S_SH+28Jan07

Sam and Will each drew a second set of maps -- of Judah and Israel in 700s-500s BCE, from __Who Wrote the Bible?__ Page 10, also showing locations of the Philistines, Syria, Egypt and the Amorites. We placed this second map next to the first map the boys made showing the 13 tribes, and proceeded to discuss: What happened to each tribe? The Asher intermarried with the Phoenicians and apparently lost their Jewish identity; the Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manesseh became strongly entrenched in the center of Israel. The Benjamin ended up fighting the Moabs for a couple of centuries. The Simeon married into other Jewish tribes and lost their particular tribal identity. The Dan, in two parts (east and far north). The Dan of the east had many wars with the Philistines, which gave rise to Samson legend. These eastern Dan were forced out of the east by the Philistines, and shifted to join their tribal brethren in the far north. Judah proved the strongest, and most numerous tribe. After the conquest of Israel by the Syrians in 722 BCE, all the northern and central tribes fled into Judah (or were carted off into Syria). The surviving Jewish tribes then all intermingled and intermarried in Judah, marking the end of the tribal divisions.

//__Sources__: Abram Leon Sachar, __A History of the Jews__, pp. 24-25, 30, 93. Richard Elliott Friedman, __Who Wrote the Bible?__, pp. 44, 63-64.//