If the Israelites conquered Canaan, can they — and their descendants — really be considered indigenous?
ARE NATIVE AND INDIGENOUS INTERCHANGEABLE TERMS?
Though the two are often used interchangeably, the answer is no, not always.
Indigenous nations are those who’ve maintained a pre-imperialist, pre-colonial identity. That means that they still collectively identify as their ancestors did before their land was conquered by foreign powers.
Indigenous peoples have:
- Historical continuity with pre-settler societies
- Strong links to their ancestral territories
- Distinct social, economic, and political systems that predate foreign conquest and colonization
- Distinct language, culture, and beliefs that predate foreign conquest and colonization
Native, on the other hand, broadly describes people who are “from” a particular place, though some Indigenous are described as “native” (e.g. Native Americans).
TWO NARRATIVES OF ISRAELITE ORIGINS
To adequately answer the question on the second slide, we must first understand that there are ultimately two narratives regarding the origins of the ancient Israelites.
First, of course, there is the Biblical narrative.
- Abraham travels from Mesopotamia to the Land of Canaan.
- His grandson, Jacob, becomes the patriarch of the twelve Israelite tribes.
- When a famine ravages Canaan, the Israelites travel to Egypt, where they later become enslaved.
- Moses leads the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and they wander the desert before returning to Canaan.
- With Joshua as their leader, the Israelites conquer the Land of Canaan from the Canaanites.
Then there is the secular historical narrative, which uses modern archeology, genetics, and other similar fields to draw its conclusions.
WHAT CONTEMPORARY HISTORIANS CAN CORROBORATE...
Sometimes, the secular historical narrative appears to almost perfectly corroborate the Biblical narrative. Other times, we don’t have enough information to draw conclusions. And, in a few cases, the secular historical narrative seems to contradict the Biblical narrative...at least, until we dig a bit deeper.
"The Torah is entirely “true” – the precise words of the G-d of truth. The question is only if G-d intended His words to be understood as literal truth or at times more figuratively."
-- Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld
The first extra-Biblical mention of Israel is found in the Merneptah Stele, dated to the Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah in 1208 BCE. The hieroglyphics used suggest that the “Israel” in question is a distinct people in the hill country of Canaan, though not a fixed city-state or kingdom. This seems to perfectly corroborate the Torah narrative, in which the Israelite tribes coalesced into a loose confederation sometime between 1250 and 1030 BCE.
...AND WHAT THEY CAN'T
On the other hand, secular historians have yet to be able to corroborate the story of an Israelite invasion of Canaan. The secular historic consensus, then, is that the Israelites emerged as an offshoot Canaanite group.
- To date, no archeological evidence has been found to suggest there was an Israelite invasion of Canaan.
- DNA extractions from Israelite skeletons show that they were genetically cohesive with the rest of the Canaanite population.
- People with Jewish ancestry share at least half of their genetic ancestry with the ancient Canaanites.
- The Israelites spoke Hebrew, which is a Canaanite language.
"Thus said the Sovereign G-D to Jerusalem: By origin and birth you are from the land of the Canaanites—your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite."
-- Ezekiel 16:3
A BIT OF HISTORIC CONTEXT
Egypt occupied Canaan from 1550 to 1125 BCE. They then installed cruel, oppressive vassal Canaanite rulers to work on their behalf.
Interestingly, the Merneptah Stele (1208 BCE) describes the Egyptian suppression of a revolt in Canaan.
Some historians theorize that the story of the Israelite conquest of Canaan aggrandizes the story of an Israelite rebellion against those Canaanite vassal kings of Egypt.
Because the story was orally passed down from generation to generation, and because all ancient nations were prone to hyperbole when they described their origins as a nation, some of the factual details may have been lost, but the narrative still retained memories of reality.
HISTORICAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL CONTEXT
To really understand the Israelites and their origins as a people, it is really helpful to zoom out and take a look at other nearby Near Eastern civilizations of the time period.
All ancient nations in Israel’s vicinity had foundational narratives that blurred the lines between mythology and history. These were usually grandiose narratives, often involving glorious conquests. The ancient Assyrians told the story of 17 kings who lived in tents, which is likely a reference to the semi-nomadic tribes that predated the physical city-state of Ashur.
In the Babylonian narrative, the most important Babylonian deity, Marduk, defeated Tiamat’s army and went on to establish Babylon.
The Trojan War as described in Greek mythology likely didn’t happen, but it probably derived from true stories of Greek wars over trade and territory.
What’s actually unique about the Israelite origin story is that it starts with slavery, rather than strength.
"IT WAS PROMISED TO THEM 3,000 YEARS AGO"
Since October 7, “it was promised to them 3,000 years ago” has turned into a viral meme mocking the Jewish ancestral claim to the Land of Israel, framing it as a manifestation of religious supremacy.
In fact, what these users are actually revealing is their astounding ignorance about ancient Near Eastern indigenous nations.
Because here’s the thing: the idea for ancient nations that their land was a gift from their diety(ies) was practically universal.
- The Babylonians believed their supreme deity, Marduk, assigned the city of Babylon to the Babylonian kings.
- The Assyrians believed their supreme deity, Ashur, granted them the Assyrian homeland.
- The Ancient Egyptians believed that the Nile River and the fertile Nile Valley were a gift from the gods.
- The Ancient Greeks believed that their city-state patron deity had either gifted or won their city-states for them through conquest.
The difference, of course, is that many of these ancient nations no longer exist, or if they do exist, they’ve long adopted other universalizing religious frameworks, like Christianity.
Jews, on the other hand, still subscribe to our ancient indigenous tradition.
What proponents of the viral meme demonstrate is disdain and bias against ancient indigenous traditions.
ARE JEWS TODAY DESCENDED FROM THE ISRAELITES?
Yes. Not only do the majority of Jews demonstrate clear genetic descent from the ancient Israelites, but we, along with Samaritans, are the only group to have maintained cultural continuity with the Israelites, as evidenced through our language, religious beliefs, laws, cultural practices, and more.
- Jews, irrespective of their Diaspora community (e.g. Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi, etc.), are more closely related to each other and to other Levantine populations than to their host countries.
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Ashkenazi, Sephardi, and Mizrahi Kohanim (i.e. descendants from the Israelite priestly class) are closely genetically related in spite of thousands of years of physical separation, with many sharing a distinct set of genetic markers known as the Cohen Modal Haplotype.
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Their genetic proximity suggests they descend from the same group of male founders who lived in the Near East some 3,000 to 3,300 years ago, aligning with the Biblical narrative.
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Samaritans, who, unlike most Jews, were never displaced from the Land of Israel, also share the Cohen Modal Haplotype...with the exception of Samaritan Kohanim.
The reason for the discrepancy is that the original Samaritan priestly family died out in the 17th century.
AS FOR THE CANAANITES...
In Israel-Palestine identity wars, the purported Israelite invasion of Canaan has become a cause for the delegitimization of the Jewish claim of indigeneity.
But irrespective of the Torah vs. secular historical narrative, it’s important to understand who the Canaanites actually were.
The Canaanites were never a cohesive civilization or nation, but rather, “Canaanite” is simply a catch-all term for a variety of polytheistic, rival city-states and tribal groups that lived in Canaan during the Bronze Age. Canaan spread out from the Sinai in the south to what is now Lebanon and Syria in the north.
The Israelites became a nation in the Land of Israel. They did not forcefully impose an outside Mesopotamian or Egyptian identity on an indigenous Canaanite nation. Their language, customs, spiritual beliefs, and laws arose from the Land of Israel, though naturally, like all civilizations, they also absorbed some outside cultural influences.
"Jews are the only people who ever created a nation state there. At all other times in the past 3,000 years it was merely an administrative district in an empire whose centre was elsewhere: the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Alexandrian, Roman and Byzantine empires, the Crusaders of the Holy Roman Empire, the various Muslim empires such as the Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids, Mamluks and Ottomans, and finally the British. Jews are the only people who have maintained a continuous presence in the land. They are its indigenous, original inhabitants."
-- Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks
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