Blust and the Bible: The Dragon…

A few weeks ago, a fascinating book appeared: Robert Blust’s posthumously published The Dragon and the Rainbow (open access). A bit unexpectedly for a linguist, Blust had a decades-long obsession with world-wide folk beliefs about rainbows. In investigating them, he came to a surprising conclusion: dragons (as a mythological concept) originated as a way to explain rainbows. While this isn’t so clear in places like Europe and China, there’s an important missing link in the figure of the Rainbow Serpent, a legendary creature that is simultaneously a serpent-like monster and the rainbow itself, well-known from Australia but apparently also widespread in Africa.

It would be good to hear what some anthropologists think about this, but for now I think it’s a persuasive argument and I recommend everyone go read the book.

Having said that, there’s one body of evidence on traditional beliefs on dragons and rainbows that Blust almost completely ignores: the Hebrew Bible. On p. 99, he explicitly states:

Whether the dragon of the ancient Near East had hair-like features is hard
to determine, since the only evidence we have for this creature comes from
limited literary documents written on clay tablets, or from rare sculptured portrayals such as the dragon of the Ishtar Gate in Babylon.

*sad Leviathan noises*

Blust vaguely mentions the rainbow of Genesis 9 in passing, but in this post, I want to consider some potential biblical dragons and see how they compare to his typological list of draconic features (pp. 26–27). We’ll discuss them in increasing order of draconicity.

The Snake

I don’t think the snake from the Garden of Eden story (Gen 3) is very dragon-like, although the book of Revelation might identify it as such. It seems more like the archetypical snake, with the story explaining why snakes don’t have legs, among other things. Still, we can check off the following features:

• 5) has scales (duh)
• 16) terrifies women (kind of; eternal enmity between snake and woman’s offspring)
• 26) has human traits (can speak)

Not a great score.

Flying Fiery Serpents

The word śārāp̄ ‘Seraph’ looks as if it comes from the root ‘to burn’. Accordingly, when it refers to snakes or snake-like creatures, it is often translated as ‘fiery serpent’. Numbers 21 narrates an episode where God sends ‘Seraph snakes’ to punish the Israelites. This plague ends when Moses is instructed to make a bronze or copper Seraph on a pole (later referred to as Nehushtan, maybe a play on ‘snake’ and/or ‘bronze, copper’). Isaiah 6, 14, and 30 also mention winged or flying Seraphim, which are also snake-like.

This kind of Seraph:

• 4) can fly (according to Isaiah)
• 5) has scales
• 11) is colourful/red (copper or bronze)
• 19) has fiery breath? Not mentioned
• 25) causes sickness, disease or trouble

If they can fly, they probably count as dragons. But borderline.

Now we come to the dragonest of them all:

Leviathan

Also known as Rahab; the Slippery Serpent; the Dragon (tannīn) that is in the Sea. Like Ugaritic ltn in the Baal epic, Leviathan plays the part of the capital-D Dragon in the widespread myth of the Weather God slaying the Water Dragon. We have quite some information about him, thanks to an entire biblical chapter of dragon description (Job 41). How does he score?

• 2) is a guardian of springs or other bodies of water (the sea)
• 5) has scales (explicitly)
• 9) is opposed to thunder/lightning: only indirectly: Leviathan is opposed (in some texts) to Yʜᴡʜ; Yʜᴡʜ (in some texts, like Psalm 29) is associated with thunder. Without e.g. the Ugaritic connection I don’t think we would get this from the Bible
• 16) terrifies women: possibly subverted by God’s challenge to Job to turn Leviathan into a pet for his girls
• 19) has fiery breath (I was surprised to learn this, but it’s in Job 41)
• 21) causes earthquakes (if seaquakes count)
• 27) can be personified (has several names, is presented as an individual)

The reason Blust ignores Leviathan may be because he doesn’t fit his core definition of a dragon: a snake-like chimeric monster that combines features of cold-blooded and warm-blooded animals. Leviathan is chimeric, though, or at least monstrous: he has multiple heads (Psalm 74:14, unless this is an intensive plural, ‘great head’; but in the Baal epic, ltn has seven heads) and, possibly, limbs (baddīm).

There is one out-there possibility to make Leviathan a bit more mammalian. It isn’t obvious to me that Behemoth (‘Great Beast’) in Job 40 is distinct from Leviathan. Their descriptions run together without a break:

Look at Behemoth, which I made just as I made you … Can one take it with hooks or pierce its nose with a snare? Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook, or press down its tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in its nose, or pierce its jaw with a hook?
Job 40:15a,24–41:2 (English versification), NRSV

Also, Behemoth is called “the first (or: chief) of the great acts of God”; as for Leviathan, “On earth it has no equal”.

Taking Behemoth as another name of Leviathan goes against millennia of interpretation, but it gives us:

• 18) is connected with hoofed mammals (“it eats grass like an ox”)

Probably not worth it.

Even without this farfetched connection, I think Leviathan is dragon enough. An interesting recurring feature of his that does not match broader dragon typology is the mention of his flesh being distributed as food. But I’m not sure what to make of that from a Blustian point of view.

So much for biblical dragons! Next post: biblical rainbows.
#Bible #Genesis #Hebrew #Isaiah #Job #Numbers #Psalms

Who Smote Whom? The geography of Israelite Transjordan (III)

Part IV

Alright. Gilead is a spectrum and Og of Bashan isn’t real, he can’t hurt you. Let’s talk about some of the specific places in Bashan. Here’s the map again.
Map by Wikimedia user Amitchell125.

Kenath/Nobah

And Nobah went and seized Kenath and its surrounding villages. And he called it Nobah, after himself.

Num 32:42

Kenath is usually identified with Qanawat, in Jabal al-Druze (Roman Auranitis). That’s pretty far northeast, but the name checks out, and we don’t get any other information about Nobah or Kenath. So, OK. As this volcanic field is something of a refuge area, if Kenath/Nobah was really inhabited by Israelites (when?), I wonder whether we’re really dealing with an isolated conquest or maybe the last remnant of broader Israelite settlement in Bashan at some point.

Salchah

Generally identified as Salkhad, which fits as Salchah appears to indicate the easternmost point in Og’s kingdom. Fine.

Argob

Next: we’ve seen a few verses in Deuteronomy 3 that refer to the district of Argob in Bashan, most interestingly:

Jair, son of Manasseh took all the district of Argob, as far as the border (or: territory) of the Geshurites and the Maachatites. And he called them after himself, the Bashan, Havvoth-Jair (the villages of Jair), until this very day.

Deut 3:14

The only other reference is in Kings, in a list of King Solomon’s administrators and their districts:

Ben-Geber in Ramoth-Gilead: to him belonged the villages of Jair, son of Manasseh, which are in the Gilead; to him belonged the district of Argob, which is in the Bashan, sixty big towns, with wall and bronze bolt.

1 Kgs 4:13

Argob is commonly identified as the Lajat, Roman Trachonitis. This seems to be based on the translation as ṭrkwnʾ in Targumei Onqelos and Jonathan. But this seems unlikely to me for two reasons. First, it’s pretty far away; but then, so is Qanawat. But more importantly, the Lajat is a lava field that looks like this:

As Argob may come from a root that also yields a rare Hebrew word for ‘clod’, this is normally taken as a plus for the identification as this seems like a fittingly ‘rocky’ landscape. But it doesn’t look like a great place to maintain sixty big towns. Note the distinct lack of towns on the map of the Hauran, or on Google Maps, or on this 2011 CIA population density map:
Circled: the Lajat, mostly coded as 1 to 5 inhabitants per square kilometre.
Where else could Argob be? Here’s what we know:

1. It’s consistently called a “district” (חֶבֶל), suggesting it’s a clearly-defined area.
2. It’s in Bashan.
3. It contained “sixty large towns”.
4. It could be administered by someone in Ramoth-Gilead.
5. According to Deut 3:14, it bordered on or included Geshur and Maacah, but elsewhere that is said about Bashan as a whole (Josh 12:5 = 13:11), which Deuteronomy apparently conflates with Argob; use with caution.

Geshur is somewhere in or near Aram; it’s the homeland of Absalom’s mother, one of David’s wives, who is confusingly also called Maacah. The region of Maacah seems to have been in the same general area; one clue is the place name Abel-Beth-Maacah, in the northwestern bit of the Galilee panhandle, close to Dan. Both names are usually associated with the Golan Heights, with most identifications placing Maacah in the north (and spilling over to the west) and Geshur in the south.

Whether we trust the Geshur and Maacah indication or not, I think the Golan Heights actually make for a much better Argob than the Lajat:

1. Clearly marked off by Mount Hermon in the north, the Hula Valley and Sea of Galilee in the west, the Yarmuk in the south, and the river Ruqqad in the east; the name Golan itself may mean something like ‘encircled, enclosed (area)’. (Lajat also passes this one.)
2. It is in Bashan. (Lajat too.)
3. Due to semi-recent events, the Golan looks underpopulated on the map above, but it is known to have had dozens of ancient and hundreds of modern settlements. “Sixty big towns with wall and bolt” may be an exaggeration, but the Golan is much closer to it than the Lajat.
4. Ramoth-Gilead was probably a few kilometres south of modern al-Ramtha, on the southwestern edge of Bashan or just in Gilead. The Golan is adjacent to Gilead (2.0 and later); the Lajat is not.
5. The Golan probably overlaps with Geshur and Maacah; the Lajat probably does not even border them. But use with caution.

The other main candidate for Argob I would consider is the Nuqrah, Roman Batanea, the central and, I believe, most fertile part of Bashan. This is where Ashtaroth and Edrei were located and it probably beats the Golan on the sixty big towns front. It’s also adjacent to Gilead, Geshur, and maybe Maacah. As it’s less of a clearly circumscribed area, though, I guess I’d expect it to just be referred to as Bashan, or for Ashtaroth and Edrei to be mentioned more consistently with regards to Argob (as they are with regards to Bashan as Og’s kingdom). So my money is still on the Golan.

Havvoth-Jair

Jair is a son or descendant of Manasseh, who took a bunch of ḥawwōṯ and named them after himself. The details differ:

Deut 3 and Josh 13 both conflate Havvoth-Jair with Bashan, the kingdom of Og, as a whole; Deut 3 additionally throws Argob into the mix. Based on the other early attestations (so excluding Chronicles, although it doesn’t contradict it), it seems that Havvoth-Jair was originally placed in Gilead. It’s been suggested that the Deuteronomist conflated it with Argob and Bashan as a whole based on the verse in 1 Kgs 4, maybe based on a copying or reading error: “to him belonged the villages of Jair, son of Manasseh, which are in the Gilead; to him belonged the district of Argob, which is in the Bashan, sixty big towns”. I don’t think we can localize Havvoth-Jair any better than that, other than that it probably wasn’t too far from Ramoth-Gilead either.

Overview

So it looks like we’ve got these Israelite towns and regions in Bashan:

• Kenath/Nobah: Qanawat, northeastern part of Jabal al-Druze (Num 32, 1 Chron 2)
• Argob: Golan Heights (1 Kgs 4, Deut 3)
• Bashan as a whole, the kingdom of Og, from the territory of the Maachatites and Geshurites (Golan, Hula Valley) to Salcha (Salkhad; Deut, Josh, some other references)
• Havvoth-Jair: originally in Gilead, “reassigned” to Bashan

What stands out again is the apparently secondary nature of the Og tradition and the northward shift of (tribes associated with) Gilead. Can we explain this? If I don’t lose interest, we’ll give it a shot in Part IV.
#Bible #Chronicles #Deuteronomy #Hebrew #Joshua #Kings #Numbers

Benjamin Suchard

2025-12-23 16:21:54

Who Smote Whom? The geography of Israelite Transjordan (IV)

Back by personal demand: the conclusion to last summer’s series on Gilead and Bashan (Part I, II, III).

First of all, I’d like to draw your attention to an excellent pair of comments by Yitzchak Dickman. Some corrections based on what Yitzchak wrote and the sources he referred to:

• Havvoth-Jair most probably refers to the area around Irbid, more or less where I placed Machir before.
• Rohmer (2020) also places Argob in the Golan (just the northern part in his view) and makes a convincing argument that Bashan only includes the western part of the Hauran. The eastern part was known as… Hauran, but it isn’t mentioned in the Bible (Ezekiel’s Hauran is another region, farther north).
• The identifications of Kenath with Qanawat and Salchah with Salkhad aren’t so straightforward. Yitzchak mentions the possibility of Kenath referring to al-Karak (al-Sharqi), in Daraa Governorate; Rohmer (2020: 296, 298 = 426) alternatively writes that “following Noth, the majority of contemporary Biblical scholars do not place it in the Hauran, but northwest of Amman” (my translation). Rohmer also points out that while the name Salkhad can be traced back to Nabataean at least (ṣlḥd), this is actually quite different from biblical Salchah (slkh): “only the lam is identical between the two words!” (2020: 290; translation mine).

Here’s a nice map from Rohmer illustrating this updated view:
Imagine Havvoth-Jair between Gilead and the Yarmuk.

So, what’s up with the tribes shifting north and Gilead shifting south?

Yitzchak Dickman also presented an interesting theory involving Judahite expansion into Transjordan in the comments linked above, but I think we may be able to explain the drift by looking at some other, more securely attested conquests in the Iron Age.

1. In Part I, I argued that Israelite control of the Mishor never extended all the way to the Arnon, but that the area between the Arnon and Wadi al-Hidan was Moabite. In the 840s, King Mesha conquered the rest of the Mishor, taking over pretty much all of the territory of Reuben and at least one Gadite outpost (Ataroth).
2. In the wars between Israel and Aram (relevant decades: 830s-810s), Hazael of Damascus is said to have conquered all the Israelite lands east of the Jordan during the reign of Jehu (2 Kgs 10:32-33).
3. Jehoash of Israel (790s-780s) recaptures towns that Hazael had taken from Israel (2 Kgs 13:25). But apparently these were lost under Jehoash’s father Jehoahaz (810s-800s), while Gilead was lost under Jehoahaz’s father Jehu. So does this really refer to the reconquest of Gilead, as suggested (e.g.) here?
4. Jehoash’s son Jeroboam (roughly 780s-750s) extends Israel to its maximum size. According to Amos (6:13), Israelites of this period boasted of taking Lo-Debar (according to Finkelstein et al. 2011: on the border of northwestern Gilead and southeastern Bashan, at modern al-Husn) and Karnaim, in Bashan proper. If Gilead wasn’t reconquered by Jehoash, then Jeroboam probably took it as well.
5. Finally, in 733, the Assyrians conquer Gilead and turn it into a province of their empire. In the same year, they conquer Aram-Damascus, which again includes Bashan at this time (apparently the Israelites didn’t hold onto it for long).

Summing up: Israel loses the Mishor (southernmost Israelite Transjordan) and never recovers it; loses, regains, loses Gilead (central Israelite Transjordan); and conquers but then once again loses Bashan (northern Israelite Transjordan). While they end up losing everything, there’s a clear south-to-north shift in Israelite territory over time, while the off-and-on possession of Gilead could account for the blurring of its borders. We can imagine the tribal territories and regional names shifting in a few stages:

Ninth century: Tribal Israelites in northwest Jordan

Status quo before Mesha’s revolt, matching the non-Priestly text of Numbers 32. Reuben is on the Mishor (up to Wadi al-Hidan), Moab south of Wadi al-Hidan, Gad mostly on the east bank of the Jordan between Reuben in the south, Ammon in the east, and the Jabbok in the north. Gilead 1.0 (the highest hilly area north of the western Jabbok IMHO, contra Finkelstein et al.), Machir, Havvoth-Jair and maybe Kenath/Nobah are other distinct tribal regions between the Jabbok (or just south of it) and the Yarmuk. Reconceptualization of all these as Manassite Gilead yield Gilead 2.0. Bashan is not Israelite and therefore not originally mentioned in Numbers.

In the 840s, Moab conquers the Reubenite Mishor. Reuben’s “people become few” (Deut 33:6) and he will “no longer excel” (Gen 49:4).

Eighth century: Transjordan lost and regained, conquest of Bashan

The main terminological development I imagine here is the use of Gilead, the most fertile part of (originally) Israelite Transjordan, as a pars pro toto for all the lost and subsequently regained territory, including that of Gad: Gilead 3.0. The tribal identity of this larger Gilead seems to be more Gadite than Manassite: the loss and recapture may be described as a “trampled” Gad “striking” back (Gen 49:19), or maybe the memory of this tribal expansion is directly attested in the reference to God “enlarging Gad’s domain” (Deut 33:20).

Seventh century and later: Reimagining tribal territories after the Assyrian conquest

After 733, there was no Israelite Transjordan, and after 722 there was no more kingdom of Israel to begin with. What we get in the Deuteronomistic History especially is different combinations of the regions of the Mishor, Gilead (3.0), and Bashan and the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh.

One way to do this is by assigning each of these regions to one (half-)tribe: Reuben in the Mishor, Gad in Gilead, and Manasseh in Bashan. This is what we (mostly) see in Joshua 13.

Alternatively, you can keep the historical memory that Gad was south of the Jabbok and Manasseh was north of it. Since Gilead (3.0) now extends on both sides of the Jabbok, that results in Reuben (which hasn’t been historically prominent for centuries) and Gad sharing the Mishor and Gilead south of the Jabbok, part of Manasseh living in Gilead north of the Jabbok, and another part of Manasseh living in Bashan. This is what we mostly see in Deuteronomy 3.

Finally, you can draw the Mishor into a new, Mega-Gilead (Gilead 4.0), using it to refer to all the originally Israelite lands in Transjordan (but excluding Bashan). This appears to be the usage in the Priestly text of Numbers 32, which repeatedly refers to Gad and Reuben settling in “the cities of Gilead”. The Persian-period or early Hellenistic text of 1 Chron 5 also refers to Reuben’s territory in the Mishor as part of Gilead.

Of these three systems, I’m inclined to see Deut 3’s as the oldest (memory of divided Gilead 3.0), followed by Josh 13 (Gilead : Bashan mapped to Gad : Manasseh), and then the Priestly and Chronicles one (Gilead-Mishor distinction abandoned). As far as I can tell, this development matches mainstream ideas about when each of these texts was written.

There’s a few loose ends that we haven’t discussed (why does Joshua 13 say Manasseh starts at Mahanaim, on the Jabbok? why does 1 Chron 5 talk about Gad living in Bashan?). For now, though, I think this makes good sense of the shifting terms and territories we see in the different texts. And just in case anyone wants to fund a trip to Jordan to go see what things look like on the ground—do let me know.
#Bible #Chronicles #Deuteronomy #Genesis #Hebrew #Joshua #Nabataean #Numbers

Finkelstein, I., Koch, I. and Lipschits, O. 2011. The Gilead: Observations on Identifications, Geographic Divisions and Territorial History. Ugarit-Forschungen 43: 131–159.

In this article we discuss issues related to the geographical and territorial history of the Gilead. First we deal with the identification of several key biblical regions and towns, most significant among them the two units described as “half of

^{Ido Koch (www.academia.edu)}

Eastern Roman vs. Byzantine

I always find it a bit jarring to read about Israel/Palestine in the “Byzantine” period. To my mind, Byzantine has strong medieval connotations, a time when the region fell under various Muslim and Crusader states. Hence, I’d be more inclined to talk about the Eastern Roman period. But given the continuity from the Roman Empire to the Eastern Roman Empire to the Byzantine Empire (which never called itself the Byzantine Empire), can we ever hope to draw a sharp line between (Eastern) Roman and Byzantine?

As a non-historian, I’m here to tell you: yes.

Unburdened by too much relevant knowledge, it seems to me that there are at least two big differences between the Late Antique Eastern Roman Empire and the Early Medieval Byzantine Empire.

First, the Byzantine Empire is unapologetically Greek, while Latin titles and the Latin language still played some role in the Eastern Roman Empire (although Greek was certainly dominant).

And second, the map of the Empire goes from something like this:

To something like this:

Except for some short-lived (re)conquests under Justinian I, the big difference is the loss of Egypt and North Africa, the Levant, and much of Armenia to the Islamic conquests.

This also changed the religious make-up of the Empire, as large segments of the Christian population of the lost areas (Copts, Syriac Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox) followed a form of Miaphysitism (Christ has one nature) as opposed to the official Roman state religion at that time of Chalcedonian Christianity, the forerunner of Eastern Orthodoxy as well as Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
Gold solidus depicting Heraclius and two of his sons
Happily, both developments can be associated with one and the same emperor: Heraclius (r. 610–641 CE). After fighting a devastating war against the Sasanian Persians, Heraclius’ empire suffered a series of crushing defeats to the early Caliphate, the first engagement taking place in 629.

And in the very same year, Heraclius first styled himself as basileus, the title used by Greek and Hellenistic rulers before the Romans and by all Byzantine rulers afterwards, without using other titles that were inherited from the earlier Roman period: kaisar (Latin: Caesar), augoustos or sebastos (Latin: Augustus) and autokratōr (Latin: Imperator).¹ This makes for a nice cut-off point for the total dominance of Greek, even though the Latin titles remained in use for some time afterwards.

A couple of unrelated developments similarly co-occurred under one emperor some 250 years earlier. Theodosius I was the last emperor to hold sway over the whole Roman Empire: after his death in 395 CE, the empire was split into East and West, each half being ruled by one of his sons. Administratieve divisions like this had taken place before, but this one was to be permanent and is commonly taken as the beginning of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Gold solidus depicting Theodosius I
Theodosius’ reign also saw an important event in religious history. In 325, the Council of Nicaea had formulated what would become the orthodox doctrine concerning the Trinity. After decades of ongoing struggle with non-Nicene forms of Christianity and holdovers of pre-Christian Roman religions, an edict by Theodosius established this Nicene Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire in 380. From that point on, it would play a paramount role, both in the West, where it contrasted with the non-Nicene Arian Christianity of most invading Germanic peoples, and in the East, where subsequent debates over the nature(s) of Christ would lead to schisms between the Church of the East, the Miaphysite churches, and what would become the Chalcedonian church.

So at two points in time, we have a few political and religious developments going hand in hand. Together, they lend a distinct flavour to these different periods in the history of the Roman Empire(s). Of course, there are several ways to further split up the periodization of the Roman Empire (e.g. before and after the third century) and the Byzantine Empire (pre- and post-Seljuks seems like a big distinction). But as for the Eastern Roman Empire, I think this gives us a pretty well-defined beginning and end point:

So: “Eastern Roman synagogues”, “Aramaic dialects of the Eastern Roman period”, “Hebrew poetry of Eastern Roman Palestine”… Who’s with me?
A famous emperor from roughly the middle of each period: Marcus Aurelius, Justinian I, and Basil II.

1. Wikipedia tells me that Heraclius first used basileus together with autokratōr kaisar in a letter from 628, with the more traditional titles first being left out in one from 629. ↩︎

#Greek #history #Latin #Syriac

Biblicizing the Bronze Age

(This is part joke, part mnemonic; do not take it seriously.)

I had some fun aligning Levantine archeological periods with the Hexateuch (Torah + Joshua) and some possible dates in the prehistory of Hebrew. The Middle Bronze = Patriarchs and especially Late Bronze = Israelites in Egypt alignments are pretty standard, but I like how well the third millennium lined up with Genesis 2–11. Period names and dates are mostly drawn from Greenberg (2019; paywall).

(Late) Chalcolithic, ca 4000-3750: Eden

Low inequality, high standard of living. Good times.
The “Ghassulian Star” fresco from the Chalcolithic site of Teleilat (el-)Ghassul (Jordan).

Early Bronze, ca 3750-2200: the Antediluvian Age

Early Bronze IA, ca 3750

Expulsion from Eden, beginning of history and the Hebrew calendar. Harder, less prosperous times compared to the preceding Chalcolithic. In the east, city-building Cainites of the Middle Uruk Period bring urban civilization to Elam and Upper Mesopotamia. Breakup of Proto-Semitic.
Fragments of Gray Burnished Ware, typical of EB IA.

Early Bronze IB, ca 3300

Birth of Jared. Descent of the Watchers (as per the Book of Enoch) and their teaching of arcane technologies triggers a prosperous golden age. Writing invented.
Reconstructed ground plan of a large Early Bronze IB building at Tel Bet Shean (Israel).

Early Bronze II, ca 3100

Birth of Methuselah (“Man of the Spear”). Armed conflicts(?) cause massive abandonment of EB I villages and a shift to more defensible, walled hilltop settlements.
EB II and III fortifications of Jericho (Israel).

Early Bronze III, ca 2850

Death of Adam. Nephilim build the pyramids. God does not like the establishment of the Akkadian Empire (is he anti-Semitic?) and gives them a 120-year warning for the Flood (Gen 6:3). In the Southern Levant: increasing isolation, inequality, continuing construction of fortifications; cities abandoned between 2500 and 2400.
Fighting gods, heroes, and bull-man hybrids on an Old Akkadian cylinder seal, ca 2300.

Intermediate Bronze, ca 2200-2000: the Flood

4.2-kiloyear event: severe drought(!) triggers collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt and the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia. Arpachshad, Shelah, Eber. Southern Levant continues in its late EB post-urban state.
Ain Samiya goblet, found near Ramallah. Something something snakes and rainbows.

Middle Bronze, ca 2000-1550: the Patriarchal Age

Middle Bronze I, ca 2000

Tower of Babel built in the days of Peleg. Completion of the Great Ziggurat of Ur, Etemenniguru, “The House Whose Foundation Creates Terror”, commissioned by Ur-Nammu (Nimrod) ca 2100. Breakup of Proto-Northwest-Semitic.
Ruined facade and access staircase of Etemenniguru, Ur (Iraq).

Middle Bronze II, ca 1800

Birth of Abraham. Beginning of the Amorite Age: Northwest Semitic–speaking dynasties establish themselves from Babylon to the Nile Delta (convenient for travellers from, say, Ur to Haran to Canaan to Egypt). High point of the Levantine city-states. Invention of alphabetic writing?
Artefacts from Amorite Mari (Syria).