muTron the homeless

Hello,

I did a thread search on this and came up empty so if this is a repeat please lock and direct me in the right direction. Thanks.

I've been thinking about monotheism and the Jews successful retention of this practice post Diaspora. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems (with what little I know of the subject) that when a tribe or politic of people were conquered in the ancient world what typically happened was the religion of the victors was adopted by those who were subjugated. I assume this is due to a sort of "Your God beat up our God so we will get onboard with you" feeling, but I'm not sure.

The Jews managed to retain their religious distinctiveness despite being uprooted and taken into exile (minus the Temple cult stuff). Even in the time of Jesus when most Jews a) spoke Greek and not Hebrew and b) only a tiny tiny fraction of the Jewish population lived in Palestine, Jewish distinctiveness was kept.

I guess I have two questions. First was the Jewish retention of worshipping a local deity (Yahweh of Judea) in a foreign land (Babylon, Egypt, Rome, etc.) a unique occurance? and Second, what do you suppose were the reasons for the Jews to NOT adopt the Babylonian pantheon (or later the Greco Roman) and keep on with Yahweh, even in military and economic defeat?

I wonder if it is related to the covenant and the Torah somehow, as in some sort of accepted Jewish collective guilt in failing to keep the Law. Perhaps the Jews saw their defeats to foreign powers as not a failing of Yahweh's power but rather a failing of the people to uphold the covenant effectively? Am I on the right track?

Thanks

M the homeless

Celsus

I think you're speaking actually of the "exile". The Diaspora usually refers to the scattering of the Jews following the two Jewish revolts of the first and second centuries CE. And the politics of religious accretion during conquest is a complicated affair, and very few generalisations can be made. If you look at the Santeria religion in Latin America, you'll find that Yoruba religious beliefs have been overlain with the names of Catholic saints, while a religious system quite similar (but also different) to the original beliefs of the slaves remains under the surface. In anthropology-speak, this is known as "strategies of invisibility". Unfortunately modern assimilation studies show the process is extremely complex and it is very difficult to make many generalisations. We've little reason to believe why this shouldn't be the case in ancient times as well.
The latest modern counterpart I've come across is Hutu refugees in Tanzania. See here (at my forum). A great deal depends on the reactions of the uprooted group, whether at an aggregate level a decision is made to assimilate (become invisible), or to cling on to their identities. Usually, assimilation would be preferable in a close-knit population, whereas hanging on to one's identity is facilitated when you can't escape the identification as "exile" or "refugee"--the identity becomes part of the survival mechanism. However, like I said above, generalisations are difficult to sustain.
No. Have a look at Santeria.
Mark Smith's theory is that Yahweh's importance was part of a competing discourse of power, that "[a]s Judah's situation on the mundane level deteriorated in history, the cosmic status of its deity soared in its literature." I've covered much of Smith's views in my article, The Rise of God. This can be characterised as a coping mechanism in the face of defeat and uncertainty. If their previously local deity was punishing them for their sins, then he must have been controlling the Babylonians (and previously the Assyrians) to send them over and defeat them, right? Therefore, he's not a local deity, he's supreme ruler of all nations. Yahweh is El.
Certainly a possibility, but my view is that the covenant and Law was an ad hoc rationalisation after the exile to elevate the status of the priestly caste.

Jeol

andrewcriddle

One of the critical issues may be about being a 'People of the Book' a religion based around a sacred text.

Comparable Diasporas might be the Zoroastrians (Parsees) and the Eastern Christian diasporas in Asia.

Andrew Criddle

spin

When things go right, then it's the doing of the gods.

When things go wrong, then people have been b-a-d. Gods don't make mistakes, but they are often let down by people. Gods have the tendency to abandon people when they've been bad. But if the people repent and don't run after foreign gods, then their own god may forgive them and be their god again. Gods can be very compassionate beings. This is very handy for people because they then have the opportunity to blame someone for their woes. The king was naughty, so he lost the battle and the enemy trampled us, but there was a coup which ousted him, as he was bad, and now we can feel better, because we are repentent.


spin

jonesg

Thats what the bible is about, the Jew's concept of God IS God.
The Jew's who worshipped idols vanished.
What kept the jew's safe thru all their trials, which would have decimated others, was God. One God, the Living God.
Not golden cows.

spin

The Jews kept worshipping a deity other than Yahweh under every "green tree", thus in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, trito-Isaiah (as well as Deut., Kgs and Chr), ie for centuries. In biblical times they were mainly polytheistic. So, the literature gets manipulated by the survivors, that's in the times when one-gods had become popular in the east (ie not Rome). Blame it all on Heraclitus, Plato, and the thought that followed them.

(And if you correctly write "idols" and "trials", why do you put an apostrophe in "Jew's"?)


spin