How did Cyrus the Great treat the Jews in his empire?
In the Bible (e.g., Ezra 1:1–4), Cyrus is famous for freeing the Jewish captives in Babylonia and allowing them to return to their homeland. Cyrus was also tolerant toward the Babylonians and others. He conciliated local populations by supporting local customs and even sacrificing to local deities.
What contributions did Cyrus the Great make?
He conquered vast territories, from modern Turkey (Anatolia) to modern Oman. Cyrus freed the Jewish people from the Babylonian Kingdom, ending the era of Babylonian Captivity, or the exile of the Jews. He also issued the world's first human rights charter to protect the religious minorities in his kingdom.
How did Cyrus the Great treat conquered peoples?
Cyrus treated the people he conquered equally by letting them rebuild their temple, practicing their religion, letting them go to Jerusalem, and letting them speak their own language. The Jews did not rebel against him and praised him as the "chosen one".
How did Cyrus the Great treat other religions?
Under Cyrus's rule, they enjoyed the freedom of religion and worship even when they remained in Babylon. [39] Cyrus's policy of religious tolerance was not limited to the Jewish people in his kingdom.
What is Cyrus the Great contribution to peace and human rights?
In 539 B.C., the armies of Cyrus the Great, the first king of ancient Persia, conquered the city of Babylon. But it was his next actions that marked a major advance for Man. He freed the slaves, declared that all people had the right to choose their own religion, and established racial equality.
How did Cyrus the Great influence the world?
He also implemented the creation of standardized gold and silver coins, thus transitioning the empire from a barter economy into a money economy. His rule greatly influenced the thinking of Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, Alexander the Great, the Macedonian ruler, and the government of the Roman Empire.
What is Cyrus the Great best known for?
A brilliant military strategist, Cyrus vanquished the king of the Medes, then integrated all the Iranian tribes, whose skill at fighting on horseback gave his army great mobility. His triumph over Lydia, in Asia Minor near the Aegean Sea, filled his treasury with that country's tremendous wealth.
What strategy did Cyrus the Great use as he expanded the Persian Empire?
The Achaemenid Persian Empire first expanded under the leadership of Cyrus the Great, who utilized a strategy of religious and cultural toleration to maintain order.
Was Cyrus the Great a good leader?
“Among his many achievements, this great leader of wisdom and virtue founded and extended the Persian Empire; conquered Babylon; freed 40,000 Jews from captivity; wrote mankind's first human rights charter; and ruled over those he had conquered with respect and benevolence.”
The Earliest Christians
- The claim of Jesus’ followers that their Master was the sole authentic interpreter of Mosaic Law was not unusual. What set his followers apart was the claim that God had raised him up from the dead. Most Jews could hear this with amusement and, in the early days, without any violent reaction. As Pharisee-oriented Jews knew, the resurrection of the just would occur on the Last D…
Political Changes
- The drastic change came in 380. At this time Theodosius I decreed Christianity to be the official state religion. By then, the earlier imbalance of population of Jews over Christians was a matter of distant memory, even if pagans in the empire still far outnumbered the favored newcomer. But the Jewish position became precarious with this declaration. Political measures against the Jews di…
Peaceful Coexistence and Papal Intervention
- There is no popular writing extant to tell us how the ordinary Christians of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa thought of Jews and acted toward them in Christianity's first six hundred years. It must have fixed in the popular mind the conviction that the Jews had crucified Jesus and that their descendents bore hereditary guilt for the deed ...
The Medieval Era
- After a few centuries of freedom from harassment during the Carolingian period (800-1000), the Jews of western Europe began to suffer new indignities as the crusades came on. The Muslims were the "infidel" targets in the attempted recapture of the holy places in Palestine. However, the pillage and slaughter committed by Christian mobs against Jews on the way linger long in Jewis…
European Antisemitism After 1800
- The antipathies of Poles, Germans, Russians and others against Jews are often explained as if they were religiously based in the patristic and medieval manner. From the early 19th century on, however, anti-Jewish sentiment of Catholic and Protestant Europe, itself increasingly secularized, had other roots no less mythical. The proper term for it is anti-Semitism. Its target was Jewish e…
Summary
- Was there a direct line from the anti-Jewish passages in the New Testament to the gas chambers at Auschwitz, as some have alleged? Probably not. The line was indirect, beginning around 150 with gentile misreadings of the bitter intra-Jewish polemic contained in those writings. The theological anti-Judaism of the Church fathers, repeated endlessly in medieval and Renaissanc…