found to support aspects of the biblical story of the conquest and its aftermath, and such evidence also supports the idea that the Hebrew people possessed Palestine long before those claiming it in more recent history. Still, the issue remains complex and controversial.
             The tribes of Israel were unified and held together first by their beliefs, but they clearly lacked many of the elements considered essential to the concept of a nation. The tribes of Israel never acted long as a unit prior to the time of the rise of the monarchy in Palestine. There was before that time only single tribes, and occasionally small groups of tribes intervening in historical events. The term "nation" used to refer to the Israelites cannot be seen as having the same sense when used for other nations. The tribes did not all come together until the occupation of the land on the soil of Palestine, and it is only from that point that the real History of Israel can be said to start. The Old Testament, of course, does not recognize any earlier form of "Israel" than this union of the twelve tribes domiciled in Palestine, and that the Bible reports of the events before the occupation of the land also refer to this same "Israel" which it recognizes only in its later historical form. This "Israel" thus comes on the scene rather abruptly after the occupation of the land (Noth, 1958, pp. 5-6).
             The land of Israel placed Israel in a narrowly confined space. It is usual to refer to the land of Israel as Palestine, a name that arose in early Christian literature to describe the setting of the Bible story, following the official language of the period. Palestine actually means "Land of the Philistines," and the name was selected to refer to the Roman province which more or less coincided with the land of Israel, though the term had been applied originally to a more limited area. The history of Israel has always been conditioned by the soil on which that his...