# *Very fine food

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Posted by Julie [Julie] on November 07, 1999 at 12:15:49 {zExURjw8QAT.q0qzQJj2RyqclwWKXQ}:

In Reply to: Very fine food posted by NewT on November 07, 1999 at 10:55:01:

I've got a University textbook called Civilization in the West, published by HarperCollins. Here's what it has to say about your Tree Roots.

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pg. 27 paragraph 3
Some of Abraham's decendants must have joined the steady migration from Palestine into Egypt that took place during the Middle Kingdom and the Hyksos period. Although initially well treated, after the expulsion of the Hyksos in the sixteenth century B.C., many of the Semitic settlers in Egypt were reduced to slavery. Around the thirteenth century B.C., a small, motely band of Semitic slaves numbering perhaps less than one hundred left Egypt for Sinai and Palestine under the leadership of Moses. The memory of this departure, known as the Exodus, became the formative experience of the descendants of those who had taken part and those who later joined them. Moses, a Semite who carried an Egyptian name and who, according to tradition, had been raised in royal court, was the founder of the Israelite people.

During the years they spent wandering in the desert and then slowly conquering Palestine, the Israelites forged a new identity and a new faith. From the Midianites of the Sinai Peninsula, they adopted the god Yahweh as their own. Although composed of various Semitic and even Egyptian groups, the Israelites adopted the oral traditions of the clan of Abraham as their common ancestor and identified his god, El, with Yahweh. They interpreted their extraordinary escape from Egypt as evidence of a covenant with this god, a treaty similar to those concluded between the Hittite kings and their dependents. They were to preserve peace amongst themselves, and they were obligated to serve Yahweh with arms. This covenant was embodied in the law of Moses, a serious of terse absolute commands quite unlike the conditional laws of Hammurabi. While Hammurabi's code listed a series of offenses and their penalties (if..., then...), the law of Yahweh was absolute: "Thou shall not...."

Inspired by their new identity and their new religion, the Israelites swept into Palestine. Taking advantage of the vacuum of power left by the Hittire-Egyptian standoff following the battle of Kadesh, they destroyed or captured the cities of the region. In some cases the local populations welcomed the Israelites, abandoned or overthrew their local leaders, and accepted the religion of Yahweh. In other places, the indigenous peoples were slaughtered, down to the last man, woman, and child.
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In case you were interested in a less romantic, more realistic view.

Julie

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