Big Ideas · 3 · Deborah

Beware 'Israelite' versus 'non-Israelite'

Even scholars who see early Israelites as Canaanites often think in binaries and assume Judah always identified with Israel.

Don't project later identities onto the past.

Dig deeper

Most early inhabitants identified with family, clan, region, and town, not as twelve tribes descended from Jacob's sons.

Source: Why the Bible Began, pp. 50

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