The Impact of the Assyrian Conquests on Judahite Society: The Social, Psychological, and Physical Contexts for Religious Development

Various scholars have noted Mesopotamian impact on various aspects of Israelite religious beliefs and practices and extrapolated from these on the broader nature of the relations between the regions. Indeed, no society is an island, and influences are inevitable, especially when a small, peripheral society is in contact with a powerful center. Still, insufficient attention has been paid to the social and cultural contexts of the interaction, and studies have often extrapolated from examples that are exceptional. A systematic examination of the cultural and social reactions in Judah to the intensifying interaction with Assyria reveals that avoidance, subversion, and resistance were far more prevalent than emulation. The large-scale death and deportations that accompanied the destruction of sites and regions by the Assyrian armies in the last third of the 8th century (mostly outside Judah) resulted in an understanding that nothing was secure anymore, that complete kinship groups could be annihilated overnight, and that long-held traditions could simply vanish. This gave rise to a mentality of “life in the shadow of the bomb”, which explains many subsequent developments in Judah, providing the context for various religious changes.