Herodotus, Palestine and the Jews

One of the oldest arguments made by skeptics of the Christian and jewish historical cosmos is that Herodotus - the 'Father of History' - does not mention jews at all in his 'Histories'. Indeed if you look up Herodotus and Jews in Google you will find an absolute wealth of Christian and jewish sites claiming this isn't the case and professing to deal with the sceptic objections. I will deal with some of those objections here.

Why answer them?

Very simply: the objections that are used by Christians and jews alike tend to place the jews at the very centre of the world and as such place them on a proverbial pedestal of being a key and influential historical nation. However if we strip that away and we find little mention of the jews in Herodotus then their supposed pivotal importance in ancient history becomes downgraded to a mere tribal curiosity.

Let us begin with the mentions that Herodotus makes of Palestine and then work through what it does in fact tell us as opposed to what it doesn't.

To wit:

'The Scythians next turned their attention to Egypt, but were met in Palestine by Psammetichus the Egyptian king, who by earnest entreaties supported by bribery managed to prevent their further advance. They withdrew by way of Ascalan in Syria. The bulk of the army passed the town without doing any damage, but a small number of men got left behind and robbed the temple of Aphrodite Urania – the most ancient, I am told, of all the temples of this goddess. The one in Cyprus the Cyprians themselves admit was derived from it, and the one in Cythera was built by the Phoenicians, who belong to this part of Syria. The Scythians who robbed the temple at Ascalan were punished by the goddess with the infliction of what is called the 'female disease', and their descendants still suffer from it. This is the reason the Scythians give for this mysterious complaint, and travellers to the country can see what it is like. The Scythians call those who suffer from it 'Enarees'.' (1)

[...]

'The Egyptians did, however, say that they thought the original Colchians were men from Sesostris' army. My own idea on the subject was based first on the fact that they have black skins and woolly hair (not that that amounts to much, as other nations have the same), and secondly, and more especially, on the fact that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians are the only races which from ancient times have practised circumcision. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves admit that they learned the practice from Egypt, and the Syrians who live near the rivers Thermodon and Parthenius, as well as their neighbours the Macronians, say that they learnt it only a short time ago from the Colchians. No other nations use circumcision, and all these are without doubt following the Egyptian lead. As between the Egyptians and the Ethiopians, I cannot say which learn from the other, for the custom is evidentially a very ancient one; but I have no doubt that the other nations adopted it as the result of their intercourse with Egypt, and in this belief I am strongly supported by the fact that Phoenicians who have contact with Greece drop the Egyptian usage, and allow their children to go uncircumcised.' (2)

[…]

'Fifth: from the town of Posideiium, which was founded by Amphilochus, son of Amphiaraus, on the border between Cilicia and Syria, as far as Egypt – omitting Arabian territory, which was free of tax – came 350 talents. This province contains the whole of Phoenicia and that part of Syria which is called Palestine, and Cyprus.' (3)

[…]

'Between Persia and Phoenicia lies a very large area of country; and from Phoenicia the branch I am speaking of runs along the Mediterranean coast through Palestine-Syria to Egypt, where it ends. It contains three nations only.' (4)

[…]

'The Phoenicians, with the Syrians of Palestine, contributed 300. The crews wore helmets very like the Greek ones, and linen corslets; they were armed with rimless shields and javelins. These people have a tradition that in ancient times they lived on the Persian Gulf, but migrated to the Syrian coast, where they are found today. This part of Syria, together with the country which extends southward to Egypt, is all known as Palestine.' (5)

Now it is clear from all the mentions that Herodotus gives of Palestine and its people that they did not have a particularly odd monotheistic religion (which the Biblical claims they did) as if they had done so: it is the kind of thing that Herodotus was and is apt to mention. However none of his informants mention this and thus neither does Herodotus. Indeed the only mention we have of a temple is of a pagan one - to Aphrodite - who was apparently much favoured by the locals in Ascalan - modern Ashkelon - who were supposedly jews at this time according to the Biblical narrative.

This is certainly an odd omission not easily argued against.

The only mention we have of unusual religious practices is in the practice of circumcision among both the Syrians of Palestine and the Phoenicians who are directly suggested to have derived their practice from Egypt. This is often taken as 'proof' that the 'Syrians of Palestine' were jews, but this cannot be done for the precise reason that we have no way to know that the 'Syrians of Palestine' were jews or even followed a monotheistic or quasi-monotheistic religion! To blandly assume the connection is to make a conclusion a priori and then 'see' the 'evidence' for it.

Indeed the fact that Herodotus mentions that circumcision was also used among the Phoenicians removes any basis what-so-ever for making the connection as it tells us of plurality of use: in other words if more than one people in the same area used circumcision then how can it be used as evidence of the existence of a specific people when more than one people in the area was using it?

The idea that the 'Syrians of Palestine' are simply equate-able with jews is further condemned to the dustbin of history by Herodotus' clarifying remark:

'Phoenicians who have contact with Greece drop the Egyptian usage, and allow their children to go uncircumcised'

This tells us quite directly that the Phoenicians behaved rather like Hellenizing jews of the same general period. To explain briefly: at around this time the Tanakh tells us that the jews had two generalised factions. One were the cultured jews - the Hellenizers of a sort - who tended to - as Herodotus says - abandon the mark of covenant (circumcision) and to a large extent Judaism in favour of Greek practices. The other were the religious fanatics (like the Prophets Ezra and Nehemiah) who held that anything non-jewish was inherently evil and demanded that circumcision be practised.

What this means is that because Herodotus clearly identifies the Phoenicians as behaving like Hellenizing jews and not the 'Syrians of Palestine' you cannot claim that the Phoenicians and 'Syrians of Palestine' are distinguishable from each other. In other words you cannot claim that the 'Syrians of Palestine' are jews precisely because the Phoenicians in Herodotus' account are actually behaving more like the jews of the Tanakh than the 'Syrians of Palestine' who are the claimed jews of the Christian and jewish historical cosmos.

The other argument oft propounded - although this time by Zionists and their apologists - is that Palestine is an 'invention' of the Emperor Hadrian's: thus dating the name to after the jewish kingdoms that are claimed to have existed. Thus - in jewish eyes - meaning that Palestine is an 'invention' and gives rise to the common claim that the Palestinians are an 'invented people'. This is absolute cobblers as Herodotus clearly says Palestine and Syrians of Palestine in the original Greek: he does not say an approximate or substitute. Thus the region was called Palestine long before the jews turned up and declared Yahweh had given the land to them.

To argue - as many jews do - that there was a jewish kingdom of substance before Herodotus is rather difficult precisely because the only evidence we have is from jewish religious writings written after the fact. When I say only evidence it might surprise some as it is one of those great historical shibboleths that tend to exist in any age: however the strange thing about the 'Kingdoms of Israel' is that they aren't mentioned textually by anyone else. It is rather like the 'Holocaust' in a sense in that it is all assumption and very little substance: yet 'everybody knows' it existed.

In essence then it is very difficult to reasonably argue that the jews are mentioned at all - even by inference - in Herodotus' 'Histories' without reasoning a priori.

Did the jews exist in Palestine at this point as some argue?

Quite possibly, but then at the same time convincing arguments have been put forward that they didn't.

However I tend to err on the cautious side here and suggest that the simplest possible solution is the likeliest in that the jews of antiquity were a tiny tribal conglomeration and not 'states' or 'kingdoms' per se, but rather rose to power later and then imposed their religion on other Semites for a time. Perhaps the closest we can get to the probable scenario in my view is the spread of Islam from Arabia that was accomplished by military means. So then that would place the spread of Judaism as a kind of failed attempt at spreading a barbaric tribal religion by the sword.

Rather different to the 'glorious' history of 'ancient Israel' isn't it?

References

(1) Herod. 1:105

(2) Ibid., 2:104

(3) Ibid., 3:91

(4) Ibid., 4:39

(5) Ibid., 7:89