After the death of David's king Solomon, the northern part of Israel refused to follow Solomon's son, and created its own kingdom, which they named "Israel."  Notice the name of their capital city: "Samaria."

The people in the south continued to follow the descendants of King David.  Their kingdom is named "Judah," because Judah was the largest tribal area in the south.  The capital is Jerusalem.

The events of this time are in the Bible books called 1 and 2 Kings and 1 and 2 Chronicles.

In 722 BC the northern kingdom (Israel) was ended by the Assyrian empire, which was expanding from Iraq.  Many of the people were deported to Iraq.

Inn 586 BC the southern kingdom (Judah) was ended by the Babylonian empire, which had defeated the Assyrians and was taking over their territory.  Many of the people were deported to Iraq.  From this time it began to become more common to call the people of Israel by the term "Jews," because they were from "Judah."

In 539 BC, another empire, the Persians, defeated the Babylonians.  They permitted the Jews to return to their homeland, under Persian rule.  The events of this time are in the last three books of the history shelf of the bible: Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther.

The following events happened during the time period (300 to 400 years) in between the end of the New Testament and beginning of the New testament:

In 323 BC, Alexander the Great conquered the Persian empire, and the Jewish people were under Greek rule.

In 165 BC the Jewish people formed an independent kingdom centered in Judah.

In 63 BC the Romans conquered the area.  They placed a man named Herod as king of this area, under Roman control.  Herod was the king when Jesus was born.  The next map shows the situation at the time of Jesus.