The Israelite Family Album
Last year I bought Israel Knohl’s new book מאין באנו (“From Where did we Come?) which addresses the origins of the Israelites. I have just gotten around to reading it now and I wanted to post about Knohl’s main theses. He claims that the origins of the Israelites can be found in three distinct groups: Refugees from Northern Syria; Canaanites from the area of Nablus; Hebrew slaves who left Egypt. I think that one of Knohl’s most interesting ways of representing the Bible is that it is a collection of different “family albums” from each of these three groups. They all had different descriptions of their origins and they also had different practices and beliefs. I am finding the book very interesting and am looking forward to reading the rest of it. I am sure that eventually the book will be translated into Hebrew. In the meantime, you can either read the Hebrew edition or some of the reviews in Hebrew and Israel Knohl’s response. If you really want to read more, there is Yaakov Shavit’s response to Knohl’s response and then Knohl’s response to Shavit’s response.