Table of Contents
The story of the Israelites is full of details that the pages of this site keep coming back to. A cloud that leads the way, a box that kills those who touch it, food that falls from the sky, and a people that keeps turning back to Baal and Asherah. The Israelites now turn up on many pages of this site, often on pages that are about something else.
I read their story in two ways at once. In the traditional reading they are a people chosen by God. In the paleo-contact reading, the god who leads them is one of several powerful beings, and the Ark and the manna are technology. Here is what I found, step by step.
The name Israel
The people take their name from Jacob, who was renamed Israel. On Isra’el – The Powerful Yisra I look at what the name means. On Kronos/Saturn and Jacob/Israel in Phoenician Tradition I follow the old claim that the Phoenicians called Kronos by the name Israel. The two great lines of Abraham are on The origins of two great nations.
The twelve tribes
Israel had twelve sons, and each became a tribe. On The 12 Tribes I follow Diana Cooper, who says that at the fall of Atlantis the High Priests and Priestesses each led one of the tribes to its new place. Galeah, in Anna, the Voice of the Magdalenes, remembers the later scattering:
There was a great dispersion of the tribes of Israel at that time.
Galeah, in Anna, the Voice of the Magdalenes
Rudolf Steiner saw a purpose in this people. On The Mission of the Ancient Hebrew People I summarize his lecture, in which the Hebrew lineage was formed with great care to prepare a body for the Christ.
Out of Egypt
The Exodus is the core of the story. When did it happen, and who was the pharaoh? The site has several answers.
- Exodus: my overview of the book.
- A case for the Exodus between 6,000 and 4,200 BCE: a much older date, during the African Humid Period.
- Who was the pharaoh of the Exodus?: Expedition Bible argues for Amenhotep II and 1446 BC.
- Does the Merneptah Stele Refer to Israel?: the Egyptian victory stele that may name Israel.
- Why Bergsma thinks the Exodus happened: John Bergsma lists the Egyptian details in the text.
- Akhenaten, Yuya, and a possible Moses: Funny Olde World links the tribes to the followers of Aten.
so to get the date of The Exodus all we have to do is add 480 years to 966 BC and we get 1446 BC
Expedition Bible, Amenhotep II and the Exodus, at 5:15
those people who left the atonists became later the 12 tribes of israel
Funny Olde World, Akhenaten, Yuya, and a possible Moses, at 14:58
Moses
The leader of the Exodus has his own page, Moses. It holds the Edgar Cayce dates, the Oahspe version and the view of Jordan Maxwell:
Moses is presented as the leader of a moon cult in the ancient Middle East. The followers of Moses are described as moon-worshippers, rather than the historical Israelites.
Jordan Maxwell
See also 7 Secrets of the Hebrew Ten Commandments.
Mount Sinai
At Mount Sinai, also called Horeb, Moses received the law. Its location is still debated. Jebel Musa in the Sinai Peninsula is the usual choice, but some point to mountains in northwestern Saudi Arabia. Before that, at the burning bush, God gave Moses a name. On I am what I am I give the text of Exodus 3:
"Thus shall you say to the children of Israel: YHWH Elohim of your fathers, the Elohim of Abraham, the Elohim of Isaac, and the Elohim of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations."
Exodus 3:15
Bashar reads the same scenes as contact. On About Moses, God and ET Contact I summarize his view that the light on Mount Sinai was energy from a landing craft and the burning bush was a holographic projection. On The Lawgivers: Moses, Eawahtah, and the Echoes of Elohim I compare Moses with Eawahtah of Oahspe, and ask whether Elohim was the first giver of the law, later overlaid by YHWH.
The Ark and the manna
Two objects follow the Israelites through the desert. The first is the Ark. Bashar gives a technical reading:
"The Ark is a device that was mostly a communication device... The ten commandments were not originally ten commandments. They were guidelines."
Bashar
See The Ark of the Covenant, Transport of the Ark of the Covenant and Ark of Covenant and Solomon.
The second is the manna. In Numbers 11 the people grow tired of it. In the wilderness they long for the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic they ate in Egypt.
See Manna and Numbers 11.
Miracles in the desert
On Miracles of Elijah, Moses, and Jesus I put the miracles side by side. Manna and quail and water from a rock in Exodus are matched by Elijah and by Jesus.
Forty years
The time in the desert is forty years. On 40 days for an individual’s transformation, 40 years for a collective I look at why that number keeps coming back.
Priests and Levites
The people were organized around one tribe that served the sanctuary. See All Levites were members of the tribe of Levi and Slavery for the laws of Leviticus.
The other gods
The Bible itself says that the Israelites did not serve one god only:
"The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord; they forgot the Lord their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs."
Judges 3:7
King Hezekiah even had to break the bronze snake of Moses:
"He removed the high places, smashed the sacred stones and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke into pieces the bronze snake Moses had made, for up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it. (It was called Nehushtan.)"
2 Kings 18:4
I follow this on Asherah, Baal, King Hezekiah’s religious reforms and Are Judaism and Christianity henotheistic?.
The books
All of this comes from one collection. On The Old Testament – The Hebrew Bible I give a short summary of each book, from Genesis to the prophets.
Who led them?
That brings me to the biggest question. Who was the god of the Israelites? On Who Is Yahweh? and The Hierarchy of YHWH I look at the readings that see Yahweh as one of the Anunnaki or Elohim. On Yahweh deliberately woven throughout the Hebrew Scriptures I follow the scholars who think the name was edited into the texts during the Babylonian Exile. See also Jesus versus Yahweh.
Related pages
- Exodus
- Moses
- The 12 Tribes
- Mount Sinai
- The Ark of the Covenant
- Who Is Yahweh?
- Asherah
- Babylon
- Canaanites
For every page I tagged with Israelites, see the Israelites tag archive.
