| |
| | Ugarit and the Bible By David Steinberg |
 | | to 332 BCE) history of Syria-Palestine is much less understood than that of Egypt and Mesopotamia, not because there is less to know, nor because literacy was unknown, but because writing was recorded on papyrus and wood which decay rapidly in the climate of the settled areas of Syria-Palestine. |
 | | The Hebrew Bible itself is clearly a remnant of a much wider literature, yet all the inscriptions from, say 1200 BCE to 300 BCE found in Israel, probably the most excavated country in the world, would scarcely cover one or two closely printed pages. |
 | | These inscriptions, from the 8th century BCE, raise the possibility that monotheism, as a state religion, is actually an innovation of the period of the Kingdom of Judea, following the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel. |
| www.adath-shalom.ca /ugarit.htm (4247 words) |
|