The history of Judea is, of course, inextricably linked to the history of the Jewish people, their dispersal throughout the Mediterranean world, and their reestablishment of the modern state of Israel in the wake of the horrors of the Holocaust. And among all the tumultuous events associated with Jewish history, few can rival the period of Roman rule during the 1st century CE, when Roman attempts to suppress Jewish nationalism met with violent resistance. Ultimately, the Romans forcibly removed much of the Jewish population from the region, setting the scene for later events that have impacted so directly on world history. Events in the region during the 1st century CE also brought about the birth of Christianity, a religious movement that has been at the forefront of European history ever since. This whole period relating to the United Monarchy of Israel, and the events leading up to the Assyrian invasion, has been the subject of fierce debate between religious scholars and what might be termed more dispassionate academics. The issue of the "Historicity of the Bible" is a massive field of study in its own right, but the words of T.L Thompson sum up the position of those who refuse to consider any possibility that the Bible may contain historical facts in relation to the original origins of the kingdoms centered on Judea: "There is no evidence of a United Monarchy, no evidence of a capital in Jerusalem or of any coherent, unified political force that dominated western Palestine let alone an empire of the size the legends describe. We do not have evidence for the existence of kings named Saul, David or Solomon, nor do we have evidence for any temple at Jerusalem in this early period. What we know of Israel and Judah of the tenth century does not allow us to interpret this lack of evidence as a gap in our knowledge and information about the past, a result merely of the accidental nature of archaeology. There is neither room nor context, no artefact or archive that points to such historical realities in Palestine's past. One cannot speak historically of a state without a population. Nor can one speak of a capital without a town. Stories are not enough." The historical evidence, Thompson suggests, is of a very different evolution for the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel. The evidence, as opposed to the Biblical narrative, he contends, proves that the Jewish population was far too small to sustain a viable separate political or economic entity until approximately the period of the Assyrian invasions. The Israel Antiquities Authority has worked hard to find concrete evidence for the United Kingdom and have argued that excavations at Khirbet Queyafa prove the existence of an urban society in the 11th century BCE. From this rather tenuous evidence they concluded that some kind of state in the region existed well before the generally accepted start date of the late 8th century BCE. The fact that Jerusalem has been sacked and razed on approximately 20 occasions since the assumed dates of King David has made it virtually impossible to find any evidence to corroborate the theory, but the task was made a little easier by the discovery of the Tel Dan Stele which has been dated to the late 9th century/early 8th century BCE and contains a reference to the House of David. Many scholars now accept the existence of some kind of state ruled by David and Solomon, though have concluded that it was on a much smaller scale than portrayed in the Bible. Even today, Jewish claims to the ownership of the lands disputed with the Arabs are based on the belief in this "historic kingdom." The belief, and absolute conviction, in Jewish rights to inhabit and rule this land as an independent entity has existed from the Classical period onwards, and was just as fiercely held in the period of Roman rule. As events played out, that proved to be central in shaping the whole history of the region.
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