The assumption of my scenario is that in our universe Israel, or more specifically the Kingdom of Judah, was not officially monotheistic prior to the Babylonian Exile which began in 586 BCE. This is to day that the god Yahweh (YHWH) was served alongside the goddess Asherah/Ashtoret. A few other deities may have been recognized as well, but when the Jews went to Babylon and as the Persians took over this all changed. A new temple was built in Jerusalem and, with Nehemia as governor over the province of Yehud (Judah) with Ezra as High Priest, Judaism emerged as a religion based on the belief in one god. References to other gods in the sacred texts which Ezra had stitched together to form the Torah were rationalized such that they conformed with monotheism. It's thought that Ezra may have been influenced by Persian Zoroastrianism but, whatever the origins of Jewish monotheism, it later had an influence on the development of Christianity and Islam. Thus, I propose a universe wherein the Persians do indeed conquer Babylon and do indeed allow Jews to return to Judah and rebuild the temple. However in this scenario the new Jewish leaders are no more monotheistic than had been their pre-exilic predecessors. They resore a religion in which Yahweh and Asherah continue to be worshipped side by side as the chief god and goddess of the Jews.
Ancient Israel/Judah does not adopt monotheism
- Thread starter Cosmos
- Start date
Yes, and I would argue that Yahwistic henotheism was what the revolution of King Josiah promoted in Judah just prior to the Babylonian conquest. Specifically there was suppression of the worship of Asherah. And as you point out:Keenir said:
It does seem that an Israelite goddess was very much part of ancient Judaism. There are other inscriptions as well, including one from Kuntillet Ajrud (in the Sinai desert), dated to c. 800 BCE, which orders a blessing "by Yahweh of Samaria and by His Asherah"Keenir said:
During the Exile, however, some Jews began to deny even the existence of other gods. We first see this in the writings of "deutero-Isaiah", the author who is thought to have written the middle chapters of what is now the book of Isaiah. Unlike the author of the first 40 chapters, who was pre-exilic and in Judah, this later author lived in Babylonia.
BTW in the 1930s a 3rd century synagogue was excavated at Dura Europos in what is now Syria. Inside is a mural showing Moses in the basket in the river. Watching over him is the goddess Isis, her wings spread to protect the child. Standing next to her are 2 demigoddesses.
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I once read this interesting explanation
Interesting question to start this thread with. This thread is getting into some even more interesting territory. Here's something I once read and thought was interesting.
To many ancient peoples creation was kind of a female thing. Men or males couldn't create on their own, they first had to unite with the female. The beginning of Genesis reads.
"In the beginning was nothing and all was void and without form. and the spirit of God moved across the face of the deep. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light, and God saw that it was very good."
The writers of Genesis had a problem. God is all powerful, God created all that there is, but God is male, the male cannot create on his own, but God is all powerful, God created all that there is, but God is male, the make cannot create on his own... A vicious cycle.
One of the oldest names for the Goddess is Themis which means "the deep."
So when the spirit of God moved across the face of the deep, it was their way of saying that God united with the Goddess, so now God could create.
I have also read that the ancestors of the ancient Israelites were very much into Goddess worship, and that they even practiced a form of what's called sacred marriage where the cheif/king/high priest, the guy in charge of the tribe was symbolicly married to the Goddess usually through actual marriage to the high Priestess.
Interesting question to start this thread with. This thread is getting into some even more interesting territory. Here's something I once read and thought was interesting.
To many ancient peoples creation was kind of a female thing. Men or males couldn't create on their own, they first had to unite with the female. The beginning of Genesis reads.
"In the beginning was nothing and all was void and without form. and the spirit of God moved across the face of the deep. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light, and God saw that it was very good."
The writers of Genesis had a problem. God is all powerful, God created all that there is, but God is male, the male cannot create on his own, but God is all powerful, God created all that there is, but God is male, the make cannot create on his own... A vicious cycle.
One of the oldest names for the Goddess is Themis which means "the deep."
So when the spirit of God moved across the face of the deep, it was their way of saying that God united with the Goddess, so now God could create.
I have also read that the ancestors of the ancient Israelites were very much into Goddess worship, and that they even practiced a form of what's called sacred marriage where the cheif/king/high priest, the guy in charge of the tribe was symbolicly married to the Goddess usually through actual marriage to the high Priestess.
Hendryk
Banned
A world with no exclusivist monotheism would certainly be a saner place, including in spiritual terms. I don't think a polytheist or even henotheist Jewish people would have made such a point of cultivating an antagonist attitude towards every other religion they came across. They may have been more like the Greeks, the Indians or pretty much every other people at the time, and considered that every religious expression had an element of validity to it.
Certainly the Bible would have contained no such nonsense as:
"When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire."
--Deuteronomy 7:1-5
Now I am not saying the Jews wouldn't have waged war; they would have, of course. But there would have been no particular taboo on borrowing elements from other peoples' religions, and that would have made a huge difference.
Certainly the Bible would have contained no such nonsense as:
"When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire."
--Deuteronomy 7:1-5
Now I am not saying the Jews wouldn't have waged war; they would have, of course. But there would have been no particular taboo on borrowing elements from other peoples' religions, and that would have made a huge difference.
Flocculencio
Donor
I think someone would have come up with the idea of exclusive monotheism sooner or later- it's far too useful an innovation for societal control to not come up some time or other.
1) By creating a monotheistic religion, Ezra was also clearing out non-Jewish elements that had crept in. In the process he would consolidating the power position of himself and future high priests. (A similar process was one by leaders of the early Christian Church.) Had he not done so, Judaism would have been even more swamped by Greek thought when the Macedonians took over.Cosmos said:
2) As well as the female aspect of God going, all the minor household gods went. That was probably a good thing as one character was coshed with one of them
.Flocculencio said:
The problem with this is that there have been emergences of three seperate branches of Judeo-Christian monotheism, they still remain the *only* lasting emergences of monotheism, and only Judaism itself - the one that *did not* encourage spreading itself to other peoples - could reasonably be said to have had "social control" purposes.
The Jewish religion as we know it seems to have been codified in Judah around the reign of King Josiah. As mentioned, before that there was clear evidence of polytheism in the area. The texts that predate that era are clearly all or mostly myths, and very much slanted anti-Israel, pro-Judah. It's fairly evident that this "first true Judaism" was a church-state collaboration in the wake of the collapse of Israel. Judah had ambitions of conquering Israel - but there was also strong concern about it losing its identity through intermarriage. So on the one hand you have the idea that the people of Judah have legitimate right to the territory of Israel (which has cultural similarities and probably a history of mutual antagonism, but also just happens to be a power vacuum ripe for expansion). But on the other hand, there's the clear "social control" aspect - and it consists of basic defend-our-culture values. Formal religious codification of social rules and laws, and the idea that Jewishness is passed along the maternal line to discourage the men of Judah from taking foreign wives from the chaotic but much more populous nearby territories.
Those are "social control" aspects, but they turned out to be what *prevents* Jewish evangelism. They encourage Jews to set themselves apart from their neighbors - to resist assimilation - and the result is a religion that does not encourage religious conquest.
Christianity and Islam do encourage evangelism, but they were the opposite of tools of social control - they started out as the religions of radicals and revolutionaries, and were open-ended religious fighting the powerful of far more powerful states. They were not picky about who could convert to their religion. It wasn't until after they had expanded to control large empires and spent a while settling down, that they were used as repressive orthodoxy.
Umm...didn't the Assyrians conquer the Northern Kingdom and deport most of its population? And then come down to besiege Jerusalem itself?
If the leaders of Judah were bent on conquering Israel (the North), they must've been suicidal.
If the leaders of Judah were bent on conquering Israel (the North), they must've been suicidal.
When Josiah made his bid Assyria was cleary on the way out at war with both revolted Babylonia and Media. It was in no position to resist Josiah.
MerryPrankster said:
As Hime said, the Assyrians conquered Israel but then their empire encountered serious hard times, and AFAIK they more or less withdrew. This created a power vacuum in which, probably for the first time ever, relatively small and poor Judah was in a better position than rich and populous Israel.
This period of advantage was not long by historical standards - the Babylonians soon came in and put an end to Judah's ambitions. By that time, though, the priests of the Jerusalem Temple had already become dominant.
maybe not suicidal
The territory of Israel was by this time much reduced compared to what it had been a quarter century earlier and, being a vassal of Assyria, Hosea was required to pay tribute which he would have raised by taxing his people. No doubt this was not a popular policy and this could explain why Hosea would have been pressured to take such a risk. The Bible says he sent ambassadors to Egypt, suggesting he thought Egypt powerful enough militarily to free Israel of the Assyrians. It was a terrible miscalculation and in 722 Samaria suffered the same fate as Damascus. It was annexed to Assyria and the Samaria ruling class was deported according to Assyrian policy. It's now thought that most of the common people were actually not deported as the Bible reports. Rather, nobility from other conquered peoples were moved in from other parts of the empire. This was the Assyrians' way of preventing rebellion.
Now, during the reign of the Judahite king Hezekiah, roughly around 700 BCE, Assyrians did come to Jerusalem and besiege it. In fact they destoryed much of Judah outside of Jerusalem; most notorious is the Assyrian defeat of Lachish which at that time was probably Judah's largest city. But the leaders of Judah did not think about conquering Israel until much later, during the reign of Josia (late 600s BCE). By this time Assyrian power had dwindled. They were facing a Babylonian uprising while down in Egypt, after many centuries of relative weakness and decentralization, a powerful dynasty had emerged, presenting Judah with what may have been a realisitc alternative to continued submission to Assyria. Hence, they may not actually have been suicidal and actually under Josia they did end up seizing a small portion of the lands to the north.
The Assyrians subdued the Northern Kingdom (plus Damscus and various other kingdoms in the region) during the 730s. Damascus, being the regional leader of an anti-Assyrian coalition was conquered and annexed to Assyria; Israel (northern kingdom/Samaria) held for a few years longer, because its pro-Damascus leaders were overthrown (perhaps with Assyria's help) and replaced by those who agreed to exist as an Assyrian vassal. When the anti-Assyrian faction revived itself in Samaria the king, Hosea, apparently came under its influence.MerryPrankster said:
The territory of Israel was by this time much reduced compared to what it had been a quarter century earlier and, being a vassal of Assyria, Hosea was required to pay tribute which he would have raised by taxing his people. No doubt this was not a popular policy and this could explain why Hosea would have been pressured to take such a risk. The Bible says he sent ambassadors to Egypt, suggesting he thought Egypt powerful enough militarily to free Israel of the Assyrians. It was a terrible miscalculation and in 722 Samaria suffered the same fate as Damascus. It was annexed to Assyria and the Samaria ruling class was deported according to Assyrian policy. It's now thought that most of the common people were actually not deported as the Bible reports. Rather, nobility from other conquered peoples were moved in from other parts of the empire. This was the Assyrians' way of preventing rebellion.
Now, during the reign of the Judahite king Hezekiah, roughly around 700 BCE, Assyrians did come to Jerusalem and besiege it. In fact they destoryed much of Judah outside of Jerusalem; most notorious is the Assyrian defeat of Lachish which at that time was probably Judah's largest city. But the leaders of Judah did not think about conquering Israel until much later, during the reign of Josia (late 600s BCE). By this time Assyrian power had dwindled. They were facing a Babylonian uprising while down in Egypt, after many centuries of relative weakness and decentralization, a powerful dynasty had emerged, presenting Judah with what may have been a realisitc alternative to continued submission to Assyria. Hence, they may not actually have been suicidal and actually under Josia they did end up seizing a small portion of the lands to the north.
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Ian the Admin said:
Of course, the Hashmonim (the Macabees and their sons and grandsons) are the exception. They did conduct wars of conquest, eventually conquering most of the land of Canaan. But, since this does not come near what was later done by the Christians and Moslems, and since I believe (but am not entirely sure) that the Macabees did not try to actually convert the Samaritans, the Idumians, or others outside of Judea, I agree with you. It's interesting how the religion that includes in its texts passages like the one cited above (the one from Deuteronomy about conquering and killing the Canaanites) is the one that does not conquer religiously, while the religion whose texts focus on peace and love (ie the gospels) is the one that conquers the world and forces them to convert on pain of death.
Imajin said:
I'm not sure about the Idumeans, but I know a little about Samarian religion and I agree that it is similar to Judaism. There are differences, however, mostly having to do with whether the heroes of the past are northern or southern. As you might imagine, the Shomronim of today (Samaritans, who live mostly in Nablus and Holon) celebrate the same three festivals as Jews. They do not celebrate Purim or Hanuka, the latter being the celebration of the Macabees though it certainly was created by the rabbis long after the Hasmonean era. Interestingly, the Samaritans speak of a southern king, called King Samson, as being corrupt and part of the reason for the north-south split. Of course they look to Joseph and Ephraim as the most important patriarchs. So if their religion is partly due to Hasmonean conquest, I'd say the conversion was not full. More likely, I think, is that the people of the north already shared many beliefs with the Jews returning from Babylon, IOW that they were indeed the descedants of the northern kingdom.
Imajin said:
Based on the traditions of the Samaritans of today, I find it hard to understand how their religion could have originated in Judea. They have a belief that certain figures that the Jewish tradition considers heroes actually lived but were villians. For instance they have a tradition that says that two kingdoms broke up because of a southern guy called "King Samson" who was corrupt. Now in Judaism, Samson is indeed a legendary leader, but is considered to be a hero.
Many goddess based religions are polytheistic with a belief in more than one goddess. However in many of these, each goddess is viewed as being another or a different aspect of the one Great Goddess.
At the time when monotheism was starting to take hold isalso about the time when patriarchal male dominated religions were starting to get a very strong hold and become mainstream, but at this same time goddess worship and goddess based religion was still very strong especially in some areas.
I'm assuming that if Ancient Israel/Judah had not adopted monotheism that probably many neighboring cultures and cultures they came in contact with wouldn't have adopted monotheism either. Its adoption into many cultures seems to have come at about the same time.
So I'm assuming monotheism itself would not have been universally or even widely adopted. Thus patriarchal male dominated religions viewing God as male might not have been universally or widely adopted, perhaps patriarchal male dominated religion viewing God as male might never have gotten anywhere.
It is very possible than that matriarchal goddess based religions viewing God as female would have prevailed and that today we would still be viewing or perceiving of God as female as Goddess.
At the time when monotheism was starting to take hold isalso about the time when patriarchal male dominated religions were starting to get a very strong hold and become mainstream, but at this same time goddess worship and goddess based religion was still very strong especially in some areas.
I'm assuming that if Ancient Israel/Judah had not adopted monotheism that probably many neighboring cultures and cultures they came in contact with wouldn't have adopted monotheism either. Its adoption into many cultures seems to have come at about the same time.
So I'm assuming monotheism itself would not have been universally or even widely adopted. Thus patriarchal male dominated religions viewing God as male might not have been universally or widely adopted, perhaps patriarchal male dominated religion viewing God as male might never have gotten anywhere.
It is very possible than that matriarchal goddess based religions viewing God as female would have prevailed and that today we would still be viewing or perceiving of God as female as Goddess.