1500-1200 BC: Settlement
In the second half of the second millennium BC, the land of Canaan (a
region comprising modern Israel, Palestine and parts of Syria, Lebanon
and Jordan) was comprised of a series of loosely affiliated city states,
distantly overseen by the Egyptian Empire. The culture was relatively
homogeneous, and closely related culturally to other ancient
near-Eastern polities. At some time in the 13th century BC, the entire
region was thrown into chaos by a series of migratory movements
originating (likely) somewhere to the north-west. Exactly what caused
this upheaval of population is not known for certain, but we know from
Egyptian records that a mass of immigrants (deemed "sea people" by the
Egyptians) landed periodically all around the Mediterranean coast
sometime in the 13th century BC, attacking many key Egyptian outposts -
as well as key centres of other empires - in the process. The on-going
battle between the Egyptians and the sea people needn't concern us
further, but the importance for Israel and the subsequent Biblical
narrative lies in what happened as a consequence on the modern day Gaza
strip.
The "sea people" who landed here immediately embarked on a wave of
destruction and displacement, a pattern attested to today by the
archaeological record. This period marks a severe decline in the size
and strength of the greater empires in the region (especially
Mesopotamia and Egypt) and allowed for the emergence of smaller states.
The sea people came to settle the Gaza strip (and became known to
subsequent generations of Israelites as "Philistines") and the previous
settlers were forced off this relatively fertile land by the coast into
the more desolate, arid, mountainous region to the east. The land
appears to have been largely uninhabited prior to this, so the new
settlers - refugees from all over the Levant - were able to create
settlements with relative ease. At this early stage we can't yet
properly speak of an "Israel" (though we know from Egyptian records that
there existed a people called "Israel" by around 1200) because the
material culture of the region was still indistinguishable from the
wider Canaanite material culture. Well, indistinguishable it so happens
with one important difference: the almost total absence of pig bones in
the proto-Israelite sites.
1200-1000 BC: Tribes and Judges
Little is known for sure about this part of the region's history. We
know that the Egyptians were forced to withdraw their influence from the
region due to their on-going battles with the "sea people", various
states and other internecine conflicts, so we can imagine that the loose
coalition of city states that existed in Canaan likely fragmented
during this time. According to the Biblical accounts, this was a period
of general lawlessness, violence, and competing tribal chiefs (or
"judges" in the Biblical terminology). Although the historicity of most
of the narratives in Judges have long been questioned by scholars, we
can probably say that the Biblical account probably has more than an
element of truth to it: as closely related as all the "tribes" in the
region were (in terms of religion, language and culture) there can be
little doubt that this was a period in which they jostled violently for
land and power in the vacuum of Egyptian influence.
With respect to religion, we know that these proto-Israelites continued
to believe in at least aspects of the Canaanite pantheon of gods: namely
in El (the "head" god) and his 70 children. That El was integral to the
religious culture of the proto-Israelites can be determined by his
presence in theophoric titles (Isra-
el,
El-ijah etc.) and
that it continued to be the name of "God" in the northern kingdom for
centuries later. In the part of the Torah that is suspected to have been
penned in the northern kingdom (that is, the E Source"), "Elohim" is
the name used for God in the narrative until he reveals his name to be
"YHWH" in Exodus (in truth, this appears to be a later attempt to
conflate two different gods under the same name: even relatively late
Biblical texts appear to suggest that YHWH was originally a member of a
divine council of gods (
elyon) - Dt. 32:8-9). In the south,
however, the use of theophoric titles involving the name YHWH from a
relatively early date suggests to us that YHWH was the patron god of
Judah from the very beginning.
We are told that the land (or at least, it's northern part) was ruled by
a man named "Saul" in the later part of this period, though exactly
what territory he might have laid claim to is not clear. The Bible tells
us of the continued presense of foreign tribes in the land nominally
claimed by Saul, and we also know from Egyptian records that the land
was terrorised during this period by large, well-organised groups of
bandits known as "Hapiru". So, if the legitimacy of a state truly rests
in its capacity to impose a monopoly of violence in the region under its
control, we probably can't yet call the Israel of Saul a true state
just yet. Scholars once tried to make a etymological link between the
word "Hapiru" and the word "Hebrew" - which would raise the possibility
that the Hebrews entered the land originally as marauding bandits - but
this explanation seems to have fallen out of favour.
1000 BC - 930 BC: David and Solomon
Sometime in the late 11th century BC, it appears that a tribal chief
named David achieved prominence in the southern regions, uniting enough
of the population to take over Jerusalem and to establish a state there
known as "Judah". According to the Biblical accounts, he was once in the
employ of Saul, and after Saul's death found himself in control of a
"united monarchy" - that is, both the northern and southern parts of the
region (or Israel and Judah). Exactly how seriously we can take these
Biblical accounts is unclear, and a matter of acrimonious debate among
scholars. At one end there are those who suggest the Biblical account is
almost entirely trustworthy, and the other end are those who would deny
David ever existed (although the latter are now in shorter supply after
the discovery of the
Tel Dan Stele).
I'm obviously not qualified to resolve this issue here, so I'll give
you the facts as I see them and let you make your own mind up.
In the Biblical account, it has long been noted that David comes across
as a very flawed and (consequently) a very human figure. Despite the
reverence with which he was treated in later periods, the Biblical
accounts are scarcely unequivocally positive in their descriptions of
him. One potential explanation is that the material (in the Book of
Samuel anyway) comes from two different sources: one from the north and
one from the south, that were later redacted into a single narrative.
The southern account is predictably more positive, because this is where
David was based and where the majority of his support came from. The
northern account is rather less effusive in its praise because there may
have been a residual tendency to see David as something of a violent
usurper: he did, after all, apparently murder Saul's son to end the
northern monarchy and to stake his claim to the entire region. If this
interpretation of the Biblical texts is correct, then it would seem to
lend some support to the general historicity of the accounts because
they have been preserved down two independent sources. That this is the
case, though, is far from clear.
What we do know is that David was remembered for (firstly) siding with
the Philistines against Saul and then fighting off and subduing the
Philistines. Again, there is no inherent reason to suspect the truth of
these accounts. Kings and states do not just appear from thin air:
generally in history, the rallying of a people around a central leader -
and their granting him the authority and resources to lead them -
doesn't happen for no reason. Frequently, such centralising tendencies
can occur in response to perceived threats, as happened in Greece, Rome,
China and doubtless many other places. The emergence of David as the
sole leader of once disparate groups of people may well have been a
response to the perceived threat which emanated firstly from the
northern kingdom of Saul and - subsequently - from the Philistines. That
David switched allegiances should also not be a surprise: this was a
frequent tactic employed by kings in the ancient world (to side with the
more powerful force, regardless of past relationships with other
powers) and it happened frequently in the subsequent history of Israel
and Judah. The Biblical account has the benefit of explaining the
emergence of a monarchy in the southern region and its subsequent
history, so again, I see no reason to doubt it.
One question mark lies with just how "unified" the northern and southern
parts of the kingdom were under King David. In fact, many scholars will
deny (quite credibly) that there was ever a unified kingdom of Israel
at all. They would argue that it was merely a work of theologically
inspired propaganda created by later Judahites to justify their claims
to the northern lands after the fall of Samaria in 722 BC. This might be
taking it a little too far, but what can probably be said with
confidence is that the south simply didn't have the resources to bring
the north reliably under its control. Archaeologists put the population
in Judah at the time of David at perhaps no more than a few thousand,
and given the relatively poor agricultural conditions in the region it
seems difficult to believe that Judah could have produced the economic
surplus necessary to produce an army capable of subduing and occupying
the much larger, much wealthier region to the north. In other words,
whatever claims David might have had on the northern kingdom were surely
somewhat tenuous, and the idea of a unified kingdom may well have been
more an ideological claim than one realised in practice. That the
unified kingdom lasted no longer than 70 years (according to the
Biblical account) would surely be evidence of this.
Solomon is another enigmatic figure. In the Bible he was remembered for
producing books of great wisdom (i.e. the Book of Proverbs) and
incredible building feats, but it now seems likely that he produced
neither. The Biblical wisdom literature probably dates (for the most
part) to the post-exilic period (that is, four centuries after Solomon
at the earliest) and the major building projects in the northern kingdom
that the Bible attributes to Solomon were likely built during the time
of the divided kingdom, when the the northern half was comparatively
rich and powerful. The possibility remains that Solomon constructed the
first Temple in Jerusalem (as tradition maintains), but the relevant
archaeological site currently lies under the Al-Aqsa mosque so it is not
possible to confirm for sure. What else we can say about Solomon with
any certainty is unclear, but what is apparent is that after his death
whatever fragile unity there was between the north and south fractured,
and the next period of history is one that of the "divided monarchy".
930-734 BC: The Age of Israel
After the fracturing of the (potentially) once united kingdom of Israel,
the two kingdoms went down quite separate paths. The northern kingdom
(Israel) grew rapidly, developing a rich and relatively advanced
material culture, as well as developing strong military and economic
ties with neighbouring powers. Beginning perhaps with the great king
Omri in the early 9th century BC (foreign powers referred to the
northern kingdom as "the House of Omri"), the archaeological record
tells us that this was a period of exorbitant building projects and
extensive trade for Israel. We also know from the rather severe
admonitions of the prophets active at the time - such as Isaiah, Hosea
and Amos - that such plenitude also produced gross inequality and
economic exploitation in the kingdom. The influence of foreign trade and
diplomatic ties also brought the unwelcome (for these prophets)
influence of foreign religious practices. The accounts of the northern
kingdom in the Book of Kings (written by unsympathetic southern scribes
some centuries later) paints a picture of abject moral depravity in the
region at the time. Whatever the truth, the population in the north may
have been as much as 8 times greater than that in the south, and the
wealth of the regions are almost incomparable.
In the south at the time, this marks a period of almost total obscurity
and lack of development. There is little evidence of literacy in the
region (which would be a sign of economic development and a strong
central state) and the land was likely populated almost exclusively by
small, marginal agriculturalists and nomads. Although it seems that
Judah was able to remain an independent state during this period - and
there is no indication that they were required to pay tribute to their
northern neighbours, despite the late attempt by the north to enforce
one - there is simply no doubt that Judah was the little brother in this
partnership. But for the intervention of foreign powers, it likely
would have stayed this way, and Judaism, Christianity and the Bible - at
least in any recognisable forms - would never have had to chance to
emerge.
734 - 592 BC: Assyria and The Fall of Israel
At the peak of their strength, the Israelites made the ill-fated
decision to stand with the city of Damascus against the now powerful
Assyrian empire. The Assyrians - led by the infamous King
Tiglath-Pileser III - reacted swiftly in anger, invading Israel,
deposing the king and replacing him with a leader of their own choosing.
After the death of King Tiglath-Pileser III, Israel again rebelled,
hoping to use the resultant power vacuum as a chance to pursue their
freedom from the empire. Again, though, the Assyrian response was swift
and brutal. After a prolonged siege of the capital Samaria, Israel
finally fell in 722 BC. The royal house of Omri was completely
destroyed, and its population was either sent into exile or forced to
flee for safer territory in the face of the advancing Assyrian army.
For many of those who took flight, Judah was the most logical
destination. They shared nearly identical cultures, afterall, and Judah -
under its king Ahaz - had signed a suzerain treaty with the Assyrians,
sparing them from direct conquest in exchange for the provision of
onerous tributes. (It's worth mentioning that in the decade or so before
the fall of Israel, this technically made Judah and Israel enemies at
war.) And the refugees did indeed flood into Judah in great numbers: the
archaeological record suggests that the population of Jerusalem may
have increased almost 12-fold in little less than a century. Quite apart
from the population boom in Judah that this migratory influx obviously
caused, there were a number of other important effects as well. Firstly,
the religious traditions of Israel and Judah - which had been diverging
for at least two centuries by this point - were brought back into
contact. This may well have been when the J/E conflation took place
(i.e. the penning of the majority of Genesis and Exodus) as religious
scholars sought to reconcile the sometimes minor differences between the
two mythical traditions.
Another important effect was the rise of literacy in Judah during this
period, another fact attested by the archaeological record. Normally
literacy only enters a society once a certain level of economic
complexity has been reached, thus necessitating the creation of more
complex forms of accounting and record keeping (it does appear that the
majority of the earliest instances of written language performed exactly
this function). Judah, prior to this point, was an almost entirely
rural region, with very little (it seems) in terms of political
centralisation or urbanisation, and literacy therefore was not a
pressing need prior to the 8th century. Israel in the 8th century, by
contrast, was a large, heavily urbanised society that engaged routinely
in foreign trade, thus necessitating an institutionalised scribal
culture to keep track of trades, contracts, inventory and so on. After
the fall of Israel, these scribes - and other instruments of complex
government - were brought south to Judah and would have made possible
the creation of texts used in religion and government. In other words,
it is probably at around this time that we can finally imagine that the
material and intellectual resources necessary for the construction of
complex texts finally arrived to Judah, and it is probably around this
time that some of the Biblical texts we are familiar with today were
first penned.
Perhaps the most important development during this period was the
ascension of King Josiah, who - with the exception of King David - is
probably the most important king in the history of Judah and the
religious traditions it came to produce. He came to the throne as an 8
year old in 640 BC, and in approximately 622 BC introduced a serious of
religious and social reforms that would forever shape the nature of the
Hebrew religion. His most important move here was in the centralisation
of the religious faith, so that all religious practice would now be
centred on the Temple in Jerusalem, and all other outlets of religious
expression - the so called "altars" and "high places" - would be
destroyed, their priests slain and their practise forever suppressed. 2
Kings 23 gives us some great detail about just how thorough, violent and
wide-spread the enforcement of this edict needed to be. The shear scale
of the "abominable" religious practices present in Judah prior to
Josiah's reforms should, however, give us a clear indication of just how
pluralistic and variable Judahite religion was prior to Josiah, and
puts lie to the fact that the Hebrew religion was ever an inherently
monolithic / monotheistic one.
Another important move made by Josiah during his reign was the
empowerment of the priestly caste (specifically the Levitical caste) and
the reduction in the power of the King. Penned some 1800 years before
the Magna Carta, the book of Deuteronomy represents an extraordinary
concession of power on behalf of the King of Judah, including the
promise to follow piously the "Laws" of scripture (i.e. the king was now
a follower of law rather than a prescriber of it) and to not "exalt
himself above other members of the community" (Dt. 17)! This diminishing
of the power of the king and the strengthening of the power of the
priests would have a number of important consequences in the post-exilic
period and future of the Hebrew religion.
592 BC - 539 BC: The Exile
After the fall of the Assyrian empire at the hand of the Babylonians in
the late 7th century BC, Judah was faced with a problem. To the north
they now had the Babylonian Empire, one that was probably more
aggressive and expansionist than the Assyrian Empire they replaced. To
the south they had the still large (though perhaps declining) Egyptian
Empire. To make matters worse, the two empires were open enemies,
leaving Judah in the middle and needing to choose one side to protect it
from the other. For a period of two decades, it seems as though the
kings of Judah vacillated almost capriciously from one side to the
other, as the fortune of each empire grew and waned. Eventually, though,
after abandoning a recently-penned treaty with Babylon to side with the
Egyptians, the Judahites were left to face the full brunt of the
Babylonian army. They expected the support of the Egyptians, but the
Egyptians never arrived. In three successive waves of invasion,
concluding in 582 BC, Judah was smashed by the Babylonians: its cities
were destroyed, its population scattered and its elite members carried
off into exile.
The human scale of this drama is preserved in unnerving detail in the
Bible. The siege of Jerusalem in 587 BC was, like all other military
sieges in history, a event which imposed almost imaginable strains on
endurance and suffering. With access to outside food sources closed off
by the Babylonian army, the people of Jerusalem were "pierced by
hunger", the "women... boiled their own children":
Even the jackals offer the breast
and nurse their young,
but my people has become cruel,
like the ostriches in the wilderness.
The tongue of the infant sticks
to the roof of its mouth for thirst;
the children beg for food,
but no one gives them anything.
Those who feasted on delicacies
perish in the streets;
those who were brought up in purple
cling to ash heaps.
In truth, the aftermath was little better for those who stayed behind.
Agricultural production ground to a halt, cities were abandoned and many
fled the land permanently, Egypt becoming a particularly popular
sanctuary. Those who were carried into exile (including the royal court,
the priests and members of the aristocracy) bemoaned their fates in
moving Psalmic elegies for their lost land, the most famous being that
of Psalm 137 ("By the rivers of Babylon..."). In truth, the conditions
faced by those exiled to Babylon (exact numbers are difficult to gauge
by the way, but 10% of the Judahite population would be as good a guess
as any) were perhaps not
so bad: they were, after all, apparently
free - at least in certain cases - to continue their religious
practices, to perform trades and to marry into the local populations. In
addition to certain Psalms, important prophetic works such as Ezekiel,
Jeremiah and deutero-Isaiah were likely written (at least in part)
during the exile, the first two notable for their almost complete lack
of hostility towards the Babylonians, and their correlated disdain
towards those Judahites who remained in Judah or (much worse) who had
fled to Egypt.
Theologically this marks an important time for the Hebrews, so much so
that many scholars use the terms "pre-exilic" and "post-exilic" theology
to denote the significant changes the forced exile imposed. Firstly,
the Jerusalem Temple - literally the dwelling place of their God - had
been destroyed, leaving serious questions about their proper mode of
worship and practice in its absence. Secondly, the unimaginable
suffering heaped on the Judahites so soon after the enactment of the
supposedly pious reforms of Josiah was difficult to explain:
why was God so angry at us?
The first problem likely contributed to the growth of belief in a
universal deity (that is, a deity who could be with one even in a
foreign land) and - eventually - unequivocal monotheism (the first
unambiguously monotheistic Biblical passage was likely written during
this time: Isa. 44:6). It also contributed to the centrality of the Law
in the Hebrew religion, because it could still be followed even where
the possibility of worship and sacrifices - the central praxes of the
old religion - were no longer possible. The second problem was explained
by the reality of deferred judgement - that present-day generations
could be punished for the inequities of past generations. This was an
important development in the conception of sin, and would eventually
lead to the idea of "original sin" so important to later Christian
theologians.
539 BC - 323 BC: The Persian Period
Following the over-running of the Babylonian Empire by the Persians, the
Judahites in exile were finally free to return to their homeland. For
his role in this - and his relatively tolerant and liberal attitude
towards the expression of religion - Cyrus was deemed to be a "Messiah"
by the author of deutero-Isaiah (Isa. 45:1). In truth the return to
Judah was little more than a slow trickle initially: the archaeological
record seems to indicate only a slow growth in population during the
century or so after the fall of Babylon. In reality, it's not difficult
to understand why: the majority of the Hebrews living in Babylon had
never seen Judah, had their own families and trades in Babylon, and
there was little to go back to in the now destitute and economically
backward hinterlands of Judah. But they did make their way back slowly.
The first to come (including Zerubbabel, the governor and Haggai the
prophet) were shocked by the conditions they found there. The so-called
"people of the land" had fallen into a state of apparent moral
degradation, abandoning the religious practices instituted by Josiah
(and further refined by the Babylonian exiles), adopting gods and wives
from neighbouring tribes. The land was destitute and unproductive, the
cities lay in ruins, completely undeveloped from the time of the
Babylonian invasion more than four decades prior. The first task
involved the rebuilding of the Temple, a project that seems to have run
into many difficulties along the way. (These interruptions are blamed
partly on the Samaritans - refugees from the Assyrian invasion of the
northern Kingdom who had returned along with the Judahites. This enmity
between the Hebrews and the Samaritans would continue until the time of
Jesus, hence the "Good Samaritan" story.) It was eventually built,
though, and this period through to 70 AD is therefore referred to as the
"Second Temple Period". Strangely, while many facets of pre-exilic life
were resumed in Judah during this period, the re-establishment of the
monarchy doesn't seem to have been one of them. While members of the
royal court form part of the narrative in the earliest period of the
return, they henceforth disappear without explanation, with royal
titles, ceremonies and functions passed onto the high priest. The
Davidic monarchy was never to be restored, the powers of government now
resting for the majority of the Second Temple period with the priests
and governors appointed by foreign powers.
It was during this period that the texts of the Hebrew Bible reached
essentially their modern form - few of the major texts from the Tanakh
can be dated reliably to after this period, though the texts themselves
did continue to evolve. The Torah and the Deueronomic histories (that
is, the first 9 books of the Bible) were likely edited / composed into
their definitive form during the 5th century BC (perhaps by the prophet
Ezra) and the theology of the time is perhaps best represented by the
"Priestly (or "P") Source" within the Torah. The theology of this source
evinces evidence of the universal god developed during the exile (in
contrast with the more parochial god of earlier texts) and the
centrality of assiduous priestly procedure to the religion, in keeping
with the realities of post-monarchical Judah.
323 BC - 63 BC: The Hellenistic Period
This was an extremely complex time politically in the region, so it will
be difficult to do justice to it in just a few paragraphs. It started
with Alexander the Great's defeat of Persia, and the transfer of the
lands of Palestine into the hands of his armies. With Alexander's death
in 323 BC, however, the inheritance of his nascent empire was
fought-over by his generals, a squabble which took a long time to reach a
definitive conclusion. The land of Palestine was contested between
Ptolemy I and his neighbouring rival Seleucus, with the former
eventually laying definitive claim to the land in around 301 BC. Almost
immediately he set about Hellenizing the region, introducing a complex
governing bureaucracy and other cultural institutions in line with
Alexander's earlier desire to introduce
homonia (that is, a universal Hellenistic culture) to the lands he brought under his control.
As a consequence of Ptolemy's reforms (and those of his successors), the
period marks one of relative peace and prosperity in the region, as
evidenced by the growth in populations, agriculture and trade in the
region. It wasn't however, a happy period for everyone. Those in the
upper-classes tended to benefit more from Hellenism than the rural
classes did, so they tended to adapt to Greek thought and institutions
much more readily. As a consequence, an internal rupture emerged among
the Jews (and it is here that the word Jew first came into use: it was a
Greek title for the population of Judea) during the Greek and Roman
period. Generally, we can now speak of the privilaged classes
(merchants, priests, royalty etc.) supporting (or at least acquiescing
to) the occupiers and patronising their institutions (including
gymnasia
and so on), with the less privileged classes rebelling against the
imperial forces and holding zealously to their religious traditions. The
latter would eventually become radicalised, and it is in such an
environment that the ministry of Jesus - and subsequent developments in
the history of Judaism must be understood.
The Ptolemies eventually lost control of the region to the Seleucids in
223 BC, and this marks the beginning of a period of great instability.
The Seleucids were involved in ongoing conflicts with the growing Roman
empire, and needed to extract higher and higher tributes to support
their war efforts. This involved further exploitation of the already
disenfranchised rural poor and the raiding of the sacrosanct Jerusalem
Temple for its treasures. When the Seleucid king Antiochus IV (with the
help of his lackey high-priest) established an "abomination" (namely
Pagan worship) in the Jerusalem Temple in the year 167 BC, and outlawed
certain other Jewish practices, the impoverished population revolted
under a religious banner in an event known as the "Maccabean Revolt".
After 3 years of often gruelling guerilla warfare, the Maccabeans
emerged victorious and established an independent Jewish state for the
first time in over four centuries, an event celebrated down to the
modern day in the festival of Hannukah. This new Hasmonean dynasty
struggled to definitively secure a grip on power, however, due
predominantly to Roman influence and internecine conflicts, resulting in
a century of further relative instability. The independence of the
kingdom was officially ended when Pompey invaded in 63 BC and
established the territory as a Roman client Kingdom.
The restlessness of this age gave rise to some relatively new ways of
thinking within Jewish circles. For the impoverished and
disenfranchised, the dismay they felt over their constant subjugation at
the hands of foreign powers was channelled into eschatological thought:
namely, the idea that God would shortly intervene to put an end to the
evils of the present age. This is most prominently displayed in the Book
of Daniel and the books of Enoch / Ezra. This is another important
indication of the influence that historical events can have over the
trajectory of theology. Many other people - particularly in the
upper-classes - were heavily influenced by Greek thought during this
period, as demonstrated in the Book of Ecclesiastes and other so-called
"Wisdom" literature. This also marks the first point at which we can
identify a belief in the afterlife (or resurrection, more specifically)
amongst some of the Jewish population. It seems to have emerged in
reaction to the perceived iniquity of the fact that those who died
gloriously during the Maccabean revolt would not live to see its
fruition. All of these new theological developments would be important
in the development of early Christian thought.
63 BC - 70 AD: The Early Roman Period
The early periods of Roman rule were overshadowed by developments in
Rome, including the battles waged between Pompey and Caesar, and later
between Antony and Octavian. The Romans did stamp their authority on the
region, however, with the installation of Herod the Great as a puppet
king in 37 BC. Herod was a prolific builder - most prominently his
massive additions to the Temple complex - and enjoyed a close
relationship with the Romans, neither of which ingratiated him to the
local population. He is remembered as a brutal and capricious ruler by
later authors, though much of this reputation can probably be attributed
to the politically motivated polemic of his later detractors. Matthew's
claim that he killed every firstborn child in Judea (as the Romans
called it) can be safely dismissed as theologically-driven fiction.
Shortly after Herod's death, Judea went from being a client kingdom to
being absorbed as a Roman province.
As in the earlier Greek period, the Jews of the Roman period found
themselves split between those who acquiesced to the Roman occupation
and those who actively opposed it. On the pro-Roman side, we have the
Sadducees, those of the ruling priestly caste who ran the Temple and
actively co-operated with their Roman overseers. On the other side we
have the Pharisees, a distinct priestly caste who were legal
traditionalists and enjoyed a much closer relationship with the Jewish
people. Finally we have the Essenes, a shadowy group about whom little
is known. It seems that they were originally a disaffected priestly
caste, who left (or were excluded from) their regular priestly duties at
some point in the Hellenistic period, perhaps due to disagreements with
the occupying powers. It seems they produced strange, almost
unclassifiable religious literature (including likely the Dead Sea
Scrolls) and lived an ascetic lifestyle at the fringes of society.
Groups like the Essenes likely gave rise to movements such as those of
John the Baptist in the Roman period, who preached an eschatological
message and railed ceaselessly against the powers-that-be. Jesus, likely
originally a disciple of John, can be placed in the same category.
Although the Gospel authors tend to soften any potentially obvious
anti-Roman sentiments in their texts, Jesus is best understood in the
historical reality of Roman Judea: that is, one of imperialism and
social disenfranchisement. The Romans (and their backers among the
Jewish ruling classes) imposed often onerous taxes on the rural
population of Judea, and many of the latter were left destitute as a
consequence. Many could no longer turn to traditional religious sources
for consolation, because those who represented such sources (namely the
Sadducees) were seen as being complicit in the Roman occupation. Many
therefore turned to more exuberant and rebellious religious
alternatives, which generally promised liberation from the strife of the
present period in the form of some future cataclysmic act of divine
intervention, which would deliver the world from the hands of the
powerful into the hands of the downtrodden. Such eschatological beliefs
were the basis of Jesus' teachings.
Others had different solutions to the problems of Roman occupation,
however, and organised themselves into militant groups. Most prominent
among these were the "Zealots", who could apparently count one of their
number among the disciples of Jesus. The Zealots aggressively targeted
Greek and Roman interests in Judea, using tactics that would probably be
described as "terrorism" in the modern parlance, including the
targeting of otherwise innocent Greek and Roman civilians. Perhaps even
more bold were the "Sicarii", named for the daggers they carried, who
terrorised those Jews who dared to co-operate with the Romans. Such
movements emerged, Josephus tells us, at least partly in response to the
tax reforms enacted by the Romans at the beginning of the 1st century,
though religious factors must surely have been a pertinent factor as
well.
Such divisions were in some way mirrored in the early Christian sects.
The only surviving Christian texts we have from this period are those of
Paul, and much of his writing is devoted to attempting to bridge the
gap between the Jews, Gentiles and their various subgroups in the
nascent faith. The duties one faces to the empire, the concern for the
poor and the eschatology of marginal Jewish groups are also major
pre-occupations of Paul, which all serve to place early Christian
theology firmly as a continuation of late-Second Temple Judaism. Until
70 AD, Christianity was just one of its many branches.
After 70 AD: The Late Roman Period and Diaspora
Eventually, the militant groups described in the previous section led a
fateful revolt against the Romans in 66 AD. The violence was initially
ad hoc
and indiscriminate, before gradually escalating into a full-blown war
against the Roman Empire. After 4 years of fighting - including another
horrific siege of Jerusalem - the revolt was quashed and the Temple was
destroyed, creating a crisis within the Jewish faith. The Temple had for
so long stood at the centre of Jewish religious practice, and its
absence created the need to innovate new theological solutions to keep
the faith going. Essentially, from the first century onwards Judaism
became a faith centred around the Torah (that is, "the Law") and its
scholarly exegesis. With the Sadducees dislodged from power, the
opportunity fell to Pharisees (or, at least, their successors) to lead
this reinvigoration of the faith and they came to produce what is now
known as Talmudic Judaism (derived from the name given to the body of
scholarly interpretation produced by Rabbis), a critical step in the
development of the Judaism with which we are familiar today.
Within Christianity, the fall of Jerusalem likely marked the first of
its many significant fractures with Judaism. To begin with, the
Jerusalem Church - hitherto probably the centre of the Christian
missionary movement - simply disappears from history. The apostles at
the head of this church - most notably James, "the brother of the Lord" -
were extremely important in maintaining the Jewish influence within the
early Christian movement, and insisted upon the continued observation
of dietary laws and circumcision. For this position they ran into
constant arguments with Paul and other early evangelists who insisted
that gentiles should not be required to observe these central
requirements of Judaism to be admitted into the faith. With the
destruction of the Jerusalem Church (or at least its inability to retain
its earlier influence) the gentile-friendly Christianity of Paul and
his successors became dominant, and would remain normative for the rest
of Christian history. While Jews previously tolerated the evangelising
of proto-Christians in synagogues, the crisis caused by the destruction
of the Temple created a rather less tolerant attitude and these
proto-Christians now found themselves excluded from synagogue services.
This situation is anachronistically depicted in the Gospel of John,
which - together with the anti-Jewish polemic in other NT texts -
suggests quite clearly that Judaism and Christianity were already
starting to go their separate ways by the end of the first century.
The Judean province remained a politically restive region, however, and
after several periodic skirmishes the situation again boiled over into
full-blown war in 132 AD with the famous Bar Kokhba revolt. Under the
leadership of Simon bar Kokhba - a self-proclaimed Messiah - the Jewish
population rebelled against the Roman Empire and for a short period were
seemingly successful in establishing Israel as an independent state.
The Roman response was typically ruthless, however, and the revolt was
quashed in an orgy of violence by the year 135 AD. The majority of Jews
in the region were likely to have been killed, sold into slavery, or -
if they were lucky - sent into exile. Hadrian forbade them from entering
Jerusalem (except for specially sanctioned ceremonies) and this marks a
critical stage in the Jewish diaspora. The Jews would from this point
have no homeland until the creation of the modern state of Israel in
1947.
