Israel and Judah: How Two Peoples Became One

The greatest secret of the Bible is the fact that the ancient Hebrews, in reality, were two different tribal groups who arrived in Canaan and then left for the Nile Delta at different times. Both peoples then made their Exodus from Egypt at different centuries and reconquered their places in Canaan independently. The Israelites and Judahites properly came together for the first and last time only in the United Monarchy, and this was mainly as a result of the Philistine threat. It was then too that the authors of the Bible merged the family trees and narratives of the northern and southern tribes to create a common genealogy and history. However, the two peoples could not co-exist for long in the same harness, especially when the junior partner, Judah, was commanding the senior, Israel. Hence, the union fell apart forever. The biblical account of the deportation of the Israelites to Assyria is an extreme exaggeration of the tragedy's scope. This has given rise to a myth regarding the loss of the ten northern tribes, whose traces are still being sought to this day from Mesopotamia to the Japanese islands. But in truth, the absolute majority of the Israelites remained where it was. And so did the Judahites; the Babylonian Exile claimed very few of them. The Israelites and Judahites eventually mixed with each other (with the exception of Samaritans) and thus two different peoples became one - the Judeans. Dr. Igor P. Lipovsky, distinguished scholar of Near Eastern History, rediscovers the true origins and history of the Israelites and Judahites.

Author: Igor P. Lipovsky
Publisher: Cambridge Publishing Inc.
Published: 03/09/2015
Pages: 334
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.99lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780692343685

About the Author
Igor P. Lipovsky was born March 7, 1950, in Moscow, in an interfaith Russian-Jewish family. His paternal ancestors were prominent leaders and philanthropists of the Jewish community of Minsk, Belarus, while his mother (née Robinson) descended from the Russian-English family of well-known industrialists and merchants in pre-revolutionary Russia. Lipovsky graduated with distinction from Moscow Lomonosov State University. He then worked as a researcher and doctoral student at Academy of Sciences, in Moscow. Because of his criticism of the totalitarian and anti-Semitic regime in the Soviet Union, he was forced to leave the country in 1987. He received his Ph.D. degree in Near Eastern History in Israel, in 1989. In 1987-1992 he taught at the Department of Middle Eastern History of Haifa University. After the collapse of the USSR, he was invited as a visiting professor to St. Petersburg University (1993-1995); he then taught in Los Angeles (1995-97) and Boston (from 1998). Lipovsky specializes in Near Eastern and Central Asian History. He has published more than a hundred articles in Russian, German, British and American journals and five books in the English and Russian languages. He lives in suburban Boston and is now a United States citizen.

This title is not returnable