Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:

Judahite, shaped, 4th, diaspora, famine, land, New, Syria, Abraham, slaves, Nile, 1077, rivers, traverse, harvest, magnet, imperial, foreign, epicenters, Mesopotamia, Bible, Levant, geographically

•

Egyptian interest in the             Levant can be traced back very early in Egypt's history

•

back to Stone Age (3.4 million years to 3100 BC)

•

civilization had developed in two                     epicenters:

•

1. Mesopotamia

•

2. Nile Delta

•

            rivers in these areas were the main reason for the civilizational competition in the Ancient Near East between these two areas

•

this duality will continue to determine Israeli and                 Judahite states

•

will decide events in the time of the writing of the           Bible and thereafter

•

these two centers of civilization were joined                             geographically by the Levant

•

forms a land bridge between                       Mesopotamia in the East and Egypt in the West

•

because the vast desert between these two areas was very difficult to                 traverse

•

when one traveled from Mesopotamia to Egypt, one went up through           Syria and around back down through Lebanon, Israel, through another desert and then into Egypt

•

Israel's history can be viewed as its geographic location on this         land bridge

•

the Bible was             shaped in large part by the fact that Israel was located in this land bridge area

•

the two centers also became two                 diaspora communities

•

the Babylonian Golah

•

the Egyptian Golah

•

so Mesopotamia, Egypt and Isreal in the middle are the three centers of early Jewish history

•

during the second and third dynasties, i.e. during the late       4th millenium (4000 BC - 3000 BC)

•

influx of               foreign laborers into Egypt

•

Egypt offered cultural goods for the elites

•

in times of hardship and             famine, it offered food and water

•

in Genesis,               Abraham comes from the Eastern culture center of Mesopotamia to come to promised land

•

as soon as he arrives in the promised land, he experiences a famine

•

he headed for Egypt where the         Nile offered a continuing food source

•

a treacherous trek but one can reach it better than going back to Mesopotamia

•

Egypt in all periods acted like a             magnet on its neighbors

•

Levant

•

uncertainty of               harvest and everpresent prospect of starvation

•

Egypt

•

super-abundance of grain production

•

richness of stock of fish, fowl and wild game

•

better to live a well-fed factor in Egypt than die a starving free man on the steppes of Asia

•

Egypt actively bought and took             slaves from other countries

•

Canaan had been in Egypt's sights far back into history

•

but in       New Kingdom Period (1550-        1077), Egypt established an enduring imperial presence in Canaan

•

this New Kingdom period is key to understanding Israel's fate among the time of waning and waxing                 imperial powers in the ancient Near East