Radical Change

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Radical Change

• Confucianism and Taoism (China)
• Pre-Socratics (Greece)
• Buddhism, Jains, Hinduism (India)
• Yahwehism (Hebrews)
• Zoroastrianism (Persia)

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The Persians Achaemenid Empire (558-330 BCE)

• Migration of Medes and Persians from central
  Asia, before 1000 BCE
• Indo-Europeans
• Capitalized on weakening Assyrian and Babylonian
  empires
• Cyrus (r. 558-530 BCE) founder of dynasty
• Cyrus the Shepherd
• Peak under Darius (r. 521-486 BCE)
• Ruled Indus to the Aegean
• Capital Persepolis

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Characteristics

• 23 Administrative divisions
• Satraps Persian, but staff principally local
• System of spies, surprise audits
• Minimized possibilities of local rebellion
• Standardized currency for taxation purposes
• Massive road building, courier services

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Zoroastrianism

• Persian
• origins in dispute
• religion similar to the Aryans
• Persians Indo-Europeans

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Pre-Zoroastrian Religion

• personified natural forces
• terrestrial, atmospheric, celestial

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The Axial Age

• ca. 600 B.C.
• change in all major cultures
• the Iron Age
• more complex societies
• nomadic vs. sedentary lifestyle

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Zoroaster

• history uncertain
• date uncertain
• location uncertain

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Zoroaster

• writings the Gathas
• part of the Avesta
• traditional date before 500 B.C.
• new dating before 1100 B.C.
• based on linguistic evidence, not ancient stories

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The Gathas

• poems
• language difficult and archaic
• unsystematic

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Zoroaster, cont

• intellectual and ethical monotheist
• dualist tendencies
• a world divided between Good and Evil
• between the god and his enemy

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Zoroaster, cont

• revelation from Ahura Mazda
• Lord of Wisdom
• modest and uncomplicated monotheism
• emphasis on a cosmic struggle

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Ahura Mazda
Spenta Mainyu
light
The Cosmic World
(truth, soul, mind)
matter
The Physical World
(lie, body, flesh)
Aingru Mainyu
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Cosmic Struggle

• followers of Wisdom
• followers of the Lie

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Ahura Mazda

• one god
• lofty and abstract

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Ahura Mazda, cont

• He that in the beginning thought, Let the
  blessed realms be filled with lights, he it is,
  who by his wisdom created Right...I have
  conceived of thee, Oh, Mazda, in my thought that
  you are, the First who is also the Last, the
  Father of Good Thought, the Lord to judge the
  actions of life.

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The World

• a battleground between Good and Evil
• humans have a choice
• helped by angelic spirits
• Good Thought, Right Action, etc.
• tempted by devils and demons

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For the Good

• prosperity in the present life
• immortality and eternal reward
• destruction of the world by fire
• final judgment
• reward blissful heaven or a fiery hell

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A New Religion

• Zoroaster condemned the old, bloody cults
• intended his religion to be a universal,
  salvationist religion
• offered one god to all of mankind
• intended for the individual, not the group

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Individual Responsibility

• right thinking and right conduct
• Good thought, good words, good deeds
• not a function of the nation
• first religion to recognize the individual human
• morality and ethics
• individual responsibility

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Spread slowly

• mostly Persia
• changed by the MAGI
• following his death

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Importance

• fundamental influence on Judaism
• Babylonian Captivity
• Pharisees
• Christianity

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Hebrew religion / Judaism

• traditional history
• Abraham from Ur, in Sumer
• basis in fact ??
• Coogan, Michael D. The Oxford History of the
  Biblical World

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Jewish Scriptures

• record traditional history
• relationship between Yahweh and His People
• the Chosen People

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Hebrew bible

• the Torah
• the Prophets
• the Writings

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Hebrew bible Origins

• difficult and complex
• owes much to Mesopotamian models
• but also Egyptian literature and Canaanite
  religion

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Historical Source ??

• very little of it is considered historical by
  Biblical scholars, archaeologists, and historians
• but often all which is available
• use with caution

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Focus

• not historical in the usual sense
• focus is religious
• often magnified all out of proportion
• complied over hundreds of years
• erratic and inconsistent

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Traditional history

• the Patriarchal Period
• the Judges
• the Monarchy
• the Babylonian Captivity

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Early events

• Genesis
• cosmological myth, not history
• invented genealogy, not history
• actual history
• wanderings of semi-nomadic tribes
• Semitic speaking
• patriarchally organized
• Abraham and his descendants

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Earliest Possible Date

• Exodus
• Ramses II
• the Hapiru (Habiru)
• the divine Plan

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Yahweh

• a tribal god, a war god
• comes to demand exclusive worship
• no gods in front of me
• not monotheists
• henotheists
• monolatry

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Yahweh

• a local god of the Sinai
• Some similarities with Baal and El
• adopted by Moses
• an Egyptian
• or at least someone with an Egyptian name
• a covenant

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The Law and the Promised Land

• Yahweh gave the Law
• The Hebrews invade Palestine
• the Hebrews killed everyone and everything to
  attain the Land
• at the direction of Yahweh
• divinely sanctioned genocide
• dedicated to Yahweh

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Archaeological evidence

• inconclusive
• no hard evidence for the biblical story
• end of the Bronze Age
• general upheaval
• the Sea Peoples

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Early Hebrew Organization

• patriarchal
• tribal
• not a specific, related ethnic group
• common denominator Yahweh

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Fundamental Changes

• adoption of monarchy
• replacing old, tribal leaders
• Gideon no thanks
• Saul doesnt know any better

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Yahweh, Only ??

• unable to maintain exclusive worship
• sedentary lifestyle complimentary deities
• adopted many Canaanite gods
• Yahweh got angry
• adopted many Canaanite rituals
• bloody sacrifice of living things
• Yahweh was happy
• traditional date 1020-1000 B.C.

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Saul

• beginning of historical period
• perhaps, perhaps not
• succeeded by David
• Archaeological evidence is in dispute
• Jerusalem
• united the tribes?
• power vacuum in the area

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Expansion

• by slaughter and invasion
• by murder and marriage
• he was a man after Gods own heart
• Gulf of Aqaba to Syria
• destruction of tribal institutions

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The Northern Kingdom

• destroyed by Sargon II, in 721 B.C.
• Assyrian Empire
• ten northern tribes disappear

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The Southern Kingdom

• destroyed by Nebuchadrezzar
• 598 and 587
• the Babylonian Captivity

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Development of monotheism

• monarchy and captivity
• time of great stress
• evolution of Hebrew religion

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The Prophets

• contemporary with the monarchy
• representing older, Stone Age values
• against the changes of the Iron Age

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The Prophets, cont

• supported the Yahweh-only idea during exile
• Jeremiah and Ezekiel
• Cyrus the Great
• Persian conquest of Babylon
• freed exiles
• rebuilt temple in 538 B.C.
• beginnings of monotheism

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The Prophets

• spokesmen for the older religion of the desert
  and the Stone Age
• perceived by some as especially holy
• soon claimed to be the ONLY spokesmen for Yahweh
• excluding even the priests of Jerusalem
• began to give unsolicited advice
• political and social reformers

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The Prophets, cont

• preservers of the Plan
• the covenant
• the salvation of a Faithful Remnant
• destruction for all others

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The Prophets, cont

• attacked the monarchy
• attacked the priests
• attacked the status quo
• all are the very model of evil
• punishment for wrongdoing
• delivered by other nations

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Principal Implications

• Yahweh controls other nations
• Yahweh, therefore, controls the destiny (The
  History) of ALL Peoples
• an instrument to chastise and punish His Chosen
  People
• afterthought justice and mercy

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Divine Interventionist Policy

• to punish His People
• and..incidentally...to punish evil and preserve
  the Good
• introduction of a universality element

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Yahweh-Only

• Josiah 621
• cult of Yahweh
• Deuteronomy
• first hint of monotheism

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Yawehism 500 B.C.

• fundamentally different
• a universalist god and a limited number of people
• more restricted than Zoroastrianism

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Disasters

• Assyrian and Babylonian Captivities
• victory for other gods???
• what to do to maintain the covenant???
• keep the Law more scrupulously
• keep it more exactly
• even if only a FEW will be saved in the kingdom
  of God

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Ezekeial and Second Isaiah

• justify the ways of God to Man
• more rigorous obedience to the Law
• looking forward to a New Kingdom
• earthly
• for the Righteous Few
• influenced by Zoroastrianism
• During and after the Babylonian Captivity

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Some Books for you

• Mary Boyce. A History of Zoroastrianism
• Robert M. Seltzer. Religions of Antiquity
• Norman Cohn. Cosmos, Chaos, and the World to
  Come. The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith
• P. Davies. In Search of Ancient Israel
• I. Finkelstein. The Bible Unearthed
  Archaeologys New Vision of Ancient Israel and
  the Sacred Texts.
• Richard Elliott Friedman. Who Wrote the Bible
• K.L. Knoll. Canaan and Israel in Antiquity
• A.S. van der Woude. The World of the Old
  Testament
• B.S.J. Isserlin. The Israelites
• William F. Albright. Pretty much anything.
• Ancient Religions bibliography online
• www.etsu.edu/cas/history/religionbib.htm

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More books

• William G. Dever. Who Were the Early Israelites
  and Where Did They Come From?
• William G. Dever. What Did the Biblical Writers
  Know and When Did They Know It?
• William G. Dever. Did God Have A Wife? Archeology
  and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (and his
  extensive bibliography)
• M.P. Lemche. Early Israel
• D.B. Redford. Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in
  Ancient Times
• A. Ben Tor. The Archaeology of Ancient Israel
• Susan Ackerman. Under Every Green Tree Popular
  Religion in Sixth Century Judah