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ASSYRIAN & BABYLONIAN
CATASTROPHE AND REBUILDING
745 BC - 333 BC
ASSYRIAN CONQUEST
The Assyrian Empire started with military campaigns against Syria and north of Israel already in the 9th century BC during the reign of Ashurnasirpal II. However, these campaigns were only aimed at collecting large amounts of tributes from the vassal states neighbouring Assyria. This strategy changed in 745 BC when King Tiglath-Pileser III ascended to the throne and started new military campaigns. King Pekah of the Kingdom of Israel choose to support the Kingdom of Aram-Damascus in an anti-Assyrian coalition. King Ahaz of the Kingdom of Judah choose to side with Assyria. According to the Book of Kings when Assyria conquered the northern Kingdom 'King Tiglath-Pileser carried the people captive to Assyria'.
The stone reliefs from Nimrod confirm these deportations. In 722 BC, the Assyrian King Sargon conquered the Samarian citadel and took, according to his annals, 27000 Israelites to resettle them near the Euphrates River in Halah. Samaria was resettled with people that came from Cuthah (probably Northern Babylon). According to the Bible, these people eventually assimilated and later became the Samaritans. Although these Samaritans adopted Jewish faith and practices, many Jews looked with contempt at the Samaritans, because of their Babylonian background.
The 'Taylor prism' describing Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem that resulted in Hezekiah being shut up in Jerusalem "like a caged bird".
Hezekiah, Photo: Wikipedia
KING HEZEKIAH OF JUDAH
According to the Bible (Book of Chronicles and Kings II) King Hezekiah was a very righteous king. He was also one of the most important Judean kings mentioned in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Matthew, it was written: "No king of Judah, among either his predecessors or his successors, could [...] be compared to him." Hezekiah witnessed the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel by King Sargon and was the king of Judah during the Siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701 BC. Hezekiah introduced a strict mandate for the sole worship of Yahweh and prohibited the worship of other deities.
Many archaeological finds confirmed the biblical stories with King Hezekiah. The famous Taylor prism (see picture) mentioned the Biblical accounts of the successful Assyrian attack on Samaria and the attack on Lachish that was ended by Hezekiah suing for peace. Assyrian king Sennacherib demanded a large ransom in Gold and silver from Hezekiah's palace and the Temple in Jerusalem. Fascinating is Hezekiah's personal seal, found during excavations in 2009 by Eilat Mazar and his colleagues in Jerusalem, with the inscription "Belonging to Hezekiah, son of Ahaz, King of Judah".
Hezekiah tunnels, City of david. Photo wikipedia
In 2007, a limestone slab was discovered during excavations in Jerusalem by Eli Shukron and Ronny Reich. This small fragment contained two broken lines of text. The text was found in 2022, through the use of new RTI imagery techniques, discovered by epigrapher Professor Gershon Galil and Shukron. It revealed the Hebrew words 'Hezekiah' and 'Pool'. According to Gershon Galil, "The Israelite kings were remembered in Assyrian, Babylonian, Aramean, and Moabite inscriptions and also on Hebrew stamps. But this is the first time that a fraction of a monumental Hebrew royal address has been decoded, mentioning the name of the king whose achievements were carried out. This discovery revealed that before the eyes of the authors of the historical biblical texts stood monumental royal writings, which were connected by the authors at the time of the kings mentioned in the Bible."
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BABYLONIAN DESTRUCTION
In 589 BC, King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon invaded Judah and besieged Jerusalem. The Siege of the Judean King Zedekiah and the Jews of Jerusalem lasted for a horrifying 30 months when in 587 BC the City was conquered. The city was looted, and many inhabitants were killed and during this war. Many Jews were deported to Babylon. This Babylonian destruction described in the Bible seems to be confirmed by traces found in Jerusalem. Archaeologists have excavated burned artifacts dating from 2,600 years ago. They uncovered charred wood, grape seeds, fish scales, bones, and pottery while digging in the City of David in Jerusalem. The find provides evidence that the Babylonians ‘burned all the houses of Jerusalem' as described in the book of Jeremiah. The researchers found the artefacts beneath layers of rock in the City of David – along with jars with seals which enabled the researchers to date the artefacts. “These seals are characteristic of the end of the First Temple Period,” said Dr. Joe Uziel (IAA) who stated that the seals were used for the administrative system that were developed towards the end of the Judean dynasty.
After the destruction of the Temple, the Bible said Jews, like Zedekiah were taken captive into Babylon. The dates of these transportation and the number of deportees involved vary. Fascinating are the extensive archaeological finds in the Babylonian archives that confirm the story of the Bible. The Akkadian inscription at the Museum of Berlin mentioned Jeoiachin (Jeconiah), the king of Judah and the captivity (see link) just like the Al Yahudu tablets that provided us with information of Jewish life in Babylon. Also the Jehoiachin's Rations tablets found in 1899 near the Ishtar Gate in Babylon (Iraq) described rations of food paid to craftsmen and captives in the Jewish city of Al-Yahudu.
6th century BC -Al Yahudu tablets Photo: Amit Avidan
QUEEN ESTHER
Religious Zionism started during Babylonian captivity, 2500 years ago.
Famous are stories of bravery from Queen Esther for the survival of the Jewish people during the period of exile. The Babylonian Captivity became an important chapter in the development of Judaism (modern day Iraq and Iran), but it is also a story of harsh slavery in the ancient world and the start of the so-called Jewish Diaspora that continues to be part of the long history of the Jewish people.
Cyrus Cylinder - 6th century BC Photo: Dynamosquito
Famous quote from Queen Esther (to her husband), King Xerxes: If it pleases the king,” she said, “and if I have found favor in his sight, and the matter seems proper to the King and if I am pleasing in his sight, may an order be written to revoke the letters that the scheming Haman son of Hammedatha, the Agagite, wrote to destroy the Jews in all the king’s provinces. Esther 8;5
RETURN & REBUILDING OF THE TEMPLE
The rebuilding and revival of Jewish life in Israel was mentioned in the Bible, but also, the famous Cyrus Cylinder tells a similar story. It is a 2,600-year-old inscribed clay document from Babylon/Persia (ancient Iraq and Iran) and one of the most famous surviving icons from the ancient world. Some call it the first declaration of human rights. It marked the establishment of Persian rule in 539 B.C. by Cyrus the Great, with the defeat of Babylon, the restoration of shrines, and the return of deported peoples and their gods. Cyrus’s legacy is also celebrated in the biblical tradition, where he is seen as a liberator, enabling the return of exiled Jews to Jerusalem. Approximately 50,000 Jews returned to Zion following the Cyrus Declaration.
According to the Bible, the rebuilding of the (Second) Temple was resumed in the second year of the reign of Darius (521 B.C.) and the construction was completed in 515. B.C. This Second Temple was originally a rather modest structure constructed by Jewish exile groups returning to Israel from Babylon. (Later, Herod the Great completely refurbished the Second Temple, and the original structure was totally overhauled into a large and magnificent temple). Furthermore, the Bible (and the Dead Sea Scrolls) describes the Jewish priestly scribe Ezra who led Jewish exiles living in Babylon to their home city of Jerusalem in 459 BC.
Most historians still see the time of the Babylonian captivity as the period in which the Bible would have been written. During this period in Persia, the oral tradition of the Bible was changed into a written holy book. New research claims that the Bible could have been partly written even during the First Temple period because the level of literacy in those days in Judea was higher than previously assumed (see article), and new findings on Mount Ebal (see link) gave proof for a high level of literacy from even older periods. This Torah/Old Testament, written during the Babylonian period or even earlier, is the holy foundation of both Judaism and Christianity. And even before the Cyrus Cylinder was written, it was also the birthplace of egalitarian thought (see article of Joshua Berman). The Torah was aimed at empowering citizens instead of kings, priests or rulers. It became the start of human rights since the Torah was meant to be accessible to all people and gave laws that helped the people instead of only helping their king.
JUDAH BECOMES YEHUD, A VAZALSTATE OF PERSIA
Yehud (Yehud Medinata) was the name for the province or vassal state retained and used by the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The territory of the Persian empire, which was ruled by mostly Jewish governors, was considerably smaller, and had a far thinner population than the previous Babylonian conquest. Yehud continued to exist for two centuries until the area was incorporated into the Hellenistic Empire of Alexander the Great and only later followed by renewed Jewish independence during the Hasmonean period. The Bible describes a large number of people returning from Persia and their captivity . Apart from the previous mentioned archaeological facts that prove this period of captivity, other Persian findings confirmed this captivity in Persia. The Murashû tablets for example were discovered in 1893 during excavations at Nippur (undertaken by the University of Pennsylvania) showed that Jewish names were to still found in Persia during this period (see link).
Persian-era Jerusalem was small and had only an estimated 500-1500 inhabitants living in the city that nevertheless was the largest urban centre of the Yehud province. The bulk of the population lived in small mostly unwalled villages throughout the entire Persian period. In total, an estimated 30.000 people seemed to have lived in the Yehud province.
WOMEN IN THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES
A remarkable 317 women are mentioned in the Tanach/Old Testament, many of who were mentioned by name. Their importance for the history and developments in ancient Israel is very clear. The status of women, however, were partly similar to other cultures of those times. The Old Testament has many references of women as being inferior to man, but at the same time one can find clear passages that give true equal status to women (see link). Women held important positions in ancient Israel as queens, as wives of important leaders, or even as prophets like Miriam, Deborah, Hulda and Noadiah . These four women were identified as prophets in the Hebrew Bible. Also in religious rituals, music, economic life, and the production of food and clothes, the women were of crucial importance. (see link).
Esther and Mordechai - Dura Europos Synagogue (Syria 245-256 AD)
Mosaic of Esther - Church of Dormition (Jerusalem) Photo: Deror Avi