Key Takeaways
The existence of the 12 tribes of Israel is central to the narration of the Hebrew Bible ( recognise to Christians as the Old Testament ) . The clan were named after the 12 sons of the patriarch Jacob and believed to be their direct descendants . As God ’s masses escaped thraldom in Egypt , wandered the desert for 40 eld and eventually conquered and settled the " promised country " of Canaan , they did it all as phallus of these 12 key tribes .
scholar long assumed that the scriptural story of the 12 tribes of Israel were based on ancient diachronic events transmit through oral history . After all , the Hebrew Bible repeatedly place the kin group front and center in its business relationship of Israelite and Judaic history . Tribal distinctions must have been a immense part of the ethnic and religious identity element of these ancient peoples .
But over the past few decades , as more historians and archeologists openly question the historical accuracy of the Bible , a new picture of the 12 kindred of Israel has come forth .
" While it ’s likely that there were some tribe in early Israel , I do n’t know if there were 12 , and it ’s hard to say what role they really played , " saysAndrew Tobolowsky , a religious studies prof at the College of William & Mary . " There were certainly time when tribal affiliations were important , but probably not nearly as important as the Bible makes them out to be . "
The Birth (Literally) of the 12 Tribes
The 12 tribes of Israel are introduced in the book ofGenesis , home to all of the famed descent stories from the Hebrew Bible ( the Creation , Adam and Eve , Noah ’s Ark , etc . ) . One of those stories concerns Jacob , the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham . Jacob marries two sis , Leah and Rachel , and sire children with both women ( as well as with two of their servant , Zilpah and Bilhah ) .
According to Genesis , here are the name of Jacob ’s Word from old to young :
InGenesis 32 , Jacob wrestles with God ( or an angel ) and is blessed with a fresh name : Israel ( mean " he struggles with God " ) . From that metre onward , the sons of Jacob become the " sons of Israel , " and all of Jacob ’s posterity become known as the " children of Israel " or " Israelites . "
But when are thesonsof Israel ( Jacob ) first called the 12tribesof Israel ? InGenesis 49 , Jacob has grown old and is about to die , so he gathers all of his sons to give them individual approval . While Jacob only explicitly blesses Dan to become a " tribe of Israel , " after all the blessings are enounce , the text say , " All these are the twelve tribes of Israel . "
To obscure matter , Tobolowsky saysthere are more than 20 tribal listsin the Hebrew Bible and not all of them are the same . In some , for deterrent example , two kinship group named after Joseph ’s sons , Ephraim and Manasseh , supersede the folk of Joseph ( yes , supervene upon one kin with others named for the two sons makes 13 tribes ) . One account in the Quran of Numbers is that God only allotted farming in Canaan to 12 of the 13 tribe . The tribe of Levi was set asunder as the priestly tribe , and instead of receiving land they received offerings from the other tribes .
In the biblical narrative , the 12 sons and their families have to leave Canaan and settle in Egypt to avoid a famine . Over a 400 - year geological period , the Egyptians enslave them , but eventually , a man named Moses head their descendants back to Canaan after they contend many battles . The area that was Canaan cover the New state of Israel , the West Bank and Gaza , Jordan , and the southern fate of Syria and Lebanon , accord to the University of Pennsylvania Museum .
If you continue to follow the chronology of the Hebrew Bible , the identity operator of the 12 tribes of Israel is n’t stable . Some tribes are shuffled around by internal political water parting and others are " lose " to outside invasions .
Northern Kingdom vs. Southern Kingdom
Under King David , the Bible tell us , all 12 tribes of Israel were under one land as the " united monarchy . " That unification continued under King Solomon , whose wealthiness and power the Bible describes as unmatched in the ancient world .
But after Solomon ’s end , there was a violent rent between the northern realm of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah . Here ’s how the tribes were divided geographically and politically under those two kingdoms :
Israel ( Northern Tribes )
Judah ( Southern Tribes )
In 722 B.C.E. , the Assyrians intrude on the northern realm of Israel for go to pay tribute . According to the Bible , all the tribe in the northern kingdom were take away into bondage , and their Din Land were occupied by outsider . This is the origin of the " lost tribes of Israel , " who were scattered in places like Assyria and Media ( now division of Turkey , Syria , Iraq and Iran ) and who lost their tribal and religious identity over time through assimilation ( or who maintained their Judaic identity in secret ) .
In 586 B.C.E. , the southerly kingdom of Judah was infest by the Babylonians , who sacked Solomon ’s magnificent synagogue in Jerusalem and carried off the remaining tribe into exile . When the Persians defeated the Babylonians and provide the mass to come back and rebuild the temple , they were simply have it off as the people of Judah ( or Judahites ) , which is where we get our word Judaism .
Who Wrote the Hebrew Bible?
If you ’re a effortless lector of the Bible , you might assume that it was publish in chronological order . significance , Genesis was written first , then Exodus , Leviticus , etc . , all the fashion through the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament .
But when biblical student show the textbook close , they find convincing evidence — in the grammar , Bible option and national contradictions — that the books of the Bible were not only writtenoutof order , but by different authors with their own religious and political agendas .
When it come to the Pentateuch ( the first five books of the Hebrew Bible , known as the Torah is Judaism ) , the traditional possibility is thatthere were four writer : the Elohist ( who calls GodElohim ) , the Yahwist ( who calls GodYahweh ) , the Priestly author ( from Jerusalem in Judah , also known as the Judahite ) and the Deuteronomist ( who wrote Deuteronomy ) . But those four writer did n’t share writing duties as .
" It was the Judahites who wrote most of the Pentateuch and were creditworthy for place it together , " says Tobolowsky . " The Priestly writer is usually reckon as the last and most important author , and there are a number of ground we think he , or more likely they , were Judahites , including a lot of rules for spiritual praxis that are by and by described as occurring only at the Jerusalem synagogue . "
Tobolowsky argue that the whole concept of the " kindred of Israel " ( whether 12 or more or few ) also originated in the firm northern realm of Israel and was adopted much later by the Judahites and the Priestly author .
One of his key pieces of evidence is the so - called " Song of Deborah " in Judges 5 . Because of its ancient soma of Hebrew , scholars think that the " Song of Deborah " is one of the oldest textual matter in the Hebrew Bible , dating back to the 12th century B.C.E. In the text edition , the prophetess Deborah recounts a historic battle and names the folk of Israel who participated . Notably absent from this earliest tribal lean are Judah and Simeon , the principal tribes of the land of Judah .
For Tobolowsky , this ancient textual matter is a clue that " in the early period , the people of Judah would n’t have needs thought of themselves as Israelites . " Tobolowsky has found supporting evidence in other tribal lists ( like " Moses ’s Blessing " in Deuteronomy 33 ) where he believes the Priestly authorlater addedreferences to Judah and Simeon .
Why Did the Judahites Adopt the 12 Tribes?
By the meter the Priestly source were writing and collect books like Genesis and Exodus , the Assyrians had already destroyed the powerful northern realm and the Babylonians had have the southerly kingdom captive . The Priestly generator would have been extremely motivated to write a history of the " tiddler of Israel " in which Judah was central to the narration of the 12 tribes of Israel from the very beginning .
" The innovation of a ' 12 tribes ' tradition that also included Judah and its tribes was probably part of Judah ’s later crusade to limit itself as Israel , " say Tobolowsky , who wrote all about this identity shift in his Scripture " The Myth of the Twelve Tribes of Israel : New Identities Across Time and Space . " " What we have in the Bible is certainly an elaboration on earlier traditions . The question is , how much did the authors of the Bible elaborate ? "
Tobolowsky work as far as theorizing that the Judahites and their Priestly source " invented the canonical conception of Jacob as the ascendant of all the clan " as a way of creating a"Panisraelite " identitythat not only include Judah , but gave it a place of prominence .
