Can anyone comment why Herodotus who wrote his “History” in ~460 BC never mentions Israel or the Hebrews? He gave long commentaries on the peoples, politics, wars practices and cultures of the entire area.
‘Can anyone comment why Herodotus who wrote his “History” in ~460 BC never mentions Israel or the Hebrews?”
Actually, he probably does. He mentions a people in that region who claim their ancestors came from Mesopotamia, and these likely were the Israelites.
There was no independent Jewish state at that time, so they were merely another people of the Persian empire. The Temple was pretty plain (and not embellished until Herod), so it was not particularly noteworthy. And Jerusalem is out of the way if you are traveling down the coast to Egypt (so why go out of the way to see a non-exceptional city?)
He considered them Syrians who practiced circumcision.
Perhaps because they were all in Persia, so they weren’t home at the time...............
Indication that the Temple of Solomon and the Jews exiled to Babylon may be correctly dated to 587 BC. The Ten Tribes had already been exiled for several generations by the time of the Temple’s destruction. Judea would have been a backwater with few Jews present by the time of Herodotus.
Some of the controversy is because there is traditional Jewish dating of the Temple to 422 BC, which would have meant notable Jewish presence in the time of Herodotus.