Israelites enter a new land after a long wilderness wandering and encounter what we now know to have been the highly sophisticated, literate, feudal culture of ancient Canaan. Eight hundred years of culture war follow. Out of that war emerges a remarkable literature, elements of which consist of fusions of core elements of both cultures. Much of the Book of Psalms is a result of core-to-core culture confrontation: Canaanite literary forms and Israelite monotheistic content.
