Civilization #23: Cyrus the Great as Messiah

The First Temple Period

Let us do an overview of the history of the ancient Israelites. From about the year 1010 BCE until 586, this is what is referred to as the First Temple period.

Remember, the nation of Israel is created by King David, and it's a coalition of different tribes, different cultures, different religions. What makes this nation possible are two things. The first thing is the charisma of David. The second is the tremendous literary power and genius of the Yahwist, the individual who wrote the first stories of the Bible, Adam and Eve, the patriarchs, Moses.

What centers or unifies this nation is the First Temple in Jerusalem. Remember, to create centralized authority, David and his son Solomon build a temple where everyone has to come in order to make sacrifices to Yahweh. The First Temple is the house of Yahweh.

• At this point there are certain characteristics about this new religion or this new nation. Again, I will have to oversimplify for the sake of clarity. The first thing I would say about this new religion is it's polytheistic. It aspires to monotheism, but it's only aspirational because the reality is it's a multicultural coalition. People are going to believe what their fathers and their grandfathers believed.
  
  People at this point have multiple faiths. The religion that we refer to as Judaism is only shared by the elite people, King David, his family and the priests, and maybe other people in the elite.
• The second thing is it is a monarchy.
• The third thing is this religion is an open, tolerant and optimistic religion. Remember, the Bible is really the story of two people, Yahweh and David, forming an everlasting friendship that becomes the basis for the nation of Israel. Also remember that in the Yahwist's understanding of Yahweh, Yahweh is a poet God. He's fallible. He's sensitive, but he means good. He's willing to grow and help the Israelites grow as well.
  
  In this religion, to show faith to Yahweh, to show your devotion to Yahweh, you must argue with him. You must learn and grow with him as well. This is a very open, confident, generous and optimistic religion.

The Second Temple Period

By the time we reach the Second Temple period, from 539 BC to 70 CE, this is called the Second Temple period. Why? Because in 586 their temple is destroyed by the Babylonians.

By the time we reach this period, the Israelites are no longer referred to as Israelites. They're referred to as Jews. The Jewish people and the Israelites share the Bible, but in terms of culture and values they're very different.

• At this point, the Jewish people have become what we call henotheistic. Henotheism is you believe there are gods, but your god is the best. Your god, Yahweh, is superior to all gods, and all the gods are false idols. They are deceivers.
• The second thing about the Second Temple period is it's very anti-monarchy. It focuses on the priesthood and the idea of ritual, religious ritual. By the Second Temple period, the focus of power has shifted from the monarchy to the priesthood.
• The last thing for our purposes to understand about the culture is it's become extremely focused on purity. You can also say it's focused on fanaticism. It's a very closed and conservative culture now. They believe their culture is the best, and they believe it's important not to intermix with other cultures. For example, Jewish women are explicitly forbidden to marry foreign men.

Rabbinical Judaism

From about 100 CE onwards, there's another transition to the religion. The reason why is remember, in the Second Temple period religious worship is centered around the Second Temple. But in 70 CE the Romans destroyed the temple and banished the Jews from Jerusalem. This makes massive changes to the religion after about 100 CE that carry it to the present day.

• The first thing is it becomes fully monotheistic. They believe there's only one God, and that's it.
• Second is because there's no more temple, and you can no longer make any sacrifices to Yahweh, the center of authority in this religion called Judaism is the rabbis. Rabbis means teachers. This period is called Rabbinical Judaism. In other words, the Bible becomes the center of religious worship in Judaism. Before it was the temple. Now it's the Bible. It's the rabbis who interpret for you what the Bible means.
• The last thing about this is the idea of diaspora. Diaspora just means they are now spread out all around the world. They are no longer in Jerusalem. They're spread out all around the world, and as such you will have multiple strands of Judaism because their religion now has to interface with local culture and local customs.

This is a very broad overview of a thousand years of the history of the development of Judaism. As you can see, there are these massive cultural changes about every 500 years. The reason why is the historical circumstances of the Israelites and the Jewish people change over time.

The Babylonian Captivity

Remember, the nation of Israel was founded as a historical accident. It was because of the Bronze Age Collapse. Historically the Levant was controlled by a superpower either in Anatolia or in Egypt or in Mesopotamia. But because of the Bronze Age Collapse, the Hittites and the Egyptians had to retreat from the Levant, which gave space for a localized empire to emerge. That's Israel.

But over time, because the Levant was so strategically important, empires started to take over the Levant as a staging post for an invasion of Egypt. What would happen over time is the Assyrians and the Babylonians would come and conquer Israel.

Also, because the nation of Israel was multicultural and multilingual, it was only held together by the personal charisma of David. When he died, it was very hard to hold the nation together. When his son Solomon died in 931 BCE, the nation of Israel was divided into two kingdoms, the Northern Kingdom, Israel, and then Judah.

The problem with this is the nation of Israel is centered around the religion, and the religion is centered around religious rituals in the temple. The temple was found in Jerusalem in Judah, so the people in the Northern Kingdom had to make changes to religion, basically change the sites of religious worship.

In 586 the Babylonians came and destroyed Judah, and they burned the First Temple. The policy of the Babylonians was to capture the elite and hold them hostage in Babylonia and then send in a foreign delegation to control the territory. This is what is called the Babylonian captivity.

While the Israelites are there, they're trying to hold on to the memory of who they are. There are two memories that sustain them in this period. The first is the memory of the greatness of King David, how they were once a united monarchy under the leadership of David. They're very proud of that. That's what sustains them.

The other thing that sustains them is the Bible, the stories of the Yahwist, Adam and Eve, the patriarchs. Because they are so focused on these memories, and because these memories are written down, the Israelites specialize in intellectual activities. In Babylon and then elsewhere they become very successful. They become administrators. They become teachers. They become intellectuals. They over this time will also produce their own literature as a diaspora people to sustain them and to unify them.

Also at this time, what's important to understand is the identity as an Israelite people becomes much more concrete and much more locked in. Before, when they were back in Judea, in the Levant, their identity was very fluid. It was very open. It was very dynamic. But now that they are part of the diaspora, they have left Jerusalem, their identity becomes much more concrete.

The analogy would be here in China we use simplified Chinese. But guess what? When you go to overseas Chinese communities, the diaspora in Southeast Asia, they all use traditional Chinese characters. They hold on to Chinese culture much more fanatically than in China. A very concrete identity emerges during the Babylonian captivity.

Also what's important is if they are to survive as a people, they need to explain why this is happening to them. During the Davidic Kingdom they were at the height of their power. The Bible was written at that time, and they believed that from now on this Kingdom of David would last forever. That's what God promised.

Why is it that the Northern Kingdom and Judah split? Why were they conquered by the Assyrians and then the Babylonians? Why have they lost their land that God promised to them? The answer is because they broke their covenant with Yahweh. It's called a covenant, a contract. If you, the Israelite people, are loyal to me, meaning you only worship me, then I, Yahweh, will protect you as my chosen people.

1. If Yahweh has abandoned us, it's because of three reasons. The first reason is because we started to worship foreign gods.
2. The second reason is because we started to have kings, and our religion does not allow kings because the authority of kings contradicts the authority of Yahweh.
3. The third reason is because we broke the Ten Commandments because we continue to sin as a people.

The people who argue this are called the prophets. After the First Temple period, in the Second Temple period, the Jewish people adopt a prophetic tradition. They believe that Jewish people must remain pure in their love of God if they are to survive as a people.

Cyrus and Zoroastrianism

They are in Babylonian captivity for almost 70 years, and then the Persians conquer the Babylonians. The Persian Empire is really the first multinational empire in human history. Their ruler, Cyrus the Great, is known for being an extremely open, tolerant and generous ruler.

He releases the Jews from Babylon and has them return to Jerusalem, where they will rebuild their temple, called the Second Temple. This starts the beginning of the Second Temple period. The Jews are so grateful that Cyrus the Great is called the Messiah in their Bible. Messiah means the anointed one, the one chosen by God to save the Jewish people. Cyrus the Great is the only foreigner who is called Messiah in the Bible.

Cyrus the Great sponsors both the building of the Second Temple as well as encourages the Jews to start the project that we now refer to as the Bible. This was led by a priest named Ezra, who was in Babylon, but he returned to Jerusalem to rejuvenate their religion and to start the Bible. That's the very brief overview of the history of the first thousand years of Judaism.

What I will do now is I'm going to focus specifically on this period, when Cyrus conquered Babylon and released the Jews to return to Jerusalem, because this marks a fundamental shift in the religion. At this point what will happen is the merger of the Persian religion with the Israelite religion, which creates a new religion. The religion of the Persians is called Zoroastrianism. The merger of these religions will become the basis of a new religion that will come to dominate the world called Christianity.

Mesopotamia and the Cycle of Violence

To understand this history, I will have to first talk about the history of Mesopotamia. As we discussed, the history of Mesopotamia is one of violent struggle because there are many violent people in this area. This area is the center of the world, basically. It's where all the trade goes through. It's very wealthy. It's very multiethnic and multinational, so conflict and violence arise all the time.

You have a place called Arabia. Arabia has nomadic people. You have the Zagros Mountains. Anatolia is also very wealthy. There are the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, and the city-states are built along the two rivers.

The nomadic people in the desert of Arabia and the mountains of Zagros are opportunistic. They will trade with you, but they'll also raid you and steal from you. They'll constantly be raiding and trading with these city-states. What keeps them in check is these city-states have walls.

As well, these city-states will fight each other for dominance because in Mesopotamia the religion is people must fight for the honor and glory of their patron god. What keeps the city-states from destroying each other is they believe that in each city-state in a temple lives a great god. You can destroy the enemy's army in the battlefield, but you can't go and ransack the city and the temple because that will incur the wrath of the god. There are these religious taboos that keep the system in check.

For centuries they've been fighting each other and struggling against each other. In this process of struggle they will create many tremendous innovations that will forever change human history. For example, they create writing. They create many forms of knowledge like mathematics and astronomy. This is what is considered the cradle of civilization.

Lugal-zagesi and Sargon of Akkad

This system broke down with a king named Lugal, of a city-state called Umma. Umma is always in conflict with a city-state called Lagash. Lugal-zagesi is so ambitious that he's willing to defy the gods. He decides:

This is stupid. I keep on attacking my enemy, but I have to retreat after I win because I'm afraid of offending their god. I'm going to test their god. I'm going to go into Lagash, destroy the temple, steal all their wealth so I can fund other military adventures, and see if their god will seek revenge.

He's breaking a taboo. It's basically the equivalent of using a nuclear weapon. He goes to Lagash and destroys Lagash, burns down the temple, steals all their wealth, and nothing happens. In fact he becomes even more successful. He goes around and starts slowly and slowly conquering the city-states of Mesopotamia, of Sumer, and he's about to unite the entire region. Now the city-states are unified in their hatred of this person. He has defiled their temples. He has mocked their gods.

This creates an opportunity for another warlord named Sargon of Akkad. Sargon of Akkad is determined to destroy Lugal-zagesi and restore the honor and glory of the gods of Mesopotamia. Why is he doing this? Because he himself has a legitimacy problem.

He was a mercenary, and he was part of a city-state of Kish. He was supposed to be loyal to the king of Kish, but he was an extremely ambitious and charismatic soldier, so he did what David did, and he usurped the throne. Now this creates a legitimacy problem because remember, in this religion kings are descended from the gods. Now you, by usurping the throne, have offended the gods.

Sargon, his name means legitimate king, by the way. Legitimate king, which tells us no one thought he was legitimate. He decides that he will create legitimacy by destroying Lugal-zagesi, and he does that. He destroys Lugal-zagesi. He captures him, parades him around, and then kills him to show that he is favored by the gods. By doing this, Sargon of Akkad unifies all of Mesopotamia, and he creates the first world empire called the Akkadian Empire.

But also by doing this, by creating the first empire, Sargon of Akkad will now unleash a cycle of violence. Over time everyone will be forced to become more violent in order to maintain balance. It becomes an arms race of fear, terror and violence, and empires rise and fall all the time.

Again, the problem with this area is you have extremely aggressive nations, and there are no natural boundaries to protect you. Even though it's very easy for you to build an empire, it's also very easy for you to lose the empire.

Cyrus the Great

By 600 BCE there are three major powers in this region. In Anatolia are the Lydians. In Mesopotamia are the Babylonians, and there are the Medians. These are three superpowers that check and balance each other out. They're powerful, but they're not powerful enough to destroy each other.

Around this time will emerge a new power center called the Persians. They are led by a great king named Cyrus the Great. He is considered to be the greatest ruler in human history. Alexander the Great saw him as a role model. When Alexander the Great invaded Persia, and he saw that the tomb of Cyrus the Great had been desecrated or abandoned, he was furious. He stopped his campaign to make sure the tomb was renovated and returned to its former glory.

If you go to Iran, you can still visit the tomb of Cyrus the Great because throughout history everyone had a high opinion of him. Even the Greeks thought he was fabulous. His own people, of course, loved him. For the longest time before Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, he was considered the greatest ruler in human history.

But the problem is because we don't have access to the writing, we know very little about him. Here's what we do know about him. He was king of a local people called the Persians, who of course are descended from the Elamites. They use horse archers in their warfare. Over time he's able to conquer the Medes. King Croesus of the Lydians saw this as an opportunity to conquer the Medes as well, so he attacks. But Cyrus the Great defeats him. Now Cyrus the Great is in charge of two empires.

What he does next is revolutionary in Mesopotamia. Instead of parading the captive kings around and executing them like Sargon of Akkad, Cyrus the Great decides to make them advisors to his court. He shows mercy. He shows clemency. He shows forgiveness. This shocks and awes the people of Mesopotamia. It shows Cyrus the Great is confident, is powerful and is favored by the gods because he is willing to show mercy to his enemies.

But knowing that, what happens next is really interesting. The Babylonian Empire is the last empire in Mesopotamia. If Cyrus the Great wants to unify Mesopotamia, he has to conquer the Babylonians. At this time the Babylonians have an internal conflict. The king and the nobility aren't getting along. The king wants to change the official god of Babylon from Marduk to Sin because the king wants to establish his own religious authority. This creates continuous conflict internally in Babylon. Normally they would go to civil war.

Normally when they hear that Cyrus the Great has conquered the Medians and the Lydians, then they would think they have to unify in order to defeat Cyrus the Great. But they hear that Cyrus the Great is merciful, and he's generous, and he's wise. What they do is the nobility strikes a deal with Cyrus the Great, and Cyrus the Great conquers Babylonia without doing anything.

In the official history of Cyrus the Great, he claims that the conquest of Babylonia was his greatest conquest because he did it through his generosity and his mercy, as opposed to killing lots and lots of people.

Divide and Rule

At this time, what Cyrus the Great and the Persians realize is if you really want to control people, you have to use a policy called divide and rule. The idea is this. Before, these empires, the Akkadians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, believed they had to use violence and fear to control people. But when you do that, all you do is you anger people. You unite them and force them to rebel against you.

But if you recognize that in each society there are these natural factions who are in conflict with each other, and you're able to balance these factions, then they rely on you for stability. This is what we call divide and rule.

1. The Persians created not an empire, but what we call a federation. In other words, a federation is the idea that people choose to be part of this federation because it benefits them. Why does it benefit them? Because first of all it brings peace. If there's a conflict, you don't fight each other. You go to the Persians for conflict resolution. It brings peace.
2. Second of all it brings prosperity through trade. The Persians create all these roads that enable trade within the empire, and so you're better off actually trading than you are fighting.
3. Third of all you're able to access new knowledge and culture through this process. The Persians were the first to create a national imperial postal system. It was very, very clever. All they did was they set up checkpoints throughout the empire, and these checkpoints were like hotels for postmen. They had food. They had new clothing. They had a place to sleep. These postmen would on their horses carry mail throughout the empire and stop at these checkpoints to rest.

The Persians showed that by participating in this empire, you could benefit a lot more than if you didn't participate, and therefore you should participate. It's an amazing achievement because remember, these nations were at war with each other throughout their history, and these are very aggressive people with lots of religious differences. Cyrus the Great and his descendants were able to create a system that allowed them to work together and prosper together.

That's why Cyrus the Great is remembered as the greatest ruler of all time in human history. No one comes second. He's also what the Jews refer to as Messiah, God's chosen, God's anointed, a man picked by God to come to save the human race.

Administration and Zoroastrianism

With this federation, with this empire, what's important is the idea of administration. You need administrators who will be conscientious and loyal and good people because remember, they are working with local governors. Each region is allowed local autonomy, and each governor is called a satrap. They are working with the satraps to govern the local area.

Remember, these satraps are allowed maximum autonomy and freedom to do what they believe. Everyone's allowed to practice their own religion. What the administrators are doing is ensuring divide and rule, that there's enough internal conflict within this region so that they're all dependent on the empire for guidance and authority.

These administrators can't get into bed with the satraps. They can't be corrupt together because the system will break down. There had to be a system to keep the administrators loyal to the empire. This system is a religion called Zoroastrianism. This is the religion of the Persian people, and this is the religion of the imperial administration. If you want to be a bureaucrat within this system, you have to believe in Zoroastrianism. You have to participate in the rituals and the rites of Zoroastrianism.

What made the system work is Zoroastrianism was at this time, 600 BCE, 500 BCE, the best religion in the world. This is a new concept for us, the best religion in the world. We've discussed the best military in the world. The best military in the world has three characteristics. Discipline: they fight a lot. They have a lot of experience. Cohesion: they like each other. They get along. Devotion: they have a common purpose. They have a great leader that they love.

It turns out religions can also be measured. There are certain religions that are better than other religions based on three criteria. These three criteria are grandness, completeness and unity. Grandness, completeness and unity.

This is not a hard concept. Think of religion as a story, and ask yourself what makes a good story. What makes a story so wonderful you want to hear it? It's these three things. Grandness: it's a big topic, kings and gods and wars and love. Completeness: there's a beginning, and there's an end. Unity: there's a plot. Things are united.

If I were to tell you a story about Gilgamesh, who's a king who fought these gods in a search for immortality, and in the end he discovers immortality is impossible, that's a complete, unified and grand story. You would want to hear that story. But if I were to tell you a story about a guy named Robert who wants to get A's in school, and so he studies all the time, you don't want to hear that story. It's not grand. It's very boring. It's not complete. There's no ending. It's not really unified because nothing really happens.

It's the same with religions. The problem with most religions is the structure. The typical religion is a three-tiered structure. At the center are gods, and gods are the ones who participate in human affairs. They're the ones manipulating us. But there's also a higher tier that governs the gods as well. These are cosmic forces like fate and fortune. Then the highest tier are these invisible laws of the universe that give it structure, what is referred to as the immutable and unwritten laws of the cosmos.

This is what the Greeks believed. This is what the Romans believed. As you can see, this system is not complete. It's not unified. It may be grand, but it's not complete or unified. It's a very loose system. Zoroastrianism is the first really grand, complete and unified religion.

The Beliefs of Zoroastrianism

In the religion they believe there is a creator god called Ahura Mazda. He is the god of creation. He's the god of light. He's the god of order, and he creates a perfect world. Perfection. Within this world we humans are created. But then there is an evil presence, an evil god, which comes and corrupts the perfection. This evil or darkness is a match for the creator god, so the world is a perfect balance of dark and light.

What tips the balance is the human race. We have free will. Therefore we can choose to fight for goodness or to fight for darkness, to fight for the truth or to fight for the lie. The dichotomy is truth and lie. You fight for the truth, you're making the world a better place. But you fight for the lie, you are corrupting the world. That's our choice.

Eventually a savior, a hero, will arise to prepare for the final battle between dark and light. In this final battle light will triumph. Once light triumphs, a river will emerge. A river will emerge, and everyone must cross this river. Everyone will arise from the dead, and everyone has to cross the river.

If you have been good, if you have fought for the truth, you will cross this river, and it will cleanse you. You will feel purified. You will become an eternal soul who will live in paradise forever. We'll return to perfection. But if in your life you have lived a lie, if you have committed evil, if you have done wrong against other people, then you will burn in the river, and you'll be condemned to hell for the rest of your life.

This is the idea of what we call eschatology. This is a hard word, eschatology, but I need you guys to remember it because it's a very important word. Eschatology means an understanding of how the world ends. Zoroastrianism is the first eschatological religion. It has an ending, a final battle, good versus evil, where everyone will be judged.

Now we understand why the Persian system works, because if you are to be an administrator, if you want to work for the empire, and you believe in Zoroastrianism, then you have a duty to fight for the truth. We're here at most for 60 to 80 years. What we do in these 60 to 80 years will decide how we live our lives for all of eternity. We either live in paradise, or we'll burn in hell, depending on how we perform these 60 to 80 years.

The Persians are under tremendous pressure to be good people. This is radical in the history of humanity. Remember, the Mesopotamians believe you are good if you achieve. How do you know you're good? Because you've achieved a lot. By achieving a lot, you show that God's favored you. Egyptians believed in status, and others believed in just good luck. But the Persians believed you have to be a good person. You have to show generosity, compassion and mercy to others, as exemplified by the life and works and words of Cyrus the Great.

That's Zoroastrianism. This is so powerful that it will be adopted into Judaism and eventually become the basis for Christianity. But this is where it started, Zoroastrianism.

In What Sense Is It the Best Religion?

If this is the best religion, what are the worst ones? You're right. There's really no bad religion. But the most common religion is folklore religions. You live in a village, and you believe in a local god.

When I say it's best, what I mean is intellectually it's the best. It's a religion that can attract the best and the brightest. It's a religion where if you are a very intelligent person, you are attracted to this religion. But if you are just a normal person, you're just going to believe what your father and your grandfather believed.

Think of this religion almost as the equivalent of the Confucian classics in China. How do you show cultivation in China? By reading the Confucian classics. If you want to become a scholar official, you have to memorize the Confucian classics. The same concept here, whereas in Zoroastrianism you have to believe in this religion if you want to become an administrator.

The problem with this religion that makes it hard for people to understand is it's very abstract. That's the main failing of this religion. It's very abstract. It's very intellectual. That's why a lot of people don't really see this as a religion and more as a philosophy.

What's also important for us to understand is the abstraction is what makes this religion appealing because the Persians are trying to attract the best and brightest for their administration. They don't want a popular religion. They're not trying to promote their religion. They're trying to use their religion to filter out the best and the brightest.

You're right. I can't say this is the best religion, but it's the religion that is the most intellectual and which will attract the best administrators in the Persian Empire. That's why it's effective.

What Does Completeness Mean?

The second criterion of effectiveness, what is that? The religion explains where people come from?

Completeness is eschatology, an ending, because most religions don't actually have an ending. They don't say, “This is when the world ends.” For example, King David with the Bible. It's telling us that King David is really the end of history, and from now on we will live forever in this Davidic Kingdom. This is the best we can do.

But it's not saying we will eventually reach a point when the world ends and when God returns to the Earth. No religion is doing that before Zoroastrianism. Think of completeness as a circle because if you look at Zoroastrianism, they say this is perfection. But now there's corruption. The story ends when corruption ends, and we return to perfection. The circle closes.

The same with the Bible, where we start in the Garden of Eden, and then we are corrupted, and we're forced out of the Garden of Eden. But nowhere does it say we will return to the Garden of Eden. But when we reach Christianity, that's what will happen. Jesus is a promise of the return to the Garden of Eden. Now the circle closes.

Strategy and the Levant

We have this religion, Zoroastrianism, and eventually the Jews will adopt it into their own religion. We have Cyrus the Great, who is this wise, generous and merciful leader, but he is this way because he is strategic. He's strategic. When he allows the Jews to return to Jerusalem, he's doing so for strategic purposes. He's not doing it because he feels sorry for the Jews. He's doing it because there's a certain strategic purpose in allowing them to return to Jerusalem.

The reason why is Jerusalem, the Levant, as we discussed, is very important geographically. It marks access into Egypt, which is what Cyrus the Great eventually wants to conquer because Egypt is the wealthiest nation in the world at this time. He needs to bring stability to the Levant. In the Persian worldview what creates stability is the balancing of forces within the local area, so he needs to create conflict in the Levant.

At this point in the Levant there are still Israelites living there, and they are now called the Samaritans. Then you have the Jews. Jews is a Persian word. It means people who live in the province of Judea, which is a Persian province. They're called Jews now and not Israelites. Israelites are now called Samaritans.

These come from the same people, but the difference is this. The Israelites who stay have adapted to new circumstances. What this means is they still practice their religion, but they've also intermarried with women of different faiths. Now it's common for a household to practice many different faiths. Whereas the Jews in Babylon are more fanatical. They believe it's important to practice only one faith.

When Cyrus the Great sends the Jews back to the Levant, this immediately creates conflict between the Samaritans, who believe they are the true descendants of the Israelites, and the Jews, who believe they are the true descendants of the Israelites. This creates religious conflict in the Levant, which means the Persians are able to become the arbiter. This creates divide and rule.

What's important for us to understand is the Jews who return to the Samaritans are only the most fanatical Jews. They're only a minority of people. The rest of the Jews are perfectly happy in Mesopotamia. They have very successful careers as administrators, as intellectuals, as teachers. They're happy with where they are. It's only the most religious extremists who return, and they're in the minority. The Samaritans are in the majority.

The Persians support the Jews who return in trying to create purity. The Jews argue for purity. The Samaritans argue for tolerance. This is a power struggle, a religious power struggle.

Ezra and the Bible

In 443 BCE, around then, a Jewish priest named Ezra returns to Jerusalem. He's determined to win this war. There are certain things he does. The first thing he does that is extremely controversial is he announces:

If you are a Jewish man, you must divorce a foreign woman. If you're married to a foreign woman, meaning a woman who doesn't share our faith, then you must divorce her in order to maintain the purity of our people.

He also announces that from now on it is mandatory for Jewish men to observe religious rituals, to go to the temple and make a sacrifice. He's trying to establish purity.

1. But his main contribution, which is the most important, is he wants to unify the Jewish people into one faction. Let me explain why this is important. As we discussed, there are multiple Bibles out there. There are at least four different schools or four different strands. There is the House of David school called the Yahwists, or J.
   
   Remember, this is the idea of the Yahwists, that Yahweh is a fallible, well-meaning poet. But the main point of the Yahwists is God has chosen David to be the legitimate ruler of Israel. God has also ordained David to build the temple where God will reside. This is to legitimize the authority of David and to make you understand the central authority of this religion is the temple in Jerusalem.
2. But as we discussed, eventually the Northern Kingdom will break away from Judah. Once you break away, you can't access Jerusalem anymore. Now you have to have other sites where you can practice your religious rituals. But to do that you have to change the Yahwist manuscript. They do that and create new mythologies. This is what is called the E manuscript, for Elohist. Elohim is just a different word for God. You have two competing Bibles.
3. At the same time you have the priestly manuals. Remember, Judaism at this point is a religion focused on ritual like most religions. You need manuals in order to tell you why you're doing these rituals and how you should do these rituals. They have to be very precise. They have to be effective.
4. At the same time, as the Northern Kingdom fell, as Judah was conquered by the Babylonians, as the Jews are forced into captivity, you have to explain why this is happening. While this is happening, most people choose to not follow religion anymore. They adopt a new religion, or they move somewhere else. But the religious fanatics have to explain why this is happening. The explanation is because the Israelites continue to disobey God. This faction, which is basically looking at Jewish history, explaining why this is happening, is called the Deuteronomist, the D school, the Deuteronomist.

These are four major factions, and these are four different Bibles. Now what Ezra wants to do is put all these four Bibles together to create the impression of a unified religion and a unified people. The way he does that, which is very interesting, is he basically just takes different parts from each of these books and puts them together. Now this is the Bible. That's why if you actually read the Bible, you'll find it completely unreadable.

But he also makes changes to the Bible, which is very important. Remember, before the most important person was David because he's really the founder of the nation of Israel. He's the founder of the religion. Now the most important person is Moses because Moses is a priest. He's the one who was given the laws by Yahweh. There are other changes as well, but this is the most important.

Zoroastrianism and Three Changes

1. There are other changes that will come over time as Zoroastrianism merges into Judaism. There are three major changes. The first is the idea of eschatology, meaning there will be an endpoint to history. The endpoint of history is when the entire world, when all the empires of the world, because they defy God, converge against the nation of Israel in one final battle.
   
   In this battle, of course, Israel will win, and this will create eternal peace in the world because God has chosen Israel as his people.
2. The second big idea is good versus evil. Before, the religion of Judaism was very personal. Good and evil were in you. But now there is actually good and evil. Israel stands for good. These other nations, these other empires like the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, represent evil.
3. The third change, which is the most important, is there will be a hero who will come to lead the nation of Israel against all its enemies, and he is called the Messiah, the Son of Man. The Son of Man. He will come from the House of David, as written in the Bible. Why is this important? Because the Christians believe the Messiah is Jesus. The Christians basically take all this, this merger of Zoroastrianism with Judaism, and their claim is the Messiah is Jesus. This creates Christianity.

The People Who Stayed and the People Who Returned

Let me explain what's happening. Remember, the Babylonians in 586 take over Jerusalem. They burn the temple. They destroy the religion of the Jews. They take the elite, a few thousand people, and they move them to Babylonia. But who's left behind is the majority of Israelites. Now they have to adapt to a new elite. They preserve their religion, but they also adopt the religion of the elite, who are the Babylonians.

You will also have Israelites who go off to Egypt. Now you create something called a diaspora. They're either in Babylon or they're in Egypt. But the majority are still at home in Judea. At this time, because these are just ordinary people, they will adopt many faiths. It's very common back then for a person to have multiple faiths, the faith of your father, the faith of your mother, the faith of your wife, the faith of your neighbor, because this is how people got along.

If you said that my god is better than your god, you will piss off your neighbor. You'll piss off your colleague. Why would you do that? It's very common back then for people to have multiple faiths, a faith you might practice at home, a faith you might share with your friends, a faith you might have to share with your king. These are extremely multireligious people.

As we discussed, when the Israelites are forced to go to Babylon, they are forced to have a more fanatical religion in order to maintain their identity. How do you separate yourself from these other people? Because if you don't do that, what happens is you become assimilated. You lose what it means to be an Israelite.

Quite honestly most people chose to be assimilated because that's the easiest thing to do. But there's a fanatical minority, mainly priests, who were determined to keep alive their religion because only by keeping alive their religion could they keep alive Yahweh, could they keep alive Israel.

When these Jews were allowed to return to Judea, they were horrified by the corruption and impurity they saw. They were like, “We were in Babylon, and for 70 years we fought hard to save our religion, to maintain the purity of our religion.” They go back, and they see their people, the Samaritans, now adopt foreign gods. They were like, “This is why we failed as a people. This is why Yahweh punished us, because we refused to be loyal.”

What they're thinking is, “I would rather all these people go away than have them stay around. We don't want to get along. We want to maintain the purity of our religion because that's the only way to save our people.” That's why they say:

Hey, if you're going to stay, you have to divorce your wife who is a foreigner. If you don't want to do so, go away, man. The Persian Empire is huge. Go somewhere else. But Jerusalem is only the land of the pure.

I know this is a controversial idea, but it's really only the extremists who keep their religion alive. This is true for all religions. It's only people who are most willing to die for their religion that keep their religion alive. If everyone's willing to compromise, the religion dies very quickly. The Jewish religion, Judaism, is able to stay alive for 3,000 years because there are lots of people in the religion, a minority, but still a lot of people, who are willing to die for the religion.