Hi nos.
I was hoping you would say from the Bible, as it would be far easier to explain!!
Outside of the biblical tradition it is difficult to equate these three terms. For example, the term ‘Hebrew’ or to be more accurate ‘ivri’ cannot be found anywhere in external sources, history is blissfully unaware of their existence. In the biblical sources the term ‘ivri’ applies to a large group of people who are the descendants of an eponymous ‘Ever’ in biblical ethnology. If the term relates to an ethnic group then it is an ethnic group that can ONLY be found in the Bible. (Halpern, Rise of Israel pp147-9)
So, despite some valiant attempts, scholars have failed to find the ‘Hebrews’ in non-biblical sources.
The best known attempt to solve the mystery of the invisible ‘Hebrews’ was to equate them with the Habiru / ’Apiru that can be found in non biblical sources. The Amarna tablets, which date from the 14th century BCE, do not mention any group called the Israelites but there are references, in letters from the ruler of Jerusalem IR-Heba, to a people called Habiru. (Lemche, pp25-49)
It doesn’t take a great genius to compare the habiru linguistically with the term Hebrew from the Old Testament. The habiru are also connected with the appearance of an element of Asiatic origin, which had been known for some time from Egypt in the form of the term ‘pr.w’
Archaeology provided good evidence from the find at Tel el Amarna that contains a number of texts that mention the habiru. However, the habiru are only mentioned in letters from Jerusalem, which according to the Bible, was only conquered during the reign of David, several hundred years later.
The answer to this problem was provided initially by the recognition of an element labelled SA.GAZ as being additional references to the habiru. These people appear in a context almost identical to the one found about the habiru in IR-Heba’s letters. This hypothesis is also backed up by evidence from the Hittite archive at Baghazkoy / Hattashash.
Then references to the habiru began popping up all over the Near East, as well as the Egyptian references there are also references from Susa in Persia and Mesopotamia. The habiru are identified as a marginal social stratum that was composed of mercenaries, raiders, gypsy type wanderers and slave labour(McNutt, pp46-7)or relates to any person that was hired by someone to do something (McCarter p.147)
All this means that, at the moment, we do not know for sure who the Hebrews actually were, in a non biblical context of course.
In regard to the Israelites, there are similar problems with identifying the origins of the people that came to be known as Israelites.
Archaeology has no evidence for an ‘Israel’ before 1207 BCE and the inscription of the Pharaoh Merneptah, and even this is obscure. The origins of Ancient Israel is an ongoing debate, no one knows where these people came from or when they became a nation. One thing that is universally accepted in regard to the origins of the Israelites is that the bible narratives of their origin, the enslavement in Egypt, the Exodus, the conquest and settlement in Canaan belong to the realms of myth and religious propaganda. Here’s a quote from William Dever who is sure that the bible is useful as an historical source, he really does fight for the bible very well in books, debates and journal articles:
‘there isn’t a single reputable professional archaeologist in the world who espouses the conquest model in Israel, Europe or America. We don’t have to say anymore about the conquest model’. (William Dever, The Rise of Israel p29)
So we have one of the leading defenders of the ‘bible as history’ acknowledging that the bible narratives regarding the Enslavement, Exodus, and the Military Conquest by Joshua are not taken seriously by any reputable bible scholar.
The flavour of the month at the moment in this area is that the Israelites emerged from within Canaanite society; they never left Canaan in the first place so there didn’t have to be an exodus, military conquest etc. Evidence for this is the cultural continuities found in the lowland city-states and the new villages that appeared in the hill country at the end of the Late Bronze Age — Early Iron Age.
I could go on quoting books and opinions of many bible scholars but the bottom line is: we don’t know who the Hebrews were, if they existed at all, we don’t know for sure where the Israelites came from or when they emerged as a nation.
Finally, the Jews are a people who came from a distinct land. They are acknowledged as coming from Judah by Roman and Greek sources and later the name ‘Jew’ was applied to anyone that followed the teachings of the Hebrew Bible.
Therefore, your query about these three groups being basically the same people but called the different terms depending on the time they are looked at, would have to be no. As we are looking at these terms in the ‘real world’ then we cannot identify for sure the Hebrews or the Israelites so they cannot be equated with anyone. This doesn’t mean that they never will be identified as the same group but at the moment it isn’t possible to trace them.
If you wanted to look to the bible tradition for evidence then there are problems too. For example, Abraham is seen as the first Hebrew and it is only his son Jacob/Israel who fathers the Israelites, so the rest of Abraham’s dysfunctional family and their offspring would be Hebrew but could not be Israelites, neither could they be Jews, as Jews are the descendants of Judah, Jacobs son.
You can see in the Bible text that all Jews could be Israelites, but not all Israelites can be Jews. It’s a Holy Rubik’s Cube!!
The study of the Hebrew-Israelite-Jew, from out side the bible tradition, isn’t as straight forward as one might think, especially when there is little or no evidence for two of the three groups. There may be texts or other sources that haven’t been found yet that could clear the mist a bit, but at the moment I for one would treat these three groups as entirely separate entities.
If you are interested in reading more on this topic here are some books you might like to read, I have quoted from some of these in the post.
Shanks, Dever, Halpern and MacCarter. The Rise of Ancient Israel. Biblical Archaeology Society. Wasington 1992.
Paula McNutt. Reconstructing the Society of Ancient Israel. SPCK. London 1999.
Nils Peter Lemche. The Israelites in History and Tradition. SPCK. London 1998.
William Dever. What did the Biblical writers know and when did they know it? Eerdmens Publishing Company. Grand Rapids, Michigan.
John C.N. Laughlin. Archaeology and the Bible. Routledge London 2000.
Take care nos
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