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112-684: During a period of weakness in the East Semitic -speaking kingdom of Babylonia, new tribes of West Semitic -speaking migrants arrived in the region from the Levant between the 11th and 9th centuries BC. The earliest waves consisted of Suteans and Arameans , followed a century or so later by the Kaldu, a group who became known later as the Chaldeans or the Chaldees. These migrations did not affect

224-526: A bid for control over Babylonia. Shalmaneser IV attacked and defeated Marduk-apla-user, retaking northern Babylonia and forcing on him a border treaty in Assyria's favour. The Assyrians allowed him to remain on the throne, although subject to Assyria. Eriba-Marduk , another Chaldean, succeeded him in 769 BC and his son, Nabu-shuma-ishkun in 761 BC, with both being dominated by the new Assyrian king Ashur-Dan III (772–755 BC). Babylonia appears to have been in

336-564: A counterattack, marched his army into Assyria proper in 616 BC, and tried to besiege Assur and Arrapha (modern Kirkuk ), but was defeated by Sin-shar-ishkun and chased back into Babylonia after being driven from Idiqlat (modern Tikrit ) at the southernmost end of Assyria. A stalemate seemed to have ensued, with Nabopolassar unable to make any inroads into Assyria despite its greatly weakened state, and Sin-shar-ishkun unable to eject Nabopolassar from Babylonia due to constant rebellions and civil war among his own people. Nabopolassar's position, and

448-461: A great degree. The Chaldeans remained quietly ruled by the native Babylonians (who were in turn subjugated by their Assyrian relations) for the next seventy-two years, only coming to historical prominence for the first time in Babylonia in 780 BC, when a previously unknown Chaldean named Marduk-apla-usur usurped the throne from the native Babylonian king Marduk-bel-zeri (790–780 BC). The latter

560-562: A group—if it existed—was only a small minority in early Israel, even though their story came to be claimed by all." Scholars believe Psalm 45 could have northern origins since it refers to a king marrying a foreign princess, a policy of the Omrides . Some psalms may have originated from the shrine in the northern city of Dan. These are the Sons of Korah psalms, Psalm 29 , and Psalm 68 . The city of Dan probably became an Israelite city during

672-521: A large and powerful Median-dominated force. The Medes, Persians, Parthians, Chaldeans and Babylonians formed an alliance that also included the Scythians and Cimmerians to the north. While Sin-shar-ishkun was fighting both the rebels in Assyria and the Chaldeans and Babylonians in southern Mesopotamia, Cyaxares (hitherto a vassal of Assyria), in alliance with the Scythians and Cimmerians launched

784-473: A lavish scale. His building activity at Babylon, expanding on the earlier major and impressive rebuilding of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon , helped to turn it into the immense and beautiful city of legend. Babylon covered more than 8 km (3 sq mi), surrounded by moats and ringed by a double circuit of walls. The Euphrates flowed through the center of the city, spanned by a beautiful stone bridge. At

896-671: A people, the Assyrians founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof into captivity, they have destroyed the houses thereof, they have brought it to ruin.” Unlike the East Semitic Akkadian -speaking Akkadians , Assyrians and Babylonians , whose ancestors had been established in Mesopotamia since at least the 30th century BC, the Chaldeans were not a native Mesopotamian people, but were late 10th- or early 9th-century BC West Semitic Levantine migrants to

1008-592: A rejection of God's kingship; nevertheless, God permits it, and Saul of the tribe of Benjamin is anointed king. This inaugurates the united monarchy of the Kingdom of Israel . An officer in Saul's army named David achieves great militarily success. Saul tries to kill him out of jealousy, but David successfully escapes (1 Samuel 16–29). After Saul dies fighting the Philistines ( 1 Samuel 31 ; 2 Chronicles 10 ),

1120-499: A single phoneme transcribed ḫ and usually reconstructed as a voiceless velar or uvular fricative . All of the sounds *ʾ , *h , *ʿ , *ġ have been lost. Their elision appears to give rise to the presence of an e vowel where it is not found in other Semitic languages (for example, Akk. bēl 'master' < PS. * ba‘al ). It also appears that the series of interdental fricatives became sibilants (for example, Akk. šalšu 'three' < PS. * ṯalaṯ ). However,

1232-577: A special two-column form emphasizing the parallel stichs in the verses, which are a function of their poetry . Collectively, these three books are known as Sifrei Emet (an acronym of the titles in Hebrew, איוב, משלי, תהלים yields Emet אמ"ת , which is also the Hebrew for " truth "). These three books are also the only ones in Tanakh with a special system of cantillation notes that are designed to emphasize parallel stichs within verses. However,

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1344-483: A state of chaos during this time, with the north occupied by Assyria, its throne occupied by foreign Chaldeans, and continual civil unrest throughout the land. The Chaldean rule proved short-lived. A native Babylonian king named Nabonassar (748–734 BC) defeated and overthrew the Chaldean usurpers in 748 BC, restored indigenous rule, and successfully stabilised Babylonia. The Chaldeans once more faded into obscurity for

1456-495: A surprise attack on civil-war-beleaguered Assyria in 615 BC, sacking Kalhu (the Biblical Calah / Nimrud ) and taking Arrapkha (modern Kirkuk ). Nabopolassar, still pinned down in southern Mesopotamia, was not involved in this major breakthrough against Assyria. From this point however, the alliance of Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Babylonians, Sagartians, Scythians and Cimmerians fought in unison against Assyria. Despite

1568-655: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh ( / t ɑː ˈ n ɑː x / ; Hebrew : תַּנַ״ךְ ‎ Tanaḵ ), also known in Hebrew as Miqra ( / m iː ˈ k r ɑː / ; Hebrew : מִקְרָא ‎ Mīqrāʾ ‍ ), is the canonical collection of Hebrew scriptures, comprising the Torah , the Nevi'im , and the Ketuvim . Different branches of Judaism and Samaritanism have maintained different versions of

1680-878: Is a medieval version and one of several texts considered authoritative by different types of Judaism throughout history . The current edition of the Masoretic Text is mostly in Biblical Hebrew , with a few passages in Biblical Aramaic (in the books of Daniel and Ezra , and the verse Jeremiah 10:11 ). The authoritative form of the modern Hebrew Bible used in Rabbinic Judaism is the Masoretic Text (7th to 10th century CE), which consists of 24 books, divided into chapters and pesuqim (verses). The Hebrew Bible developed during

1792-508: Is also used, apparently synonymously. Bit Yâkin was the name of the largest and most powerful of the five tribes of the Chaldeans, or equivalently, their territory. The original extension of Bit Yâkin is not known precisely, but it extended from the lower Tigris into the Arabian Peninsula . Sargon II mentions it as extending as far as Dilmun or "sea-land" (littoral Eastern Arabia). "Chaldea" or mat Kaldi generally referred to

1904-733: Is consistently presented throughout the [Hebrew Scriptures] as the God who created the world, and as the only God with whom Israel is to be concerned". This special relationship between God and Israel is described in terms of covenant . As part of the covenant, God gives his people the Promised Land as an eternal possession. The God of the covenant is also a God of redemption . God liberates his people from Egypt and continually intervenes to save them from their enemies. The Tanakh imposes ethical requirements , including social justice and ritual purity (see Tumah and taharah ) . The Tanakh forbids

2016-563: Is credited as the author of at least 73 of the Biblical Psalms . His son, Solomon , is identified as the author of Book of Proverbs , Ecclesiastes , and Song of Solomon . The Hebrew Bible describes their reigns as a golden age when Israel flourished both culturally and militarily. However, there is no archeological evidence for this, and it is most likely a "retrospective extrapolation" of conditions under King Jeroboam II ( r.  781–742 BCE). Modern scholars believe that

2128-556: Is highly likely that extensive oral transmission of proverbs, stories, and songs took place during this period", and these may have been included in the Hebrew Bible. Elements of Genesis 12–50, which describes the patriarchal age , and the Book of Exodus may reflect oral traditions . In these stories, Israelite ancestors such as Jacob and Moses use trickery and deception to survive and thrive. King David ( c.  1000 BCE )

2240-524: Is mentioned in the Midrash Koheleth 12:12: Whoever brings together in his house more than twenty four books brings confusion . The original writing system of the Hebrew text was an abjad : consonants written with some applied vowel letters ( " matres lectionis " ). During the early Middle Ages , scholars known as the Masoretes created a single formalized system of vocalization . This

2352-413: Is roughly 2000. The Tanakh consists of twenty-four books, counting as one book each 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel , 1 Kings and 2 Kings , 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles , and Ezra–Nehemiah . The Twelve Minor Prophets ( תרי עשר ) are also counted as a single book. In Hebrew, the books are often referred to by their prominent first words . The Torah ( תּוֹרָה , literally "teaching") is also known as

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2464-804: The Apocrypha , while the Samaritans produced their own edition of the Torah, the Samaritan Pentateuch . According to the Dutch–Israeli biblical scholar and linguist Emanuel Tov , professor of Bible Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem , both of these ancient editions of the Hebrew Bible differ significantly from the medieval Masoretic Text. In addition to the Masoretic Text, modern biblical scholars seeking to understand

2576-653: The Bible as Kaśdim ( כשדים ) and in Aramaic as Kaśdāy ( כשדי ). The Bible ( Book of Genesis 22:22) uses the name Kesed (כשׂד, ancient pronunciation /kaɬd/), the singular form of Kasdim (כַּשְׂדִּים), meaning Chaldeans. Kesed is identified as son of Abraham 's brother Nahor (and brother of Kemuel the father of Aram), residing in Aram Naharaim . Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (37 – c. 100) also links Arphaxad and Chaldaea, in his Antiquities of

2688-701: The Caucasus . Nabopolassar was not able to enjoy his success for long, dying in 604 BC, only one year after the victory at Karchemish. He was succeeded by his son, who took the name Nebuchadnezzar II , after the unrelated 12th century BC native Akkadian-Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar I , indicating the extent to which the migrant Chaldeans had become infused with native Mesopotamian culture. Nebuchadnezzar II and his allies may well have been forced to deal with remnants of Assyrian resistance based in and around Dur-Katlimmu , as Assyrian imperial records continue to be dated in this region between 604 and 599 BC. In addition,

2800-769: The Masoretes added vowel markings to the text to ensure accuracy. Rabbi and Talmudic scholar Louis Ginzberg wrote in Legends of the Jews , published in 1909, that the twenty-four book canon was fixed by Ezra and the scribes in the Second Temple period . According to the Talmud , much of the Tanakh was compiled by the men of the Great Assembly ( Anshei K'nesset HaGedolah ), a task completed in 450  BCE, and it has remained unchanged ever since. The 24-book canon

2912-630: The Neo-Assyrian Empire , Imperial Aramaic became the lingua franca of the empire under the rule of the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III in the mid-8th century BC. As a result, in late periods both the Babylonian and Assyrian dialects of Akkadian became marginalized, and Aramaic took its place across Mesopotamia, including among the Chaldeans, and later, also the southern Levant . One form of this once widespread Aramaic language

3024-621: The Scythians , Cimmerians , and Lydians . Like their Assyrian relations, the Babylonians had to campaign yearly in order to control their colonies. In 601 BC, Nebuchadnezzar II was involved in a major but inconclusive battle against the Egyptians . In 599 BC, he invaded Arabia and routed the Arabs at Qedar . In 597 BC, he invaded Judah , captured Jerusalem after the siege of Jerusalem (597 BC) and deposed its king Jehoiachin , carrying

3136-740: The Second Temple Period , as the Jews decided which religious texts were of divine origin; the Masoretic Text , compiled by the Jewish scribes and scholars of the Early Middle Ages , comprises the Hebrew and Aramaic 24 books that they considered authoritative. The Hellenized Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria produced a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible called "the Septuagint ", that included books later identified as

3248-542: The patriarchs : Abraham , his son Isaac , and grandson Jacob . God promises Abraham and his descendants blessing and land. The covenant God makes with Abraham is signified by male circumcision . The children of Jacob become the ancestors of the twelve tribes of Israel . Jacob's son Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers, but he becomes a powerful man in Egypt. During a famine, Jacob and his family settle in Egypt. Jacob's descendants lived in Egypt for 430 years. After

3360-412: The "Pentateuch", or as the "Five Books of Moses". Printed versions (rather than scrolls) of the Torah are often called Chamisha Chumshei Torah ( חמישה חומשי תורה "Five fifth-sections of the Torah") and informally as Chumash . Nevi'im ( נְבִיאִים Nəḇīʾīm , "Prophets") is the second main division of the Tanakh, between the Torah and Ketuvim . This division includes the books which cover

3472-700: The 5th century BCE. This is suggested by Ezra 7 :6, which describes Ezra as "a scribe skilled in the law ( torah ) of Moses that the Lord the God of Israel had given". The Nevi'im had gained canonical status by the 2nd century BCE. There are references to the "Law and the Prophets" in the Book of Sirach , the Dead Sea Scrolls , and the New Testament . The Book of Daniel, written c.  164 BCE ,

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3584-472: The Assyrian army and the army of the Egyptians , whose 26th Dynasty had formed a brief allied coalition with the Assyrians, were defeated at Karchemish . Nabopolassar and his Median, Scythian and Cimmerian allies were now in possession of much of the huge Neo-Assyrian Empire . The Egyptians had belatedly come to the aid of Assyria, which they would have hoped to support as a secure buffer between Egypt and

3696-463: The Assyrian king to turn back in order to quell the revolt. Nabopolassar took advantage of this situation, seizing the ancient city of Nippur in 619 BC, a mainstay of pro-Assyrianism in Babylonia, and thus Babylonia as a whole. However, his position was still far from secure, and bitter fighting continued in the Babylonian heartlands from 620 to 615 BC, with Assyrian forces encamped in Babylonia in an attempt to eject Nabopolassar. Nabopolassar attempted

3808-407: The Assyrian prince who was king of Babylon and son of Sennacherib. The Chaldeans and Babylonians again allied with their more powerful Elamite neighbors in this endeavour. This prompted the enraged Assyrian king Sennacherib to invade and subjugate Elam and Chaldea and to sack Babylon, laying waste to and largely destroying the city. Babylon was regarded as a sacred city by all Mesopotamians, including

3920-787: The Assyrians, and this act eventually resulted in Sennacherib's being murdered by his own sons while he was praying to the god Nisroch in Nineveh . Esarhaddon (681–669 BC) succeeded Sennacherib as ruler of the Assyrian Empire. He completely rebuilt Babylon and brought peace to the region. He conquered Egypt, Nubia and Libya and entrenched his mastery over the Persians, Medes, Parthians, Scythians, Cimmerians, Arameans, Israelites, Phoenicians, Canaanites, Urartians, Pontic Greeks, Cilicians, Phrygians, Lydians, Manneans and Arabs. For

4032-459: The Babylonians, Persians , Chaldeans, Medes , Elamites , Sultans, Arameans, Israelites , Arabs and Canaanites , together with some disaffected elements among the Assyrians themselves. After a bitter struggle lasting five years, the Assyrian king triumphed over his rebellious brother in 648 BC, Elam was utterly destroyed, and the Babylonians, Persians, Medes, Chaldeans, Arabs, and others were savagely punished. An Assyrian governor named Kandalanu

4144-594: The Chaldean tribes by the Assyrian king appears to have been an aside, as they were not at that time a powerful force or a threat to the native Babylonian king. Important Kaldu tribes and their regions in southeastern Babylonia were Bit-Yâkin (the original area the Chaldeans settled in on the Persian Gulf), Bet-Dakuri , Bet-Adini , Bet-Amukkani , and Bet-Shilani . Chaldean leaders had by this time already adopted Assyro-Babylonian names, religion, language, and customs, indicating that they had become Akkadianized to

4256-481: The Chaldeans, Babylonians, and Elamites. He attacked and deposed Marduk-apla-adding II in 710 BC, also defeating his Elamite allies in the process. After defeat by the Assyrians, Merodach-Baladan fled to his protectors in Elam In 703, Merodach-Baladan very briefly regained the throne from a native Akkadian-Babylonian ruler Marduk-zakir-shumi II , who was a puppet of the new Assyrian king, Sennacherib (705–681 BC). He

4368-616: The Egyptians from Canaan, Marduk-apla-iddina II (the Biblical Merodach-Baladan ) of Bit-Yâkin, allied himself with the powerful Elamite kingdom and the native Babylonians, briefly seizing control of Babylon between 721 and 710 BC. With the Scythians and Cimmerians vanquished, the Medes and Persians pledging loyalty, and the Egyptians defeated and ejected from southern Canaan, Sargon II was free at last to deal with

4480-463: The Egyptians remained in the region an attempt to revive the Asian colonies of the ancient Egyptian Empire. Nebuchadnezzar II was to prove himself to be the greatest of the Chaldean rulers, rivaling another non-native ruler, the 18th century BC Amorite king Hammurabi , as the greatest king of Babylon. He was a patron of the cities and a spectacular builder, rebuilding all of Babylonia's major cities on

4592-641: The Exodus , the Israelites wander in the wilderness for 40 years. God gives the Israelites the Law of Moses to guide their behavior. The law includes rules for both religious ritual and ethics (see Ethics in the Bible ) . This moral code requires justice and care for the poor, widows, and orphans. The biblical story affirms God's unconditional love for his people, but he still punishes them when they fail to live by

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4704-487: The Hebrew Bible resulting from centuries of hand-copying. Scribes introduced thousands of minor changes to the biblical texts. Sometimes, these changes were by accident. At other times, scribes intentionally added clarifications or theological material. In the Middle Ages, Jewish scribes produced the Masoretic Text , which became the authoritative version of the Tanakh. Ancient Hebrew was written without vowels, but

4816-410: The Hebrew Bible were composed and edited in stages over several hundred years. According to biblical scholar John J. Collins , "It now seems clear that all the Hebrew Bible received its final shape in the postexilic, or Second Temple, period." Traditionally, Moses was considered the author of the Torah, and this part of the Tanakh achieved authoritative or canonical status first, possibly as early as

4928-580: The Hebrew Bible, but the books are arranged in different orders. The Catholic , Eastern Orthodox , Oriental Orthodox , and Assyrian churches include the Deuterocanonical books , which are not included in certain versions of the Hebrew Bible. In Islam , the Tawrat ( Arabic : توراة ) is identified not only with the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses ), but also with the other books of

5040-533: The Hebrew Bible, once existed and is the source of the versions extant today. However, such an Urtext has never been found, and which of the three commonly known versions (Septuagint, Masoretic Text, Samaritan Pentateuch) is closest to the Urtext is debated. There are many similarities between the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament . The Protestant Old Testament has the same books as

5152-421: The Hebrew Bible. Tanakh is an acronym , made from the first Hebrew letter of each of the Masoretic Text 's three traditional divisions: Torah (literally 'Instruction' or 'Law'), Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings)—hence TaNaKh. The three-part division reflected in the acronym Tanakh is well attested in the rabbinic literature . During that period, however, Tanakh was not used. Instead,

5264-724: The Hebrew canon, but modern scholars believe there was no such authoritative council of rabbis. Between 70 and 100 CE, rabbis debated whether certain books "make the hands unclean" (meaning the books are holy and should be considered scripture), and references to fixed numbers of canonical books appear. There were several criteria for inclusion. Books had to be older than the 4th century BCE or attributed to an author who had lived before that period. The original language had to be Hebrew, and books had to be widely used. Many books considered scripture by certain Jewish communities were excluded during this time. There are various textual variants in

5376-524: The Israelites into captivity in Babylon . Egyptian and Babylonian armies fought each other for control of the Near East throughout much of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, and this encouraged king Zedekiah of Judah to revolt. After an eighteen-month siege, Jerusalem was captured in 587 BC, thousands of Jews were deported to Babylon, and Solomon's Temple was razed to the ground. Nebuchadnezzar successfully fought

5488-581: The Jacob cycle must be older than the time of King Josiah of Judah ( r.  640 – 609 BCE ), who pushed for the centralization of worship at Jerusalem. The story of Moses and the Exodus appears to also originate in the north. It existed as a self-contained story in its oral and earliest written forms, but it was connected to the patriarchal stories during the exile or post-exile periods. The account of Moses's birth ( Exodus 2 ) shows similarities to

5600-540: The Jews : "Arphaxad named the Arphaxadites, who are now called Chaldeans." In the early period, between the early 9th century and late 7th century BC, mat Kaldi was the name of a small sporadically independent migrant-founded territory under the domination of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–605 BC) in southeastern Babylonia, extending to the western shores of the Persian Gulf . The expression mat Bit Yâkin

5712-470: The Kaldu tribes, together with capturing the town of Baqani , extracting tribute from Adini , chief of the Bet-Dakkuri , another Chaldean tribe. Shalmaneser III had invaded Babylonia at the request of its own king, Marduk-zakir-shumi I , who, being threatened by his own rebellious relations, together with powerful Aramean tribes pleaded with the more powerful Assyrian king for help. The subjugation of

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5824-460: The King of Mari Aššur-ketta-lēšir II (late 12th-early 11th century BC), which record them reaching Mesopotamia as early as the 11th century BC. They later appear in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III during the 850s BC. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of semi-nomadic foreign peoples from invading and settling in

5936-453: The Neo-Assyrian Empire. Shamash-shum-ukin (668–648 BC) had become infused with Babylonian nationalism after sixteen years peacefully subject to his brother, and despite being Assyrian himself, declared that the city of Babylon and not Nineveh or Assur should be the seat of the empire. In 652 BC, he raised a powerful coalition of peoples resentful of their subjugation to Assyria against his own brother Ashurbanipal . The alliance included

6048-478: The Pharaohs Psammetichus II and Apries throughout his reign, and during the reign of Pharaoh Amasis in 568 BC it is rumoured that he may have briefly invaded Egypt itself. East Semitic languages The East Semitic languages are one of three divisions of the Semitic languages . The East Semitic group is attested by three distinct languages, Akkadian , Eblaite and possibly Kishite , all of which have been long extinct . They were influenced by

6160-406: The Talmudic tradition ascribes late authorship to all of them; two of them (Daniel and Ezra) are the only books in Tanakh with significant portions in Aramaic . The Jewish textual tradition never finalized the order of the books in Ketuvim. The Talmud gives their order as Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Daniel, Scroll of Esther, Ezra, Chronicles. This order

6272-499: The Tanakh is monotheism , worshiping one God . The Tanakh was created by the Israelites , a people who lived within the cultural and religious context of the ancient Near East . The religions of the ancient Near East were polytheistic , but the Israelites rejected polytheism in favor of monotheism. Biblical scholar Christine Hayes writes that the Hebrew Bible was "the record of [the Israelites'] religious and cultural revolution". According to biblical scholar John Barton , " YHWH

6384-571: The Tanakh, such as Exodus 15, 1 Samuel 2, and Jonah 2. Books such as Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are examples of wisdom literature . Other books are examples of prophecy . In the prophetic books, a prophet denounces evil or predicts what God will do in the future. A prophet might also describe and interpret visions. The Book of Daniel is the only book in the Tanakh usually described as apocalyptic literature . However, other books or parts of books have been called proto-apocalyptic, such as Isaiah 24–27, Joel, and Zechariah 9–14. A central theme throughout

6496-466: The Torah to Moses . In later Biblical texts, such as Daniel 9:11 and Ezra 3:2, it is referred to as the " Torah (Law) of Moses ". However, the Torah itself credits Moses with writing only some specific sections. According to scholars , Moses would have lived in the 2nd millennium BCE , but this was before the development of Hebrew writing. The Torah is dated to the 1st millennium BCE after Israel and Judah had already developed as states. Nevertheless, "it

6608-434: The ancient Chaldean language. Ancient Chaldeans believed in "three heavens". The region that the Chaldeans eventually made their homeland was in relatively poor southeastern Mesopotamia, at the head of the Persian Gulf. They appear to have migrated into southern Babylonia from the Levant at some unknown point between the end of the reign of Ninurta-kudurri-usur II (a contemporary of Tiglath-Pileser II ) circa 940 BC, and

6720-477: The ancient Israelites mostly originated from within Canaan. Their material culture was closely related to their Canaanite neighbors, and Hebrew was a Canaanite dialect . Archaeological evidence indicates Israel began as loosely organized tribal villages in the hill country of modern-day Israel c.  1250  – c.  1000 BCE . During crises, these tribes formed temporary alliances. The Book of Judges , written c.  600 BCE (around 500 years after

6832-402: The beginning and end of the book of Job are in the normal prose system. The five relatively short books of the Song of Songs , Ruth , Lamentations , Ecclesiastes , and Esther are collectively known as the Ḥamesh Megillot (Five Megillot). In many Jewish communities, these books are read aloud in the synagogue on particular occasions, the occasion listed below in parentheses. Besides

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6944-512: The birth of Sargon of Akkad , which suggests Neo-Assyrian influence sometime after 722 BCE. While the Moses story is set in Egypt, it is used to tell both an anti-Assyrian and anti-imperial message, all while appropriating Assyrian story patterns. David M. Carr notes the possibility of an early oral tradition for the Exodus story: "To be sure, there may have been a 'Moses group,' themselves of Canaanite extraction, who experienced slavery and liberation from Egypt, but most scholars believe that such

7056-430: The books of Daniel and Ezra ), written and printed in Aramaic square-script , which was adopted as the Hebrew alphabet after the Babylonian exile . The Tanakh includes a variety of genres, including narratives of events set in the past. The Torah ( Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy ) contains legal material. The Book of Psalms is a collection of hymns, but songs are included elsewhere in

7168-403: The canon, including the 3rd-century BCE Septuagint text used in Second Temple Judaism , the Syriac Peshitta , the Samaritan Pentateuch , the Dead Sea Scrolls , and most recently the 10th-century medieval Masoretic Text compiled by the Masoretes , currently used in Rabbinic Judaism . The terms "Hebrew Bible" or "Hebrew Canon" are frequently confused with the Masoretic Text; however, this

7280-456: The capital city in each case. In the same way, what is now known as the Persian Gulf was sometimes called "the Sea of Bit Yakin", and sometimes "the Sea of the Land of Chaldea". "Chaldea" came to be used in a wider sense, of Southern Mesopotamia in general, following the brief ascendancy of the Chaldeans during 608–557 BC. This is especially the case in the Hebrew Bible , which was substantially composed during this period (roughly corresponding to

7392-634: The center of the city rose the giant ziggurat called Etemenanki , "House of the Frontier Between Heaven and Earth," which lay next to the Temple of Marduk . He is also believed by many historians to have built The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (although others believe these gardens were built much earlier by an Assyrian king in Nineveh) for his wife, a Median princess from the green mountains, so that she would feel at home. A capable leader, Nebuchadnezzar II conducted successful military campaigns; cities like Tyre , Sidon and Damascus were subjugated. He also conducted numerous campaigns in Asia Minor against

7504-414: The chaos and anarchy gripping Assyria and Babylonia and seized the city of Babylon in 620 BC with the help of its native Babylonian inhabitants. Sin-shar-ishkun amassed a powerful army and marched into Babylon to regain control of the region. Nabopolassar was saved from likely destruction because yet another massive Assyrian rebellion broke out in Assyria proper, including the capital Nineveh, which forced

7616-433: The connotations of alternative expressions such as ... Hebrew Bible [and] Old Testament" without prescribing the use of either. "Hebrew" refers to the original language of the books, but it may also be taken as referring to the Jews of the Second Temple era and their descendants, who preserved the transmission of the Masoretic Text up to the present day. The Hebrew Bible includes small portions in Aramaic (mostly in

7728-418: The content of the Ketuvim remained fluid until the canonization process was completed in the 2nd-century CE. There is no scholarly consensus as to when the Hebrew Bible canon was fixed: some scholars argue that it was fixed by the Hasmonean dynasty , while others argue it was not fixed until the second century CE or even later. The speculated late-1st-century Council of Jamnia was once credited with fixing

7840-511: The covenant. God leads Israel into the Promised Land of Canaan , which they conquer after five years. For the next 470 years, the Israelites were led by judges . In time, a new enemy emerged called the Philistines . They continued to trouble Israel when the prophet Samuel was judge (1 Samuel 4:1–7:1). When Samuel grew old, the people requested that he choose a king because Samuel's sons were corrupt and they wanted to be like other nations ( 1 Samuel 8 ). The Tanakh presents this negatively as

7952-486: The early 2nd millennium BC , East Semitic languages, in particular Akkadian , had come to dominate the region. Modern understanding of the phonology of East Semitic languages can be derived only from careful study of written texts and comparison with the reconstructed Proto-Semitic . Most striking is the reduction of the inventory of back consonants, the velar and pharyngeal fricatives , as well as glottals . Akkadian preserves *ḫ and (partly) *ḥ only as

8064-538: The east and the Aramaeans , who had already settled in the region a century or so prior to the arrival of the Chaldeans. The very first written historical attestation of the existence of Chaldeans occurs in 852 BC, in the annals of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III , who mentions invading the southeastern extremes of Babylonia and subjugating one Mushallim-Marduk , the chief of the Amukani tribe and overall leader of

8176-533: The events it describes), portrays Israel as a grouping of decentralized tribes, and the Song of Deborah in Judges 5 may reflect older oral traditions. It features archaic elements of Hebrew and a tribal list that identifies Israel exclusively with the northern tribes. By the 9th or 8th centuries BCE, the scribal culture of Samaria and Judah was sufficiently developed to produce biblical texts. The Kingdom of Samaria

8288-573: The exact phonological makeup of the languages is not fully known, and the absence of features may have been the result of the inadequacies of Sumerian orthography to describe the sounds of Semitic languages, rather than their real absence. The word order in East Semitic may also have been influenced by Sumerian by being subject–object–verb , rather than the West Semitic verb–subject–object . This Semitic languages -related article

8400-486: The exploitation of widows, orphans, and other vulnerable groups. In addition, the Tanakh condemns murder, theft, bribery, corruption, deceitful trading, adultery, incest, bestiality, and homosexual acts. Another theme of the Tanakh is theodicy , showing that God is just even though evil and suffering are present in the world. The Tanakh begins with the Genesis creation narrative . Genesis 12–50 traces Israelite origins to

8512-544: The fate of the Assyrian empire, was sealed when he entered into an alliance with another of Assyria's former vassals, the Medes , the now dominant people of what was to become Persia. The Median Cyaxares had also recently taken advantage of the anarchy in the Assyrian Empire, while officially still a vassal of Assyria, he took the opportunity to meld the Iranian peoples ; the Medes , Persians , Sagartians and Parthians , into

8624-613: The history of the Hebrew Bible use a range of sources. These include the Septuagint, the Syriac language Peshitta translation, the Samaritan Pentateuch , the Dead Sea Scrolls collection, the Targum Onkelos , and quotations from rabbinic manuscripts . These sources may be older than the Masoretic Text in some cases and often differ from it. These differences have given rise to the theory that yet another text, an Urtext of

8736-556: The kingdom at its height under the Neo-Babylonian Empire , although the final ruler of this empire, Nabonidus (556–539 BC) (and his son and regent Belshazzar ) was a usurper of Assyrian ancestry. The name Chaldaea is a latinization of the Greek Khaldaía ( Χαλδαία ), a hellenization of Akkadian māt Kaldu or Kašdu , suggesting an underlying /kaɬdu/. The name appears in Hebrew in

8848-511: The kingdom is divided between his son Eshbaal and David (David ruled his tribe of Judah and Eshbaal ruled the rest). After Eshbaal's assassination, David was anointed king over all of Israel ( 2 Samuel 2–5). David captures the Jebusite city of Jerusalem ( 2 Samuel 5 :6–7) and makes it his capital. Jerusalem's location between Judah in the southern hills and the northern Israelite tribes made it an ideal location from which to rule over all

8960-436: The land. Though belonging to the same West Semitic speaking ethnic group and migrating from the same Levantine regions as the earlier arriving Aramaeans, they are to be differentiated; the Assyrian king Sennacherib , for example, carefully distinguishes them in his inscriptions. The Chaldeans were for a time able to keep their identity despite the dominant native Assyro-Babylonian (Sumero-Akkadian-derived) culture although, as

9072-452: The low, marshy, alluvial land around the estuaries of the Tigris and Euphrates, which at the time discharged their waters through separate mouths into the sea. The tribal capital Dur Yâkin was the original seat of Marduk-Baladan . The king of Chaldea was also called the king of Bit Yakin, just as the kings of Babylonia and Assyria were regularly styled simply king of Babylon or Assur ,

9184-552: The new powers of Babylon, Medes and Persians, having already been raided by the Scythians. The Chaldean king of Babylon now ruled all of southern Mesopotamia (Assyria in the north was ruled by the Medes), and the former Assyrian possessions of Aram ( Syria ), Phoenicia , Israel , Cyprus , Edom , Philistia , and parts of Arabia , while the Medes took control of the former Assyrian colonies in Ancient Iran , Asia Minor and

9296-412: The next 60 or so years, Babylon and Chaldea remained peacefully under direct Assyrian control. The Chaldeans remained subjugated and quiet during this period, and the next major revolt in Babylon against the Assyrian empire was fermented not by a Chaldean, Babylonian or Elamite, but by Shamash-shum-ukin , who was an Assyrian king of Babylon, and elder brother of Ashurbanipal (668–627 BC), the new ruler of

9408-585: The next three decades. During this time both the Babylonians and the Chaldean and Aramean migrant groups who had settled in the land once more fell completely under the yoke of the powerful Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III (745–727 BC), a ruler who introduced Imperial Aramaic as the lingua franca of the empire. The Assyrian king at first made Nabonassar and his successor native Babylonian kings Nabu-nadin-zeri , Nabu-suma-ukin II and Nabu-mukin-zeri his subjects, but decided to rule Babylonia directly from 729 BC. He

9520-504: The non-Semitic Sumerian language and adopted cuneiform writing. East Semitic languages stand apart from other Semitic languages, which are traditionally called West Semitic, in a number of respects. Historically, it is believed that the linguistic situation came about as speakers of East Semitic languages wandered further east, settling in Mesopotamia during the 3rd millennium BC , as attested by Akkadian texts from this period. By

9632-407: The period of Babylonian captivity ). The Book of Jeremiah makes frequent reference to the Chaldeans ( King James Version Chaldees following LXX Χαλδαίοι ; in Biblical Hebrew as Kasdîm כַּשְׂדִּים ). Book of Habakkuk 1:6 calls them "that bitter and hasty nation" ( הַגֹּוי הַמַּר וְהַנִּמְהָר ). Book of Isaiah 23:13 DRB states, “Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was not such

9744-581: The powerful kingdom and empire of Assyria in Upper Mesopotamia , which repelled these incursions. These nomadic Chaldeans settled in the far southeastern portion of Babylonia, chiefly on the left bank of the Euphrates . Though for a short time the name commonly referred to the whole of southern Mesopotamia in Hebraic literature, this was a geographical and historical misnomer as Chaldea proper

9856-459: The process. A new Assyrian king, Ashur-uballit II (612–605 BC), took the crown amidst the house-to-house fighting in Nineveh, and refused a request to bow in vassalage to the rulers of the alliance. He managed to fight his way out of Nineveh and reach the northern Assyrian city of Harran , where he founded a new capital. Assyria resisted for another seven years until 605 BC, when the remnants of

9968-408: The proper title was Mikra (or Miqra , מקרא, meaning reading or that which is read ) because the biblical texts were read publicly. The acronym 'Tanakh' is first recorded in the medieval era. Mikra continues to be used in Hebrew to this day, alongside Tanakh, to refer to the Hebrew scriptures. In modern spoken Hebrew , they are interchangeable. Many biblical studies scholars advocate use of

10080-451: The region. At the same time, Egypt began encouraging and supporting the rebellion against Assyria in Israel and Canaan , forcing the Assyrians to send troops to deal with the Egyptians. These events allowed the Chaldeans to once more attempt to assert themselves. While the Assyrian king was otherwise occupied defending his Iranian colonies from the Scythians and Cimmerians and driving

10192-602: The reign of King Jeroboam II (781–742   BCE). Before then, it belonged to Aram , and Psalm 20 is nearly identical to an Aramaic psalm found in the 4th century BCE Papyrus Amherst 63 . The author of the Books of Kings likely lived in Jerusalem. The text shows a clear bias favoring Judah, where God's worship was centralized in Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Samaria is portrayed as a godless breakaway region whose rulers refuse to worship at Jerusalem. The books that make up

10304-574: The revelation at Sinai , since it is impossible to read the original text without pronunciations and cantillation pauses. The combination of a text ( מקרא mikra ), pronunciation ( ניקוד niqqud ) and cantillation ( טעמים te`amim ) enable the reader to understand both the simple meaning and the nuances in sentence flow of the text. The number of distinct words in the Hebrew Bible is 8,679, of which 1,480 are hapax legomena , words or expressions that occur only once. The number of distinct Semitic roots , on which many of these biblical words are based,

10416-575: The sorely depleted state of Assyria, bitter fighting ensued. Throughout 614 BC the alliance of powers continued to make inroads into Assyria itself, although in 613 BC the Assyrians somehow rallied to score a number of counterattacking victories over the Medes-Persians, Babylonians-Chaldeans and Scythians-Cimmerians. This led to a coalition of forces ranged against it to unite and launch a massive combined attack in 612 BC, finally besieging and sacking Nineveh in late 612 BC, killing Sin-shar-ishkun in

10528-595: The southeastern corner of the region, who had played no part in the previous three millennia of Sumero-Akkadian and Assyro-Babylonian Mesopotamian civilization and history. The ancient Chaldeans seem to have migrated into Mesopotamia sometime between c. 940 and 860 BC, a century or so after other new Semitic arrivals , the Arameans and the Suteans , appeared in Babylonia, c. 1100 BC. According to Ran Zadok, they first appear in written record in cylinder inscriptions of

10640-530: The start of the reign of Marduk-zakir-shumi I in 855 BC, although there is no historical proof of their existence prior to the late 850s BC. For perhaps a century or so after settling in the area, these semi-nomadic migrant Chaldean tribes had no impact on the pages of history, seemingly remaining subjugated by the native Akkadian speaking kings of Babylon or by perhaps regionally influential Aramean tribes. The main players in southern Mesopotamia during this period were Babylonia and Assyria, together with Elam to

10752-693: The term Hebrew Bible (or Hebrew Scriptures ) as a substitute for less-neutral terms with Jewish or Christian connotations (e.g., Tanakh or Old Testament ). The Society of Biblical Literature 's Handbook of Style , which is the standard for major academic journals like the Harvard Theological Review and conservative Protestant journals like the Bibliotheca Sacra and the Westminster Theological Journal , suggests that authors "be aware of

10864-456: The three poetic books and the five scrolls, the remaining books in Ketuvim are Daniel , Ezra–Nehemiah and Chronicles . Although there is no formal grouping for these books in the Jewish tradition, they nevertheless share a number of distinguishing characteristics: their narratives all openly describe relatively late events (i.e. the Babylonian captivity and the subsequent restoration of Zion);

10976-401: The throne of the empire in 626 BC but was immediately engulfed in a torrent of fierce rebellions instigated by rival claimants. He was deposed in 623 BC by an Assyrian general ( turtanu ) named Sin-shumu-lishir (623–622 BC), who was also declared king of Babylon. Sin-shar-ishkun (622–612 BC), the brother of Ashur-etil-ilani, took back the throne of empire from Sin-shumu-lishir in 622 BC, but

11088-715: The time from the entrance of the Israelites into the Land of Israel until the Babylonian captivity of Judah (the "period of prophecy" ). Their distribution is not chronological, but substantive. The Former Prophets ( נביאים ראשונים Nevi'im Rishonim ): The Latter Prophets ( נביאים אחרונים Nevi'im Aharonim ): The Twelve Minor Prophets ( תרי עשר , Trei Asar , "The Twelve"), which are considered one book: Kəṯūḇīm ( כְּתוּבִים , "Writings") consists of eleven books. In Masoretic manuscripts (and some printed editions), Psalms, Proverbs and Job are presented in

11200-691: The tribes. He further increased Jerusalem's importance by bringing the Ark of the Covenant there from Shiloh ( 2 Samuel 6 ). David's son Solomon built the First Temple in Jerusalem. After Solomon's death, the united kingdom split into the northern Kingdom of Israel (also known as the Kingdom of Samaria) with its capital at Samaria and the southern Kingdom of Judah with its capital at Jerusalem. The Kingdom of Samaria survived for 200 years until it

11312-533: Was a vassal of the Assyrian king Shalmaneser IV (783–773 BC), who was otherwise occupied quelling a civil war in Assyria at the time. This was to set a precedent for all future Chaldean aspirations on Babylon during the Neo-Assyrian Empire ; always too weak to confront a strong Assyria alone and directly, the Chaldeans awaited periods when Assyrian kings were distracted elsewhere in their vast empire, or engaged in internal conflicts, then, in alliance with other powers stronger than themselves (usually Elam ), they made

11424-463: Was chiefly done by Aaron ben Moses ben Asher , in the Tiberias school, based on the oral tradition for reading the Tanakh, hence the name Tiberian vocalization . It also included some innovations of Ben Naftali and the Babylonian exiles . Despite the comparatively late process of codification, some traditional sources and some Orthodox Jews hold the pronunciation and cantillation to derive from

11536-628: Was conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BCE. The Kingdom of Judah survived for longer, but it was conquered by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. The Temple was destroyed, and many Judeans were exiled to Babylon . In 539 BCE, Babylon was conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia, who allowed the exiles to return to Judah . Between 520 and 515 BCE, the Temple was rebuilt (see Second Temple ) . Religious tradition ascribes authorship of

11648-474: Was followed by Shalmaneser V (727–722 BC), who also ruled Babylon in person. When Sargon II (722–705 BC) ascended the throne of the Assyrian Empire in 722 BC after the death of Shalmaneser V , he was forced to launch a major campaign in his subject states of Persia , Mannea and Media in Ancient Iran to defend his territories there. He defeated and drove out the Scythians and Cimmerians who had attacked Assyria's Persian and Median vassal colonies in

11760-542: Was in fact only the plain in the far southeast formed by the deposits of the Euphrates and the Tigris , extending about 640 kilometres (400 mi) along the course of these rivers and averaging about 160 km (100 mi) in width. There were several kings of Chaldean origins who ruled Babylonia. From 626 BC to 539 BC, a ruling family referred to as the Chaldean dynasty , named after their possible Chaldean origin, ruled

11872-497: Was more powerful and culturally advanced than the Kingdom of Judah. It also featured multiple cultic sites, including the sanctuaries at Bethel and Dan . Scholars estimate that the Jacob tradition (Genesis 25–35) was first written down in the 8th century BCE and probably originated in the north because the stories occur there. Based on the prominence given to the sanctuary at Bethel (Genesis 28), these stories were likely preserved and written down at that religious center. This means

11984-536: Was not grouped with the Prophets presumably because the Nevi'im collection was already fixed by this time. The Ketuvim was the last part of the Tanakh to achieve canonical status. The prologue to the Book of Sirach mentions "other writings" along with the Law and Prophets but does not specify the content. The Gospel of Luke refers to "the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms" ( Luke 24 :44). These references suggest that

12096-558: Was once more soundly defeated at Kish , and once again fled to Elam where he died in exile after one final failed attempt to raise a revolt against Assyria in 700 BC, this time not in Babylon, but in the Chaldean tribal land of Bit-Yâkin. A native Babylonian king named Bel-ibni (703–701 BC) was placed on the throne as a puppet of Assyria. The next challenge to Assyrian domination came from the Elamites in 694 BC, with Nergal-ushezib deposing and murdering Ashur-nadin-shumi (700–694 BC),

12208-491: Was the case for the earlier Amorites , Kassites and Suteans before them, by the time Babylon fell in 539 BC, perhaps before, the Chaldeans ceased to exist as a specific ethnic group . In the Hebrew Bible , " Ur of the Chaldees " ( Ur Kaśdim ) is cited as the starting point of the patriarch Abraham's journey to Canaan . Ancient Chaldeans originally spoke a West Semitic language similar to Old Aramaic . During

12320-457: Was then himself faced with unremitting rebellion against his rule by his own people. Continual conflict among the Assyrians led to a myriad of subject peoples, from Cyprus to Persia and The Caucasus to Egypt, quietly reasserting their independence and ceasing to pay tribute to Assyria. Nabopolassar , a previously obscure and unknown Chaldean chieftain, followed the opportunistic tactics laid down by previous Chaldean leaders to take advantage of

12432-460: Was then placed on the throne of Babylon to rule on behalf of Ashurbanipal. The next 22 years were peaceful, and neither the Babylonians nor Chaldeans posed a threat to the dominance of Ashurbanipal. However, after the death of the mighty Ashurbanipal (and Kandalanu) in 627 BC, the Neo-Assyrian Empire descended into a series of bitter internal dynastic civil wars that were to be the cause of its downfall. Ashur-etil-ilani (626–623 BC) ascended to

12544-401: Was used in some books of the Hebrew Bible (the Book of Daniel and the Book of Ezra ). The use of the name "Chaldean" (Chaldaic, Chaldee) to describe it, first introduced by Jerome of Stridon (d. 420), became common in early Aramaic studies , but that misnomer was later corrected, when modern scholars concluded that the Aramaic dialect used in the Hebrew Bible was not closely related to

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