Deb

Which nation was David and Solomon king of? When you go to museums
> and they have displays of ancient Israel, which nation are they
> talking about?
>
> Sheila
>

The first king of Israel was Saul. He worked to unite the twelve tribes
of Israel (from the twelve sons of Jacob who was called Israel) which
were scattered about the land. Saul became jealous of David after the
public acclaim from killing Goliath and tried to kill him twice. David
and fled to the south which was the land of the tribe of Judah. THe
northern tribe of Israel and the southern tribe of Judah were separated
by pagan cities whom they warred with.The other Hebrew tribes were
scattered about them. The Philistines killed Saul and David who had been
getting stronger armies was anointed king of Judah and defeated the
Philistimnes again and united the tribes. TRibe of Israel never liked
that.

David moved the capital for the first time to Jerusalem (after battling
its pagan inhabitants). He had the strong backing of the tribe of Judah
(from whence comes the name of the religion: Judaism) but united and
ruled all the Israelites in their lands as king. and conquered
neighboring land too expanded his kingdom. His son Solomon expanded it
even further as an Empire, ruling neighoring lands. After Solomon's
death, Israel and Judea split apart again and the rest of the tribes
took sides with them. They were rivaling kingdoms until Israel fell to
the Assyrians. About 45 years later, Judah was taken by the Assyrians as
well. This whole period was that of the prophets.

That's more or less what is recorded. I might have missed something.

Debbie

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In a message dated 8/7/02 11:38:28 PM, herbtea@... writes:

<< When you go to museums
> and they have displays of ancient Israel, which nation are they
> talking about? >>

They're talking about a culture, not a kingdom with a wall around it, or even
a defended border. Nomadic tribes can coexist with other nomadic tribes in
the same area and still be "nations."

When I've been to musuems I've seen displays of Persian and Babylonian and
Egyptian cultures, but not artifacts of ancient Israel. Are there lots of
them? Where would they have been kept all these years? And if they're found
nowadays by archeologists I guess they'd be stored in Israel. Not a safe
storage place lately.

It wasn't a big material culture, even from their own accounts. And they
kept being conquered and scattered, by their own accounts.

Sandra