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I think I have conveyed my point originally very poorly and caused a tangent of discussion not really needed, as, again, I have never intended for the comments I made to be taken to refer to the Hebrew culture as involved in an isolated tundra and turning out Egyptian pyramids in 800 years.
My last post tries extensively to clarify what I am discussing and the consideration of the surrounding capabilities of civilization do not cause restriction of the consideration I am pointing out; instead they only serve to amplify the problem more as with so much around them it should be even more the case that civil works should not be so out of ratio in comparison to legislative accomplishments and infrastructure as indeed was the case.
Again, I am not pulling a variation of "It had to be aliens because ancient peoples were stupid" argument.
Quite to the opposite I am stating that if we look around, considering everything about the region, their civil public works were terribly out of proportion to their accomplishments in legislative infrastructure.
@Jayson:
Perhaps I'm not understanding your points entirely, but it seems to me like:
1. Being a theocracy is not some grand philosophical achievement that you have to research, like in Civ 5. Rather it was the first form of state organization that human civilizations discovered. As soon as we know anything about the Sumerians or Egyptians, lo and behold, they're theocracies. Even the first form of inter-state diplomacy we know of, was organized as a council of the gods in Mesopotamia, where each king spoke for his town's god.
It really isn't some deep philosophy. It's really just the low hanging fruit of dumb answers to, basically, "why should I pay half of my crops to YOU?" Well, "because god said so." It's just about the least philosophical answer you can possibly give, if you want to avoid the more blunt, "because I'll impale the whole village if you don't."
(Which incidentally the Assyrians and various other Mesopotamian kingdoms also liked to be up front about. Not only they did it, but then they carved bas reliefs of their impaling whole villages around the royal castle.)
That was the foundation of state organization in both Sumer and Egypt.
2. None of those needed some great infrastructure for that. Egypt pretty much had no other infrastructure than having the Nile as a super-highway, when it came up with that, and the Mesopotamian city states also didn't really have some great infrastructure when they came up with that. (Though they did build some roads later.)
3. A civilization taking over another more advanced one, doesn't have to mean restarting from zero. Even in the middle east, the Akkadian invasion produced no discontinuity. They wiped out the Sumerians, but just adopted their writing and civilization and all. Hell, they even adopted their gods.
There doesn't seem to have been a dark age like Greece got after the Dorian invasion. (Though even that only lasted a quarter of the time span that gets you wondering there.)
4. And I'm bringing up the Akkadians, because that's when and how the semitic populations got into the middle east: by overruning the Sumerians and then keeping going. By the time they got into the region that is now Israel, they had already absorbed the Sumerian civilization and going on seamlessly from there.
Any Semitic population that could take over the area and become the Hebrews, couldn't come from anywhere else. Whether it was an internal revolt in some of the cities, or tribes from the highlands, they couldn't come from anywhere else. However backwater they might have gotten, they were still the descendants of the same people that wrote all those tablets at Ebla and stuff.
That said, the Persians did help. The rebuilding of the temple for example was paid for by Darius, as per a decree from circa 519 BCE. You know, same guy vilified for the invasion of Greece.
That said, I doubt that they actively took part in rewriting a heretical religion, from their point of view. Cyrus and his successors were big on freedom of religion, which was a very novel idea, hence tolerating and supporting local religions like Judaism. But there is no indication that they ever actually undertook to (help) manufacture something that contradicted their Zoroastrianism.
The simplest explanation is just that until then, the reactionary movement that had taken over the place, had managed to enforce a sort of orthodoxy and reject foreign influences. (Remember, you were not just supposed to stone any heathens and heretics, you were supposed to kill the whole town if they allow that.) Now they had a massive influx of former slaves in Babylon, many of which had been scribes there, and many of which had copied theological texts there. And many who remained there, but were writing letters back home.
It wasn't as easy to suppress them any more, or not while also staying on the good side of those Persian rulers.
So in a sense, it's not as much that the Persians actively helped with "getting their ducks in order," it's just that now it wasn't as easy any more to suppress those who wanted to get those ducks sorted, based on all sorts of more advanced foreign ideas of how to sort ducks.
Think if you will of the fall of the USSR. Communism stood just fine as long as it could suppress any other ideas, but as soon as Gorby stopped the making people disappear for having the wrong ideas, turns out you couldn't stop it from reforming into something else any more.
I'll try to explain better, as I think we're still missing each other a bit.
I don't think the Persians exactly wrote the works, but I could see it possible that they could have aided in the education of organizing.
But more to the point, it's not a simple matter of the texts; it's the entire theocratic infrastructure that is queer by comparison.
In itself it's not strange at all strange for the region, no.
What is strange, rather, is the entire lack of what usually goes with this.
I'll try this example perhaps and maybe I can articulate myself better in this way.
If you look at a company like Sears, then you see their Executive branch and note that it is well formed and complex; indicating a growth of understanding from experience and need.
You look at their Human Resources branch of provisions and you note too that it is in-step with the executive branch growth.
Now, if you looked at a company that had an executive branch like Sears but a Human Resources branch growth like a Mom-n-Pop pastry shop, it would strike you as very odd as typically speaking the provisional capacity unto the employees grows along side of the Executive growth because both grow over time and the events that occur unto one provoke stimulant growth or change unto the other.
So it is not what they did achieve that is the queer part in itself.
It is what they did NOT achieve that causes what they did achieve to be odd.
They did not achieve public facilitation in-step with their theocratic infrastructural complexity and refinements.
Perhaps try this and see if you can see what I'm referring to: look for civil works, just try listing them to yourself - civil accomplishments propagated through Judah.
Then pick another place, say Hattusa, but pick Hattusa around its middle age and not at the peak of their empire.
The complexity of the theocratic legal system and the engineering accomplishments of the Temple and related infrastructures was truly impressive, but not abnormal.
Again, what is abnormal is the lack of any civil infrastructure in ratio to the same quality or scale.
I hope this helps in articulating the puzzle that I have always perceived.
Edit: also, that it was a theocracy wasn't really the point - it's not inherent that theocracy is complex, quite right. Instead, it was the level of pedantic complexity they crafted which indicates a duration and capability.
For example, we can easily see that the American legal system has been through quite a bit and that our society has grown in capability of articulating law just by looking at the complexity of our legal system.
Look back to our legal system at the beginning of America and it is clear that we are at a beginning of the society as the system is rather more simple and absent many experiences which would later provoke the massive array of pedantic alterations and extensions to our legal system.
It is not that we have a legal system that is being noted; it is the level of the complexity that is being noted.
This is how I am looking at their theocracy; not that they had one, but the scale of its articulation and complexity.
To be honest, neither their legal system nor their theocracy t strike me as all that complex, especially given that it had hundreds of years and contact with more advanced neighbours. Which occasionally even occupied them. In fact, it's one of the things that make me say it was a cultural backwater.
Perhaps it would help if you gave actual examples of what was so advanced, and exactly what else is missing from the picture? I mean, otherwise I'm still going to sit here scratching my head and wondering what you mean.
Well, firstly, look at their structural support for the government - it's pretty impressive.
It's not impressive in an abnormal pattern, just impressive in that it is well accomplished and quite well furnished.
As an example of their theocratic complexity, again keeping in mind that it is not grossly out of alignment against other notable civilizations, is their sheer diversity in political parties and their legal processes for processing law.
They didn't come with these on their own; that we know, as a large amount of their laws are found in examples predating them such as the Hittite legal code.
That said, they still integrated it and applied it with their own alterations.
Take a look at the Torah and just start noting all legislative outlines - it is nearly filled with such notation.
The political classifications and bureaucratic processes through their varied priest and King systems is not simple; it is very well defined.
Again, this is not out of the ordinary.
When I say that it was complex, I do not mean that it is unimaginably complex or uncannily complex. Again, this is not a "ancients are stupid, therefore aliens" style of thinking. That is not my intention.
It is that it is as complex as others, but what is odd is that unlike other civilizations with like complex systems (or said otherwise, very well developed systems) of the same caliber, there is a deficiency in public welfare works in like fashion.
Again, look at the surrounding civilizations we have used to compare against.
Note that those civilization's cities had the same caliber of governing structures, or like fashion, yes, but note too that they also had a relationship of growth between the governing capabilities of provision unto the governing body as well as provisions unto the public infrastructure.
The absence of the public infrastructure by comparison is what causes the note; not the governing infrastructure alone.
Take for instance, the Gihon Spring; their water source for Jerusalem. It depended on hidden wells and underground cisterns. Underground streams fed the system, but it was dependent on the season and the spring could only supply water to the city once or twice a day for less than a full hour.
That is terrible for a public water supply by the region's standards.
Again, look at Hattusa, even in a relative comparable growth stage - their water system was interlocking clay piping.
Then look at Masada where Herod built some administrative structures and note that here there is Roman style plumbing throughout, but only for the administrative end of things.
Again, a complete lack of social concentration - which that lack is the odd part. (note: even Herod, the great public works builder would not bring about a form of general plumbing, but he did bring about much, but it was unique to him almost alone)
(Edit: in fact, it wasn't until Pilate that an improvement was made on the water system, in which he borrowed the Roman aqueduct design and built his from Bethlehem to Jerusalem.)
Note too, they never created their own theater or arts centers, but borrowed the Roman system and plays under Herod - again, unlike other groups we are comparing them against.
Further note the absence of public squares outside of the Temple or Synagogues.
The public facilitation appears far more reluctant and more of a "have-to" than it appears in other civilizations we are comparing against.
The social maturity is missing, but their governing maturity is quite stimulated and well grown.
That is an uncanny happening for a group who had the capacity well in hand to apply what was being done in administrative facilities unto the public sector (again, like most civilizations we continue to compare against).
The Second Temple even had its own plumbing and sewage system entirely separate from the public system - two water systems ran through the city, one was just for the Temple and moved about as much water through it as was made available in the public system for the entire population to survive with.
So this is what I mean; the maturity is at odds.
The Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations were great experiments in how to best build a civilization, and one of the means of gauging that was how well provisional they were.
It wasn't good enough to just have a great administrative system (which the theology was part of in effectively all cases), but also how well the great cities of that civilization provided - what was the lowest echelon of basic provisions; that was a clear relevance across these groups.
In the second Judah, however, it's like that thought just evaporated while the administrative concerns escalated onward to levels far beyond what they had accomplished in the past (thanks in part by funding and facilitation from the likes in which we have discussed), and that's what prompts the consideration at all.
We know quite openly that the Second Temple wasn't entirely facilitated by their own means; it was artificially stimulated.
We also have Josephus discussing much about the Hasmonean monetary and political systems and how the money was being spent, in general terms - much on pleasing external political forces, throwing parties, or paying for hired help to attack other political groups (infighting).
It is a natural question and consideration then to examine the larger infrastructure as being of like fashion, for it is only after this period where such organization of their political system really begins and it does so very quickly.
There is much about their political world abounding, but the growth of the public sector is just about where it was as far back as 800 or 700 BCE, with not much in regard to expansion or upgrades (Edit: until Herod comes along and attempts to fix that giant gaping public hole by building several public facilities in a short amount of time).
What I have always been most bewildered by is the level of animosity and disdain this theocracy had for the people of the society from which this theocracy is supposed to have sprung. If the creators of this theocracy were really kith and kin of the Canaanites, why hold such UNENDING and IRREVOCABLE abhorrence to them?
They time and again write in the Bible about what an abomination the Canaanites, Jebusites etc. etc. are and how it is a sin bigger than blasphemy to even leave them alive let alone live along side them or marry from or to them.
Deuteronomy 20:16-18
However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you. Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods,and you will sin against the Lord your God.
Some may argue that the Judeans having been the winners of a revolution against the UPPER CLASSES wanted to separate themselves from them by casting them as an out group. But this is a phenomenon that is not observed in other class revolutions before or since. Nor is it a viable explanation economically, anthropologically, sociologically or politically.
Besides, the above explanation poses a major dilemma. How are these lower classes able to suddenly acquire the education and acumen to compose such an extensive work as the Bible? The explanation that they just modified existing works will not work since we are back to the original question how and where did they get the education to modify the works they could not even read to become a recurring polemic against the Canaanite general population with stories such as Exodus and Genesis and so forth?
If this theocracy was an evolved philosophy indigenous to the local population with perhaps minor or even major influences from some foreign sources then why does the Bible go out of its way to adamantly and irreconcilably separate the followers of the theocracy from the general population from within which these writers are members and kin.
Why would the writers of this theology ABHOR so much the local population to the extreme extent where they invent an etiology that makes themselves descendents of foreigners and slaves from foreign lands who had to massacre and wipe out the local populations before they could set foot in the land?
Why go out of their way to make themselves conquering foreigners who have more ties with Babylon and Egypt than they have with the Canaanites who are after all their kinfolk and their ancestors?
Look at this verse Genesis 9:18
And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan.
Look at how the writer explicitly mentions Canaan as the descendents of Ham rather than Shem (i.e. not Semites). Also notice that in this verse all the sons are mentioned but none of their descendents are mentioned except for the Canaanites. Why such prejudiced singling out? Besides the Canaanites are Semites, so why does the bible cast them as Hamites?
In Genesis 9:24-27 it even makes the Canaanites the subject of a permanent and irrevocable curse for being descendants of Ham who supposedly violated his father during the father’s drunken stupor.
{9:24} And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. {9:25} And he said, Cursed [be] Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. {9:26} And he said, Blessed [be] the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. {9:27} God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant
Notice the above curse in details. It does not apply to Ham per se. Rather it applies to Canaan..... Ham had many other descendents (Genesis 10:6 see spoiler below) but the ones to be made Slaves (not servants as translated see the spoiler below) to Shem are the Canaanites. Also notice how it is only to Shem and not to Japheth who also is assigned to be lower on the CASTE scale than Shem. And God is said to be lord of Shem not of Noah or Japheth and Shem.
Genesis 10:6 And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan.
Notice that Ham is supposed to be the father of Cush which is Ethiopia today; in other words Blacks. And this is the Biblical verse combined with 9:27 above that justified for many centuries enslaving the blacks in the warped and vitiated brains of the Europeans.
Notice that the translation in the above verses form KJV is “servant” but in fact the Hebrew word is עֶבֶד (Ebed) which is Slave in English when translated honestly. The KJV Bible almost invariably translates the word to “servant” to lessen the impact that the bible ordained, condoned, regulated, prescribed slavery on all levels whether Hebrews of Hebrews (limited by Jubilee laws) or Hebrews of Gentiles (permanent and unfettered).
So these Canaanite descendents who are a clan of the Canaanites go so much out of their way to portray the Canaanites their brothers and neighbors as ACCURSED HEINOUS BLACKS who are not even from the same descent as themselves. They despise them so violently and adamantly so as to prohibit at pain of death any intermarriage with them and COMMANDS their UTTER EXTIRPATION.
Moreover, this is not just something that is only in Exodus and Judges and Joshua and so forth, rather it is right there in Ezra. If Zerubabbel and Ezra et al where returnee captives from Judea then they were Jews descended from Judah since as far back as 1200 BCE at the very least. Also Judea should have been fully Jewish since at least 1000 BCE at the very least. When the Babylonian carried away the elites they did not empty Judea of its Jewish inhabitants, they just carried away leaders and scribes and priests. In other words these returnees in around 500 BCE are returning to Judea that is inhabited by Jews for at least 500 years if not more.
So why does Ezra whale and tear his hair and garments and despair for days when he hears that the returnees are marrying from the Jewish population? Why does he despise them so much? Why such adamant need for SEGREGATION and prohibition of intermarriage? Why does he command at pain of excommunication that everyone should THROW AWAY their CHILDREN and wives who are from the population of Judea?
Ezra
{6:21} And the children of Israel, which were come again out of captivity, and all such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land, to seek the LORD God of Israel, did eat,
{9:11} Which thou hast commanded by thy servants the prophets, saying, The land, unto which ye go to possess it, is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands, with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness.
{9:1} Now when these things were done, the princes came to me, saying, The people of Israel, and the priests, and the Levites, have not separated themselves from the people of the lands, [doing] according to their abominations, [even] of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, and the Amorites. {9:2} For they have taken of their daughters for themselves, and for their sons: so that the holy seed have mingled themselves with the people of [those] lands: yea, the hand of the princes and rulers hath been chief in this trespass.
{9:3} And when I heard this thing, I rent my garment and my mantle, and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard, and sat down astonied. {9:4} Then were assembled unto me every one that trembled at the words of the God of Israel, because of the transgression of those that had been carried away; and I sat astonied until the evening sacrifice.
{10:3} Now therefore let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives, and such as are born of them, according to the counsel of my lord, and of those that tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law. {10:4} Arise; for [this] matter [belongeth] unto thee: we also [will be] with thee: be of good courage, and do [it. ]
{10:5} Then arose Ezra, and made the chief priests, the Levites, and all Israel, to swear that they should do according to this word. And they sware.
{10:10} And Ezra the priest stood up, and said unto them, Ye have transgressed, and have taken strange wives, to increase the trespass of Israel. {10:11} Now therefore make confession unto the LORD God of your fathers, and do his pleasure: and separate yourselves from the people of the land, and from the strange wives. {10:12} Then all the congregation answered and said with a loud voice, As thou hast said, so must we do.
I think here is another one of those T5 situations that ought to make us sit up and pay more attention to what REALLY is going on.
Moreover, if Ezra et al were returnee captives who were allowed to just get up and leave for pity’s sake or for political convenience so as to get rid of potential trouble, then how can one explain the fact that these people managed to take over Judea from its incumbent inhabitants?
Where did they get the finances to rebuild a temple? How did they survive the trek back without being blundered and pillaged and enslaved again by the countless marauders and highwaymen along the way in one of the most dangerous routes at the time?
That is of course if we disregard that the Babylonians would have stripped them of all and any scrolls or riches their parents had 70 years earlier when they were extirpated and enslaved and forced to make the trek the other way.
Yet we read in Ezra that these ragtag freed slaves left to fend for themselves on their way back to Israel were (Ezra 2:64) 42360 people who as freed slaves still managed to carry with them their own slaves (slaves of slaves) 7337 strong with 200 singing slaves. And they made the trek back on 736 horses, 245 mules, 435 camels and 6720 donkeys.
But that is not all. When they arrive these freed slaves who themselves are owners of slaves also could afford to donate to the temple 61000 drams of gold ( = 262.3 Kg), 5000 pounds of silver, and 100 priestly garments. And that is just the donations they made, presumably they had a lot more than that to make such donations.
But that is not all. We are also told that Cyrus ordained that the coffers of Babylon should be emptied of all the gold and silver and precious tupperware (Ezra 1:6) that they have blundered almost a century earlier (Ezra 1:4) and given back to the returnee slaves so as to restock the coffers of Judea’s temple that Cyrus ordered to be rebuilt (Ezra 1:2) out of the goodness of his despotic heart and sympathy for these returnee descendents of slaves that he found it more expedient to just let leave instead of having to control them as rebellious slaves.
Furthermore, none of these treasures (Ezra 1:7-11) and riches and gold and asses and camels and female slaves of slaves were blundered along the way. Those 42000 returnee slaves must have also had shields and swords and trained soldiers among them that were able to fend off all those brigands frothing at the mouth for at least the thousands of female slaves of slaves.
Another thing that screams T5 is that those 42000 were all men. So did they have women and children that were not numbered? If not then I can understand why they wanted to marry from among all those filthy heinous Canaanites who were still living in Judea.
Also, when these returnee slaves reach Judea, they are approached by the local population who beg them to allow them to participate in the rebuilding of the Temple, which is their all consuming raison d’être. But instead of being happy for the help and extra funds and so forth this is how they respond (Ezra 4:1-3):
{4:3}But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.
Now, is that the kind of thing conducive of neighborly harmony? In fact it did not, and those neighbors who are supposed to be one and the same people – if those returnees were really returned descendents of Jewish slaves taken captive 70 years earlier from among those people – did try to stop them once they realized that they are not who they are pretending to be.
Here is another T5. Those returnee slaves who own their own slaves and gold bullion are not just super rich and powerful, they are also privy to Imperial court correspondence back and forth with Darius' and Artaxerxes’ Imperial Courts. They know what machinations are going on behind their backs and they themselves are corresponding with Darius directly (Ezra 4:11).
They even have the cojones to ORDER Darius to search the archives of Cyrus (Ezra 5:17) and to carry out what Cyrus has commanded.
And what is more astounding is that this Theocrat of Ahora Mazda obeys the demands of these Theocrats of YHWH (Ezra 6:3) and commands at pain of death to anyone who does not obey that the Temple of YHWH should be constructed without delay or obstruction and he even goes as far as SPECIFYING THE DIMENSIONS of the temple and to send over even more gold and silver and precious Tupperware.
We are not finished yet with the T5 (Ezra 6:8-10). This despotic Zoroastrian Emperor ordains that all taxes and tributes from the region should go to those allowed to return slaves trying to build a temple to a foreign god. This Zoroastrian Despot, instead of collecting taxes and tributes and all the money he can possibly blunder from his conquered regions and peoples, orders that the coffers of Babylon should be given to YHWH and even all the taxes of the region should go so as to build the temple and maintain the priesthood and theocracy of this foreign god of freed slaves. Look how poor these poor slaves were Ezra 8:24-30, and this is only some of the holy Tupperware.
I think this says it well enough Ezra 6:14
And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo. And they builded, and finished [it,] according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. {6:15} And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king.
(Ezra 7:11-26) Why would the Theocratic Despotic Emperor of a Ahura Mazda blunder imperial coffers, and give imperial fiats and imperial protection and forgo taxes from an entire region in favor of some descendents of slaves and to help them build a temple he designs himself for a foreign god?
Here is a hypothesis that I think might shed some explanation:
I think that the returnees were not Jews. I think they were Zoroastrians even if they were perhaps Canaanites. I think they were MISSIONARIES to establish a religion in the region that is pretending to be from the region so as to be more readily accepted.
Much like Christian missionaries today try to pose Jesus as a god of the people they are trying to convert whom they have always known but have called him by a different name.
Much like the Christian missionaries have done in the past and are still doing today; they usurped with pertinent and major modifications and embellishments the local religion concentrating on a single deity with favorable attributes. They then imbued this god with features (or he may already had some) similar to Ahura Mazda and despite having a different name for all intents and purposes he is Ahura Mazda.
The Zoroastrians believed that their mission in life was to gather all the human race to Ahura Mazda’s worship because in the final battle against his nemesis, Angra Mainyu, he will win if all the human race is on his side.
Why do we understand that Christian Missionaries have always and still go to foreign lands and people in the wake of conquests (even in Afghanistan and Iraq they are doing it as we speak) and give them Bibles and try to set up at least house Churches if not full ones, but yet we do not believe that this could have been done by Zoroastrian Missionaries at the behest of their head Theocrats the Emperors of Persia when this sort of thing was sooooo much easier to do then than nowadays?
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after this now my other thread postings are delayed
(Ezra 7:11-26) Why would the Theocratic Despotic Emperor of a Ahura Mazda blunder imperial coffers, and give imperial fiats and imperial protection and forgo taxes from an entire region in favor of some descendents of slaves and to help them build a temple he designs for a foreign god?
Here is a hypothesis that I think might shed some explanation:
I think that the returnees were not Jews. I think they were Zoroastrians even if they were perhaps Canaanites. I think they were MISSIONARIES to establish a religion in the region that is posing to be from the region so as to be more readily accepted.
Most implausible. The core period of the deportation. 586 to 539. Forty seven years. The persons liberated by Cyrus would have included some of the original deportees.
Moreover the religion promoted in Isaiah 45 is monotheistic, but not Zoroastrian dualism. Far from it.
5 I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: 6 that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. 7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
No hint here of the good-evil dualism characteristic of Zoroastrianism. That appeared only later, and then only in a diluted form, when Satan was degraded to the status of an evil antagonist.
Most implausible. The core period of the deportation. 586 to 539. Forty seven years. The persons liberated by Cyrus would have included some of the original deportees.
You are ignoring a very important point..... Ezra et al were NOT returnees. Just because the bible says they were does not make it so. Just because Ezra claimed he was does not make it so. People lie and the bible is full of such lies and fabrications and warping of reality. Why are we now supposed to take it at its word? Especially when T5 are tingling all over the place.
I doubt that the slaves or the slaves and their children would have been in a position to survive the trek there under the Babylonians and back on their own recognizance, yet maintain their scrolls and scriptures and genealogical records of who is who and their own slaves and singers and pack animals and gold and silver and priestly garments.
You are also ignoring the other T5 about slaves owning slaves and being given scads of gold and silver and animals just out of the goodness of some despot's heart just so as to build a temple and a theocracy for a foreign god who this theocratic despot would have despised.
Moreover the religion promoted in Isaiah 45 is monotheistic, but not Zoroastrian dualism. Far from it. No hint here of the good-evil dualism characteristic of Zoroastrianism. That appeared only later, and then only in a diluted form, when Satan was degraded to the status of an evil antagonist.
You are ignoring that the aim was to gather the human race to Ahura Mazda....it would not have helped much to introduce them to the evil twin. So it would have been an important point to make the people worship the one god (a.k.a YHWH) and that would guarantee him his final victory. How much easier it is to get the people to worship this one god by not ever introducing the other in the first place.
You are ignoring a very important point..... Ezra et al were NOT returnees. Just because the bible says they were does not make it so. Just because Ezra claimed he was does not make it so. People lie and the bible is full of such lies and fabrications and warping of reality. Why are we now supposed to take it at its word?
Do you not understand my point? A bunch of people turn up in Judah and say "We are the people who were deported from here 47 years ago." Then the folk back home would expect to meet older family members born in Judea before the deportation, or their immediate descendants -- who would have all sorts of information about the family back home, and deceased deportees: "Your cousin Zeke; why he died seven years ago. Pity he never lived to see this day." And so on. But you want me to believe a bunch of foreign missionaries could successfully pretend to be these returnees, back in the old country. Most improbable.
To add to the improbability you tell us that these "missionaries" having overcome the recognition problem, proceed to expound, for the purpose of spreading the Zoroastrian faith, a doctrine that contradicts its most essential tenet, that the good divinity cannot be responsible for evil.
You are ignoring that the aim was to gather the human race to Ahura Mazda....it would not have helped much to introduce them to the evil twin. So it would have been an important point to make the people worship the one god (a.k.a YHWH) and that would guarantee him his final victory. How much easier it is to get the people to worship this one god by not ever introducing the other in the first place.
The archaeological evidence doesn't support a mass exodus fully and then a reinstatement of non-Hebrew culture.
The Hebrew culture in the region continued on with age-old variations of familial deity followings until near around the very late BCE range where it finally began to dwindle down.
I agree with all of the questions that you raised to show the infusion of Persian influence at least at some layer, but I can't follow you with the idea that these were not Hebrew descended peoples as the common peoples left behind archaeological remains which show no such infusion of mass Persian commoners; more so, archaeology doesn't support the outright full exile - a lot of people were deported, indeed, but not all.
It would not actually be anthropologically odd for a culture to refuse integration, nor accept the lineage of a common backing.
The group of Judah, even before the Babylonian exile, was clearly interested in separating themselves from both Israel and Samaria and cast not only every peoples around them as vile, but also their two brother Hebrew groups from whom they came.
Samaria's offer to help and Judah's refusal is essentially a rephrasing of the same spite Judah had against them - they considered them to be worse than the Israelites; they were fallen Israelites. Judah was the only right and only their group was to be of tribute - all others were garbage and filth.
And this makes sense, since Judah was all by itself with the Benjamins when the division of two Kingdoms happened so the idea of who these people are post-second Judah is a bit warped and it can easily appear as if they are talking about things in a very odd way.
However, if you keep in mind that everything is post-second Judah that we have, then we can better understand this exclusivity is a political entitlement boasting their place in the order to validate their usurping stance given the political shuffling that has taken place.
They had to explain why Israel was no longer the go-to God-source, but instead Judah was (because Israel got too big of a head and got all obsessed with pretty icons and worshipped in the "wrong" way), and also had to blur that line a bit so they could claim some tie in with Israel at the same time (something we see in the texts as very odd and clearly a struggle for them to juggle).
And no one is really around to claim otherwise since the Kingdom of Israel is completely gone - so if the Levi want to reign somewhere they don't really have much of a choice at this point but to bow to the reign of Judah.
I do think, however, that the questions you raise in regard to the Persian influence is worth pondering as there may be something there of political interest to Persia that would account for the move strategically without requiring a negation of archaeological presence of Hebrew common culture persisting post-second Judah.
The archaeological evidence doesn't support a mass exodus fully and then a reinstatement of non-Hebrew culture.
The Hebrew culture in the region continued on with age-old variations of familial deity followings until near around the very late BCE range where it finally began to dwindle down.
I agree with all of the questions that you raised to show the infusion of Persian influence at least at some layer, but I can't follow you with the idea that these were not Hebrew descended peoples
The area came under Persian rule. But so did Egypt. Must we then assume that the Egyptians of the period were really Persians just pretending to be Egyptian?
I didn't state that Hebrews were Persians.
My current pondering is that Persia clearly had impacting influence upon the second-Judah culture, and that to understand why Persia was so willing to help could probably be answered by looking at Persian political stresses and needs at the time as I highly doubt they assisted just to be nice to people.
There was probably a strategic move in mind, but I'm not quite yet sure what that could have been - I'll need time to study and ponder.
Do you not understand my point? A bunch of people turn up in Judah and say "We are the people who were deported from here 47 years ago." Then the folk back home would expect to meet older family members born in Judea before the deportation, or their immediate descendants -- who would have all sorts of information about the family back home, and deceased deportees: "Your cousin Zeke; why he died seven years ago. Pity he never lived to see this day." And so on. But you want me to believe a bunch of foreign missionaries could successfully pretend to be these returnees, back in the old country. Most improbable.
The people left over were not relatives of the people carried away. The people carried away were mostly upper classes and courtiers.
The "returnees" can claim that their entire families were either wiped out or carried away and no one was left to recognize the returning family being the one that has been carried away in its entirety.
Many people did not live >47 those days and if some did even after the Babylonian rampage then the "returnees" could claim that they were senile and have forgotten.
The "returnees" were not supposedly ALL the people who were carried away. In fact Ezra claims that many stayed behind which also explains why Judaism in Babylon was even stronger than the one in Jerusalem....till today the Babylonian Talmud holds higher authority than the Jerusalem Talmud.
But more telling is the fact that the locals DID INDEED reject the returnees and did indeed resist them and the returnees themselves rejected the locals and had to rely on a decree from Darius to ENFORCE their authority and he even gave them power to tax the locals.
Also, when these returnee slaves reach Judea, they are approached by the local population who beg them to allow them to participate in the rebuilding of the Temple, which is their all consuming raison d’être. But instead of being happy for the help and extra funds and so forth this is how they respond (Ezra 4:1-3):
{4:1} Now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of the captivity builded the temple unto the LORD God of Israel; {4:2} Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye [do;] and we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Esarhaddon king of Assur, which brought us up hither. {4:3}But Zerubbabel, and Jeshua, and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel, said unto them, Ye have nothing to do with us to build an house unto our God; but we ourselves together will build unto the LORD God of Israel, as king Cyrus the king of Persia hath commanded us.
Now, is that the kind of thing conducive of neighborly harmony? In fact it did not, and those neighbors who are supposed to be one and the same people – if those returnees were really returned descendents of Jewish slaves taken captive 70 years earlier from among those people – did try to stop them once they realized that they are not who they are pretending to be.
[snip]
And what is more astounding is that this Theocrat of Ahora Mazda obeys the demands of these Theocrats of YHWH (Ezra 6:3) and commands at pain of death to anyone who does not obey that the Temple of YHWH should be constructed without delay or obstruction and he even goes as far as SPECIFYING THE DIMENSIONS of the temple and to send over even more gold and silver and precious Tupperware.
We are not finished yet with the T5 (Ezra 6:8-10). This despotic Zoroastrian Emperor ordains that all taxes and tributes from the region should go to those allowed to return slaves trying to build a temple to a foreign god. This Zoroastrian Despot, instead of collecting taxes and tributes and all the money he can possibly blunder from his conquered regions and peoples, orders that the coffers of Babylon should be given to YHWH and even all the taxes of the region should go so as to build the temple and maintain the priesthood and theocracy of this foreign god of freed slaves. Look how poor these poor slaves were Ezra 8:24-30, and this is only some of the holy Tupperware.
To add to the improbability you tell us that these "missionaries" having overcome the recognition problem, proceed to expound, for the purpose of spreading the Zoroastrian faith, a doctrine that contradicts its most essential tenet, that the good divinity cannot be responsible for evil. But compare http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism with
The Hellenic conquest and destruction of almost all things Zoroastrian changed the evolution of the whole endeavor.
Now that the theocrats in Israel were ISOLATED, they kept on evolving on their own separate from the mother religion and its theocrats. They no longer had references from or connections with the original gurus. Much like the evolution of finches who are isolated creates new species of finches.
Besides Ezra et al probably just started the Bible which kept on evolving. I am sure just like Christians kept on adding Gospels and Epistles and Acts and so forth to the original religion and to the Bible itself, the new generations and newly converted YHWH theocrats added stuff too.
The Bible was even rewritten entirely in Egypt (Septuagint) and as far as we know most bibles today may stem from that perhaps even the Masoretic one too. I wonder if that verse is to be found in the DSS?
But even if it was in the Ezra original, it still is not a contradiction. The pure religion for the Zoroastrian is not what is depicted in the Bible in any case.
The Bible was not DEVISED for Zoroastrians, it was fabricated for the consumption of the heathens so as to make them worship the one god by hook or by crook regardless of how or what they think he is; so long as they worship the one god who is the manifestation of Ahura Mazda.
Besides, if the writers of the Bible make contradictions why would that preclude them from being Zoroastrians? Why are we to suppose that the Zoroastrians are any more logical than Jews or Christians or Muslims…. Isn’t YHW supposed to be
So if YHWH is depicted in a contradictory manner in the Bible does that dictate that only monotheists could have written it since dualist cannot be that stupid?
The people left over were not relatives of the people carried away. The people carried away were mostly upper classes and courtiers.
The "returnees" can claim that their entire families were either wiped out or carried away and no one was left to recognize the returning family being the one that has been carried away in its entirety.
Many people did not live >47 those days and if some did even after the Babylonian rampage then the "returnees" could claim that they were senile and have forgotten.
The "returnees" were not supposedly ALL the people who were carried away. In fact Ezra claims that many stayed behind which also explains why Judaism in Babylon was even stronger than the one in Jerusalem....till today the Babylonian Talmud holds higher authority than the Jerusalem Talmud.
None of that responds effectively to my observation on the difficulty of foreigners claiming to be locals and their families returning after 47 years. Some of the deportees stayed behind in Babylon. So what? (The Babylonian Talmud, by the way, was compiled a thousand years after the end of the exile.) Nor can I accept that the persons deported were so different in social class, and so remote, from those left behind, that they could successfully be impersonated as you suggest. I rarely meet Lords or the Queen, but these early societies were smaller and more concentrated, even if rigid caste distinctions were in operation.
The following looks like very arbitrary and unconvincing special pleading.
The "returnees" can claim that their entire families were either wiped out or carried away and no one was left to recognize the returning family being the one that has been carried away in its entirety.
Many people did not live >47 those days and if some did even after the Babylonian rampage then the "returnees" could claim that they were senile and have forgotten.
But more telling is the fact the locals DID INDEED reject the returnees and did indeed resist them and the returnees themselves rejected the locals and had to rely on a decree from Darius to ENFORCE their authority and he even gave them power to tax the locals.
They were rejecting no doubt the taxation and the authority, but it is not suggested that they denied the authentic identity of the returning group. You say there was a rejection by the returnees of the locals. The returnees thought they were merely pretending to be locals? Of course not. And not vice versa either.
The archaeological evidence doesn't support a mass exodus fully and then a reinstatement of non-Hebrew culture.
The Hebrew culture in the region continued on with age-old variations of familial deity followings until near around the very late BCE range where it finally began to dwindle down.
Exactly.... which is yet another demonstration of how the Bible has vitiated everything to do with the history of the region.
Not long ago people took it as pure fact that Moses was real and that Solomon really was a king from the Nile to the Euphrates and was at least really wise and must have cavorted with a queen from Africa somewhere.
To the extent that archaeological artifacts were being dated as "from the reign of David or Solomon".
Circular reasoning abounded and all was pure illogic.
Nowadays educated people know these were not supported by archaeology and were in fact myths.
Yet.... even educated people are still under the impression that the Assyrians carried away 10 of the tribes of Israel to be vanished and lost forever (unless you take seriously that Queen Victoria is from the tribe of Dan).
Even educated people are still under the impression that Babylonians utterly and totally destroyed the first temple and carried away the entire population of Israel to captivity to sing "By the rivers of Babylon" while Israel is lying desolate and barren.
Till today people believe that all Jews whether blacks or Chinese or Blonds with blue eyes who lived and still live on three continents for thousands of years are descendants of 12 brothers from 4 mothers two of whom were sisters who in turn were first cousins to the father who himself was the son of a father and mother who were first cousins and whose grandfather and mother were brother and sister.
Archaeological evidence or not, the theists will keep on believing, but when the atheists want to keep on believing just because the Bible must have had a basis for its Tall Tales, I start wondering.
But, it is understandable that it is INCREDIBLE that so many people for so long on so many continents of so many languages could have been duped by what turns out to be the equivalent of a Harry Potter novel..... no that cannot be.... no no... it cannot be.... there must be more truth to it than Harry Potter..... oh come on....see see there it says BTDWD.... see there it mentions the word Israel in a couple of artifacts....look, look, come on look it says right there “YHWH bless you” on a scrap of paper.... ah never mind Asherah being mentioned too.
About the returning folks... Is it just me, or is that fully irrelevant? Whether it was the descendants of the Hebrews taken into slavery, or a different group that (for whatever reason) decided to learn Hebrew and move to a backwater craphole, what difference does it actually make?
The fact is, it's some more educated folks coming to Jerusalem, who had grown in a more advanced culture, like their parents before them, and like their parents' parents. And who had all sorts of more progressive ideas about religion and theology, including the idea of reading to the masses what some standardized scripture says. (Instead of just having a hereditary priesthood just tell the people, "wait, you need to pay for that too.")
Whether they were really Hebrews or not, what difference does it make?
And how would you even know it couldn't have been Hebrews that learned all that advanced stuff while being abroad? Is there something genetic that would have prevented them from getting all those ideas while copying Mesopotamian religious scrolls, or what?
@Jayson
I'm still not sure what the problem is, to be honest.
As I was saying, the whole thing comes out of the Akkadian civilization in the area, which had been going strong in the area for something like a millennium and a half at that point. Plus it had more than its fair share of contact with the Egyptians, Hittites and Assyrians, even if by virtue of being occupied by each of those at various points.
So they knew first hand what legislation and administration look like under those. Even if in the same way as Tibet by now knows all about Chinese administration and police
And they obviously also knew from those what the missing parts look like.
They didn't have to discover any of that on their own. Again, we're not talking about playing Civilization 5, where everyone has to research things in order. We're talking about humans which were in contact with other humans. There were plenty of people who knew first hand how both administration AND public works worked under the Egyptians, or under the Hittites, or in Babylon.
The real question isn't how one evolved without the other, but why some people who had contact with both aspects of more advanced civilizations, chose to not give a crap about building a sewer.
The easiest explanation that comes to mind is just that: they didn't give a crap.
Why? Well, maybe because while other civilizations had some notion of every free man having some rights, here they had a hereditary priesthood and a king that HAD to come from a specific family. Both by divine commandments, and they weren't just allowed, but commanded to kill you if you question any of that. The rest of the population were effectively second class, and supposed to have to redeem themselves by paying for everything they ever do, including the wife having a menstruation.
If you look at the Romans or Greeks or Egyptians, they all had evolved some notion that the administration must somehow serve the people. In Judaea, the only god mandated mission of that priesthood was that you damn better pay them to redeem you for everything -- again, to the ridiculous extreme that it included even the wife having a menstruation -- or they're commanded to cut you off from the rest of the community if you don't pay up, or even kill you if you speak up against god's word. In fact, to even exterminate a whole city, if they persist in allowing pagans and heretics to be public in any way.
It strikes me as rather natural that such a tyranny would not give a crap about anyone who's not part of that hereditary ruling caste.
It's basically the same reason why the Spartans didn't build public works for the Helots. Or why medieval lords didn't build public works for the serfs. It's not that they didn't know how, it's that those didn't matter other than as a source of income.
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