Were the Canaanites just an obscure group whose main claim to fame was that they were around when the early Jews invaded Palestine, a defeated people forced into a long retreat in the face of militant Jewish monotheism?
Those who wrote the Old Testament wanted you to think so.
Bob Fowke will attempt to set the record straight in a talk for the Bishop’s Castle Arts Festival, 2.00 pm Saturday 26 February, in the Church Barn, Bishop’s Castle, Shropshire. He will be looking at pre-Jewish Canaanite culture and the origins of Jewish identity within it, the foundation of Carthage and how the Canaanites gave us the phonetic alphabet, Judaism itself and much more.