The Earliest Reference to Israel: A Historiographical Reflection

EMANUEL PFOH

Revue Biblique

Peeters

Lugar: Leuven; Año: 2021 vol. 128 p. 321 - 331

1240-3032

This paper addresses W. Zwickel and P. Van der Veen?s recent study in Vetus Testamentum 67 about the possible earliest reference to ´Israel´ found in an Egyptian stele, dating probably to the fourteenth or early thirteenth century BCE. The present comments focus on the wider implications of having such an early, previous to pharaoh Merenptah?s stele dating for the name ´Israel´ for the historiography of ´ancient Israel´, or better the Southern Levant, in the Iron Age, and on the need for a problematisation of the data and the interpretative concepts deployed in history writing.