Did Shishak create the Northern Kingdom?

FROM ARCHAEOLOGY TO HISTORY? Move Over, Moses: A Pharaoh May Have Created the Ancient Kingdom of Israel. New archaeological evidence and biblical scholarship suggest Shishak wanted to make Egypt great again – but may have inadvertently steered the Israelites into creating a great nation of their own (Ariel David, Haaretz premium). This is a long article. The argument is detailed and nuanced. It is difficult to excerpt, but here's a paragraph:

To summarize [Professor Israel] Finkelstein’s theory, the birth of the Kingdom of Israel may have happened like this: Sheshonq came to Canaan, saw the uppity inhabitants of the highlands as a threat, so he conquered them and installed a vassal ruler over them.

That vassal was Jeroboam I.

Professor Finkelstein has been doing a lot of synthetic work to try to reconstruct the history of Iron Age II Israel. For recent posts on his work, see here and follow the links.

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