The Genesis of Idumea

Yigal Levin’s contribution “The Genesis of Idumea” is devoted to the intriguing question of the transition from the Iron Age II to the Persian period in Idumea: How and under which conditions did the province emerge, and what distinguishes it as “Idumean”? His essay examines the available data on the identity of these Idumeans using the extant written sources and archaeological data and traces the process by which Edomites living in what had been southern Judah – now under Qedarite-Arab control – preserved and adapted their identity, eventually becoming the dominant group in the area that became the Hellenistic-period “Province of Idumea.”