The Jewish Revolt Against Rome

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myJLI

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the Jewish revolt against Rome changed to a history in an unbelievable way while the second temple stood in Jerusalem the Jews lived under mostly foreign rule at first when the Jews returned to Judea from the Babylonian captivity to build the second temple they peacefully submitted to Persian rule then with the sudden rise of Alexander the Great the entire region came under Greek subjugation including the Jewish homeland in 332 BCE as before the Jews bore their foreign yoke in silence but the calm was shattered when Antiochus the fourth epiphanies a Syrian Greek tyrant declared war on the Jewish religion there's no evidence for any attempt of Jews to revolt against the foreign rulers until you get to the point of the Maccabean revolt when persecution of Jews begins the Maccabean revolt brought full independence to the Jewish people for the first time since the start of the Second Temple era eight Maccabee and monarchs sustained this independence until the passing of queen slum C own or Salome Alexandra in 67 BCE then civil war erupted between the supporters of the Queen's two sons Buchanan's and Aris Tablas both of whom claimed the throne in 63 BCE the sparring heirs to the Maccabee and crown made the disastrous mistake of approaching the legendary Roman general Pompey for arbitration thereby inviting foreign interference into the governance of the Jewish homeland by that time the Romans really wanted to control Eretz Israel first of all for economic reasons they were trying to create a bread basket for ancient Rome because they had insufficient food second of all and this is really important here they needed a kind of fortress a boundary line against the Parthians who by that time had moved from me today called Iran into areas of Babylonia Iraq today Pompey chose perkiness as the ninth back of bein king but when his brother Aristotle is rejected puppy's decision the Roman general invaded the Land of Israel and seized control of the kingdom slaughtering thousands of Jews in the process the upshot of what happened was that this is well the country came under Roman thus began decades of crippling taxation and oppression that impoverished the nation most Jews were willing to settle for Roman rules long as the Romans left them alone beyond taxation but some of these people were not and so you can even say that the sparks of the eventual Jewish revolt against Rome began to burn from the second the Romans arrived in 54 BCE the Roman proconsul Crassus looted all of the gold in the holy temples treasury to fund his expedition against the Parthians in 46 BCE Herod then governor of the Galilee massacred hundreds of Jews to enforce excessive taxation on behalf of Rome two years later the Roman proconsul Cassie sold the Jews of four towns as slaves as a penalty for failing to pay the state taxes Casius and imposed on the residents of Judea to fund his war against Mark Antony the national tragedy thickened in 42 BCE when the Roman ruler Mark Antony installed Herod as client King Herod impoverished the populace through massive taxation to fund the construction of lavish palaces fortresses Greek temples and new cities just before his death in 4 BCE he installed an image of an eagle the symbol of Roman rule on the Holy Temple and that massacred the Jewish sages and their students who dared to remove it shortly after his death Herod's son Archelaus succeeded him and promptly massacred over 3,000 Jews in desperation the Jews turned to Rome pleading that their homeland be annexed to the Roman province of Syria so that instead of tyrannical puppet Kings Syrian proconsuls could govern them as fairly as they govern Syria itself Rome acceded to this request in 6c E and the terror of the claimed Kings came to an end the net result of this is that the Romans put in a system of procurator's these procurator's were kind of local governors under the larger province of Syria now some of these people were great people like Marcus Collier Cicero the great orator and lawyer from Rome but some of them were horrible a number of procurator's sought to amass personal wealth via excessive taxation and other corrupt means this angered the population of Judea the obligation of a Roman governor was to deliver a predetermined amount of tax money to Rome furthermore these Roman governors were allowed to keep as much of the money that they could collect beyond that amount the procurator's were also frequently indifferent to Jewish religious sensibilities in 30 C II procurator Pontius Pilate ordered his soldiers to carry their standards with images of the Roman Emperor through Jerusalem and the problem of the Roman standards was that they were worshipped by the Romans so there were idolatrous images this was a dire offence to Jewish sensibilities especially in their sacred capital between 37 and 41 C II the Emperor Caligula demanded that a statue of himself be erected in the holy temple the Jews were prepared to go to any lengths to stop this offense and knowing this Publius Petronius the Syrian proconsul did his best to persuade Caligula to rescind his decree but Caligula was adamant Gaius Caligula said to him a letter that said that if he didn't do it he should commit suicide because of the fact that he would be executed for it luckily for Petronius who decided to refuse these terrible orders he got a message that Caligula was dead before on the day in which he was gonna have to stand up to him the deadline date so the situation passed but the Jews were ready to lay down their lives for this to stop these idols from being brought into the city the weight of oppression and impoverishment led to the formation of Jewish brigands who targeted Roman villages and to wealthy Jews these winds of lawlessness intensified around the year 48 C and endured for the next two decades the pot finally came to a well in 66 ee under the thumb of the Roman procurator to Judea guess Laurus decades earlier around 20 BCE King Herod had built the Mediterranean port city of Caesarea but its Jewish and Gentile populations each claimed that says areia was made for them and they fought for control of the city in 66 CE Nero ruled in favor of the cities Gentiles who then launched acts of provocation against their Jewish neighbors jesse is Flores the Roman procurator accepted the Jews gifts of silver in return for a promise to terminate the acts of provocation but he failed to act news of the Jewish loss of Caesarea and fluorisis corruption sparked widespread indignation but the gifts that Flores received from the Jews of Caesarea didn't satisfy his appetite and so florists made what would prove to be a fateful move for both Judea and Rome he demanded seventeen talents of silver from the holy temples treasury some Jews began to mock Flores in the open they carried a basket about and beg for some copper coins for holes as if he were a destitute beggar this was a terrible blow to the procurator's of pride Flores marched with cavalry and infantry' against Jerusalem and commanded its leaders to deliver those who mocked him into his hands but the Jewish leaders responded that the people were peaceably disposed and begged forgiveness for the offenders Flores was incensed he ordered his troops to plunder the upper market of Jerusalem and to slay anyone they met the soldiers forced themselves into many homes and slew their inhabitants about 3,600 Jerusalemites were murdered that day to complete his provocation Flores sent troops to raid the temple Treasury but the Jews had seen enough the people blocked the narrow roads leading to the temple making it impossible for the soldiers to pass some stood on the roofs of their homes and through makeshift weapons at the Romans who held up on the roads the Romans had no choice but to retreat across the Land of Israel the air was thick with mutiny but what was the Jewish aspiration of the time did the Jews hope to repel a tyrannical Roman governor or did they feel the time was ripe to cast off the shackles of Rome once and for all as subsequent events loudly proclaimed the Jews of that era could not come to a consensus on this dilemma a lot of people just assume that the revolt was unanimous in fact for a long time before and even during the revolt Jews were debating but it was right or wrong to revolt against Rome there was a constant controversy among Jews dividing families friends towns and it was never resolved filling [Music]