Neo-Babylonian empire doesn't fall

The Neo Assyrians made sure everyone under their subjugation loathed them. It was a recipe for a disaster that blew up in their faces the moment they didn't have an extremely capable leader.

I sometimes wonder if the Assyrian Empire had problems because it's one of the first (the first?) time in recorded history when a culture tried to rule large numbers of "alien" peoples.
 
Yes, this is what I was alluding to. The exiled Jewish elite in Babylon gradually assimilates.
Meanwhile, in "Palestine", the remnants of the two Jewish states - Izrael and Judea - worship "in high places". Without royal patronage there are no "main temples" - like those at Samaria and Jerusualem - so there is no usurpatation of "one and only place of worship" in the grubby hands of the priesthood from the capital cities.
As the Judean elite which - in order to prevent (retard?) assimilation moved from monolatrism to monotheism - stays in Babylon, the Judean variant of Yahwism may never become monotheistic. I've no idea how the Izraeli variant of Yahwism moved into monotheism - maybe somebody else could shed some light on it. Mimicry of Judaism?
So, a different Judaism - which might never develop messianism, plus there probably would be no ferilisation of ideas from Zoroastrism - and no close-to "universal" Hellenistic culture - e.g. no Septuagint to reach out to Gentiles, there is no Christianity.

I talked to Joshua Ben Ari and he said this....

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/neo-babylonian-empire-doesnt-fall.434160/

Hm... I think there might be a restoration of the Temple, Cyrus was pretty nice to Jews. So Judaism might take less of a rabbinic tradition. If Cyrus dies early, I still don't see Jews assimilating into Babylonian society. I can see a lot of them moving back into Israel and trying to revolt against Babylonian rule
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
1 - Cyrus was the Persian ruler who smashed NeoBabylon ... the event which was butterflied away. So in this scenario nobody is releasing Jews from Babylonian captivity.
2 - Also, the branch of Jews which in OTL came back from Babylon and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem did not return to "Israel". They returned to Judea!
At that time Jews were split into Israelis and Judeans. Izrael was the heretical - from the Judeans' (whose capital was Jerusalem) point of view - northern kingdom.
Judaism, as indicated by the name itself, was the branch of Yahweism professed in the Judean Kingdom.
Later somehow the Israelis became known as Samaritans.
The Old Testament which is general use is the Judean version. The Izraeli/Samaritan version is rather poorly known ...
I'm no expert in this field but all this can be found on Wiki ...
 
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1 - Cyrus was the Persian ruler who smashed NeoBabylon ... the event which was butterflied away. So in this scenario nobody is releasing Jews from Babylonian captivity.
2 - Also, the branch of Jews which in OTL came back from Babylon and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem did not return to "Israel". They returned to Judea!
At that time Jews were split into Israelis and Judeans. Izrael was the heretical - from the Judeans' (whose capital was Jerusalem) point of view - northern kingdom.
Judaism, as indicated by the name itself, was the branch of Yahweism professed in the Judean Kingdom.
Later somehow the Israelis became known as Samaritans.
The Old Testament which is general use is the Judean version. The Izraeli/Samaritan version is rather poorly known ...
I'm no expert in this field but all this can be found on Wiki ...

Joshua tend to disagree with you.

I still don't see Jews assimilating or disappearing into Babylonian society, and even in the Babylonian captivity Judaism flourished. I still see a return to Israel (which I'm going to use as a blanket term for the Land of Israel). Hell the Babylonian captivity, the exilic period, was one of the highest points of Judaism as a religion.


Maybe not willingly, but after an uprising it's certainly possible. Or even a religious revival movement among the Jews who had slowly intermarried into Babylonian society, a sort of "return to what made us Jews". There were prophets who called for that, even before Cyrus, so it's possible that message spreads and sort of germinates before pushing a lot of Jews to return to the Land of Israel.
 
Later somehow the Israelis became known as Samaritans.

Omri (father of the infamous Ahab) wanted to build a new capital after consolidating his power. He bought land from a man named Shemer and named the new city Samaria. The name evolved into one of the names by which the kingdom, and later the administrative territory, was called.
 

TruthfulPanda

Gone Fishin'
Joshua tends to disagree with you.
:'(
But seriously - I'm no expert.:happyblush
As to the Babylonian exile and it being a high point - the theory I've read and I like is that it was a TURNING point in the evolution of Judaism.
The Judean elite taken to Babylon was still (mostly? entirely?) monolatric/henotheisitc. The ones who returned were die-hard Yahveists/Judean Supremacists who - in order to avoid assimilation - went for monotheism. It is Babylon that the view that "there is no God but Yahveh" was refined - or developed to begin with. Or so I've read and chose to believe as it made a good argument :)
 
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So in the 6th century BC Babylon was overrun by the Medes and Persians. The last Babylonian King died as famously recorded in the Book of Daniel.

What if Babylon had endured? If say Cyrus died early and Persia remained fragmented could Babylon have retained its hegemony in the near east?

How would a Babylon dominated near east interact with Egypt? Anatolia? The Greeks?

Cyrus died how early?

Before 550 BC (so Media survives)?
Between 550 and 547 BC (so Media falls, Lydia survives)?
Between 547 and 539 BC (so both Media and Lydia have fallen)?
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
Out of curiosity what was the overall composition and quality of Babylonian armies at this point? I know the Assyrians had a pretty impressive and fearsome juggernaught but what was Babylon's military strength like?
 
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