16. The Babylonian Exile (Jewish History Lab)

Brief description of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews in the 6th century BCE. This lecture is also part of the course entitled Biblical Jewish History: From Abraham to Bar Kochba. Course information and registration here: henryabramson.com/course/bibl...
For recommended reading, please visit: henryabramson.com/recommended...
Interested in studying more deeply? Join our learning community of students, researchers and colleagues: / @henryabramsonphd
Online Courses:
Biblical Jewish History: From Abraham to Bar Kochba
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[@danielpalmer643]

Someone wouldn't allow me to point out that the months of the Hebrew calendar were adapted from the Babylonian on Wikipedia. I'm glad you mentioned it here. They didn't like my source for it and had a higher "rank" than me. Anyway, great lecture as always. I've learned a great deal from your channel and am very happy to have found it!

[@Ritercrazy]

Around 8:31 months were numbered... I love knowing that.

[@amck4648]

Thank you - these are great!

[@zmail8566]

A lecture on Aramaic would be amazing. As a Jew who comes from Aramaic speaking family, I would appreciate it allot! 😊🙌

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Check out www.alldaf.org and search for Aramaic.

[@zmail8566]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD toda 😊 Wow alldaf is such an amazing website, I didn't know about it before. Also the lectures you made there on Aramaic are fantastic 😁 chag Channuka sameach!

[@SK-le1gm]

I love this video. Thanks.

[@yourthought2333]

Popcorn ready 😊

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Nice!

[@gildedage88]

Thank you Dr. A quick and satisfying introduction to the First Exile. Didn't realize that actual dates from exile to Cyrus' repatriation was less than 5 generations. Seems a very short time, but with a powerful impact. Going back through the Book of Esther, beautiful.

[@wafee2001]

Informative

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Thanks!

[@claire3gen710]

Thankyou for sharing this information, it's most interesting and helpful. Can you tell me please if there were many deaths of the Jews during this siege, or did they as a whole surrender to their captors?

[@menachemsalomon]

When speaking of Aramaic as the _lingua franca,_ I have a theory that a more accurate description would be Judeo-Aramaic, that is Aramaic written with Hebrew letters (of whichever form, _Ivri_ or _Ashuri,_ depending on the era) and spiced with Hebrew terms. This is the first of many such Judeo-vernacular languages, including Ladino (Judeo-Spanish), Judeo-Arabic (used by _Rambam_ and R' Bachye), and most famously Yiddish (Judeo-German). The _Bavli_ and _Yerushalmi_ reflect different dialects of this Judeo-Aramaic, as do _Zohar,_ _Targum Onkelos,_ and _Targum Yonasan_ (all written with Hebrew letters), similar to different dialects of Yiddish between Germany, Poland, and Russia.

[@JerusalemIfi4getU]

Interesting

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

A reasonable assumption, I would think. I'm not well-versed in the state of non-Jewish Aramaic documents from the period to make any decent sense of comparison.

[@samdanha3862]

turning point for Jewish people , Thank you Babylon for education that was provided to Jewish and the first bible was written in Babylon

[@qosolka3320]

Will you be going through all of Jewish history, including the medieval period?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

That's the plan.

[@ntheg]

Thank you so much for this video! I have a question (this might not be the right place but oh well): What is the Jewish justification for adopting the Sumerian Babylonian months, considering some (like Tamuz) are named after mesopotamian gods?

[@RavGav72]

Dr Abramson, could you please explain how, when and why Hebrew script changed during the Babylonian Exile?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Might have an opportunity to briefly address it in an upcoming video, but more in the print version I hope.

[@heavenswindsong]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD Dr.Abramson.....I have spent over 35 years studying the Biblical Hebrew calendar and I am convinced that the sighting of the new crescent moon was a custom introduced to Israel during the Babylonian captivity, not the original custom of the calendar God gave to Moses during the Exodus. I am also convinced that prior to King Hezekiah in around 700 b.c., that the solar/lunar year was that of 360 days of exactly 12 lunar months of 30 days. Do you have any information on this data?

[@jonathanwilson3254]

Henry, You note 586BC as the year that Solomon's Temple was destroyed. Other sources have this date as 598BC, What is your view?

[@orboakin8074]

I decided to search for this after feeling nostalgic for the Boney M song "Rivers of Babylon" that I used to listen to as a kid in Nigeria.

[@curbroadshow]

“Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.” They didn’t put that bit in the children’s songs.

[@orboakin8074]

@@curbroadshow yeah, the Bible is one hardcore book🤣

[@ericwilliams1124]

@Henry Abramson Did Israel get to Babylon on ships or land?

[@MasonicJewTubeTrap]

It's important

[@1BestCookie]

Interesting to note the reason for 2 adar is because the Jewish calendar is a lunar and solar calendar very early in time even before they had a written calendar they kept the lunar calendar in line with the sun to keep pesach in the spring.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Correct.

[@ronjohnson4566]

so maybe 12 months + a varying amount of annual special religious days could have been counted as a full 28-day months. So, all those old guys really did live very long lives. 7 to 10 holidays a year x 80 years = well that's lot of years.

[@womanofvalour6601]

Dr. Abramson, if the Assyrian exiles involved only males, those people from the 10 lost tribes are most likely indeed lost. But if the Babylonian exile of Judah also involved only males, the Jewish settlements of Babylon that continued into our own modern period could not have been matrilineal...? Or am I missing something...?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

I doubt that it was completely male, although perhaps predominately male.

[@matthewpopp1054]

Is the second temple ever referred to as the Temple of Cyrus?

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Can't say I recall reading that term.

[@petervanschie7161]

The bulla is not of Gedalyahu who is over the House but of Gedalyahu ben (son of) Pashur. Close to where this bulla was found, another one was dug up with the name of Yehucal ben Shelemyahu. Both were ministers of king Zedekia. They demanded the prophet Jeremiah be put to death because he told the people to surrender to the Banylonians. The story can be read in Jeremiah 38:1 - 4

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Hmm.

[@1BestCookie]

I didn't know the names of the months come from Babylon

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Yes

[@nichhodge8503]

Without the exile of the Jews to Babylon they wouldn’t have wrote the Lord’s Song and without the Lord’s Song we wouldn’t have had the Boney M song Rivers Of Babylon which takes the words from the Lord’s Song

[@curbroadshow]

“Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.”

[@patrickjohnson7592]

The Real, Jews are black people There history, and heritage, are recorded in the Bible. There Hebrew names are in the Bible.

[@yourthought2333]

Kinda sad to Know we STILL use the calendar of our former oppressors.

[@HenryAbramsonPhD]

Well, not the actual calendar, but just the names, yes. But this is no different than Monday, Tuesday, January, February, etc.

[@yourthought2333]

@@HenryAbramsonPhD Yeah, when I learned of THEIR true meaning I had a hard time saying the days for a while.

[@user-ej7dg2re6o]

Are the Jewish People Still in Exile? Being Jewish means attaining the sensation of two contrasting forces in nature, the egoistic force, which is our human nature, and its opposite altruistic force, which is the force of nature itself. The attainment of these two forces define the people who, first under Abraham, developed this feeling of reality. They became known as the people of Israel, and later, as the Jews. At a certain point, around 2.000 years ago, they lost the sensation of the two forces and lived solely in the egoistic force. That is the meaning of being in exile. Exile has no geographic connotations, i.e. leaving some geographic Land of Israel. It is rather a matter of an inner exile, that we lack the sensation of the altruistic nature-the quality of love, bestowal and connection-in our relations. When we departed from this sensation, we then entered our period of exile and ceased to exist as the people of Israel.

[@elohimshalom2369]

Sir, The crux of the Truth is that ,"THE JEWS AND THE ISRAEL ARE TWO DIFFERENT GROUPS OF PEOPLE., LIKE, 1HINDUS 2ISLAM 3X'TIANS 4ISRAEL 5BUDDIST 6.SIKHS 7.PARSEES. etc-- All these religions believe in "souls" I don't know what type of being is this ! But ,not the ,NEZAREIANS,THE OTHER WAY, ESTABLISHED BY THE SON OF GOD, YHOSWHAUA, (Not Jesus) IN THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ( NOT BIBLE) ONLY RESURRECTION,HE HIMSELF SHOWED TO THE WORLD, TO DESTROY THE LIE OF THE SERPENT. ALAS!!

[@tamara3782]

Are the Jewish People Still in Exile? Being Jewish means attaining the sensation of two contrasting forces in nature, the egoistic force, which is our human nature, and its opposite altruistic force, which is the force of nature itself. The attainment of these two forces define the people who, first under Abraham, developed this feeling of reality. They became known as the people of Israel, and later, as the Jews. At a certain point, around 2.000 years ago, they lost the sensation of the two forces and lived solely in the egoistic force. That is the meaning of being in exile. Exile has no geographic connotations, i.e. leaving some geographic Land of Israel. It is rather a matter of an inner exile, that we lack the sensation of the altruistic nature-the quality of love, bestowal and connection-in our relations. When we departed from this sensation, we then entered our period of exile and ceased to exist as the people of Israel.