The Hebrew Neighborhood: The Concert of Powers, Phoenicians, and Canaan

The great empires of the Ancient Near East begin to mingle as we move forward from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Rabbi Rocklin will help us explore the following questions: 1. How were the Jews, a relatively small and inconsequential people, able to march into the land of Canaan and conquer the local tribes? 2. What did each of the five major empires that made up the Concert of Powers contribute to the development of the Ancient Near East? How did those developments affect the Jewish people? 3. Why are the Phoenicians credited with originating the alphabet?