Challenge: Iron Age Israeli Empire

Without recourse to ASBs, create a timeline with a fairly powerful Israeli Empire, contemporary with Rome, and lasting about as long, if not longer.
 

Keenir

Banned
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?)
 
the Maccabees' state doesn't start going downhill. (would they opt for neutrality or pro-Roman stance when Rome and Persia start fighting?)

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.
 
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.

Not that early. Anyways, the Macabees and Hasmonaeans are among Rome's oldest allies in the region, so that question is pretty much answered. The bigger problem with this, I think, is the exclusionary policy that the Macabees followed. The only way you could become part of the Judaean state was by becoming a subject people. Without having overwhelming military power (which, next to Egypt, Mesopotamia and Syria, the Jerusalem Plateau can't support) that is a bad recipe for long-term dominance. An earlier, more imnclusive state basedd on the successorship of the Davidian kingdom could do it, but I can't quite think of a POD to accommodate one.

-Jerusalem as a cultic and religious centre
-Conversion as a one-way street
-Aramaic as its primary language, status maintained by its status in theological writing
-An educated priestly class serving as administrators and community leaders

Sounds like it could hold together over the long term. Stop the Achaemenids and you might be in business.
 
There was more than one Jewish state...

Israel and Judea.
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.
 
I like it. I think I'll work on a full timeline. Expect a start this week, though I warn you up front, law school doesn't leave me too much free time.
 
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.
 
Well, I never said they had to have a peaceful relationship with Rome, nor that they couldn't outlast the Empire by conquering it. Let's see what mikegold comes up with.
 
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..

Well, if the POD is back, say, around 900 BC, we might butterfly away the Roman Empire, but the original author said "contemperaneous with the Romans", so that's out.

Hm. If the alt-Jews are big on conversion, and we butterfly away Zoroaster, perhaps we get a Jewish Persia? Of course, this might leave us with a pretty unrecognizable Judaism. (I've sometimes imagined an Israelite conquest of Egypt leading to a Judaism where Yahweh is identified with Ra and is so ornately ornamented with subsidary Gods and demons that it is to OTL Judaism as Tibetan Buddhism is to the most ascetic versions of Zen).

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.


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).

Bruce
 
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?

"Jewish" Persia and Cleopatra's Egypt were two different thoughts. But it is true that a polytheist Persian/Median/Aryan empire might not resettle the Jews in their own land - but then again, it might.[1] Or perhaps in a continued "Persian" captivity, they come to favor conversion as a way to preserve their people...

Bruce


[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?
 
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?

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.
 
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Keenir

Banned
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).

not really - until Antony was defeated, King Herod I was staunchly behind Antony politically.
 

Keenir

Banned
[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?

not all the Jews left - this is where the Jews and Samartians split ways, I'm told. (remember in the New Testament, "but I am a woman of Samaria")
 
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.

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 neighbouring tribe.

My bet would be a rebuilding in the post-Assyrian turmoil on which future generations base a more militarily aggressive state.
 
not really - until Antony was defeated, King Herod I was staunchly behind Antony politically.


Well, what I meant was Anthony and Cleopatra existing in the first place and being allied against soon-to-be-Augustus with a POD possibly hundreds of years in the past...

Bruce
 
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.

The OP calls for a Isrealite Empire not a Jewish one.
The calls for "Back to Nature" and "The Simple Life" in early Christianity wee in reaction to the increasing Urbanization and Sophistication taking place under The Greek/Roman control.
I can see a Sophisticated Urban Class returning from the Captivity. And with little heed to religion, becoming wealthy and powerful controlling the trade [ala The Phoenicians ] around the Eastern end of the Mediterranean.
 
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