ABSTRACT

Israel's origin or emergence was an intensively discussed issue for many years, with the two dominant schools espousing either the conquest or the peaceful infiltration model. The conquest theory was led by dominant figures such as Albright and Yadin, who claimed, following the narratives of the Exodus and conquest, that the Israelites entered Canaan as a unified group and conquered it. The peaceful infiltration model, supported by Alt, Noth, and Aharoni, assumed that the Israelites were semi-nomads who entered Canaan from Transjordan as part of a long process of migration. They settled mainly in the regions lacking dense Canaanite settlement. The Canaanite origins school is founded on two main arguments. The first is the rejection of all other schools, particularly that which attributes Israel's origins to semi-nomadic groups. The second is the positive evidence for local Canaanite origins. Finkelstein and Bunimovitz have used a meticulous study of the archaeological remains and brought to the front another theory.