Before the Church · c. 1360–1330 BC
The Amarna Letters
The kings and governors of the Late Bronze Age
What it is
Three hundred and eighty-two clay tablets from the Egyptian foreign office: the great kings of Babylon and Mitanni haggling over gold and marriages, and the petty rulers of Canaan begging for archers against raiders and rivals. The mayor of Jerusalem writes six times and gets nothing.
Why it lasted
The only direct documentation of Canaan in the century Israel is supposed to have entered it. The habiru who trouble every governor's letter may or may not have anything to do with the Hebrews, and the argument has run for a hundred and thirty years.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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