Much of the news about ancient DNA has been about radical discontinuities: the replacement of people by invaders and so on. But DNA from five skeletons excavated in ancient Sidon, Lebanon, dating to around 1700 BCE,
is remarkably like that of current Lebanese. The investigators posit that 90 percent of contemporary Lebanese genes come from ancient Canaanites.
Of course this is just one study, but it supports other evidence that the populations of the Middle East have been quite stable since the spread of farming. This goes against the idea one can get from the Old Testament that the Israelites exterminated the Canaanites, or at least did great slaughter among them.
"This goes against the idea one can get from the Old Testament that the Israelites exterminated the Canaanites, or at least did great slaughter among them."
ReplyDeleteYou mean it turns out that the small, marginalized group of xenophobes who hated all their neighbors, took drastic measures to differentiate themselves from everyone else, and claimed divine superiority over all others, actually just made up a bunch of stories in their holy book about how they were so much better than everyone else?
Next you'll tell me that Samson wasn't actually a real life Rambo of a man who killed and genitally mutilated his enemies by the hundreds armed only with a donkey jawbone!
Or that when a couple of kids made fun of Elisha for being bald, he didn't actually summon a pair of wild bears to maul them to death!
Or that Moses didn't literally part the Red Sea like in the movies, but instead just exploited local knowledge of the tides to cross when the water was low enough to wade through, with his pursuers far enough behind that they'd arrive after the tide rose again, and their chariots in particular would be foiled!