A cuneiform script is in use in Sumer by 3200 BCE, by which time writing has spread from Mesopotamia to the Egyptians in the west and to the Elamites of southwestern Iran.

Sumerian cities during the Uruk period are probably theocratic and are most likely headed by a priest-king (ensi), assisted by a council of elders, including both men and women.

It is quite possible that the later Sumerian pantheon was modeled upon this political structure.

There is little evidence of institutionalized violence or professional soldiers during the Uruk period, and towns are generally not walled.

Uruk becomes the most urbanized city in the world during this period, surpassing fifty thousand inhabitants for the first time.

Babylon emerges under the Kassites as the dominant city of central and southern Mesopotamia.

Following the treaty confirming the boundary between Assyria and Babylonia, Kurigalzu I of Babylonia and Ashur-bel-nisheshu of Assyria conclude a further treaty in the late fifteenth century.

The Enuma Elish, a Babylonian creation epic, is probably composed at Babylon in the Kassite period to celebrate Babylon's victory over the Sealand, around 1450 BCE (though it only exists in later copies).

The text, consisting of seven tablets, borrows many of the mythological motifs in the story from earlier Canaanite myths about Baal.

In the tale, Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, is elected king of the gods to defeat Tiamat, possibly the personified sea representing chaotic evil.

After dispatching her, Marduk splits her in two, fashions the world from her corpse, and stations the various gods in their appropriate spheres.

He then creates the human race from the blood of Tiamat’s consort, the rebel god Kingu, to be the slaves of the gods.

Finally, he establishes Babylon, and the text closes with the gods praising Marduk by reciting his fifty names.

During the Dark Age in Mesopotamia that has ensued from the Hittite sack and the Kassite takeover, the language of the Amorites disappears from Babylonia and the mid-Euphrates; in Syria and Palestine, however, it becomes dominant.

David's son and successor, Solomon, extends the city and builds his Temple on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.

The Temple, built as an abode for the Ark and as a place of assembly for the entire people, is reportedly completed in about 957.

Thus, Jerusalem becomes the place of the royal palace and the sacred site of an eventually monotheistic religion, and Canaan becomes, for all practical purposes, the Land of Israel.

The easternmost of the two hills of Jerusalem is called Zion.

Mount Zion, in the Bible often meaning the city rather than the hill itself, is the place where Yahweh, the God of Israel, dwells (Isaiah 8:18 Psalm 74:2), the place where he is king (Isaiah 24:23) and where he has installed his king, David Psalm 2:6).

It is thus the seat of the action of Yahweh in history.

Middle East (909 BCE – 819 CE) Early Iron and Antiquity — Urartu, Achaemenids, Parthians, Sasanian Frontiers

Geographic and Environmental Context

The Middle East includes Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, eastern Jordan, most of Turkey’s central/eastern uplands (including Cilicia), eastern Saudi Arabia, northern Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, northeastern Cyprus, and all but the southernmost Lebanon.

• Anchors: the Tigris–Euphrates alluvium and marshes; the Zagros (Luristan, Fars), Alborz, Caucasus (Armenia–Georgia–Azerbaijan); northern Syrian plains and Cilicia; Khuzestan and Fars lowlands; the Arabian/Persian Gulf littoral (al-Ahsa–Qatar–Bahrain–UAE–northern Oman); northeastern Cyprus and the Lebanon coastal elbow (north).

Climate & Environment

• Continental variability; oases survived by canal upkeep; Gulf fisheries stable; Caucasus snows fed headwaters.

Societies & Political Developments

• Urartu (9th–6th c. BCE) fortified Armenian highlands;

• Achaemenid Persia (6th–4th c. BCE) organized satrapies across Iran, Armenia, Syria uplands, Cilicia; Royal Road linked Susa–Sardis through our zone.

• Hellenistic Seleucids, then Parthians (3rd c. BCE–3rd c. CE) and Sasanians (3rd–7th c. CE) ruled Iran–Mesopotamia; oases prospered under qanat/karez and canal regimes.

• Transcaucasus (Armenia, Iberia/Georgia, Albania/Azerbaijan) oscillated between Iranian and Roman/Byzantine influence; northeastern Cyprus joined Hellenistic–Roman networks.

• Arabian Gulf littoral hosted pearling/fishing and entrepôts (al-Ahsa–Qatif–Bahrain).

Economy & Trade

• Irrigated cereals, dates, cotton, wine; transhumant pastoralism; Gulf pearls and dates.

• Long-haul Silk Road and Royal Road flows; qanat irrigation expanded in Iran.

Technology & Material Culture

• Iron plowshares, tools, and weapons; fortifications; qanat engineering; road stations (caravanserais earlier variants).

• Arts: Urartian bronzes; Achaemenid stonework; Sasanian silver; Armenian and Georgian ecclesiastical arts (late).

Belief & Symbolism

• Zoroastrianism, Armenian/Georgian Christianity, local cults; Jewish and early Christian communities in oases/ports; syncretism in frontier cities.

Adaptation & Resilience

• Canal/qanat redundancy, pasture–oasis integration, distributed entrepôts (northeastern Cyprus, Gulf) hedged war and drought.

Transition

By 819 CE, the Middle East was a layered highland–oasis–Gulf system under Sasanian–Byzantine frontiers giving way to Islamic polities.

The northern Hebrew tribes had refused to recognize Solomon's successor Rehoboam following the death of the former in 925 or 926 BCE.

The north subsequently broke away under the rule of the House of Omri.

The northern kingdom of Israel, more populous than the southern kingdom of Judah, possessing more fertile land, and closer to the trading centers of the time, flourishes until the Assyrians completely destroy it and send its ten tribes sent into permanent exile between 740 and 721 BCE.

The destruction of the Hebrew north has a sobering effect on the south.

The prophet Isaiah eloquently proclaims that rather than power and wealth, social justice and adherence to the will of God should be the focus of the Israelites.

The post-conquest inhabitants of Samaria are allegedly colonists who adopt what later Jewish tradition will characterize as a distorted form of Judaism.

Today’s Samaritans hold to the Pentateuch as their Scripture and honor Moses as the only prophet.

Claiming descent from the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, they maintain that they have preserved the way and will of Yahweh, though they accept little of later Jewish theology.

Y-chromosome analysis shows that Samaritans descend from the Israelites (including Cohen, or priests) and mitochondrial DNA analysis shows descent from Assyrians and other foreign women, effectively validating both local and foreign origins for the Samaritans.

The oldest principal source of the Torah postulated by the Documentary Hypothesis (DH) is the so-called Yahwist (German: Jawhwist) source, or J.

Perhaps written in Judah, the southern section of the Hebrew kingdom, its narratives make up half of Genesis and the first half of Exodus, plus fragments of Numbers.

J’s extremely eloquent, emotionally rich style describes a human-like God, called Yahweh (or rather YHWH) throughout, and has a special interest in the territory of the Kingdom of Judah and individuals connected with its history.

J has a particular fascination for traditions concerning Judah, including those concerning its relationship with its neighbor Edom.

J also supports Judah against Israel, for example suggesting that Israel acquired Shechem (its capital city) by massacring the inhabitants.

While J supports the priests descended from Aaron who were established in Jerusalem, the capital of Judah, J also treats God in a fairly early or unsophisticated form as a human-like figure, capable of regret, and being dissuaded, appearing in person at events.

God is presented in J in many cases as about to embark on some terrible vengeance over mankind, and is dissuaded.

For example, concerning the activities in Sodom and the other cities of the plain, J presents God as about to destroy the cities, but gradually being dissuaded by Abraham, until God consents to save it if there are even only as few as ten worthy individuals within it.

Likewise, during the exodus, J presents the complaints of the Israelites, and their failure to obey the laws strictly, as leading to God being about to abandon them, destroy them all, and raise Moses' descendants instead, but repented from the evil he thought to do to them when Moses dissuades him (Exodus 32: 14).

Julius Wellhausen (1844 - 1918) will incorporate the hypothesis of the Jahwist source into his Documentary Hypothesis, which will become a foundation of higher criticism.

J will be incorporated around 400 BCE into the Torah.