#hasmonean independence au

[hyperpotamianarch]

So, for the time being, I pretty much dominate the #alternate jewish history tag. By which I mean, all posts under this tag are ones I either wrote or reblogged. This is, of course, meaningless. Even so, I intend to take care of this little corner of my supposed kingdom, though invaders are fully invited. Please, it would be my pleasure if you add to this tag.

Either way, this tag currently has three AUs. As the purported owner of this tag, I intend to list them - while tagging the original creator when necessary.

The first AU is going to be the one I conceived of, naturally, since there can be no ownership disputations of it: the Jewsade.

The Jewsade is an AU based on the historical divergence of His Dark Materials. However, it's an AU worth exploring for its own merit IMO. Its divergence point is around the 1520s, with the Jewish false Messiah David Reubeni and Shəlomoh Molcho. In our world those two ended up eventually killed by the Spanish Inquisition; in the world of the Jewsade, they succeeded in getting the artillery David was trying to obtain and used it to conquer Eretz Yisra'el from the Ottomans. What happened with it later? Currently it's a riddle I can't answer, possibilities range from a disaster by the hands of the Ottoman Empire or Portugal to the continued existence of a Jewish kingdom in the Middle East, barely holding its own against both Christians and Muslims who want to take the Holy Land to themselves. Exploration of it is still at work, and I'm considering presenting it in random documents of various sorts from the period. It doesn't currently have a clear masterpost, I might work on that in the future.

The second AU I've put under this tag belongs to @aviad1b. This is the Hasmonean independence AU. It's not too well-built as of yet (and might also be related to the next AU, we'll see), but the basics are: the Hasmoneans don't give up their independence to the Romans and remain a kingdom for longer. This is a bit of a hard feat, because the Hasmoneans were sort of allies to the Romans even prior to that and the civil war is what caused them to turn to a passing Roman general to solve the dispute. After you avoid that... well, the Hasmonean dynasty still needs to keep its independence between the ever-greedy Rome and the rising Perthian empire, which is not going to be easy by any means. Even if they manage surviving one civil war... well, there will be others. However, it might be interesting to picture them somehow still prevailing, despite all the odds.

The third and more recent addition comes from @magnetothemagnificent's idea of a world where the 2nd Temple was never destroyed, the 2nd Temple Still Standing AU as I chose to call it, if you have different suggestions I'm open to hear them. A lot of the discussion on it includes the note of how much we don't know what the world will look like. Christianity might not exist, or be way smaller. The Jewish Diaspora would be way smaller adn would be mostly merchants. New technologies would be applied to old traditions and sometimes adjusted to them - the beacons to indicate the start of the month will stay, but their role would be fulfilled more with modern communication technology; flights to Eretz Yisra'el will commonly have space for cattle for the Korbanot; Cohanim would dominate the field of dermatology in order to be experts on Tzara`at, some working in construction (and some with textiles?) for the other types of it as well; religious institutions will be vastly different, with structures from 2 milennia ago surviving to the Modern Day in some form; Levyim maybe being dominant in fields of music and poetry; maybe melodies used for written texts in the place of punctuation; no written Mishnah or Talmud, things are mostly kept oral; and a lot more stuff.

There's the question, with that latter AU, of how that might happen. No rebellion against the Romans might be a possibility, though a bit hard to pull up. The Hasmonean Dynasty retaining independence can help, hence the reference I've made earlier. The Great Rebellion could also (maybe) fail before it escalated to the level of besiegeing Jerusalem. I really don't know. And unless you go by the "History is a rubber band" theory of time travel, there really isn't any way to know. So I suppose we should all just think about it a little more, and making stuff up can work, as long as you keep an eye on historical events.

Now, you might accuse me of certain hautiness in writing this. Please don't. Believe me when I say, I'm just enthusiastic about alternative Jewish histories, and would like to popularize the use of that tag. I would really like seeing farther AUs based on Jewish history - I had the pleasure to encounter a couple on Facebook, following a workshop on writing alternate Hannukahs in a meet-up organized by a group of interest on Jewish Fantasy in Israel. But there can be many more, and while I would love to contribute where I can and where my help is wanted, I prefer not to start any more than the one I'm already working on. So thank you to all the participants.

Note: the reblog chain for the Hasmonean Independence AU I shared here is only an exchange between me and Aviad. However, the 2nd Temple Still Standing thread includes (beside my and Magnetothemagnificent's posts) contributions from @alyssumlovesthecosmere and @fromchaostocosmos, hope you don't mind I'm tagging you as well.

[aviad1b]

Your version of events seems to be about the Hasmonean kingdom keeping its independence

yes.

tho i probably didnt think about it as far as you did. i do think youre right about most things, probably. but even then, most diasporic groups would be much smaller, and would thwy even be called Jews? or would the term Israelites be used more? who knows.

there's one thing you said tho:

your version from there may be writing a similar post about how the change in history they want to see the most is the Hasmonean kings resigning to the Romans.

which i suppose is possible but i somehow find that very hard to believe. considering i kinda have a hyperfixation about the Hashmonean kingdom as a concept? (in a very inaccurate, story-like way ig cus history isnt really my strong side)

but then again the very circumstances of that reality would be so different, anything could happen.

also yeah, ig the Hashmonean's kingdom chances of keeping independence weren't very high, but aren't we used to low chances?

but then again, that's usually when we aren't as established for too long.

That might not be how it went, but imagining stories is always interesting.

it sure as hell is.

Just saw a comment that said:

If you could step into a parallel universe where one major event in history went differently, which event would you choose?

and i figured it wouldnt be best to answer that comment considering who i am, so i answer here instead:

a universe where the second exile never happened. a universe where the Roman empire failed to occupy Eretz Yisrael.

it's hard to imagine what that reality would even look like. christianity would most likely not spread to the level it has at all, since i doubt the Bizants would adapt it. the west would probably continue worshipping multiple gods untill the rise of secularism. the Shoah would never happen. neither would the Spanish expulsion. we wouldn't live as Demmis among Arabs. our language would not need ravitalizing. i like to think that we would have naturally developed better gender-neutral terms, but naybe that's just wishful thinking. we wouldnt lose guttural sounds. would Beith HaMikdash still be standing? idk how i feel about that part. how woukd secularism be looked upon by our people? how woukd queerness be looked upon? what would be our relations with the west, and the east?

i know that we would still have halachic arguments, that part never changes

would the Kibbutzim even come to be? probably not? but maybe?

how would our music sound? would Uzi Hitman even be born? would *I* even be born?

this would lead to such a butterfly effect it's incredible

...

yeah. doesnt matter tho, does it?

because that's not how it went.

[hyperpotamianarch]

While this thread showcases a great idea, really, Hyrcanus II and his brother Aristoblus II, Miriam's grandfathers, were the ones to hand over Judea to the Romans, long before she and Herod got married. So, her killing Herod won't keep Judea free - at best, it could help keep Judea relatively autonomous in the Roman empire. Having Cleopatra's help could certainly be useful with that - that is, until Cleopatra's fall due to supporting the side that eventually lost the Roman civil war.

I probably should be more lenient with historical accuracy considering how divergences usually work, but... it's hard. I'm not sure how this could work - maybe if Hyrcanus and Aristoblus managed to not fight each other and to keep a relative peace, but the events that led to Herod's rise to power (and marrying Miriam) still happened somehow. Maybe Antipater didn't advice Hyrcanus to attack his brother, or maybe Aristoblus decided this was a losing battle and surrendered, or... I don't know.

That, though, could lead to a tradition of women in roles of leadership - with the previous actually good ruler of Judea being Shlomzion, as Hyrcanus, his son, his grandson and Herod were all pretty terrible (and most of them didn't have much power in our world). Pulling off the comparison with Judith would be interesting, considering Herod's background as a descendant of converts. It could lead to some racism toward Edomites in Judea, which... isn't going to be pretty. Though I'm pretty sure that existed anyway.

Miriam as queen would probably have one of her sons as the Cohen Gadol. It might be interesting if she chose to keep the rulership in the hands of her daughters - not too likely to work in that period, but might lead to some interesting things. Considering the later Talmudic view of Herod as a slave, though... Hmm. Her children won't be actually Cohanim anyway, so she would maybe try to find another way to keep control of the role? Without her family, she really can't keep hold of that. That might lead her to also be more of a supporter of the Pharisees, because the Sadducees had a thing with Kehunah.

You did give reasoning to the astronomy, and it does make sense, but why medicine? I think that one would be the most helpful, as many people in the ancient world were good with their understanding of astronomy and I'm not sure how important a thing that is to the general, non-Jewish population of the world.

So, for the time being, I pretty much dominate the #alternate jewish history tag. By which I mean, all posts under this tag are ones I either wrote or reblogged. This is, of course, meaningless. Even so, I intend to take care of this little corner of my supposed kingdom, though invaders are fully invited. Please, it would be my pleasure if you add to this tag.

Either way, this tag currently has three AUs. As the purported owner of this tag, I intend to list them - while tagging the original creator when necessary.

The first AU is going to be the one I conceived of, naturally, since there can be no ownership disputations of it: the Jewsade.

The Jewsade is an AU based on the historical divergence of His Dark Materials. However, it's an AU worth exploring for its own merit IMO. Its divergence point is around the 1520s, with the Jewish false Messiah David Reubeni and Shəlomoh Molcho. In our world those two ended up eventually killed by the Spanish Inquisition; in the world of the Jewsade, they succeeded in getting the artillery David was trying to obtain and used it to conquer Eretz Yisra'el from the Ottomans. What happened with it later? Currently it's a riddle I can't answer, possibilities range from a disaster by the hands of the Ottoman Empire or Portugal to the continued existence of a Jewish kingdom in the Middle East, barely holding its own against both Christians and Muslims who want to take the Holy Land to themselves. Exploration of it is still at work, and I'm considering presenting it in random documents of various sorts from the period. It doesn't currently have a clear masterpost, I might work on that in the future.

The second AU I've put under this tag belongs to @aviad1b. This is the Hasmonean independence AU. It's not too well-built as of yet (and might also be related to the next AU, we'll see), but the basics are: the Hasmoneans don't give up their independence to the Romans and remain a kingdom for longer. This is a bit of a hard feat, because the Hasmoneans were sort of allies to the Romans even prior to that and the civil war is what caused them to turn to a passing Roman general to solve the dispute. After you avoid that... well, the Hasmonean dynasty still needs to keep its independence between the ever-greedy Rome and the rising Perthian empire, which is not going to be easy by any means. Even if they manage surviving one civil war... well, there will be others. However, it might be interesting to picture them somehow still prevailing, despite all the odds.

The third and more recent addition comes from @magnetothemagnificent's idea of a world where the 2nd Temple was never destroyed, the 2nd Temple Still Standing AU as I chose to call it, if you have different suggestions I'm open to hear them. A lot of the discussion on it includes the note of how much we don't know what the world will look like. Christianity might not exist, or be way smaller. The Jewish Diaspora would be way smaller adn would be mostly merchants. New technologies would be applied to old traditions and sometimes adjusted to them - the beacons to indicate the start of the month will stay, but their role would be fulfilled more with modern communication technology; flights to Eretz Yisra'el will commonly have space for cattle for the Korbanot; Cohanim would dominate the field of dermatology in order to be experts on Tzara`at, some working in construction (and some with textiles?) for the other types of it as well; religious institutions will be vastly different, with structures from 2 milennia ago surviving to the Modern Day in some form; Levyim maybe being dominant in fields of music and poetry; maybe melodies used for written texts in the place of punctuation; no written Mishnah or Talmud, things are mostly kept oral; and a lot more stuff.

There's the question, with that latter AU, of how that might happen. No rebellion against the Romans might be a possibility, though a bit hard to pull up. The Hasmonean Dynasty retaining independence can help, hence the reference I've made earlier. The Great Rebellion could also (maybe) fail before it escalated to the level of besiegeing Jerusalem. I really don't know. And unless you go by the "History is a rubber band" theory of time travel, there really isn't any way to know. So I suppose we should all just think about it a little more, and making stuff up can work, as long as you keep an eye on historical events.

Now, you might accuse me of certain hautiness in writing this. Please don't. Believe me when I say, I'm just enthusiastic about alternative Jewish histories, and would like to popularize the use of that tag. I would really like seeing farther AUs based on Jewish history - I had the pleasure to encounter a couple on Facebook, following a workshop on writing alternate Hannukahs in a meet-up organized by a group of interest on Jewish Fantasy in Israel. But there can be many more, and while I would love to contribute where I can and where my help is wanted, I prefer not to start any more than the one I'm already working on. So thank you to all the participants.

Note: the reblog chain for the Hasmonean Independence AU I shared here is only an exchange between me and Aviad. However, the 2nd Temple Still Standing thread includes (beside my and Magnetothemagnificent's posts) contributions from @alyssumlovesthecosmere and @fromchaostocosmos, hope you don't mind I'm tagging you as well.

[hyperpotamianarch]

You... do realize that half your premise is what happened historically?

True, the Hasmoneans mostly took Greek and not Roman names, but the point stands. They sided with the Romans, though not strongly enough to help destroying the Temple. The claimants to their name - the Herodian dynasty - were only sometimes liked, most of the time the people hated them. They did also have way less power under the Romans, though. A leader that possibly claimed to be of the Davidic line started a rebellion against the Romans 70 years after the Temple destroyed, using guerrilla war tactics. His name was Shim`on bar Cuseba, AKA Bar Cochva'. And he failed.

Update: actually, the final ruler of the Herodian dynasty actually did fight alongside the Romans against the Great Rebellion. So, basically, all you're asking for is for the Romans to give them more power and independence. And for the Jews in Judea to hate the Romans more than anything else. And maybe fpr the Hasmonean line to survive all the way up to the Bar Cochva' revolt. And most importantly, you expect a unified Jewish front against the Romans. Which, historically, wasn't exactly the case.

You also talk about the Diaspora joining in to help their brethren in Judea. Which, well, if the Diaspora revolt had happened a decade or so later it might work. Because, you see, between the Great Revolt and Bar Cochva' one there was one other Jewish revolt. You may not have heard of it because it happened in the Diaspora - at least, I didn't know much about it until relatively recently.

The expectation for outside support by Nubians... well, IDK. I suppose in theory it could happen. The Judeans might turn to the Perthian empire, though - as one of the central enemies of the Romans in that area, they might help. But that could lead to a plethora of other problems.

Honestly, I'm not sure what a Judea freed from Romans would do. They'd probably try rebuilding the Temple, but getting them to invest in important services like medicine and astronomy/astrology... Depending on how the war is perceived culturally, it might be hard. Sciences would be considered a Greek or Roman thing, not belonging in Judea. If they kept close toes with the Alexandrian Jewish community it might end up slightly different, but I don't think the Egyptians are likely to support a rebellion against the Romans.

I think it would be interesting to have a deeper look at the Diaspora revolt and see how cooperation between it and the Bar Cochva' revolt might work, and what might it lead to.

So, for the time being, I pretty much dominate the #alternate jewish history tag. By which I mean, all posts under this tag are ones I either wrote or reblogged. This is, of course, meaningless. Even so, I intend to take care of this little corner of my supposed kingdom, though invaders are fully invited. Please, it would be my pleasure if you add to this tag.

Either way, this tag currently has three AUs. As the purported owner of this tag, I intend to list them - while tagging the original creator when necessary.

The first AU is going to be the one I conceived of, naturally, since there can be no ownership disputations of it: the Jewsade.

The Jewsade is an AU based on the historical divergence of His Dark Materials. However, it's an AU worth exploring for its own merit IMO. Its divergence point is around the 1520s, with the Jewish false Messiah David Reubeni and Shəlomoh Molcho. In our world those two ended up eventually killed by the Spanish Inquisition; in the world of the Jewsade, they succeeded in getting the artillery David was trying to obtain and used it to conquer Eretz Yisra'el from the Ottomans. What happened with it later? Currently it's a riddle I can't answer, possibilities range from a disaster by the hands of the Ottoman Empire or Portugal to the continued existence of a Jewish kingdom in the Middle East, barely holding its own against both Christians and Muslims who want to take the Holy Land to themselves. Exploration of it is still at work, and I'm considering presenting it in random documents of various sorts from the period. It doesn't currently have a clear masterpost, I might work on that in the future.

The second AU I've put under this tag belongs to @aviad1b. This is the Hasmonean independence AU. It's not too well-built as of yet (and might also be related to the next AU, we'll see), but the basics are: the Hasmoneans don't give up their independence to the Romans and remain a kingdom for longer. This is a bit of a hard feat, because the Hasmoneans were sort of allies to the Romans even prior to that and the civil war is what caused them to turn to a passing Roman general to solve the dispute. After you avoid that... well, the Hasmonean dynasty still needs to keep its independence between the ever-greedy Rome and the rising Perthian empire, which is not going to be easy by any means. Even if they manage surviving one civil war... well, there will be others. However, it might be interesting to picture them somehow still prevailing, despite all the odds.

The third and more recent addition comes from @magnetothemagnificent's idea of a world where the 2nd Temple was never destroyed, the 2nd Temple Still Standing AU as I chose to call it, if you have different suggestions I'm open to hear them. A lot of the discussion on it includes the note of how much we don't know what the world will look like. Christianity might not exist, or be way smaller. The Jewish Diaspora would be way smaller adn would be mostly merchants. New technologies would be applied to old traditions and sometimes adjusted to them - the beacons to indicate the start of the month will stay, but their role would be fulfilled more with modern communication technology; flights to Eretz Yisra'el will commonly have space for cattle for the Korbanot; Cohanim would dominate the field of dermatology in order to be experts on Tzara`at, some working in construction (and some with textiles?) for the other types of it as well; religious institutions will be vastly different, with structures from 2 milennia ago surviving to the Modern Day in some form; Levyim maybe being dominant in fields of music and poetry; maybe melodies used for written texts in the place of punctuation; no written Mishnah or Talmud, things are mostly kept oral; and a lot more stuff.

There's the question, with that latter AU, of how that might happen. No rebellion against the Romans might be a possibility, though a bit hard to pull up. The Hasmonean Dynasty retaining independence can help, hence the reference I've made earlier. The Great Rebellion could also (maybe) fail before it escalated to the level of besiegeing Jerusalem. I really don't know. And unless you go by the "History is a rubber band" theory of time travel, there really isn't any way to know. So I suppose we should all just think about it a little more, and making stuff up can work, as long as you keep an eye on historical events.

Now, you might accuse me of certain hautiness in writing this. Please don't. Believe me when I say, I'm just enthusiastic about alternative Jewish histories, and would like to popularize the use of that tag. I would really like seeing farther AUs based on Jewish history - I had the pleasure to encounter a couple on Facebook, following a workshop on writing alternate Hannukahs in a meet-up organized by a group of interest on Jewish Fantasy in Israel. But there can be many more, and while I would love to contribute where I can and where my help is wanted, I prefer not to start any more than the one I'm already working on. So thank you to all the participants.

Note: the reblog chain for the Hasmonean Independence AU I shared here is only an exchange between me and Aviad. However, the 2nd Temple Still Standing thread includes (beside my and Magnetothemagnificent's posts) contributions from @alyssumlovesthecosmere and @fromchaostocosmos, hope you don't mind I'm tagging you as well.