The Kingdoms of Israel and Judah

The kingdoms of Israel and Judah are known, first and foremost, from the Bible, where their history is narrated in the Books of Samuel and Kings. Historically, Israel and Judah were part of a wider sociopolitical phenomenon that in many ways defined the Iron Age Levant: the rise and fall of territorial polities. Israel and Judah were two such polities and their story reflects, in many ways, the story of the Iron Age Levant. This chapter offers a survey and critique of the social and political histories of Israel and Judah, reconstructed in light of both archaeological research and textual sources, whether biblical or extra-biblical. It discusses Israel and Judah in their Levantine context, while referring also to the question of their possible unity; their transformation and growth in the ninth–eighth centuries bc (including their administrative apparatus and urban nature); and finally, their fate in the shadow of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires, and the imperial impact on local societies, as reflected in material remains and written sources.