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Israelites

The Israelites (; Hebrew: בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, Bənēy Yīsrāʾēl, transl. 'Children of Israel') were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan.The name of Israel first appears in the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt, dated to about 1200 BCE. Modern archaeology suggests that the Israelites branched out from the Canaanites through the development of a distinct monolatristic—and later monotheistic—religion centred on the national god Yahweh. Prior to this religious reform, the Israelites practiced Yahwism, a religion with animistic and polytheistic elements. They spoke an archaic form of the Hebrew language, which was a regional variety of the Canaanite language, known today as Biblical Hebrew. I… more »