History of the Holy Land. Part 2.

730 BC - 539 BC Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Periods

In about 730 BC Tigleth Pileser III led the Neo-Assyrians to conquer the Kingdom of Israel. He mandated the Jewish people relocate to towns throughout his Empire, where they assimilated and lost their cultural heritage. These are called the "Lost Tribes of Israel."

The Neo-Assyrians were in turn defeated by the Neo-Babylonians. The Egyptians come north and take over all, but were ousted by the Neo-Babylonians four years later.  Good try Pharoah.

Big item coming next. . In 586-7 BC Neo-Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II fought off Egyptian Pharaoh Apries.

Jerusalem was mostly destroyed in this fighting, including the destruction of the First Temple (which was built by Solomon.) This First Temple housed the Ark of the Covenant, which housed the stones containing Moses' Ten Commandments. There's agreement among Christian, Jewish and Muslim scriptures that the Ark existed. There's thought that it was carried off to Babylonia and is still there. Or it is in Mt Nebo? Or in Ethiopia, Southern Africa, Rome, King Tutankhamun's tomb, Chartres Cathedral, or several other suppositions. This eternal mystery fueled the movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Jerusalem's prominent Jewish people were taken as exiles to Babylon. They were allowed to maintain their identity as a cultural nation, even in captivity.  Thank you Babylonian Kings...

Persian empire

539 BC - 332 BC Persian Period

In 539 BC Cyrus the Great conquered the Babylonian Empire. This new Persian Empire was also known as the Achaemenid Empire.

 Cyrus the Great allowed the Jewish exiles to return to their homeland.  They did.  Work began on constructing a Second Temple on the same spot as King Solomon's.  It was completed and dedicated in 516 BC, the 6th year of Persian King Darius' reign.


332 BC - 164 BC Hellenistic Period

Alexander the Great swallowed up the entire Holy Land in his march to Egypt. In contrast to the Persians who had allowed the Israelites to keep their culture, the Greeks wanted all their peoples to adapt Greek culture. So the Holy Land was Greek for about 8 years.

Seleucid Empire

After Alexander's death in 323 BC, his empire was divided among three generals. Years and years of war.  The Holy Land was finally conquered by Antiochus III the Great,  ruler of the Seleucid Empire.

His son, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, went so far in his Hellenisation of the Holy Land as to rededicate the Second Temple in Jerusalem to Zeus, and make observance of Hebrew law punishable by death.

Not a way to maintain peace and harmony.


164 BC - 63 BC Hasmonean Kingdom

Hasmonean  Kingdom

In 164 BC, Judas Maccabeus led the Jewish people in revolt. They defeated the Seleucids, took control of Jerusalem, removed the Greek statues from the Second Temple, and rededicated the Temple to their Jewish God. Hanukkah celebrates this event.

 Judas' family, the Hasmoneans, ruled until 63 BC They expanded the Hasmonean Kingdom beyond the old Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. This was a period of independent Jewish rule over the Holy Land.

During these centuries of the Jewish people being ruled by Assyrians, Babylonians, Greeks, and while exiled in Babylon, and while watching their sacred Temple's destruction and reconstruction, there arose factions amongst themselves. Two of these factions gained strength during the time of Second Temple, and  their conflicts solidified during the Hasmonean rule.

The Sadducees were the High Priests of the Temple. As the Temple was the center of Jewish society, it made sense that the Sadducees' influence would grow to extend outside the temple walls, into politics and business. They were the wealthy elite of society.  Priestly caste.

Yes, the Sadducees had high social status. They were responsible for performing sacrifices at the Temple, the primary method of worship. They also presided over the three festivals of pilgrimage to Jerusalem. They followed the Torah literally, the first five books of the Bible. Conservative, they didn't acknowledge any additions to the Torah's teachings, any new interpretations. They stood on the Jewish Theology established under King Solomon's reign. Nothing added. Only the written word, literally understood. Keep things as they are.

Pharisees

Many governmental roles were performed by the Sadducees. They had command of the army, represented the government to foreign states, collected taxes, and participated in the Sanhedrin (court dealing with religious and civil matters.)  They embraced Greek culture. They wanted to get along with the emerging Romans.

The Pharisees were a political party of mainly scribes and laymen. Regular people. Well, intellectual regular people. They believed in the evolution of the Torah law as interpreted by them, by rabbi. And they believed in strict adherence to each and every one of these hundreds of laws.

Pharisees developed the synagogue as a place of worship beyond the temple. Synagogues were houses of prayer, studying and fellowship. Not sacrificial worship.

Synagogues amplified the class difference between Judaism of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. Through the synagogue, Pharisees taught Judaism to the common Jewish people, the Mosaic Laws and their hundreds of interpretations. In the Temple, the Sadducees maintained their elite status as the high priests with traditional rites and services.

The Pharisees were a minority in the Sanhedrin. But because they were more popular with the masses, the Sadducees often had to go along with the Pharisees' minority opinion.

The Pharisees grew in number, and influence. The Sadducees had their hold on the Temple rites. Clung to the old ways. Eventually they died out.

The Pharisees and the Hasmoneans didn't like each other.

One bit.

The Hasmoneans were influenced by the Sadducees.
So the Pharisees didn't like the Hasmoneans.
The friend of my enemy is my enemy. I think I have that wrong, but you get my point.

Both the Pharisees and the Hasmoneans asked the new political and military power of the period for help.

 Rome was on the upswing. Wanting to march over the Holy Land anyway. Expand the Empire.

63 BC - 37 BC Roman and Parthian Influence (not rule)

Pompey in the Temple

Rome jumped at this chance, and in 63 BC Pompey took Jerusalem for Rome.

There followed 26 years of Roman procurators (governors) and a blip of time of Parthian rule.

You get the feeling the Holy Land was really important to the Jewish people. Really important because God had told them this was their home. This was their land. The land was important.

The land itself was not as important to the their neighbors. It was just 8,000 square miles of land on the way to somewhere else.

At this point, in 63 BC,  the Jewish people and their homeland had been ruled by a dozen different foreign powers over the past 1,000 years.

The Holy Land is geographically in the middle of so many powerful kingdoms each fighting for expansion. A Crossroads. What turmoil.

Next post, we see what happens when Rome really decides to take control of the Holy Land.