• @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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    1 year ago

    Well they did outlasted Assyrians so they had the last word.

    Anyway that siege of Jerusalem did really happened, circa 701 BCE, Assyrians under king Sennaherib against Judeans of king Hezekiah. Unknown what happened, but the city was not captured. Most likely the besieging army suffered sudden and horrible plague (Herodotus also note the event, though he wrote about mice infestation) like bubonic plague or something like this. Judah was nominally vassalized and paid tribut but was not conquered. Also Assyrian army was no way 200000 strong, even 20000 was streching it.

    Overall, it is pretty normal in those times to attribute sudden plague saving their skin (NeoAssyrian empire was not very merciful conqueror) to their god. Hell, a lot of Poles even said the same about victory over Soviets in 1920 and that battle was pretty good documented as genuine rational conclusion by even Soviets.

    • @VictimOfReligion
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      31 year ago

      Assyrians perdured too, but they were culturally converted already into neo Babylonians, and then when the Persians came, the people regarded Cyrus the great like a hero, since it was the first emperor to abolish slavery since the conception of religion in the middle east. There was also a sort of “super proto socialist” revolution in some Sumerian city-state, but it falled rapidly to Sargon of Akkad, tho. (If I remember well). Meaning that it was anecdotal.

      Ah, and it was during the Zoroastrian(Persian) influence that the Hebrews started to bootleg monolatry.

      • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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        41 year ago

        Neo Assyrian empire were destroyed by Babylonians and culturally they were very similar at this point due to millenia of history they had with one another.

        I don’t think there was any protosocialist revolution in Sumer, it was more or less the decay of primitive communism as the palace economy developed into full blown theocratic monarchy and this in the empire. I mean right before Sargon conquered Sumer, one of the local rulers (Lugal-zaggesi) managed to finally unite it and it would not be probably end since even his titulature suggest imperial ambitions, and he had at least one predecessor who did expanded beyond the Sumer. But alas we will never know, Sargon did to him what he probably wanted to do to Sargon, just faster.

        Ah, and it was during the Zoroastrian(Persian) influence that the Hebrews started to bootleg monolatry.

        I wonder how much influence that had, since Achaemenids weren’t pushing their religion on their subjects.

        • @VictimOfReligion
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          41 year ago

          While I’m starting to remember what you said abour Sargon and all that as correct, the thing about Zoroastrians, is that they were in great consideration and loved and admired by a lot of people by their teachings, but never held a propagandístic teaching, and was ethnocentric,meaning that the responsibility of adoration was over the Persians themselves, but that salvation was universal, for Ahura Mazda would save everyone good enough, and who were not with redeeming qualities, sent to hell to purify themselves, and then go to Paradaija(the word Paradise is from Persian origin, yes), because the main perpetrator of wickedness is Angra Mainyu, the rest are victims (which, by the way, the notion we have of Satan is also copied from Angra, sincr Satan was literally just a god of judgement to see if people were actually good or not).

          Ah, yes. Zoroastrianism is also escathologic, and wait for a savior born from a Virgin, without sin, to form an army to destroy Angra Mainyu once and for all, so Ahura Mazda can make the Earth into a paradise. Pretty much like Deutero Isaiah.

          • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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            21 year ago

            Yeah basically every religion is more or less syncretic due to how culture generally work.

            • @VictimOfReligion
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              21 year ago

              I mean… According to Romans, Yahweh was Bacchus, and even had commemorative coins of “Baccvs Iueus” kneeling, as a symbol of the deity admitting defeat.

              • @PolandIsAStateOfMind
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                21 year ago

                Yeah Romans just looked at other religions, cathegorised their gods as versions of their own and called it a day. Pretty funny actually, even if very problematic for historiography.