Levant

The "bean story" of Esau and Jokob, the sons of the Jewish ancestor Isaac, takes place here in the Levant. And according to historian Joël Broekaert, that is no coincidence.

The story in short goes as follows:

One evening, Esau returns tired from hunting and asks his brother for a bowl of lentil soup. Jacob agrees, but sets a condition: in exchange for the bowl of lentil soup, Esau must transfer his birthright to Jacob. Esau agrees and thus changes the history of the Jewish people.

According to Broekaert, the story about the fraternal struggle over the plate of lentil soup is a metaphor for the discord over the transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer culture to a sedentary agricultural life in the Levant.

Dromos