6 NADAV NA’AMAN clarify the formation of “biblical Israel” as depicted in biblical historiography, we must first clarify the following questions: What did the authors of these historiographical works seek to gain by describing the history of Israel in this manner? Under what circumstances was the name “Israel” extended to include the Kingdom of Judah and its inhabitants? Did this begin at the time of the monarchy — or only after its downfall, when the name “Judah”, like “Israel”, had also lost its political-territorial connotation? Internal biblical research to date has not satisfactorily explained the emergence of the concept of united Israel in biblical historiography. To find a way out of the deadlock, we must look outside the narrow confines of the biblical text. To this end, in the following sections I shall draw an analogy with Assyrian- Babylonian relations in the second millennium and first half of the first millennium BCE. This, I believe, sheds new light on the decision of Judahite scribes and the elite to extend the names “Israel” and “ Israelites ” to their own country and its people, and may even help to establish when this religious-ideological shift occurred. I. The Assyrian-Babylonian Struggle over the Political and Cultural Heritage of Mesopotamia Scribal activity and learning in Mesopotamia began in its southern regions, with the first intelligible texts written in Sumerian. The city of Uruk was probably the major political centre where writing and learning first developed, and spread from there to other urban centres — first in lower Mesopotamia, then further upstream, along the river valleys, to the north (Assyria) and the west (Mari) and Ebla. In the late third millennium BCE the centre of learning shifted to Ur, where writing was fully integrated into the administrative system, and a great variety of Sumerian texts were produced within the walls of the local scribal schools. In the latter part of the third millennium, writing in Akkadian also developed, gradually becoming the preferred language of scribes by the Old Babylonian period. From the early second millennium BCE onwards, Sumerian was confined to schools and studied by scribes as part of their training. A full command of Akkadian and Sumerian became the standard requirement for students seeking to join the “guild” of professional scribes in Mesopotamia.