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What brought on the end of the Egyptian domination of Canaan that paved the way for the emergence of the Israelites.

Israelite Origins: the Late Bronze Age collapse 10 minute read Toggle Menu Series: Israelite Origins 1. An introduction 2. The Sunday School version 3. Putting away childish things 4. Biblical counter-narratives 5. Late Date Exodus 6. Working backwards 7. Egyptian domination of Canaan 8. The Late Bronze Age collapse 9. Population decline and explosion 10. The Merneptah Stele 11. Asher & Judah 12. The Song of Deborah At around 1200 BCE, during what is now seen as the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age, the eastern Mediterranean world suffered mass societal collapse. In his excellent 1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed Eric Cline sums up just how serious the chaos was: The magnitude of the catastrophe was enormous; it was a loss such as the world would not see again until the Roman Empire collapsed more than fifteen hundred years later.1 Far from being a few squabbles between some knuckle-dragging savages on the edge of some desert somewhere, the Late Bronze Age collapse resulted in the disintegration of international trade, the end of dynasties, and an entirely new world order prompted by mass migration. Far over the sea from Canaan, the Mycenaean civilization suffered a systems collapse that began its Dark Ages. Osborne writes: The Mycenaean world ended with a bang and a whimper. Around 1200 BC several of the major Mycenaean centres in the Peloponnese and in central Crete show signs of violent destruction, fire, or abandonment.2 There were two main results of this chaotic period in Greece. The first is a contraction. As Osborne continues, “…no big buildings, no multiple graves, no impersonal communication, limited contact with a wider world… not only the political units, but also the whole social and economic organization broke up”.3 This enlightened corner of a previously cosmopolitan Mediterranean world became a rural backwater. The second big effect of the Mycenaean collapse was the migration of a large portion of its people eastward to places like Cyprus4, but also to Hittite lands across the Aegean sea: Towards the end of the second millennium, boatloads of travellers from mainland Greece began making landfalls along Anatolia’s western coast. They were not warriors but family groups who had departed their homelands, perhaps to escape troubled conditions there following the collapse of the major centres of power in the Greek world at the end of the Bronze Age.5 The Hittite civilization was not spared in the Late Bronze Age collapse. Their capital Hattusa, was captured, plundered, and razed.6 Before this, the Hittite empire had been in decline. It had suffered repeated attacks from outside its borders, internal rebellion, secession, and famine.7 Collins writes that the famine had caused the tribute of Hittite vassals to increase dramatically and that, The resulting inflation, combined with food shortages, meant that its people were forced to sell their children… It probably took years, but the dam finally broke, and starving peasants abandoned their villages in droves to seek more favorable conditions by land or sea.8 The effects of this societal collapse were extraordinary. Collins goes on to explain that, Moreover, the south-coastal regions of Anatolia –Caria, Lycia, and Cilicia– were notorious for their piratical activities… The famine that ravaged Anatolia probably turned these scattered raids into vast population movements involving not disenfranchised militants on a pillaging rampage but entire families turned to a marauding lifestyle in the search for new places to settle. For the most part a disorganized and heterogeneous collection of peoples, they were as much victims of as they were contributors to the circumstances that brought the Bronze Age in the Near East to an end.9 Just as had been the effect of the Mycenaean collapse, the Hittite people began mass migration as a result of the end of their civilization. To the south of the Hittites, Ugarit, a shining beacon of Late Bronze Age culture, did not escape. Writing of those responsible for the end of Ugarit, today are referred to as the “Sea Peoples”, Yon explains they “were probably groups of invaders from the north-west who attacked [Ugarit] in several waves over a period of years.”10 The outcome of this was, …the kingdom and its culture simply collapsed under this pressure, never to be revived. The capital… was seized, set ablaze, and abandoned. The political and administrative structures linked to the royal power did not survive the capital, and the government and civilization disappeared.11 Further south again, these same Sea People first attacked the Nile delta around 1208 BCE, during the reign of Pharaoh Merneptah (of the oft-mentioned Merneptah Stele).12 Over the next 30 years or so wave after wave of this new enemy arrived on Egypt’s shore. The Year Eight Inscription of Ramses III13 Ramses III in his Year 8 inscription recalls his victory over the Sea People, describing how his enemy had decimated many places be...