In addition to wanting to learn the Hebrew Language, I want to also learn about the Hebrew culture. This week I looked in to retracing the history of the Hebrew culture and it is land. It started approximately in 1000 BCE with a nomadic group of people that lived off of the herds and flocks they tended to. Included in this group of early Hebrews are those mentioned in the Bible, such as Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and David. This group of people has provided the earliest archives of mankind through which people today can read their stories in the Bible.
In the early days there were two types of cultures, the Hebrew culture in the east and the Greek culture in the west. The Greek culture came about in 800 BCE, but did not really begin to interact with the Hebrew culture until 200 BCE, when the Greeks began to push south in to the Hebrew’s territory. The Hebrews did not take this kindly and for hundreds of years a battle waged between the two sides. Eventually the Greeks won out and the ancient Hebrew culture was destroyed. From there, the Greek perspective influences all that we read through the Bible. For instance, the Tanakh is the Hebrew word for Old Testament, but we recognize it as the Old Testament. Within the Tanakh are the three sections of Hebrew scripture called the Torah, Nevi’im, and the Ketuvim. These three parts are divided up from the Pentateuch, to the prophets, and then to the writings.
As we are all aware, in today’s world there is a battle between the Israelites and the Palestinians over who owns the land. Based off the mere fact that the Hebrew culture has been around forever, one can easily say that is should belong to the Israeli’s. However, since the ancient culture was virtually destroyed the Palestinian’s may have an argument. In 63 C.E, Pompey, a Roman General, reduced Canaan to a Roman tributary, known under Roman governorship as Palestine. That is the first mention of Palestine and around that time the Jews were being severely repressed by Herod the Great. It was then around 66-73 CE that the Jewish revolt occurred against Rome and eventually was successful. It seems that the land should go back to the Jews, but during that time land was stolen from other cultures and nations seemingly every 50 years. It was such a common occurrence that it is hard to argue whose land it was first when each side can claim that they stole it back most recently. Since no side is willing to make amends, the struggle lives on today with just as much bloodshed occurring now as it was 2000 years ago. Despite all this controversy involving the land it is still cool learning an ancient language like Hebrew.
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