What Are the Earliest Mentions of Israel Outside The Bible?
A look at ancient historical records that talk about Israel before the 8th century BC
On 16 December 1896, Egyptologist Flinders Petrie stumbled upon an unimpressive temple in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes. The crumbling sandstone sphinxes and the looted remains saddened him.
Petrie was about to move on.
But then he discovered a ten-foot-long, five-foot-wide black granite stele. The inscription caught his eye. He asked his team to cut the stones blocking the stele, a decision that would change history.
It wasn’t any ordinary inscription.
The stele, better known as the Merneptah Stele, had the first undisputed mention of “Israel” outside of the Bible. The inscription was a record of military triumphs of Pharaoh Merneptah, the son of Ramses II, who ruled Egypt from 1213 BC to 1203 BC.
What did Merneptah mean by “Israel?” Was he referring to the biblical Israelites? Or was he talking about a land called Israel?
In this story, we’ll focus on historical sources that mention Israel outside the Bible before the 8th century BC. We’ll also discuss how early Israelites developed as a society after considering what the records say.
