"Atheist" History of the People of Israel

"Atheist" History of the People of Israel - Part 1/3

DECEMBER 16, 2024

DIDIER BERTIN

Israel deserves, as other modern, humanist and democratic nations, a true and verified History free of “a magical thinking” which is the belief in God. "Magical thinking” is the belief in the supernatural and in psychology it constitutes a way of escaping the anguish of the unknown and inner conflict; this means that for their followers think that it is better to be in error than in uncertainty. Since the 19th century, archaeology and sophisticated means of dating (including carbon 14 in the 20th century) permit to distinguish between true History and Mythology. Mythology is at the heart of the Bible and reflects the state of mind of the scribes who wrote it from the 5th century BC; they imagined it outside of logical and chronological considerations in order to achieve their theological goals at the cost of reality. Their writings aimed to convince readers of the order of the unfolding of events and the need for magical factors to explain them. The use of God to explain things was practical and reassuring while avoiding admitting that the universe still contains many aspects that the human brain cannot conceive.

Conversely, the discovery and acceptance of our limits encourages research and progress while magical thinking slows down the evolution of civilization. Our key reference is the book "The Bible Unearthed" by the famous Israeli historian and archaeologist "Israel Finkelstein" (Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University) and Neil Asher Silberman (Belgian specialist in archaeology) who sticks to archaeological and historical facts that are particularly significant in light of the progress made in dating from the 20th century.

"We mention many large excerpts from this book that we recommend reading".

We also took into account the reasonings of Sigmund Freud and Karl Abraham regarding the birth of a kind of monotheism in Egypt under the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, called Akhenaten, who lived in the 14th century BC.

Akhenaten had a brief reign which the Egyptian priests tried to erase its trace because their income and power was only issued from a multitude of gods rejected by this Pharaoh. Conversely this attempt by isolating it in Tell Armana permit to protect his writings and those of his father Amenhotep III. In 1887, 400 tablets written in Akkadian cuneiform and dated to the 14th century BC were discovered in Tell Armana.

Egypt reigned over an immense Empire from Nubia and Libya to present-day Lebanon and the southwest of present-day Syria including Canaan. The Egyptians corresponded with their vassals, but also with foreign kings such as those of the Hittites of Anatolia and Babylon. It emerges from these tablets that the Exodus of the Bible (Shemot and Bamidbar) is logically imaginary. At the supposed time of the Exodus, Hebrew writing did not exist yet and thus it would have been impossible to write the Decalogue and Deuteronomy (Dvarim). Moreover, fleeing Egypt for Canaan, which was tightly controlled by Egypt, would not have made sense. Traces of the presence of Egyptian garrisons have been found in Gaza, Bet Shean (south of Lake Tiberias) and Jaffa. On a stele discovered in 1896, Pharaoh Merneptah indicates that in the 13th century the people of Israel were established in Canaan, that they were insignificant and that he had won a victory over them without difficulty.

The mythology on which the Bible is partly based does not always show very positive characters. God has a very anthropomorphic personality, which is natural since he is the creation of human beings; he is notably jealous, vengeful and exterminating. Abraham offered his wife (and half-sister) Sarah to the Pharaoh in order to benefit of advantages when, driven by famine, he went to Egypt. He tried in vain to do the same thing with Abimelech (King of the Philistines). The scribes made him born in Ur because it was a prestigious city, while he was certainly born elsewhere according to Israel Finkelstein. He expelled his son Ishmael from his home and “tried” to kill his son Isaac on the pretext that God had asked him to do it. This says a lot about the state of mind of the scribes who wrote the Bible. Jacob obtained his father's blessing due to the eldest by pretending to be his brother Esau. Thereafter, the scribes imagined that Jacob had fought all night against God or his messenger and was wounded and since then Jacob was called Israel, that is to say that he fought with God. The children of Jacob engendered the thirteen tribes of Israel which are in fact twelve because his son Joseph, "who was sold by his brothers to caravanners", was at the origin of "two tribes" and that the role of the descendants of Levi was limited to the priesthood. King David, with whom the Messiah was supposed to have a connection, organized the murder of Uriah the Hittite in order to steal his wife Bathsheba. Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba and builder of the temple, had a harem of seven hundred wives and three hundred pagan concubines. He turned to idolatry at the end of his reign.

The romanticism of Akhenaton's prayers reported by Karl Abraham reveals a kind of more peaceful monotheism. In any case, true monotheism did not really become established “more permanently” from the time of Josiah, king of Judea from 640 to 609 BC.

The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) was written for the most part from the 5th century, that is to say well after the related events. The orientation of the Tanakh with regard to the kingdoms of Israel and Judea also reveals a theological bias.

Recent archaeological discoveries combined with better dating permitted the reconstitution of many historical facts. Certain situations considered as acceptable by the scribes, were not in line with the Judean morality determined subsequently. These writings mention a concept of piety that was not at all consistently applied in the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea.

According to Albrecht Alt (German historian) there are no traces of an invasion of Canaan by the Israelites, whose settlement there would have been peaceful and long-standing. The Hebrews were nomadic shepherds who gradually settled by clearing forests in Canaan to make arable land. Their activity of raising goats and sheep, which were easy to move, allowed them to travel from Canaan to the Nile Delta to find wetlands necessary for grazing (transhumance). Travel between Canaan and Egypt was therefore recurrent and may have also inspired the theme of Shemot (Exodus) and Bamidbar (Numbers).

According to George Mendenhall (American historian) the Hebrews were not strangers to Canaan. They first concentrated on the uninhabited highlands of Canaan so as not to be in conflict with the sedentary farmers of the Late Bronze Age.

We use the word "Israelites" as a translation of the Hebrew "Bnei Israel", that is to say "the sons of Israel" and their twelve tribes. The Israelites of the tribe of Judah (including the enclave of the tribe of Simeon) inspired the scribes before the multiple diasporas and during the great diaspora and focused on a purely theological aspect of Israel leading to Judaism.

The generalization of agriculture ended up settling the Israelites in Canaan. Two first waves of sedentary Hebrews involving forty thousand inhabitants occurred in the Bronze Age in hundred sites. These were followed by another wave of settlement on two hundred other sites; the most important sites were Hebron, Jerusalem, Bethel, Shiloh and Shechem (source: The Bible Unearthed). An additional wave of settlement took place around 1200 BC, comprising 45,000 individuals spread over 250 sites and discovered from 1967 onwards.

This growth continued in the 7th century BC, during which the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel included five hundred sites grouping 160,000 people i.e. much under the figure mentioned in Bamidbar (Bible). The highlands of Canaan were favorable to the production of wine and olive oil, partly exported to Egypt. The expansion took place first towards the Jordan, then towards the sea (Shefelah and coastal plain). The flow of agricultural production led to the growth of markets and relations with other Canaanites who produced cereals. Their cereal production became insufficient and the Israelites had to produce some as well by reducing their pastoral activity. The Israelites, initially nomadic Canaanites, became sedentary Canaanites. The fact that the Israelites were Canaanites deconstructs part of the Bible and explains the absence of traces of invasion following the hypothesis of Exodus.

What differentiates the Israelite villages from the other villages of Canaan is the absence of pork bones, which was not the case for those of the Philistines, the Moabites and the Ammonites. Food customs were a way of differentiating themselves from other ethnic groups before the appearance of religious precepts. The rejection of pork is therefore the continuation of an ancient ethnic tradition revealed by archaeology.

For the Israelites, belief in Yahweh, sometimes in a surprising form, was late and progressive; local and foreign deities have during a longtime kept an important place at his side. Yahweh is the pronunciation of a tetragrammaton from the verb "to be" in Hebrew to designate God who therefore has no name that could be evoked in vain.

The first King of Israel was Saul, followed by David and then his son Solomon. David conquered Jerusalem but could not build the temple because he organized the murder of Uriah killed in order to steal his wife as we have mentioned. Solomon, son of David and Bathsheba, built the temple of Jerusalem but he had seven hundred wives and three hundred pagan concubines and at the end of his reign he turned to idolatry as we have mentioned.

His son Rehoboam levied heavy taxes and forced the ten northern tribes to do heavy works for him, on the pretext that the tribes of Manasseh, Benjamin, Zebulun, Asher, Naphtali and Dan had added other Canaanite deities including Baal to their belief in Yahweh. Jeroboam of the tribe of Ephraim took advantage of the general discontent among the ten northern tribes to cause a split with Judea (two tribes). The Kingdom of Israel included ten tribes under the reign of Jeroboam and Judea became an isolated kingdom with Jerusalem as capital.

The split of Israel into two kingdoms is therefore the result of discriminatory and heavy measures taken by Rehoboam, a tyrannical and arrogant Judean king and not that of the impiety of Israel.

The Kingdom of Judea was indeed highlighted by the scribes for its piety while as in Israel pious kings succeeded impious kings and the Kingdom of Judah like that of Israel were not always the kingdoms of a single God.

The Kingdom of Israel from 930 to 720 BC, is that of ten of the twelve tribes of Israel had Shechem then Tirzah and then finally Samaria as its capital while Judea included only Judah and Simeon. The monumental buildings called Solomonic that were found at Megiddo were built well after the reign of Solomon according to their carbon 14 dating. This calls into question the splendid buildings of the reigns of David and Solomon who in fact would have lived in modest sites.

Israel had on the contrary benefited from periods of strong development, and possessed agricultural wealth and prestige that Judea did not have. The kingdom of Israel in the North had a dense population with large, medium and small agricultural estates. The region of Judea in the South was poor and based on livestock breeding. The population of Israel greatly exceeded that of Judea and Shechem had become the main center of the North (Israel). The tablets of Tell Armana confirm the existence of two sovereigns, one in Shechem and the other in Jerusalem. The land of Judea was mainly made up of rocky lands while that of Israel included fertile valleys that could feed the inhabitants of the region.

Israel had all the assets to be a populated and wealthy state while in the 10th and 9th centuries BC Judea had a limited number of sites. Nine hundred years BC, Israel was, as a matter of fact, a fully constituted state, with large constructions, benefited from a prosperous economic activity and had trade with neighboring regions. The territory was governed by an administration in elaborate premises built of dressed stones (notably in Megiddo, Jezreel and Samaria). In the 7th century the link between Israel and Judea was made up of common legends, a common language and alphabet and the veneration of Yahweh at the same time as other deities.

During the reign of Rehoboam in Judea, Pharaoh Sheshonq I marched on Jerusalem, took all the treasures of the temple and the royal palace and devastated 150 villages of Judea. Sheshonq's victory was engraved on a stele in Megiddo (recently found). Israel was only slightly affected and its economic, demographic and territorial development continued.

"Atheist" History of the People of Israel - Part 2/3

In the Kingdom of Israel, the end of the dynasty of Jeroboam was hastened to make way for that of the Omrides. Ahab (son of Omri) married Jezebel, the daughter of the Phoenician king Itoobaal and thus took a place on the regional scene. He built magnificent cities and organized a powerful army that allowed him to expand to the North and into present-day Transjordan and Samaria became his capital city. Ahab's lack of piety explain that the scribes of the Bible did not give Israel the importance that this kingdom deserved and preferred to concentrate on the poor but supposedly pious Judea and its Davidic dynasty. The Bible created a romantic narrative of Ahab’s misfortunes and victories with anachronisms and inconsistencies (Unearthed Bible).

In 853 BC, the King of Israel Ahab, at the head of a Syro-Phoenician coalition, forced the Assyrians to give up their desire for conquest and this information was given by the Assyrians. The work undertaken by the Omrides in Israel can be compared to that of “Herod the Great”, a thousand years later and once again the Assyrian archives testify to the importance of the Kingdom of Israel.

The Mesha Stele discovered in 1868 bears a thirty-four-line inscription of the Moabite King Mesha written in Moabite (close to Hebrew) dated 850 BC. Mesha reported his revolt against his overlord the King of Israel Ahab (seventh king of Israel) and mentioned that the kingdom of Israel was not limited to the highlands of the central region but extended well beyond to the East and South. Mesha said he took back Moabite territories from Israel.

For purely theological and not historical reasons, the Bible has passed over in silence the supremacy of Israel on the architectural level by sometimes attributing certain achievements to Solomon e.g. the constructions of Megiddo, Jezreel or Samaria are dated of one century after Solomon.

The new dating methods have reduced the influence of the kings of Jerusalem to a few clans with a sparse population, especially after the destructions committed by Pharaoh Sheshonq I. In contrast, the kingdom of Israel was composed of fertile lands through which regional trade.

The population of Israel was in fact multi-ethnic, that is to say that among the Israelites there also lived populations venerating various deities and all amounted to 350,000 people. Israel must have been one of the most populated states in the Levant, far ahead of the kingdom of Judea and in a way prefigured the today State of Israel more than Judea. These calculations are based on the number of habitat sites.

It was in the 20th century that archaeology became aware of the complex evolution of the Kingdom of Israel (cycle: successes-disasters-adaptations) and began to free itself from biblical prejudices thanks to new dating systems. These revealed several levels of evolution in centers such as Megiddo, Yoqneam, Dor and Samaria and not just one as previously believed.

Assyria put an end to the domination of Aram-Damascus and Israel became its vassal. King Joash (Yeho’ash ben Yeho’ahaz, Melekh Israel of the house of Jehu) who reigned from 806 to 791 BC, recovered the territories ceded to Aram-Damascus. The expansion of Israel continued under Jeroboam II, who succeeded Joash and during his reign of 41 years (the longest reign in Israel). He pushed back the borders of Israel into the kingdom of Aram-Damascus. It was a golden age for Israel that even marked the memory of the kingdom of Judea. Israel benefited from the economic growth of Assyria. Hazor was rebuilt.

In the South of Samaria, olive oil production became substantial and was exported to Assyria and Egypt. Sixty-three potsherds used for storing wine and oil were found with Hebrew inscriptions. Joash and Jeroboam II undertook major construction works.

The royal seal of Jeroboam II was found at Megiddo depicting a roaring lion with a Hebrew inscription. Gezer was built as an outpost on the border between the kingdom of Judea and Philistia.

In 1920 American researchers attributed the construction of the stables of Megiddo to Salamon, then the famous Israeli archaeologist Dr. Yadin attributed them to Jeroboam II on the basis of a more precise dating.

The aristocracy of Israel lived in opulence under the reign of Jeroboam II: 200 ivory plaques with Phoenician and Egyptian decorations were found and must have adorned their palaces with a cosmopolitan taste. Many ostraca found in Samaria were delivery notes for wine and olive oil from the countryside.

This wealth and this cosmopolitan and commercial spirit must have displeased the Judean theologians like the prophets Amos and Hosea who criticized those who had houses made of big cut stones and drank wine from large cups.

In 745 BC JC the Assyrian king, Tiglath-Pileser III decided to exercise a reinforced power of suzerainty over his vassals including the kingdom of Israel. In 737 BC an Israelite officer fomented a “coup d'état” to try to free Israel from vassalage with the help of Damascus, Egypt and Philistia. The Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser III then launched a campaign of annexation of his vassal states including Israel of which only Samaria and its region were spared.

Tiglath-Pileser III deported approximately 13,500 inhabitants from Israel according to his annals. King Hoshea tried once again to free Samaria’s region with the help of the Egyptians which resulted in the capture of Samaria by the Assyrians. A second deportation of Israelites was decided by the Assyrian king Sargon II. The two waves of deportations amounted to 40,000 people, or a fifth of the population of Israel west of the Jordan. Many Israelites (about 160,000 people) were not deported in order to maintain the agricultural production of Israel and particularly that of olive oil.

Israel's revolts and the appetite for its resources thus caused the absorption of the Kingdom of Israel by Assyria. Judea escaped the Assyrian appetite by a lack of interest for this poor and sparsely populated kingdom. Sargon II said that "Judea was very far away" to illustrate his lack of interest for it. The fall of Israel made Judea the only Israelite Kingdom; but it was a theocratic and marginal kingdom that tried to reawaken a wavering faith. The annexation of Israel by Assyria allowed Judea to develop demographically and to encourage the worship of Yahweh around the temple of Jerusalem. The need to make a Temple for God like the pagans is paradoxical with the infinite, intangible and universal aspect of Yahweh who thus should not need a favorite place to reign or to receive sacrifices. Much later, the cult of Yahweh gave rise to other religions that accentuated the idolatrous aspect of the cult for the sake of proselytism towards the pagans.

For two centuries the kings of the house of David reigned over Judea. Eleven Davidic kings are said to have reigned over Jerusalem and Judea from the 10th to the 8th centuries BC. The Bible makes a list of pious and impious kings, attributing a sad fate to the impious ones. The Bible did not take into account the historical context and the appetite of the other empires at the origin of this bad fate, as well as the fact that even the pious kings were not so in a rigorous and constant regarding their piety. This is why the biblical bias clashes with archaeological and historical discoveries. For a long time in Judea as in Israel, belief in Yahweh went hand in hand with idolatrous worship practices.

At the time of the Davidic kings, many cults were practiced outside Jerusalem in Judea as well as in Israel. Archaeologists have found in Judea many figurines similar to those of neighboring peoples whose cult aimed to attract the blessings of celestial forces. Outside the temple of Jerusalem, belief in Yahweh did not simultaneously prevent the worship of other deities. Inscriptions found in Kuntillet (Sinai) and Shefelah in Judea refer to the goddess "Asherah" considered to be the wife of Yahweh.

Even in Jerusalem, altars were dedicated to Baal, Asherah and other deities such as Amon (Egypt), Chemosh (Moab), Asarte (Sidonian goddess) and Tammuz (Mesopotamia)...

After the annexation of Israel, Judea experienced a strong demographic and geographical expansion (end of the 8th century BC). Judea had three hundred sites and 120,000 inhabitants; we may assume that Israelites were also coming from Israel. This expansion was due to cooperation with Assyria, which dominated Judea, and to the development of wine and olive oil production supported by the intensification of Arab trade.  

A religious struggle resulted in the application of intransigent religious laws. According to Baruch Halpern (a biblical historian), Israelite monotheism was truly born in the 7th century BC, as well as a school of thought proclaiming that only Yahweh should be honored in the territory of Israel (Israel and Judea).

According to the Bible, the king of Judea, Hezekiah, imposed the cult of Yahweh, but there is no evidence to confirm this. King Hezekiah wanted to free himself from Assyrian domination and he prepared for it by carrying out major fortification works, particularly in Lachish and Jerusalem. In Jerusalem, traces of a fortification wall seven meters thick have been found; at the same time (8th century BC); in Jerusalem, a 512-metre tunnel designed to divert the water of Gihon into the city to a system of cisterns for water supply was recently discovered. Judea was not protected by Hezekiah's faith because the Assyrian king Sennacherib carried out an intense destruction of the villages and cities of Judea and in particular Lachish; the fall of this city is reported on an Assyrian bas-relief in Sennacherib's Palace, which is preserved in London since its discovery in 1930. In 1970 an excavation campaign was organized on this theme by Tel Aviv University. The number of settlements was reduced to a third of what it represented at the end of the 8th century BC. The territory of Judea was reduced but Jerusalem was spared thanks to the payment of a heavy tribute to Assyria.

Manasseh succeeded Hezekiah and reestablished the authorization of the various cults of Baal, Asherah goddess wife of Yahweh… because the Judeans might have thought that the sole belief in Yahweh had led to the catastrophe with Assyrians. Manasseh got on well with Sennacherib then with his successor Ashurbanipal during his reign of fifty-five years. Judea experienced a demographic growth and an influx of refugees from the Shefelah which was given to the Philistines by Assyria. From the 8th to the 7th century BC the population increased tenfold from Jericho to Beersheba and along the Dead Sea. For Tiglath-Pileser III, Gaza was the end point of the Arabian trails on which camel caravans carried incense and olive oil. Under Manasseh, Judea participated in trade with the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Philistines, Arabs and Edomites.

Josiah reigned over Judea from 639 to 609 BC. During his reign in 622 BC a document was supposedly discovered in the temple of Jerusalem which contained the text of Dvarim (Deuteronomy). Dvarim contains principles of the law which were supposedly conceived before the supposed entry into Canaan following the supposed exodus according to the Bible. Dvarim concerns the respect for monotheism, religious traditions and commemorations to be respected. This document was certainly written in 622 under the impetus of Josiah who wanted to return once again to strict respect for monotheism. Josiah would have destroyed the idols and their sanctuaries "in the temple then in the rest of Judea". However, only one Judean temple has been found outside Jerusalem and the cult of Asherah continued as shown by the discovery of many of her statuettes.

Archaeological research has also noted a development of literacy in Judea during the reign of Josiah. This period was also that of the weakening of Assyria and the rebirth of Egyptian power which regained control of part of its former colony that was Canaan to the exclusion of the lands of Judea and the former kingdom of Israel. Judea was able to regain control of part of the lands of Israel, the Shefelah, and would have centralized from Jerusalem the application of the laws according to the principles of Dvarim. Josiah was killed in a battle while the Egyptians were moving north to fight against Babylonian expansion and the Egyptians regained control of the lands of Judea and Israel. Once again idolatrous customs dominated.

"Atheist" History of the People of Israel - Part 3/3

In 605 BC the Babylonians defeated the Egyptians and Nebuchadnezzar, who became king of Babylon, regained control of Judea, which was at that time still loyal to the Egyptians. Nebuchadnezzar replaced the king of Judea with Zedekiah, who rebelled. This rebellion triggered pillaging and destruction carried out by the Babylonians throughout Judea and Jerusalem. The aristocracy and clergy had already been exiled when Zedekiah was appointed. The last king of Judea was killed and the temple was destroyed. An additional part of the population of Judea was exiled to Babylon.

The Pentateuch underwent modifications over time both in Jerusalem and in Babylon by new authors, some of whom mentioned the exile.

There was a gradual return of the exiles from Babylon to Judea. The Israelites were called Yehoud in Aramaic from the name Yehuda in Hebrew (in Latin Judah and Judea). Emerging Judaism focused on the Bible and became a religion.

A notable French Israelite requested during the French Revolution that the term Jew relating to the tribe of Judah be replaced by Israelite which is linked to the twelve tribes of Israel, that is to say in Hebrew: "Bnei Israel". A few years later, Napoleon I, created the” Consistoire Israélite de France”, responsible for managing the religious principles of the Israelite community and in 1860 the important “Alliance Israélite Universelle” was created. In some foreign languages, the reference is made to Hebrew to designate the Israelites, for example εβραϊκός (ebraïcos) in Greek, which seems less divisive than the reference to the tribe of Judah alone.

In Jerusalem, a dispute with the Babylonian authorities led some Israelites to take refuge in Egypt. In 539 BC, the Persians took back the empire from the Babylonians and Cyrus the victor decided to restore Judea and the Temple. The exiled Israelites returned to Judea in several waves. The construction of the second temple was completed in 516 BC. The interest of the Persians in promoting local cults was to ensure the loyalty of their vassals by leaving autonomy to the local elites. Cyrus decided to authorize also the return of the exiled Israelites from Babylon and Egypt. The clergy continued to write and modify the Tanakh so that the Judeans would follow rules that distinguished them from other peoples and respect the temple while maintaining the hope of a future messianic era. Thus Shemot (Exodus) and Bamidbar (Numbers) could have been inspired by several exiles and returns followed by the construction of two temples.

Judea remained Persian for two centuries until its conquest by “Alexander the Great” in 322 BC, then was integrated into the empires created by the successors of “Alexander the Great” who were the Ptolemies of Egypt and the Seleucids of Syria. The Seleucid Empire, named after one of Alexander the Great's generals, stretched from Syria to the border of India. The set of Empires that came from “Alexander the Great” and his generals stretched from Greece to Indian border, including the Middle East and Egypt and represented the largest Hellenistic group comparable to the future Roman Empire. All the regions under Hellenistic influence allowed an immense expansion of Greek culture.

From 167 to 143 BC a Hasmonean dynasty was established in Judea which opposed the Hellenization of the Israelites since the revolt of the Makabim (Maccabees). They took back Jerusalem and the temple and represented a current of great religious fervor in opposition to the Hellenizing Israelites.

Judea then included Samaria, the Golan, Beersheba and Gaza, a region larger than Davidic Judea.

The conquest of Judea by the Roman general Pompey in 66 BC put an end to its independence. After taking Syria, Pompey was forced to arbitrate a succession battle in Judea between two Hasmonean princes. Pompey favored Prince Hyrcanus II and exiled his rival Aristobulus II. In 40 BC, Hyrcanus II lost his title as king of Judea, which became a Roman protectorate. After two revolts by Aristobulus II's son, the Roman Senate appointed as king of Judea, "Herod I, the Great” of the Hasmonean dynasty. In 40 BC, “Herod the Great "modified the temple by giving it a monumental appearance" which seems to correspond to the wall (the western wall) remaining today.

On the death of “Herod the Great” in 4 BC, Judea was divided by the Romans between his three sons, who lost the title of king: Herod Archelaus governed a restricted Judea as ethnarch, Herod Antipas governed Galilee and the region of Gilead as tetrarch, and Herod Philip II governed Transjordan also as tetrarch. Israelites from Judea and Samaria complained about the tyranny of Herod Antipas and as a result he was exiled to Gaul. Judea eventually became a Roman province ruled by a Prefect residing in Caesarea and traveling to Jerusalem for official ceremonies.

The Israelites had already begun to disperse throughout the Greco-Roman world, attaching themselves to the Hebrew Bible to define their common identity.

In the year 66 AD, the first Judean revolt against the Romans took place. Herod's descendants sought a compromise that was rejected by the high priest of Jerusalem. Thus, the revolt turned into a war of independence and the Romans were defeated twice. In 67 AD, Flavius ​​Vespasian (Roman general who became emperor) was charged with retaking Judea. Vespasian began by regaining control of northern Judea while the Zealots seized Jerusalem and appointed a high priest. The Zealots killed the elites and priestly families. Vespasian headed south and stopped at the gates of Jerusalem upon hearing of Nero's death. Vespasian was elected Roman Emperor by the Senate. His appointment was based on his military successes in Britanny and Judea. His son Titus took over the conquest of Judea. In 70 AD Titus seized Jerusalem and destroyed the second temple. In the year 73 AD the new Roman governor of Jerusalem reduced the last pocket of resistance at Masada.

Despite this strong Roman domination, a second Judean revolt took place against the Romans from the year 132 to 135 AD, led by Bar Kokhba who planned to give Judea back its independence and to build a third temple.

The Romans had changed the name of Jerusalem to Aelia Capitolina where a temple dedicated to Jupiter was built, in addition they banned circumcision for all peoples. These measures notably led to the second Jewish-Roman war. Bar Kokhba's strategy was efficient, but the Romans sent eight legions who practiced the scorched earth policy. In the year 135 AD, the revolt ended with the massacre of those who had participated in it. In 2023, Roman swords were found at Ein Gedi dating from this second war. Thousands of villages were destroyed by the Romans and many Judeans were killed. Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem) and its region extending from Samaria to the Dead Sea and Hebron “called Roman Chora” were forbidden to the Judeans. The population of Jerusalem was replaced by Roman veterans, Greeks and Syrians. After the year 135 the Judean religious center moved to Galilee.

It is worth noting that the name Palestine, which means land of the Philistines, was given to Judea as a "punitive step" by the Roman emperor Hadrian because of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the year 135. The reason was that the Philistines were known as the worst enemies of the Judeans. This anachronistic and insulting name should finally be changed today by the international community which knows its origin. The Arabs continue to use the word Philistine (Arabic translation of Palestinian). Yet in the Jewish and Christian tradition, the word Philistine remains pejorative and assimilated to barbarian. The Philistines are peoples of Aegean, Anatolian and Cypriot origin speaking an Indo-European language and therefore have no connection with the Arabs and more generally with the Semitic peoples. According to Hadrian, Palestine was first to correspond to an extended Judea and, strictly speaking, the name Canaan would have been closer to reality than small Philistia. Since 1948, the name has changed to "Israel" for a part of Israel and Judean Kingdoms, however the name of Palestine given by Emperor Hadrian is still in use.

The majority of the Judeans went into exile and then formed the diaspora that had already begun gradually since the attempts of Hellenization. At the same time, the expansion of the Judean movement of Jesus, initially marked according to the testimonies of his disciples by benevolence and tolerance, became, at the initiative of multiple councils of the Church, a malevolent and intolerant religion with regard to its religion of origin. Christianity freed itself from the rigorous rules of Judaism to facilitate proselytism among pagans. At the Council of Constantinople in 381, the Church adopted the principle of the Trinity, that is to say the representation of God in three distinct persons (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) having the same divine substance (or consubstantial) which is opposed to monotheism. Furthermore, according to the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Jesus would have both a divine and human nature. According to the Council of Nicaea, the Church authorized the worship of images.

For converted pagans, the representation of Jesus is naturally that of God and resolves the difficulty of adopting an invisible and intangible God. From the 3rd century onwards, the cult of Mary (mother of God) was added to this theological assembly and was recognized at the Council of Trent in the 16th century. According to various historians, Mary fulfills the cult of the Greek goddess Cybele, mother of the Gods. In this pagan orientation of Christianity, Judeophobia was easily inserted because it opened the way to the paradoxical notion of deicide because this god, although eternal, would also have a human nature (through his son) while the consubstantiality of the Trinity makes this impossible.

As a matter of fact, Judaism prohibits mixing with others through marriage as well as proselytizing and therefore advocates an isolation. In addition, Sheol, which resembles the Greek Hades, is a place where souls fall into oblivion and which does not give much hope for the future after death.

Christianity and Islam have instead created Paradises that are much more attractive for proselytism. This desire for self-isolation combined with that of the gentiles to isolate the Israelites by Judeophobia built a persistent isolation. Judeophobia first was born for paradoxical sin of deicide because if one can kill God this means that he is not God but a human being. If God is a human being this also means that all human beings are Gods and, in this case, it might generate the basis of an “atheistic Universal Humanism”. As a matter of fact, Humanism is growing in Western countries meanwhile Christianity is disappearing.

The Judeophobic movement initiated by Christianity has marked Israelite history until today and is now reinforced by that of Islam in particular since the independence of the State of Israel. From the 19th century onwards, the Judeophobic movement was illustrated by a series of massacres (Pogroms) and in the 20th century Judeophobia became a pseudoscientific racism of French and German origin. This evolution in Germany gave birth to the principle of a total extermination of Jews. Two third of European Jews were thus exterminated during the WW2 despite the main leading countries were duly informed of the process of extermination.

In the 19 and 20th century, the idea of a return to Israel was born and grew generally secular or atheist basis due to both intellectual developments and thereafter the observed absence protection by any God at the time of extermination.

Since 1948, Israel has wanted to be a modern and democratic nation. However, the followers of theological and magical domination are increasingly represented in the Knesset (Parliament) and are an obstacle to the humanism which is essential to the proper functioning of a healthy democracy. This is due firstly because the law allows religion to leave its private domain and enter political life. In addition, the "H'aredim" (fervent religious) are in favor of very large families that unbalance the demographic and the initial aspect of Israel as desired by his main founders.

The "H'aredim" participate only weakly in the necessary economic growth of the country as well as in national defense and are often a burden for the nation and its free functioning. Pious Jerusalem and free Tel Aviv illustrate still the opposition between the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea.

Immense progress has been made and helps human beings to see further and therefore to better understand the extent of their limits. This must guide them towards humility without resorting to magical thinking to veil their faces by having faith in any deity.

Israel should be able now to understand that facing of the worst tragedies as Shoah, that the belief in a magic deity is vain. In the 20th century, there was also no God for the Armenians, Cambodians and Tutsis…

In a theocratic state, human beings are second-class citizens after God and this is not consistent with a modern democracy, which only makes sense if it is first and foremost humanist.

Approximately half of the Jewish population lives in North America with an often a flexible and open tradition towards others due to expansion of Reform without renouncing their identity even in the case of marriage with a non-Jewish person. If Israel persists in imposing a rigid orthodox religious, this could lead to a distancing with the Jewish diaspora once again as between the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel.

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