The Original Promised Land

The term "promised land" has often been used to describe any piece of real estate that promises to be a nice place to live.  The original Promised Land, however, was the Land of Canaan, which is the approximate location of the modern State of Israel.  The Biblical Book of Genesis might be considered "religious mumbo jumbo" to non-believers, but even many secular historians have relied on it as the next best thing to history.  Validated historical accounts of that time period are hard to come by, since almost all contemporary writings were a mixture of history, mythology, and creative story telling.  The Epic of Gilgamesh, for instance, tells of gods and mortals interbreeding to produce the Mesopotamian leadership, yet it's about all we've got to go by when we research the ancient history of the City of Ur, which is a real place in, what it today, Iraq.  Archaeological digs have uncovered eight or nine layers of civilization under the present site and, last I heard, they were still digging.

Genesis tells us that Abraham, who both Jews and Muslims claim as their founding father, was enticed by God to leave "Ur, in the land of the Chaldeans" with the promise that he would be led to "a land flowing with milk and honey".  Abraham and his entourage did go to, what is today, Israel, but they lived as "strangers in the land".  Much of the Middle East is indeed desert, but it might not have always been.  Some historians believe that the region was once more fertile and productive, but it was transformed into desert by overgrazing, with perhaps a little help from natural climate change.  Be that as it may, there are parts of the Middle East that support agriculture even unto this day.  The two that immediately come to mind are the Fertile Crescent and the Nile River Valley.  People have fought over these lands since forever, with the losers becoming wandering nomads, drifting from one water hole to the next, and occasionally seeking refuge from drought and famine in one of the better areas, usually with the consent of the locals, who were probably looking for cheap labor.  Abraham's descendants ended up in Egypt, where they spent a few centuries, eventually becoming vassals of the Pharaoh.  Along came Moses, who led the Hebrews (from an Egyptian word that means "wanderers") back to Abraham's Promised Land.  Yadda, yadda, yadda, Joshua fit de Battle of Jericho, and the rest is history.