مصر وكنعان وإسرائيل في العصور القديمة

by Donald B. Redford, بيومي قنديل (مترجم)

Covering the time span from the Paleolithic period to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the eminent Egyptologist Donald Redford explores three thousand years of uninterrupted contact between Egypt and Western Asia across the Sinai land-bridge. In the vivid and lucid style that we expect from the author of the popular Akhenaten , Redford presents a sweeping narrative of the love-hate relationship between the peoples of ancient Israel/Palestine and Egypt.

Genres: History, Ancient History, Egypt, Nonfiction, Religion, Egyptology, Middle East

776 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Donald Bruce Redford was a Canadian Egyptologist, archaeologist, and Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Pennsylvania State University; he retired in 2024. Redford directed a number of important excavations in Egypt, notably at Karnak and Mendes.

Reviews

[Mohamed · Rating 4 out of 5]

الكتاب دسم وملئ بالمعلومات وشيق لحد البكاء
صحيح انه طويل ومفصل للغاية واحيانا ممل ولا يمكن الانتهاء منه فى اقل من شهر علي الاقل الا انه يستحق
دراسة تاريخية مفصلة ممتعة ومليئة بالمصادر والحكايات التاريخية الشيقة

[Richard Rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an incredibly thorough account of the lands mentioned in the book's title, focusing primarily on the relationship between Egypt and the nations to its East. A very difficult read--extraordinarily heavy prose--it is meticulous in evidence and detail. Though there is far more information here than a lay person like myself could reasonably make use of, the book does provide an excellent big-picture look at Egyptian and Biblical history. But even the most sophisticated historian should find the encyclopedic detail and thorough footnotes satisfying and illuminating.

In spite of the measured, educated tone, the author's voice is evident throughout, particularly when exploding myths or debunking theories that are more hopeful than factual. Perhaps it is this one axe which the author has to grind that most humanizes the material, and gives his account of history such an air of scholarly reliability. Though it was a dense read, it was nevertheless a highly gratifying education. Many stories have the feel of mysteries revealed, of pieces being placed--at last--in their place in a complex puzzle. It was this sort of revelation that I enjoyed most.

I recommend it highly for those who are sufficiently curious about this region in this period of history.

[Sameh hwary · Rating 5 out of 5]

أكاد أبكي لسببين الأول لأني أخيرًا أنهيته و الثاني أنه للأسف انتهى

[Roger Burk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is tough going--a scholarly book written by a scholar for scholars. He assumes a general knowledge of Egyptian history. Nevertheless, it gives a generally readable account of the relationships between Egypt and Palestine from the Old Kingdom to the Babylonian Captivity (though the thread becomes hard to follow in the Iron Age). Those who know Biblical history may think of Palestine before the Hebrews as having only a scattering of nondescript Canaanite tribes and cities, but this book shows that the Canaanite kingdoms were well-organized and well-known to the New Kingdom Egyptians, who extended their imperium over the area for several centuries at the end of the Bronze Age. The Canaanite King of Jerusalem was among their clients. The Hebrews appear as a mongrel group of bummers living on the eastern fringe of this settled area, and probably among the various groups of "Asiatics" the Egyptians bring is as laborers, distinguished only by their aniconic storm-lord tribal deity.

Then the book takes a strange turn when it is time to link Egyptian history to Biblical. Redford is scornfully dismissive of others' attempts to find history in the Bible before the Monarchy, except for what can be verified by archaeology. He says that the stories of David are no better than the stories about King Arthur as a source of history, and that attempts to find more in them only reveal the presuppositions of the would-be historian.

We must allow Redford his professional judgment on the suitability of the Bible as an historical source. However, perhaps its early history of the Israelites is more like the Livy's early history of Rome than the wholly fanciful and ahistorical tales of chivalry (a comparison Redford does make at one point). Be that as it may, Redford goes on to make his own presuppositions painfully clear. Israel is just like all the surrounding nations. I Kings 3-12 is "puerile nonsense." The books of history were not compiled from earlier written records. Instead, "all indications are" that Jerusalem was filled with inscriptions and reliefs, just like the palaces and temples of Egypt and the Hittite Empire, and the narrative of I and II Kings was taken from them (p. 329). Of course, there are no "indications" of this, just Redford's speculations, even if one finds them plausible. Redford even describes a "decorated dado of inscribed orthostats" that only he can see. He is perfectly willing to accept moralizing stories as containing a "genuine memory" of historical events (p. 347), but only when those events conform to his expectations. The story of the Exodus is derived from the expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt and appropriated by Hebrews who took no part in it (despite the improbability of changing one's ancestors from being lords of Egypt to being slaves in Egypt) (p. 422).

Redford's distaste for the Bible is painfully obvious. Yahweh nauseates, but Akhenaten's sun disk is a sophisticated symbol of kingship (p. 380). (He dismisses the notion that Hebrew monotheism owed anything to Akhenaten's: the former is crass and primitive, the latter intellectual.) Finally his antipathy is admitted: he despises the Jews for escaping the Egyptians, only to subject themselves to the laws of Yahweh (p. 422). He much prefers the Spartans defending themselves at Thermopylae. He does not reflect on the laws the Spartans gave to their helots, nor on their utter lack of intellectual sophistication.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Redford traces a chronologically comprehensive history of Egypt's political relations with its Levantine, Aegean, and Mesopotamian neighbors, from the Neolithic to the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem in 586 BCE. Drawing upon contemporary Egyptian texts and their Mesopotamian analogues, as well as sources ranging from Herodotus to the Septuagint, the book offers many well-known narratives from less-familiar vantage points. Significant also is Redford's evaluation of the sources themselves, especially his pessimistic - indeed, sometimes vitriolic - critique of the historicity of the Bible regarding the pre-Monarchic era, supported by detailed comparisons with historical, archaeological, and onomastic evidence.

[Madly Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite reads on Egyptian history. This book is detailed and if you read closely, you'll learn a lot about trade routes and the overall economy of countries at this time. This was a textbook for a college class and I loved it then and I just reread it for the third time. Very impressed.

I'd like to add that my husband and I are University of Memphis alumni and this book is used by the Anthropology and Art History departments as a textbook. And the school has an advanced Egypt connection. SO IS IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to all interested in Egyptology and related history.

[M. I · Rating 5 out of 5]

مصر وكنعان وإسرائيل في العصور القديمة هو تاريخ عام للعلاقة بين مصر وكنعان / فلسطين / إسرائيل من عصور ما قبل التاريخ وحتى تدمير القدس في 586 قبل الميلاد. إنه عمل متين تدخل في تفاصيل كبيرة في مناقشة النصوص والأدلة النقدية ومدعومة بمراجع واسعة النطاق . يتناول الجزء الأول تاريخ وعصور ما قبل التاريخ لمصر والشام وصولاً إلى الهكسوس ، بالاعتماد على كل من الأدلة الأثرية والنصية.
ويتناول الجزء الثاني المملكة المصرية الحديثة وإمبراطوريتها الآسيوية. عندها فقط تظهر شخصيات وأحداث التاريخ الكتابي التقليدي. يبدأ بالنظر في بعض النظريات المختلفة حول أصول العبرانيين ، ثم يتعامل مع العلاقة بين مصر والنظام الملكي الإسرائيلي ، سياسيًا وثقافيًا.
فهو يقدم أدلة وإشارات إلى العلماء المخالفين ؛يستخدم نفس المعايير لتقييم نظرياته وبدائله ،يوافق على أن بعض اقتراحاته معقولة فقط ،ويسمح بعدم اليقين حيث يكون الدليل مفقودًا، بسبب الأساليب غير التاريخية في كثير من الأحيان للتاريخ الإسرائيلي المبكر الناتج عن المفاهيم الدينية المسبقة .
في نهاية الكتاب ، تمت مناقشة أربع قصص من أصل الكتاب المقدس - الخلق ، وجدول الأمم ، وقصة يوسف - ضمن القصة التاريخية.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a scholarly book about the political, economic, and cultural relationships between Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the rest of the ancient Mediterranean world from prehistoric times to 586 B.C. Although Israel appears in the title, it does not appear in the book until about page 250. And even then, much of the discussion is about how little is known due to deficiencies of certain Biblical texts as historical sources or works of history. (These deficiencies are discussed in some detail. If you believe the Old Testament is historically accurate, you will likely find this book infuriating.)

A non-specialist will find an atlas and a Bible helpful while reading. There are lots of place names and very few maps. There are lots of Biblical references and very few quotes. And there are several arguments that rely on a knowledge of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and/or other ancient languages. I don't know what will help with those :)

I thought the book was interesting, even though it wasn't what I expected. I expected to learn more about the people & culture of these lands, but the book is more about the actions of the ruling elite than the people in general.

[Khaled Yousry khalifa · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a scholar writes to scholars, the result becomes this book. Collective and Detailed narrative for an era and huge focus for the inter-relations between ancient empires and kingdoms. I found the book a bit detailed for my taste but not boring, I would have liked if there was more focus on the critical 8th year of Ramasis III rule and the invasion and impact of the sea people but for that I would recommend "1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed" for further details on this period. the author account was rather unbiased and academically especially for the history of region of many faiths and beliefs, for which some claims of ancestral rights.

[John Cox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finished! It was a tough read sorting through the footnotes and histories but loved it. I especially loved the ancient Canaanite histories. Ugarit rocks!

[Ahmed Masry ahlawy · Rating 4 out of 5]

كتاب جيد للغاية والمؤلف كان محايداً ولم يدع للمعتقد الديني مدخلاً للتأثير على سير العمل والإستنتاجات
جهد مشكور لسبر أغوار فترات هامة في التاريخ البشري

[DAJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating this book is tough. The first half is like a four- or five-star book; the second half is more like three stars.

This may be the only book dedicated to the relationship between Egypt and the southern Levant for most of ancient Egyptian history (it begins in prehistory and ends in the sixth century BC). It marshals a huge amount of evidence from a wide variety of sources to describe its subject. That makes it an indispensable source for anyone studying the subject from an Egyptological viewpoint, and valuable for anyone studying the Near East in that period. However, while evidence from Egypt is usually fairly abundant and reliable, evidence from the Near East is sometimes very sparse, especially during the early first millennium BC. When dealing with that evidence, Redford sometimes uses it strangely or jumps to conclusions without warning the reader how uncertain those conclusions really are.

The book is in four parts. Part One runs from prehistory through the Old and Middle Kingdoms to the reign of the Hyksos. Part Two describes the creation and maintenance of Egypt's Near Eastern empire during the New Kingdom. Part Three describes the Bronze Age Collapse and the turmoil it created in the region. The last part focuses on Israel and Judah, though with an emphasis on their relationships with Egypt, beginning with their emergence and ending with the conquest of Judah by Babylon, only a few decades before Egypt's own conquest by Persia. Although the book focuses on political history, it also discusses a lot of the cultural developments through this 2500-year period. The early chapters focus on cultural interaction, when political relations between Egypt and the Near East were not very close, and there's an entire chapter on the cultural exchange during the New Kingdom, which affected religion, literature, and language.

The latter two parts, of course, are the contentious ones. The once-abundant Egyptian records dwindled in this period, and sources from most regions of the Near East are spotty. By far the most detailed sources are the relevant books of the Bible, but most were written long after the fact and are of uncertain reliability. Redford is not friendly toward the Bible or its nationalistic agenda, and his editorializing against them makes one question his objectivity, but he points out good reasons why the early books—up to the Divided Monarchy period—cannot be trusted.

But biblical scholars, even those who agree that the biblical accounts are wrong about Israel's early history, argue endlessly about what really did happen. Redford too often states his own views as fact rather than presenting or even acknowledging the alternatives. For instance, he rightly points out that the books from Genesis to Samuel are clueless about the political situation in Canaan when Israel emerged as a people. They show no sign that the Egyptians controlled the region until recently or that the major cities had been its vassals, and they do not treat the Philistines as newcomers to the land. Yet Redford assumes that folk memories of the expulsion of the Hyksos, centuries before the collapse of Egyptian rule in Canaan, were the inspiration for the Exodus story. This is not the only possible inspiration for the Exodus story, and studies of cultural memory that have been done since this book came out suggest that such memories are unlikely to last so long.

For relations between Egypt and the southern Levant before the Bronze Age Collapse, this is probably still the definitive collection of information. The latter two parts of the book are more contentious and should be treated as one scholarly analysis among many.

[grs · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't read much material on Ancient Egypt or the surrounding areas but this is a very good read. At times, it feels too academic but other times it's very accessible. Especially the final section on Egypt and the Hebrew Kingdoms taught me a lot that I didn't know. Highly recommend reading the book. Be aware of the old vocabulary or highly sophisticated words though. Sometimes you may need a dictionary.

[Steve Bender · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult read with lots of names. Good explanation of how he got his data. Really a history of Egypt with side notes on Canaan and Israel. Has difficulty accepting facts that are not written on stone(Egypt). Discusses the stories of the patriarchs in the Bible. Holds out for late writing of the stories. Could use larger and more maps.

[YaSSeR · Rating 5 out of 5]

عمل عظيم من الدراسات التاريخية التكاملية التي تعرض تفاصيل التفاعل بين مصر وآسيا الصغرى وبلاد ما بين النهرين من العصر الحجري حتى سقوط القدس عام 586 قبل الميلاد. لقد تم وضع "الكيان" الصغيرفي سياق المنافسة الأكبر بين القوى العظمى في ذلك الوقت.

[Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

كتاب ثقيل ومرهق وخطير

[Mitchell Stern · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-researched historical text but I would have liked a bit more on the relationship between Egypt and Israel culturally than we got.

[Paul Cornelius · Rating 3 out of 5]

So much information is in this book. And it is wonderfully sourced. As such, the arguments are convincing, even when provocative. I suppose it all still holds together, although the volume was published more than a quarter of a century ago. Undoubtedly, new discoveries, especially in Egypt during the 1990s, have altered some of the groundwork Redford relies upon. I think this might be especially true regarding early Old Kingdom discoveries. But I'm no specialist in this area. Still, as I say, an intriguing book that is well worth the time invested in it.

And the reader will need to invest some time with Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, for, alas, the book is poorly written. It is not that Redford is a quirky writer. It is not that he is an eccentric writer. It is the fact that he is a bad writer. The prose is stiff, awkward, and full of self-invented portmanteaus. And there is the matter of his often dropping German words and phrases into his text (Völkisch, Drang nach Norden [Osten]). Why? Many of them have specific application to nineteenth century German nationalism. But Redford just drops them in without explanation, when perfectly good English phrases exist to explain what he wants to get across. This is academic preening at its worst. He simply looks silly doing it.

And what about maps? There are far too few of them, especially enlarged and detailed maps. This book must have been a mountain of confusion in the pre-internet age, when the reader had to have in his own possession material and maps to find out precisely what area Redford was discussing. This is a major flaw of the book, as is the lack of accompanying timelines.

There, too, is the matter of his footnoting. I've been critical of MLA's shift to citation in the text that began some decades ago. But Redford has made me appreciate it. I don't know the expected norm in his field. But I find his use of footnotes irksome and erratic. Footnotes should cite. They should not be there to carry on lengthy rants and supplementary arguments. If a paragraph is good enough for a footnote, then put it in the main body of the damn text! Yes, I used an exclamation mark--just as to remind that Redford's splattering of exclamation marks makes him sound like an hysteric.

Finally, Redford likes to indulge in what essentially are off topic rants. Before discussing Biblical sources, for example, he writes a six and a half page introductory rant about personal attitudes. And in the midst of the rant, he even inserts a half page footnote that is a rant within the rant. This sort of stuff makes for unpleasant and distracting reading. It also means his writing lacks coherence.

One mention: perhaps the most intriguing chapter was his shortest, the one on the Sea Peoples. It contained some convincingly argued, provocative conclusions. And it was presented in a coherent and scholarly fashion. I wish the rest of the book had maintained the same high standard.

[Nathan Dehoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read. The prose was rather dry and a LOT of information was packed in, but I guess I'm putting my history degree to use. It dealt with Middle Eastern politics, specifically between Egypt and its neighbors on the Arabian Peninsula, which is a complicated topic. It starts with the beginnings of civilization, and runs up through the fall of the Kingdom of Judah. Obviously a book involving Israel is going to overlap with the history as related in the Bible, and Redford's conclusion is that it the Good Book isn't a particularly reliable source. That's not to say it isn't a valuable historical resource, but it includes a lot of legend mixed in with its history. I've seen before the hypothesis that the Deuteronimistic History (Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings) was mostly written in the seventh century BC during the reign of King Josiah of Judah, although of course it was based on earlier oral and written material. Josiah ruled from around 641 to 609 BC, at a time when the death of Ashurbanipal meant a decline in Assyrian power, so he was able to capture some of the territory in the former Kingdom of Israel. He also was a supporter of the monotheistic Yahweh-only movement, so the priests and the prophets with those beliefs regarded him as an ideal king. The thing is, even people who aren't total Biblical literalists, who are willing to admit that maybe Adam and Eve weren't actual historical figures, will still go out of their way to make the evidence fit the Bible, rather than vice versa. Sure, it's possible to go too far in the other direction and latch onto anything that seems to DISPROVE the Biblical account, but I don't think this is as common among legitimate scholars. Redford briefly comments on the tendency that was popular in the nineteenth century of trying to explain Biblical stories rationally. For instance, there are theories to explain how the plagues in Exodus might have worked without involving anything supernatural. It's an interesting idea, but why assume the order of the plagues was accurate but other details weren't? That's not to say there isn't some historical basis for the Exodus story, but it's unlikely it was remembered exactly after several centuries. Redford suggests that the early Biblical stories were combined from a variety of other legends, including that of Canaanites gaining power in Egypt and then being conquered, accounts of ancient chieftains like Jacob (whose existence apparently is attested to in sources outside the Bible, but that doesn't mean he was the ancestor of the entire nation of Israel), and a hero legend about a guy down on his luck who managed to become rich and powerful. It's interesting to me how Genesis makes a point of the Israelites being only distantly related to the Canaanites when they likely were of similar ethnicity. Much of the material in Genesis about the origins of nations and tribes is more political than genetic, however.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clear, lively account of Egypt from predynastic times to its absorption into the Persian empire, mainly involving its relations with the Levant and the empires it contended with for control there (though not neglecting Kush, Libya or the Greeks, either).

If you pick the book up because of an interest in the Hebrew Bible, you're presumably curious about an Egyptologist's view of the Exodus. I knew that Redford thinks the biblical account is a dimly remembered version of the Middle Bronze expulsion of the Hyksos from Egypt, so no surprise there. But unlike the other specialists I've read on the subject, he also thinks Hyksos rule was the result of an invasion, not of the well-established, long-term West Semitic presence in the eastern Delta; he takes the ancient historian Manetho, and Manetho's sources, at their word. "There were Greeks in Egypt before the Ptolmies, Arabs before 641 A.D., and British before Tel el-Kebir," he notes, adding that thanks to less-than-meticulous prior digs and the Delta's high water table, archaeologists won't be able to settle this one.

As for the Exodus story as we have it, he traces Israelite origins to the nomadic Shasu and suggests that when they took up residence in Canaan's central highlands, they picked up Canaanite lore about the Hyksos, as well as tales of Bronze Age predecessors including Abraham and Jacob, and worked them into their own origin myths. But "whoever supplied the geographical information that now adorns the story" in Exodus 1-14 "had no information earlier than the ... seventh to sixth centuries B.C.," while the story of Moses, whether or not a leader of that name ever lived, is entirely Exilic or post-Exilic.

There's a lot more, including some healthy skepticism about the existence of the United Monarchy well before Israel Finkelstein's "David and Solomon"; a vivid account of the conquests of Assyria and its successors and the final years of Judah; and a delightfully sarcastic footnote about taking details of the Exodus tale seriously that I assume made the evangelical scholar Kenneth Kitchen wish he'd never written a blurb for the back cover. Thoroughly recommended.

[Mohamed Karaly · Rating 3 out of 5]

استمرارا فى السحلة التى لا أعلم إلى أين ستأخذنى، مأخوذا بهذا الشغف الجديد بالتاريخ القديم خصوصا
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قراءة التاريخ - على عكس كتب الفلسفة التى قد تؤدى معادلة جدلية بسيطة فى صفحة منها نفعها وتنتج طاقة هائلة- نتائجها غير قريبة وغير مرئية بوضوح، فأثرها ينتج بعد آلاف الصفحات .. مغامرة هائلة فى سرداب لا تُرى نقطة الضوء فى نهايته. خصوصا أننى بشكل مفارق وغريب اندفعت بهذا الشغف فى فترة فارقة فى حياتى أكثر ما تحتاج إليه هو التبصّر الدنيوى الفورى المرهون باتخاذ قرار، لا التبصّر التأملى الممطوط عبر التغيب فى آلاف الصفحات عن تاريخ العصور القديمة!0
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رغم أسلوب الكتاب الشائك وأفكاره المتداخلة بفوضى فى أغلب أجزائه ..إلا إنه شكل لى عزاءً جميلا

[Bassem Kabesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

كتاب بيدي بعد آخر عن مفهوم العلاقات الخارجية والدبلوماسيات القديمة بين الدول احسن حاجة في الكتاب ده أنه بيتكلم عن بشر العالم القديم بطريقة عادية يعني ناس بتاخد وتدي مع بعض و العلاقات قائمة على تبادل المصالح زي العلاقات الحالية. لأن للاسف المعلومات اللي كنا بتاهدها عن أجدادنا الاوائل هي معلومات من الكتب السماوية. المثير للإنتباه أن الكتاب ده مطبوع سنة ٩٣ و اخد وقت عقبال ما بقى كتاب رقمي، والأغرب أنه من الكتب اللي من الصعب تجيبها في أي دولة من دول الشرق الأوسط. انصح بقرايته واتمنى ترجمته

[Namrirru · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well resourced and clearly written. Most texts on Egypt treat other city-states peripherally, but this incorporates an entire area and gives a better picture of the land economically and politically.

[David Olmsted · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great work of integrative historical scholarship that details the interaction between Egypt, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia from the stone age up to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Little Israel is put into the context of the larger competition between the great powers of the time.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

More readable than I expected. Pretty solid; touches on a lot of interesting material.

[Raúl Rubio micó]

i want read the book

[rofida · Rating 5 out of 5]

خلصته
بصراحه يتاكل اكل :)
الجزء الاخير كان عن الميثولوجي
يا دين النبي :) :)
لازم الاشاره هنا لمجهود المترجم كمان
متشكره