How Persia First Took Over Jewish Land

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

    The faravahar is the best-known symbol from ancient Persia of the winged sun disk with a seated male figure in the center. It is thought to represent Ahura Mazda, the god of Zoroastrianism, (the belief in light and righteousness, shown by fire) but has also been interpreted to signify other concepts.  Persia influenced  ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.  

Today Persias/Iran  is immersed in the Ayatollas extremism of Islam, men who refuted the Shah's eagerness to join the 20th and 21st centuries with electricity and department stores.  The shah was great in time of peace, being a friend of Israel, but weaker from cancer to fight the Ayatollah.  

Persia, historic region of southwestern Asia associated with the area that is now modern Iran. The term Persia was used for centuries and originated from a region of southern Iran formerly known as Persis, alternatively as Pārs or Parsa, modern Fārs, people who speak Farsi.   The use of the name was gradually extended by the ancient Greeks and other peoples to apply to the whole Iranian plateau. The people of that region have traditionally called their country Iran, “Land of the Aryans.” That name was officially adopted in  1935 by  Reza Shah Pahlavi, the  Iranian army officer who rose through army ranks to become shah of Iran (1925–41) and began the regeneration of his country.

Ancient Iran, historically known as Persia, was the dominant nation of western Asia for over a millennium (about 550 BC– 650 CE), with 3 native dynasties controlling an empire of unprecedented size and complexity.                       

    Persia covered most of the Middle East;  Egypt, Arabia, Mediterranean Sea and in pink-Medea and Parthia, Israel is in Pink, a connecting piece of land to Egypt and land. Jews lived in 127 of its provinces, mostly in Susa (Shushan, the capital). Shushan was the capital of Elam and subsequently capital of Persia.  Excavations of late reveals the royal palace mentioned  in the book of Esther. (Est 2:18:3-9)                               

Esther's uncle Mordecai wouldn't bow to Haman, irking him immensely.  Haman, the vice under the king, hated Jews and started an attack on them all, plotting to kill all.  He was like a first Hitler.  Esther told her husband and he had Haman and his 7 sons all hung.  

This Achaemenid Empire was  founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. It reached its greatest extent under Xerxes I (486-465 BCE), son of Darius Ist, who conquered most of northern and central ancient Greece. At its greatest territorial extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from the Balkans and Eastern Europe in the west to the Indus Valley in the east. The empire was larger than any previous empire in history, spanning a total of 5.5 million square kilometres (2.1 million square miles).  Darius reigned from 522-486 BCE.  At the beginning of his reign, he permitted Zerubbabel and the Jews who had returned to Jerusalem to resume reconstruction of the Temple since it was the Persians who had destroyed it in the first place.   

Iran "Persia" and land to the west of it as well as to the east.  Mediterranean Sea is on the left edge. Iran or Persia, is in the center of it all, though Jerusalem was said to be the center.  

A thirteenth -century crusader map places Jerusalem at the center of the earth. Heinrich Bunting's world map in his Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae, Helmstadt, 1581, of which the Library has a copy, depicts the earth as a three-leaf clover, each leaf being a continent: Europe, Asia, and Africa. The three are drawn together by a ring encircling a single city; that city is Jerusalem. Three times daily the Jew turns in his devotions towards the Holy City. The Passover seder ritual and the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) liturgy conclude with the pledge and prayer, "Next year in Jerusalem."   

                               

    King David was able to be king over this land first, reigning from 1010 to 970 BCE.  

Cyrus played an important part in our Jewish history and is known as Cyrus II.  He overran the Babylonian Empire.  It was Nebuchadnezzar(605-562 BCE) that  in 597 BCE and again in 586 BCE who had attacked Judah and carried away most of the population to Babylon to use as slaves. Nebuchadnezzar  was in the Assyrian-Egyptian alliance at Carchenish in 605 BCE.  The result was that he was the winner, and so had conquered all the lands from the Euphrates River to the Egyptian frontier which included the state of Judah.    

Queen Esther and Ahasueros, her husband. Darius I inherited the throne of Cyrus, reigning from 522-486 BCE, so could be her grandson.    Cyrus pursued and enlightened policy towards his subject peoples and in 538 BCE, granted permission to the exiles of Judah in Babylon to return to their homeland of Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple.  It's considered that Cyrus happened to be Queen Esther's son and that Esther was actually Xerxes I's wife, better known to Jews as King Ahasuerus.  Thus, we have the story of our holiday of Purim.(Book of Esther and Ezra 4:6). Elam was an ancient civilization centered in the far west and southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of what is now Khuzestan and Ilam Province as well as a small part of southern Iraq.

  Cyrus the Great, possibly was Jewish with Queen Esther as his mother.                                     

              Alexander the Great, (356-323 BCE)  king of Macedonia,  an ardent admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered most of the Achaemenid Empire by 330 BC. He had visited Jerusalem during Jaddua, the high priest's term, and praised him highly. according to Josephus, but this is questioned, though he did visit later.  Alexander is written about in talmudic, midrashic and medieval Jewish legends.  What we do know is that Jews loved him and named their children and businesses after him.  He made a good impression.    Upon Alexander's death, most of the former territory of the empire fell to the rule of the Ptolemaic Kingdom and the Seleucid Empire. 

Many movies have been made about him.  Alexander is a 2004 epic historical drama film based on the life of the ancient Macedonian general and king Alexander the Great. It was directed by Oliver Stone and starred Colin Farrell. The film's original screenplay derived in part from the book Alexander the Great, published in 1973 by the University of Oxford historian Robin Lane Fox. After release, while it performed well in Europe, the American critical reaction was negative. It grossed $167 million worldwide against a $155 million budget, thus making it a commercial failure.                                      

Seleucid Empire, the Hellenistic dynasty was founded by Nicator, one of Alexander's generals.  Antiochus III settled Babylonian Jews in Phrygia and Lydia.  He conquered Palestine in about 200 BCE and granted privileges to the Temple.  When Seleucus IV was in power, they owned a lot of money and this led to the Hasmonean revolt with Antiochus IV, called Epiphanes, a Syrian king.  Simon, one of the 5 sons of Mattathias of Modiin,  the Hasmonean, freed the Jews of his power in 138 BCE and even better in 134 BCE.  Antiochus died in 129 and the Jews revolted.  Simon's rule ended in 128.  The Hasmoneans were a priestly dynasty of Kings.  It was the 1st son, Judah, the Maccabee, who was the hero in our Purim history, called "the hammerer."                                          

This was during the Sassanid Dynasty and held authority over ancient centers of intensive Jewish populations in Mesopotamia.

 The Iranian elites of the central plateau reclaimed power by the 2nd century BCE under the Parthian Empire.  Parthia was an empire of the 3rd century BCE to 226 CE.  It ruled over the vast populations of Jews  in Mesopotamia, Babylonia and Media.  They restored Antigonus Mattathias, who was the last Hasmonean king and ruled from 40 to 37 BCE on the throne of Judah.  The Jews in Rome looked on the Parthians as their future savior as they were enjoyed a greater autonomy under the exilarch. Now was the time of the famous rabbinic schools in Mesopotamia flourishing.    When General Pompey captured Jerusalem in 40.  He killed people in line for the throne, took it and the High Priest position.  The Romans drove the Parthians out of Syria in 39 and Herod attacked Antigonus.  who fled to Jerusalem and after a 5 month siege, was put to death before the destruction of Jerusalem.  

It appears that the Essenes who lived in caves during this period were frustrated politically by Antigonus Mattathias and the problems he was facing, causing them to change their social life and live in groups in caves.  They were trying to understand the confusion and changes in power.  We know that the Romans occupied Jerusalem and by 70 CE had burned down the 2nd Temple with the city itself. People were killed, captured for slavery and some had managed to escape.       

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.britannica.com/place/Persia

https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/persia/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_(2004_film)

https://www.worldhistory.org/Faravahar/