Introduction to Ancient Canaan and the Canaanites

In this program we take a quick look at the history of the ancient land of Canaan and its inhabitants, the Canaanites. For most of us, they are the antagonists for the Israelites in the Old Testament of the Bible. However, their history and interactions with the peoples of the ancient Near East go back in time much further than this. If you don't know much about ancient Canaan and the Canaanites, this program is a great place to start.

Sources:

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Ancient Israel
Edited by Susan Niditch

People and Places of Western Asia
By Trevor Bryce

The World Around the Old Testament
Edited by Bill T. Arnold and Brent A. Strawn

The Old Testament in Archaeology and History
Edited by Jennie Ebeling, J. Edward Wright, Mark Elliott, and Paul V. M. Flesher

The Oxford Handbook of the Phoenician and Punic Mediterranean
Edited by Carolina Lopez-Ruiz

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[HistorywithCy]

Hey everyone,

First off, thanks so much for stopping by. I’m thrilled that there are so many of you out there who love ancient history as much as I do. I was also pleasantly surprised at how many people tuned into this particular video. Thank you!

I’ve been going through the comments and wanted to address a couple of things. One, please be respectful of others’ views and use appropriate language when commenting. I’m all for free speech but I won’t tolerate comments with excess profanity, bullying or bigotry. These things have no place here and will simply be deleted. Please be civil and respectful to all who wish to discuss on this platform.


Second, some of you have brought up race and the “European” portrayal of Canaanites in the video. I completely understand. I’m actually from a historically persecuted minority that has often been misrepresented in mainstream culture and history. However, I took another look at the video and didn’t see what the concern was about other than perhaps in two paintings of scenes from the Old Testament. One is by the Hungarian painter József Molnár and the other a 17th century work by the Dutch artist Rembrandt. Those are just two painters I like whose work is also royalty-free. It had nothing to do with portraying Canaanites as European and that most certainly wasn’t my intention. If you know of any relevant and royalty-free images, please let me know and I’ll be more than happy to consider using them.

When I put these videos together, I do my best to use as many credible sources as possible (if interested, I’ve listed the ones I referenced in the video description). While I use the Old Testament as a historical source, I also cross-reference it with what scholars have learned from archaeology and modern historical analysis. This is just the approach I use. Then, I do my best to present what is written in these sources and leave it for you to either make up your own mind or dig further by doing your own research. That’s all. I have no agenda or wish to espouse any particular view. You have no idea how great it is to receive a comment from someone who may not have known much about a particular subject and then have them write that they're even more curious and want to learn more. For me, that’s one of the most rewarding experiences.

Thanks again for participating in this channel. It means the world to me and I’m really glad each and everyone of you is here. Now, let’s discuss some more history!


- Cy

[Neftegna]

The language used at Ugarit is closely related to biblical Hebrew as well as to other ancient languages of the region including Phoenician, Aramaic, and Moabite. Like most documents in those languages, these Ugaritic texts were written almost entirely without vowels, as are modern Hebrew and Arabic. This can complicate translation, since a word with only consonants may, at least theoretically, have several possible meanings. Yet there is a compensating advantage for the translator of Ugaritic: the poetic techniques used by the ancient Canaanite authors have much in common with those employed in the Bible. As in biblical poetry, the chief formal characteristic of Canaanite verse is the use of parallelism, a characteristic not lost in translation. In parallelistic verse, a single idea is expressed in units of two or three lines (a bicolon or a tricolon) by repetition, synonyms, or antonyms, as we see in the following lines:

Let me tell you, Prince Baal,
let me repeat, Rider on the Clouds:
Now, your enemy, Baal,
now you will kill your enemy,
now you will annihilate your foe.
You will take your eternal kingship,
your dominion forever and ever.

These units consist of a tricolon framed by two bicola; each unit has one thought developed by repetitive and synonymous parallelism. Not only the technique but the lines themselves are familiar from the Bible:

Behold, your enemies, Yahweh,
behold, your enemies have perished,
all evildoers have been scattered. (Psalm 92:9)
Your kingdom is an eternal kingdom,
your rule is forever and ever. (Psalm 145 :13)

[edew]

I'm binging your channel. Im a ww2 history buff, and man. Im loving this ancient history

[Omegast]

I learned that mixing History and Mythology you would get Mystory.

[asmasm]

Some of the canaanite traditions are still present in palestinian culture, specially in weddings and henna ceremonies and the tejlaya dance

[americanparser]

How were the Canaanites a group of S(h)emitic peoples if they were descended from Ham?

[AtunSheiFilms]

Just discovered your channel. It's by far the most informative series of videos about the ancient Near East on YouTube! I mostly do American history, but I'd love to collaborate with you.

[rtrscatteredabroad]

I am enjoying the research, and I would love to learn about your exploration throughout the middle east, learn about the different artifacts, I look forward to seeing more of your videos!

[mmscandyfriend]

This video makes me happy thank you my friend

[kimberlyhovis]

Very informative; just subscribed. Thanks for putting this together. 🙂

[robertschlesinger]

Excellent video on Canaan and the Canaanites. Very well organized and illustrated with maps and artifacts.

[MrGuyJacks]

The Israelites themselves (and by extension Jews and Samaritans) were originally of Canaanite stock, the Hebrew language is actually classified as a Canaanite language

[differous]

The most famous Canaanite invention is the alphabet. The dye they made from a type of conch (Murex) was pretty famous too; the Greeks called them Phoenician, meaning 'gory'/'purple' while Canaanite/Kinani are Semitic terms meaning 'purple people'.
They abandoned their languages to trade in Aramaic during the Assyrian Period, with only Punic in Carthage (Phoenician qrtḥdšt, "New City") surviving until the second century wars with Rome, and Hebrew surviving as a liturgical language (like Latin).

[chucky]

Two of the most talked about and best cities of Canaan are Tyre and Sidon. They are mentioned in the bible many times. Then you have Byblos which was named after the bible by the Greeks. All these are located in Lebanon.

[IosifStalin]

A great service to us Amateurs interested in Ancient ME history. How about more videos about Ancient Indian/Indus Valley civilisations?

[simonbk]

"Ch" in these place names should be pronounced as "kh" (or X), not as "ch" such as in Rachel.

[danag]

Canaanite DNA can be found in modern day Palestinians and some modern day Jews. So based on history both Arabs and Jews came first. We were one. And Palestinians don’t derive from the philistines we just liked the sound of “Palestine “

[trondsi]

The Phoenician language was very close to Hebrew. One could argue that the Phoenicians were coastal Canaanites and the Jews were hill-dwelling Canaanites (and I have seen just this argument in a book about the history of Jerusalem).

[stargarden]

I can't wait for a video on the Phoenicians.

[lightowl]

If only they had learned to share the lands of earth instead of going to war so one could rule, we wouldn't be so puzzled today or be asking so many questions about the unknown.