Ancient Israel

Early civilization to the crafting of the Jewish scriptures

We have now considered the possibility that there might be some kind of purpose behind the evolution of consciousness and the development of advanced technology. The next step of our journey will be to explore the last few thousand years of written history to see how the traditional religions and philosophies have answered the question of human purpose.

This will not be an easy thing to do. The problem with trying to explore the history of popular beliefs is that it can be difficult to navigate the most probable sequence of events between the myths of the priesthoods and the theories of the scholars. Sometimes the best that we can do is to make cautious speculations based upon a careful examination of what little evidence remains. Often it is not a matter of what can be proven, but rather what will be believed.

To keep the story interesting and easy to read, only one interpretation of events will be given. And an unusual amount of liberty has been taken in translating and arranging the words of each historical thinker to make their intended meanings as clear as possible.

The Sumerians

Some of the earliest known farming settlements appeared in the Jordan River valley, east of the Mediterranean, around 9000 BC. They grew wheat and barley and raised sheep and goats. They produced an abundance of food, and as their population grew, they spread out looking for new lands to cultivate. Over the next few thousand years, knowledge of farming spread south into the Nile River valley of Egypt and east into the river valleys of Sumer. This region became known as the Fertile Crescent.

The river valleys of Sumer, in modern-day Iraq, were ideal for growing crops. The land was fertilized by annual floods which deposited fresh layers of nutrient-rich soil. Once farmers learned to control the flooding by building embankments and digging canals, the land was able to produce enough food to support large populations. By 3500 BC, villages had grown into cities and the art of writing began as trade was recorded on clay tablets.

Each Sumerian city was ruled by its own nobility of royalty and priests. Occasionally one city became powerful enough to conquer its neighbors and form an empire, but these empires never lasted long. Each city had a patron god or goddess, and wars between the cities were often seen as battles between the gods. Defeated populations were often captured and taken away as slaves.

Ancient economies depended on slave labor. Slaves worked as household servants, they worked in the fields and in the mines. They were used as inexpensive labor to build roads, palaces, and temples. Slaves had a similar value to farm animals and were treated in much the same way.

The Sumerians worshiped a number of gods including the sky god, the storm god, and the goddess of love and war. They believed they had been created by the gods to be their servants. They were powerless against the gods, having no choice but to worship and obey. Despite how much they prayed and sacrificed, they knew the selfish and uncaring gods would continue to punish them with famines, plagues, and wars.

They did not believe in reward or punishment after death. Instead they imagined a shadowy netherworld where the spirits of the dead sat in the dark and ate dust. These spirits might occasionally affect the living before eventually fading into oblivion.

The ancient Sumerians collected words of wisdom, recording them on clay tablets that survive to this day. They wrote...

The path of life is a path of thorns. Walk it with careful steps.

People don't think about what they've found so much as what they've lost.

A hand will reach out to an outstretched hand. Hand in hand, a man's house is built.

If you take the field of an enemy, the enemy will return and take your field.

Enemies cannot be driven from the gates of a city whose weapons are not sharp.

If a city is destroyed, its stones remain. If a man is destroyed, nothing remains.

Today we have water, tomorrow we may have dust. This is the destiny of mankind.

The Egyptians

As Sumerian civilization suffered wars and invasions, Egyptian civilization grew in wealth and power. The Nile River valley was more fertile than Sumer, and its settlements were protected from attack by the surrounding desert. The Egyptians adopted many aspects of Sumerian culture, but unlike the warring Sumerian cities, the whole of Egypt was eventually united under a single king.

Egyptian religion was more optimistic and focused on cosmic order. The sun god, Ra, sailed across the sky, fighting chaos to bring light. The god Osiris represented rebirth, agriculture, and eternal life. Egyptian kings were also seen as living gods.

The Egyptians were obsessed with death, believing life was too good to end. They believed when a person died, the King of the Dead would weigh their heart against the Feather of Truth. Those who lived a moral life would be guided to paradise, while the souls of the guilty would be torn apart by animal gods and cease to exist.

The Egyptians had their own wisdom literature. The following advice from a dying old man to his son was given around 2400 BC by Ptahhotep, the chief minister of the kingdom...

The man who truly listens becomes the man who is heard.

Do what is right and it will outlast you. Wrongdoing has never brought its cargo safely into harbor.

Greed is a disease no remedy can cure. It turns father against son and divides brothers and friends.

Do not repeat slander and do not listen to it. Repeat what you have seen, not what you have heard.

Do not be proud of what you know. Take counsel with the unlearned as readily as the learned, for no one reaches the limit of skill, and no craftsman ever fully masters his craft.

When a man comes to you with a complaint, let him empty his heart of all he came to say. A man in trouble longs to pour out his heart even more than to win his case.

Speak only when you have mastered the matter. To give counsel is a craft, and good speech is harder than any labor.

The Phoenicians

In the writing systems of early civilizations, each word or phrase was represented by a picture. As the centuries passed, the number of recognizable pictures grew to cover hundreds of different words and phrases. Much could be said using only a few pictures, but because of their complexity, it took years of training to be able to read and write, and there were limits to the quality and ease with which personal experiences could be recorded.

A group of people known as the Phoenicians emerged around 1200 BC as a network of trading cities and ports along the east coast of the Mediterranean. They were skilled boat builders and navigators, and their ships traveled throughout the region, trading with distant lands including Egypt and Greece.

The Phoenicians borrowed writing from the Egyptians, and by around 1000 BC they had refined it from hundreds of symbols down to fewer than thirty. Each symbol now represented a different sound. The invention of the Phoenician alphabet allowed written words to flow as freely as spoken words, and writing became easier to learn. The Phoenicians also acquired papyrus scrolls from the Egyptians, which were easier to write on and much easier to carry than clay tablets.

The area of land around modern-day Israel was then known as the land of Canaan. The Canaanites shared a common culture with the Phoenicians and many of them shared a common heritage. Canaanite farmers worshiped many gods including Baal, the god of storms, and they often held ritual feasts with heavy drinking to call upon Baal to bring them rain.

The Philistines

Back when early farming settlements were appearing in the Fertile Crescent, a different group of people further north were cultivating the mountain valleys and fertile plains of Anatolia in modern-day Turkey. After settling along the Mediterranean coast, some groups sailed west to settle on the islands of the Aegean Sea and on mainland Greece.

Over the centuries, with improvements in weaponry, ship-building, and as horses became available for travel and battle, a period of intense rivalry grew between the kingdoms and empires of the Mediterranean. Heavily fortified cities defended their territory with battle fleets and chariot armies.

Then around 1200 BC, changing weather patterns around Greece produced years of severe drought and cold summers. Crop failures led to starvation followed by widespread rebellion and civil war. Greek civilization collapsed. Its cities were abandoned and burned. Desperate people turned to banditry and piracy, fleeing the region in waves of heavily armed migration.

Many fled south, carrying their families and possessions with them. Some sailed down the coast, attacking Phoenician ports and cities along the way. Others marched through Canaan, ransacking towns and forcing villagers to flee into the desert. Many of the invaders settled in the vacant ruins.

The Egyptians gained an advantage over the main invasion fleet, destroying it as it sailed up the Nile. But the land invasion was only stopped after a long and bloody battle. The invaders retreated to Canaan, where they settled on fertile land and became known as the Philistines.

Mediterranean civilization was in ruins and regional trade came to an end. Egypt was saved from destruction, but the empire was critically weakened and soon collapsed into regional kingdoms.

It is believed that a group of Egyptian slaves took advantage of this to escape through the desert, eventually settling in the sparsely populated hill country of Canaan. They became known as the Israelites.

The old Canaanite cities were weak after centuries of being dominated by regional empires. The Israelites expanded their territory by capturing one town after the next.

They existed as a loose federation of tribes until around 1050 BC when the Philistines invaded their territory. They responded to this threat by uniting under a common king and forming a national army. They then captured the city of Jerusalem and made it their capital.

Stories about gods

It was widely believed by people in ancient times that their lives were at the mercy of a multitude of gods, each one looking after a particular aspect of life on earth or beyond. It was natural then for stories to be told about the relationships between these gods and how they intervened in people's lives.

As the art of writing improved, stories about the gods became wider in scope and richer in detail. But their popularity depended more on their ability to entertain than to inspire. Characterizations of selfish, jealous, and dishonest gods did little to encourage communal values.

Stories about gods making love and war may have sounded interesting to some, but there would have been others who did not believe the popular myths of their time. Those people would have focused on practical issues instead. Questioning the teachings of priests has always been dangerous.

And there have always been some who believed that the whole of nature was governed by a single higher power. Ancient religions were generally able to accommodate this by having one god who reigned above all others - a god who was often described as being the creator of the world, or the king of the gods.

But most people had neither the curiosity nor the time to contemplate the gods. They simply followed whatever they were told to believe by their priests, who made a comfortable living out of being knowledgeable about matters of religion.

What set the Israelites apart from other nations was that their priests began preaching that there could be only one creator of the world and therefore only one God worthy of worship. All other gods were denounced as mere idols.

Having no other gods to interact with, the only stories that could be told about this god were about his relationship with his people. About how he was pleased when they honored him and angry when they disobeyed his commands.

Biblical scriptures

The Israelites adopted a variation of the Canaanite alphabet, and by around 700 BC, innovative priests had woven their historical mythology together to form a detailed history of their nation, intended to convince them they were God's chosen people.

As new events unfolded, and as new interpretations of their history grew more popular, new scrolls gained acceptance into their collection of religious literature. Scrolls often had a limited lifetime, and so any that fell out of favor were eventually lost and forgotten.

As the sacred scrolls were copied or translated, successive generations reworked and refined the original myths and histories, incorporating into them new influences, and embellishing them with a greater degree of religious zeal and national pride.

What evolved over the centuries became something like a national constitution. More than any other literature at the time, it gave the Israelites a common culture, a comprehensive set of laws, a strong national identity, and a fierce emotional connection to the land.

Their scriptures were so successful at preserving their cultural identity that even after thousands of years, their descendants continue to carry on their customs and beliefs. As a work of literature, it has had such a profound influence on other cultures that it now forms the basis for some of the world's most popular religions.

Biblical mythology

The mythology of Israel begins with God creating the heavens and the earth. God then creates mankind and gives him possession over the earth. This ancient myth was devised so thoughtfully and told with such authority that many people today still believe it to be true.

According to the mythology, God chose a Sumerian man named Abraham, whose faith was so strong that his descendants were promised possession of the land of Israel. Generations of his family then continued to adventure around the Middle East, getting themselves into and out of trouble, before finally becoming slaves to the Egyptians.

The mythology continues many centuries later with a hero named Moses leading more than a million of Abraham's descendants out of slavery in Egypt. After surviving in the desert for some time, they were handed a system of laws, traditions, and values. They then returned to the promised land and violently replaced its inhabitants.

Early history

United by their commitment to God, they battled for centuries against enemy states and invading hordes. The underlying theme is that when the people remained united by their faith in God, then they prospered and defeated their enemies. But when they abandoned their faith, or when they were led by kings who only cared about their own power and wealth, then the people became divided by civil war and were conquered by their enemies. The early scriptures say...

Follow after none of the other gods of the people who dwell around you, lest the Lord's anger blaze out fiercely against you and wipe you off the face of the earth, for the Lord your God is a jealous God. Seek to do all that is good and right in the Lord's sight, so that you may prosper and enter into possession of the good land which the Lord has promised to your fathers, to clear it of all who oppose you, as the Lord has commanded.

Do not make idols for yourselves, nor set up carved images, nor erect stone sculptures for the people to worship, for I am the Lord your God. If you practice my commandments then I shall grant you seasonal rain, the land shall produce crops, and the trees shall bear fruit. You shall eat well and live in safety. I will chase away your enemies who will fall before you by the sword.

But if you do not listen to me, then I shall turn against you and you will be defeated by your enemies. Your land will not produce crops nor will your trees bear fruit. I will destroy your livestock and unleash wild beasts into your fields. I will tear down your altars and pile your corpses upon your broken idols. I will turn your cities into ruins, and so thoroughly lay waste to your land that your enemies who settle on it shall be astonished.

Around 930 BC, political differences forced the population to divide into the northern state of Israel and the southern state of Judah. The people living in the southern state became known as the Jews.

The two states continued to endure civil wars and foreign invasions until around 720 BC, when the northern state was conquered by the Assyrian Empire. The defeated Israelites were taken away as slaves and were never seen again. They became known as the lost tribes of Israel.

The Jews had been told by their ancient prophets that their forefathers had made a pact with God. As long as they continued to obey his commands, God would protect them. And so each time disaster fell upon them, they were told by new prophets that they were being punished for their disobedience to God.

Babylonian exile

Around 586 BC, the Babylonian Empire conquered the southern state of Judah, and many of its people were taken away as slaves. This experience marks a turning point in the development of the Jewish religion. New scrolls were written and many of the older scrolls were changed. The Jewish scriptures were beginning to take their final form. The following lines were added to the book of Isaiah...

Behold, the nations are like drops in a bucket. They are like specks of dirt on a scale. God weighs the lands like they are particles of dust. To Him, they are all worth less than nothing. He brings princes to nothing and their judgements are soon forgotten. No sooner are they planted and take root in the ground than he blows on them and they wither away and scatter like stubble in the wind.

Israel, why do you complain... "the Lord does not notice me. I am being ignored by my God"?

Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord God is the eternal creator of the universe. His nature is beyond understanding. But he never grows tired or weary, and so he strengthens the weary and empowers the weak. For even the young can grow tired, and young men can weaken and collapse, but those who have faith in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar like eagles. They will keep running and never grow tired. They will keep going and never give up.

The Persians

As early farming settlements were emerging around the Mediterranean, a completely separate group of people were herding cattle on the vast open grasslands of the area of land now known as Ukraine. While other groups of people were hunting horses for meat, by around 3000 BC, they had learned to breed horses for riding.

They were expert metalworkers, using ox-drawn wagons to travel long distances in search of fresh pastures and metal ores. For thousands of years, their tribes spread out in every direction, in waves of invasion and migration that spanned from Europe to India.

They worshiped many gods, including the sky father, the storm god, and the sun goddess. Fire was especially important to them, and their priests performed fire rituals in fire temples that included drinking hallucinogenic brews to induce divine visions.

By around 2000 BC, they had discovered how to bend wood using steam to create lightweight spoked wheels that could be used to build fast horse-drawn battle chariots. Chariot armies were soon conquering much of central and southern Asia.

By around 1000 BC, some tribes had migrated south into the mountain valleys of Iran, where they settled among the farmers and became known as the Persians.

Around this time, one of their priests, known as Zoroaster, condemned the worship of the old gods, instead preaching a single god who was all-good, all-wise, and completely loving. As his following grew, his ideas gained the favor of kings, and his teachings became the dominant religion of Persia.

Zoroaster's god required only that people believed in him and expressed their faith through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. This would lead to a virtuous life, in which they would honor truth and reject lies, thereby helping to fight the forces of chaos and deception, thus preserving the cosmic order.

Without any alphabet to record Zoroaster's teachings, they were memorized as poems by priests, who passed them down by word of mouth for a thousand years, to form the words of his holy scripture, the Avesta.

In the Avesta, divine reward and punishment begin as states of mind. The virtuous enjoy truth and happiness, while the wicked suffer bad experiences like dark moods, foul food, and depressing isolation. After death, each soul is guided across a bridge spanning an abyss. The righteous cross safely into the house of song, while the wicked fall into the house of lies.

It says that at the end of time, when wisdom defeats chaos, there will be a trial by "holy fire and molten metal" that will finally settle the score between the righteous and the false.

Over the generations, the Avesta gained new passages describing heaven as steps toward pure light and wisdom, and hell as a cold dark abyss full of terrifying monsters and pain.

Zoroaster's ideas influenced the development of other religions in the region, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Cyrus the Great

In 539 BC, a Persian king named Cyrus conquered the Babylonians and created an empire that would eventually span from Turkey to India.

He became known as Cyrus the Great, not only for his success in war, but also for his unprecedented tolerance and generous attitude towards those he defeated. His legend was recorded by priests on a clay cylinder...

I am Cyrus, king of the world. I entered Babylon in triumph to take residence in the royal palace amidst great joy and celebration. The great lord moved the noble hearts of Babylon's people to love me. As my army marched peacefully into Babylon i allowed no violence.

I gladly attended to the needs of Babylon and of all its cities. I freed the people of Babylon and other lands from their unjust enslavement. I restored the palaces and temples that were destroyed in the past. The great god rejoiced in my pious deeds and blessed me. All the kings from all the palaces of the earth brought me gifts, and in Babylon they kissed my feet.

May all the gods that I returned to their temples pray daily for my long life. For all the gods and all the people in all the lands can now dwell in peace.

Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to their homeland, although many chose to stay in Babylon. Judah was now a province of the Persian Empire.

The afterlife

Early Jewish scriptures do not mention punishment or reward after death. They speak of a dark and dreary underworld where the dead were not completely erased, but existed as weak, silent, disembodied shadows.

The book of Ecclesiastes, which is more philosophical than mystical, simply says "the dust returns to the earth, as it was, and the spirit returns to God, who gave it".

Later scriptures, influenced by the Persians, introduce ideas of reward and punishment. The book of Daniel says "the many who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, others to everlasting disgrace".

The Apocrypha

Around 330 BC, the Greeks under Alexander the Great conquered the Persians and established the Greek Empire. Judah became known as Judea, and for the next few hundred years it was governed by the descendants of Alexander's generals.

After the Greek invasion of Egypt, some Jews migrated to the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Influenced by Greek culture, the majority of Alexandrian Jews learned to speak Greek instead of Hebrew. In order to preserve their religion, the Jewish scriptures were translated into Greek.

Some scriptures had only been written in recent centuries, and although Alexandrian Jews considered them to be sacred, they were not accepted by those living in Judea. These controversial books have since become known as the Old Testament Apocrypha.

As Christianity began, early churches used the Alexandrian Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures as their Old Testament. The additional books of the Apocrypha were accepted by the early church as an integral part of the Bible.

After the Protestant churches split from Catholic control, under pressure from Protestant reformers, book publishers in some countries removed the Apocrypha from their bibles. However, Catholic and Greek Orthodox bishops committed to keeping the Apocrypha in theirs.

One of these books is called Ecclesiasticus. It was written around 180 BC and translated into Greek around 130 BC. This book says...

When an intelligent person hears a wise saying, he praises it and adds to it; but when a fool hears it, he laughs at it and throws it away. In the treasuries of God's wisdom there are many wise sayings, but God's wisdom is an abomination to the sinner. The knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom, nor is there good sense in the advice of sinners. For great is the wisdom of the Lord. He is mighty in power and sees everything. And he does not command anyone to be wicked.

Perform all your tasks with humility. The greater you are, the more you must humble yourself, so that you will find favor in the sight of the Lord. Do not praise yourself, or you may fail and bring dishonor upon yourself. The Lord will reveal your secrets and dishonor you before the whole community, because you did not come in fear of the Lord, and your heart was full of deceit.

Do not say, "I have sinned, and yet nothing has happened to me", for the Lord is slow to anger. Do not be so confident of forgiveness that you add to your sins. Do not say, "His mercy is great, he will forgive the multitude of my sins", for both mercy and wrath are in him, and his anger will fall upon sinners.

Do not become a beggar by feasting with borrowed money when you have nothing in your purse. A rich person will exploit you if you can be of use to him, but if you are in need he will abandon you. Riches are only good if they are free from sin. Poverty is only evil in the opinion of the ungodly.

Do not cheat the poor out of their living. Do not add to the troubles of the desperate, or delay giving to the needy. Do not let your hand be stretched out to receive, and closed when it is time to give. Do not avert your eyes from the needy, or give them a reason to curse you. For if in bitterness, some of them should curse you, then the Lord may hear their prayers. The compassion of human beings is for their neighbors, but the compassion of the Lord is for every living thing.

Let those who are friendly with you be many, but let your advisers be one in a thousand. When you gain friends, gain them through testing, and do not trust them hastily. For there are friends who are such when it suits them, but they will not stand by you in times of trouble. And there are friends who will change into enemies and talk about you to your disgrace.

Keep away from your enemies and be on guard with your friends. Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter, whoever finds one has found a treasure. Do not abandon old friends, for new ones cannot equal them. A new friend is like new wine; when it has aged, you can drink it with pleasure.

Love your friend and keep faith with him; but if you betray his secrets, then do not follow after him. For a wound may be bandaged, and there is reconciliation after abuse, but whoever has betrayed secrets is without hope.

Do not reveal your thoughts to anyone. The mind of a fool is in their mouth, but the mouth of the wise is in their mind. The wise make themselves loved with only a few words, while all the loving words of a fool are wasted.

Do not find fault before you investigate, examine first and then criticize. Never speak against the truth, but be ashamed of your ignorance. Do not be ashamed to confess your sins. Fight to the death for the truth and the Lord God will fight with you.

Listen to me, and in the end you will appreciate my words. Like a drop of water from the sea, or a grain of sand on the beach, so are our years among the days of eternity. Do not deprive yourself of a day's enjoyment, and do not let your share of desired good pass you by. Reflect on the statutes of the Lord, and meditate at all times on his commandments. It is he who will give you insight into your mind, and your desire for wisdom will be granted.

Destruction of Jerusalem

The Jews were allowed to maintain their own religion until around 167 BC when a Greek king entered the temple in Jerusalem and offered sacrifices to the Greek god Zeus. He then outlawed Jewish customs and crucified anyone who resisted.

Greek power in the region soon collapsed under the weight of civil wars and foreign invasions. The Jews overthrew the Greeks in Judea and remained independent for the next hundred years.

Men who aspired to become biblical prophets continued to write new religious scriptures. Some writings predicted the end of the world or the coming of a messiah. Other writings preached a more loving and forgiving form of morality.

The Roman army entered Jerusalem around 63 BC. From this time on, the Romans steadily increased their control over Judea.

Under the reign of emperors like Caligula and Nero, Rome installed governors who were so corrupt and oppressive that in the year 66 AD, the Jews rose up in open revolt against them. Rome reacted by sending an army into Judea. The war lasted several years, up to a million Jews were slaughtered, and many of the survivors were sold into slavery.

After a second rebellion in the year 132, the Jews were banished from ever returning to Jerusalem. Judea was renamed 'Palestine' by the Romans after Israel's hated ancient enemy, the Philistines. The land remained a part of the Roman Empire until the rise of Islam around 500 years later.

For almost the next two thousand years, Jewish culture was kept alive by the millions of Jews living in foreign lands, scattered across Europe, Asia, and North Africa.

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