Graham Phillips' Moses Legacy

[Rokcet Scientist]

"it seems that Judaism resulted from contact with Zoroastrian Persia.....many centuries later."

Could you give me an explanation, Minimalist?

You may wanna read up on Zoroaster/Zarathustra: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster

[Minimalist]

Simply put, pope, we have no evidence that Judaism existed prior to the Persian era. The archaeological evidence is that while the northern kingdom was a relatively prosperous and populous area the southern kingdom was an insignificant region of a few scattered herders which was not even worth anyone's time to conquer. Archaeology has failed to find any significant population center at Jerusalem prior to the 8th century BC. At that time, after the Assyrians took out the northern kingdom, Aram-Damascus, and Philistia the desert kingdoms of Judah, Moab and Edom began to grow as Assyrian vassal states and prospered on the basis of the Arabian trade routes. Yah ( or Yahweh ) seems to have been a member of the general Canaanite pantheon and it seems as if he attained some prominence in the southern kingdom as sort of the local Chief God. Archaeologist, William Dever ( Did God Have A Wife? ) details the finds which show that in the 8th and 7th centuries BC the area around Jerusalem was a henotheistic culture in which Yahweh and his consort, Asherah, were the chief divinities.

As with other states at the time, Judah got a little too big for its britches and in a period of instability tried to revolt from its Assyrian overlords. They were crushed. Large pieces of her territory were cut off and given to loyal Assyrian vassals but for whatever reason the Assyrians accepted a tribute from king Hezekiah and allowed him to remain in power. Under his son, Manesseh, the country revived again within the Assyrian economic engine. Towards the close of the 7th century Assyria was hard pressed by Babylonian rebels and began to lose its grip on its vassal states. A re-vitalized Egypt intervened as an ally of Assyria and advanced into regions not occupied by Egypt since Ramesses IV.

As with most small states located between warring powers the Judahites tried to guess which way the wind was blowing and pick the winning side. They failed. In the early 6th century a Babylonian army sacked and burned the city which had grown to a population of perhaps 15,000. The Babylonians elected to remove the upper classes back to Babylon ( rather than kill them, which was the other option) leaving the peasantry to keep farming under Babylonian administration.

Now, at this point the OT claims that the Jews stubbornly maintained their "faith" while in captivity and were then restored some 50 years later when Cyrus the Persian captured Babylon and sent them "back." As previously noted, we have no evidence of Judaism in pre-exile Jerusalem.

The Persians did not "conquer" the Babylonian empire so much as they had it fall into their lap. Babylon itself was taken by a coup d' main. The city was captured intact. The notion that "the exiles" were sent back is silly. It was 50 years later. At a time when average life-expectancy was around 35 it is highly unlikely that many of the adult exiles were still alive. In fact, most of their children were probably dead. At best, we are looking at 3'd generation. Further, Persia had problems of its own. There was a serious revolt on its eastern border, back in Iran. Cyrus the Great was killed in battle suppressing this revolt. The Persian army was thus needed in far more important places than miserable little Judah. Whoever was sent back to rule Judah ( and the other states which Persia acquired) were more likely Babylonian\Persians who were sent with a doctrine of them being the rightful ruling class of the region being restored through the good will of Cyrus. They were supplied with such a doctrine to justify their return and fitness to rule as the priests of Yahweh. As Philip R. Davies writes in his "In Search of Ancient Israel:" "The Persian monarchs would certainly have no difficulty in recognizing this deity as their lord Ahura Mazda," as opposed to the Iron Age deity of some 50 years before. The threat of Persian armed force would have always been there but it seems highly unlikely that the people who remained would care whether it was Babylonian or Persian overseers who were holding the whip. As Rokcet has shown you, Ahura Mazda was the single, male, Creator God...the one who called all the shots under Zoroastrianism.

It is not necessary for the entire OT to have been written at this time. The basic, "we-serve-Yahweh-and-we-are-his-priests-so-do-what-we-say" would have been enough. The rest developed later out of various local legend and folklore. In a recent article, Israel Finkelstein has calculated the population of Persian "Jerusalem" at about 400. It was a tiny enclave. The Babylonians had never rebuilt the city choosing instead to base their administration in nearby Mizpah. Judah ( or Yehud as the Persians called it) remained a loyal vassal of Persia and when Alexander came rolling through the area they surrendered without a fight. Until the wars between the Seleucids and Ptolemies began over 3 centuries later Yehud had a long period of peace in which the ruling class could amplify its various tales. We have no indication that these tales were even written down at this time. They may well have been oral and it wasn't until the Greeks came along that anyone decided to write this stuff down. All we know is that we do not have any record of a Hebrew version prior to the Greek version.

I'll break it off for now. Things really get interesting under the Hasmoneans, though.

[Rokcet Scientist]

the Judahites tried to guess which way the wind was blowing and pick the winning side. They failed.

LOL! As they did/do in the 20th and 21st centuries AD...
Twenty-seven centuries later they still haven't learned their lesson: they're still just as headstrong. So they'll get crushed again!

[Digit]

Ummm!


Roy.

[Minimalist]

I don't know, R/S. Judging by the body count they seem to be coming out ahead....for now.

[Digit]

Yep! 27 centuries on the same ground is a lot better than many peoples can claim Min.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

There were a few sojourns elsewhere.

[Digit]

Depends on how you look at it Min, as you pointed out with the 'exile' for example, the ordinary Joe on the ground just changed rent collector.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Yes but was he "Jewish" until the Persian faction arrived and told him he was? Therein lies the rub.

[Rokcet Scientist]

I don't know, R/S. Judging by the body count they seem to be coming out ahead....for now.

But if you see where their big friend is heading the prospects are not good.

[Digit]

I think we are talking at cross purposes Min. If the same people have occupied the ground for thousands of years what matter their religion?
Britain was once Catholic, and before that all sorts of things, but their continity of occupation remains.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

I think we are talking at cross purposes Min. If the same people have occupied the ground for thousands of years what matter their religion?
Britain was once Catholic, and before that all sorts of things, but their continity of occupation remains.

What continuity? 90% of the Jewish Israeli passport holders today – or their ancestors – didn't live in Palestine in 1947.

[Digit]

Really?

Roy.

[Minimalist]

The Romans did evict the Jews from Palestine in the aftermath of the bar Kochba revolt. Jerusalem was renamed Aelia Capitolina, leveled and rebuilt as a Roman military colony. Byzantines and Arabs followed and the Jewish community slowly recovered....only to be wiped out by the Crusaders in 1099.

[Digit]

I'm obviously not explaining my self very well Min, so I'll try a different approach.
The majority of the Levantine population, pre Islam were Christian, Jewish and animist, same in north Africa, remember the Vandals were Christian.
Theoretically an individual in the Levant could have been in his lifetime, animist, Jewish, Christian, then Moslem.
Do you agree?

Roy.