Israel In BNW?

Mrdarklight said:

In view of some of the other civilizations that have been included, I would think Israel would be obvious. Israel is more of a "civilization" than Ethiopia, or Songhai, or the Iroquois. Calling the Iroquois a civilization is really stretching it.

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Menzies said:

How on Earth is Israel more of a "civilization" than Ethiopia or Songhai?

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Haig said:

I think it's perfect the way it is now - as a city-state.
What I mean is that if you look at news, it's like a hotly contested religilous city-state, America gifting it units and gaining faith points, and enemies ready to devour it. I'm not being political but I like it that way, same with some other city-states as well that I think work better as a CS.

Otherwise I think Israel would have cool options for uniques, everything from religion to espionage to military. I just think it's a good as a city-state in the game.

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igelkott said:

I still can't fathom why Israel isn't included in the game, considering it's huge religious, political, intellectual and cultural impact on the history of the whole world, both in the ancient and modern era.

And BTW, I'm always amazed how people here argue if X is a 'civilization' or not without really getting into what constitutes a civilization. It's a very dubious, ridiculous term. Based on which 'civs' have been included in the game so far, I'd say we're rather speaking of cultures, not 'civilizations'. And the only reason for including or not including one should be if it's interesting to play.

I'd say Israel is rather interesting.

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steveg700 said:

Well-said. Generally, when someone says "this is just fine as a city-state" I'm left with the impression that they're expressing a bias for civ's that are expansive and, to some degree, imperialistic.

The Zulu enjoy wide support as a "must-have", largely for a rampage that began and ended with a single vicious lunatic. Less of a civ, more of a cult of personality. OTOH, an insular civ that doesn't have a distinguished record of successful military campaigns can be written off as a city-state. They weren't "significant" enough, meaning they didn't kick enough booty.

What makes that odd is that four-city-tradition is all the rage these days.

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steveg700 said:

True, but that's also true of many ancient civ's. We take a lot on faith, from stuff we find on old tablets and often from the second-hand details provided by a few prolific civ's like Egypt.

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igelkott said:

I still can't fathom why Israel isn't included in the game, considering it's huge religious, political, intellectual and cultural impact on the history of the whole world, both in the ancient and modern era.

And BTW, I'm always amazed how people here argue if X is a 'civilization' or not without really getting into what constitutes a civilization. It's a very dubious, ridiculous term. Based on which 'civs' have been included in the game so far, I'd say we're rather speaking of cultures, not 'civilizations'. And the only reason for including or not including one should be if it's interesting to play.

I'd say Israel is rather interesting.

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cybrxkhan said:

The difference is that most of what we think we know about Israel comes from the Bible. For other civs such as Egypt and Babylon and the Hittites we have a slew of resources, including inscriptions on monuments, tablets, records and second-hand details from other civilizations, and so on - to the shock of many, Israel is barely mentioned, if at all, in the records of various contemporary states such as Egypt and Assyria. For instance, while the Bible talks about a so-called Shishak invading Judah, on the Egyptian side of things, while most scholars associate Shishak with the Pharaoh Sheshonq I (to my knowledge), Sheshonq's various inscriptions and records make barely any mention of Judah, if at all, only vaguely discussing how he went over to Canaan and beat the crap out of some places. As another example, I've also read that the famous figures David and Solomon aren't mentioned anywhere in contemporary records in neighboring states. Contrast this with the records in Egypt and elsewhere which are not only abundant in comparison, but can be cross-referenced across different regions and states. More or less, the fact that we even know about Israel really comes from the Bible - perhaps it is an exaggeration, but I'd think if it weren't for the Bible we wouldn't even know of the existence of an ancient Israelite state at such an era... if it existed at all.

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Menzies said:

Interestingly, the only distinguishing feature of sites that are considered to be Israeli instead of Canaan are the lack of pig bones, the pottery, style and such are identical. One of the corner stones of the story of Israel is also the exodus, of which there is no archaeological evidence, and no mention of outside of the bible itself. Such a huge migration would have left some huge markers, which are missing, and in fact, as mentioned above, it appears that Israel is a descendant of Canaan and the people did not migrate from anywhere.

These days it's widely recognised that many stories of the Bible aren't historical accounts, but rather stories to demonstrate Gods power and divine will towards his chosen people. To use such a source by itself for anything that is supposed to be vaguely historical would be quite silly.

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Kwami said:

And, even if the "Kingdom of Israel" did exist, they clearly had very little influence during their time since there are no references to them from the records of other civilizations. What's so special about a small, middle-eastern kingdom that nobody bothered to mention? Nothing.

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Menzies said:

What is special about them is the effect that their religion had and the effect that the descendants of the people of Israel had, particularly as they spread their religion. Ancient Israel did exist though, there is archaeological evidence for it, it's the significance of the Kingdom that is the real question.

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Menzies said:

I can understand religious impact, but political, intellectual and cultural impact? Ancient Israel were just another small Kingdom in the middle east, while we're at it we may as well be discussing their predecessor, Canaan. As for modern Israel, they are very young and couldn't exist without their allies, hardly worth inclusion on their own.

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