Was there really a Hebrew United Kingdom or were the Northern and the Southern Kingdoms two separate tribes historically?

Answer 1

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The Tanakh (Jewish Bible) records that there was a unified kingdom of all the Israelites before it split into Northern (Ten Tribes) and Southern (Judah and Benjamin). The unified kingdom existed under the sovereignty of Saul, then David, and then Solomon.

After the division of the Kingdom: The northern (10 tribe) Kingdom was often called the Kingdom of Israel or even the Kingdom of Ephraim (the largest of those 10 tribes); the southern (2 tribe) Kingdom was called the Kingdom of Judah.

Answer 2

Lester L Grabbe (Ancient Israel) says that although almost all scholars have abandoned the Patriarchical period and invasion of Canaan, there remains some support for the existence of a United Monarchy under Kings Saul, David and Solomon. Nevertheless, he describes the biblical, Jerusalem-centred United Monarchy as an anachronism and says there is a growing consensus that Omri was actually the first king of Israel, and in the north only.

Saul, David and Solomon probably existed, but some early passages in The Bible, such as 1 Samuel 22:6 (which describes Saul as holding court under a tree, not in a palace or even a long-house) point to Saul as merely a tribal chieftain. Scholarly views are divided as to whether even David and Solomon could be considered kings in the traditional sense, or as local chieftains.

The combined population of Israel and Judah was too small in the tenth century BCE to support the grand kingdom described in the Bible, and the territory of Judah was too poor and weak compared to the the northern kingdom to have dominated its people. Grabbe's emphatic view is that if indeed there was a United Monarchy, it was not as the Bible pictures it.