Jerusalem in Revolt

There were two big Jewish revolts against the Romans. the first was the Great revolt which lasted from 66-70 or 73 CE depending on how you look at it. during the Roman period there were sects of Judaism, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Esseenes, and the early Christians. The Sadducees were buddies with the Romans and believed that the Temple was essential to daily life and all that. Basically there were pro-Temple and pro-Roman. The Pharisees would evolve into the rabbis. They did not stress the importance of the Temple. they were also very disatisfied with the Roman rule but knew that any revolt they would lead would get squashed and the Jews would be worse offin the long fun. There were also religious zealots who stabbed people and were named after their knives, but I forgot their names. They believed in all out revolt. Then the Esseenes were sort of on the periphery. They were out of Jerusalem and were purifying themselves in the desert trying to make the messiah come and rescue everyone.

Basically the Pharisees were right. The revolt happened and the Jews were much worse off. The Temple was destroyed. But it gets worse.....

Before I get to that though, let me mention Josephus. Josephus was a Jewish general who was captured by the Romans. He convinced Titus that he was a prophet by telling him that one day he would be Emperor of Rome. Josephus had a lucky guess and was saved by the Romans. He was comissioned to write records on the Jewish wars and the revolts which have become one of the foundational texts about Jews, Judaism, and Jerusalem from this time period. Thanks Josephus. You really helped out us history folks!

OK, back to the timeline. 70-Temple destroyed. 73-Masada falls, the last stand against the Romans. A very interesting story. Fast forward to about 132, and we are in the Bar Kochba revolt. Bar Kochba was a genreal who peple thought was the messi9ah because he A) he had a bomb-ass name (Bar Kochba means son of a star, and he had Akiba who people thought was a prophet which is prophesized somewhere. It goes something like messiah son of David, and prophet Elijah in English), B) he was leading a revolt against the Romans, and C) people were desparate. But that got squashed too, and the results were much worse. I rememeber reading that loss of life ws much worse in the second revolt and in addition to that, Jews were banned from Jerusalem, and the land was renamed Philistina just to rub it in the Jews face that they lost. Philistina is like Philistine, David's ancient enemies. The modern word Palestine comes fromt this. So ya, bad stuff.

There's more...rise of the synogauge, Pontias Pilot, Herod stuff, coins stuff. But I must write the second post for today. Sorry for any typos.