, I gather you're not claiming exactly that, but one must take care to avoid falling into the popular practice of discounting the historicity of Abrahamic writings simple because they have a religious context. For example, had Josephus Flavius not completely rejected his supposed, priestly, Jewish heritage and defected to Rome as a full citizen, I do not doubt that he never would have become such a relatively trusted historical resource for modern scholars. But there is a tremendous hypocrisy in this, as modern historians love to cherry picky from his works. If something sounds too Biblical it is -- right or wrong -- easily discounted.  Julius Caesar's most famous works were written while he was pontifex maximus, and yet this supreme religious role seems to have no bearing upon the historicity of those works. Yet, Bellum Gallicum and Bellum Civil are given far more credibility than the Jewish Bible. The corroborating evidence for his works is also Roman and by people under the same or extremely similar religious beliefs. Historians have not been as coldly scientific as we'd like to believe. That fact is, there is just not a lot of non-religious material in our possession for such corroboration with the Bible and most of the arguments against its historicity are hypocritical and rife with broad extrapolation or even speculation. I'm not at all saying we should accept the Bible as unequivocal history, but rather discounting it because it both is religious and lacks sufficient corroboration does not jive with the apparently far more comfortable way in which non-Abrahamic history passes muster. Jyg (talk) 21:41, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Dubious source
Solomon (Shlomo, 970–931 BCE), who built the first Temple in Jerusalem as prescribed in the Tanach (Old Testament). &mdash; the Tanach simply did not exist at that time. Neither did the Torah. How could Solomon obey a book which did not exist yet? Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:43, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
 * You have misread that quote. It is not conveying that Solomon received the prescription through the Tanakh. It is simply stating the the prescription Solomon was received was subsequently recorded in the Tanakh. By the way, I do not see this quote within the article. Did you single-handedly remove it based upon your personal understanding? Jyg (talk) 21:42, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Slaughter of Canaanites
Can I add the following immediately after "According to the Bible, after their emancipation from Egyptian slavery, the people of Israel wandered around and lived in the Sinai desert for a span of forty years before conquering Canaan in 1400 BCE under the command of Joshua."

"According to Andrew S. Jacobs, a lecturer at Harvard Divinity School, it is estimated that around 100,000 Canaanites were killed in this conquest. Jacobs says that according to the Bible, under orders from YHWH, the Israelites slaughtered the people of every town conquered. Jacobs says that the Bible mentions that in 1 city 12,000 residents were killed, and it also mentions 8 other cities that were completely destroyed.

Shakespeare143 (talk) 09:22, 11 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Except that would not be history, but mythology. The sources on this page and the sources at Book of Joshua clearly state that the exodus from Egypt never occurred, and that there was no 40 year pilgrimage from Egypt to Canaan. The Book of Joshua does not provide a factual account of history, and the whole idea of a conquest of Canaan was likely nationalist propaganda by the kings of Judah and their claims to the territory of the Kingdom of Israel. The scholarly consensus is that the Conquest of Canaan is myth. Chariotrider555 (talk) 22:09, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * You could add that to the Book of Joshua wiki page, "Entry into the land and conquest" section. But its not history, see the "Historicity" section of the page Bilto74811 (talk) 06:18, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Actual History vs Religious History
As might be expected, so much of this page, and thousands like it, I'm sure, are full of the history people tell about themself not actual history. This indiscernable mixture of mythological history and scholarly history may be fine on more lay and general pages, but I'm just gonna come right out and say it: the Bible is not a Wikipedia-friendly source. Nobody's coming to this page to hear what rabbis CLAIM the history of the Jewish people is, they're interested in actual history — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.166.196.219 (talk • contribs)


 * Well, owing to doubt are just the pre-Monarchic and early Monarchic stages. The rest is pretty well documented. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:01, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 9 December 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: WIthdrawn. Interstellarity (talk) 00:30, 11 December 2021 (UTC) Interstellarity (talk) 00:30, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

Jewish history → History of Judaism – This is a more format title for an encyclopedia. In line with other articles like History of Christianity, History of Buddhism, History of Hinduism, and History of Islam. Interstellarity (talk) 21:37, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose Per bellow — Preceding unsigned comment added by Spider241 (talk • contribs) 22:01, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Not really comparable to the other quoted articles.  The scope of this article is not limited to Judaism (religion), but rather encompasses the history of Jews (ethnicity/nation). Walrasiad (talk) 23:44, 9 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Not comparable to the other quoted articles. The scope of this article is the history of Jews.--Partynia (talk) 09:44, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose. This article is about the Jewish people, not the Jewish religion.--Dalaufer (talk) 13:38, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * oppose the article is about the people not just the religion—blindlynx 14:53, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose: As above. The article is a history of Jews, not of Judaism. –Ploni (talk) 14:57, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose The field of Jewish History is much wider than just the history of Judaism (the Jewish religion). It includes it also, but is much larger, as has been pointed out repeatedly above. The other possible correct name would be "History of Jews," but the name "Jewish History" has been used in scholarship for many decades already, at least the entire second half of the 20th century.
 * One small additional note. The modern, post-Enlightenment, 11 volume major opus of "Jewish History" was published by Heinrich Graetz in German between 1856 and 1870, It was called "Geschichte der Juden." The 5 volume 1895 English translation by The Jewish Publication Society of America was called History of the Jews. warshy (¥¥) 23:13, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * אַנטקעגנשטעלנ זיך per discussion, שניי Randy Kryn (talk) 21:55, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Cool! The spelling could have one correction, if you wish -   אַנטקעication גנשטעלן זיך
 * Thanks for teaching me. Google translate, for some reason, gave more/better options with your spelling rather than mine. Oh well,  זאל זיין  warshy (¥¥)  22:53, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Abbieberman.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:13, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ally kaplan.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:23, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Kingdom of Israel and Judah section
Ref Recent excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, however, support the existence of a centrally organized and urbanized kingdom by the 10th century BCE, according to the excavators. I removed the first RS, as there is nothing in that source that refers to this claim. The closest is this text   'The excavations at Khirbat Qeiyafa clearly reveal an urban society that existed in Judah already in the late eleventh century BCE. It can no longer be argued that the Kingdom of Judah developed only in the late eighth century BCE or at some other later date'. Therefore the RS could be used to justify a claim about dates but not a claim about a kingdom.Pngeditor (talk) 11:17, 21 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Pngeditor in any case, I don't find "centrally organized" or "urbanized" in its article. That's a big problem. Doug Weller  talk 11:29, 21 August 2022 (UTC)


 * @Doug Weller - I didn't find that text either, however, as a newbie I thought it best to state what I did find, and let others say if that was close enough to the claim. Please note that the other source      Garfinkel, Yosef (May–June 2011). "The Birth & Death of Biblical Minimalism". Biblical Archaeology Review. 37 (3). Archived from the original on September 8, 2011. Retrieved July 5, 2012.     is not available from the links. Only the description of the article is available, and that does not contain any text that supports the claim either. I know that KQ is a controversial issue, and I can only find 'religious, or biblical archeological' sources that appear to back this claim about the size and organisation of a Kingdom of Judah. Also other sources such as https://www.academia.edu/es/22864181/Israel_vs_Judah_The_Socio_Political_Aspects_of_Biblical_Archaeology_in_Contemporary_Israel  refer to other claims that KQ is more likely to be associated with the Northern Kingdom of Israel. I wonder if this Judahite claim about KQ should a) be atributed to named individuals b) it should be clearer that there is a dispute about the findings at that site, c) it should be more specific to a single site, and not abstracted to findings about a Kingdom. I don't find such a claim at the Debate on United Monarchy section in the wikipedia page on KQ. Regards Pngeditor (talk) 11:44, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * This was part of a major overhaul. Doug Weller  talk 11:47, 21 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The 'overhaul' states that it is a copy and paste job drawn from other wiki articles. This is widespread but a dangerous practice that serious editors should avoid (there are numerous problems like talking of 'the kingdom' of David). I note the sources go back to 1990s-2012, as if nothing had happened in Israeli archaeology over the last decade, despite its very rapid strides in excavating numerous new sites.I read Avraham Faust's 2020 some time ago) He refrains from the controversy as to whether the 'highland (nota bene, not 'Northern' i.e. Davidic) 'polity' was Israelite or not.
 * (See Avraham Faust,'Between the Highland Polity and Philistia:The United Monarchy and the Resettlement of the Shephelah in the Iron Age IIA, with a Special Focus on Tel ʿEton and Khirbet Qeiyafa,' (2020) for example. On p.116 (from memory.)
 * The thickening of settlers from that northern polity is not a matter of urbanization or an expression necessarily of a 'centralized' state. Khirbet Qeiyafa was a brief quiet experiment in fortification that was quickly destroyed. Faust sees only a growing infiltration of highland demographic flow not visibly directed from some centralized polity in which local Canaanite labour and cultural conversion played a role, down to the edges of Philistia, which subsequently withdrew to concentrate on its maritime trade. The language of that edit seems to spin things as verification of biblical historicity, reflecting one set of sources (maximalists), but this is a highly charged world, and rather that quote the POVs apropos excavations as pro or contra the bible, far more work should be done on simply detailing site by site the latest excavation results.    Nishidani (talk) 14:26, 21 August 2022 (UTC)