The Keepers of Our Culture For 3,000 Years: The Mama or the Papa?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

       This is the order in which the 12 sons were born to Jacob.  Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun were full brothers.

   Joseph and Benjamin were 1/2 brothers but also 1st cousins to the others.

      Dan, Naphtali, and Gad and Asher were 1/2 brothers to each other as well as to the first 6.  

I just finished watching Simcha Jacobovici's "Lost Ten Tribes" that accidently came on my YouTube Channel this morning, and I'm all hepped up into these facts of finding almost all 10 tribes, I think it was 9 that he found, and that these people have carried on some form of our culture and religion for all these years since 721 BCE when the Assyrians attacked and took away much of the Israelite population both males and females.  

Who is it today who teaches the children in the family our culture and practices such as lighting candles on Friday evenings?  The Mother. Who makes the food that is special for each holiday, designating that special holiday?  The Mother.  

Dr. Shalva Weil of Jerusalem, an anthropologist, has studied such people, specializing in the Pashtuns of Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, whose real religion other than Islam is Pashtunwali, which is an ancient form of our commandments.  She found that even they, Taliban families of today, were lighting candles on Friday nights but not knowing why.  In fact, many things they did were indicating our cultural past, but they didn't know why they did these things.  Simcha found out these facts personally, traveling the same course that our captured 10 tribes must have traveled on, going there and viewing the evidence.  

So, let's look at these original mothers.  Jacob and Leah produced  6 of the 12 tribes, which were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah (that's us), Issachar, and Zebulun,  Genetically, Jacob, whose name was also Israel, was the grandson of Abraham being his father was Isaac, and Abraham's male line went back directly to Shem and then Noah.  Jacob was unique, having a fraternal twin, Esau who was born a few minutes before he was, fighting with him and causing the divide that would be seen later as Arabs and Jews.  

From Rachel, came Joseph, and then much later, Benjamin, who would be  1/2 brothers and cousins of the 6 others.    That's 8 of the 12 sons.  

From Bilhah came Dan and Naphtali, 1/2 brothers.  From Zilpah came Gad and Asher, 1/2 brothers to the others.   

As it turns out, Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher were not raised by Israelite mothers, but more likely by converted Egyptian Israelite mothers.  

Jacob's mother was Rebekah, whose father was Bethuel.  Bethuel was also father of Laban. Laban's father was Nahor II.  So Rebekah and Laban were siblings.  He left home and went to his uncle Laban in Haran.  There he married his uncle's 2 daughters, Leah and later, Rachel, who were his 1st cousins.  Later he wound up marrying their handmaids, Bilhah and Zilpah. We're not sure, but they were probably both Egyptians.   By these 4 women, he produced 12 sons, the progenitors of the 12 tribes.   

The land they were assigned to by Joshua, for Moses had died outside the wall of Canaan,  is as follows: 

          12 sons hearing their father's prophecy about them.

Dan the 5th  and Naphtali the 6th  were located in the North, neighbors, sons of Bilhah, Rachel's handmaid.  The nearby tel, site of the biblical city of Dan (Laish), has been excavated by Avraham Biran. From the descendants of Naphtali were many Jews living in Galilee in 2nd Temple times.   

Asher  the 8th, given fertile territory from W Galilee to the S of Carmel,  was next to Naphtali, but Gad the 7th was separated, in the southeast and central area. Gad was settled in Gilead and Central Transjordan where they gained a warlike reputation.  Their position was consolidated under David.  After the split in the kingdom, Gad belonged to  Samaria and suffered severely from Syrian attacks.  In 732-721 BCE, the region was devastated by Tiglath-Pileser III and most of its people were exiled by the Assyrians.  Later it was occupied by the Ammonites-brought in by Assyrians.  

Reuben the 1st, requested and got territory in Moab (Transjordania) bordering Gad which was fertile but politically became a problem, so much of their land fell into the hands of the Moabites or Ammonites.  They were exiled to Assyria in 721 BCE.  Played little part in the history of the tribes after settling in Canaan. 

Simeon the 2nd, received land in Eretz within the lot of Judah in 2 different places of the Negev but was of minor importance.  During Hezekiah's days, they took possession of the Arab areas of Seir.  Some apparently settled in the Mountains of Ephraim.  

Levi the 3rd, would be the origin of today's Levites, given the job of teaching the Mosaic law to all the others, would be assigned to live with other tribes for teaching, and this was forecast by Jacob on his deathbed  that they would be scattered among the other tribes. When young, he and Simeon  avenged the rape of their sister, Dinah,  by killing all the  men of Shechem, getting Jacob in deep trouble.  Cohens come from this tribe.  They are the direct descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses.  As Levites, they read after the Cohens in the synagogue.  Levi had 1 daughter, Jochebed-mother of Moses.  His 3 sons were Gershom/n, Kohath-son was Amram, father of  of Moses, Merari.   Levi died in Egypt at age 137.  

Judah the 4th, received his father Jacob's blessing.  We Jews are from Judah.  He's the one that said, "Sell Joseph, don't kill him." The area he received was one of the largest in Canaan and it eventually absorbed also the inheritance of Simeon in the Negev.  David  came from this tribe.  The tribe of Judah supported Solomon's son, Rehoboam after Solomon's death. 

Issachar, the 5th son of Leah and Jacob, Jacob's 9th, whose descendants numbered 64,309 at the end of the desert wanderings, was the 3rd largest tribe.  They inherited land between Mt. Tabor and the Jordan River including much of the fertile Valley of Jezreel.  Apparently some of the tribe was saved from the Assyrian exile, and men of Issachar answered Hezekiah's summons to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem.  

Zebulun, 6th son of Jacob and Leah, Jacob's 10th,  whose descendants received territory in central Eretz (the Valley of Jezreel),although its exact extent is unclear.  It's mentioned by Isaiah and Ezekiel.  The rabbis associated Zebulun with trade, the scholarly descendants of Issachar being supported by the tribe of Zebulun.  

Joseph , 11th son of Jacob, 1st of Jacob and Rachel,  loved more by Jacob who showed favoritism because he's the son of Rachel, causing jealousy among his siblings who wanted to kill him, saved by Judah by being sold him to traveling Ishmaelites on camels going to Egypt.  He had received grazing land in Goshen, beginning Israelite settlement in Egypt.  Died at 110.  His history is dated during the Hyksos domination of Egypt from 18th to 16th centuries BCE.

Benjamin, 12th son of Jacob, 2nd of Jacob and Rachel who died in childbirth when he was born. They occupied land between Ephraim and Judah which included Jerusalem.  It was almost exterminated in a war with the other tribes.  Saul, 1st king of Israel was from this tribe.  The land was a bone of contention between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah after the division of the kingdoms and  eventually, was partitioned between the two.  Which woman raised Benjamin?    

I think we can safely say, by comparing with today, it is the mother who carries on the culture.  Father's are busy with their work outside the shelter of the home.  Up to our 2nd World War, women were usually in the home with the children.  Since then, women have carried on both positions many times while still trying to maintain their mother's traditions.  

Descendants of Bethuel

  Generation No. 1

1.  BETHUEL¹⁵  (NAHOR¹⁴ II, TERAH¹³, NAHOR¹² I, SEROH-SERUG¹¹, REU¹⁰, PELEG-ABRAHAM⁹, EBER⁸, SHELAH⁷, ARPACHSHAD⁶, SHEM⁵, NOAH⁴, LAMECH³, METHUSELAH², ENOCH¹)

 Notes for BETHUEL:

Bethuel was also a town in the territory of the tribe of Simeon, west of the Dead Sea.[4] Some scholars[5] identify it with Bethul[ and Bethel in southern Judah,[ to which David gives booty.

 

More About BETHUEL:

Citizenship: Syrian

DNA: Nephew of Abraham

Nationality: Aramean

       

Children of BETHUEL are:

                   i.    LABAN¹⁶, m. ADINAHAND.

 

More About LABAN:

DNA: Uncle of son in law Jacob

Residence: Haaran, Aram-Naharaim, Mesopotamia

 

More About ADINAHAND:

DNA: not related to husband

 

                  ii.    REBEKAH BAT BETHUEL, b. Aram; m. ISAAC BEN ABRAHAM; b. 2048, Negev.

 

Notes for REBEKAH BAT BETHUEL:

Rebekah's father is Nahor and mother is Milkah. 

 

More About REBEKAH BAT BETHUEL:

DNA 1: very fair to look at

DNA 2: Aram was hereditary enemy of Israel, guilty of hideous barbarities, tried to annihilate Israel

DNA 3: Aramaean wife

Residence: Aram Naharaim, city of Nahor

 

Notes for ISAAC BEN ABRAHAM:

12/21/2021  Isaac is getting a lot of his father's DNA through his parents.   like a double dose as his parents are 1st cousins, and his father is his mother's uncle. 

 

More About ISAAC BEN ABRAHAM:

DNA 1: blind in old age

DNA 2: 35 years old in 2083 BCE

DNA 3: 37 when mother, Sarah, had died

DNA 4: 40 years old when married Rebecca

DNA 5: 60 years old when twins Esau and Jacob

Residence 1: famine made him removed from Negev to Philistine country in Israel

Residence 2: Beer-lahai- roi, lived in south country                       

   Resource;

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

Family Tree Maker for the genealogy

Jacob, THE STONE OF ISRAEL, Gives Blessings to his Twelve Sons; Prophecy and Where They Lived in Canaan

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                                     

Back in Abram's day of the 2nd millennium, you married into family.  Abram's son by Sari was Isaac and Isaac's son was Jacob.  Leah and Rachel were 1st cousins to Jacob.  The girls'  father was Laban and Laban was the brother of Jacob's mother, Rebekah.  In fact, Rebekah was married to Isaac.  Rebekah was Jacob's aunt.
                                                                       
Jacob's first love was Rachel, and he thought he had married her, but his father-in-law, Laban,  made sure his oldest daughter, Leah, the one with weak eyes, would be married first.  So Jacob married Leah and had 6 sons and a daughter with her.  Then he worked some more to marry Rachel.  Being concerned about needing to produce more children, Jacob took the handmaidens of his 2 wives and had 2 sons from each of them,  Jacob blessed the tribes individually, each in line with its own character and ability so they would follow the paths meant for them.  His blessings made it clear that each has its own unique mission.
                                                                               

.

!. Reuben was his first son.  He had water-like impetuousness.  He couldn't be a first because of an error of judgement involving Jacob's bed which desecrated Jacob. He had been against his brother's plot against Joseph.  Later he had volunteered as surety for Benjamin during his visit to Egypt.  Reuben had broken the law by having an affair with Bilhah who belonged to Jacob.  Therefore, Jacob gave Reuben's 1st rights to Joseph.  Reuben  received land in Moab (Transjordan) because it was fertile but this presented political problems even then, and much of their land fell into the hands of the Moabites or Ammonites.  Reuben in 721 BCE was one of the 10 tribes exiled to Assyria by Tiglath-Pileser.  They had been more isolated and had not much of a role in the history of the land after they had settled there.

2. Simeon, with Levi- had tricked people of Shechem, captured the town, killed all the men, captured the women and children without telling their father, Jacob.  Simeon would get land within the lot of Judah in 2 places of the Negav of minor importance.  Later during Hezekiah's reign, they would take Arab land of Seir.  Some settled in the mountains of Ephraim.

3. Levi :  Both were comrades in a conspiracy, so Jacob's soul would not be a part of them.  They had raged and murdered people.  They hamstrung an ox.  Their rage and harsh wrath is to be accursed.   They are to be dispersed in Israel. During 2nd Temple period, their previous act of avenging the dishonor of their sister, Dinah, was looked upon as honorable.  Levi had one daughter, Jochebed, mother of Moses, and 3 sons; Gershom/n; Kohath whose son was Amram, father of Moses, and Merari.  Levi died in Egypt at age 137.  The Levites came from Levi.  They would be concecrated by Moses to serve in the Temple as Priests or Cohens , and would be today's J1 (Y haplogroup) or Cohen gene.  They were excluded from inheriting land but received 48 towns as places they could live in and be teachers in that area.
                                                                   

4. Judah shall be acknowledged by his brothers and you will hold your enemies at by by the nape of their neck.  Your brothers will bow to you.   Judah is like a lion cub.  You have elevated yourself.  Judah will hold the scepter of ruling.  Judah was to be the source of of Jewish leadership and royalty, of the Davidic dynasty and Messiah.  His brothers will admire him and all will say "I am a Yehudi or Judahite or Jew!  They will not want to distinguish themselves as being  a Reubenite or a Simeonite, etc.  All will be called Jews.

5. Zebulun engaged in commerce and supported Issachar, so Jacob gave precedence to him first with his prophecy.  Zebulun shall live by the seaside.  He shall live by a ship's harbor, and his last border will reach Zidon.  He was the 6th born.  His tribe got territory in the central Canaan called the Valley of Jezreel.  They are connected with trading.  The scholarly descendants of Issachar were supported by the tribe of Zebulun.

6. Issachar, who is older than Zebulun,  will live between the boundaries.  He's like a strong-boned donkey in that he enjoys peace and tranquility and pleasant land.  He will not be afraid to work on it and will be an indentured laborer. He really was the 5th son and had the 3rd largest tribe with 64,309 at the end of the exodus.  Their land was between Mt. Tabor and the  Jordan River including much of the Valley of Jezreel which was fertile.  Some of the tribe was saved from the Assyrian exile, and men of this tribe answered Hezekiah's calls to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem. Their scholars were supported by the tribe of Zebulun. 

Jacob went on to the older son Dan,  of Bilhah,  Rachel's maidservant.  He mentions Rachels 2 sons for the end.
7. Dan will avenge his people.  The tribes of Israel will be united as one.  Dan will be like a snake laying on a highway or a viper by the path that bites a horse's heels so the rider falls.  Jacob prayed for his salvation.  He was Jacob's 5th son.  He was given a section south of Jaffa, but forced back into the hill country by the Amorites.  Only a part of the tribe remained on the coastal region.  A large part of the tribe took a settlement area from the Phoenicians arund Laish.  The northern part of Dan was the site of a temple where the descendants of Manasseh or Moses acted as priests.  It then was one of the cult centers in Ephraim.  Jeroboam put in it the image of a calf to draw away worshippers from Jerusalem.  Dan was captured by the Syrian, Ben Hadad in 900 BCE. The biblical city of Dan (Laish) has been excavated.  

Then Jacob spoke about Zilpah's older son, Gad.
8.  Gad will also be a fighter and will recruit a regiment, but it will retreat on its heel. Jacob had prophesied that after the conquest, Gad would return safely on its heel  by the same roads and paths that they had first traveled, and not one of the troops would be lost.   Their territory was on the east of the Jordan.   They crossed the river to assist their brothers in conquering the land.  

Zilpah's 2nd son was next:
9. Asher:  Asher's land will be so rich in olive groves that it will flow with oil like a fountain and he will provide kingly delicacies.  His rich produce will be worthy of royal tables and will be sought by kings.  His bread will have richness.  His land extended from Western Galilee to the South of Carmel.  Actually, he was Jacob's 8th son.  

Bilhah's 2nd son:
10. Naphtali is like a hind (deer) let loose who delivers beautiful sayings.  He must have a gift of words.  He really was the 6th son of Jacob.  His tribe would live in the northern part of Canaan including the whole east coast of the Sea of Galilee and the mountains of Galilee.  They warred against Sisera and Gideon's campaign against the Midianites.  His land was overrun by the Arameans in the time of Baasha, but large section of its people were exiled by Tiglath-Pileser.  The survivors were ancestors of many of the Jews living in the Galilee in the 2nd Temple times.  


Jacob then was able to marry Rachel and had two sons.  Rachel died soon after the birth of Benjamin, her youngest.  Her first son was Joseph, the brother that the other sons were jealous of and had sold to passing traders causing Joseph to end up in Egypt and be lost to the family for many years. 
                                                                          

Only Joseph was given this special coat
causing a lot of jealousy 

Joseph sold into slavery by jealous brothers

11. Joseph is his charming son, handsome like his beautiful mother.  Joseph will not inherit land in Canaan but his 2 sons, Ephraim and Manasseh will in his place.  They have maintained their religion in the face of hostility and temptation of Egyptian culture.  Son Joseph had risen to power despite the hatred he had suffered.  First it was his own brothers, then Potiphar and his wife of Egypt had all embittered him and became his antagonists.  He suffered from malicious slander and gossip, but despite them, he rose to prominence.  Joseph then became like the shepherd who provided aid for Jacob, THE STONE OF ISRAEL.  
                                                                           

Rachel's first son was saved for the final prophesy list:  At this point, Joseph cried over his father and kissed him.  Joseph had been Jacob's favorite son, being the first from Rachel.  They hadn't seen each other for so long until Jacob came upon him in Egypt and saw the powerful position had now had.
    
    a. Manasseh's tribe would be divided into 7 families with one called Machir and the 6 others claiming kinship with Gilead.  Half of this tribe went together with those from Reuben and Gad to have land in Transjordania.  Moses allowed it on condition that they would go to the remaining tribes in the conquest of the land as scouts.  They got Gilead, Bshan and Argob.  The other half of the tribe got land in the west of the country around the Valley of Jezreel, both highly fertile land.  Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon exiled much of the population which was partly descended from Simeon. A Jewish population partly from Simeon still existed in the West Manasseh region in the earlier 2nd Temple period.  Evidently Assyria had left a few in 721 BCE.  
           b. Ephriam: had hill country included in his land, noted for its fertility.  In the beginning, they claimed priority over other tribes due to the first religious center was Shiloh that was in their territory.  The ceding from the other tribes after Solomon's death of the Northern tribes centered on the tribe of Ephriam because Jeroboam, 1st king of these Northern tribes, was an Ephramite.  Later prophets spoke of the House of Judah and the House of Ephraim. as the 2 branches of the Hebrew people.    

12. Benjamin:  His descendants will be like a wolf; mighty and fearless warriors.  In the morning he will devour prey and in the evening he will distribute spoils.  He sounds like a Robin Hood.  King Saul, Israel's first king, was a Benjamite had a short reign but in that time had defeated Moab, Edom and Philistia.  

Resource:http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2013/09/death-bed-prophecy-for-jacobs.html
 The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Tanakh, The Stone Edition (Bible) Genesis 49-50
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2013/03/jacobs-twelve-tribes-of-israel-and-how.html

    

2nd Millennium BCE :In the Days of Dinah and Her 12 Brothers

Nadene Goldfoot                                   

                                                     Idol from Ur
Imagine knowing that your worth as a woman depended on how many children you could produce in this god-filled world of many families of gods and goddesses but also its idol statutes replicating them.  You as a human lived in a sparsely inhabited planet in the Bronze age that only had about 25 million in it in 3,000 BCE.  By 1,000 BCE it would be heading towards having some 50 million inhabitants, the number that in 2014 CE would be  comparable to a country like Sudan that has about 44 million.  By 2012, there were already 7 billion people living on earth.  

Your husband is your Uncle Abram.    Haran, your father, is your husband's brother.   You've known him all your life.  Your name is Sarai,  and you haven't produced one child as yet, so you give your Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar, a princess in her own right,  to your husband, hoping she will get pregnant.  If she produces a child, you get the credit.  It's like adoption and the baby will be your responsibility and to your credit.  You will then have worth.  You wind up getting the credit but also asking that both Hagar and the boy leave their clan as it isn't working out as planned.  Hagar became uppity and the boy teased your child, Isaac, constantly, keeping him crying all the time.  

This pattern will be repeated.  Isaac, Sarai's actual son born much later, will marry Rebecca. They are 1st cousins once removed.   Rebecca's brother is Laban.  They will produce twins, Esau and Jacob.  Jacob's name has been found in Akkadian and Egyptian sources.  Jacob goes to his mother's brother, Laban to find a wife and must work for this uncle for 7 years to gain his beautiful  cousin Rachel for marriage.  Laben tricks him by giving him Leah, his first born daughter who had weak or tender eyes, instead for a wife, causing him to work another 7 years for Rachel.  So Jacob has married his 2 cousins, daughters of Laben, his maternal uncle.

The producing of children almost becomes competitive where Leah winds up giving her handmaiden to Jacob.  She herself becomes the mother of 6 boys and then feels she has worth. Her last child is a girl, and they name her Dinah.  Dinah, the youngest in the family is a lucky girl to have 12 brothers watch over her jealously.   Her sister has only produced 2 sons of hers naturally and then died, but in her desperation, she had given Jacob her handmaiden, Bilhah, so that she would be worthy.  Bilhah had 2 sons.
                                                                             

Now living in Canaan, Dinah went out one day to see if she could find other girls her own age.  Shechem, son of Hamor, prince of the region they were living in, came along and raped her.  Afterwards he wanted to marry the girl as he liked what he  saw.  At the time of this occurrence, her brothers were all in the field with their cattle.

Shechem's father talks with Jacob, hoping for an intermarriage.  Dinah's 12 brothers were incensed, feeling their sister had been defiled, having had forced  sex with an uncircumcised man. Shechem's father even says they will all become circumcised, then.  Dinah had already been taken to Shechem's house and was living with him.

 Later, Simeon and Levi, sons of Leah and two of Dinah's full brothers, got even by killing every male in Shechem's city including Hamor himself and his father.  Jacob told his 2 sons that they had done wrong and that now they were in danger of being wiped out themselves for having done this by the Canaanites and the Perizzites.
                                                                           

  Rachel had brought on her own death by stealing her father's house idol in order to keep him from using it, and did not tell her husband about the theft or if it was a wise move.  When her father comes and accuses Jacob of the theft, Jacob allows him to search their tents.  Not finding it, Jacob had said that whoever had taken it would die, and that's what happened to poor Rachel.  She died after giving birth to Benjamin, Jacob's 12th son.

Each wife had her own tent to live in.  No doubt they were close together, like cabins at the beach of today's world are next to each other.  This would allow for safety from roaming bands  The handmaidens would be living in the tent with their charge, being available for anything needed to be done.

Whereas Laban had tricked Jacob into working for 20 years; 7 years each for the 2 wives and 6 more years for his flock of sheep, goats and camels, Jacob, in return, also tricked him by asking for the sheep and goats for wages that were speckled or spotted with brown pigment.  Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and hazel and chestnut and peeled white streaks in them and lay bare the white of the rods and set them up in watering pots where the animals came to drink.  The Animals saw these colorations and produced like flocks, thereby giving Jacob more wages.  Since Laban had been such a deceitful rogue anyway, changing the wages on Jacob 100 times over the 20 years, Jacob felt justified in his actions.  
                                                                           

Long ago the patriarch of the clan, Terah, had left Ur Kasidim which would be in today's Iraq.  He had had 3 sons; Abram, Nahor and Haran.  Haran was the father of Lot and Haran died in Ur.  Abram was the responsible uncle and watched out for Lot.  So when Terah left Ur, he took with him Abraham and Nahor and Lot.

Nahor married Milcah, his niece,  who was the daughter of Haran.  Abram married his niece, Sarai, the other  daughter of Haran.  Therefore, Milcah and Sarai were sisters and daughters of the deceased brother, Haran.  They were also sisters of Lot.  This is how people in those days created families being there weren't many others to choose from.  You married into your clan.

Ur of the Chaldees had been a prominent city of the Sumerian Empire.  The city was sacked by the king of nearby Elam soon after 2,000 BCE.  A Sumerian text from 1960 BCE, which was about when Terah moved his family from Ur to Haran (a city they named for their deceased brother) told of the reason they left Ur in their opinion.  They felt "the gods had abandoned them like migrating birds.  Smoke lies on your cities like a shroud."
           

According to our biblical version, it was Abram who urged the leaving of Ur because it was an idol worshipping city.  In fact, his father was an idol maker.  Abram had an experience of hearing G-d speak to him and that he was to leave and start his life in a different place where the influence of other deities would be non-existent.  They went north and created Haran in the kingdom of Mari.  This was northern Mesopotamia.  The facts were recorded on clay tablets of which were found our bible names of Terah, Nahor, Serug and Peleg.  This was a powerful dynasty.
                                                         

From Haran, Abraham, for his name is now changed a little, migrated to Canaan,  which is where today's Israel and Lebanon are.  Abraham's tribe is like that of other West Semitic steppe dwellers of the 18th century BCE in its tribal structure.  Their family customs and law had parallels in the Old Babylonian and Hurro-Semite law of the early and middle 2nd millennium, according to archaeologists.  That is, until G-d spoke to him and caused him to realize that idols were not gods and that there really was only one unseen g-d.  He became the father of monotheism.

The 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age.  Bronze is made from a mixture of melted copper and tin, both metals that are mined.  "It is more useful for tools and also better for making statues."  As bronze aged, it turned green and was melted down and recycled.  

"Its first half of the Bronze Age is dominated by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and Babylonia. That was the world for people living in the Middle East.

The alphabet develops. Indo-Iranian migration onto the Iranian plateau and onto the Indian subcontinent propagates the use of the chariot. Chariot warfare and population movements lead to violent changes at the center of the millennium, a new order emerges with Greek dominance of the Aegean and the rise of the Hittite Empire. The end of the millennium sees the transition to the Iron Age.  World population begins to rise steadily, reaching some 50 million towards 1000 BC."

Resource: http://mirrorh.com/timeline3.html 2,000 BC-end/sumerian dynasty-
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumer
http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/arts/bronze.htm
http://sensationalsumer.weebly.com/fun-facts.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
The Stone Edition Tanach, artScroll Series, Genesis