User:Aearthrise/Timeline of the world religions

Created by Andrew Earthrise, the purpose of this work is to chronicle the events that led to the formation of the major world religions: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism Islam, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism. Particular focus will be placed on the Abrahamic religions, i.e. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.

All of this work's information comes from corresponding English Wikipedia articles. All quotes are taken from original usages on the Wikipedia articles.

Amenhotep and King Solomon:
C.1400, Amenhotep III is the basis for the story of the Israeli King Solomon in the bible- "the story of Solomon was patterned specifically after the life of Amenhotep III."

Egypt's Might
Egypt was very powerful and wealthy during Amenhotep's reign. Amenhotep sent expeditions to Puntland, entering into lucrative trade with the peoples of the region, and perhaps the Sabaeans(compare the story of the Queen of Sheba). "During Amenhotep III's reign... Gezer and other major [sic]Palestinian cities were refortified as royal Egyptian garrisons, and endowed with fine temples and palaces."

Amenhotep's Wives
Amenhotep, like Solomon, married many foreign women during his reign. Amenhotep's “harem included two princesses from Babylon, two princesses from Syria, two princesses from Mitanni, and like Solomon's harem, it included a princess from each of the seven nations listed in 1 Kings 11:1. As the mightiest king of the Middle East, Amenhotep did not send any of his own daughters to other kings in exchange, nor did any other Pharaoh of this dynasty (or likely any other throughout Egypt's history). He specifically denied a request by the king of Babylon for an Egyptian wife. Importantly, the Bible emphasizes Solomon's Egyptian bride, but does not mention that Solomon had any Hebrew wives. Rehoboam, who is said to have succeeded Solomon, was the son of an Ammonite princess.”

"Royal women were married to their brothers or in some cases the father to keep the throne in the family. Royal women were never married to foreign kings or princes... There is a written account that the King of Babylon sent a princess to King Amenhotep III to marry and requested an Egyptian princess be sent to Babylon to marry him. Amenhotep III turned down the request replying, 'That since the days of old no Egyptian king’s daughter has been given to anyone.' Foreign princesses were welcomed to marry the Pharaoh but Egyptian princess did not marry foreign kings or princes. Any foreign princess that married the Pharaoh came with a large dowry and many attendants, she settled into life at the palace by taking an Egyptian name and becoming a minor (second) wife."

Amenhotep promoted some of his daughters to "Great Royal Wife". "It was customary and obligatory for Amenhotep III to marry 'the daughter of Pharaoh' in order to secure the throne. This is precisely what was done when he was married to Sitamun, the daughter of his father, Pharaoh Thutmose IV."



Amenhotep and Yahweh
The earliest record of the tetragrammaton YHWH(Yahweh) appears during Amenhotep's reign. YHWH is mentioned in a list of Amenhotep's enemies written on a temple at Soleb as the Shasu(brigands, nomads) of YHWH. The north Arab Edomites were the initial believers of Yahweh: "By the 14th century BC, before the cult of Yahweh had reached Israel, groups of Edomites and Midianites worshipped Yahweh as their god."



The Canaanite City-States and Israel
Canaan during this time period was nothing more than various city-states and a colony of Egypt. Every city had its own patron god or goddess, and believed in a pantheon of gods with the main god referred to as "El"(the god). For example, Melqart(Melek-qart city-king) was Tyre's(Phoenicia) god, while Shalim(Salem) was the god and namesake of Jerusalem.

The Bronze-Dark Age
During the Late Bronze age collapse(c. 1206–1150 BC), a period of great disruption occurred in Canaan, Egypt, Babylon, and other locations. "Within a period of forty to fifty years at the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the twelfth century almost every significant city in the eastern Mediterranean world was destroyed, many of them never to be occupied again." Many Canaanite cities were destroyed or abandoned.

By the end of the collapse, the Canaanite cities began to regroup into kingdoms, creating Edom, Israel, Moab, Ammon, Judah, and others. Each kingdom chose a god to lead its land. Israel chose El(Saturn/Cronus) as its god, Phoenicia chose Ba'al Hadad(Zeus/Jupiter), Edom chose Qos(a god who is extremely similar to Yahweh and may be only a title for Yahweh), and Judah imported Yahweh from Edom. All of the kingdoms at this time were polytheistic and worshiped the Canaanite pantheon.

The Assyrian Ascendance:
The Assyrians began to gain power around C.900 by conquering their northern neighbors the Anatolians, the western Levantine peoples, and the Persians and Medes to the east. Between 811-783 BCE Assyria subjugated the Arameans, Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, Neo-Hittites and Edomites, Persians, Medes and Manneans, as well as Babylon. Soon afterwards, Assyria became destabilized in the region and lost many of its newly conquered possessions.

The Assyrians became powerful again between 745-727 BCE where they conquered the Greeks of Cyprus, Phoenicia, the kingdom of Judah, Philistia, Samarra and the whole of Aramea. The reigning Assyrian King Tiglath-Pileser III also deposed the vassalized Babylonian king and proclaimed himself the new king of Babylon.

Within the following century, the Assyrians continually fought with the Elamites, an ancient south eastern kingdom in south western Persia, and destroyed Nineveh, the capital of Babylon, during war. The Assyrians conquered the Samaria, ending the Kingdom of Israel, as well as subjugated the kingdom of Judah. The Assyrians also conquered the recently formed Nubian Kushite Empire of Egypt, deported all of the foreign Nubian monarchs, and installed native Egyptian princes as governors.

The Deportation of the Kingdom of Israel:
After a war lasting 3 years, King Sargon II of Assyria conquered the Kingdom of Israel in Samaria, where he deported a large portion of the population to build and improve Nineveh's system of irrigation canals. The story of the ten lost tribes of Israel, the tale that ten tribes were removed from Israel by Assyria, comes from this occurrence. Sargon's name is mentioned in Isaiah 20:1, referring to his conquest of the Israeli city of Ashdod.

The Assyrian Downfall:
The conquered provinces of Assyria became stabilized in the region, but in 627 BCE Assurbanipal, the King of Assyria, died. Between 626–609 BCE Assyria entered into several civil wars and lost control of Babylon, Persia, and other territories. By 609 BCE, Assyria was finally conquered by a Babylon's coalition of regional powers.

The First Deportation of the Kingdom of Judah:
With Babylon's conquest of Assyria, Egypt became independent. The Egyptians quickly attempted to reinforce the remains of the Assyrian Kingdom, entering into war with Babylon. King Josiah of Judah decided to ally with the new Babylonian Empire, but was killed during the war. Josiah's son, Jehoahaz became the new ruler of Judah, but was deposed in 608 BCE by Pharaoh Necho of Egypt who replaced him with his brother Eliakim. Eliakim "he whom El has set up" then changed his name to Jehoiakim "he whom Yahweh has set up" and governed as a vassal of Egypt; he paid a heavy tribute to the Pharaoh wherein Jehoiakim "taxed the land and exacted the silver and gold from the people of the land according to their assessments."

In 605 BCE, Egypt entered into war with Babylon again and was defeated at Carchemish. King Jehoiakim, after hearing this news, decided to ally with Babylon, and paid tribute to King Nebuchadnezzar II. In 601 BCE Babylon tried to invade Egypt and failed. Much of Canaan, including the Kingdom of Judah, rebelled from King Nebuchadnezzar. Jehoiakim himself stopped making tribute payments and became pro-Egypt; Nebuchadnezzar regrouped his forces and returned to crush the rebellion. He besieged the capital Jerusalem in 599 BCE, where Jehoiakim died in 598 BCE.

Jeconiah, Jehoiakim's son, became the new King of Judah. In 597 BCE, the Babylonians entered Jerusalem and pillaged both the city and the First temple. About 10,000 were removed from Judah: Jeconiah, his court, craftsmen, and other prominent citizens were deported from the land and dispersed throughout the Babylonian Empire. Jehoiakim's brother Zedekiah was appointed by King Nebuchadnezzar to govern as the new King of Judah.

The Second Deportation of the Kingdom of Judah:
King Zekediah later stopped paying tribute to Babylon and entered into an alliance with Egypt. King Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem again in 589 BCE. During the second siege of Jerusalem, many Judaeans fled to Moab, Ammon, Edom, and other surrounding nations. When Jerusalem fell again, the attacking Babylonian force completely destroyed the city and the First Temple. King Nebuchadnezzar killed most or all of Zekediah's children, blinded Zekediah, and deported much or all of the city's elite, nobles, clergymen(such as Ezekial), and educated members to Babylon. Judah became the Babylonian province Yehud, governed by the newly appointed ruler Gedaliah.

Gedaliah called for the Judaeans who settled in Moab, Ammon, Edom, and neighboring territories to return to Yehud, as the land of Judah was massively depopulated. Later on, Gedaliah was assassinated by the a member of the former Judaean royal family. Gedaliah's death caused many more Judaeans to leave Yehud. The Pharaoh allowed emigrants to settle in Egypt in places such Elephantine, beginning the start of a sizeable Jewish diaspora.



The invention of the book of Exodus
Between the nearly 60 year period between 597-539 BCE, the exiled elite Jewish communities in Babylon invented the story of the Exodus, "the founding myth of Israel, telling how the Israelites were delivered from slavery by Yahweh and therefore belong to him through the Mosaic covenant." The use of Egypt and the Pharaoh as the main antagonists of the Exodus reflects the contemporary Babylonian opinion of Egypt being an enemy of Babylon.

"The Book of Exodus is not a historical narrative in any modern sense: modern history writing requires the critical evaluation of sources, and does not accept God as a cause of events, but in Exodus, everything is presented as the work of God, who appears frequently in person, and the historical setting is only very hazily sketched. The purpose of the book is not to record what really happened, but to reflect the historical experience of the exile community in Babylon and later Jerusalem, facing foreign captivity and the need to come to terms with their understanding of God." "In approximate round dates, the process which produced Exodus and the Pentateuch probably began around 600 BCE when existing oral and written traditions were brought together to form books recognisable as those we know, reaching their final form as unchangeable sacred texts around 400 BCE."

"Although mythical elements are not so prominent in Exodus as in Genesis, ancient legends have an influence on the book's content: for example, the story of the infant Moses's salvation from the Nile is based on an earlier legend of king Sargon of Akkad, while the story of the parting of the Red Sea trades on Mesopotamian creation mythology. Similarly, the Covenant Code (the law code in Exodus 20:22–23:33) has some similarities in both content and structure with the Laws of Hammurabi", the story in which Hammurabi was chosen to give sacred laws to his people by a god. "These influences serve to reinforce the conclusion that the Book of Exodus originated in the exiled Jewish community of 6th-century BCE Babylon, but not all the sources are Mesopotamian: the story of Moses's flight to Midian following the murder of the Egyptian overseer may draw on the Egyptian Story of Sinuhe."



The Repatriation of the Jews
Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon in 539 BCE, and ended the exile of various deported peoples. He allowed the nearly 3 generations of exiled elite Babylonian Jews to return to the land of Judah, now called Yehud Medinata, and possibly settle in Israel. The Persian administration was religiously tolerant, and Cyrus rebuilt destroyed temples and infrastructure in the newly conquered lands.

"The Jews honored" Cyrus the Great "as a dignified and righteous king. In one Biblical passage, Isaiah refers to him as Messiah (lit. "His anointed one") (Isaiah 45:1). Elsewhere in Isaiah, God is described as saying, "I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says God Almighty." (Isaiah 45:13). As the text suggests, Cyrus did ultimately release the nation of Israel from its exile without compensation or tribute. These particular passages (Isaiah 40–55, often referred to as Deutero-Isaiah) are believed by most modern critical scholars to have been added by another author toward the end of the Babylonian exile (ca. 536 BC)."

Cyrus the Great's "treatment of the Jews during their exile in Babylon... is reported in the Bible. The Jewish Bible's Ketuvim ends in Second Chronicles with the" edict "of Cyrus, which returned the exiles to the Promised Land from Babylon along with a commission to rebuild the temple."


 * Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia: All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD, the God of heaven given me; and He hath charged me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whosoever there is among you of all His people – the LORD, his God, be with him – let him go there. — (2 Chronicles 36:23)

The edict of Cyrus is "thrice mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, each time with minor textual variations and additions. It is presented as authorizing and encouraging the Jews exiled by Nebuchadnezzar to relocate to the Land of Israel and actively engage in rebuilding the temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The historical background of the narrative is confirmed by archaeology, but the edict as such is not corroborated by any finds."


 * And in the first year of Cyrus, king of Persia, at the completion of the word of the Lord from the mouth of Jeremiah, the Lord aroused the Spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia, and he spread a proclamation (lit. voice) throughout his kingdom, and also in writing, saying: "So said Cyrus, the king of Persia; All the kingdoms of the earth gave to me, the Lord, God of heaven, and He commanded me to build Him a House in Jerusalem, which is in Judea. Whomever is amongst you of all His people, (may his) God be with him, and he should ascend to Jerusalem, which is in Judea. And he should build the House of the Lord, God of Israel -He is the God Who is in Jerusalem.. And whoever remains from all the places where he resides, they should promote him -the people of his residence- with silver and with gold and with possessions and with cattle, with the donation to the House of God, which is in Jerusalem.— Book of Ezra 1:1-4

The New Jewish Religion
"There is a general consensus among biblical scholars that ancient Judah during the 9th and 8th centuries BCE was basically polytheistic, with Yahweh as a national god in the same way that surrounding nations each had their own national gods. Monotheistic themes arose as early as the 8th century, in opposition to Assyrian royal propaganda, which depicted the Assyrian king as "Lord of the Four Quarters" (the world), but the Exile broke the competing fertility, ancestor and other cults and allowed it to emerge as the dominant theology of Yehud. The minor gods or "sons of Yahweh" of the old pantheon now turned into a hierarchy of angels and demons in a process that continued to evolve throughout the time of Yehud and into the Hellenistic age."

"Possibly the single most important development in the post-Exilic period was the promotion and eventual dominance of the idea and practice of Jewish exclusivity, the idea that the Jews (meaning followers of the god of Israel and of the law of Moses) were or should be a race apart from all others. According to Levine, that was a new idea, originating with the party of the golah, those who returned from the Babylonian exile. In spite of the reforming ex-Babylonian golah leader, Nehemiah, refusing the request of the Yahweh-worshiping Samaritans to help rebuild the Temple, and Ezra's horror at learning that Yehudi Yahweh-worshipers were intermarrying with non-Yehudis (possibly even non Yahweh-worshipers), the relations with the Samaritans and other neighbours were, in fact, close and cordial. Comparison of Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles bears this out: Chronicles opens participation in Yahweh-worship to all twelve tribes and even to foreigners, but for Ezra-Nehemiah, "Israel" means the tribes of Judah and Benjamin alone as well as the holy tribe of Levi."

"Persian Zoroastrianism certainly influenced Judaism. Although the exact extent of that influence continues to be debated, they shared the concept of God as Creator, as the one who guarantees justice and as the God of heaven. The experience of exile and restoration itself brought about a new world view in which Jerusalem and the House of David continued to be central ingredients, and the destruction of the Temple came to be regarded as a demonstration of Yahweh's strength."



Zoroastrianism
"Zoroaster is recorded as the son of Pourušaspa of the Spitaman or Spitamids (Avestan spit mean "brilliant" or "white"; some argue that Spitama was a remote progenitor) family, and Dugdōw, while his great-grandfather was Haēčataspa. All the names appear appropriate of the nomadic tradition, as his father's means "possessing gray horses" (with the word aspa meaning horse), while his mother's is "milkmaid". According to the tradition, he had four brothers, two older and two younger, whose names are given in much later Pahlavi work."

"The training for priesthood probably started very early around seven years of age. He became a priest probably around the age of fifteen, and according to Gathas, he gained knowledge from other teachers and personal experience from traveling when left his parents at twenty years old. By the age of thirty, he experienced a revelation during a spring festival; on the river bank he saw a shining Being, who revealed himself as Vohu Manah (Good Purpose) and taught him about Ahura Mazda (Wise Spirit) and five other radiant figures. Zoroaster soon became aware of the existence of two primal Spirits, the second being Angra Mainyu (Hostile Spirit), with opposing concepts of Asha (truth) and Druj (lie). Thus he decided to spend his life teaching people to seek Asha. He received further revelations and saw a vision of the seven Amesha Spenta, and his teachings were collected in the Gathas and the Avesta. By the age of thirty, he experienced a revelation during a spring festival; on the river bank he saw a shining Being, who revealed himself as Vohu Manah (Good Purpose) and taught him about Ahura Mazda (Wise Spirit) and five other radiant figures. Zoroaster soon became aware of the existence of two primal Spirits, the second being Angra Mainyu (Hostile Spirit), with opposing concepts of Asha (truth) and Druj (lie). Thus he decided to spend his life teaching people to seek Asha. He received further revelations and saw a vision of the seven Amesha Spenta, and his teachings were collected in the Gathas and the Avesta."

"He taught about free will, and opposed the use of the hallucinogenic Haoma plant in rituals, polytheism, over-ritualising religious ceremonies and animal sacrifices, as well an oppressive class system in Persia which earned him strong opposition among local authorities. Eventually, at the age of about forty-two, he received the patronage of queen Hutaosa and a ruler named Vishtaspa, an early adherent of Zoroastrianism. Zoroaster's teaching about individual judgment, Heaven and Hell, the resurrection of the body, the Last Judgment, and everlasting life for the reunited soul and body, among other things, became borrowings in the Abrahamic religions, but they lost the context of the original teaching."

"There is no scholarly consensus on when he lived. However, approximating using linguistic and socio-cultural evidence allows for dating to somewhere in the second millennium BCE. This is done by estimating the period in which the Old Avestan language (as well as the earlier Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Iranian languages and the related Vedic Sanskrit) were spoken, the period in which when the Proto-Indo-Iranian religion was practiced, and correlation between the social organization described in the Gathas with the archeological Yaz culture. However, other scholars still date him in the 7th and 6th century BCE as a near-contemporary of Cyrus the Great and Darius I."

"There is no consensus on the dating of Zoroaster, the Avesta gives no direct information about it, while historical sources are conflicting. Some scholars base their date reconstruction on the Proto-Indo-Iranian language and Proto-Indo-Iranian religion, and thus it is considered to have been some place in northeastern Iran and some time between 1500 and 500 BCE."

"The birthplace of Zoroaster is also unknown, and the language of the Gathas is not similar to the proposed north-western and north-eastern regional dialects of Persia. It is also suggested that he was born in one of the two areas and later lived in the other area."