This is well-written and I agree with much of it. However, there is something missing. Genealogists who have studied the southern Levant, which includes the land called Israel today believe that somewhere between one-third and one-half of today's Palestinian people descend at least partly from pre-semitic people who inhabited the area between 4,500 and 9,000 BC. If Abraham really existed, he would likely not have arrived before around 3,200 BC. Jericho has been continuously settled since 9,000 BC according to solid archaeological studies and there is much more archaeology to come. I raise this because even assuming the Old Testament contains more fact than fantasy and fiction, semitic claims to this are pale by comparison with regard to the earlier inhabitants' descendants. From an international law perspective this is significant. No one has ever suggested that the Jews and the Philistines, the latter from whom the rest of the Palestinian people descend and who arrived about the same time as the Egyptian Jews led by Moses, are both latecomers to any territorial claims. This issue needs much more global attention. David Aronofsky
Glad I could help
Good points. The Semites seem to be characterized by language linkages so that they share words and elements of pronunciation. Clyde
One the better explanations I have seen anywhere. You answered questions that have been floating in my mind for some time.
As always, insightful and clear.
This is well-written and I agree with much of it. However, there is something missing. Genealogists who have studied the southern Levant, which includes the land called Israel today believe that somewhere between one-third and one-half of today's Palestinian people descend at least partly from pre-semitic people who inhabited the area between 4,500 and 9,000 BC. If Abraham really existed, he would likely not have arrived before around 3,200 BC. Jericho has been continuously settled since 9,000 BC according to solid archaeological studies and there is much more archaeology to come. I raise this because even assuming the Old Testament contains more fact than fantasy and fiction, semitic claims to this are pale by comparison with regard to the earlier inhabitants' descendants. From an international law perspective this is significant. No one has ever suggested that the Jews and the Philistines, the latter from whom the rest of the Palestinian people descend and who arrived about the same time as the Egyptian Jews led by Moses, are both latecomers to any territorial claims. This issue needs much more global attention. David Aronofsky
Wow!