[Judaism AH] - Butterflies from No Israel or Judaism?

So, yeah. Suppose that the Judaism does not exist, that the biblical myths of Abraham and Moses never happen, that there is no Escape from Egypt, no Commandments on Mount Sinai, no David or Solomon, etc...

What are historical changes that follow, from the Canaanite era all the way into the Roman period before the coming of Christ? Not just religious ones, with no monotheistic faith in the region, but food, language, culture, politics, wars, etc...?

Edit 1: Covering only the period between 1500 BC and 50 AD.

Edit 2: MFW people misunderstand the prompt or just decide to go on their own tangents about monotheism or world history.
 
Last edited:
The Hebrew language goes extinct and is replaced by Aramaic. Like many other Semitic languages of the region, it remains poorly attested. Similarly, the Hebrew people and Hebrew culture are as dead as the Edomites and Moabites TTL, probably not long after Assyria and Babylon come through and conquer the region. And of course, it isn't known as the "Holy Land" TTL.
 
Lets untangle a bit first...

Best historical guess is that Judaism solidified into 'a thing' as a monotheistic religion distinct from being folklore/polytheistic beliefs of the Israelite tribe is somewhere in the 7th century BCE (first definitive, non-religiously grounded, external sources is in Greece in ~320-300BCE), this includes the messy 'half-pregnant' variants in-between, such as Monolatry, where they acknowledge other gods but only accept worship of one. The 'place name' of Israel on the other hand might be as old as 1500BCE (external sources peg it at 1208bc+/-5, that being the Merneptah Stele in Pharaohic Egypt)

And the sources are so limited (and untrustworthy) that we can't definitively say that none of the other competing religious traditions in the area were somewhere on the mono- side of the theistic scale.

But really, we are so far back in time with so very limited sources (that aren't religious writings that might as well have been retroactively edited at some point), that just about everything goes.
 
Last edited:
Assuming similar socio-political developments might be quite a stretch given how far back in time we are talking, but... let’s say things continue as they went up until the Seleucids. There is certainly no Maccabean Revolt, which, depending on the school of history you belong to, could have some significant butterflies in terms of Seleucid stability. Although, I am of the mind that the accounts in Maccabees 1 and 2 are largely Hasmonean propaganda, so... maybe not so much here.


However, the effect that the Jews had politically cannot be overstated in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, and not just in terms of the development of Christianity. The Kitos War is an oft-overlooked conflict that waaaay outdid the (for some reason) celebrated Jewish Revolt in the 60s CE. The Jews of Cyprus for example are believed to have extirpated the entire non-Jewish population of the island, and similar mass-slaughters occurred in Egypt and Cyrenaica. Perhaps without this large-scale religious conflict, Trajan’s Mesopotamian conquests night have lasted a little longer?
 

Philip

Donor
What are historical changes that follow, from the Canaanite era all the way into the Roman period?

What Roman period? Given a POD this far back, the Romans are hardly guaranteed to be of note.

Not just religious ones, with no monotheistic faith in the region,

Removing Judaism hardly eliminates monotheism from the area. The Egyptians experimented with it. It may or may not have existed in Persia. It could easily arise in Greek thought (of there is such a tradition). It may very well have been present in other Semitic cultures of the region.
 
What Roman period? Given a POD this far back, the Romans are hardly guaranteed to be of note.
Hey, I have to give a specific time period to close out the POD on. Go with 50 AD or whatever, if that suits you.
Removing Judaism hardly eliminates monotheism from the area. The Egyptians experimented with it. It may or may not have existed in Persia. It could easily arise in Greek thought (of there is such a tradition). It may very well have been present in other Semitic cultures of the region.
Okay, but what unique Jewish or Judaic influences are we losing out on, or filling in via another culture or people?
 
What Roman period? Given a POD this far back, the Romans are hardly guaranteed to be of note.

One thing is that Christianity, along with the effects of Romanization/Hellinization were key to coalesing "western" civilization. Assuming history is simular to otl in that a major empire creates "Romanization" but not "Christianization" i.e. a spiritual "glue" to bind groups together as "alike" after the big empire falls, I think you have more regionalization as Celts become more celtic again, Illyrians more Illyrian and Iberians more Iberian as more local spiritual traditions reassert themselves in some ways. Basically, nativism is probably the best bet.



Removing Judaism hardly eliminates monotheism from the area. The Egyptians experimented with it. It may or may not have existed in Persia. It could easily arise in Greek thought (of there is such a tradition). It may very well have been present in other Semitic cultures of the region.

Personally, I think this is reaching and assuming that things would go like otl because "naturally" monothesim is superior. Egyptians violently rejected monotheism for good reason (we lost the empire when you know who tried that Aten hippy crap) example and Judiasm was the only culture were monotheistic thought became "mainstream". So my suspicion is no, monotheism would not be a major thing atl. That said, I could see a tradition built in a local culture mutating in such a way that it starts preaching a universal value that makes it transnational like Christianity.

I think the best mental image I can paint is trying to imagine what "Evangelical post Druidism" or "Carthagian Orthodoxy" might be like, filling the role otl Christianity did.
 
The butterfly are monsters here, you Have no Christianity, no Islam, no Phoenicia as we know,Judaism is in the year 5778 aprox, you are erasing 5.000 year of history of one of the most influential religions and human groups in the history of middle east, Europe, and north Africa(and by extension america).
 
The butterflies go back at least 3000 years, to the Late Bronze Age collapse and the Early Iron Age. Assyria, Egypt, Elam, and maybe the Hittites are still probably going to be there, but a lot of stuff is fair game. Hell, the butterflies are such that even the Buddha is not guaranteed to be a thing.

I wonder what Zoroastrianism would develop into ITTL?

The Medes and Persians don't become big until the 8th century BC, so the emergence of a Zoroaster is not guaranteed.
 
The butterfly are monsters here, you Have no Christianity, no Islam, no Phoenicia as we know,Judaism is in the year 5778 aprox, you are erasing 5.000 year of history of one of the most influential religions and human groups in the history of middle east, Europe, and north Africa(and by extension america).
The POD is asking for pre-Christ butterflies only.

The butterflies go back at least 3000 years, to the Late Bronze Age collapse and the Early Iron Age. Assyria, Egypt, Elam, and maybe the Hittites are still probably going to be there, but a lot of stuff is fair game. Hell, the butterflies are such that even the Buddha is not guaranteed to be a thing.
What butterflies can you envision, then?
 
The POD is asking for pre-Christ butterflies only.
Well you still have no Christianity and no Islam, Maybe Rome adopt a State religion inspired in the Zoroastrianism of Persia, so we have important state religion in Europe, Persia and China, this could influence some Indian Kingdoms and Empires to do the Same.
 

Philip

Donor
Go with 50 AD or whatever

Way too late for your original supposition of 'Suppose that the Judaism does not exist'

Personally, I think this is reaching and assuming that things would go like otl because "naturally" monothesim is superior.

Rather, I am pointing out that Judaic monotheism was not invented out of whole cloth. The idea that the other tribes of the ANE practiced a form of henotheism or monolatry is not unsupported. Among the Greeks, Xenophanes was well on his way to polytheistic monism. His treatment by early Christians suggests that it is not a far jump from from his posititon to monotheism. Zoroastrianism of the period is not as well documented as it was under the Sassanids, but it seems to have been trending towards teleological monotheism. There are arguments to be made that portions of the Vedas contain monotheistic thought. Given the widespread distributions of the precursors of monotheism we seem pushed to conclude that either it is a very ancient origins or it is a relatively easy concept to produce. Either way, suggesting that it would still develop given a POD in say the 8th Century BCE is hardly deterministic.

So my suspicion is no, monotheism would not be a major thing atl

Of course, I never suggested it would be dominant. Rather, I stated that removing Judaism hardly guarantees that monotheism will not be present in area of Palestine.
 

Philip

Donor
Judaism is in the year 5778 aprox, you are erasing 5.000 year of history

The Jewish calender is based on a particular reading of their Scriptures. It does not indicate that Judaism has been around since year 1.
 
The Jewish calender is based on a particular reading of their Scriptures. It does not indicate that Judaism has been around since year 1.
OK, i accept that, but still i support that a lot of history of the region was documented by the Jew in his old testament tradition, and the elimination of the religion mean a important lose of historical record that where easily accessible to the early Scholar, there is a reason that the study of the historicity of the Old testament is a valid field of study
 
Way too late for your original supposition of 'Suppose that the Judaism does not exist'

Well you still have no Christianity and no Islam, Maybe Rome adopt a State religion inspired in the Zoroastrianism of Persia, so we have important state religion in Europe, Persia and China, this could influence some Indian Kingdoms and Empires to do the Same.

The final year for butterfly discussion is 50 AD. No discussion of Islam, Byzantism, etc... I'm just asking for pre-Christ (50 AD) changes to history and changes. 1500 BC to 50 AD if you need me to give you concrete dates to talk about, cover and consider.
 
The final year for butterfly discussion is 50 AD. No discussion of Islam, Byzantism, etc... I'm just asking for pre-Christ (50 AD) changes to history and changes. 1500 BC to 50 AD if you need me to give you concrete dates to talk about, cover and consider.
mmm, you don´t have Unified kingdom in the Region, the Kingdom of Israel don´t exist, the Kingdom of Judea don´t exist, a more powerful Phoenicia is a options as they don´t have the southern kingdoms as rival, or a smaller Phoenicia as they don´t have the Jewish kingdoms as Buffer against Egypt and Assyria: the Philistine conquer the Region, as the historical Jewish kingdoms were the principal rivals of their conquest.

The region is Easier to conquest and Assimilate for the Regional Empires, The jewish people where always rebellious and independent minded.there is a reason of the Nivean Exile and the Babylonean Exile, and the Roman destruction of the temple
 
Both the prompt and the replies so far assume two things: first, that Jewish religious history is a good guide to the history of the Hebrew people (it is most definitely not) and second, that for an interesting "no Judaism" TL you need to prevent Hebrew/Jewish culture from ever existing at all. Both put the PoD date way further back than in needs to be, and plenty of cultures - Egyptian, Phoenician, Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, etc etc etc - could screw with Israel in a way that would wipe out what we know as "Judaism", while still remaining well within the historical period we're comfortable with.

There's also, as so often, a post hoc fallacy in a lot of these responses. The fact that the Jews happened to be one relatively small population that kept their religious and cultural distinctiveness throughout all recorded history doesn't mean they had to be. No reason why you couldn't have a DBWI of "How to prevent Chemoshism???" with a bunch of replies saying "you can't, the Moabites are too fanatical about their religion, it'd need to be really early, etc."
 
Last edited:
No Judaism means no real monotheistic faith arises anywhere else, nor a lot of repentance and absolution (Yom Kippur specifically). The butterflies from that would be absolutely massive and change pretty much everything about the Western world.
 
Top