The Religion of Ancient Palestine

The active intercourse with the Aegean Isles during this age can be traced from Asia Minor to Egypt (notably at El-Amarna), and movements in the Levant had accompanied the pressure southwards from Asia Minor in the time of the Amenhoteps. A similar combination was defeated by Ramses III. (about 1200); among its constituents the Philistines may doubtless be recognised. But Egypt, now in the Twentieth Dynasty, was fast losing its old strength, and the internal history of Palestine is far from clear. Apart from the sudden extension of the Assyrian empire to the Mediterranean under Tiglath-pileser I. (about 1100 B.C.), no one great power, so far as is known, could claim supremacy over the west; and our period comes to an end at a time when Palestine, according to the Israelite historians, was laying the foundation of its independent monarchy. Palestine has always been open to the roaming tribes from Arabia and the Syrian desert, tribes characteristically opposed to the inveterate practices of settled agricultural life. Arabia, however, possessed seats of culture, though their bearing upon our period cannot yet be safely estimated.