When did Israel come into existence?

Answer 1

The modern state of Israel was created in 1948, the UN had planned to make two separate states one for the Jews and one for the Palestinians with Jerusalem under the control of the United Nations, but when the British pulled out, the Jews declared the state of Israel and the Palestinians never got their country.

The Palestinians never took the oppurtunity which was given to both the Jews and the Palestinians because they did not recognize Israel's right to exist. They wanted all of the land and therefore would not settle for anything less. They also could have had their country in the years 1949-1967 but did not want it then either.

The Jews have had a presence in this land for 3,000 years. While many Jews have not lived there the entire time, there has always been a presence in the land.

Answer 2

The Bible says that King Solomon ruled for exactly forty years and died around 928 BCE. It also says that the Exodus from Egypt was 480 years before the fourth year of the reign of Solomon. This would place the Exodus from Egypt approximately 1444 BCE. From the same source, the conquest of Canaan took place forty years later, or approximately 1404 BCE, or let's say 1400 BCE. On one measure this would be the time that the land of Israel was established.

However, there are serious problems with that date, not the least of which is the existence of numerous letters (the Amarna letters) written well into the next century by the Canaanite kings to their Egyptian overlord, not only showing the Canaanites as in full control of the land, but never mentioning any new arrivals or military incursions. Clearly, a date in the fifteenth century is now untenable, and some have proposed that the establishment of Israel really took place shortly before 1200 BCE, when the Israelites are known to have existed in small numbers in the Canaanite hinterland.

Whether the Israelites arrived by conquest, as portrayed in the Bible, or by peaceful internal migration away from the coastal cities, as many scholars now say, it is clear to archaeologists that the Israelites occupied a quite small inland territory until around 1000 BCE. Scholars say that the people were tribal in the early centuries and it is not really possible to talk of a single political entity before 1000 BCE and, based on recent research, possibly even 900 BCE. From a biblical perspective, a united Israel emerged under King David around 1000 BCE, but it is possible that the first centralised government really only emerged under King Omri over a hundred years later.

Answer 3

Ancient Israel has been verified archaeologically as having existed from roughly 900 BCE to 722 BCE (and the southern Kingdom of Judah survived until 586 BCE).

Answer 4

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