How Many Jews Lived in Ancient Jerusalem?

Based on a thorough examination of archaeological evidence, Hillel Geva has produced population estimates for the city of Jerusalem in biblical and post-biblical times. Hershel Shanks summarizes his findings for the earlier period:

The first period that Geva considers in his study is from the 18th to the 11th centuries BCE, the period before the arrival of the Israelites. Jerusalem was then confined to the small spur south of the Temple Mount known today as the City of David. As Geva reminds us, even then Jerusalem “was the center of an important territorial entity.” During this period, it included a massive fortification system that has recently been excavated. Overall, however, the area comprises only about eleven to twelve acres. . . .

The next period Geva considers is the period of the United Monarchy, the time of King David and King Solomon and a couple of centuries thereafter (from 1000 BCE to about the 8th century BCE). In David’s time, the borders of the city did not change from the previous period. However, King Solomon expanded the confines of the city northward to include the Temple Mount. This increased the size of the city to about 40 acres, . . . [and] Geva estimates the population of the city at this time to have been about 2,000.

By the end of the First Temple period (the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E.), the walled city of Jerusalem covered 160 acres. By that time, settlement also extended northward outside the city walls, all of which expanded the city further. At its height, the population of Jerusalem at the end of the eighth century BCE, according to Geva, was 8,000.

Read more at Bible History Daily

More about: Ancient Israel, Archaeology, Davidic monarchy, Hebrew Bible, History & Ideas, Jerusalem

 

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF