The Campaigns of Alexander the Great - Paper Example

Introduction

The Indian crusades of Alexander the Great began after he conquered the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. He launched and coordinated a well-organized campaign into the subcontinent of India. The crusade constituted of the desire of Alexander to conquer the whole world which the Greek people believed ended in India. One of the notable crusades of Alexander was the Malian Campaign in which his army conquered all the Malli clans and killed everyone sparing no child, man or woman. Therefore, due to this campaign and death of so many Malian people, the surviving Malli surrendered to him hence enabling his arm to move on and conquer more Indian tribes that were along the way. However, at times he applied non-military methods showing sensitivity to societal, cultural and religious factors but on other occasions he used excessive force, slaughtering the people that he conquered and selling them into slavery.

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Ptolemies and Seleucids in Palestine

Palestine got introduced to ptolemies which were the Noble families and dynasties. These were copied from the greek people who had such social institutions for a very Long period of time due to the conquest of palestine by Alexander the great. Therefore, the palestine people and land was then considered as Part of the hellenistic world. These ptolemies were set up after the death of Alexander to help the rulers be able to rule their territories. Seleucids were originally set up in ancient greek but spread to the diaspora. They reached palestine when the seleucid King antiochus the third invaded palestine in 221BC. The seleucids then gained popularism and managed to get solid control of palestine up to the period of the maccabean revolt. The ptolemies and seleucids in palestine were opposed by the jews as most of them affirmed and advocated for the jews to live according to their ancestral laws.

The Festival Scrolls

There are five festival scrolls also known as the five scrolls or megillot. These scrolls are parts of the writings and major section of the Hebrew Bible known as the Tanakh. These scrolls include; the Book of Esther, Songs of Songs, the Book of Ruth, Ecclesiastes and the Book of Lamentations. They are short books in the bible and are grouped together in the Jewish traditions. These books were read in Synagogues over the course of many years by the Jews. The samaritans called these books the samaritan pentateuch.

The Book Of Ruth

The Book of Ruth is one of the books found in the Old Testament and belongs to the five scrolls found on the third section of the Ketuvim (which refers to writings). The book consists mainly of the story of Ruth who was the wife of Boaz the rich kinsman of her earlier husband. The final verses of the Book of Ruth trace the ancestry of King David.

Life In Jewish Communities

The Jewish communities have an extremely rich cultural life. These societies have religious practices and beliefs that are well spread among all their members across the world and within Britain where the Jewish community is the largest single community-based in London. They have the Synagogue which is the most important institution in their Judaism religion. The Jewish communities and families teach their children carefully and their education institutions are central to the culture of the Jews.

The Development Of Sectarian Judaism

One of the notable development that occurred in the hasmonean period was the rise of distinguishable religious sects due to ideological and social reasons. During these times, only the essenes of qumran came to the fitting of the real definition of a sect. However, there are other groups that were not opposed to the religious establishment such as hasidim of maccabean days, sadducees, and pharisees.

Judaism's Oral Tradition

According to the traditions of the Jewish people, the oral Torah was supposed to be passed down orally in a continuous chain from one generation to the other. These were observed and these oral traditions were preserved by word of mouth until the contents of the oral traditions were written down following the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in 70CE. The act of writing down these inheritances was due to the fact that the Jewish civilization was faced with a serious threat of existential.

Definition of Words

ALEXANDER the great was the ruler of the Ancient Greek Macedonian Kingdom who spent most of his time carrying out military campaigns in Asia and Northwest Africa.

PTOLEMIES refers to the royal family that rules a kingdom or an empire.

SELEUCIDS are Hellenistic states that were led by the Seleucid dynasty from 312 BC to 63BC. The Seleucid Empire was of the Macedonian dynasty and their rule began after the collapse of Alexander's Empire.

DIASPORA was originally meant to refer to the dispersion of all the Jews beyond Israel. However, now itis a common word that is used to refer to the dispersion of people from their ancestral homeland.

SECT here refers to the Christian groups that broke away from the church due to differences in ideas and social diversities.

QUMRAN are ancient Jewish manuscripts that have religious content and were found in cases some of which are natural and others artificial.

ESSENES refers to a member of the old Jewish sect that consisted of highly organized groups especially in Palestine and are regarded as the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

SAMARITANS are members of the Jews community who occupied the region that formerly was inhabited by the tribe of Ephraim.

SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH also named the Samaritan Torah comprises of the foremost five records of the Hebrew Bible.

HASIDIM is a Jewish religious sect that was formed to act as a spiritual revival crusade in modern Ukraine in the eighteenth century and spread to other parts of Europe.