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67-714: The Tribe of Judah played a central role in the Deuteronomistic history , which encompasses the books of Deuteronomy through II Kings . After the death of King Solomon , the Tribe of Judah, along with the Tribe of Benjamin , the Tribe of Dan and the Levites formed the Southern Kingdom of Judah , with Jerusalem as its capital. The kingdom lasted until its conquest by Babylon in c. 586 BCE. The tribe's symbol

134-712: A 14th-century treatise, the " Kebre Negest ", assert descent from a retinue of Israelites who returned with the Queen of Sheba from her visit to King Solomon in Jerusalem , by whom she had conceived the Solomonic dynasty's founder, Menelik I . Both Christian and Jewish Ethiopian tradition has it that these immigrants were mostly of the Tribes of Dan and Judah; hence the Ge'ez motto Mo`a 'Anbessa Ze'imnegede Yihuda ("The Lion of

201-525: A descendant of Ephraim himself. However, many archeologists have abandoned the idea that Joshua carried out a conquest of Canaan similar to that described in the Book of Joshua, seeing Jews instead as indigenous Canaanites who developed a monotheistic religion over time. From Joshua to the formation of the first Kingdom of Israel , the Tribe of Ephraim was a part of a loose confederation of Israelite tribes. No central government existed, and in times of crisis

268-462: Is Jerusalem. It also shows a special concern for the poor, widows and the fatherless: all Israelites are brothers and sisters, and each will answer to God for his treatment of his neighbour. This concern for equality and humanity extends also to the stranger who lives among the Israelites. The stranger is often mentioned in tandem with the concern for the widow and the orphan. Furthermore, there

335-521: Is a specific commandment to love the stranger. Tribe of Ephraim According to the Hebrew Bible , the Tribe of Ephraim ( Hebrew : אֶפְרַיִם , ʾEp̄rayīm, in pausa: אֶפְרָיִם, ʾEp̄rāyīm ) was one of the tribes of Israel . The Tribe of Manasseh together with Ephraim formed the House of Joseph . It is one of the ten lost tribes . The etymology of the name is disputed. According to

402-513: Is blamed by the Bible on the jealousy of Ephraim over the growing power of Judah. In the Book of Chronicles , Ephraim's act of splintering from Judah is denounced as forsaking God, and Ephraim is portrayed as becoming highly irreligious, particularly in their resistance to the reforms enacted by Hezekiah and Josiah . It was not until the close of the first period of Jewish history that God 'refused

469-465: Is doubt about whether the biblical ordering for the reigns of the early monarchs is reliable, and that the sequence preserved in the Bible, in which David follows Saul as king of Israel, may not be historically accurate. However, on the accession of Rehoboam , David's grandson, in c. 930 BCE the northern tribes split from the House of David to form the northern Kingdom of Israel . The first king of

536-641: Is generally agreed that the Deuteronomistic history originated independently of the books of Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus and Numbers (based on the Priestly source and the Jahwist ), and independently of the historical Books of Chronicles . Most scholars trace all or most of Deuteronomistic history to the Babylonian captivity (6th century BCE), and associate it with editorial reworking of both

603-548: Is the tribe that embodies the Kingdom of Judah and provided its royal family). In the biblical account, following the completion of the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes. Kenneth Kitchen, a well-known conservative biblical scholar, dates this event to slightly after 1200 BC. However, the consensus of modern scholars is that the conquest of Joshua as described in

670-462: The Book of Jeremiah . The adjectives "Deuteronomic" and "Deuteronomistic" are sometimes used interchangeably; if they are distinguished, then the first refers to the core of Deuteronomy and the second to all of Deuteronomy and the history. The Deuteronomist is one of the sources identified through source criticism as underlying much of the Hebrew Bible . Among source-critical scholars, it

737-776: The Israelite tribes (the Jebusites still held Jerusalem ), Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes. Judah's portion is described in Joshua 15 as encompassing all the Southern Land of Israel , specially the Negev , the Wilderness of Zin and Jerusalem. However, the consensus of modern scholars is that this conquest never occurred. Other scholars point to extra-biblical references to Israel and Canaan as evidence for

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804-535: The Levites and Kohanim were preserved, but Jerusalem became the sole place of worship and sacrifice among the returning exiles, northerners and southerners alike. According to the biblical account, at its height, the tribe of Judah was the leading tribe of the Kingdom of Judah, and occupied most of the territory of the kingdom, except for a small region in the northeast occupied by Benjamin , and an enclave towards

871-528: The Telugu Jews claim descent from Ephraim, and call themselves Bene Ephraim , relating similar traditions to those of the Mizo Jews , whom the modern state of Israel regards as descendants of Manasseh. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that a significant portion of its members are descended from or adopted into the tribe of Ephraim, believing that they are charged with restoring

938-484: The "Jeremiah" Deuteronomists represent a distinct party from the "DtrH" Deuteronomists, with opposing agendas. Deuteronomy is conceived of as a covenant (a treaty) between the Israelites and Yahweh , who has chosen ("elected") the Israelites as his people and requires them to live according to his law. Israel is to be a theocracy with Yahweh as the divine suzerain . The law is to be supreme over all other sources of authority, including kings and royal officials, and

1005-508: The "united monarchy" are exaggerated, and a minority believe that the "united monarchy" never existed at all. Disagreeing with the latter view, Old Testament scholar Walter Dietrich contends that the biblical stories of circa 10th-century BCE monarchs contain a significant historical kernel and are not simply late fictions. On the accession of Rehoboam , Solomon 's son, in c. 930 BCE, the Ten Northern Tribes of Israel under

1072-409: The Bible, the Tribe of Ephraim is descended from a man named Ephraim, who is recorded as the son of Joseph, the son of Jacob, and Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera. The descendants of Joseph formed two of the tribes of Israel, whereas the other sons of Jacob were the founders of one tribe each. The Bible records that the Tribe of Ephraim entered the land of Canaan during its conquest by Joshua ,

1139-550: The Book of Jeremiah occurring some time before the end of the Exile (pre-539 BCE) – a process which also involved the prophetic books of Amos and Hosea . The biblical text records about the "authors" of the Deuteronomistic works that Jeremiah the prophet used scribes such as Baruch to accomplish his ends. It is also noteworthy that the Deuteronomistic History never mentions Jeremiah and some scholars believe that

1206-553: The Book of Joshua never occurred. As recorded in the Book of Joshua , the territory allocated to the Tribe of Ephraim was at the center of Canaan, west of the Jordan , south of the territory of Manasseh, and north of the Tribe of Benjamin . The region later named Samaria (as distinguished from Judea or Galilee ) consisted mostly of Ephraim's territory. The area was mountainous, giving it protection, and also highly fertile, giving prosperity, The territory of Ephraim contained

1273-584: The Book of Judges is a reliable historical account. The Book of Samuel describes God's repudiation of a monarchic line arising from the Southern Tribe of Benjamin due to the sinfulness of King Saul , which was then bestowed onto the tribe of Judah for all time in the person of King David . In Samuel's account, after the death of Saul, all the tribes other than Judah remained loyal to the House of Saul, while Judah chose David as its king. However, after

1340-654: The Exodus , and on arrival in Canaan was subjected to a disastrous battle with the Philistines ; in the Midrashic Jasher this is portrayed as a rebellion of Ephraim against God, resulting in the slaying of all but 10, and the bleached bones of the slaughtered being strewn across the roads, so much so that the circuitous route of the Exodus was simply an attempt by God to prevent the Israelites from having to suffer

1407-449: The House of David. These tribes formed the Kingdom of Judah , which existed until Judah was conquered by Babylon in c. 586 BCE and the population was deported. When the Jews returned from Babylonian exile , residual tribal affiliations were abandoned, probably because of the impossibility of reestablishing previous tribal land holdings. However, the special religious roles decreed for

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1474-531: The Israelite confederation. In the Biblical account, Joseph is one of the two children of Rachel and Jacob , a brother to Benjamin , and father to both Ephraim, and his first son, Manasseh ; although Manasseh was the eldest, Jacob foresaw that Ephraim's descendants would be greater than his brother's. Though the biblical descriptions of the geographic boundary of the House of Joseph are fairly consistent,

1541-548: The Israelites of Gilead. Ephraim was a member of the Northern Kingdom until the kingdom was conquered by Assyria in c. 723 BCE and the population deported. From that time, the Tribe of Ephraim has been counted as one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Ephraim is often seen as the tribe that embodies the entire Northern Kingdom and the royal house resided in the tribe's territory (just as Judah

1608-672: The Jordan River in the east to the Mediterranean Sea in the west, and incorporated within it the cities of Bethel (now Beitin ), ʻAtarot, Beth-Ḥoron the Nether (now Bayt ʻUr), extending as far as Gezer (now Abu Shûsheh , formerly known as Tell el Jezer ) and the Mediterranean Sea. Gezer was said to have been inhabited by Canaanites long after Joshua had either killed or expelled the other Canaanites. According to French archaeologist, Charles Clermont-Ganneau , who identified

1675-640: The Philistines, which was mourned by Ephraim and his brethren. This Ephraim was believed to be different from the more famous Ephraim and his brethren were believed to be the heads of other Israelite tribes. Professor Nili Wazana connects this with Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion 's argument for why the Jews were indigenous to Canaan, which was affirmed in the Israeli Declaration of Independence . Ben-Gurion argued that Abraham's migration to Canaan

1742-531: The Tetrateuch and Jeremiah . Since the mid-20th century, scholars have imagined the Deuteronomists as country Levites , a junior order of priests, or as prophets in the tradition of the northern Kingdom of Israel , or as sages and scribes at the royal court. Recent scholarship has interpreted the book as involving all these groups, and the origin and growth of Deuteronomism is usually described in

1809-436: The Tribe of Judah has conquered"), one of many names for Jesus of Nazareth. Deuteronomistic history The Deuteronomist , abbreviated as either Dtr or simply D , may refer either to the source document underlying the core chapters (12–26) of the Book of Deuteronomy , or to the broader "school" that produced all of Deuteronomy as well as the Deuteronomistic history of Joshua , Judges , Samuel , Kings , and also

1876-518: The death of Ish-bosheth , Saul's son and successor to the throne of Israel, all the other Israelite tribes made David, who was then the King of Judah, king of a single Re-United Kingdom of Israel. The Book of Kings follows the expansion and unparalleled glory of the United Monarchy under King Solomon . A majority of scholars believe that the accounts concerning David and Solomon's territory in

1943-597: The descriptions of the boundaries between Manasseh and Ephraim are not, and each is portrayed as having exclaves within the territory of the other. Furthermore, in the Blessing of Jacob , and elsewhere ascribed by textual scholars to a similar or earlier time period, Ephraim and Manasseh are treated as a single tribe, with Joseph appearing in their place. From this it is regarded as probable that originally Ephraim and Manasseh were considered one tribe — that of Joseph. According to several biblical scholars , Benjamin

2010-746: The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Many more Jews migrated to Babylon in CE 135 after the Bar Kokhba revolt and in the centuries after. The triumph or victory of "the Lion of the Tribe of Judah", who is able to open the scroll and its seven seals , forms part of the vision of the writer of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament. Ethiopia 's traditions, recorded and elaborated in

2077-403: The early centers of Israelite religion - Shechem and Shiloh . These factors contributed to making Ephraim the most dominant of the tribes in the Kingdom of Israel , and led to Ephraim becoming a synonym for the entire kingdom. Joshua 16:1-4 outlines the borders of the lands allocated to the "children of Joseph", i.e. Ephraim and Manasseh combined, and Joshua 16:5-8 defines the borders of

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2144-523: The following terms: Deuteronomy was formed by a complex process that reached probably from the 7th century BCE to the early 5th. It consists of a historical prologue; an introduction; the Deuteronomic Code followed by blessings and curses; and a conclusion. The book's core is the law code (chapters 12–26). 2 Kings 22 – 23 tells how a "Book of the Law," commonly identified with the law code,

2211-673: The king, particularly Hezekiah . After the Assyrians destroyed their cities, survivors fled to Jerusalem and fully assimilated with the inhabitants by 538 BC, when the Babylonian exiles returned to Jerusalem. Many of the Jewish leaders and prophets of the Hebrew Bible claimed membership in the tribe of Judah. For example, the literary prophets Isaiah , Amos , Joel , Micah , Obadiah , Zechariah , and Zephaniah , all belonged to

2278-399: The land allocated to the tribe of Ephraim in more detail. Bethel was allocated by Joshua to the Tribe of Benjamin. However, even by the time of the prophetess Deborah , Bethel is described as being in the land of the Tribe of Ephraim. Some twenty years after the breakup of the United Monarchy , Abijah , the second king of Kingdom of Judah , defeated Jeroboam of Israel and took back

2345-548: The last five years an increasing number of commentators have expressed grave doubts about fundamental tenets of Noth's classic study." The prose sermons in the Book of Jeremiah are written in a style and outlook closely akin to, yet different from, the Deuteronomistic history. Scholars differ over how much of the book is from Jeremiah himself and how much from later disciples, but the Swiss scholar Thomas Römer has recently identified two Deuteronomistic "redactions" (editings) of

2412-667: The late 1960s. In 1968, Frank Moore Cross made an important revision, suggesting that the history was first written in the late 7th century BCE as a contribution to King Josiah of Judah 's program of reform (the Dtr1 version), and only later revised and updated by Noth's 6th-century author (Dtr2). Dtr1 saw Israel's history as a contrast between God's judgment on the sinful northern Kingdom of Israel of Jeroboam I , who set up golden calves to be worshiped in Bethel and Dan, and virtuous Judah, where faithful king David had reigned and where now

2479-537: The leadership of Jeroboam from the Tribe of Ephraim split from the House of David to create the Northern Kingdom in Samaria . The Book of Kings is uncompromising in its low opinion of its larger and richer neighbor to the north and understands its conquest by Assyria in 722 BCE as divine retribution for the Kingdom's return to idolatry. The Tribes of Judah, Southern Dan and Benjamin remained loyal to

2546-401: The lost tribes in the latter days , as prophesied by Isaiah . Along with members of the tribe of Judah , members of the tribe of Ephraim are believed to be playing an important leadership roles for covenant Israel in the last days. They also believe that the main groups of the Book of Mormon ( Nephites and Lamanites ) were parts of the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, as part fulfilment of

2613-462: The northern kingdom was an Ephraimite, Jeroboam , who likely ruled in 931–909 BCE. The accents of the tribes were distinctive enough even at the time of the confederacy so that when the Israelites of Gilead , under the leadership of Jephthah , fought the Tribe of Ephraim, their pronunciation of shibboleth as sibboleth was considered sufficient evidence to single out individuals from Ephraim, so that they could be subjected to immediate death by

2680-486: The people were led by ad hoc leaders known as Judges (see the Book of Judges ). With the growth of the threat from Philistine incursions, the Israelite tribes decided to form a strong centralised monarchy to meet the challenge. The Tribe of Ephraim joined the new kingdom with Saul as the first king. The widely accepted date for Saul's reign is approximately 1025–1005 BCE. Some scholars dispute this date range and place Saul later, perhaps as late as "the second half of

2747-553: The potential historicity of the conquest. In the opening words of the Book of Judges , following the death of Joshua , the Israelites "asked the Lord" which tribe should be first to go to occupy its allotted territory, and the Tribe of Judah was identified as the first tribe. According to the narrative in the Book of Judges, the Tribe of Judah invited the Tribe of Simeon to fight with them in alliance to secure each of their allotted territories. However, many scholars do not believe that

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2814-496: The prophets are the guardians of the law: prophecy is instruction in the law as given through Moses, the law given through Moses is the complete and sufficient revelation of the Will of God, and nothing further is needed. Under the covenant, Yahweh promised the Israelites the land of Canaan , but the promise was conditional: they would lose the land if they were unfaithful. The Deuteronomistic history explains successes and failures as

2881-511: The result of faithfulness, which brings success, or disobedience, which brings failure; the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 721 BCE and the Kingdom of Judah by the Babylonians in 586 BCE are Yahweh's punishment for continued sinfulness. Deuteronomy insists on the centralisation of worship "in the place that the Lord your God will choose"; Deuteronomy never says where this place will be, but Kings makes it clear that it

2948-491: The righteous Josiah was reforming the kingdom. The exilic Dtr2 supplemented Dtr1's history with warnings of a broken covenant, an inevitable punishment and exile for the sinful (in Dtr2's view) Kingdom of Judah . Cross's "dual redaction" model is probably the most widely accepted, but a considerable number of European scholars prefer an alternative model put forward by Rudolf Smend and his pupils. This approach holds that Noth

3015-402: The sight of the remains. Though from the point of view of an increasing majority of archaeologists, there were always two distinct cultures in Canaan, a strong and prosperous northern kingdom and a weaker and poorer southern one, in the Biblical account the Israelite tribes were initially united in a single kingdom, and only later fractured into the northern and southern kingdoms; this fracture

3082-469: The site in 1871 and later carried out excavations there, Gezer marked the extreme western point of the territory of Ephraim, and was "situated at the actual intersection of the boundaries of Ephraim, Dan and Judah." This view, however, does not seem to be supported by the Scriptures themselves which place the extent of Ephraim's border at the sea. Spanish-Jewish traveller Benjamin of Tudela wrote that

3149-499: The south-west which was occupied by Simeon . Bethlehem and Hebron were initially the main cities within the territory of the tribe. The size of the territory of the tribe of Judah meant that in practice it had four distinct regions: According to the Torah , the Tribe consisted of Descendants of Judah , the fourth son of Jacob and of Leah . Some biblical scholars view this as an etiological myth created in hindsight to explain

3216-593: The southern kingdom being too far away to be involved in the battle, but Israel Finkelstein et al. claim the alternative explanation that the southern kingdom was simply an insignificant rural backwater at the time the poem was written. Professor Aaron Demsky argues that the genealogical record of Shelah and his sons was an allegory of the history of Shelanite clans in Shephelah (i.e. Judean foothills). These clans established cities such as Lecah (or Lachish ) and Mareshah . They also worked as potters and craftsmen for

3283-419: The southernmost bounds of the territory of Ephraim extended in a south-westerly direction as far as the town of Ibelin or Jabney . According to the Torah , the tribe consisted of descendants of Ephraim a son of Joseph , from whom it took its name; however some critical scholars view this also as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in

3350-531: The story of Jacob's visit to Laban to obtain a wife began as a metaphor for the second migration, with Jacob's new family, possessions, and livestock, obtained from Laban, being representations of the new wave of migrants; Professor David Frankel believes that ancient traditions regarding pre-conquest Ephraimite settlement in Canaan were unintentionally preserved in biblical passages such as 1 Chronicles 7:20-24. In 1 Chronicles 7:20-24, Ephraim's descendants, Ezer and Elead, were Canaanite residents who were killed by

3417-602: The tabernacle of Joseph (Hebrew Bible), and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah, the Mount Zion which he loved'. When the Ark was removed from Shiloh to Zion the power of Ephraim was sequestered. As part of the Kingdom of Israel , the territory of Ephraim was conquered by the Assyrians , and the tribe was mostly exiled; some in the tribe managed to flee to the Kingdom of Judah , which lay just south of

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3484-437: The tenth century B.C.E." After the death of Saul, the Bible records all the tribes other than Judah remained loyal to the House of Saul. After the death of Ishbosheth , Saul's son and successor to the throne of Israel, the Tribe of Ephraim joined the other northern Israelite tribes in making David , who was then the king of Judah, the king of a reunited Kingdom of Israel . According to archaeologist Israel Finkelstein , there

3551-453: The territory of Ephraim. In any case, the manner of their exile and/or dispersal led to their further history being lost . However, several modern day groups claim descent, with varying levels of academic and rabbinical support. The Samaritans claim that some of their adherents are descended from this tribe, and many Persian Jews claim to be descendants of Ephraim. Further afield, in India

3618-525: The towns of Bethel , Jeshanah and Ephron , with their surrounding villages. Ephron is believed to be the Ophrah that was also allocated to the Tribe of Benjamin by Joshua. The riverine gulch , naḥal Ḳanah (Joshua 17:9) , divided Ephraim's territory to the south, and Manasseh's territory to the north. The modern Israeli town of Karnei Shomron is built near this gulch, which runs in an easterly-westerly direction. The border of Ephraim extended from

3685-427: The tribe's name and connect it to the other tribes in the Israelite confederation. With Leah as a matriarch, biblical scholars regard the tribe as having been believed by the text's authors to have been part of the original Israelite confederation. Like the other tribes of the Kingdom of Judah, the Tribe of Judah is entirely absent from the ancient Song of Deborah . Traditionally, this has been explained as being due to

3752-520: The tribe. The genealogies given in Matthew 1:1–6 and Luke 3:23–34 in the New Testament describe Jesus as a Descendant of David, Matthew through Solomon and Luke through Nathan . As part of the Kingdom of Judah, the tribe of Judah survived the destruction of Israel by the Assyrians , and instead was subjected to the Babylonian captivity ; when the captivity ended, the distinction between

3819-573: The tribes were lost in favour of a common identity. Since Simeon and Benjamin had been very much the junior partners in the Kingdom of Judah, it was Judah that gave its name to the identity—that of the Jews . After the fall of Jerusalem, Babylonia (modern-day Iraq), would become the focus of Judaism for 1,000 years. The first Jewish communities in Babylonia started with the exile of the tribe of Judah to Babylon by Jehoiachin in 597 BCE as well as after

3886-494: The work of a single 6th-century BCE author/compiler seeking to explain recent events (the fall of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile ) using the theology and language of the Book of Deuteronomy . The author used his sources with a heavy hand, depicting Joshua as a grand, divinely guided conquest, Judges as a cycle of rebellion and salvation, and the story of the kings as recurring disaster due to disobedience to God. A series of studies that modified Noth's original concept began in

3953-486: The worship of Yahweh featured prominently in the Deuteronomistic history , encompassing the books of Deuteronomy through II Kings , which most scholars agree was reduced to written form, although subject to exilic and post-exilic alterations and emendations, during the reign of the Judahite reformer Josiah from 641–609 BCE. According to the account in the Book of Joshua , following a partial conquest of Canaan by

4020-435: Was a "renuion with indigenous Hebrews who shared his theological belief" and that not all Hebrews joined Jacob's family when they migrated to Egypt. In the account of the deuteronomic history , Ephraim is portrayed as domineering, haughty, discontented, and jealous, but in classical rabbinical literature , the biblical founder of the tribe is described as being modest and not selfish. These rabbinical sources allege that it

4087-547: Was added during Josiah's time, thus creating the earliest version of Deuteronomy as a book, and the historical prologue (chapters 1–4:43) was added still later to turn Deuteronomy into an introduction to the entire Deuteronomistic history (Deuteronomy to Kings). The term was coined in 1943 by the German biblical scholar Martin Noth to explain the origin and purpose of Joshua , Judges , Samuel , and Kings . These, he argued, were

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4154-484: Was also originally part of the House of Joseph , but the biblical account of this became lost; Benjamin being differentiated by being that part of Ephraim (House of Joseph) which joined the Kingdom of Judah rather than that of Israel . A number of biblical scholars suspect that the Joseph tribes (including Benjamin) represent a second migration of Israelites to Israel, later than the main tribes, specifically that it

4221-461: Was found in the Temple in Jerusalem during the reign of Josiah . According to the story in 2 Kings, reading the book caused Josiah to embark on a series of religious reforms, and it has been suggested that it was written to validate this program. Notwithstanding, it is generally accepted that at least some of the laws are much earlier than Josiah. The introduction to the code (chapters 4:44–11:32)

4288-479: Was on account of modesty and selflessness, and a prophetic vision of Joshua, that Jacob gave Ephraim precedence over Manasseh, the elder of the two; in these sources, Jacob is regarded as sufficiently just that God upholds the blessing in his honour, and makes Ephraim the leading tribe. Nevertheless, other classical rabbinical texts mock the tribe for the character it has in the deuteronomic history, claiming that Ephraim, being headstrong, left Egypt 30 years prior to

4355-516: Was only the Joseph tribes which went to Egypt and returned , while the main Israelite tribes simply emerged as a subculture from the Canaanites and had remained in Canaan throughout; in the narrative in the Book of Joshua , which concerns the arrival in (and conquest of) Canaan by the Israelites from Egypt, the leader is Joshua , who was a member of the Ephraim tribe. According to this view,

4422-434: Was right to locate the composition of the history in the 6th century, but that further redactions took place after the initial composition, including a "nomistic" (from the Greek word for "law"), or DtrN, layer, and a further layer concerned with the prophets, abbreviated as DtrP. For a time, the Deuteronomistic history enjoyed "canonical" status in biblical studies. However, writing in 2000, Gary N. Knoppers noted that "in

4489-415: Was the lion, and it was often represented in Jewish art. After the Babylonian captivity , the distinction between the Tribes was largely lost, but the term "Judah" gave rise to the word " Jews " In later traditions, including Christianity and Ethiopian Judaism, the " Lion of the Tribe of Judah " became a messianic symbol. The tribe of Judah, its conquests, and the centrality of its capital in Jerusalem for

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