Israel Survived Late Bronze Age Collapse of Civilizations
Biblical narratives cover a period of societal
breakdown, illustrating God’s protection
Archaeology throughout the Near East has revealed a major collapse of great civilizations in the Late Bronze Age. One people group—the Jews—lived through it and thrived, continuing to survive all the way to the present day despite repeated upheavals.
When civilizations collapse (Thomas Levy, Science, 18 July 2024). Levy’s article is a book review of After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations by Eric Cline. Cline is “one of those rare scholars with the gift of communicating scientific and historical data to the public,” says reviewer Levy.
The book covers a period of time, the Late Bronze Age (LBA), when most major empires fell in a single colossal breakdown. They could be considered the “’G8 of that time’—the Mycenaeans, Minoans, Hittites, Cypriots, Canaanites, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Babylonians.”
After 1177 B.C. explores resilience and adaptation as the principal factors for measuring the success or failure of post–Bronze Age societal responses to the LBA collapse, innovatively applying different reports generated by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to these societies. Accordingly, resiliency in the period after the LBA collapse, the Iron Age, is examined in the context of a society’s “adaptive capacity”—its ability to thrive under stress, its coping capacity and fragility, its ability to adapt in response to climate change, its ability to reorganize after social disruption, and its vulnerability and windows of vulnerability (periods when combinations of hazards occur).
Neither the author or the reviewer is concerned about the Biblical record or its theology, of course; much less is the journal Science. Levy, in fact, was happy to see Cline drag “climate change” into the book’s theme. Even with their secular emphasis, however, one “remarkable” thing stands out of the review:
The metallurgical transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age in Cyprus temporarily led to new mining and metallurgy opportunities for Iron Age Edom, in the Arabah Valley of southern Jordan and Israel today, that led to the rise of their new statelet. Remarkably, the Jews, who evolved out of ancient Israel and Judah, are the one post–LBA collapse Iron Age ethnic group that is still around. Other examples of very resilient postcollapse societies were the Assyrians and Babylonians, owing to their location along permanent rivers and the fact that their governments, religions, and militaries were relatively unscathed. Although endowed with the Nile, Egypt was barely resilient, never rising again to the powerful LBA position it once held.
Indeed, to be “still around” today, the Jews had to endure repeated upheavals for the next 3,735 years: the Babylonian captivity, Alexander the Great’s conquests and the subsequent Hellenistic era, the Roman Empire’s rise and fall, the Muslim invasions and empires, medieval antisemitism, two World Wars and Hitler’s holocaust, and repeated resurgences of antisemitism up to the present war against Hamas and its enabler, Iran. That any ancient people group could survive almost four millennia is remarkable in itself. That one so targeted and persecuted could endure seems miraculous.
Ruins of Beth Shemesh, one of the settlements in southern Israel not conquered in Joshua’s time. (DFC, 2006)
The collapse of civilizations has been a sad recurrent story on our planet. Often, they occur more quickly than their rise. There is no guarantee western civilization will survive. America and Europe have been declining morally for decades, fed with the ungodly doctrine of Darwinian evolution. These days, given dependence on electricity and the internet, a collapse could occur very quickly. One EMP strike could return the United States to the stone age in a day.
The LBA collapse occurred in the time of the Judges. According to Whitcomb and Boyer’s timeline, Gideon would have been judging Israel when the Mycenaens, Minoans, Hittites and other civilizations were quickly declining. Levy’s smirking description of Israel as a “new statelet” belies the Old Testament description of the kingdoms of David and Solomon (1010-930 BC) as powerful, rich kingdoms that subdued their enemies within two centuries of the LBA collapse. The Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians did not survive to the present day; the ethnic groups living there today are not descended from those in Biblical times, whereas the Jews trace a continuous lineage from Abraham. Consider, too, that the ancient kingdoms would not have viewed Israel as worthy of conquest had they been insignificant bands under tribal chieftans as minimalists have long claimed.
The materialist bias is evident in Levy’s remarks and in Cline’s thesis. What makes civilizations rise and fall? Climate. Metallurgy. Social cohesion, they say. By contrast, the Bible explains that there is a Creator God who steers history. He reveals his laws for individuals and nations through his word, both written and spoken. God spoke to Abraham through the Angel of the Lord. He blessed Abraham because of his faith, and kept his covenant with the Abrahamic line despite repeated failures and rebellions by his descendants, the Israelites. God’s oath to Abraham that he would be the father of many nations, and that through his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Genesis 22:18), was fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The seed of Abraham who died and rose again has built his church out of people from all tribes, languages, peoples and nations, in spite of the rejection of their Messiah by the Jewish leaders.
God protected the Jews through four millennia of history for his own divine plan, not because the Jews were worthy of it. A running theme in the Old Testament is that God kept his covenant with the Abrahamic line despite repeated failures and rebellions by his descendants, the Israelites. Psalm 106 recounts how the Israelites went astray from the Exodus onward. Right after having witnessed the mighty miracle of the parting of the Red Sea, many of them were murmuring and doubting his protection. They rebelled against Moses, God’s chosen prophet and leader. They made and worshiped idols and participated in some of the atrocities of the Canaanites. Ezekiel said that it was not because of their righteousness that God protected them, but rather for the sake of His own name, so that it would not be profaned among the nations (Ezekiel 20).
From the start, God’s purpose in choosing the Jews was not to ignore the other nations, but to position Israel to be the vehicle of blessing to the world (Romans 3). The primary fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant has been the ministry and passion of Jesus Christ (Romans 4, Galatians 3), which has saved millions who have put their trust in him. Today, a non-trivial number of “Messianic Jews” acknowledge Jesus as the promised Son of Man (Daniel 7) and Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Throughout history as well, individual Jews have blessed humanity with their expertise in finance, science, medicine, and the arts. In Israel today, they strive to live in peace though surrounded by vicious enemies. And for evangelical Christ followers who interpret Old and New Testament prophecies with the most natural futurist meaning, the Jews will have a fundamental role in the last days (Zechariah 12, Romans 11:25-36, Matthew 24, Revelation 7, Revelation 14).
“Climate change” will not “give rise” to the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant. It is God’s promise that has preserved the Jews through history against incredible odds. The promises of God are irrevocable. God is faithful and trustworthy. What he promised he has done, and will continue to do, through to the end.