Jewish history Archives

Cover image of Judea under Greek and Roman Rule" by David A. deSilva

Judea under Greek and Roman Rule, David A deSilva. Oxford University Press (ISBN: 9780190263256) 2024.

Summary: Covers the period from 334 BCE to 135 CE, Hellenizing reforms, revolts, Herods, and Roman domination.

At the conclusion of the Old Testament, the Jews are under Persian rule, with a remnant having re-settled in and around Jerusalem. By the time of Jesus, Galilee, Samaria, and Judea are directly or indirectly under Roman rule. During his life, Jesus foretold the disastrous fall of Jerusalem and the temple, which came to pass in 70 CE. We won’t find what happened during these years in our Bibles, but momentous changes took place that shaped the life and ministry of Jesus, gave context to the concluding events of his life, and to the early church in Jerusalem and Judea.

David A. deSilva, a New Testament scholar has published a New Testament Introduction and numerous works on the intertestamental period and cultural context of the New Testament. In this work, deSilva chronicles the period from 334 BCE through 135 CE. He begins with the conquests of Alexander the Great and the division of his empire after his untimely death. The narrative concludes with the second Jewish revolt against Rome in 135 CE, and the subsequent transition to rabbinic Judaism.

Initially, Galilee, Judea, and Samaritis (deSilva’s preferred usage) fell under Ptolemaic control. While control of these lands shifted from the Ptolemies to the Seleucids, a constant was the Hellenizing influence and the tension between accommodating Hellenistic commerce, culture, and taxation, and maintaining religious purity. The author shows how the decision by Antiochus IV to enter the temple to seize funds was viewed as a desecration, leading to the Maccabean revolt at a time of relatively weak Seleucid control and a hundred year Hasmonean dynasty that enjoyed relative independence. We also understand how, at the end, Herod Antipater maneuvers shrewdly to gain power as a client king under Rome. Equally shrewdly, we see the influence he had with building projects that pleased his Roman overlords as well as Jews, in his renovation and expansion of the temple complex in Jerusalem.

As with the Hasmoneans, succession was the challenge facing this family. With Antipater’s death, Rome divided territory among three sons. Archelaus, in Judea was the least successful opening the way for direct Roman control. Antipas in Galilee and Peraea and Philip in the Gentile territories are abler. Galilee, which saw an influx of Jews under the Hellenizing reforms now became an object of development under Antipas, hardly the backwater it is sometimes portrayed as.

Meanwhile, Judea, from 6 CE on is under the control of Roman prefects. Until Pilate, they managed to collect tax for Rome without inciting the population. However Pilate minted coins with offensive Roman religious images and used military standards with images of the emperor. He was much less effective in keeping the peace, undermining his position with Rome and giving the Jews leverage.

The latter part of the book covers later Roman governors. This leads to the deterioration of conditions under Gessius Florus resulting in the first revolt in 67, the brief hopes crushed with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE and the subsequent heroic but futile defense of Masada. I was struck that Rome was far stronger than the Seleucids. This led to an even more calamitous ending to the second revolt in 135 CE under Simon Bar Kochba. Rome had moved ahead with plans to restore Jerusalem as a Roman colony, the Colonia Aelia Capitolina. Judea was devastated, with many surviving Jews fleeing to Galilee.

The concluding pages cover the rise of rabbinic Judaism. The author describes the compiling of the Mishnah that served to constitute Rabbinic Judaism. They also initiated a new Greek translation of scripture. Losing Judea, they maintained their identity, forging structures that would shape Judaism to the present.

Jewish Christianity receives little attention and one gets a sense that this body led an increasingly marginal existence, especially after the death of James. The effort to remain observant Jews and followers of Jesus did not gain traction with other Jews and led to increasing separation from Gentile Christians.

The strength of this book is the historical narrative that incorporated and critiqued available sources, notably Josephus. The book also explicates well the opportunities and challenges of Hellenization, and later Roman rule. Timelines and maps would have been helpful in keeping track of successive rulers and geography. These resources are available elsewhere and the reader would do well to have these at hand. This book explicates the cultural and political milieu in Judea during the period of Christian origins. It fills in the unwritten history between the testaments. Thus, it serves as a crucial aid to biblical understanding.

Amazing Jewish Heroes Down Through the Ages, David Richard Goldberg. Springfield, NJ: Gefen Publishing House, 2017.

Summary: A collection of brief biographical sketches on eleven Jewish heroes from ancient to modern times.

Whatever one thinks of the State of Israel in present day international politics, the continued existence of the Jewish people, and the existence of a modern Jewish state seems little short of miraculous (and some would delete “little short of”). A part of this miracle are the heroic figures through Jewish history, who acted for the welfare of their people and others, and serve as role models for others in the Jewish community of Jewish faith and identity.

The late David Richard Goldberg was a financial consultant, an executive with a Florida construction services firm and a staunch supporter of various Jewish causes. In this book, he tells the stories of eleven Jewish heroes from ancient to modern times. He begins with two ancient figures, Queen Esther, who saved her from genocide, and Rabbi Akiva. The story of Rabbi Akiva may be less familiar — a descendant of converts to Judaism, an underling of a wealthy landowner who refused urgings to study Torah until the landowner’s daughter persuaded him to do so with the promise that if he became a great teacher of Israel, she would marry him! The rest is history, not only the marriage, but his leadership of Israel under Rome until martyred at the age of 120.

Part Two was an unexpected twist. Goldberg profiles two heroes of American wars. Haym Salomon provided critical financing that made possible the defeat of the British at Yorktown. Uriah Phillips Levy was the first Jewish naval leader to rise to the rank of commodore (now rear admiral) during the Civil War and helped end the practice of flogging in the Navy.

Part Three features two Holocaust survivors, Felix Zandman and Simon Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal’s survival from the camps and subsequent career in hunting down Nazi war criminals and making them answer for the Holocaust is better know. Zandman’s career is equally amazing–surviving seventeen months of Nazi occupation in an underground pit with five others until liberated. He went on to study engineering, physics, and applied mechanics, developed a technology to study the stresses on high performance equipment like jet engines, building his own firm, Vishay (named after an obliterated Lithuania village). Eventually Vishay acquired the micro-electronics unit of Telefunken, once owned by Jews.

The final part of the book covers five heroes engaged in the Zionist movement leading up to the State of Israel . The first was Theodor Herzl, credited with the birth of the Zionist movement. Given that prominent role, I was a bit surprised that this was one of the briefest biographical sketches in the book. Ze’ev Jabotinsky was one of the first to grasp that Jews would need to fight for a Jewish state, forming a militaristic youth movement, Betar, mentoring one of the other heroes in this section, Menachem Begin. The final three portraits then focus on David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Begin. We see the distinctive leadership styles of each, and the vehement conflicts that existed among the three even as they fought to birth the Jewish state of Israel and defend against its enemies. Their stories helped me grasp how deeply embedded the belief in a Jewish state was and is for a people who survived the Holocaust and could never again feel safe as a minority within another state.

What one finds here are not extensive critical biographies detailing flaws and failures as well as successes, although we get some glimpses of these with Ben-Gurion, Meir, and Begin. Rather these are, as the title states, sketches that draw out the heroic nature of each character, and are obviously very pro-Jewish and pro-Israel.

It seems this book is intended for two purposes. One is within Jewish families, particularly with upper elementary or middle school children, to learn more about the heroes of their heritage. The other is for Jews later in life like one friend of the author, who was forced to re-think his beliefs about Judaism because of these stories.

With the recent synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, it is clear both that antisemitism is far from dead and the quiet heroism is needed of us all to resist it. As an American, I’m reminded the great debt we owe the Jews for the very existence of our country, for scientific and technological advances, and for the many cultural treasures we enjoy. As a non-Jew, the book reminds of the lingering cloud of fear arising from the threat of genocide throughout history from Esther’s day to the Holocaust, and how heroically generations of Jews have lived in the face of that threat. Whatever else I think about the troubled history between Jews and Palestinians, this book reminds me of what the hope of a land of one’s own means to a people who spent two millenia struggling to survive and maintain an identity in the lands of others.

That alone is a heroic.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher via LibraryThing’s Early Reviewer program in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.