How/why did monotheism evolve?

[Leumas]

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."

CraigB, can you please explain to me how you arrived at the 47 years figure?

According to my understanding Jerusalem fell in 597 BCE and Cyrus II (the great) conquered Babylon in 539 BCE.

Assuming that the slaves were freed exactly the same year Babylon fell and that they returned to Jerusalem in exactly that year then that still makes it a span of 58 years.

[snip]

Oops!! It seems we both were wrong

But still it makes things a lot worse for the recognition of the returnees argument because then anyone carried off by the Babylonians would have been well over the age of 70 by the time they returned. Assuming they made the trek back at that advanced age.

I do not know about you but when I look in the mirror these days I hardly recognize myself.

Jeremiah 25

25:11 And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

25:12 And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.
​

Jeremiah 29

29:10 For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.​

Zechariah 1

1:12 Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?​

2 Chronicles 36

36:20 And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia
36:21 To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.
​

Daniel 9

9:2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.​

 

[Craig B]

Oops!! It seems we both were wrong

But still it makes things a lot worse for the recognition of the returnees argument because then anyone carried off by the Babylonians would have been well over the age of 70 by the time they returned. Assuming they made the trek back at that advanced age.

I do not know about you but when I look in the mirror these days I hardly recognize myself.

Jeremiah 25

25:11 And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

25:12 And it shall come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith the LORD, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations.
​

Jeremiah 29

29:10 For thus saith the LORD, That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.​

Zechariah 1

1:12 Then the angel of the LORD answered and said, O LORD of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these threescore and ten years?​

2 Chronicles 36

36:20 And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon; where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia
36:21 To fulfil the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her sabbaths: for as long as she lay desolate she kept sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.
​

Daniel 9

9:2 In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the LORD came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.​

These are all Biblical sources copying Jeremiah, whose statement is a cockeyed "prophecy", not history. Rejecting Daniel et al as a source, I look at the history, and see

Judah revolted against Babylon, culminating in a three-month siege of Jerusalem beginning in late 598 BCE. The city fell on 2 Adar (March 16) 597 BCE, and Nebuchadnezzar pillaged Jerusalem and its Temple and took Jeconiah, his court and other prominent citizens (including the prophet Ezekiel) back to Babylon ...
Despite the remonstrations of Jeremiah and others of the pro-Babylonian party, Zedekiah revolted against Babylon and entered into an alliance with Pharaoh Hophra. Nebuchadnezzar returned, defeated the Egyptians, and again besieged Jerusalem, resulting in the city's destruction in 587 BCE. Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city wall and the Temple, together with the houses of the most important citizens. Zedekiah was blinded, and taken to Babylon with many others. Judah became a Babylonian province

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_captivity. So, 587 to 538. Forty nine years. Jeremiah has prophesied on the basis of "sabbaths" which if course are related to the number seven.

 

[JaysonR]

I've been reading along during recovery and still plan to wright properly later, but real quick...keep in mind that the texts involved are combined from the Kingdom of Israel and Judah and that Israel fell in 612 (70 years), and Judah fell in ~586 (47 years), so if you are seeing divergent timelines, consider these impacts.

 

[Leumas]

These are all Biblical sources copying Jeremiah, whose statement is a cockeyed "prophecy", not history. Rejecting Daniel et al as a source, I look at the history, and see http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_captivity. So, 587 to 538. Forty nine years. Jeremiah has prophesied on the basis of "sabbaths" which if course are related to the number seven.

So do you agree with this paragraph from the same history cite you give above? Do you think it is of any significance?

The Priestly source, one of the four main sources of the Torah/Pentateuch in the Bible, is primarily a product of the post-exilic period when the former Kingdom of Judah had become the Persian province of Yehud.[23] Also during this Persian period, the final redaction of the Pentateuch took place.[13]:310

 

[Leumas]

These are all Biblical sources copying Jeremiah, whose statement is a cockeyed "prophecy", not history. Rejecting Daniel et al as a source,

Do you accept Ezra/Nehemiah as a source?

 

[Leumas]

I've been reading along during recovery and still plan to wright properly later, but real quick...keep in mind that the texts involved are combined from the Kingdom of Israel and Judah and that Israel fell in 612 (70 years), and Judah fell in ~586 (47 years), so if you are seeing divergent timelines, consider these impacts.

No talking! You must rest

 

[HansMustermann]

So do you agree with this paragraph from the same history cite you give above? Do you think it is of any significance?

I don't think anyone is challenging the timeline of its redaction. But there is a difference between it being written during the Persian occupation, and it being written BY or FOR the Persian imperial court.

After all, as a trivial illustration of the difference, the gospels were written in the Roman empire, but were not commissioned by the Roman imperial court.

 

[Craig B]

Do you accept Ezra/Nehemiah as a source?

Where Ezra-Nehemiah relates alleged historical events, these are not necessarily to be rejected or ignored. They may of course be false or exaggerated.

Daniel, however, is a different kettle of fish.

Daniel's exclusion from the Hebrew bible's canon of the prophets, which was closed around 200 BCE, suggests it was not known at that time, and the Wisdom of Sirach, from around 180 BCE, draws on almost every book of the Old Testament except Daniel, leading scholars to suppose that its author was unaware of it. Daniel is, however, quoted by the author of a section of the Sibylline Oracles commonly dated to the middle of the 2nd century BCE, and was popular at Qumran beginning at much the same time, suggesting that it was known and revered from the middle of that century.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Daniel It was pointed out even by early pagan commentators that Daniel must be of late date. It is also written mainly in Aramaic, not Hebrew. It is from the Maccabean period without doubt. In Ezra the use of Aramaic is restricted to accounts of the alleged text of Persian proclamations, which is quite in order. The book is presumably a disguised commentary on the defeat of Antiochus Epiphanius. See St Jerome's comments on Porphyry's criticism of Daniel.

In his twelfth book Porphyrius wrote about the prophet Daniel. He said that the book of Daniel was written not by the man whom it is named after, but by someone who lived in Judaea at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes; and so instead of Daniel predicting the future, this writer describes what has already happened. So whatever he mentions up to the time of Antiochus is true history, but whatever he touches on after that time, because the writer could not foretell the future, is fiction.

http://www.attalus.org/translate/daniel.html When they came to power the Christians burned Porphyry's works, and they are lost.

 

[JaysonR]

Everything we have is effectively from Maccabean and Hasmonean periods, btw, Craig.
Anything that was possibly from earlier was edited or "touched" in some way by these political groups...I suppose the difference is that Daniel appears entirely new at this point...though, I question many others to be effectively the same due to the politics.

 

[JaysonR]

@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.

OK, Hans,

All of this which you wrote here is basically what I am stating; that we can more easily understand that they compiled their system from borrowing resources and were aided in some capacity to that enterprise and that such would explain the administrative theocratic overgrowth by comparison the civil works growth (btw, "not giving a crap" is what civil maturity refers to - their lack of such would align with an acute and stimulated growth instead of a more slow progression of self-development in pattern to the likes of Hattusa, who also borrowed greatly but grew over a longer period under their own power and control with time and ability to have civil events and responses to those events).

The Persian stimulant (keep in mind, I develop hypotheses and models using a minimalist approach, so here this would include monetary aid and organizational instruction - not direct authoring and theological design - though architectural design aid may be possible) was just one in which I had not considered too deeply (which isn't to say I was unaware of such stimulant - it is similar to how I was always aware the Romans had concrete, but for some reason it just never registered as a value until recently and I suddenly found myself annoying my wife with exclamation over it).
I had modeled their development with vicarious influences and borrowings, only really considering Alexander's contributions (which were greatly rejected in most part) and the Roman's contributions (e.g. Herod - who btw, really deserves a far better note in history than is typically granted).

My exclaim may simply be benign to you, as you may have already accounted for this and as such my "Eureka!" may be your "Ummmm...yeah. So?"

 

[HansMustermann]

TBH, I'm more under the impression that you might be (A) overthinking it, and (B) looking at it from the wrong direction.

The real question isn't how evolved to be that particular abomination, but how it DEvolved.

And pretty much you give your own answer there, when you correctly note that they rejected the Greek stuff.

Well, it had happened before.

They already had a more advanced civilization until early 12'th century BCE, when Egypt lost control of that area. We know that Egypt had undertaken a bunch of civic construction and such there, not to mention already had the advanced theocracy structure that you notice later.

But then essentially a power vacuum happens, as Egypt loses the area in a battle to the Sea People, and although they did crush the Sea People army next, they never regain control of the area. Other potential contenders for the area also disappear, as the mighty Hittite empire falls, and the Assyrians barely survive, but at any rate next they're busy just defending against what's trying to overrun them. The Phoenicians don't seem to get as far inland either.

It's the collapse at the end of the bronze age, really, and it's hitting the area hard.

So essentially there's suddenly a power vacuum in the area, and -- whether you actually believe there was a kingdom of David rising there, or just wait until Judah and Israel rise in the area -- what rises in the area is that half-mature abomination you correctly described.

It's something that didn't evolve a more advanced theocracy while missing the other parts of an advanced civilization, it's the rise of a reactionary group that jettisons all that advanced civilization stuff overboard. And they're not gonna play nice about other gods either.

Even in the theocracy department, they went from the idea that the Pharaoh and stuff have some duties to YOU too (e.g., are responsible for prosperity and Ma'at in the land), to just what can YOU do for God. It's the rise of intolerant reactionary fundamentalism.

It's not an evolution, it's a devolution.

Basically, to illustrate what I'm trying to say, look at North Korea. You could equally wonder how did a civilization evolve there, that has all that advanced organization, yet doesn't give a crap about its people. Except it didn't. It had a far more advanced civilization for the last centuries, and then an extreme tyranny reverted all that.

 

[JaysonR]

Archeology doesn't seem to support the idea that this was a peoples devolved into tyranny of exclusive god worship on the outset; that appears more a growth post-2nd century BCE as a pattern. Prior to this range, most of the growth is balanced and what you would expect, as well as quite diverse in pantheon and nothing about the eventual national religion is very organized; it seems more as one, possibly leading, cult of many.
After the come back and Israel is toast, and Maccabees set up the land and new rules; that is when everything shifts radically.

If there is a reign of tyranny, then this is where it appears to begin.
And so much, again, this is what I am indeed discussing, for what is an overgrowth of administration and a neglegence of the civic at the continual ingesting of borrowed moneys and taxes if not a tyranny?
Which is why I said before that Herod deserves a better historical reputation as he was not the overwhelming tyrant, but the great civil works builder.
Unfortunately, by his time, the administrative office could appear to do nothing right in eyes of the people; ghey could deliver foods and housing and the people would still find fault to curse.

And this, too, could be likely from what we are referring to here; a few hundred years of tyranny which greatly neglected its people and organized and crafted the myth and legend of its origin and justification out of the folk religions of the past at the aid of other nations.

 

[JaysonR]

That said, the tracking of this lopsidedness narrowed to the 2nd c BCE does perplex the Persian proposition, as we cannot find tyranny so well fed until after the Maccabees, but the Persians were of the 500 to 300 BCE ranges.
We know the Persians aided considerably to the financial and architectural aid of the returning administration, but yet this does not yet appear as the onset of tyranny just yet.
This appears as the onset of what may have lead eventually to a golden age (we never get the chance to find out, unfortunately) if the political factions would have been squashed who plotted against the selected ruling parties under the pretense of claiming sovereign ownership.
Even when that sovereignty happened, it appears not to have been very sovereign at all (ruling party leaders were still bartering with foreign powers and referring to such powers for grants of authority, arms and resources), which appears to have caused much of the upset in the late BCE range - a false promise.
This only really ended up being seen as a narrowing of political parties to those who were political allies, or at least expected to be. But, as with such systems of parties and tyranny, they too were quick to begin attempts to usurp each other.

Even right before the Maccabees, there was an attempt at progress - small, but an attempt still the same. For even Antiochus IV Epiphanes is credited with attempting to redirect civil works back into the infrastructure, but this ultimately appears to be an ignition point politically because in part this came with the Hellenization which conservative "tea party-like" Hebrew parties (such as the Maccabees) rejected - again, under the charge of corruption, which really didn't follow as they are reported to have done not really much different in regards to those considerations, but did make much worse and far more tyrannical - this is when the "absolute" era really kicks in and tolerance goes entirely out the door.
Interestingly absent from the Judaic canon is the origin of Hanukkah, yet in works rejected from canon later, and from Josephus' accounts, this holiday was established by the Maccabean rule to mandate a praising of their sovereignty - nothing says tyrant like a forced holiday over-glorifying and mythologizing a military campaign and establishment of the royal family.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, from the Maccabees, at least we have something to support that. But the whole reverting to lacking everything but temple stuff is pretty clearly earlier. Do you have any other suggestion for that reversion other than that, basically, the house of David (or whoever was in charge) imposed a reign where such comforts for their subjects were not a priority?

I mean, we lack written stuff from that era, but, as you say, the archaeological record seems to indicate exactly zero public works or infrastructure effort after the Egyptian era.

So what happened there? Did they manage to be occupied by Egypt for like almost 4 centuries, and not learn anything? That doesn't seem to be the case anywhere in the world where such an occupation happened. Even just being in contact with a more advanced empire caused changes faster than that. (See the Rus and Byzantium for example.) Yet these guys come out of an occupation by a world superpower, and being in contact with two others, apparently without having learned how to write a novel or a theatre play. Or not giving a crap about that.

My money is on them just being the kind of reactionary who didn't give a crap about anything but bloody-minded serving their God, to the exclusion of all else.

 

[JaysonR]

I need to do more digging, that is the area I need to look at more, but one thing I do know is that in their land at that time was the largest copper mine in the region and the vast majority of that return was exported out.

The archaeology doesn't yet support a grand Kingdom of David, but instead a split kingdom of at least three nations and not much of any infrastructural build out of any kind in Judah or Israel until near the end of their orders, at which point some works had been accomplished in league of appropriately expected ratio of civic to administration - small Temples, small palaces, and some basic essential civic systems, but a larger infrastructure for industry and market mostly focused on exportation.

It should be noted that copper for these peoples is even linguistically clear as it is used repeatedly to refer to a multitude of things, to include serpents and bright lights - it was a comparison point conceptually.

After the exile and the return, everything changes; absolutely everything.
It's almost challenging to consider this the same peoples; it's almost like looking at the Grecian reign and the Roman reign - similar? Sure, but very different.

Administrative infrastructure amplifies heavily, the political organization is entirely different; laws are different; textual creation and compilation begins (there appears no urgency to create such written record previously), canonization eventually arises as an interest, but this is the first canon of only the Torah, not the Tanakh (we should note this canonization was accomplished under the Persian rule; the Tanakh canonization was under the post-diaspora Rabbinic period with entirely different motives).
This is when all of the evidence of rewriting and editing other stories appears, when the Torah becomes "Law". When the second temple is built.

All this appears prior to the Maccabees.
They take all of this work done and create the mythology and ceremonial religion around it and convert it into a tool for what we would call today, "Fascism".

I'm starting to wonder if the civic works would have caught up if it had not been for the Maccabean revolt.
The aid that poured in had firstly addressed aiding in setting up administration, and appears to have had some interest in moving to civic sectors, and possibly that section would have grown in amplified rate from aid as well if the revolt had not cut it short.