When did the Jews return to the promise land?

Answer 1

The northern kingdom, Israel, was finally destroyed by the Assyrians in 722 BCE and many of the Israelites sent into exile, never returning. The Israelites were absorbed into their local cultures and ceased to exist as a separate ethnic group.

The southern kingdom, Judah, was also conquered, by the Babylonians who destroyed Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Again, many of the people were taken into exile. In this case, the Persians soon conquered Babylon, and allowed the Jews to return towards the end of the century. There seems to have been an increase in the population of Judah around 538-520 BCE, probably indicating the time that many returned to Judah.

Answer 2

The Bible states that Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt 480 years before the fourth year of Solomon's reign, approximately 1444 BCE, and that 40 years later they proceeded to invade Canaan, destroying city after city. This remains the conservative Christian view as to when Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt.

However, the Amarna letters, an important archaeological find in Egypt, prove conclusively that the many petty kings of Canaan continued to rule everywhere well into the following century, with no external threat and no military incursion. For this and other reasons, the fifteenth century BCE is no longer a tenavble date for the Exodus from Egypt. To resolve this, some have proposed a somewhat more archaeologically acceptable time for the Exodus, a little prior to 1200 BCE. This has its own problems, but is now the more liberal Christian view.

From a historical perspective, over 90 per cent of scholars are reported to believe that there never was an Exodus from Egypt as described in the Bible. The Israelites were really Canaanites who moved peacefully away from the coastal cities into the previously sparsely populated mountainous hinterland and settled there. It was only later that epic legends began to develop about a glorious past and the conquest of the 'Promised Land'.

Answer 3

A:

After defeating Babylon, Cyrus the Great of Persia allowed the Jews (and other people) to return to their homeland in 538 BCE.

Answer 4

There has been an uninterrupted Jewish presence in what is now the modern state of Israel for over 3000 years. Jews living outside of this land started moving back in noticeable numbers in the late 1800's.