Merenptah's Israel and Recent Theories of Israelite Origins

Abstract

Several recent theories of Israelite origins link the emergence of Israel with the spread of settlement into the central hill country at the begin ning of the Iron Age. In particular, a number of theories share the assumption that this shift in settlement patterns marks the beginning of the process which led to the existence of the entity Israel. However, when the available controls are utilized to date the beginning of settle ment in the central highlands, it is clear that this began some decades after the reference to Israel on Merenptah's famous stela. Unless the stela refers to another entity with the same name (a gratuitous assumption), the above theories are in need of fundamental revision. Merenptah's reference actually implies that Israel had been part of the political scene for some time by the end of the 13th century BCE. The Iron I settlements in the highlands mark the sedentarization, not the emergence, of Israel.