Further Clarification

Since maybe my last post was a little off topic and rambling at the end, I thought I'd go into more detail. Pictures always help me . . .


This is Shem, Ham and Japeth, the sons of Noah:



According to the Bible (Genesis 10) and Wikipedia, Shem is the father of the Semites(the middle peoples), Ham is the father of the Hamitic Africa(the southern peoples), and Japeth is the father of the Japhetic Eurasia (the northern peoples).

Here's a breakdown of Shem and Ham's territories:



So each of their family lines produced a lot of people. For Ham, this includes Nimrod (a mighty hunter before God) and Canaanites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Ninevites and Akkadians, among many others. For Shem this includes the line of descendants that stretch all the way to Abram (whose name later became Abraham). Here he is, looking at the stars, the amount of which his descendants would number.



So, Abraham and Sarah had Isaac after they were realy old. Isaac had Jacob, whose name later became Isreal. Jacob had 12 sons, who would eventually become all the tribes of Isreal.



Jacob liked his son Joseph the best, and gave him the coat of many colors. Some of his brothers got jealous and beat him up and and sold him into slavery.



Joseph went through a lot, and even ended up in jail in Egypt, falsely accused. The Pharoah heard about him and how good he was at interpreting dreams. Joseph interpreted the Pharoahs dreams, warning of a great famine coming in 7 years. The Pharoah was really impressed and put him in charge of storing food to prepare for the famine. Eventually Joseph's brothers traveled to Egypt for food, not knowing their brother was the man in charge. After some tom-foolery and deception, he forgave them for all they did to him. He told them that it was because of them he was now in this position of power and able to save his family from starvation. So he invited the whole bunch of them to come live in Egypt with them on land the Pharoah donated. There were 70 of them in all. These were the Isrealites. Genesis ends with Joseph dying at a very old age.

The Bible then picks up again in Exodus, more than 200 years later, when all the Isrealites are slaves to the Egyptians. Archealogists have said that the Pharoah mentioned in this part of the Bible was probably Ramses II. This is his ginormous rock cut temple to himself, carved into a mountain.



During the beginning of Ramses II reign, his focus was on building huge building and monuments . . . . then suddenly his focus shifts to campaign battles to other lands . . . hmmmm, let's see . . . This is the Pharoah associated with the enslavement of many many Isrealites. The slaves of the Egyptians were used in many purposes of their lives and they would have been really upset to let them go. Then the slaves leave (according to the Bible) and suddenly, (according to archealogy) this Pharoah is venturing out and attempting to defeat new lands? Why? Well, it just so happens according to Wikipedia, his immediate successor is Merneptah. He also loved to go out attempting to defeat other lands. It is his reign associated with the Victory Stele of Merneptah, commonly referred to as the Isreal Stele:



This is currently the first Egyptian artwork or document found that mentions Isreal, as a group of peoples.

The next archealogical mention of Isreal in art isn't for a long time (9th Century BC according to archealogists): the Mesha Stele, also known as the Moabite stone. King Mesha of the Moabites is mentioned in 2 Kings.