Editing Israelites (section)

=== Later history ===
{{Main|Jewish History|Samaritans#History|Ten Lost Tribes}}

With the fall of Babylon to the rising [[Achaemenid Empire|Achaemenid Persian Empire]], king [[Cyrus the Great]] issued a proclamation known as the [[Edict of Cyrus]], encouraging the exiles to [[Return to Zion|return to their homeland]] after the Persians raised it as an autonomous Jewish-governed province named [[Yehud Medinata|Yehud]]. Under the Persians ({{circa|539–332 BCE}}), the returned Jewish population restored the city and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. The [[Cyrus Cylinder]] is controversially cited as evidence for Cyrus allowing the Judeans to return.<ref name="MaryJ1">{{cite book |last=Winn Leith |first=Mary Joan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zFhvECwNQD0C&q=The+Oxford+History+of+the+Biblical+World |title=The Oxford History of the Biblical World |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=0-19-513937-2 |editor=Michael David Coogan |location=[[Oxford]]; [[New York City|New York]] |page=285 |chapter=Israel among the Nations: The Persian Period |format=[[Google Books]] |lccn=98016042 |oclc=44650958 |access-date=14 December 2012 |orig-date=1998 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zFhvECwNQD0C&q=The+Oxford+History+of+the+Biblical+World}}</ref><ref name="Becking">{{cite book |last=Becking |first=Bob |title=Judah and the Judeans in the Persian Period |publisher=Eisenbrauns |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-57506-104-7 |editor1-last=Lipschitz |editor1-first=Oded |location=Winona Lake, IN |page=8 |chapter="We All Returned as One!": Critical Notes on the Myth of the Mass Return |editor2-last=Oeming |editor2-first=Manfred |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1zi2i_C1aNkC&q=%22Cyrus+cylinder%22+Jerusalem&pg=PA8}}</ref> The returnees showed a "heightened sense" of their ethnic identity and shunned [[exogamy]], which was treated as a "permissive reality" in Babylon.<ref name="Southward">Katherine ER. Southward, [https://books.google.com/books?id=Wbo5h0BYOrIC&pg=PA193 ''Ethnicity and the Mixed Marriage Crisis in Ezra, 9–10: An Anthropological Approach,''] Oxford University Press 2012 pp.103–203, esp. p.193.</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Pearce |first=Laurie |date=2022 |title=Jews Intermarried Not Only in Judea but Also in Babylonia |url=https://www.thetorah.com/article/jews-intermarried-not-only-in-judea-but-also-in-babylonia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240412043706/https://www.thetorah.com/article/jews-intermarried-not-only-in-judea-but-also-in-babylonia |archive-date=April 12, 2024 |website=TheTorah.com}}</ref> Circumcision was no longer a significant ethnic marker, with increased emphasis on genealogical descent or faith in Yahweh.<ref name=":33">{{Cite book |last=Thiessen |first=Matthew |url=https://academic.oup.com/book/5287/chapter/148016316?login=true#273599969 |title=Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity |date=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-991445-6 |pages=87–110}}</ref><ref name=":21">{{Cite journal |last=Lau |first=Peter H.W. |date=2009 |title=Gentile Incorporation into Israel in Ezra - Nehemiah? |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42614919 |journal=Peeters Publishers |volume=90 |issue=3 |pages=356–373 |jstor=42614919 }}</ref> Jason A. Staples argues that the majority of contemporary Jews, regardless of theology, wished for the reunion of northern Israelites and southern Jews.<ref name=":26" />

In 332 BCE, the Achaemenid Empire fell to [[Alexander the Great]], and the region was later incorporated into the [[Ptolemaic Kingdom]] ({{circa|301–200 BCE}}) and the [[Seleucid Empire]] ({{circa|200–167 BCE}}). The [[Maccabean Revolt]] against Seleucid rule ushered in a period of nominal independence for the Jewish people under the [[Hasmonean dynasty]] (140–37 BCE). Initially operating semi-autonomously within the Seleucid sphere, the Hasmoneans gradually asserted full independence through military conquest and diplomacy, establishing themselves as the final sovereign Jewish rulers before a prolonged hiatus in Jewish sovereignty in the region.<ref name=":032">{{Cite book |last1=Helyer |first1=Larry R. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/961153992 |title=The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts |last2=McDonald |first2=Lee Martin |publisher=Baker Academic |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-8010-9861-1 |editor-last=Green |editor-first=Joel B. |pages=45–47 |chapter=The Hasmoneans and the Hasmonean Era |oclc=961153992 |quote=The ensuing power struggle left Hyrcanus with a free hand in Judea, and he quickly reasserted Jewish sovereignty... Hyrcanus then engaged in a series of military campaigns aimed at territorial expansion. He first conquered areas in the Transjordan. He then turned his attention to Samaria, which had long separated Judea from the northern Jewish settlements in Lower Galilee. In the south, Adora and Marisa were conquered; (Aristobulus') primary accomplishment was annexing and Judaizing the region of Iturea, located between the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains |editor-last2=McDonald |editor-first2=Lee Martin}}</ref><ref name="auto12">{{Cite book |last=Ben-Sasson |first=H.H. |title=A History of the Jewish People |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=1976 |isbn=0-674-39731-2 |pages=226 |quote=The expansion of Hasmonean Judea took place gradually. Under Jonathan, Judea annexed southern Samaria and began to expand in the direction of the coast plain... The main ethnic changes were the work of John Hyrcanus... it was in his days and those of his son Aristobulus that the annexation of Idumea, Samaria and Galilee and the consolidation of Jewish settlement in Trans-Jordan was completed. Alexander Jannai, continuing the work of his predecessors, expanded Judean rule to the entire coastal plain, from the Carmel to the Egyptian border... and to additional areas in Trans-Jordan, including some of the Greek cities there.}}</ref><ref name=":22">{{Citation |last=Smith |first=Morton |title=The Gentiles in Judaism 125 BCE - 66 CE |date=1999 |work=The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 3: The Early Roman Period |volume=3 |pages=192–249 |editor-last=Sturdy |editor-first=John |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-history-of-judaism/gentiles-in-judaism-125-bcece-66/1AC78E99125BFE8E215AC8137DD8FE32 |access-date=2023-03-20 |series=The Cambridge History of Judaism |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |doi=10.1017/chol9780521243773.008 |isbn=978-0-521-24377-3 |quote=These changes accompanied and were partially caused by the great extension of the Judaeans' contacts with the peoples around them. Many historians have chronicled the Hasmonaeans' territorial acquisitions. In sum, it took them twenty-five years to win control of the tiny territory of Judaea and get rid of the Seleucid colony of royalist Jews (with, presumably, gentile officials and garrison) in Jerusalem. [...] However, in the last years before its fall, the Hasmonaeans were already strong enough to acquire, partly by negotiation, partly by conquest, a little territory north and south of Judaea and a corridor on the west to the coast at Jaffa/Joppa. This was briefly taken from them by Antiochus Sidetes, but soon regained, and in the half-century from Sidetes' death in 129 to Alexander Jannaeus' death in 76 they overran most of Palestine and much of western and northern Transjordan. First John Hyrcanus took over the hills of southern and central Palestine (Idumaea and the territories of Shechem, Samaria and Scythopolis) in 128–104; then his son, Aristobulus I, took Galilee in 104–103, and Aristobulus' brother and successor, Jannaeus, in about eighteen years of warfare (103–96, 86–76) conquered and reconquered the coastal plain, the northern Negev, and western edge of Transjordan. |editor2-last=Davies |editor2-first=W. D. |editor3-last=Horbury |editor3-first=William}}</ref><ref name="auto2">{{Cite book |last=Ben-Eliyahu |first=Eyal |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1103519319 |title=Identity and Territory: Jewish Perceptions of Space in Antiquity |date=30 April 2019 |publisher=Univ of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-29360-1 |pages=13 |oclc=1103519319 |quote=From the beginning of the Second Temple period until the Muslim conquest—the land was part of imperial space. This was true from the early Persian period, as well as the time of Ptolemy and the Seleucids. The only exception was the Hasmonean Kingdom, with its sovereign Jewish rule—first over Judah and later, in Alexander Jannaeus's prime, extending to the coast, the north, and the eastern banks of the Jordan.}}</ref> Some scholars argue that Jews also engaged in active missionary efforts in the [[Greco-Roman world]], which led to conversions.<ref name="Feldman">[[Louis H. Feldman]], [http://cojs.org/louis-h-feldman-omnipresence-god-fearers-biblical-archaeology-review-12-5-1986/ "The Omnipresence of the God-Fearers"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201024145011/http://cojs.org/louis-h-feldman-omnipresence-god-fearers-biblical-archaeology-review-12-5-1986/ |date=24 October 2020 }}, ''[[Biblical Archaeology Review]]'' 12, 5 (1986), Center for Online Judaic Studies.</ref><ref name="Cohen">[[Shaye J. D. Cohen]], ''From the Maccabees to the Mishnah'' (1989), pp. 55–59, [[Louisville, Kentucky]]: [[Westminster John Knox Press]], {{ISBN|978-0-664-25017-1}}.</ref><ref>A. T. Kraabel, J. Andrew Overman, Robert S. MacLennan, ''Diaspora Jews and Judaism: essays in honor of, and in dialogue with, A. Thomas Kraabel'' (1992), [[Scholars Press]], {{ISBN|978-15-55406-96-7}}. "As pious gentiles, the God-fearers stood somewhere between Greco-Roman piety and Jewish piety in the synagogue. In his classic but now somewhat outdated study titled ''Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era'', Harvard scholar George Foot Moore argued that the existence of the God-fearers provides evidence for the synagogue's own missionary work outside of Palestine during the first century C.E. The God-fearers were the result of this Jewish missionary movement."</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Goodman |first=Martin |url=https://brill.com/display/title/12543?language=en |title=Judaism in the Roman World |date=2006 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-47-41061-4}}</ref> Several scholars, such as [[Scot McKnight]] and [[Martin Goodman (historian)|Martin Goodman]], reject this view while holding that conversions occasionally occurred.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Gregerman |first=Adam |date=2009 |title=The Lack of Evidence for a Jewish Christian Countermission in Galatia |url=https://ejournals.bc.edu/index.php/scjr/article/view/1513 |journal=Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations |language=en |volume=4 |issue=1 |page=13 |doi=10.6017/scjr.v4i1.1513 |issn=1930-3777 |doi-access=free}}</ref> A similar diaspora existed for Samaritans but their existence is poorly documented.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zsengeller |first=Jozsef |date=2016 |title=THE Samaritan Diaspora in Antiquity |url=https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA509729366&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00445975&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E311d56ca&aty=open-web-entry |journal=Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae |volume=56 |issue=2 |pages=157–175 |doi=10.1556/068.2016.56.2.2 |via=Gale Academic Onefile}}</ref>

In 63 BCE, the [[Roman Republic]] conquered the kingdom. In 37 BCE, the Romans appointed [[Herod the Great]] as king of [[Herodian Kingdom of Judea|a vassal Judea]]. In 6 CE, Judea was fully incorporated into the [[Roman Empire]] as the [[Judaea (Roman province)|province of Judaea]]. During this period, the main areas of Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel were Judea, [[Galilee]] and [[Perea]], while the Samaritans had their demographic center in [[Samaria]]. Growing dissatisfaction with Roman rule and civil disturbances eventually led to the [[First Jewish–Roman War]] (66–73 CE), resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, which ended the [[Second Temple period]]. This event marked a cataclysmic moment in Jewish history,<ref name=":52">{{Cite book |last=Karesh |first=Sara E. |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1162305378 |title=Encyclopedia of Judaism |publisher=Facts On File |year=2006 |isbn=1-78785-171-0 |oclc=1162305378 |quote=Until the modern period, the destruction of the Temple was the most cataclysmic moment in the history of the Jewish people. Without the Temple, the Sadducees no longer had any claim to authority, and they faded away. The sage Yochanan ben Zakkai, with permission from Rome, set up the outpost of Yavneh to continue develop of Pharisaic, or rabbinic, Judaism.}}</ref> prompting a reconfiguration of Jewish identity and practice to ensure continuity. The cessation of Temple worship and disappearance of Temple-based sects<ref>{{cite journal |last=Alföldy |first=Géza |year=1995 |title=Eine Bauinschrift aus dem Colosseum |journal=[[Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik]] |volume=109 |pages=195–226 |jstor=20189648}}</ref> facilitated the rise of [[Rabbinic Judaism]], which stemmed from the [[Pharisees|Pharisaic]] school of Second Temple Judaism, emphasizing [[Synagogue|communal synagogue worship]] and [[Torah study]], eventually becoming the predominant expression of Judaism.<ref name=":42">{{Cite journal |last=Westwood |first=Ursula |date=2017-04-01 |title=A History of the Jewish War, AD 66–74 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.18647/3311/jjs-2017 |journal=Journal of Jewish Studies |volume=68 |issue=1 |pages=189–193 |doi=10.18647/3311/jjs-2017 |issn=0022-2097}}</ref><ref name=":52" /><ref name=":82">{{Cite book |last=Maclean Rogers |first=Guy |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1294393934 |title=For the Freedom of Zion: The Great Revolt of Jews against Romans, 66-74 CE |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2021 |isbn=978-0-300-26256-8 |location=New Haven and London |pages=3–5 |oclc=1294393934}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Goldenberg |first=Robert |date=1977 |title=The Broken Axis: Rabbinic Judaism and the Fall of Jerusalem |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/xlv.3.353 |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Religion |volume=XLV |issue=3 |pages=353 |doi=10.1093/jaarel/xlv.3.353 |issn=0002-7189}}</ref> Concurrently, [[Christianity]] [[Split of Christianity and Judaism|began to diverge]] from Judaism, evolving into a predominantly [[Gentile]] religion.<ref name="Klutz 2002">{{cite book |author-last=Klutz |author-first=Todd |title=The Early Christian World |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2002 |isbn=9781032199344 |editor-last=Esler |editor-first=Philip F. |edition=1st |series=Routledge Worlds |location=[[New York City|New York]] and [[London]] |pages=178–190 |chapter=Part II: Christian Origins and Development – Paul and the Development of Gentile Christianity |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6fyCAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA178 |origyear=2000}}</ref> Decades later, the [[Bar Kokhba revolt]] (132–135 CE) further diminished the Jewish presence in [[Judea]], leading to a geographical shift of Jewish life to Galilee and [[Asoristan|Babylonia]], with smaller communities scattered across the [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]].