Clifford Denton examines the historical conquest of Israel by Rome and its creation of the Israeli diaspora.

Every Bible student needs a grasp of history and to set this alongside the purposes of God as revealed in Scripture. What was happening on the world stage when Jesus was alive, and in the first years of the Church's existence?

Roman Occupation

This is the background to the Roman domination of Israel preceding the biblical account of Jesus and the Apostles.

In the years before Rome, the Greek Empire dominated Israel. There was resistance from the Maccabees, a group of Jewish rebels, during this time. The years that followed saw the rise of the Hasmoneans as a priest-king dynasty in Israel, but which did not restore Israel as a truly Torah-based society.

Rome grew as the new world power and it was in the year 63 BC that the legions under Pompey entered Israel. Jagersma's account of Pompey's arrival (History of Israel to Bar Kochba, SCM Press 1985, p98) reads:

Bust of General Pompey[While] the Roman general Pompey was busy with his successful campaign in Asia (66-62 BC); one of his generals, Scaurus, had captured Damascus for him in 65 BC. Soon after that he turned his attention to Judaea. At about that time delegations came from both Aristobulus and Hyrcanus [two rival Hasmonean princes] to ask for his help. Both offered him gifts. On this occasion the Romans opted for Aristobulus.

In 63 BC Pompey himself arrived in Damascus. There not only delegations from Aristobulus and Hyrcanus but also representatives of the people of Judaea came to him. These last asked Pompey to abolish the Hasmonaean dynasty because they wanted to be ruled by priests.

At the time of this meeting Pompey did not make any decision...Arisobulus was least happy with the delay. He...established himself in the fortress of Alexandrium to make his position secure. This action aroused the wrath of Pompey, who immediately invaded Judaea. Aristobulus quickly surrendered, but most of his supporters refused.

Pompey then went back to Jerusalem and besieged the city. Hyrcanus and his followers opened the gates to the Romans, who were then able to occupy the city and the royal palace. However, a group of the supporters of Aristobulus, who had already been taken prisoner, occupied the temple. Only after a siege of three months did the temple fall into the hands of the Romans. To the dismay of the pious, on this occasion Pompey entered the Holy of Holies.

Pompey led Aristobulus and numerous Judaean prisoners through Rome in triumphal procession by which he celebrated his return. When they were later freed, the latter formed the beginning of a great Jewish community there.

The weak Hyrcanus II was eventually made the High Priest, and political rule was given to his powerful advisor, Antipater. Antipater's sons Phaesel and Herod (later Herod the Great) were given the task of governing Jerusalem and Galilee respectively, and the Romans gathered tax from Judaea. In 43 AD, Herod showed his allegiance to Rome by opposing an insurrection in Galilee and then opposing and undermining the Sanhedrin.

The Fall of the Temple

Jesus had made it clear that the Temple would fall:

...the days will come in which not one stone shall be left upon another that shall not be thrown down. (Luke 21:6)

This prophecy came to pass in 70 AD, during the First Jewish-Roman War (66-73 AD. This was the first of three major revolts by Judean Jews against the Roman Empire, brought on by religious and political tensions. It will be discussed in more detail next week). Josephus gives a graphic account of the Temple's fall:

And now two of the legions had completed their banks on the eighth day of Lous. Whereupon Titus gave orders that the battering-rams should be brought and set over against the western edifice of the inner temple; for before these were brought, the firmest of all the other engines had battered the wall for six days together without ceasing, without making any impression upon it; but the vast largeness and strong connexion of the stones was superior to that engine, and to the other battering rams also...

...and now the soldiers had already put fire to the gates, and the silver that was over them quickly carried the flames to the wood that was within it, whence it spread itself all on the sudden, and caught hold of the cloisters. Upon the Jews seeing this fire all about them, their spirits sunk, together with their bodies, and they were under such astonishment that not one of them made any haste either to defend himself or to quench the fire, but they stood mute spectators of it only...

While the holy house was on fire, everything was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity ; but children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests, were all slain in the same manner..." (Quoted from The Wars of the Jews)

Model of the Second Temple, destroyed in 70 AD.Temple Mount today.Jagersma summarises this sad event in Israel's history too (p144):

In early 70 Titus began the siege of Jerusalem...Titus had in all four legions and auxiliaries for this siege. The beginning of the siege fell some weeks before Passover.

The Romans began by attacking the northernmost wall. In military terms this side was always the most vulnerable part of the city to defend...three weeks later the Romans had the whole of the inner city in their hands. Meanwhile a pressing lack of food in the city made itself felt. That of course was disastrous to the morale of the defenders.

The focal point of the dispute now shifted to the temple mount with the citadel of Antonia and the upper city. When the defenders succeeded in destroying the entrenchments which the Romans threw up against the wall Titus had a stone wall put round the whole city. This was done in three days. Shortly after that the Romans were able to capture the citadel of Antonia in a night attack; it was then completely destroyed.

A great blow to the morale of the besieged was the day when the offering of the daily morning and evening sacrifice had to be stopped. From that day on the temple was only a fortress. At the cost of very severe losses Titus succeeded in gradually getting it into his hands. According to Josephus, Titus wanted to spare the temple. This does not sound very plausible, since such an action would go against the usual military practices of his time. Be this as it may, the temple went up in flames. This event is still recalled in the synagogue on 9 Av (about August). [emphases added]

After the fall of the Temple the upper city of Jerusalem was taken, the whole battle lasting five months and wreaking terrible destruction, evidence of which can still be found today. 700 young Jews were paraded in Rome. Others were put to work in mines in Egypt or sold as slaves. The triumphal march of Titus in Rome is depicted on the Arch of Titus in the city and can be seen today. He took with him the Menorah and the Table of Shewbread from the temple.

Some Jewish families fled to the fortress at Masada near the southern shores of the Dead Sea, where they were surrounded by the Roman army who gradually ascended the mountain. In the year 73 or 74 the families took a suicide pact as their capture and humiliation became certain. So ended the devastation of Israel. The Temple, and hence Israel's religious and national centre, was lost, sacrifices ceased and a new Jewish Diaspora began.Stone outline of Roman encampment, viewable from Masada.The location of the Masada fortress.

Impact on Early Christianity

The fall of the City of Jerusalem and of the Temple in 70 AD coincided with the early days of the community of disciples in Jerusalem and the spread of the Gospel to the Gentile world. The Council of Jerusalem had taken place 20 years earlier. Paul's three missionary journeys had already taken place and both he and Peter had suffered martyrdom in Rome.

The majority of the New Testament Scriptures had been written. The Christian Church was a visible body within the world of Judaism. Theological issues had arisen and the separation from the Synagogue had begun.

The destruction of the Temple contributed to this separation. In the final chapter of his book A House Divided: The Parting of the Ways between Synagogue and Church (Paulist Press, 1995), Vincent Martin writes:

The reaction to the catastrophe of 70 C.E. among Jews and Christians proved to be diametrically opposite. The Jews rejected the NEW and the Christians rejected the OLD. The Jews affirmed that salvation for Israel could be found only by upholding in its pure form the Sinaitic Covenant; the Christians proclaimed that salvation for Israel, and the Gentiles, could be found only in the eternal covenant established through the risen Jesus.

Judaism...was unique, clearly distinct from all other religious systems. Totally God-centered, it had a deeply humanistic quality emphasizing ethical and social values. It was a "classical" religion, moderate, measurable, seeking harmony with nature, bursting with love of life and joy – when not punished by the Lord.

Suddenly, the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth with its more radical aspects, the proclamation by the Twelve that the same Jesus was truly risen inaugurated the heavenly Jerusalem, and the reaching out of Saul of Tarsus toward the Gentiles, all seemed to destroy the delicate equilibrium God had built through centuries of patience and inspiration. Not only did these novelties not correspond to the actual messianic expectations of the common people, but they were changing the focus of traditional Jewish life from covenantal justice toward gratuitous love, from concern with this world toward concern with the world to come, and from nationalism toward universalism. Such new perspectives were not essentially anti-Jewish, or completely foreign to Judaism, but they were stretching Temple Judaism to its limits and even beyond its limits.

Martin goes on to distinguish out various reactions to Jesus and the early Church from within the Jewish community, and shows how the political situation at the time framed these different responses:

To understand the reaction of the Jewish people to this new teaching, we must carefully separate the reaction of the Sadducean party in control of the Temple, and indirectly of the nation, from the general reaction of the people. The colonial situation, the fear of the Romans, and the will to maintain a grip on political power, led to an unavoidable conflict at first between the religious establishment and Jesus of Nazareth, and later his Galilean disciples. As the Sadducees lost all power after the burning of the Temple, the general reaction of the Pharisees and the common people remained the most significant response. Originally it was not negative. It was rather a feeling of uncertainty concerning the imminent coming of a hoped for messianic event mixed with a deep uneasiness at experiencing cherished traditions stretched beyond acceptable limits.

It is principally Pauline evangelism which started to transform an attitude of respect, curiosity and distance into a negative reaction. The sense of self-identity and the struggle for national survival in difficult political circumstances brought forth a great fear that the dissolution of Torah Judaism into an a-temporal and universal Judaism would strike down the dividing wall carefully constructed by Ezra and would finally destroy the integrity of the nation. The leaders of the Diaspora dreaded that Paul would attract many Jews to this strange and easier kind of Judaism; they were deeply offended at the manipulation of Jewish sanctities by uncircumcised Gentiles. This time it was not a matter of systematic doubt or suspended judgment but of a religious injury that needed an antagonistic answer. (ibid, p178-179, emphases added)

For Study and Prayer:

What should a Christian's attitude be to the dispersion of the Jews over nearly 2,000 years - and to the restoration of Israel today?

Next time: The Jewish Revolts