Why did Ancient Israel split into two kingdoms near 920 B.C?

Answer 1

According to 1 Kings 12:4, the people of the northern tribes complained to the new King Rehoboam, saying, "Thy father [Solomon] made our yoke grievous; now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and the heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter and we will serve thee." Rehoboam consulted with the old men who had advised his father, and they said to make the burden lighter. But he forsook their counsel and at 12:!4 told the Israelites, "My father made your yoke heavy, and I will add to the yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions."
So, we are told that Solomon, the wisest of kings, had so unwisely burdened the Israelites that he risked their rebellion, and his son pushed them into final secession. Thus, this is the reason that Ancient Israel split into two kingdoms.

But did this really happen? Even the biblical account, read holistically and in context, makes this unlikely. For example, this narrative conflicts with the biblical account of the fortunes of the northern kingdom, where the heavy taxes imposed by Solomon and Rehoboam left the people of the northern kingdom so impoverished that they were driven to revolt. Yet the new King Jeroboam had access to so much gold that he was soon able to make two calves of gold, setting one up in Bethel and one in Dan, for worship by the people (1 Kings 12:28).

Finkelstein and Silberman (The Bible Unearthed) believe that the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were always separate, with different life styles, different pottery, different myths and legends, and even speaking different dialects of Hebrew. They insist there is no evidence the kingdoms ever were united. In fact, the mighty empire of David and Solomon could never have existed because the combined territory had a population of less than 100,000 and was still too poor, backward and sparsely populated even to build walled cities in the tenth century BCE.