The history of ancient Israel and Judah begins during the Iron Age with the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, two related Israelite polities that existed in the ancient Southern Levant.. According to the Hebrew Bible, a United Israelite Monarchy existed as early as the 11th century BCE under the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon; the country later would have split into two …

Judah, now called Yehud, was a Persian province, and the returnees, with their Persian connections in Babylon, were in control of it. They represented also the descendants of the old "Yahweh-alone" movement, but the religion they instituted was significantly different from both monarchic Yahwism and modern Judaism. These differences include new ...