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JEWISH REVOLTS

Throughout history those people under the subjugation of others will normally revolt to throw off their oppressors when possible. The Jewish people were under the domination of one of the great Near Eastern powers through much of their history, even during the period of the Israelite monarchy. First, the Assyrians extended their empire into the Palestinian area even as early as the mid-9th century b.c.e., and the kingdom of Judah was under Assyrian control from ca. 735. In the late 6th century, Assyrian overlordship was replaced by Neo-Babylonian. It was Zedekiah’s revolt against this rule which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish state. Under Persian rule Judah became a province in the Persian Empire with some sort of Jewish local autonomy. We know of no revolts under the Persians, though it has been suggested that a hypothesized widespread revolt ca. 350 (the so-called Tennes rebellion) also included the Jews.

Greek rule replaced that of the Persians in 333. The next 500 years saw three major revolts of the Jews against their overlords. During the 3rd century Judah was under Ptolemaic rule, and to the best of our knowledge the Jews were peaceful. Things changed under Seleucid rule when the Maccabean Revolt became possibly the first Jewish revolt since the time of the Monarchy. This is described in the books of 1-2 Maccabees, from which comes most of our information on the subject. The causes of the Maccabean uprising have been much debated without a clear consensus; what does seem clear, however, is that it was a reaction to suppression of Jewish worship. In other words, according to all the information currently available, the Jews were forced into revolt to protect their religion. A struggle over the high priesthood in Jerusalem was partially to blame, however.

When Antiochus IV was driven back from his invasion of Egypt in the summer of 168, the former high priest Jason attempted to wrest back the office from the current holder Menelaus (2 Macc. 5). Antiochus thought a revolt had broken out and sent an army to put it down. A subsequent series of events, as yet unclarified and unexplained, led to the halting of the Jewish cult and the desecration of the temple in December 168 (some put it a year later). The Jewish reaction was a heroic resistance and struggle to regain the temple and reinstate the daily sacrifices. The Jews succeeded in December 165 when the temple was once again in Jewish hands and a purified cult renewed (1 Macc. 4:36-59). Antiochus accepted the de facto situation and officially withdrew the decree forbidding Judaism (2 Macc. 11:27-33).

Most of the Jews seem to have accepted the reinstatement of their religious rights as sufficient to resume their peaceable existence as a subject people under Seleucid rule, but not the Maccabees, who continued their resistance. For the next decade, especially after the death of Judas ca. 161, they seem to have had little backing and lived much as outlaws, but gradually they began to gain support. Their real opportunity came when a rival Seleucid dynasty arose to challenge the “official” one. Jonathan Maccabeus began to play one side against another to gain advantages for himself and the Jewish people. It was a dangerous game in which he eventually lost his life, but by this time he had obtained some important concessions from the Seleucids. His brother Simon continued this exercise, and Judah was officially declared independent in 140. The Seleucids did not give up their claims immediately, of course, but for almost a century Judah was, uniquely in greater Syria, a more or less independent state.

Hasmonean rule ended in 63 b.c.e. when Judah came under Roman control. Aristobulus II or his sons attempted several revolts to regain the Hasmonean throne. However, Herod became king in 40 b.c.e. and consolidated his rule by taking Jerusalem in 37. After this, Judea continued as a “client kingdom” under Herod and some of his descendants, or as a Roman province, until 66 c.e. It was a foolish conceit that they could succeed, but the Jews put up a courageous, if poorly organized, defense against the might of the Roman Empire. The causes of revolt in 66 c.e. were many: Jewish memory of their previous independence, a series of poor Roman governors, and — apparently — a strong set of apocalyptic expectations on the part of some.

No one event set off this revolt, but rather a series of events in Jerusalem, Caesarea, and elsewhere. One of the main symbolic events was the withdrawal of sacrifice for the Roman emperor on the order of the temple officer in Jerusalem. A legion sent to put down the unrest in Jerusalem was driven off, and the Roman garrison there was slaughtered. Now the Romans had to defend their authority: there could be no compromise when an eagle (the symbolic “flag” or emblem of a legion) had been taken — there could only be revenge. The Jews had some time to prepare their defense, and they set up a series of regional governors. One of those in Galilee was Josephus. His personal account of the war (his Jewish War, esp. books 3-6) is extremely valuable, if partisan and apologetic.

Josephus’ story exemplifies one of the main problems with the revolt, that of rivalry between various Jewish leaders and groups. Much of the energy of the fighters was expended in conflicts with fellow Jews. Josephus spent a good deal of the year in Galilee struggling politically and militarily with other Jewish leaders, especially John of Gischala. Similarly, a variety of Jewish factions (the Zealots and others) in Jerusalem fought with and slaughtered one another, instead of preparing a concerted plan of resistance, until the Romans laid siege to the city. At this point, they fought like lions, but it was far too late and Jerusalem fell in the summer of 70 c.e., marking the official end of the war. However, a few fortress outposts such as Machaeus and Masada held out, and it took another three years to defeat them.

One might have thought that such a major defeat would have ended Jewish resistance to Roman rule, but it did not. It is not clear how damaged by the war the country as a whole had been, though estimates differ. Apart from Jerusalem, the rest of the country may have recovered fairly quickly. During this time there was religious reconstruction in an academy set up at Yavneh. But the continued absence of the temple cult and the ruined temple were a considerable theological problem to many, as evidenced by 4 Ezra (2 Esdras) and 2 Baruch which (like the NT book of Revelation) expected the imminent end of the Roman Empire. In the period 115-117 Jewish revolts broke out in several places: Egypt, Cyrenaica, Mesopotamia, Cyprus. We know little about these except that they seem to have been very bloody, initially pitting the Jews against the Gentiles; but then the Gentiles gained the upper hand and slaughtered the Jewish communities in Alexandria and elsewhere. The Jews in Palestine seem not to have been affected, though some speculate that even they were in some way involved.

The final Jewish effort to break the Roman yoke came in the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132-135. The exact causes are debated, though there is evidence that Hadrian intended to restore Jerusalem, perhaps as a pagan city. Since Josephus recorded no details of the revolt, the outline of what happened has had to be pieced together from fragmented sources of varying quality. The revolt was led by Shimʿon ben Kosiba, who went by the name of Bar Kokhba (Aram. “son of the star”), though a priest by the name of Eleazar (possibly his uncle) occurs on some coin legends. There is no clear evidence that Jersualem was taken by the rebels, though some think it was. Most of the land held seems to have been SE of Jerusalem in the region centering on En-gedi and W of the Dead Sea. Rabbinic and Christian sources say Bar Kokhba claimed or was declared to be the Messiah, but original letters show no evidence of this. Coin symbols are ambiguous. The country and its Jewish population suffered terribly, though so did the Roman army according to the Roman historian Dio Cassius. This ended all hope of Jewish independence for almost two millennia.

Bibliography. L. L. Grabbe, Judaism from Cyrus to Hadrian, 1: Persian and Greek Periods; 2: Roman Period (Minneapolis, 1992).

Lester L. Grabbe

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

JEWISH REVOLTS

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)