Persians Liberated the Jews of Babylon? - Page 3 - Historum

The Alani Dragon Rising · March 21st, 2011, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vera

I see. Well, I really do not know whether he did or not. It doesn't sound very likely, as the people enslaved were from the lands the Babylonians conquered, right?

The Persians ruled over a vast empire of people too didn't they? If this is the case then isn't it just possible these people were simply being liberated by one set of people to be ruled over by another?

**Patito de Hule** · March 21st, 2011, 12:10 PM

Sir Percy Molesworth Sykes's History of Persia is old (1915), and he was an orientalist, but for many years he was the authority on Persian history. The story of the capture of Babylon begins on p. 160 of volume 1. I don't know where his passage about the Persians' tolerance of other tribes' gods, but they were notably tolerant of other cultures and religions. It was part of their strategy of ruling. The story of the liberation of the Jews is on p. 163. As it suggests, he gave a special place to the Jews in liberating them. That is also suggested in the book of Esther, which is not historical but allegorical.

The book is well worth a read--the History, I mean. Esther is well worth a read too.

Amazon.com: A history of Persia: Percy Molesworth Sykes: Books

(There are cheaper editions. I didn't pay that much for mine)

**Isoroku295** · March 21st, 2011, 12:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mohammed the Persian

I should read more biblical history then, but why was he so lenient towards them ? Did he want to make new allies or something ?

The Palistinian Land would have been an incredable source of income, on the sea and all. And someone had to rebuild the land. who better then the Jews

**Mohammed the Persian** · March 21st, 2011, 10:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Isoroku295

The Palistinian Land would have been an incredable source of income, on the sea and all. And someone had to rebuild the land. who better then the Jews

Ingenious !

Widdekind · March 22nd, 2011, 10:42 PM

The biblical book of Esther claims that a Jewish woman, named Hadassah, became queen of the Persians, during the days of Darius & Xerxes. And, Cyrus the Great had a daughter, named Atossa, who was indeed Darius the Great's queen. Such close connections, to the Persian royal family, could account, for favorable political treatment. Cyrus also pursued a policy of favoring local religions around the region, creating a context, for his Edict of Restoration, for the Jewish religion.

**Belisarius** · March 23rd, 2011, 02:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Alani Dragon Rising

This might or might not be of any interest to you, but a few days ago while watching television it become apparent, I believe, that almost nothing attributed to David, as in David and Goliath, seems to have much basis in truth. However Omri, who has little said about him in the Bible, was at least as powerful as was attributed to David.

Saw the same programme. If you think that was controversial, the next one examines the evidence for Yahweh having a wife and the Israelites being confirmed polytheists being ruthlessly surpressed by the returning Israelite exiles from Babylon with their new fangled relgion of Judaism.

BBC - BBC Two Programmes - Bible's Buried Secrets

Indy11 · March 23rd, 2011, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Alani Dragon Rising

The Persians ruled over a vast empire of people too didn't they? If this is the case then isn't it just possible these people were simply being liberated by one set of people to be ruled over by another?

Yes but, this specific mention is about Cyrus' conquest of the Babylonians of that time.

The Babylonian rulers held as a form of hostage, the most important worship symbols of the people whom they had conquered.

What Cyrus did was to permit the return of those symbols to the sacred sites of their lands of origin and the people who were associated with those symbols also to return home. In a sense this further extended Cyrus' political reach and assisted in pacifying those other lands without the use of military power.

The Cyrus cylinder proclaims that this was done under the blessings and urgings of the Babylonian chief god, Marduk who disowned the Babylonian king ... Nabonidus.

The Achaemenids were Zoroastrians, Cyrus included. An early monotheistic faith apparently with a few practitioners even today but which in the time of Cyrus was not well defined in terms of orthodoxy and had readmitted some forms of lesser gods. Cyrus' tolerance also could be explained by the state of Zoroastrianism of his day.

Quote:

Originally Posted by linky

In that same time period, Persians from southern Iran moved eastwards and overpowered a tribe known as the Elamites and became the rulers of the kingdom of Anshân near Pars (north of Shiraz). They ruled as the vassals of the Medians for a century, while Zoroastrianism progressed among the Medians and the Persians moving eastwards. The Achaemenian era truly began with the successful rebellion in 558 BC by Cyrus the Great against his father in law Astyages, the ruler of the Medians. Under the Achaemenians, the religion of Zoroaster joined forces with the secular world of the Persian empire. The inscriptions left by the Achaemenians show a religion that through diffusion, adaptation and priestly elaborations developed syncretisticlly i.e. through the combination or reconciliation of differing religious beliefs or practices. The old traditions were creeping back into the religion and due to contact with other religious worlds that were alien to the Iranian traditions (the civilizations of Elam and Mesopotamia), new features were being incorporated. Although the religion of Zoroaster was a rebellion against the pre-existent polytheistic religion, some of the old deities from the mythological and naturalist era were readmitted into the practice of the religion. These were brought in in the form of the Yazatas and recognized as Amesha Spentas. While Ahura Mazda still remained the supreme God, the religion lost its concept of a true monotheism in the real sense. The cult of Anahita and Tiri were reintroduced, the latter becoming associated with the Indo-Iranian Tishtrya, a divinity associated with the bringing of rain.

Enlil-An · March 23rd, 2011, 09:21 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by vera
And, just btw, it is not only the Jews that he has liberated. As I understand it, he decreed that all the peoples held as slaves by the Babylonians be allowed to return home, and their temples be restored to them or rebuilt. He respected other peoples' faiths and gods.

I wouldn't class the deported groups of conquered peoples as slaves of the Babylonians. From everything I've read, deportees were treated as citizens as much as anyone else except that they weren't allowed to leave their new homes. Even after Cyrus the Great allowed Jews to return to Judah, many of them stayed so that in Jesus' day there was a sizable Jewish population in Mesopotamia, one of the biggest communities of the diaspora.

**Thegn Ansgar** · March 24th, 2011, 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Alani Dragon Rising

As a matter of interest, how many of the "liberated" were released to lands not under Persian control of any kind?

It's kind of hard to let people go back to lands that are not nominally under their control. A mass immigration of people from a land controlled by Persia into the land controlled by some place else, would likely not be taken very nicely.