Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy)

Different interpretations of what the Bible says about the extent of king David's empire. The united Kingdom of Israel was a kingdom that existed in the Land of Israel , according to the Bible , a period referred to by scholars as the United Monarchy . Historians date the kingdom from c. 1020 BC to c. 930 BC , though there are differences of opinion as to exact dates. According to the Bible, before the united monarchy, the Israelite tribes lived as a confederation under ad hoc charismatic leaders called Judges . In around 1020 BC , under extreme threat from foreign peoples, the tribes united to form the first united Kingdom of Israel. Samuel anointed Saul from the tribe of Benjamin as the first king in c. 1020 BC , but it was David who in c. 1006 BC created a strong unified Israelite monarchy. David, the second (or third, if Ish-bosheth is counted) King of Israel, established Jerusalem as its national capital 3,000 years ago. Before then, Hebron had been the capital of David's Judah and Mahanaim of Ish-bosheth's Israel, and before that Gibeah had been the capital of the United Monarchy under Saul . David succeeded in truly unifying the Israelite tribes, and set up a monarchical government. He embarked on successful military campaigns against Israel's enemies, and defeated bitter foes such as the Philistines , thus creating secure borders for Israel. Under David, Israel grew into a regional power. Under the House of David , the united Kingdom of Israel achieved prosperity and superiority over its neighbours. Under David's successor, Solomon , the United Monarchy experienced a period of peace and prosperity, and cultural development. Much public building took place, including the First Temple in Jerusalem. However, on the succession of Solomon's son, Rehoboam , in c. 930 BC the country split into two kingdoms: Israel (including the cities of Shechem and Samaria ) in the north and Judah (containing Jerusalem) in the south. Most of the non-Israelite provinces fell away.

This is traditionally dated between 1050 and 930 BCE. On the succession of Solomon's son, Rehoboam , in c. 930 BCE the biblical account reports that the country split into two kingdoms; the Kingdom of Israel (including the cities of Shechem and Samaria ) in the north and the Kingdom of Judah (containing Jerusalem) in the south. [and] (b) with the division of the kingdom after the death of Solomon, to the Northern Kingdom only." "Israelite." The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion .

Israelite kingdom of Israel and Judah, c. 1050-930 BCE Today part of Egypt Israel Jordan Lebanon Palestine Syria The United Monarchy ( ) is the name given to the Israelite kingdom of Israel and Judah, during the reigns of Saul , David and Solomon , as depicted in the Hebrew Bible . This is traditionally dated between 1050 BCE and 930 BCE. On the succession of Solomon's son, Rehoboam , around 930 BCE, the biblical account reports that the country split into two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Israel (including the cities of Shechem and Samaria ) in the north and the Kingdom of Judah (containing Jerusalem) in the south. In contemporary scholarship the united monarchy is generally held to be a literary construction and not a historical reality, pointing to the lack of archaeological evidence. It is generally accepted that a " House of David " existed, but many believe that David could have only been the monarch or chieftain of Judah, which was likely small, and that the northern kingdom was a separate development. There are some dissenters to this view. The Inscription on the Stele of Méšaʿ . The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Stories . The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion . The True Israel: Uses of the Names Jew, Hebrew, and Israel in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature . Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions . In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible (2nd ed.). The Bible and Interpretation . There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or templates on this page, but the references will not show without a template or template (see the help page ).

Israelite kingdom of Israel and Judah (c. 1047–930 BCE) "United Monarchy" redirects here. Today part of Israel Jordan Lebanon Palestine Syria The United Monarchy or the United Kingdom of Israel is a political entity described in the deuteronomistic history of the Hebrew Bible as having existed under the reigns of Saul , David , and Solomon , encompassing the territories of both the later kingdoms of Judah and Israel . Whether the United Monarchy existed is a matter of ongoing academic debate, and scholars remain divided between those who support the historicity of the biblical narrative , those who doubt or dismiss it, and those who support the kingdom's theoretical existence while maintaining that the biblical narrative is exaggerated. Proponents of the kingdom's existence traditionally date it to between c. 1047 BCE and c. 930 BCE . In the 1990s, Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein contested that existing archaeological evidence for the United Monarchy in the 10th century BCE should be dated to the 9th-century BCE. This model placed the biblical kingdom in Iron Age I , suggesting that it was not functioning as a country under centralized governance but rather as tribal chiefdom over a small polity in Judah, disconnected from the north's Israelite tribes . The rival chronology of Israeli archaeologist Amihai Mazar places the relevant period beginning in the early 10th century BCE and ending in the mid-9th century BCE, addressing the problems of the traditional chronology while still aligning pertinent findings with the time of Saul, David, and Solomon. Mazar's chronology and the traditional one have been fairly widely accepted, though there is no current consensus on the topic. Recent archaeological discoveries by Israeli archaeologists Eilat Mazar and Yosef Garfinkel in Jerusalem and Khirbet Qeiyafa , respectively, seem to support the existence of the United Monarchy, but the dating and identifications are not universally accepted. According to the biblical account, on the succession of Solomon's son Rehoboam , the United Monarchy would have split into two separate kingdoms: the Kingdom of Israel in the north, containing the cities of Shechem and Samaria ; and the Kingdom of Judah in the south, containing Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple . The Inscription on the Stele of Méšaʿ . The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Stories . Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum . 2 . The True Israel: Uses of the Names Jew, Hebrew, and Israel in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature . Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions . Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives : 29. Ahlström (1993), 455–542; Meyers (1998); Lemaire (1999); Masters (2001); Stager (2003); Rainey (2006), 159–168; Kitchen (1997); Millard (1997; 2008). Davies (1992), 67–68; others suggested a 'chiefdom' comprising a small region around Jerusalem, cf. Knauf (1997), 81–85; Niemann (1997), 252–299 and Finkelstein (1999). The latter recently suggested a state comprising the territories of Judah and Ephraim during the time of David, which was subsequently enlarged to include areas of northern Samaria and influence areas in Galilee and Transjordan. Na'aman (1992; 1996) once accepted the [fundamental] biography of David as authentic and later rejected the United Monarchy as a state, cf. id. In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible (2nd ed.). As this essay will show, however, the pre monarchic period long ago became a literary description of the mythological roots, the early beginnings of the nation and the way to describe the right of Israel on its land. Though the archeological evidence also does not support the existence of a united monarchy under David and Solomon as described in the Bible, meaning the rubric of "united monarchy" is best abandoned, it remains useful for discussing how the Bible views the Israelite past. [...] Although the kingdom of Judah is mentioned in some ancient inscriptions, they never suggest that it was part of a unit comprised of Israel and Judah. There are no extrabiblical indications of a united monarchy called "Israel." Kuhrt, Amélie (1995). The Bible and Interpretation . Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology 1 : 1-14. "The sophisticated methods of data collection and analysis that resulted from the debate significantly narrowed the chronological gap between the schools, leading most scholars to follow various versions of the traditional, or modified, chronology (e.g., Stager 2003; Mazar 2011; Katz and Faust 2014; Garfinkel et al. 2015; 2019; Dever 2017; Faust and Sapir 2018; Ortiz 2018; Master 2019)" Lester Grabbe, Ancient Israel, 2017, pg. 84 "Crying King David: Are the ruins found in Israel really his palace?" . Not all agree that the ruins found in Khirbet Qeiyafa are of the biblical town Sha'arayim, let alone the palace of ancient Israel's most famous King There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or templates on this page, but the references will not show without a template or template (see the help page ).

Hypothesized Israelite kingdom in the Southern Levant "United Monarchy" redirects here. Today part of Israel Palestine ( West Bank ) Jordan Lebanon Syria The Kingdom of Israel ( Hebrew : מַמְלֶכֶת יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Mamleḵeṯ Yīśrāʾēl ) was an Israelite kingdom that may have existed in the Southern Levant . According to the Deuteronomistic history in the Hebrew Bible , a United Monarchy or United Kingdom of Israel existed under the reigns of Saul , Ish-bosheth , David , and Solomon , encompassing the territories of both the later kingdoms of Judah and Israel . Whether the United Monarchy existed—and, if so, to what extent—is a matter of ongoing academic debate. During the 1980s, some biblical scholars began to argue that the archaeological evidence for an extensive kingdom before the late 8th century BCE is too weak, and that the methodology used to obtain the evidence is flawed. Scholars remain divided among those who support the historicity of the biblical narrative, those who doubt or dismiss it, and those who support the kingdom's theoretical existence while maintaining that the biblical narrative is exaggerated. Proponents of the kingdom's existence traditionally date it to between c. 1047 BCE and c. 930 BCE . In the 1990s, Israeli archaeologist Israel Finkelstein contended that existing archaeological evidence for the United Monarchy in the 10th century BCE should be dated to the 9th century BCE. This model placed the biblical kingdom in Iron Age I , suggesting that it was not functioning as a country under centralized governance but rather as tribal chiefdom over a small polity in Judah, disconnected from the north's Israelite tribes. The rival chronology of Israeli archaeologist Amihai Mazar places the relevant period beginning in the early 10th century BCE and ending in the mid-9th century BCE, addressing the problems of the traditional chronology while still aligning pertinent findings with the time of Saul, David, and Solomon. Mazar's chronology and the traditional one have been fairly widely accepted, though there is no current consensus on the topic. Recent archaeological discoveries by Israeli archaeologists Eilat Mazar and Yosef Garfinkel in Jerusalem and Khirbet Qeiyafa , respectively, seem to support the existence of the United Monarchy, but the dating and identifications are not universally accepted. The historicity of Solomon and his rule is the subject of significant debate. Current scholarly consensus allows for a historical Solomon, but regards his reign as king over Israel and Judah in the 10th century BCE as uncertain and the biblical portrayal of his apparent empire's opulence as most probably an anachronistic exaggeration. According to the biblical account, on the succession of Solomon's son Rehoboam , the United Monarchy split into two separate kingdoms: the Kingdom of Israel in the north, containing the cities of Shechem and Samaria ; and the Kingdom of Judah in the south, containing Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple . The Inscription on the Stele of Méšaʿ . The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Stories . Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum . 2 . The True Israel: Uses of the Names Jew, Hebrew, and Israel in Ancient Jewish and Early Christian Literature . Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions . Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel . Archaeological and Biblical Perspectives : 29. Ahlström (1993), 455–542; Meyers (1998); Lemaire (1999); Masters (2001); Stager (2003); Rainey (2006), 159–168; Kitchen (1997); Millard (1997; 2008). Davies (1992), 67–68; others suggested a 'chiefdom' comprising a small region around Jerusalem, cf. Knauf (1997), 81–85; Niemann (1997), 252–299 and Finkelstein (1999). The latter recently suggested a state comprising the territories of Judah and Ephraim during the time of David, which was subsequently enlarged to include areas of northern Samaria and influence areas in Galilee and Transjordan. Na'aman (1992; 1996) once accepted the [fundamental] biography of David as authentic and later rejected the United Monarchy as a state, cf. id. In Berlin, Adele; Brettler, Marc Zvi (eds.). The Jewish Study Bible (2nd ed.). As this essay will show, however, the pre monarchic period long ago became a literary description of the mythological roots, the early beginnings of the nation and the way to describe the right of Israel on its land. Though the archeological evidence also does not support the existence of a united monarchy under David and Solomon as described in the Bible, meaning the rubric of "united monarchy" is best abandoned, it remains useful for discussing how the Bible views the Israelite past. [...] Although the kingdom of Judah is mentioned in some ancient inscriptions, they never suggest that it was part of a unit comprised of Israel and Judah. There are no extrabiblical indications of a united monarchy called "Israel." Kuhrt, Amélie (1995). The Bible and Interpretation . Jerusalem Journal of Archaeology 1 : 1-14. "The sophisticated methods of data collection and analysis that resulted from the debate significantly narrowed the chronological gap between the schools, leading most scholars to follow various versions of the traditional, or modified, chronology (e.g., Stager 2003; Mazar 2011; Katz and Faust 2014; Garfinkel et al. 2015; 2019; Dever 2017; Faust and Sapir 2018; Ortiz 2018; Master 2019)" Lester Grabbe, Ancient Israel, 2017, pg. 84 "Crying King David: Are the ruins found in Israel really his palace?" . Not all agree that the ruins found in Khirbet Qeiyafa are of the biblical town Sha'arayim, let alone the palace of ancient Israel's most famous King Grabbe, Lester. “It is essentially a folktale about an Eastern potentate – it is royal legend or Königsnovelle.” “Thus, it looks difficult to discover much in the Solomon story that strikes the critical reader as likely to be historical.” “[T]he temple story has been inflated into a legendary extravaganza.” “[T]he Solomon story is the most problematic of those relating to the early Israelite kings, providing the thickest cloud of obscurity over the history that lies behind it.” Dever, William G. David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition . There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or templates on this page, but the references will not show without a template or template (see the help page ).