August 10, 2024

I’d like to continue my summary of Jewish history. Here’s what I’ve discussed so far:

1. Jewish History

A. The Prophets

Turning to the Hebrew Prophets, Roth says that they played a key role in Jewish history, they set the Jewish people apart from other peoples in the Middle East. “Their utterances [were] the trumpet-calls through which the national conscience was shaped and expressed, and, in subsequent generations, intermittently revived.”1 They were not primarily foretellers of the future, they were “the mouthpiece of the moral consciousness of the people.”

Roth says that Moses can be considered a prophet. In the Age of Judges (prior to the monarchy) Deborah and Samuel were prophets. When Ahab was the king of Israel/Samaria, Elijah the Tishbite became an influential prophet; Elijah was “a rough countryman, clad only in skins.” The next important prophet was Elisha, who was “at home in the court as well as in the fields.”

The followers of a prophet formed a kind of guild; “guilds of ‘children of the prophets’ became a familiar feature in national life.”

Often the prophet “refused to bow the knee to Baal,” i.e., refused to bow to foreign political power, or to foreign gods. The prophet’s mission was religious, “but only in the sense in which religion embraces the whole of life.”

The prophets spoke for the Jewish people against foreign foes, and they spoke for the lowly against the rich and powerful. “They embody the ideals of righteousness which dreamers and reformers, of all races and in all countries, have continually had before them,” and they had a “lasting influence on the life of mankind.”

One reason for their impact is “the inimitable style” of the prophetical writings, “alternating between prose and poetry, vivified by graphic similes, [they] are still reckoned among the masterpieces of world literature.”

The Bible says that those who follow the Lord prosper, while those who worship false idols suffer. If we translate this idea into secular terms, we get a related idea: When the Jewish state is politically independent, it can be religiously independent, and it can hew to religious tradition, maintain monotheism; on the other hand, when the Jewish state is politically dependent on a foreign state, the Jewish state introduces foreign gods, foreign customs, by choice or coercion. The Kingdom of Judah was better able to maintain political independence and religious purity than the Kingdom of Israel/Samaria because Judah was “isolated among her hills,” while Israel/Samaria was on the highway of history, buffeted by foreign powers.

Roth says that the Jewish nation was no longer a nation of nomadic herders, following a “stern morality” — if they had been, the prophets would have had little to criticize. The Jews had settled down and become farmers; the urban population was rising; class divisions were becoming sharper; the upper class was developing a taste for luxury; small farmers were losing their land; big farms were worked by slave labor. So the prophets had much to criticize.

The prophet Amos emerged around 765 BC. Amos was from Judah, but he preached in Bethel, a major city in Israel/Samaria. He said, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdsman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.”

Thus, Amos tries to distinguish himself from the professional prophets. Later prophets followed his example; “All of them seek to protest against the suspicion that they are professional prophets because the latter discredited themselves by flattering national vanities and ignoring the misdeeds of prominent men.”2 One thinks of Socrates, who separated himself from the sophists, from the professional sages. Or one might compare Amos to the unpaid philosopher in recent times, who separates himself from the “paycheck philosophers” in academia.

The head priest complained about Amos to the king, and had Amos expelled from the kingdom. So Amos returned to Judah, and expressed himself through writings, rather than speeches; Amos was the first “writing prophet.” Later prophets followed his example, and set down their message in writing. Wikipedia says, “[Amos] has always been admired for the purity of his language, his beauty of diction, and his poetic art. In all these respects, he is Isaiah’s spiritual progenitor.”

Amos castigated the wealthy for their love of luxury, he castigated those “that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall.... That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments.”

Like later prophets, Amos predicted that the Jewish nation would be overcome by the Assyrians, and led away captive, but would survive this ordeal. “I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation.... And the songs of the temple shall be howlings in that day.... Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.... Thou shalt die in a polluted land.” One is reminded of those modern philosophers who predict ruin as a result of wild spending, open borders, etc.

Like later prophets, Amos thundered against the oppression of the poor: “Hear this, O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail... falsifying the balances by deceit... That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat.” Roth speaks of, “the pitiless administration of the laws of debt.”

Amos complained that the upper class was following an external religion. “He warned them that their superficial religiosity could not save them on the day of punishment which was impending. The essential quality of true religion was clean living, justice, and righteousness, not the mechanical observance of an external pietism.”3 In the Book of Amos, King James Version, we read,

I hate, I despise your feast days.... Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols. But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.

The next prophet, Hosea, also predicted that the Jews would be conquered by the Assyrians. The Jews were not worshipping God as they should, and they would be punished. After their punishment, they would repent of their sins, and return to the proper path. Hosea began preaching around 750 BC. Roth criticizes Hosea for “the involved style of his writings.”

The prophet Isaiah emerged about 730 BC. Roth says that Isaiah “represents the Hebrew prophet at his highest and most characteristic.” He prophecies a savior, and a golden age:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse.... And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding.... The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid.

The prophet Jeremiah began preaching about 625 BC, and continued until after the Babylonian Exile, i.e., after 586 BC. Like Isaiah, Jeremiah advised that the Jewish nation be neutral and independent, like Switzerland, rather than joining alliances with Egypt or other nations.

Jeremiah often clashed with the authorities; “he refused to be silent when silence was acceptable at court.” (That the authorities allowed such prophets to speak at all might indicate a democratic spirit in the Jewish state, might indicate that the Jewish kings weren’t absolute monarchs.4) When he was persecuted, Jeremiah decided to stop prophesying, stop “speaking God’s word,” but he found that he couldn’t stop:

I am in derision daily, everyone mocketh me... the word of the Lord was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

Many writers have doubtless felt the same way: their message is a “burning fire” in their bones, they must express themselves.

Jeremiah foretold disaster “because disaster was merited.” He foretold that the Jewish nation would be conquered by the Babylonians, and driven into exile, but he felt that the Jews could survive this ordeal, and maintain their identity, maintain their religion. By saying that they could survive, Jeremiah helped to ensure that they did survive; “as a result of his influence... the Judaean exiles... were able to maintain both their identity and their ideals until the dawn of a brighter day.”

And this brings us back to the larger point, namely, that the prophets in general (not just Jeremiah) inspired and united the Jewish people. But we shouldn’t overlook another source of inspiration and unity: the Bible, especially the first five books of the Bible. Roth says that there was a high literacy rate in ancient Israel; people could read the Bible, and did. They could also take the Bible with them into exile; it helped them to maintain their identity, even in a foreign land. Jews have been called “people of the book”; one might say that the Jews are a people because of the book.

The prophets and the Bible overlap: the prophets complain that the people are neglecting the Law of Moses (as set forth in the Bible). The prophets and the Bible both advocate “charity towards one’s neighbor,” and “justice to the poor”; this moral code is, according to Roth, “immeasurably superior to anything else of its day.”

B. Return From Exile

One might say that the Jewish nation, living in Palestine during antiquity, had to deal with six empires; in chronological order, those empires are

  1. Egypt
  2. Assyria
  3. Babylonia
  4. Persia
  5. Greece/Macedon
  6. Rome
Each of these empires conquered the preceding empire, and was in turn conquered by the next empire.

One of the Jews exiled to Babylonia in 597 BC was the prophet Ezekiel. Roth says that Ezekiel exhorted his fellow Jews “in passionate orations to preserve their confidence and their faith”; Ezekiel was a spiritual leader of the exile community. Ezekiel lived in Tel Aviv, one of the main Jewish communities in Mesopotamia. “Tel” means a mound or hill, often consisting of the remains of previous settlements, while “Aviv” means spring, so “Tel Aviv” could be translated as “Spring Hill.”

The city of Tel Aviv in Israel was originally a suburb of Jaffa, an ancient port, but now Jaffa is a minor adjunct to Tel Aviv (as a port, Jaffa has been surpassed by Haifa in the north, and Ashdod in the south). Israel’s Tel Aviv was named after the Babylonian Tel Aviv, and also after Herzl’s Zionist novel Altneuland (Old New Land), which was translated into Hebrew as Tel Aviv.

The exile community didn’t try to construct a temple like Solomon’s Temple (the Temple that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed in 586 BC). The Temple was for sacrifices; without a Temple, sacrifices weren’t made, or weren’t made regularly. Instead, the exiled Jews held meetings for prayer, and for Bible study. The teacher or rabbi, who expounded the Bible, became more important than the priest, who officiated at sacrifices in the temple.

In 539 BC, Cyrus conquered the Babylonian Empire, and added it to his Persian Empire. Cyrus had a certain sympathy for the exiled Jews, perhaps because his own religion was akin to monotheism, perhaps because he disapproved of the Babylonian policy of population-transfer. In 538 BC, the Edict of Cyrus said that the exiled Jews could return to Palestine, and rebuild their Temple. The Babylonian Exile had lasted about fifty years. It should be noted that

* * * * *

I met a scholar named Elie Kedourie whose family had stayed behind in Babylonia after the Edict of Cyrus; Kedourie’s family had been part of the Jewish community in Babylonia (present-day Iraq). Kedourie was bitter toward the English diplomats who had handed Iraq to the Arabs after World War I. Kedourie felt that Iraq was a multi-ethnic society, it shouldn’t be given to the Arabs.

The Arabs hailed from the Arabian Peninsula, and had conquered Iraq around 650 AD. So Kedourie’s family had been in Iraq far longer than the Arabs — about 1,250 years longer than the Arabs. In fact, the Jews were in Mesopotamia in the days of Abraham, 2,500 years before the Arabs conquered Mesopotamia. One might say that the Jews are natives of Iraq.

Kedourie argued that, between 1920 and 1950, the Arabs didn’t try to establish the rule of law in Iraq; on the contrary, they confiscated Jewish property, and expelled the Jews. So Kedourie didn’t criticize the British for colonizing Iraq, he criticized the British for withdrawing from Iraq, and leaving the Arabs in charge.

If Jews were expelled from Iraq in 1948, could they go to Israel? Yes, but they had little interest in Israel. Zionism only appealed to European Jews. According to Kedourie, “Zionism is a doctrine that had no appeal to oriental Jewries.” Kedourie speaks scornfully of Israel, and of the revival of Hebrew.5 He criticizes the Arabs for pushing Iraqi Jews out of Iraq, and he criticizes Zionists for pulling Iraqi Jews into Israel; Kedourie speaks of a “monstrous complicity” between Arabs and Zionists.

* * * * *

Roth says that about 40,000 Jews returned to Palestine from Babylonia. They brought with them a significant number of slaves, which indicates (Roth says) that they were somewhat affluent. Slavery was common in antiquity; Jews owned slaves, and sometimes they themselves were enslaved. The transporting of enslaved Jews was one factor in the dispersion of Jews.6 Roth says there was “wholesale enslavement” in Palestine after the crushing of the Jewish revolt of 132 AD.7 One scholar wrote, “Everything in the Bible goes back to one thing: that the people of Israel were once slaves in Egypt, and they experienced a great deliverance.... The religion of Israel began as a slave revolt.”8

After arriving in Palestine, the former exiles began rebuilding the Temple in Jerusalem. In 515 BC, the Temple was completed. This is known as the Second Temple, and it lasted until 70 AD, when it was destroyed by the Romans, under the command of Titus.

Those who returned from Babylonia controlled only Jerusalem and a few nearby towns. While they were in Babylonia, their old foes had encroached on the Kingdom of Judah from all sides.

The northern kingdom, the Kingdom of Israel/Samaria, offered to help rebuild the Temple, but Judah wanted to keep their worship pure, they regarded Samaritans as only half-Jewish. “Long residence in Babylonia, the center of the civilization of the age, possibly rendered them somewhat contemptuous of uncouth provincials.” Another source of tension was that the former exiles wanted their properties back, while people from the northern kingdom may have taken over some of these properties, and felt that they were now the rightful owners. So, for a variety of reasons, there was ill-will between the northern and southern kingdoms.

The Jews had once been divided into twelve tribes; each tribe was associated with its own region. During the Captivity (i.e., during the Babylonian Exile), the tribes were jumbled together, and “they had become consolidated around that of Judah.... Gradually, therefore, the entire population became known as men of Judah (Yehudim), or Jews.”

Most of those who returned from Babylonia were farmers, and in Palestine, they resumed farming. Roth says that Jewish craftsmen had “prospered” in Babylonia, and he implies that many craftsmen chose to remain in Babylonia.

When Cyrus permitted the Jews to return to Palestine, he was permitting them to move from one Persian province to another; Palestine wasn’t outside the Persian Empire. When the Empire invaded Greece, and was defeated at Salamis in 480 BC, there was probably a Jewish contingent in the Persian Army.

In the Persian court, a Jew named Nehemiah had a high rank. In 445 BC, Nehemiah heard that Jerusalem was in a dilapidated state, so he obtained permission to travel there, and try to restore the city.

The people in and around Jerusalem were enthusiastic about Nehemiah’s mission. But the Kingdom of Israel/Samaria looked askance at the rebuilding of their rival, and even tried to kill Nehemiah. “At one time the devoted band at Jerusalem had to go about their work armed, so as to be prepared against a surprise attack.” When the project was complete, Jerusalem was short of people; “it was accordingly agreed that one family out of every ten from the countryside should be selected by lot to live in the capital.”

Nehemiah tried to help the poor by persuading the rich to “restore the holdings [i.e., the properties] on which they had foreclosed and to remit henceforth, in accordance with the prescriptions of the Mosaic code, the interest hitherto charged on loans.” The Mosaic code did not permit the charging of interest to a fellow Jew.9

Besides Nehemiah, there was another Jewish leader or prophet at this time, Ezra, sometimes called Ezra the Scribe. Ezra appointed a commission to examine marriages, and dissolve any marriages with non-Jews. Roth calls this “a drastic step,” but perhaps necessary for “the perpetuation of the individuality of the Jewish people.” Roth notes that, at the same time, “the problem of extra-marriage was confronted... both in Athens and Rome.”

Ezra seems to have organized a Great Assembly, at which “the whole of the assembled people entered into a solemn League and Covenant. A formal contract was drawn up, binding all who subscribed to observe certain fundamental prescriptions [such as, observing the Sabbath].” The idea of a Covenant seems to be important in both Christianity and Judaism; it seems to be especially important among Protestants. Sometimes the Covenant is with God, sometimes it’s with one’s fellow believers. Did the political idea of a Social Contract grow out of the idea of a religious Covenant?

In 433 BC, Nehemiah was summoned back to Persia. In his absence, many of his measures were overthrown; marriage with non-Jews resumed. In his old age, Nehemiah returned to Palestine, and attempted to enforce his policies.

Meanwhile, Ezra was busy editing, and perhaps even creating, the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament). “With Ezra, the reign of the Torah over the Jewish people began.” The study of the Torah led to the construction of synagogues — buildings for prayer and Bible study, rather than sacrifice. Synagogues were a “prototype of the Church on the one hand and of the Mosque on the other.”

Roth thinks that Ecclesiastes and other books of the Bible may date to around 400 BC. According to tradition, Ecclesiastes was written by Solomon in his old age, i.e., it was written about 950 BC. Books are sometimes ascribed to very ancient writers, in order to give them a halo of antiquity. Roth argues that the two centuries after the Exile (i.e., after 530 BC) were a period of unusual literary creativity for the Jewish people.

C. The Hellenistic Period

Around 330 BC, the Persian Empire was conquered by Alexander of Macedon, known as Alexander the Great. When Alexander died in 323 BC, his empire was divided among his generals. The next two centuries are known as the Hellenistic Period; Greek culture spread throughout the Middle East. This period ends with the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC.

In 320 BC, three years after Alexander’s death, Palestine was invaded by Ptolemy, a Macedonian general who controlled Egypt. Ptolemy reached Jerusalem on the Sabbath. The pious Jews refused to fight on the Sabbath, so Ptolemy entered Jerusalem unopposed. He dismantled the walls of the city, as well as the walls of other Jewish strongholds.

The successors of Alexander continually fought among themselves. Antigonus, who ruled Asia Minor, pushed Ptolemy out of Palestine. But in 312 BC, at the Battle of Gaza, Ptolemy defeated the occupiers, and regained control of Palestine. “Many of the inhabitants [of Palestine] were deported to Egypt — the beginning of the intensive Jewish settlement in that country.”

The Jews in Palestine were squeezed between two rival powers: the Ptolemaic Kingdom, based in Egypt, and the Seleucid Kingdom (also founded by a Macedonian general), based in Syria and Mesopotamia. In 198 BC, the Seleucids defeated the Ptolemies at Paneas in the Golan Heights; after this battle, the Seleucids controlled Palestine.

The Ptolemies were rather popular rulers in Egypt and in Palestine. They respected Egyptian culture and tradition, while also spreading Greek culture. Likewise, they respected Jewish culture, and gave the Jews considerable autonomy.

Around 275 BC, the Bible was translated from Hebrew to Greek by a group of seventy translators. This translation is called the Septuagint (from the Latin word for seventy).

The Septuagint wasn’t intended for use by Greeks; few Greeks probably wanted to read the Bible. It was intended for Jews, most of whom couldn’t speak or read Hebrew. “Koine Greek and Aramaic were the most widely spoken languages at that time among the Jewish community. The Septuagint therefore satisfied a need in the Jewish community.”10

It is often said that Jesus’ native tongue was Aramaic. Hebrew was used for scholarly/religious pursuits, like Latin in the Middle Ages. Did Jesus read the Bible? If so, did he read it in Greek or Hebrew? He probably learned Hebrew in school, as a youngster in England would have learned Latin in 1900; he probably read the Bible in Hebrew, and he probably heard Bible-readings, and Bible-discussions, in synagogues.

In 175 BC, a new ruler came to power in the Seleucid Empire, Antiochus IV, known as Antiochus Epiphanes. He was a “Hellenizer,” that is, he was eager to spread Greek culture throughout his realm. The Jews in Palestine were divided: Should we adopt Greek ways, or follow the ways of our fathers? (Toynbee argued that all colonized peoples have a choice between adopting foreign ways, or following their own traditions. He uses terms from Jewish history: he calls those who adopt foreign ways “Herodians,” and he calls those who follow their own traditions “Zealots.”)

There was a quarrel in the Jewish community over who would occupy the highest office in Jewish Palestine, the office of High Priest. You could become High Priest by winning the favor of the Seleucid power — by offering a higher tribute, or by taking steps to Hellenize Palestine.

It was a Jewish tradition that only a Cohen could become High Priest; the Cohens were said to descend from Aaron, brother of Moses. This tradition, like other Jewish traditions, was ignored by the Greeks and their Jewish allies. Greek troops were stationed in Jerusalem, in case anyone objected to Hellenizing, or to paying higher taxes. A Greek gymnasium was built in Jerusalem; with its naked athletes, the gym offended Jews.

When Jewish factions fought each other, Antiochus Epiphanes thought the Jews were rising up against his rule, or at least against his policies. He sent troops into Jerusalem; the city walls were demolished, some Jews were killed, others sold into slavery. The Greek troops attacked Jews on the Sabbath, knowing they wouldn’t resist then. A new Greek fort, the Acra, was built in Jerusalem; “it was garrisoned with a large force.”

Now both sides were discontent: the Greeks were discontent because the Jews still maintained some of their traditional ways, and the Jews were discontent because the Greeks were trampling on their religion, and acting in a tyrannical way. “A systematic attempt was begun to Hellenize the country by force.... To increase the horror of pious Jews, swine were sacrificed on the altar.... The observance of any of the practices of the Jewish religion was made a capital offence.... Special watch was kept for such as observed the Sabbath and festivals, or practiced the rite of circumcision.” In other parts of the Seleucid Empire, Jews were subjected to similar persecution.

D. The Jewish Revolt Against the Greeks

Finally the Jews decided they had to resist, they had to defend their ancient beliefs and customs. The revolt was started by Mattathias, the head of the Hasmon family. It’s called the Hasmonean Revolt, or the Maccabean Revolt (one of the five sons of Mattathias was called “Maccabee,” or “The Hammer”).

Mattathias and his sons killed a Greek official, and a pro-Greek Jew, then took to the hills, where they attracted followers, followers who called themselves “Hassidim,” or “pious ones.” The government struggled to defeat the Maccabean guerillas. Finally the government granted the rebels independence. In the long struggle for independence, all five of the Hasmon brothers died.

The rebels occupied Jerusalem, and re-dedicated the Temple at the winter solstice. This re-dedication has been marked ever since by the Jewish holiday known as Hanukkah; the lighting of candles is “characteristic of the primitive celebration” of the winter solstice.

The Jews resumed their religious traditions, but a Greek garrison remained in the Jerusalem citadel. A large Greek army marched to Jerusalem to defend the citadel. While battling the Greek army, the Jewish forces had some victories, and some defeats; the leader of the Jewish forces was one of the Hasmon brothers, Judas (sometimes called Judah).

The Seleucid Empire couldn’t tolerate Jewish victories, so they assembled “an overwhelming force,” re-asserted political control, but didn’t interfere with the practice of the Jewish religion. Then the old pattern was repeated: when the Seleucid army left Palestine, the Jews rose up in rebellion; when the Seleucid army returned to Palestine, the Maccabee forces withdrew over the Jordan. Finally the Maccabee forces were allowed to return to Palestine, and hold sway outside Jerusalem. The Maccabees were now led by the youngest of the Hasmon brothers, Jonathan.

Around 155 BC, the Seleucid ruler, Demetrius Soter, had to fight a challenger to his throne. Demetrius and the challenger both wanted the Jews on their side, so the Jewish ruler, Jonathan Hasmon, had some bargaining power and could ask for various favors. Jonathan was able to enlarge his domain, re-establish a high degree of Jewish autonomy, and become High Priest of the Temple.

When Jonathan was tricked and killed by a Greek general, the last surviving Hasmon brother, Simon, took over. In 141 BC, the Greeks withdrew from the citadel at Jerusalem “amid delirious scenes of rejoicing.” Simon was made “High Priest, Prince, and military commander, henceforth to be hereditary in his house.” For the first time, the Jewish state minted their own coins.

Simon was assassinated in 135 BC by his son-in-law. He was succeeded by one of his sons, John Hyrcanus. John fought against Antiochus VII, “the last strong representative of the house of Seleucus.” John was victorious at first, then Antiochus VII was victorious, but Antiochus VII didn’t push his victory to the limit, because the Jews were on friendly terms with the rising power in the region, Rome. Rome didn’t want the Seleucids to become too powerful; the Seleucids didn’t want to anger the Romans.

So Antiochus VII pulled back, leaving John Hyrcanus with some autonomy, and with some of his recent conquests. Then Antiochus VII was killed fighting the Parthians, the Seleucid Empire fell apart, and the Jews in Palestine enjoyed independence for about sixty years.

In conclusion: The Hasmonean dynasty lasted for about a century, beginning with Simon, the father of John Hyrcanus; at first the Hasmonean rulers were partly independent, and partly Seleucid clients, then they were independent for several decades, and finally they were partly independent, and partly Roman clients.

The Jewish revolts against the Seleucids, and later the Romans, are described by the Jewish historian Josephus in The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews. The Jewish revolts against the Seleucids are also described in two Biblical books, 1 Maccabees and 2 Maccabees.

E. A Jewish Civil War

In the last issue, we left John Hyrcanus as the leader of the Jews. The Jews were partly independent, partly ruled by the Seleucid Dynasty. John Hyrcanus ruled from 135 BC to 104 BC. He was a member of the Hasmon family, the family that had started the revolt of the Maccabees against Seleucid rule (“Hasmonean” is synonymous with “Maccabean”). The power of the Hasmonean rulers was, Roth says, conferred by the people, the priests, the elders, and therefore “the elements at least of democratic theory were thus alive.”

At this time, the Jews were concentrated in Palestine; the historian Polybius referred to them as “those who live near the sanctuary called Jerusalem.” The only exception was a Jewish community in Egypt.

Under the Maccabees, Jews expanded their realm; John Hyrcanus “pushed forward the frontiers of the state on every side.”11 The previous occupants were expelled or “forcibly converted to Judaism.” One of the lands conquered was Judah’s northern neighbor, Israel/Samaria. Roth says, “The city of Samaria, now among the greatest Hellenic centers in Palestine, was captured and obliterated” (Samaria is now the WestBank village of Sebastia).

The expansion of the Jewish realm was accompanied by “cultural revival.” Roth speaks of “the monumental tomb constructed for the Hasmoneans,” a “palace at Gaza,” the Book of Daniel, and certain poems in the Book of Psalms. After the Hasmonean period, little was added to the Bible; Roth calls this period “the swan-song of Biblical literature.”

John Hyrcanus was succeeded by his sons, chiefly Alexander Jannai, who ruled from 103 BC to 76 BC. The policy of expansion continued. “The Jewish state now rivalled or exceeded in size what had hitherto been its greatest extension, in the glorious days of David or of Solomon.” Most of the people in the expanded Hasmonean realm were henceforth considered Jews. “It is from the ethnic group formed in these years that the Jewish people of today is predominantly descended.”

The expanded realm led to an expanded population, and the expanded population began spreading more widely; there were now Jews in the Greek islands and Asia Minor, as well as Palestine, Egypt, and Mesopotamia. The number of Jews in Egypt may have been greater than in Palestine; Egypt may have had 1,000,000 Jews, of which about 100,000 lived in the capital, Alexandria.

Around 10 BC, “The geographer Strabo spoke of the Jews as having penetrated into all states, so that it was difficult to find a single place which had not received them, and in which (he sarcastically added) they had not become ruler.” Palestine, and especially Jerusalem, was the “sentimental center” of the scattered Jewish population; even Jewish communities far from Palestine often contributed money to the Temple at Jerusalem.

Some Jews resented that the Hasmonean rulers were both kings and High Priests. They felt that a king should be from the house of David, and shouldn’t simultaneously be High Priest. They wanted to practice their religion without interference, but they weren’t eager for political independence; indeed, some Jews were eager for “the re-establishment of Gentile hegemony in the political sphere.”

There was also tension, in the Jewish community, between priests and rabbis. The priesthood was an older institution, and drew support from the “land-owning aristocracy.” Rabbis, on the other hand, had arisen more recently, and drew support from “artisans and yeomen.” The legal decisions of priests and rabbis reflected the classes they represented.

The priesthood was a closed corporation, while a rabbi could be “any person who showed himself a skillful exponent of Holy Writ (‘Rabbi’ or ‘My Master’ such a person would be called, deferentially, by his disciples).” Rabbis sometimes subscribed to “the doctrine of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the dead,” while priests rejected this since it wasn’t in the Bible. Roth speaks of the “bitterness” between the priest party, known as Sadducees, and the rabbi party, known as Pharisees.

According to an old saying, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Hasmonean dynasty became corrupt when its domains were extensive, and its power unquestioned.

One son of John Hyrcanus, Judah, sometimes called “Aristobulus,” imprisoned his mother and murdered one of his brothers. Another son of John Hyrcanus, Alexander Jannai, was “unscrupulous, bloodthirsty, and passionate: and he maintained his authority by the swords of foreign mercenaries.”

To show his contempt for the Pharisees, Alexander Jannai poured a “libation of water at his feet instead of on the altar: a trivial point, but one which indicated his attitude towards new ceremonial not prescribed in the Pentateuch.” So the rabbi party was modifying, and adding to, Biblical teaching, while the priest party wanted to follow the Bible closely (one thinks of how Catholics modified Biblical teaching, while Protestants wanted to stick to the Bible).

The Sadducees and Pharisees were estranged. In 94 BC, when Alexander Jannai suffered some military reverses, the people rose up in rebellion. “For six years civil war raged ferociously.” The popular party (i.e., the Pharisees, the rabbi party) was inferior militarily, so they appealed to the Seleucid ruler in Syria. The Seleucids invaded Palestine, and defeated Alexander Jannai, “but as so often happens in such cases, his misfortunes caused a revulsion of feeling in his favor, and in the end the invaders were forced to withdraw.”

Alexander Jannai ruled Palestine once again, and took revenge against his Pharisee foes. In 76 BC, Alexander Jannai was succeeded by his wife, who managed to restore domestic tranquility.

When she died, however, her sons clashed, and the loser appealed to the Nabatean Arabs, who lived in or near what is now Jordan. The Arabs besieged Jerusalem, until the Romans, who were now in charge of Syria, “ordered the Arabs to withdraw.” The Pharisees (i.e., the popular party, the rabbi party) asked the Romans to “assume the political control of Palestine themselves,” and remove the High Priest from politics.

Pompey, the Roman leader, hesitated. Which of the sons of Alexander Jannai should he support? Or should he side with the Pharisees, and control the Jewish realm himself?

Meanwhile, a band of Jews “established themselves on the almost impregnable Temple Mount” in Jerusalem. In 63 BC, Pompey penetrated the Temple Mount, and massacred its defenders.

Pompey then reduced the size of the Jewish realm, undoing some recent Jewish conquests. As a result, “the center of Jewish life lay in two distinct areas, Judaea and Galilee, cut off from the coast by the Greek cities and from one another by the Samaritan belt.” By 57 BC, the Jewish realm was no longer independent, it was “a Roman province.”

2. Alexander Waugh

One of my favorite contemporary intellectuals, Alexander Waugh, died recently at age 60. He was a grandson of the well-known novelist, Evelyn Waugh. I discussed Alexander’s lectures and videos in several previous issues.12

Alexander revolutionized our understanding of Shakespeare. If you want a sample of his work, consider this podcast.

In the podcast, Alexander recommends a book by George Greenwood called The Shakespeare Problem Restated (1908), and a book by Diana Price called Shakespeare’s Unorthodox Biography (2000). Mark Twain was a fan of Greenwood’s book; Greenwood inspired Twain to write “Is Shakespeare Dead?” (1909).

An obituary in the New York Times summarizes Alexander’s life and writings.

© L. James Hammond 2024
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Footnotes
1. Cecil Roth, A Short History of the Jewish People (1948), Ch. 5, p. 39 back
2. Wikipedia back
3. Roth, A Short History of the Jewish People, Ch. 5, #4 back
4. One scholar, Hyam Maccoby, speaks of, “The delicate threefold division of power by which authority was divided among king, priest and prophet (or teacher) was the result of a preoccupation with freedom, the legacy of the period of slavery in Egypt.” (The Jewish World, edited by Elie Kedourie, Ch. 2) So Maccoby thinks the legacy of slavery was important, while Roth thinks the legacy of nomadic living was important; Maccoby and Roth agree that Jewish kings weren’t absolute monarchs.

S. D. Goitein seems to agree with Roth. Goitein speaks of, “the ancient Israelite primitive democracy, which had much in common with pre-Islamic Arabian life.”(A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, Ch. 1, #4, p. 73) This suggests that the legacy of nomadic living was more important (in creating primitive democracy) than the legacy of Egyptian slavery. back

5. Kedourie, The Chatham House Version and Other Middle Eastern Studies, Ch. 10, “Minorities”
Kedourie wrote, or rather edited, one of the best surveys of Jewish history, The Jewish World. back
6. See Roth 1948, Ch. 8, #6, p. 87 back
7. Roth 1948, Ch. 10, #2, p. 114 back
8. Hyam Maccoby in Chapter 2 of The Jewish World: History and Culture of the Jewish People, edited by Elie Kedourie back
9. See Deuteronomy 23:20, Leviticus 25:35, and Exodus 22:25 back
10. Wikipedia back
11. Cecil Roth, A Short History of the Jewish People (1948), Ch. 8, p. 78 back
12. Click here, here, or here back