The most important, and very unique, is the invention of an alphabetic writing system. The importance of this system is that even low-tech societies could reach 90%+ literacy rate by using an alphabetic system. In other words, in traditional Chinese writing learning to read and write took years. In alphabetic systems, especially the very first alphabet were sounds fit the language and every sound had a unique letter, learning to read and write was a matter of weeks.
Few people realize that all alphabetic systems in the world today, no exception, have one source. “Somebody” developed the first alphabet and all others have been developed by people who had seen an alphabetic system. For example the Hebrew first four letters – Aleph (from aluf, champion bull), Bet (from Bait, house), Gimel (from Gamal, Camal) and Daled (from Delet, door) were transfer in Greek to Alpha, Beta, Gama, Delta and in Latin to A, B, C, D. This first alphabet was probably developed by Canaanites in Sinai. For actual pictures of the first writing see http://net.lib.byu.edu/imaging/negev/Origins.html. This first alphabet was developed by Canaanite who could read Egyptian Hieroglyphic. A good example from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet is “So, for example, the hieroglyph per ("house" in Egyptian) became bayt ("house" in Semitic)”.
The second development is monotheism. Unlike alphabet, monotheism had been developed independently in other parts of the world, but the two largest monotheistic religions, Christianity and Islam, have their roots in Judaism.
The third one is the health/science related religious laws. For example, not eating pork to avoid Trichinosis, see http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/trichinosis/factsht_trichinosis.htm. In the time before refrigeration and health inspections that was a big problem because when a pig was eaten it was eaten at once, usually in a big party. If the pork had any parasites then everybody from the party could become seriously ill in a matter of months. (My mother still remembers the Christian villages in Mandatory Palestine that ate pork. Sometimes there would be a big party and six months later “half the village” would be dead. Modern hunters in Israel always take any wild pig they kill to a veterinarian inspection to deal with this problem.) Another example is circumcision as a defense against STD, see http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123802256715541879.html and http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm. One more example, important before modern fertilizers, is leaving the land fallow every now and then to increased long term agriculture production; see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_yield
So how all of that may be related?
My guess is that those three developments were related, and I'll try to present a possible explanation.
Low rainfall in Canaan; Jacob and his family moved to Egypt.
In Egypt (or on the way in Sinai) either one of them invented the alphabetic system or they knew the inventor.
One (or more) started to keep records of important events, e.g. big parties and deaths.
Back then the diet of the lower class was mostly vegetarian & dairy; meat of big animals was usually eaten only in big celebrations. The record keeper found a correlation between people in the parties and early deaths later.
This was a key issue. Laymen tend to assume that correlation means causation. And he discovered that parties with pork were much more dangerous. Trying to avoid pork proved a useful defense and so they were looking for other correlations. The result was a “health religion”. Note that 3,000 years ago people had a common explanation to what they could not explain - “the Gods”. But the Gods had different requirement, often contradictory. (Read the Iliad if you miss this point.) Why would all worshipers, of all Gods, be punished for eating pork? The obvious answer is “because there is only one God and those are his laws”. The result was a tribe that enjoyed the benefits of near 100% literacy rate, health related laws and very different religion than everybody around. This created a tension with the people around. The tribe was oppressed but used some natural disaster, e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_eruption, or a war, e.g. the invasion of the Sea Peoples, to escape.
The lands we call today Israel and Jordan had many tribes in that time. The “escaped from Egypt” tribe showed them the health benefits of the new religion and some of them converted and created a loose alliance. Most of the converted tribes were Canaanites, but at least one was probably a Sea People, the tribe of Dan; see www.1335.com/sea.html. In other words, the quick defeats of all Canaanites kingdom, as described in Joshua probably had never happened. There are no archaeological signs for such a wide spread destruction, with the exception of Hazor. The description in Judges is probably much closer to reality. An important clue from Judges is that the victory Song of Deborah in Judges 5 does not mention the tribe of Judah. My guess is that this large tribe switched sides to Israeli alliance after the Israelis
