18 NADAV NA’AMAN The inhabitants of the province of Samerina would have seen themselves as the natural heirs of the patrimony of ancient Israel, and it would have been distinctly odd for Judean authors, living in the neighbouring province of Yehud, suddenly to start claiming a heritage that had never been their own. When, therefore, was the new ethno-religious-cultural identity of “Israel” first adopted by Judahite historiographers and prophets to describe the inhabitants of both kingdoms? Might it be dated shortly after the Assyrian annexation of the Kingdom of Israel, in the late 8th – early 7th century BCE ? This, too, is unlikely. Assyria had been the dominant power in the Syro-Palestinian arena for about a century, and forcefully governed the provinces established in the territories of the former Kingdom of Israel. Following Sennacherib’s destructive campaign of 701 BCE, Judah was a loyal vassal of Assyria and was mainly preoccupied in restoring its severely damaged territories. Under these circumstances, when J u d a h made efforts to strength its internal cohesion and re-consolidate its identity that were severely damaged by the Assyrian campaign, it is difficult to imagine that Judahite scribes and prophets would have sought a new identity and tried to absorb the heritage of what was now Assyrian-controlled territory. The situation changed dramatically, however, after the Assyrian withdrawal from the Syro-Palestinian arena in the last third of the 7th century BCE. While the political status and institutions of Judah remained intact, the administrative frameworks and internal cohesion of the Assyrian provinces must have collapsed, and they had no army with which to defend themselves. Egypt was a sort of “ successor state” for the territories vacated by Assyria, including Judah and the province of Samerina, but was mainly engaged in the coastal areas and could not effectively control the internal regions of Syria-Palestine. Josiah (639-609) was then king of Judah and was able to operate with no organized resistance in the highlands areas north of his kingdom, and expand into the former Israelite territories 42. N. NA’AMAN, “The Kingdom of Judah under Josiah”, Tel Aviv 18 (1991) 42 33-60. A slightly revised and updated version of the article was recently published in L.L. GRABBE (ed.), Good Kings and Bad Kings (Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 393 ; London – New York 2005) 210-233.