A people group mentioned in many ancient Near Eastern documents, whose identity remains an enigma, but thought for a while by many scholars to be identified with the ancient Hebrews. Scholars now generally think that the term defines a social group rather than an ethnic group.
The term habiru, or 'apiru, first appeared in the late 19th Cent., from cuneiform documents from Egypt now referred to as the Amarna Letters. Frequently mentioned in these letters were complaints against a people known as habiru who ravaged the cities and villages of the king to whom the letters were addressed and complaining that the king was doing too little to help them. Given the discoveries it was easy for scholars to jump to the conclusion that the idea that habiru was a reference to the Hebrews. It is now clear from the personal names of the individuals that the habiru were never a single linguistic group. In an article in the Biblical Archaeology Review, Anson Rainey asserts,
"It is time to clarify for BAR readers the widely discussed relationship between the habiru, who are well documented in Egyptian and Near Eastern inscriptions, and the Hebrews of the Bible. There is absolutely no relationship!"
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