A concise history of warfare between Ancient Middle Eastern cultures
in the age of the Old Testament using archaeology and evidence from the
Bible.
The period covered by the Old Testament - beginning in approximately
3000 BC - was one of great technological development and innovation in
warfare, as competing cultures clashed in the ancient Middle East. The
Sumerians were the first to introduce the use of bronze into warfare,
and were centuries ahead of the Egyptians in the use of the wheel. The
Assyrians developed chariot warfare and set the standard for a new
equine-based military culture. The Babylonians had an army whose people
were granted land in return for army service.
This authoritative history gives an overview of warfare and fighting in
the age of the Old Testament, from the Akkadians, Early and Middle
Kingdom Egypt and their enemies, Mycenean and Minoan Greece and Crete,
Assyrians and New Kingdom Egyptians, the Hittites, the Sea Peoples who
gave rise to the Philistines, the Hebrew kingdom, the Babylonian
kingdom, the Medes and later Persian Empires, through to early Classical
Greece.
Author Simon Elliott explores how archaeology can shed light on events
in the Bible including the famous tumbling walls of Jericho, the career
of David the boy warrior who faced the Philistines, and Gideon, who was
able to defeat an army that vastly outnumbered his own.
