The history of Israel : its facts and factors / by H. Wheeler Robinson.

"Select bibliography": pages 241-244.

CHAPTER I: THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE-- The Land -- The People -- Palestine in the Amarna Age -- The Patriarchal Age and Nomadism -- CHAPTER II. THE EXODUS AND THE SETTLEMENT – Egypt -- The Date of the Exodus -- The Work of Moses -- The Invasion of Canaan -- The Period of the " Judges" -- CHAPTER III: THE EARLY MONARCHY -- The Philistines -- Samuel and Saul – David – Solomon – CHAPTER IV:. THE NORTHERN KINGDOM -- Jeroboam I -- Omri and Ahab -- The Dynasty of Jehu -- The Decline and Fall of Israel – CHAPTER : THE SOUTHERN KINGDOM -- Hostility and Alliance (930-842 в.с.) -- Adversity and Prosperity (842-740 в.с.) -- The Age of Isaiah -- Politics and Religion in the Seventh Century -- The Fall of Judah – CHAPTER VI: THE EXILIC PERIOD -- The Political Background -- The Social and Religious Conditions in Judaea -- The Exiles in Babylon -- The Religious Life of the Exiles – Cyrus -- CHAPTER VII: THE JEWS UNDER THE PERSIANS -- The "Return" and the Second Temple -- Nehemiah and Ezra -- The Samaritans -- The Elephantine Colony -- The Persian Background – CHAPTER VIII: THE JEWS IN THE GREEK PERIOD -- Ptolemies and Seleucids -- The Maccabees -- The Hasmonaeans – CHAPTER IX: THE JEWS UNDER THE ROMANS -- From Pompey to Herod -- Herod the Great -- The Herodian Kings -- 4. The Roman Procurators -- The Jewish War -- The Dispersion – CHAPTER X. ISRAEL'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE PHILO-SOPHY OF HISTORY -- The Interaction of Faith and Event -- The Value of the Time-Series -- 3. The Unity of History -- The Relation of Transcendence and Immanence.

The purpose of this short history of Israel is to meet the need felt by many teachers and students for an introductory text-book covering the whole ground, and suitable as a preparation for the use of the larger histories, and of studies of special periods. The title indicates the nature of the book. I have tried to include all the chief facts which emerge from the literary and epigraphic sources, whilst showing throughout the shaping factors of the history, particularly its succession of imperial backgrounds. The book is intended to be complementary to my previous one in this series, viz., The Religious Ideas of the Old Testament. I have therefore in this book refrained from any detailed discussion of the religion, though it is impossible to write a true history of Israel which does not always keep religion in sight, either as cause or effect as cause, in the creation and maintenance of the nation, and as effect, in the deposit of Scriptures" which became funda-" mental to both Judaism and Christianity, and also (indirectly) to Islam. Whilst my treatment of the history is "realistic", assuming as it does the constant operation of those psychical, political and economic forces which work amongst all peoples, it is not intended to be "naturalistic". I have therefore felt that it was germane to my purpose to include a final chapter¹ on the philosophy of history as illustrated by the history of Israel. This chapter makes explicit the assumptions on which the facts and factors of the history of Israel have been handled in this book. As a distinguished Old Testament scholar¹ has said, "The historian of particular historical developments cannot pursue his researches or set forth his results without the aid of the general concepts and ideas provided for him by the philosophy of history." It is consequently better to make explicit what would other-wise be implicit, and there is a special reason for this in regard to the Old Testament. The only adequate basis for a philosophy of Christian revelation is a philosophy of the history which created the Old Testament, and crowned that splendid literature with the New. I am grateful to the Rev. A. J. D. Farrer, who read the typescript, and to the Rev. Professor H. H. Rowley, who read the proof, for many useful criticisms; also to the Rev. L. H. Brockington, who has compiled the Index.