Influences on IsraelBabylon and Egypt

Babylon

• Amorites established Babylon near the modern border of Syria and Iraq

• Hammurabi was king there

• Israelites captured and in exile in Babylon +/- 70 years

Stele

• Stele of Hammurabi records a complex legal code

• Resembles laws in the Mosaic Torah

• It was basalt slab almost eight feet tall

Ziggurat

A towering, multi-tiered edifice, dominating the landscape

Tel

• High, isolated mounds that dot the Near Eastern landscape. They indicated the sites of long-term human occupation, with a series of towns built successively atop one another

Egypt

• Egypt’s unique geographical features allowed it to develop independently of most foreign influence.

• It was bordered by arid deserts on east and west, rugged terrain to the south

Battle of Megiddo• 1490 BCE, Egyptian

forces defeated a coalition of more than 100 Syrian and Canaanite city-states.

• The battle lends its modern name “Armageddon” to a place where there is a cosmic battle between good and evil

Hieroglyphics

• Egyptian system of writing in pictorial characters

• Developed at roughly the same time as cuneiform script in Mesopotamia

Rameses II

• Historians believe he was the Pharaoh at the time of the Exodus

Israel established in Canaan by late 1200s BCE

• Earliest known reference to Israel as a distinct people appears on a victory inscription of Merneptah, the son of Rameses II.

Rosetta Stone• A large flat slab of basalt

inscribed with the same message in three different scripts

• It was not translated until the 19th century CE

• Today’s scholars have found many parallels between Egyptian literature and biblical texts, including Proverbs, Job, and Wisdom writings.

Egyptian and Israelite Similarities• “divine righteousness”—justice, truth, and good

conduct• Temples, windowless sanctuaries—similarly Israel

built the Ark of the Covenant• Temple rituals in both• Circumcision• Surgical removal of foreskin from the penis• This was an ancient Egyptian rite adopted and

perpetuated by the Israelites