A Short History of the Hebrews to the Roman Period

The history of the Hebrews differs in one important respect from that of all other ancient nations. It is the story of a people which believed that it had been entrusted with a religious mission to the world. Strictly speaking indeed Israel''s national history cannot be said to begin before the period of the exodus from Egypt but the Hebrew historians could never forget that they belonged to a race chosen by God. Accordingly they took pains to collect and to preserve with scrupulous care not merely the popular narratives which described the supposed ancestry of the Hebrew people but even those current traditions of the Semitic tribes which dealt with the origin of man and of the universe itself. - Robert Lawrence Ottley . Contents: Early Narratives of Genesis. The Story of the Patriarchs. The Hebrew Tradition According to the Book of Genesis. The Historical Substance of the Patriarchal Story. Israel in Egypt and in the Wilderness. The Conquest of Palestine. The Age of the Judges. The Establishment of the Monarchy. Solomon and the Division of the Kingdom. The Prophets and the Kings of Israel and Judah. The Decline and Fall of Judah. The Exile and the Restoration. From Nehemiah to the Maccabaean War. From Judas Maccabaeus to Herod the Great. The Documentary Sources of the Narrative. Hebrew Legislation. Sacred Seasons of the Jewish Year.