There is only a single line about Israel: "Israel is wasted, bare of seed" or "Israel lies waste, its seed no longer exists" and very little about the region of Canaan. Israel was simply grouped together with three other defeated states in Canaan Gezer, Yanoam and Ashkelon in the stele. Merneptah inserts just a single stanza to the Canaanite campaigns but multiple stanzas to his defeat of the Libyans. The line referring to Merneptah's Canaanite campaign reads:.
Image Source: en. This reasoning, along with its implications for what it means for understanding the relevant biblical narratives, remains the same today. It has long been noted that the writing of Israel uses the determinative semantic indicator for an ethnic group, and not for a geographic region or city. This scenario is in complete agreement with the picture portrayed in the books of Joshua and Judges, viz. The same reasoning about the determinative can be found across the spectrum 18 , from very conservative 19 , conservative 20 , middle-of-the-road, 21 22 23 and even minimalist works As Miller points out, the people determinative is used on this same stele for places, specifically,.
A thorough examination of Egyptian scribal practice, however, shows the use of the determinative to be almost completely arbitrary… Within the Merneptah Stele itself, in lines 4—5 the Meshwesh, who are definitely a people, have the city-state determinative; in line 5 and line 10 the Libyan people rbw have the city-state determinative; and in lines 11 and 21 Libya Tjehenu [thnw] has both the people determinative and the city-state determinative.
So, where was it? That leaves the central hill country. Miller makes the same point:. The latter is more likely since, from archaeological surveys, it would seem that very few people were living in the hills of Canaan.
It is not impossible that Merneptah did battle with the few people who were living in the hills at that time. It would have been a short and one-sided battle! I suspect, however, that Israel was part of the lowland population. Is it merely a coincidence that most of the 13th—12th century B. Miller explains this better than I can:. According to Merneptah, defeating Israel was something worth writing home about.
Israel was no less significant than Ashkelon and Gezer, two of the more important city-states in Palestine at the time. This Israel was well enough established by that time among the other peoples of Canaan to have been perceived by Egyptian intelligence as a possible challenge to Egyptian hegemony.
It must have been a relatively big deal, at least in the context of Late Bronze Age Canaan. Available here. Let the record show that back when I was 13 years old I delivered the Yorkshire Post on my paper round — a short career that came to a sudden and abrupt end after sleeping in and missing my round. In a row. Yorkshire Post, April 10, , page 4, column 5. Petrie MSS 1. There has been a tremendous amount of scholarship on what the inscription says and how it should be translated.
For a summary of many of the issues and a sensible conclusion see Michael G. I am a follower of Jesus. I still have questions. Merneptah was a Pharaoh who ruled over Egypt in the late 13th century B. It was discovered by renowned British archaeologist Flinders Petrie at Thebes in The Merneptah Stele is significant to biblical archaeologists because it is the earliest extra-biblical reference to the nation of Israel yet to be discovered.
It indicates that at the time the inscription was engraved, the nation of Israel was significant enough to be included by name among the other major city-states which were defeated by Merneptah in the late 13th century B.
This implies that Israel was a major player in the region during the late 13th century, serving to corroborate to a degree the biblical narrative.
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