D.C.-Area Lecture: The Collapse of Civilizations in 1177 B.C. and the Emergence of Israel
Biblical archaeology lecture presented by Dr. Eric Cline
On Sunday, January 11, 2015, the Biblical Archaeology Forum (BAF) and the Biblical Archaeology Society of Northern Virginia (BASONOVA) will sponsor the lecture “The Collapse of Civilizations in 1177 B.C. and the Emergence of Israel” by Dr. Eric Cline of the George Washington University. The lecture will be hosted at B’nai Israel Congregation.
During the Late Bronze Age, the Mediterranean region hosted a complex international world in which Egyptians, Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Cypriots and Canaanites all interacted, creating a cosmopolitan and globalized world-system.
This internationalism may have contributed to the apocalyptic disaster that ended the Bronze Age. After centuries of cultural and technological evolution, the international world of large empires and small kingdoms came to a dramatic halt. With their end came the world’s first recorded Dark Ages.
With their end also came opportunities for new peoples to establish themselves, including the Israelites. This lecture will show how the Israelites benefited from the devastated Egyptians’ withdrawal from Canaan, and how both the Egyptian retrenchment and subsequent power vacuum provided the Israelite peoples the space they needed to become a nation.
“The Collapse of Civilizations in 1177 B.C. and the Emergence of Israel,” presented by Dr. Eric Cline
B’nai Israel Congregation
January 11, 2015, at 7:30 p.m.
6301 Montrose Road
Rockville, MD 20852
Reservations are not required. Fees per lecture are: free – BAF subscribers, high school students; $5 – college students, CES Life Communities, B’nai Israel congregants; $8 – BASONOVA & JCCGW members; $10 – the general public. For more information, please contact [email protected].
For more Washington, D.C.-area lectures, visit the Biblical Archaeology Forum and Biblical Archaeology Society of Northern Virginia websites.
BAS Library Members: Not able to make the lecture? Watch Eric Cline deliver the lecture “1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed” in the BAS Library.
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I just finished Cline’s book about Ramesses III. I have a speculative idea that the exodus occurred right after him, when there was a time of cold climate in 1159-1140 BCE, according to the dendrochronologists. I need to find more info about these things, but I am too far away to attend the lecture.
What I cant understand from the above, is, does God approve of human sacrifices or not? He utterly condemns Israel for allowing their children to “pass through the fire”….ie being sacrificed to Moloch, yet here He asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to Himself and then arranges events to have Jesus sacrificed to Himself . Hardly consistent and hopelessly confusing to us.
Unless perhaps they were never intended as sacrifices. With Jesus , we gentiles killed Him , yet God accepted it as a sacrifice, something which we had never considered, yet future gospel writers could build this in to their writings…. and with Abraham , the Talmud shows that Isaac was fully involved in the process, He even overcame Abraham’s reluctance to do it and tied some of the ropes himself, which indicates they may well have had a lot more knowledge of what was happening than the bible outlines.
An Inheritance Passed On Through Abraham
As he carried out his purpose for the earth, Jehovah dealt in a special way with Abraham. He directed that faithful man to leave his country and move to a land that God himself would show him. Abraham willingly obeyed. After Abraham arrived there, Jehovah said that Abraham’s offspring, not Abraham himself, would receive the land as an inheritance. (Genesis 12:1, 2, 7) How did Abraham react? He was willing to serve Jehovah wherever and however God directed so that his offspring could receive their inheritance. Abraham served Jehovah in a land not his for 100 years, until his death. (Genesis 12:4; 25:8-10) Would you have done that? Jehovah said that Abraham was his “friend.”—Isaiah 41:8.
Abraham had waited many years for a son, Isaac, whom he dearly loved. When the boy had evidently grown to young manhood, Jehovah instructed Abraham to take the boy and offer him up as a sacrifice. Abraham did not know that he was about to demonstrate what God himself would do in giving his Son as a ransom; yet, he obeyed and was at the point of offering up Isaac as a sacrifice when Jehovah’s angel stopped him. (Genesis 22:9-14) Jehovah had already said that his promises to Abraham would be fulfilled through Isaac. Hence, Abraham clearly had faith that, if necessary, God could bring Isaac back from the dead, although such a thing had never been done before. (Genesis 17:15-18; Hebrews 11:17-19) Because Abraham did not withhold even his son, Jehovah declared: “By means of your seed all nations of the earth will certainly bless themselves.” (Genesis 22:15-18) This indicated that the Seed mentioned at Genesis 3:15, the Messianic deliverer, would come through Abraham’s line. What a precious inheritance to pass on!
Abraham did not know the significance of what Jehovah was then doing; neither did his son Isaac nor his grandson Jacob, who became “heirs with him of the very same promise.” But they all had confidence in Jehovah. They did not attach themselves to any of the city-kingdoms in the land because they were looking for something better—“the city having real foundations, the builder and maker of which city is God.” (Hebrews 11:8-10, 13-16) Yet, not all of Abraham’s offspring appreciated the preciousness of the inheritance that was available through Abraham.
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1200276763