The Rise of Jerusalem and Judah: the Missing Link

Abstract

The paper attempts to identify early stages of state formation in Judah, before the great leap forward in population growth, building activities and literacy in the late-eighth and seventh centuries BCE. It surveys the Late Bronze, Iron I and early Iron II finds in Jerusalem in particular and the ]udahite countryside in general, and then turns to ninth-century finds in the Shephelah and the Beer-sheba Valley. The finds are evaluated according to the ‘Low Chronology’ system for the Iron Age strata in the Levant. The article proposes that early steps toward statehood in Judah can be detected in the ninth century BCE, and that Israel under the Omride dynasty played an important role in the territorio-political and cultural processes that took place at that time in the southern kingdom of Judah.