God and Empire | Jews and Romans | Clash of Ancient Civilizations | + Masada *extended*

0:00 Intro 1:46 Pompey the Great 7:00 Jewish sects and Temple 9:38 Herod the Great 14:00 The Essenes and Dead Sea Scrolls 18:10 Jewish Rebels 21:33 Jesus 24:20 The Sicarii Zealots 32:00 Siege of Jerusalem 42:55 Destruction of the Temple 45:40 Masada 53:17 Bar Kokhba revolt 1:06:27 Constantine 1:09:17 Bible shaped by Imperial Invasion of Israel The Roman period (63 BCE–135 CE) New parties and sects Palestine during the time of Herod the Great and his sons. Under Roman rule a number of new groups, largely political, emerged in Palestine. Their common aim was to seek an independent Jewish state. They were also zealous for, and strict in their observance of, the Torah. The Zealots, whose appearance was traditionally dated to 6 ce, were one of five groups that emerged at the outset of the first Jewish war against Rome (66–73 ce), which began when the Jews expelled the Romans from Jerusalem, the client king Agrippa II fled the city, and a revolutionary government was established. The Zealots were a mixture of bandits, insurgents from Jerusalem, and priests, who advocated egalitarianism and independence from Rome. The original diversity of late second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity meets the bottleneck of the great clashes between the Jewish rebellions and the Roman Empire. Out of the Anvil and the Hammer will emerge a new religion and a new Judaism forged from this dynamic explosive mix of civilizations. Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations A magisterial history of the titanic struggle between the Roman and Jewish worlds that led to the destruction of Jerusalem. Martin Goodman—equally renowned in Jewish and in Roman studies—examines this conflict, its causes, and its consequences with unprecedented authority and thoroughness. He delineates the incompatibility between the cultural, political, and religious beliefs and practices of the two peoples and explains how Rome’s interests were served by a policy of brutality against the Jews. At the same time, Christians began to distance themselves from their origins, becoming increasingly hostile toward Jews as Christian influence spread within the empire. This is the authoritative work of how these two great civilizations collided and how the reverberations are felt to this day. “I have always thought of the historical Jesus as a homeland Jew within Judaism within the Roman Empire. I have always thought of the historical Paul as a diaspora Jew within Judaism within the Roman Empire. For me, then, within Judaism within the Roman Empire has always been the absolutely necessary matrix rather than the annoyingly unnecessary background for any discussion of earliest Christianity. You can see that three-layer matrix, for example, in the sub-titles to the first and last books above. For the historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant, emphasizes Rome, Judaism, and Jew. The Apostle Paul Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom, emphasizes Jew, Rome, and Judaism. Whether you start or end with the Roman Empire, the Roman Empire is always there.“ John Dominic Crossan After the death of King Herod, a political group known as the Herodians, who apparently regarded Herod as the messiah, sought to reestablish the rule of Herod’s descendants over an independent Palestine as a prerequisite for Jewish preservation. Unlike the Zealots, however, they did not refuse to pay taxes to the Romans. In 68 they overthrew the government established by the original leaders of the revolt and took control of the Temple during the civil war that followed; many of them perished in the sack of Jerusalem by the Roman general (and later emperor) Titus (reigned 79–81) or in fighting after the city’s fall. The Sicarii (Assassins), so-called because of the daggers (sica) they carried, arose about 54 CE, according to Josephus, as a group of bandits who kidnapped or murdered those who had found a modus vivendi with the Romans. Before the arrival of the Romans the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes directed a series of measures against Judaea which culminated in the suppression of Jewish worship. The Temple was desecrated, circumcision proscribed (forbidden) and abstention from pork was outlawed. Opposition from the Jews broke out all over the country. “The Apostle Paul accomplished by his pen (also the Roman sword against the Jews) what Antiochus Epiphanes had tried to achieve by force: a religion detached from Torah, assimilated into common Hellenistic culture.“ - Scholar Barrie Wilson “The Maccabees won many of the battles, but in the end, they lost the war against Hellenism,” “While the Hanukkah revolt story is inspirational for rejecting foreign ways and bans against Jewish practice, the aftermath was very complicated,” “Ultimately Hellenism triumphs in the sense that it led to accommodation to some ideas and customs of Greco-Roman culture.