therefore, does not include the period of the patriarchs, exodus, conquest, or judges as devised by the writers of the Scriptures. These periods never existed.6 In writing about the historical developments of Palestine between 1250–586, all of the traditional answers given for the origins and development of “Israel” have had to be discarded. The patriarchs of Genesis were not historical. The assertion that “Israel” was already a people before entering Palestine whether in these stories or in those