Suviving Jewish Temple

This question is for a part of the TL I'm currently working on. If a different state, maybe in Arabia, were to convert top-to-bottom to Judaism as early as the First Century BCE, and maintained links with the old Temple and Sanhedrin in occupied Judea, would it be possible for the priesthood to permanently relocate if the city was sacked during a rebellion, and their religion outlawed? Or would be possible for a Judiazing monarch to actually replicate the organization of the Kohanim and a seperate Temple complex?
 
It's definitely possible, though remember that the site of the Temple was chosen by God. You'd need to have a prophetic or messianic figure. However, the last Prophets were in the 6th Century BC - quite a while before your hypothetical situation. Expect strong resistance from the Cohenim, unless they can be bought.

Even if Jerusalem were sacked and the temple destroyed, it'd be hard to convince people to create a new Temple per se. What's more likely is the establishment of a grand rabbinic council (somewhat analogous to the Great Sanhedrin), which could happen anywhere there are Jews. If this council is rich and large enough, it could easily become the grand deciding body of all of Judaism (or at least a large portion of it). Certain groups, like those in Yemen and India are likely to do their own thing, but they weren't "in Communion" with the Temple anyway.
 
One start is having the Jews not going bat shit and start rebelling because that would increase chances of a Jewish Temple surviving.
 

Philip

Donor
I don't think building a replacement temple somewhere else would fly. Perhaps you could get a schismatic sect to try it, but most Jews are going to reject it.

I think a tabernacle moving around Arabia, waiting for the triumphant return to Jerusalem, is a possibility.
 

Skokie

Banned
There were a number of other temples in OTL. Samaria (Bethel) and Egypt (Elephantine) come to mind.
 
It's definitely possible, though remember that the site of the Temple was chosen by God. You'd need to have a prophetic or messianic figure. However, the last Prophets were in the 6th Century BC - quite a while before your hypothetical situation. Expect strong resistance from the Cohenim, unless they can be bought.

Even if Jerusalem were sacked and the temple destroyed, it'd be hard to convince people to create a new Temple per se. What's more likely is the establishment of a grand rabbinic council (somewhat analogous to the Great Sanhedrin), which could happen anywhere there are Jews. If this council is rich and large enough, it could easily become the grand deciding body of all of Judaism (or at least a large portion of it). Certain groups, like those in Yemen and India are likely to do their own thing, but they weren't "in Communion" with the Temple anyway.


In the TL I'm writing, the Kingdom of Judea is divided between the south and the lands of Samaria and Galilee in the north. The southern Arabic kingdom of Sabaea (ancient Yemen) has trading ties with the north. In the 60-50's BCE, a number of Pharisee nobles have moved there. The ATL ruler of Sabaea marries the daughter of one of these exiles, and has a son who is educated in the knowledge of his mother's people and formally converts to Judaism in his teens. After his ascension to the throne, he goes on a state visit cum pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he invites a number of scholars and priests back to his kingdom to create a new law code derived from the Torah.

Sabaea has both strong overland and maratime commercial links, and is involved with the lucrative Spice Trade. So any traditional priestly families that escape the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem sack would know that there is a perfectly good refuge without them splitting up. Even if they can't rebuild the structure of the old Temple, then at least the organization of the priesthood and its practices can be continued in a different land. And maybe SOME of the Jewish communities between Asia and North Africa would look to it for leadership.

I should also point out that the geo-politics of Arabia have been greatly changed in my ATL, so there isn't a Himyarite Kingdom, but thats a different story.
 
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It's definitely possible, though remember that the site of the Temple was chosen by God. You'd need to have a prophetic or messianic figure. However, the last Prophets were in the 6th Century BC - quite a while before your hypothetical situation. Expect strong resistance from the Cohenim, unless they can be bought.

This is the sticking point, you need someone with a direct line to Yahweh to rebuild the Temple. I'm not sure if the Jews would even know the dimensions of the Temple without prophetic guidance, I know that's the case today.
 
I'm fairly certain the dimensions of the temple are spelled out in the Jewish Scriptures.

they are but things are in Cubits and such no one really knows what a Cubit is. So it is tough to rebuild. However at our point in time 1st Cent. BCE something might have survived via oral history
 

Philip

Donor
they are but things are in Cubits and such no one really knows what a Cubit is. So it is tough to rebuild.

I assume you mean that there is a range of conversions for a cubit into modern measurements. That is irrelevant. The cubit was a standard part of life at the time. Given how often the cubit appears in Jewish law, (for example, passing within 4 cubits of a corpse made one unclean) it seem extremely likely that a typical Jew would know what a cubit is. Now, you can argue that the definition shifted over time, but it is difficult to claim that a Pharisee would ever state that he didn't know how long a cubit was. If asked to rebuild the Temple, the Pharisees would have had no difficulty in laying out the dimensions.

However at our point in time 1st Cent. BCE something might have survived via oral history
More than 'something'. It was a standard unit of measurement.
 
The ATL I'm writing is mostly about events occuring in the greater part of the world. The Roman Republic is destroyed earlier, but I thought to keep the Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea around as it served a purpose. But its right between the Egyptian and Seleucid Empires, and its unlikely to survive as a fully independent state. But I figured that instead of simply wiping Judaism out, or allowing the development of "Rabbinic Judaism", I thought I'd allow the ancient clerical order to survive somewhere that won't meet the attention of their enemies. But before Jerusalem's society is destroyed, I'd like to buy time by having a decently wealthy and stable kingdom to the far south which is largely out of the way of Egypt and Syria (in poltical terms). I don't intend for their to be Christianity or an Islam in the TL I'm writing, and even Judaism might be overmatched in the Arabian Peninsula by Zoroastrianism, but I was thinking that within a couple of centuries, Judaism could have a tutelary influence over the internal development of Ethiopia or the Nubian kingdoms.

If there is a possibility that they would build a new Judaic Temple ten years, a hundred or two hundred years after the destruction of the old one, I don't know. But more important than the physical structure of the Temple itself is the Kohanim, its hereditary membership, its organisation, laws and rituals. This part about ancient Judea/Israel I'd like to get some advice about.

This alternate history of Judea-Judaism is small part of my Suebi Superpower TL.
 
The ATL I'm writing is mostly about events occuring in the greater part of the world. The Roman Republic is destroyed earlier, but I thought to keep the Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea around as it served a purpose. But its right between the Egyptian and Seleucid Empires, and its unlikely to survive as a fully independent state. But I figured that instead of simply wiping Judaism out, or allowing the development of "Rabbinic Judaism", I thought I'd allow the ancient clerical order to survive somewhere that won't meet the attention of their enemies. But before Jerusalem's society is destroyed, I'd like to buy time by having a decently wealthy and stable kingdom to the far south which is largely out of the way of Egypt and Syria (in poltical terms). I don't intend for their to be Christianity or an Islam in the TL I'm writing, and even Judaism might be overmatched in the Arabian Peninsula by Zoroastrianism, but I was thinking that within a couple of centuries, Judaism could have a tutelary influence over the internal development of Ethiopia or the Nubian kingdoms.

If there is a possibility that they would build a new Judaic Temple ten years, a hundred or two hundred years after the destruction of the old one, I don't know. But more important than the physical structure of the Temple itself is the Kohanim, its hereditary membership, its organisation, laws and rituals. This part about ancient Judea/Israel I'd like to get some advice about.

This alternate history of Judea-Judaism is small part of my Suebi Superpower TL.

I always considered the possibility of Egypt and Seleucia keeping Judea around as a buffer state.
 
My ATL Seleucids have been replaced by a different dynasty as of the 130's BCE, while the final Ptolemy was the IVth one before the Seleucids took over, and appointed an exiled Spartan King (Cleomenes III), as the puppet ruler. And that dynasty was replaced by a Keltoi dynasty that came to power after being appointed as the military governor by the Scordisci king (another story).

I'm currently down to 80 BCE, I haven't actually added anything new in months as I'm writing on further developments that takes place in the decades and centuries ahead. Egypt and the Hellenistic empire I'm calling "Megale Syria" are powerful enemies, and will divide the the state of Judea between them, initially in two different spheres of influence, with the Saducees in the north sponsored by the Syrians, and the Pharisees in the south sponsored by the Egyptians. Such factional warfare concentrated locally will result in the breakdown of Judea's native institutions. The introduction of a pro-Judaic dynasty in Arabia is intended as the saving-grace of the traditional Kohanim families. Some of which may be intrigued with travelling Sabaea even if to accept jobs as advisors, secretaries and magistrates of a Judaizing monarch.

When the day of judgement comes to Jerusalem, will they all to a man stand there and go down with the ship? Or will any of them see the bigger picture and vacate Jerusalem, sending some important Temple treasures and the kin-folk ahead of their departure, and live in a land where the native ruler who loves them and is willing to let them stay at his own expense?
 
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