Egypt and Israel: The Ways of Cultural Contacts in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age (20th – 26th Dynasty)

When did literary ideas and Egyptian motifs first find their way to Israel/Judah? The article investigates modes of cultural contact in the Late Bronze and Iron Age (20^th – 26^th Dynasty). According to archaeological, epigraphic and literary material two ways of cultural contact can be found: an indirect one as a kind of ‘leftover’ of the Egyptian presence in the Southern Levant in the late Bronze Age (20^th Dynasty) and a direct one in the 25^th and 26^th Dynasty. Because of the political development, within the 7^th century for the first time direct political and various cultural contacts between Egypt and Israel/Judah existed. In Egypt this period represents a policy of openness in connection with a ‘renaissance’ of older material in the Saite Dynasty. This included wisdom texts, such as the teaching of Amenemope which was used by a Hebrew scribe when writing Proverbs 22:17-23:11.

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