QUESTIONS

1 DISCUSS HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY, GEOGRAPHY AND

TOPOGRAPHY OF ANCIENT NEAR EAST.
2. DISCUSS AND DRAW MAJOR CITIES TO LOCATE.
3. DISCUSS AND DRAW THE ORIGIN OF ISRAEL.
4. DISCUSS AND DRAW THE HITTITE EMPIRE.
5. DISCUSS AND DRAW ROMAN EMPIRE.

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 1. Discuss historical geography, geography and
topography of ancient near east.
Understanding the geographical references in a particular biblical text
can sometimes make a significant difference in understanding the point
the author is making. Similarly, having an understanding of the historical
circumstances under which a text was written as well as the history about
which it speaks can make a dramatic difference in how you understand
the author’s comments.
This chapter provides a very basic overview of some of the information
you will need in order to understand the remainder of this book. Later
chapters expand on the information presented here and in some cases
revise it as we see reasons to make dates and locations more precise.

Geography
It is useful to understand the topography of the land mass at the eastern
end of the Mediterranean Sea as well as the locations of cities that figure
prominently in the biblical narratives.

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 Topography of the Ancient Near East

Here is a list of significant geographical features of the Ancient Near

East in the immediate area of Israel. You will understand other parts of
this book more easily if you take the time to locate them now.
• The Coastal Plain
• The Central Highlands/Central Hill CCountr

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• The Jordan Rift/Great Rift VValle
• The Transjordanian Highlands/Transjordan
• The Jordan River
• The Sea of Galilee
• the Dead Sea
• The Mediterranean Sea

You may also want to note the Negev (“dry land”) to the south of
the Central Highlands.
Moving eastward from the Mediterranean Sea, you would come
ashore on the Coastal Plain. Moving farther East the ground begins
to rise into a mountainous region called the Central Highlands or
the Central Hill Country. Still further East the land drops sharply into
the Jordan Rift, a deep valley at the bottom of which runs the
Jordan River. The Sea of Galilee is near the northern end of this
valley, and the Dead Sea is at the southern end. Continuing
eastward, the land rises on the eastern side of the Jordan into a
region called the Transjordanian Highlands. This region is
sometimes called simply Transjordan, meaning “across the Jordan
(River).” The regions of Edom, Moab, Ammon, Gilead, and Bashan
(not labelled on the map here) are all located in the Transjordanian
Highlands.4

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1. Discuss and draw major cities to locate.

You should be able to identify the following cities on a map of Israel:

• Hazor lies to the north of the Sea of Galilee, but south of Lake
Huleh.
• Shechem was located to the southeast of the later city of Samaria.
• Samaria The city of Samaria, not the region known by that name,
lay near Shechem, but slightly to the northwest. Both cities were
located in the region later called Samaria.

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 • Jerusalem is located in the central highlands west of the northern
end of the Sea of Galilee. For most of the period covered by the
biblical documents, Jerusalem was the most important religious
center for the Israelite people.
• Qumran was located on the north-west shore of the Dead Sea,
almost directly east from Jerusalem and south from Jericho. The
Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered near Qumran.
You will also need to identify these cities on a map of the larger region
(See the maps below):

• Ur was an ancient city in southern Mesopotamia.

• Haran was located at the northernmost end on the fertile crescent.
You should also have a rough idea of the routes of two important
highways: the Via Maris (way of the sea) and the King’s Highway
(North/South through the Transjordan). These highways are not pictured
on the maps presented here. The Via Maris ran from Egypt in the South
to Damascus in the far North. For most of this distance it followed the
shore of the Mediterranean Sea. As one travelled north the highway
moved inland passing through Hazor, then turned East to cross the Jordan
River and continue northeast to Damascus. The Kings Highway ran north
and south through the Transjordan.
The biblical documents discuss events from an extremely wide range of
historical periods. Throughout this course you will learn information
about various parts of that history. Here I present only some basic
information about the origins of the ancient nation of Israel and the
major international powers that influenced its development.

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3.Discuss and draw the origin of Israel.

The name “Israel” comes from one of the ancestors of the people known
by that name. According to Genesis Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, had
his name changed to ‘Israel’ by God. His descendants eventually became
known as the people of Israel (i.e. the descendants of Israel).

The book of Genesis presents Abraham, the grandfather of Jacob (later

called Israel), leaving his homeland in Ur, a city in southern
Mesopotamia, and traveling to Haran in the northernmost extension of
the fertile crescent. He later leaves Haran and travels south to the land
of Canaan.

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Abraham and his descendants are presented as nomadic people. The
people of Canaan called such nomadic groups ‘Apiru (Habiru). In the
language of Abraham’s descendants, this word became ‘ibri, which we
translate into English as ‘Hebrew‘. Not all of the people called ‘Apiru
by the Canaanites, though, were what the Bible calls Hebrews.

The account in the Torah continues by saying that the descendants of

Jacob (Israel) were eventually enslaved by the Egyptians. After several
hundred years in captivity, they were delivered under the leadership
of Moses. They returned to a nomadic lifestyle for about one
generation, then came to occupy the land of Canaan, renaming it
“Israel“. They came to be known as “Israelites“. The change of name
of the land from Canaan to Israel coincides with the change in the
name of the people from Hebrews to Israelites.

The term Israel is ambiguous. It is sometimes used to refer to the

people (the nation), sometimes to the place where those people lived
(the land of Israel) and later to the northern part of that land, where
10 of the original 12 tribes lived after the nation split in 922 BCE. After
that split, the area occupied by the two southern tribes was called
‘Judah‘ (after the tribe of Judah), and the people who lived there are
often called Judeans.

In 721/722 BCE the northern kingdom (still called ‘Israel’) was

defeated by the Assyrians. The leading citizens were carried off into
captivity, and the northern kingdom (Israel) was never reestablished.

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After this time the term Israel is sometimes used to refer to the
occupants of the southern kingdom (Judah), further confusing the
terminology.

In 587 BCE the Babylonians conquered the southern kingdom, Judea,

and took its leading citizens off into captivity. A little over one
generation later, when the Persians conquered the Babylonians, the
people of Judea were allowed to return home. Over time they came
to be called ‘Jews‘, a shortened form of ‘Judeans’.

When the Romans conquered the region shortly before the time of
Jesus, they took the name, ‘Philistia‘ (which had earlier applied only
to the southwestern coastal plain occupied by the Philistines), and
applied it to the entire region , including the land occupied by the Jews
and their neighbors. It is from this word, ‘Philistia,’ that we get our
modern English name ‘Palestine.’

Egypt
Egypt was a power long before the rise of Israel and remained a
significant force until the time of the rise of Christianity (although it
was under Greek rule for the later part of this period).

According to Genesis, Abraham’s grandson, Jacob and his family

pushed by famine in Canaan, went to Egypt to find food. Their
descendants were eventually enslaved by the larger Egyptian society
according to the book of Exodus.

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Some have proposed that the earliest Hebrews arrived in Egypt during
the reign of the Hyksos, a semitic group that had infiltrated Egyptian
society in the 17th century BCE and ruled until 1560 BCE, but the
evidence is inconclusive. If the Hebrew people were in Egypt at the
time of the Hyksos, they would have been there at the time of
Amenhotep IV—who changed his name to Akhenaton (Akhen-Aton,
“It is well with Aton”). Akhenaton demanded that only Aton, the sun
god be worshipped. He appears not to have claimed that Aton was the
only god in existence, but that only he should be worshiped in Egypt.
Evidence of monotheism, the view that there is only one God, comes
much later.

The narrative at the beginning of Exodus presents the hebrew people

as escaping slavery in Egypt. Some have argued that this could have
taken place under Ramses II (1290-1224 BCE), during the height of the
Egyptian Empire, but again, the evidence for this is not conclusive.
Ramses II tended to record even his defeats as victories, so if the
Hebrews were in Egypt and escaped at this time, it would make sense
that the event is not mentioned in the Egyptian records.

Whatever we think about the historicity of these early narratives, it is

likely that the Israelites (as the Hebrews were called after they
established themselves in Canaan) had already settled in Canaan by
1220 BCE. Egyptian records tell of Merneptah (the son of Ramses II)
defeating the Israelites in Canaan around that time.

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4. Discuss and draw the Hittite Empire.

The Hittites, located in Anatolia (later called Asia Minor) northwest of

the Fertile Crescent, fought with the Egyptians at about this time,
creating a balance of power that would allow an opportunity for
changes of control in Canaan (located within the rectangle in the map
above). This is likely to be the period at which the Hebrew people took
control there.

The Hittites were a people who built a remarkable civilization in

ancient Asia Minor. Unlike contemporary Middle Eastern peoples in
Mesopotamia or Egypt, they did not live in a great river valley, and

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therefore did not have the benefit of large-scale, highly productive
irrigation agriculture on which to build their civilization. What they did
benefit from was cultural influences coming in from Mesopotamia and
Egypt, via Syria, and it was these influences which enabled them to
build their own civilization.
Most of Asia Minor is covered by a highland plateau which is criss-
crossed by deep river valleys. On this highland the climate is cold in
winter and scorching in summer, and the terrain is mostly covered by
a barren steppe landscape. The river valleys, however, are well-
watered and fertile, able to support comparatively dense populations.
They were not on nearly the same scale as the valleys of the Nile, in
Egypt, and the Euphrates, in Mesopotamia, and did not give rise to the
huge irrigation systems of those lands, feeding millions of people, but
they were able to support a mixed arable and pastural farming
economy.

At the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE the material culture of the
societies of the Middle East was at the Bronze Age level. However,
because bronze was expensive, it was used mainly in weapons, armor,
art and jewelry. It was not widely used in farming, which was still at a
Stone Age level of technology. This did not matter in the great river
valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, with their soft, easily-worked,
highly fertile soils, but in less favored climates it imposed a major
constraint on agricultural productivity.

The rivers were not navigable by anything larger than small boats,
which meant that all trade goods had to come in ox-drawn carts or
heavily-laden donkeys, much more expensively than by water. This

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 acted as a further limiting factor on the development of a
sophisticated urban civilization.

As a result if its geography, therefore, early 2nd millennium BCE Asia

Minor was covered by a patchwork of small-scale, village-based
societies. The few small urban settlements formed the nuclei of local
kingdoms.

5.Discuss and draw Roman Empire.

“At the height of its power after the conquest of the fall of the Grecian
Empire, the Roman empire became a reality in 44 BC and lasted until
476 AD. The empire encompassed 2.5 million square miles spanning
three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe. At its greatest extent under
Trajan, the Roman empire expanded eastward to the Persian Gulf and
even to Susa. The Roman Empire also reached to the Rhine and
Danube in the north, the Atlantic Ocean in the west, to the Arabian
and Sahara deserts in the south.

The largest boundaries of the Empire of Rome around 116 AD were as

follows:

1. The Northern Boundaries were the natural courses of the Rhine and
Danube Rivers.

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2. The Western Boundaries were Britannia, Spain, and Mauritania,
and the Atlantic Ocean.

3. The Eastern Boundaries were the Euphrates River, Persian Gulf, and
the city of Susa.

4. The Southern Boundary went all the way to the Arabian desert in
the Middle East and the Sahara in North Africa.”

Map of the Roman Empire at it’s height in 116 AD

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History of the Roman Empire

The “Roman Empire” (Imperium Romanum) is used to denote that

part of the world under Roman rule from approximately 44 B.C.E. until
476 C.E. The term also distinguished imperial from Republican Rome.
The expansion of Roman territory beyond the borders of the initial
city-state of Rome started long before the state became an Empire. In
its territorial peak after the conquest of Dacia by Trajan, the Roman
Empire controlled approximately 5,900,000 km² (2,300,000 sq.mi.) of
land surface, thereby being one of the largest ancient empires,
exceeded only by the Persian Empire and by the Chinese Empire. At an
early period, Rome adopted a republican structure with the Senate
exercising power although all legislation had to be approved by an
assembly of the people. The precise date at which the Roman Republic
changed into the Roman Empire is disputed, with the dates of Julius
Caesar’s appointment as perpetual dictator (44 B.C.E.), the battle of
Actium (September 2, 31 B.C.E.), and the date in which the Roman
Senate granted Octavian the title Augustus (January 16, 27 B.C.E.), all
being advanced as candidates. Octavian/Augustus officially
proclaimed that he had saved the Roman Republic and carefully
disguised his power under republican forms. Republican institutions
were maintained throughout the imperial period: consuls continued
to be elected annually, tribunes of the plebeians continued to offer
legislation, and senators still debated in the Roman Curia. However, it
was Octavian who influenced everything and controlled the final
decisions, and in final analysis, had the Roman legions to back him up,
if it ever became necessary. The end of the Roman Empire is
traditionally placed on 4 September 476 C.E., as the Western Roman
Empire fell to Germanic invaders. However, the Eastern Roman
Empire, known to modern-day historians as the Byzantine Empire

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continued until 1453 C.E. From the time of Augustusto the Fall of the
Western Empire, Rome dominated Western Eurasia, comprising the
majority of its population. The legacy of Rome on culture, law,
technology, arts, language, religion, government, military, and
architecture upon Western civilization remains to the present day. –
New World Encyclopaedia

TRAJAN

In 113 C.E., provoked by Parthia’s decision to put an unacceptable king

on the throne of Armenia, a kingdom over which the two great
empires had shared hegemony since the time of Nero some 50 years
earlier, Trajan marched first on Armenia. He deposed the king and
annexed it to the Roman Empire. Then he turned south into Parthia
itself, taking the cities of Babylon, Seleucia and finally the capital of
Ctesiphon in 116 C.E. He continued southward to the Persian Gulf,
whence he declared Mesopotamia a new province of the empire and
lamented that he was too old to follow in the steps of Alexander the
Great. But he did not stop there. Later in 116 C.E., he captured the
great city of Susa. He deposed the Parthian King Osroes I and put his
own puppet ruler Parthamaspates on the throne. Never again would
the Roman Empire advance so far to the east. – New World
Encyclopedia”
ROMAN EMPIRE
Extent of the empire. –Cicero’s description of the Greek states and
colonies as a “fringe on the skirts of barbarism” has been well applied
to the Roman dominions before the conquests of Pompey and Caesar.
The Roman empire was still confined to a narrow strip encircling the

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Mediterranean Sea. Pompey added Asia Minor and Syria. Caesar
added Gaul. The generals of Augustus overran the northwest Portion
of Spain and the country between the Alps and the Danube. The
boundaries of the empire were now the Atlantic on the west, the
Euphrates on the east, the deserts of Africa, the cataracts of the Nile
and the Arabian deserts on the south, the British Channel, the Rhine,
the Danube and the Black Sea on the north. The only subsequent
conquests of importance were those of Britain by Claudius and of
Dacia by Trajan. The only independent powers of importance were the
Parthians on the east and the Germans on the north. The population
of the empire in the time of Augustus has been calculated at
85,000,000.
3. The provinces. –The usual fate of a country conquered by Rome was
to be come a subject province, governed directly from Rome by
officers sent out for that purpose. Sometimes, however, petty
sovereigns were left in possession of a nominal independence on the
borders or within the natural limits of the province. Augustus divided
the provinces into two classes – (1) Imperial; (2) Senatorial; retaining
in his own hands, for obvious reasons, those provinces where the
presence of a large military force was necessary, and committing the
peaceful and unarmed provinces to the senate. The New Testament
writers invariably designate the governors of senatorial provinces by
the correct title anthupatoi, proconsuls. Ac 13:7; 18:12; 19:38 For the
governor of an imperial province, properly styled “legatus Caesaris,”
the word hegemon (governor) is used in the New Testament. The
provinces were heavily taxed for the benefit of Rome and her citizens.
They are said to have been better governed under the empire than
under the commonwealth, and those of the emperor better than
those of the senate.”

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ROMAN EMPIRE AND CHRISTIANITY
Augustus.
Octavian (Augustus) proved the potent factor of the second
triumvirate. The field of Actiuim on September 2, 31 BC, decided the
fate of the old Roman republic. The common wealth sank in
exhaustion after the protracted civil and internecine strife. It was a
case of the survival of the fittest. It was a great crisis in human history,
and a great man was at hand for the occasion. Octavian realized that
supreme power was the only possible solution. On his return to Rome
he began to do over again what Caesar had done—gather into his own
hands the reins of government. He succeeded with more caution and
shrewdness, and became the founder of the Roman empire, which
formally began on January 16, 27 BC, and was signalized by the
bestowal of the title AUGUSTUS (which see). Under republican forms
he ruled as emperor, controlling legislation, administration and the
armies. His policy was on the whole adhered to by the Julio-Claudian
line, the last of which was Nero (died 68 AD).

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