A History of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Karen Armstrong
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of the poor—a perception that might be reflected in the stories of Baal’s battles, which show creativity and order as dependent upon the subjugation of another. Eventually the system proved unworkable, and in the thirteenth century the economy collapsed, the villages were deserted, and the city-states of the region could not defend themselves against the invasions of the “sea peoples” from the Aegean islands and Anatolia. The quest for greater social equity was not just a pious fantasy. It was essential to the healthy running of the holy city and would remain so. We shall see in the history of Jerusalem that oppressive regimes would sometimes sow the seeds of their own downfall.
We have no direct evidence about the religious life of Jerusalem during the Bronze Age. Archaeologists have found no trace of a Jebusite temple, and no texts similar to those at Ugarit have been unearthed to give us detailed information about the cult of Mount Zion. Yet there are uncanny similarities between the Ugaritic texts and some of the Hebrew psalms that were used in the Israelite cult on Mount Zion. Phrases from the hymns of Ugarit appear in the psalms that celebrate the enthronement of the God of Israel on Mount Zion. They praise his victory over “Leviathan” and the dragon on the day of creation. Mount Zion is also called the city of peace, the holy mountain, and the eternal heritage of its god. Occasionally “Zion” is even called “Zaphon” in the Hebrew Bible. We know that the Hurrians also told stories about Baal and his temple on Zaphon, and scholars have therefore concluded that they brought the cult of Baal with them to Jerusalem and this would one day introduce the Ugaritic notion of a holy city of peace to the Israelite cult on Mount Zion.34
The people of Near Eastern antiquity yearned for security, and it seems that Jerusalem was able to provide its people with the safety for which they longed. The city was able to survive the unrest of the thirteenth century, when so many settlements of the Canaanite hill country were abandoned. The Bible indicates that the Jebusite citadel of Zion was considered impregnable. In the twelfth century, there were new threats and new enemies. Once again, Egypt began to lose control of Canaan; the Hittite empire was destroyed and Mesopotamia ravaged by plague and famine. Yet again the achievements of civilization were shown to be frail and flawed. There were large-scale migrations, as people sought a new haven. As the great powers declined, new states emerged to take their place. One of these was Philistia on the southern coast of Canaan. The Philistines may have been among the “sea peoples” who invaded Egypt, were repelled, and were made the vassals of the pharaoh. Ramses III may have settled the Philistines in Canaan to rule the country in his stead. In their new territory, they adapted to the local religion and organized themselves into five city-states at Ashkelon, Ashdod, Ekron, Gath, and Gaza. As Egypt grew weaker, Philistia became virtually independent and may even have become the de facto ruler of Canaan. But during the eleventh century, the inhabitants of Canaan had to encounter a new power in the land. A kingdom was forming in the hill country which was bigger and entirely different in kind from any previous Canaanite entity. Eventually Jebusite Zion found itself entirely surrounded by an aggressive new power: the Kingdom of Israel, which would change its destiny forever.
WHO WERE the Israelites? The Bible tells us that they came originally from Mesopotamia. For a time they settled in Canaan, but in about 1750 BCE the twelve tribes of Israel migrated to Egypt during a famine. At first they prospered in Egypt, but their situation declined and they were reduced to slavery. Eventually—in about 1250 BCE—they escaped from Egypt under the leadership of Moses and lived a nomadic life in the Sinai Peninsula. Yet they did not regard this as a permanent solution, because they were convinced that their god, Yahweh, had promised them the fertile land of Canaan. Moses died before the Israelites reached the Promised Land, but under his successor, Joshua, the tribes stormed into Canaan and took the country by the sword in the name of their God, an event that is usually dated to about 1200 BCE. The Bible speaks of terrible massacres. Joshua is said to have subdued “the highlands, the Negev, the lowlands, the hillsides, and all the kings in them. He left not a man alive.”1 Each of the twelve tribes was allotted a portion of Canaan, but between the territory of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin one city held out: “The sons of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem,” the biblical writer admits. “The Jebusites lived in Jerusalem side by side with the sons of Judah, as they still do today.”2 Eventually, Jerusalem would become central to the religion of Israel, but the first time the city is mentioned unequivocally in the Bible it appears as enemy territory.
Yet in recent years, scholars have become skeptical about the biblical account. Archaeologists have found signs of destruction in some Canaanite sites, but nothing that can be linked definitively with Israel. There is no sign of any foreign invasion in the highlands, which would become the Israelite heartland.3 Even the biblical writers concede that Joshua’s conquest was not total. We are told that he could not defeat the Canaanite city-states nor make any headway against the Philistines.4 A careful examination of the first twelve chapters of the Book of Joshua shows that most of the action was confined to a very small area of the territory of Benjamin.5 Indeed, the Bible leaves us with the distinct impression that the conquest of Joshua was something of a nonevent. There are still scholars—particularly in Israel and the United States—who adhere to the view that the Israelites did conquer the country in this way, but others are coming to the conclusion that instead of erupting violently into Canaan from the outside, Israel emerged peacefully and gradually from within Canaanite society.
There is no doubt that Israel had arrived in Canaan by the end of the thirteenth century. In a stele commemorating the successful campaign of Pharaoh Merneptah in 1207 BCE, we find this entry among the other conquests: “Israel is laid waste, his seed is not.” But this is the only non-biblical reference to Israel at this time. It used to be thought that the hapiru or apiru mentioned in various inscriptions and documents of the fourteenth century were forerunners of Joshua’s “Hebrew” tribes. But it appears that the hapiru were not an ethnic group but, rather, a class within Canaanite society. They were people who had become social outcasts, banished from the city-states for economic or political reasons. Sometimes they became brigands, sometimes they hired themselves out as mercenaries.6 Certainly they were perceived as a disruptive force in Canaan: Abdi Hepa himself was very worried indeed about the hapiru. The Israelites were first called “Hebrews” while they were themselves an outgroup in Egypt, but they were not the only hapiru in the region.
Instead, scholars today tend to associate the birth of Israel with a new wave of settlement in the central highlands of Canaan. Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of about one hundred unfortified new villages in the hill country north of Jerusalem, which have been dated to about 1200 BCE. Hitherto this barren terrain had been unsuitable for farming, but there had recently been technological advances that made settlement feasible. The new settlers eked out a precarious existence by breeding sheep, goats, and oxen. There is no evidence that the settlers were foreigners: the material culture of these villages is substantially the same as that of the coastal plain. Archaeologists have therefore concluded that the settlers were almost certainly native Canaanites.7 It was a time of great unrest, especially in the city-states. Some people may well have preferred to take to the hills. Their lives were hard there, but at least they were free of the wars and economic exploitation that now characterized life in the decaying cities on the coast. Some of the settlers may have been hapiru, others nomads, compelled during these turbulent times to change their lifestyle. Could this migration from the disintegrating Canaanite towns have been the nucleus of Israel? Certainly this is the area where the Kingdom of Israel would appear during the eleventh century BCE. If this theory is correct, the “Israelites” would have been natives of Canaan who settled in the hills and gradually formed a distinct identity. Inevitably