Tag: history

  • Judea of Herod

    Judea of Herod

    (Just a bit more Roman history before we continue in Luke 7)

    Prior to Roman Rule:

    • Judah in path of invading armies crossing eastern Mediterranean shores
    – Judah controlled by Syrians, Greeks, Romans, others over the years
    • Syrians took over in 198 B.C., introduced Greek culture to Jews
    – Jews allowed to keep religion, but some adopted Greek culture, gods
    • In 175 B.C., Syrians insisted Jews worship Greek gods; Jews refused
    – Jewish religion was outlawed; some fled to hills, prepared to fight
    Rebels Fight Syria
    • Jewish priest and five sons led fight to drive out Syrians
    – son Judah Maccabeus led revolt with his force, the Maccabees
    • Tiny Jewish force faced larger, better equipped Syrian army
    – rebels knew countryside and defeated Syrians in many battles
    Maccabees regained Jerusalem by 164 B.C.

    Rome Conquers Judea
    • Romans conquered Judah (Judea) in 63 B.C.
    • Roman rulers kept strict control over Judea
    • Jewish kings, religious leaders appointed by Rome

    Leader(s) of the Maccabees Timeline
    167 BC: Mattathias, the Hasmonean
    166 – 161 BC: Judas Maccabaeus, the Hammer of the LORD
    161 – 143 BC: Jonathan Apphus, the Wary
    143 – 135 BC: Simon Thassi, the Zealous Guide

    Although the Maccabees, and later their descendants, the Hasmoneans, managed to keep Israel free from foreign oppression for almost 150 years, this abruptly ended with King Herod who was not a Hasmonean at all.

    The Hasmonean dynasty, which leaped onto the stage of history with such dramatic heroism, disappeared from that same stage with cruel suddenness. The despot Herod, whose régime was forced upon the unwilling Jewish populace by his Romans overlords, was fully aware that the aura of Hasmonean charisma would constitute a continual threat to his power, and hence he undertook to ruthlessly murder all the remaining descendants of that family, including his beloved wife Mariamne, granddaughter of the Hasmonean ruler Hyrcanus II. Herod executed her on trumped-up charges of disloyalty, as he did afterwards to the two sons she had borne him, Alexander and Aristobulus. – Wikipedia

    Herod builds another Temple in Jerusalem and many buildings throughout Judea with the support of Rome.

    Herod the First of Judaea, known to history as Herod the Great

    • Alexander died in 76 B.C. and Salome ruled alone until her death in 67 B.C. Upon the death of the queen a civil war broke out between her two sons. Herod’s father Antipater II sided with Hyrcanus…
    • Rome had intervened in Syria and ousted their King and posted Legions in Syria.
    • Caesar and Pompey were also in a Roman civil war for power. Herod’s father had supported Caesar and was made Procurator of Judea.
    • Herod loyally supported Antony against Octavian until 31 B.C.  Octavian defeated Antony, but had no one to replace Herod and gave him some of Antony’s territories given by Antony of Rome to Cleopatra of Egypt.
    • Near the time of Herod’s death (just prior to the birth of Jesus) Herod feared a coup from his own sons as more civil unrest broke out in his Kingdom of Judea (given to his family as political compromise by Rome).

    HEROD’S PERSECUTIONS

    Herod’s persecutions were infamous and they even extended to his own family.

    Herod, knowing that his Jewish credentials were suspect, had married Miriam—the granddaughter of Hyrcanus and therefore a Hasmonean princess—largely to gain legitimacy among the Jewish people. But he also loved her madly. As Josephus relates:

    Of the five children which Herod had by Miriam, two of them were daughters and three were sons. The youngest of these sons was educated in Rome and died there but the two eldest he treated as those of royal blood on account of the nobility of their mother and because they were not born until he was king. But what was stronger than all this was his love he bore for Miriam which inflamed him every day to a great degree.

    The problem was that Miriam hated him as much as he loved her, largely because of what he had done to her brother, Aristobulus.

    Herod had made Aristobulus High Priest at the age of 17, and watched with trepidation as the young man became hugely popular. This was not surprising as Aristobulus was a Hasmonean with a legitimate right to be High Priest – a genuine Jew and a genuine cohen.

    But this threatened Herod too much and he had him drowned.

    • Luke does not retell the story of Joseph and Mary fleeing from Bethlehem to Egypt before returning to Nazareth after Herod’s death. We do, however get a flavor of the controversy of the Herod’s vs. the Jews in the story of John the Baptist.

    Although we have looked past the calls of John the Baptist to the people and the King for repentance to the call of Jesus to the multitudes for repentance, Luke also reports more of John’s relationship with Jesus in chapter 7.

    To be continued in Luke 7.

  • Conquered and the Conquerers

    Conquered and the Conquerers

    Jesus, Son of Man, comes among us with a perspective of history of another dimension we can scarcely comprehend: time.

    I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

    Before Abraham was, I AM.

    Remarkable statements! A perspective of history which can only be viewed outside of our dimension of time.

    Never-the-less, let us view some of the maps of the nations (gentiles) over the times preceding the incarnation of the Son of Man.

    Babalonian Empire Israel has fallen. God has pronounced judgment on Israel for her unfaithfulness. God sends his Prophets to unfaithful Judah (her sister of whoredom) and to the gentile nations as well.

    Judah is small. Assyria, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt are large and powerful, opposing each other with God giving victory to varied enemies of Judah in the times of the Prophets and the times of His silence before a newer map at a later time.

    alexander_the_great_conquestsIn the fourth century B.C. comes another conqueror from the west: Alexander the Great. He defeats the eastern empires and spreads Greek culture throughout the Mediterranean. The map again differs and the language and culture from the time after Alexander’s death is called Hellenism. Greek becomes the common language of the empire, including Jerusalem and the former areas of defeated Israel and fallen Judah (now called Phoenicia). Don’t think of it as small Greece, islands of the Mediterranean, but Empire Greece, as in Asia (or most of what we now call Asia) as far as India in the East.

    Now, much nearer the time of Jesus, 62 B.c.- 14 A.D., we read of the Incarnate Son of God in Luke 2. (No doubt all are familiar with the story, yet few are familiar with the map.)

    The Birth of Jesus Christ

    2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

    Augusto_Roman empireAgain in our timeline under Rome, again we must view the map not as a place of Israel or Judah. Rome conquered Jerusalem, Tyre and Sidon (of Syria), Nazareth and all the rest. The map is of Rome and every town in every land is a crossroads that leads to Rome.

    Judea is nothing more than a minor province in a key expansion of Rome, extending south from Tyre and Damascus beyond Jerusalem. The military control of Rome over the conquered provinces involves an infusion of Roman military control and government and taxes, along with the sharing of a common culture of Hellenistic roots in the Greek language and culture.

    The power of Rome is not its politics or religion, but it’s army. The success of Rome is due, in part, to the integration of a common language (Greek) and culture with the local customs and religions and trade (including taxes to pay the army, administrative costs of Rome). Pay your taxes and keep your local customs.

    The religions of the gentiles of Rome, the gentiles of Greece, and the gentiles of the conquering Babylonians, and other conquering nations like Assyria and Egypt have one thing in common: many gods. The “god of the current time” is often the current ruler, a Pharaoh, a Caesar or worshiped human king.  The Asians worship idols. The Greeks and Romans worship idols. Only the Jews have One God and no idols.

    This same Caesar Augustus of Luke 2 had (for political reasons) declared himself a god. Later, the local Jewish politicians seek to draw Jesus into this controversial debate.

    Want to start a controversy among lovers of Greek mythology (yes, myths as origins of various gods and the ways they serve man)? Just ask how many. Answer? Thousands!

    And Rome cared more for her power and politics than culture. However Rome’s idols and gods also explained which gods served man in which ways. How many?  Again, a countless number of gods to serve the Roman citizen and the slaves of Roman rule.

    Another fact of Roman life overlooked is that the population of Rome had many slaves  It was the culture, discipline organization and administration of the Roman army that best modeled any success of Rome. A conquered people in the days of Jesus, like in the days of the Prophets, could be taken away from their cities and towns and homes to any foreign town or province and sold as slaves. The Roman army used this as leverage to have local leaders do as they wanted under a local administration of Rome.

    Into this environment comes the family of the Herod’s who chose their sides with the right Roman generals and were rewarded for their efforts.

    (Why all this background? NEXT we continue with Jesus’ early encounters with Romans in His travels…)

     

     

  • The Beatitudes and the Multitudes – Introduction

    The Beatitudes and the Multitudes – Introduction

    You may not have thought of the beatitudes as a teaching related to preparation for Christmas (Advent), but by intention of the Spirit that is exactly what is on my heart.

    The usual Christmas liturgy of church begins just after the following genealogy of Jesus Christ (which we tend to skip over, just like those in Numbers, Kings and other historical Old Testament Books of the Bible).

    After you skip through the generations of Joseph, Jesus’ step-father, we will look back just a little at the historical time preceding the coming of the Messiah to a lowly manger in Bethlehem of Judea, before proceeding to the early teachings of Jesus on true blessings (Beatitudes, as we call them).

    Matthew 1

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    The Genealogy of Jesus Christ

    1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

    2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, 4 and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of David the king.

    And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8 and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

    12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

    17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

    Now look back some to the generations between the destruction of Solomon’s Temple (9th c. B.C.) and the building of Herod’s Temple.

    David had united Israel and Judah. Solomon’s sons divided the Kingdom of God’s chosen people into Israel (under Jeroboam) and Judah (under Rehoboam, Matthew 1:7). Without going into the many historical details of these nations over the centuries, Israel eventually came under the influence of Samaria, which fell in 721 B.C., and Judah, which fell in 587 B.C. The walls were destroyed my Nebuchadnezzar and rebuilt by Nehemiah in the mid 5th century B.C. Several accounts of these times are recorded in Ezra-Nehemiah and Daniel.

    Alexander the Great conquered much of the known world in the 3rd c. B.C. from Greece west to India, spreading the eventual Greek language of the New Testament throughout the middle east. For some 400 years, Parthia was the largest organized state on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire until it was later captured by Rome later in A.D. 113 (during the days of early Christianity; but the unifying language of Judea and most of the Roman Empire was Greek (not Latin or local languages).

    Two groups of Jews locked in civil war when Pompey captured Jerusalem (106-48 B.c.) Herod (who was a half-Jew) chose the right side in the Roman conflict and was appointed King of Judea in 40 B.c. Herod conquered ‘his Kingdom’ with the ‘help’ of the Roman army. {Much of the preceding source information from: Historical Atlas of the Bible, by Dr. Ian Barnes}

    Into this often contested arena of Nations and Kings and Emperors and gods of every imagination and evil inclination of man is born Christ Jesus, Son of the Living God, conceived by the Holy Spirit; born of a virgin in Bethlehem of Judea. For thirty years Jesus, Emmanuel (God With Us), lives among the poor and downtrodden men of Galilee.

    Into this scene, Jesus is anointed for His fulfillment of prophesy and sacrifice of the Cross, filled with the Holy Spirit and living a life of sinlessness, teaching man (adam”) how God has intended us to live. Into a difficult time and place, where a people of God thought they lived lives cursed by God, Jesus comes to a mountainside teaching with the Authority of God Almighty and the power of the Holy Spirit.

    To be continued…

     

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