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Canaan, area variously defined in historical and biblical literature, but always centered on Palestine. Its original pre-Israelite inhabitants were called Canaanites. Biblically, Canaanites are identified in Genesis as descendants of Canaan, a son of Ham and grandson of Noah.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
By Anson F. Rainey. Before they settled in the hill country of Canaan, where did the earliest Israelites come from and what was the nature of their society? The Bible is very clear. They were pastoral nomads who came from east of the Jordan.
How did ancient Israel come to be? Did the early Israelites enter Canaan as the books of Joshua and Judges recount, or were they already there as part of the indigenous population? If they did enter Canaan, was it through conquest or peaceful settlement?
The prevailing academic opinion is that the Israelites were a mixture of peoples predominately indigenous to Canaan, with additional input from an Egyptian matrix of peoples, which most likely inspired the Exodus narrative. Israel's demographics were similar to the demographics of Ammon, Edom, Moab and Phoenicia.
Nov 25, 2023 · Israelites are related to Canaanites because they interbred with the Canaanites after the invasion. Palestinians are more closely related to the Canaanites. And if we’re talking about the current israeli population, which is 55% Sephardim and 45% Ashkenazim, they are Spanish and European.
The Canaanites were the inhabitants of ancient Canaan, a region that roughly corresponds to present-day Israel and the Palestinian Territories, western Jordan, southern and coastal Syria, Lebanon, and continued up to the southern border of Turkey.
Wherever they came from, it is clear that in the period prior to the establishment of the United Monarchy in about 1000 B.C., there were people in the land of Canaan who called themselves Israelites. (Otherwise there would have been no Israelites to form the United Monarchy.)
