Without recourse to ASBs, create a timeline with a fairly powerful Israeli Empire, contemporary with Rome, and lasting about as long, if not longer.
Without recourse to ASBs, create a timeline with a fairly powerful Israeli Empire, contemporary with Rome, and lasting about as long, if not longer.
the Maccabees' state doesn't start going downhill. (would they opt for neutrality or pro-Roman stance when Rome and Persia start fighting?)
Without recourse to ASBs, create a timeline with a fairly powerful Israeli Empire, contemporary with Rome, and lasting about as long, if not longer.
Neutrality would mean instant occupation by Rome. You are either with them or against them.
Pro-Roman would mean a client state status for awhile until Rome decided it would be more convienient to annex it.
Do you mean an Israeli state or are you talking about Judea?
Isn't the term for people of the ancient Jewish state "Israelite"?
If the PoD is before 920 BCE, the separation into those two kingdoms wouldn't have happened, yet. Without the separation, or if they'd rejoined, later, the Kingdom of Israel could potentially have grown farther, possibly quite a bit.There was more than one Jewish state...
Israel and Judea.
Since the Romans seized substantial territory from the Persian/Parthian Empire and absorbed everyone else on their border someone needs to explain why this one potential hole in their defenses isn't going to be dealt with sooner or later..
Now, a Jewish state surviving as a buffer between Rome and Cleopatra's Egypt(including northern Sudan and all of Libya)...but there isn't much glory in being the fence between nations that matter.
Butterflying away Zoroaster causes a considerable number of butterflies on it's own. Just think what would happen to Judaism without the influence and protection of the Persian Acheamenid Empire from 537-330 BCE. Would the Babylonian Captivity end without Cyrus the Great?
Butterflying away Zoroaster causes a considerable number of butterflies on it's own. Just think what would happen to Judaism without the influence and protection of the Persian Acheamenid Empire from 537-330 BCE. Would the Babylonian Captivity end without Cyrus the Great?
Hm. Egyptian-Israeli alliance? Anthony wins at Actium due to the timely arrival of the Israelite-Tyrian fleet? (But that's really nailing the butterflies to the floor).
[1]Who was living in what had been Israel at this time, anway? Cyrus moved the Jews back - who had to make room for them, or else pack in a hurry?
Basically for this to have a chance of happening, the Babylonian Captivity has to be prevented. You need to prevent the Assyrian conquests as well. I don't think that's completely ASB...the Israelites, in alliance with the other kingdoms of Syria and Palestine, actually defeated the Assyrians at Qarqar in 853BC. If we posit a united Israelite kingdom under David and Solomon which has taken to forcibly converting the peoples it conquers...perhaps by 853BC there is a major, unified state covering all of Palestine and Syria which has the strength to resist the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, and later the Persians.
I think the idea of a unified Hebrew Kingdom that never splits up has the best chance of success here. Possibly a powerful Israelite Kingdom in alliance with Saite Egypt could turn the Persians back and keep them from conquering Israel at all.
not really - until Antony was defeated, King Herod I was staunchly behind Antony politically.
I'm not sure about that. The strict monotheism of Judaism and its (then) unique community-building capacity around worship is widely believed to have originateed friomn the Babylonian captivity, and the relative ideological uinity of Judaism around the Temple is a phenomenon of Juda that the northern kingdom probably was actively histile to. If you keep a more flexible, less concentrated, more syncretistic religion concentrated in several centres of worship in the (traditionally wealthier and more influential) north, unity is going to be compromised. Sociologically, i think the one advantage that could explain a Jewish Empire is the cohesiveness and integrative power of religion. If you take that away, their chances are broadly the same as those of any neighboring tribe.
My bet would be a rebuilding in the post-Assyrian turmoil on which future generations base a more militarily aggressive state.