Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The Hebrew Bible describes a long period of time during which the Israelites (the ancient Semitic-speaking people from whom Jews originate [10]) settled in ancient Egypt, were enslaved, and were ultimately liberated by Moses, who led them out of Egypt to Canaan.
Whilst the idea that the Israelites served as slaves in Egypt features in the Bible, scholars generally agree that the story constitutes an origin myth rather than a historical reality. [ 29 ] [ 20 ] But the fact that the Bible's depiction of Israelite servitude accords with what it is known about slavery in ancient Egypt has convinced some ...
Israel in Egypt (Edward Poynter, 1867). The story of the Exodus is told in the first half of Exodus, with the remainder recounting the 1st year in the wilderness, and followed by a narrative of 39 more years in the books of Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, the last four of the first five books of the Bible (also called the Torah or Pentateuch). [10]
Originally, they went to Egypt after a famine in Canaan but were enslaved by the Egyptians. [59] They escaped and organized themselves as a kritarchy, [60] where they followed laws given by Moses. Afterwards, the Israelites conquered Canaan and fought with several neighbors until they established a monarchic state.
At the end of the period, there was a growing agricultural slavery. The people enslaved in Egypt during Islamic times mostly came from Europe and Caucasus (who were referred to as "white"), or from the Sudan and Africa South of the Sahara through the Trans-Saharan slave trade (who were referred to as "black"). British pressure led to the ...
According to Josephus, when Ptolemy I took Judea, he led 120,000 Jewish captives to Egypt, and many other Jews, attracted by Ptolemy's liberal and tolerant policies and Egypt's fertile soil, emigrated from Judea to Egypt of their own free will. [34] Ptolemy settled the Jews in Egypt to employ them as mercenaries.
The name "Israel" first appears in the Merneptah Stele c. 1208 BCE: "Israel is laid waste and his seed is no more." [25] This "Israel" was a cultural and probably political entity, well enough established for the Egyptians to perceive it as a possible challenge, but an ethnic group rather than an organized state. [26]
The Israelites did not generally get involved in distant or large-scale wars, and apparently capture was not a significant source of slaves. [ 11 ] [ full citation needed ] The enslavement of female captives is encouraged by Moses in Numbers 31 .