A History of Israel, Third Edition, John Bright, c. 1959, 1972, 1981 -- February 15, 2026

AI prompt: The Dead Sea Scrolls were first discovered in 1946 and proceeded through 1956. Interestingly enough John Bright's third edition of "A History of Israel" first published in 1959 and renewed copyright as late as 1981, FAILS to mention the Dead Sea Scrolls by name. To what extent does the absence of information from the Dead Sea Scrolls throw into question some of Bright's history of Israel?

Google Gemini: 

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Cocktail Trivia

 Har Megiddo: Armageddon!

 

 

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A History of Israel, Third Edition, John Bright, c. 1959, 1972, 1981.

Maybe just the best book I've found on the history of Old Testament Israel. See AI note above the W.F. Albright school of thought on the history of Israel.

Half-Price Books: $8.49. Hardcover.

Contents: seven pages. 

Index: eleven pages.

Plates (maps):

Scripture references: 

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Important Dates

The dates:

• 5500 - 3500 BC: Chalcolithic Age (transitional period between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age
• 2000 BC: beginning of the Bronze Age
• collapse of the Third Dynasty of Ur due to Elamite invasion
• end of Sumerian dominance
• rise of Amorite city-states
• shift from wheat to barley
• rise of Middle Kingdom in Egypt
• increased grade in Anatolia
• 1200 BC: Trojan War; end of Bronze Age --> Iron Age 
• 922: Solomon dies
• 722: northern state destroyed by the Assyrians; precisely 200 years after Solomon dies 

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The Table of Contents

Prologue: the ancient Orient before circa 2000 BC

• 2000 BC: pivotal transition from stone age to bronze age
• before history: earliest stone age settlements
• Mesopotamia
• Egypt and Palestine in the 4th millenium, 3000 BC - 4000BC
• 3rd millenium: this is where the prologue ends, and we see the very first Israelites move into the area
• Mesopotamia
• Egypt and western Asia
• the ancient Orient on the eve of the Patriarchal Age 
• 1200 BC: Trojan War -- well into the future 
• 1200 BC: pivot transition from bronze age to stone age; relative decline in tin availability?

Part One: The Age of the Patriarchs

• the world of Israel's origins
• the ancient Orient: 2000- 1750 BC
• the ancient Orient: 1750 - 1550 BC
• The Patriarchs

Part Two: the Formative Period

• exodus and conquest
• the formation of the people, Israel
• late Bronze Age (before the Trojan War): the Egyptian Empire
• the Amarna Period and the end of the 18th Dynasty
• 13th century: coming up to the Trojan War; the 19th Dynasty
• Canaan in the 13th century -- coming up to the Trojan War
• Egyptian bondage and the exodus
• wandering in the wilderness -- occurring during the lead-up to the Trojan War
• the conquest of Palestine 
• the formation of the people: Israel
• early Israel: the Tribal League

Part Three: Israel under the monarchy

• from tribal confederacy to monarchy

Part Four: the monarchy -- crisis and downfall

• so, from Moses to the patriarchs to tribes to unification and monarchs
• King David: 1000 - 961 (two hundred years since the Trojan War)
• so, just prior to King David, the Greeks were going through the same stage, tribal kings
• King Solomon: united monarchy -- 961 - 922 BC
• Israel's Golden Age (compare with the Greek (Athens) Golden Age, the 5th Century)
• so:
• 10th century: Israel's Golden Age
• 5th century: Greek's (Athens') Golden Age
• divided kingdom (Israel and Judah) after death of Solomon, 922 BC
• the House of Omri, Israel's recovery, 876 BC
• Israel and Judah: mid-ninth to mid-eighth
• again, well before Greek's Golden Era
• so, again, the dates to remember
• 2000 BC: middle Bronze Age
• 1200 BC: fall of Troy; Iron Age
• 1000 BC: Israel's golden age
• 1000 - 600: monarchy 
• 500 BC: Golden Age of Greece
• Monarchy: 1000 - 600 BC, but things begin to fall apart in the 8th century
• United Monarchy: Saul, David, Solomon
• Saul: first king
• David: established Jerusalem
• Solomon: built the temple 
• Divided Israel: 900
• Northern Kingdom (Israel)
• ten tribes; capital, eventually Samaria 
• Southern Kingdom (Judah)
• two tribes, retained Jerusalem 
• reformers: Hezekiah, Josiah
• final king before Babylon exile: Zedekiah (597 - 586) 
• Eighth century: things begin to fall apart
• the Assyrian Advance, the fall of Israel and the subjugation of Judah
• Judah: a satellite of Assyria
• mid-eighth to the birth/death of Hezekiah (715 - 687)
• Old Testament prophetic period -- 850 to 400 
• pre-exilic Babylon: 
• Obadiah, Joel, Jonah, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Nahum, Zaphaniah, Habakkuk, Jeremiah
• Jeremiah
• the "weeping prophet" who witnessed the fall of Jerusalem  
• exilic Babylon captivity (600 - 500 BC)
• Daniel
• Ezekiel 
• post-exilic Babylon -- after return to Jerusalem
• Haggai
• Zecharia
• Malachi  (430 BC)
• Judah reigns/the end of Assyrian domination
• reign of Josiah (640 - 609)
• death of Josiah to the First Deportatioin
• Neo-Babylonian Empire / last days of Judah
• the end of the kingdom of Judah
• the developing theological emergency
• the prophets and the survival of Israel's faith

Part 5: Tragedy

• exilic periods

Part 6: Formative Period of Judaism

• the end of the Old Testament period
• from Ezra's reform to the outbreak of the Maccabean revolt

 

  

 

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Notes On The Book By Chapter

Prologue

From the ninth millennium (or even older) to the third millennium when we first see the Israelites enter the picture.

Part One
Antecedents and Beginnings
The Age Of The Patriarchs

Chapter 1
The World of Israel's Origins

 

First half of the second millennium (2000 - 1550)

Remember: 2000 -- Stone Age to Bronze Age

Father Abraham sets out from Haran to Palestine.

History of Israel cannot begin until the 13th century and later.

Canaan: a people called Israel now settled in Canaan in the 13th century, and the history of Israel legitimately begins.

Prior to this, the Israelites remember:
wandering in the desert;
prior to that, hard bondage in Egypt;
prior to that, having come from Mesopotamia

 
 

 Part 1, Chapter 2, The Patriarchs

documentation:

• p. 69, start at bottom: long list of tens of thousands of tablets, etc:
• the Mari texts fo the 18th century BC (some 25,000)
• the Cappadocian texts of the 19th century (many thousands)
• thousands of documents of the First Dynasty of Babylon (19th to 16th century) 
• the Nuzi texts of the 15th century (several thousand)
• the Alalakh tablets of the 17th and 15th centuries
• the Ras Shamra tablets (ca. 14th century  but containing much earlier material)
• the Execration Texts and other documents of Egyptian Middle Kingdom (20th to 18th century
• Ebla texts from northern Syria (above 16,000) which, although they come from a still earlier period (ca the mid-third millenium) and have not yet been published an danlsyze, willundoubtedly cast much light on the question o Israel's origins