Islamic Jerusalem 2/24/11

            The Sasanians take control of Palestine and Jerusalem from 614 to 628 CE, but the Byzantines take it back in 628.  The Sasanians allow the Jews to come back to Jerusalem, but when the Byzantines retake the city they end up massacring many of the Jews.  The Muslim Caliph Umar takes over Jerusalem in 638 CE.  At first he does not allow the Jewish population to return, at the request of the Christians, but later he changes his stance and the Jews slowly come back. 

            The prophet Muhammad was illiterate, and Muslims say that this is proof that what he wrote down was truly the word of God coming out of him.  After he died, there was no heir apparent.  Caliphs were established to lead the Islamic community.  Abu Bakr was his closest friend and was the first Caliph.  Umar was the second and then followed by Uthman.  After Uthman, islam split into two sects.  The supporters of Ali were kinship based and were called shi’ites, while the supporters of Mu’awiya were tradition based and were called sunnis.  The Qibla is the direction of prayer and the Mihrab is the niche pointing the direction of prayer.  Mecca becomes the most holy of all places for Islam, but Jerusalem is in the top three.  The Dome of the Rock is completed in 691 CE.  

Byzantine Jerusalem 2/22/11

            For early Christianity, Jerusalem was more of a symbol, and Christianity as a faith was more spiritual and faith driven.  There was no need for the temple.  The Holy City was still the place where Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected and therefore extremely important.  Constantine the Great ruled from 312 to 337 CE and in 313 he issued the Edict of Milan.  This edict legalized the religion of Christianity.  Constantine used this faith to unite his empire.  He commissioned the Council of Nicaea in 324 CE; which set the guidelines for Christianity.  He also moved the capitol to Constantinople. 

            His mother, Helena, went to Jerusalem on a pilgrimage and dedicated the Church of the Nativity and rededicated the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  She supposedly finds the “true cross,” the one that Jesus was crucified on and establishes the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as the new axis mundi in Jerusalem.  On the Madaba Map the center of the map is no longer the temple mount but is instead the Church.  This map is very detailed and shows all the gates surrounding the city of Jerusalem.  Justinian builds the “Nea” Church, or new church, which is to replace the Jewish temple and in its architecture it resembles Solomon’s Temple.       

Jerusalem in Revolt 2/17/11

           When Herod dies, his kingdom is split up into parts and his sons take control.  For the most part, his sons were ineffective and eventually replaced by Roman procurators.  One of these governors was Pontius Pilate.  He governed from 26-36 CE.  He was ineffective and provoked the Jews.  Pilate is the only Roman Governor of Judea mentioned in the Gospel.  During this time period, Jewish nationalism was on the rise and in 66 CE the Jews were in open revolt against Rome.  The Jews minted revolt coins in an attempt to declare their independence.  This first “Great” revolt lasted till about 73 CE when the last holdouts in Masada committed suicide.  The emperor’s son Titus had the second temple destroyed in 70 CE. 

            The second revolt, the “bar-kokhba revolt” was led by simon ben kosiba.  Coins were once again printed but were often misspelled some were overstrikes.  Where they took roman coins and simply struck their new coin over the top of the Roman one.  Literally stamping out Rome.  In the end this revolt ultimately fails and the roman emperor Hadrian banns circumcision and turns Jerusalem into a full Roman city.  He even renames it Aelia Capitolina, and builds a temple to Jupiter there.  The Jews are banned from the city completely.      

Roman, Herodian, Jesus' Jerusalem 2/15/11

            The Romans began ruling over Palestine in 63 BCE when Pompey besieged Jerusalem and annexed it.  Rome ruled the Holy City with client kings.  Herod the Great was one of these rulers.  He had to walk a very fine line between pleasing the Romans in Rome and not upsetting the Jews in Jerusalem.  He is most famous for his massive building projects.  He undertook many construction projects in an attempt to create a legacy and be remembered by history, which sort of worked because he is remembered, mostly by historians, for both these structures as well as being paranoid and impulsive.  The Western Wall on the temple mount that stands today is part of the wall that Herod had built.

            For the most part Herod the Great was an effective ruler, but the Jewish population hated him.  They saw him as only half Jewish and a traitor that sided with Rome in an attempt to hold onto power. 

            The time of Jesus is parallel to that of Herod, there is absolutely no archeological evidence that Jesus existed.  People claimed to have found his boat on Galilee, but that is all that it is, just a claim.   Most likely it is just another boat that was used during that time period.  The closest evidence uncovered so far is proof that the Romans did crucify people in Jerusalem during that time.       

Hellenistic and Hasmonean Jerusalem 2/10/11

          After the reign of the Persians the Greeks began to take over.  It started with Alexander the Great, when he conquered the entire known world at the time.  He died at a relatively young age and his empire was split up.  Ptolemies ruled over Egypt and Selencias was the king of Syria.  The Egyptians captured Jerusalem in 320 BCE, but the Syrians take it from them in 201 BCE.  Throughout this time Jerusalem is Hellenized—made more Greek like.  The Hebrew Bible was even translated into Greek during this time.  The Selencias tried to aggressively Hellenize Jerusalem to a greater extent than the Ptolemies.  Whenever the people of Judah bagan to resist the will of the Greeks, the would simply replace the high priest with a new one that was more favorable to the Greeks. 

            Judas Maccabaeus, the hammer, used guerrilla tactics to successfully get rid of the Greeks by 165/4 BCE.  After this event Hanukah was established.  This revolt started the Hasmonean Dynasty.  Which lasted for about 100 years, and it is the last time Jerusalem is self governed by the Jews till present day Israel.  It is ironic that this dynasty of rulers turned into the very people who they fought so hard to overthrow.  By 63 BCE Jerusalem was conquered by the Romans.       

Persian Jerusalem 2/8/11

               The Persian period of Jerusalem lasted from 539 to 333 BCE.  The Books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah, as well as second Isaiah were written during this time period.  The prophet Ezekiel had a vision of a once again mobile God.  Now that the Babylonians had destroyed the temple, Ezekiel explains that God is not one with the temple but instead he is back in a similar structure to the Ark of the Covenant in the way that it is ever mobile.  The Persian King Cyrus is seen as a savior by some of the Jews because he frees them from exile, gives them some money to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild their city and their temple.  The Cyrus Cylinder announces a general return to homelands from Babylon.  Because of the Persians and King Cyrus’ policies of diplomacies, he is viewed as a liberator. 

                The people of Jerusalem viewed foreign leaders as signs sent from God, therefore when Cyrus sends them back to their homeland some groups see him as the messiah.  During the time of Persian rule the city of Jerusalem was extremely poor, and the second temple was not nearly as glorious as Solomon’s Temple.  Jerusalem struggled to pay the heavy taxes imposed by Persia, and conflicts with Samaria began to pop up.    

Josiah and exile 2/1/11

              During the time of Josiah literacy began to spread to everyday people.  The Lachish Letter 3 demonstrates this because is shows that a common soldier in the army can write for himself and does not need a scribe to record his words.  Another example of literature becoming more popular is the Ketef Hinnom.  Someone had taken the time to have an inscription inscribed upon a necklace.  The fate of Jerusalem closely follows the interpretation of the scripture.

              Babylon rises to power with King Nebuchadnezzar, and his defeat of the Assyrians.  He then moves onto Judah and takes over Jerusalem, where he exiles some of the nobility.  Then later he comes back and destroys the temple in 586 and exiles almost all the skilled or important people to Babylon.  This starts a long and difficult period for many Jews.  Some people abandon all faith in God because they see that his promise has been broken, while others try to reinterpret the promise to David in order to justify what is happening to them.