JEWISH HISTORY

A BIT OF JEWISH HISTORY

A brief voyage in time : from Abraham to Jesus

About 2000 BC, a man named Abram (1) living in Mesopotamia whose King
was then the very powerful Hammurabi decided that he had enough of the
unification and unity policies of the king and started a long and perilous
journey through the Fertile Crescent. Hammurabi had just ruled that the
kingdom would henceforth have one supreme idol called Marduk and
Abram resented that idea. Abram who had only one idol, YAHWEH (1), was
also fleeing excessive luxury, paganism, immorality and stupid human
sacrifices. His wife was Saraï and his father an idolatrous pagan named
Tarah ( Joshua, XXIV,2) . He did not know very well where he was going, so
he departed toward the North alongside the Euphrates river, then moved
South towards the land of Canaan. In Sichem, he was told by God that he will
be given the land of Canaan (Genesis, XII,7) but headed toward Egypt.

At some stage of his travel, he changed his name to Abraham which means
"father of a multitude of men" and conceived a son with an Egyptian slave :
the son is named Ismael. Later another son was born and given the name
of Isaac. Eventually Abraham passed away aged 175 but at the same time the
Hammurabi empire crumbled. The journey continues and Isaac the leader of
the tribe, called the Hapiru (2), married Rebecca who gave birth to two twin

The Jews stayed in Egypt several centuries until one Moses who was raised at the Pharaoh's Court went to
his people around 1225 BC and said it was enough with being the slaves of the Pharaoh : this Pharaoh
might have been Ramesses II and he tried to prevent the Exodus of the Jews who were about 600,000
(Exode XII, 38) but failed. During 30 years, the 12 tribes stayed in the oasis of Cadès, then they walked away
toward Canaan and tried to enter it but they were thrown back by the Philistines. After a while Moses died
aged 120 on the mount Nebo and after his death Joshua took over and won over the Philistines : the Jews
entered into Canaan, the Promised Land that was about 15,000 square kilometers. Joshua died when he
was 110 years old and he was succeeded by great men and women called the Judges : Deborah, Gedeon,
Samson, Samuel and Saül. The last one became the first King of the Jews in 1050 but God did not like him
and refused to oint him. So Saul had to oint David instead who reigned 40 years (I Book of Samuel, X,6).

The Philistines were the great enemies of the Jews because they had occupied this region before the
                                                     arrival of the Jews and they were constantly fighting each other : the
                                                     most famous battle is the one between Goliath the Giant and the
                                                     young David who maimed him with his slingshot and then cut off his
                                                     head. After the death of David, the throne of Israel was occupied by
                                                     the great King Solomon who reigned 40 years and built the first
                                                     Temple to worship God. After his death in 931 a terrible schism occured
                                                     in the nation and the kingdom separated into two units : Israel in the
                                                     North with 10 tribes and Judah in the South with 2 tribes only, those of
                                                     Benjamin and Simeon. The kingdom of Israel had 19 kings until the
                                                     ferocious Assyrian king Sargon II won against them and deported the
                                                     entire people in 722 BC. The little Kingdom of Judah that was ruled by
                                                     more pious kings lasted longer : it had also 19 kings until 587 where
                                                most of the Jews were deported to Babylon by the Chaldean King
                                                 Nebuchadnezzar whose idol Marduk was then finally imposed to the
                                                 Jews.
                                                The ruling of the two nations by Kings   was not without problems, the
                                                 Kings lacked a religious legitimacy and did not belong to the Levites
tribes whose secular role was to carry out the words of YAHWEH (3). Furthermore the Kings very often
stirred away from the expectations of YAHWEH and they were antagonized by very religious men called the
Prophets.   Even if the influence of the Kings was considerable (Prov. XXI, 3), those prophets became
agents of rebellion against the misdeeds or the immorality of certain Kings (Hosea, XIII, 11) or the idolatry
of their fellow citizens. During the IXth century a certain Jonadab sided with King Jehu to exterminate all
the worshippers of Baal (II Kings X. 15-23) throughout Samaria.

The Hebrews considered with great respect most of the Prophets who were said to have surnatural
powers : they were called the "clair-voyants" because they could see things that normal human beings
could not. This talent was so popular that there even was a profession of fake prophets who were
denounced by the pious as soon as the time of the Deuteronomy (Deut. XIII. 2-6 , XVIII. 20-22) and whom
Jesus Christ himself will castigate in his time. The first Prophets to materialize were Elijah and Elisha
during the IXth century : from the VIIIth century, bigger prophets appeared like the four Great who were
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel.

Those men were very courageous people, non conformist, isolated within their people and came from all
social backgrounds : they were afraid of nothing except the wrath of God and could utter very harsh
words to their citizens. For instance, Amos called some female courtiers "cows of Bachan" and Ezekiel
warned them that "they will be raped". They were feared because they were the loudspeakers of God and
acted like the knives into the flesh of the society of their time. Some became martyrs like Isaiah who was
sawed into two parts.

A bas-relief evoking the battle of
Kadesh won by Ramesses II against
the Hittites

According to the Apocryphes, In the presence
of Balkira and of other false prophets, Isaiah,
refusing to recant, was sawn asunder by
means of a wooden saw.

For the prophets, Yaweh is mainly the inside
God one must have in one's heart and the heart
must be the real Temple. Our main aim through
God must be to seek justice : henceforth God
can punish those who stir away from Him even if
He had made great and previous promises. The
fact that the Jewish people was elected by God
implies, in that sense, more duties than rights
and it is an immense innovation brought
forward by the prophets (Amos III,2 et V, 21-24).
In exchange of those new duties, there is hope.
God is not ungrateful and acknowledges the
repenting sinner who is responsible of his own
actions and thoughts. The prophets are the first
in the history of mankind to achieve some
synthesis between morale and religion. They feel
themselves close to the poor and the oppressed
and they were convinced that the oppressors of
the Jews -the Babylonian and the Assyrian
kings- were sent by God whose wrath was set by
the idolatry and the misbehaving of His people.

For its part, the little kingdom of Judah in the South saw with horror those massive deportations and
started to consider itself as the guardian of the Jewish faith with some great prophets like Isaiah and
political figures like the king Hezekiah. For Isaiah, the only virtue is faith and obedience and in his way he
is a forerunner of Jesus Christ. Under the influence of prophets like Isaiah and Micah, king Hezekiah tried
to promote the true faith and fought idolatry (Proverbs, XXV) : he was in his own way the champion of
Yahwehism. The following king Manassehto (687-642 BC), the most evil king of all kings, tried to please
the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal and indulged again in idolatry, sacred prostitution, worshipped the sun and
even killed young children in human sacrifices. Israel then drowned into ignominy. He is severely
condemned by the Book of Kings ((2 Kings 21) :"he did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and he
burned his son as an offering..."

He was succeeded by his grand-son Josi'ah who "did what was
right in the eyes of the Lord and walked in the ways of David" (2
Chronicles, 34). He started to have the Temple repaired and
during the works a High Priest named Helcias said to a scribe
named Saphan that he had found the book of the law in the
Temple, i.e. the Deuteronomy. Helcias read the Book to his king
and Josi'ah realised with awe that his ancestors had not abided
by the Law. So he decided to implement a real social and
religious reform which was a way to acknowledge the words and
the efforts of the prophets (2 Kings, 22).

The Assyrian tyrant Ashurnanipal died in 625 and his capital
Nineveh fell rapidly under the onset of different invaders, notably
Nabopolassar and Cyaxares. Isaiah had prophesied that "when
you have ceased to destroy, you will be destroyed" (Isaiah, 33).
The ruin of Nineveh was a great joy for Judah. The prophet
Jeremiah (25:1-4) said that from this year he started warning of
the coming danger from Babylon and prophesied the 70 years
there. He preached for 23 years and in 608 the throne of Judah
went to Jehoiakim, son of Josi'ah, but, as Jeremiah had
predicted, in 604 king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon conquered
Jerusalem and the Jews turned their back on God and became
idolatrous again.

"Moreover Manasseh shed innocent blood
very much, till he had filled Jerusalem from
one end to another; beside his sin wherewith
he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was
evil in the sight of The Lord." (2 Kings
21:2-6,16 KJV)

For the prophet Hosea, the only thing that matters was the knowledge of God (Hosea, VI,6)
and he denounced those who "prostituted themselves with fake Gods" adding : « Come, let
us return to the Lord» because the Lord cherishes us, the People of Israel. He denounced as
well the prevailing lack of justice and warned that "Israel stumbled because of your
iniquity." He thought that it was a big mistake for the Jews to confide themselves to the kings
because only "the ways of the Lord are right." After 722, Sargon II massively deported to
Babylon the Jews of Israel and re-imported a bunch of populations from all over
Mesopotamia ; the mixing of those populations with the non-deported Jews created in
Samaria a melting pot that the Jews called later the "Samaritans" whom they heartedly hated.

King
Nebuchadnezzar
(630-562) is
famous for his
monumental
building within
his capital of
Babylon, his role
in the Book of
Daniel, and his
construction of
the Hanging
Gardens of
Babylon and
known among
Christians and
Jews for his
conquests of
Judah and
Jerusalem.

Jeremiah could stand none of this and continued
with his Lamentations for over 20 years, reproaching
to Jerusalem to be unfaithful to God, to be immoral,
to persevere in iniquity. He believed that Jerusalem
will be destroyed but he added that Babylon will get
the same fate because Israel and Judah have not
been forsaken by the Lord and "Babylon shall
become a heap of ruins, the haunt of jackals, a
horror and a hissing without inhabitant." (Jeremiah,
51). Eventually Jeremiah was thrown down into a
cistern by the king but he was so popular that he
had to be rescued and sent into exile.
In the meantime king Jehoiakim attempted an
unfortunate alliance with the pharao that set
Nebuchadnezzar in fury : he came to Jerusalem in
person, set the country ablaze and put on the
throne the son of Josi'ah, a man of his own, named
Zedekiah. Or so he believed.

But Zedekiah was not very clever, he tried like Jehoiakim an alliance with the pharao and
Nebuchadnezzar was really angry. In 587 BC, he came back to Jerusalem, sieged the city during 18
months and sewn desolation among the population :"women are ravished in Zion, virgins in the towns
of Judah, Princes are hung up by their hands, no respect is shown to the elders." (Lamentations, V).
Nebuchadnezzar spared the life of Jeremiah because he had some respect for the prophet but
deported to Babylon some 30.000 persons. The people of Canaan were losing the promised land this
time for good : some 60.000 Jews stayed in Judah but the proud little kingdom was no more, only a
province of Babylon. As for Jeremiah, he went into exile in Egypt with some Jews who decided to have
another chance there. The diaspora of the Jewish people had started in earnest.

In Babylon, the Jews of Judah became slaves again but some of
them listened to the wise words of Jeremiah the indefatigable who
sent them a letter from Jerusalem where he wrote that the Lord
had said that they should "build houses and live in them, plant
gardens and eat their produces, take wives and have sons and
daughters and multiply there and do not decrease." (Jer. XXIX). He
even added that the exile would last 70 years.

Encouraged by these exhortations the Jews began to work and
multiply and after the death of Nebuchadnezzar in 562 the new
king of Babylon Evilmerodach "lifted up the head of Jehoiakim,
king of Judah, and brought him forth out of prison". During this
period, the Jews of Babylon returned to religion and became pious.
Those who had succeeded in high positions in Babylon even
financed the return to Judah of some of their people.

The other great prophet to emerge during this dark period was
Ezekiel. He was deported during the first exile in 597 to Babylon :
he is a bit of a fanatic and a very austere man. After the death of his
beloved wife, he did not wear mourning because there is one thing
more terrible, it is the loss of Israel. And 12 years after the
beginning of his exile in Babylon, Ezekiel learnt that "the city (of
Jerusalem) had fallen."(Ezekiel, XXXIII, 21). Immediately he started
preaching and warned his Jewish brothers that it is their fault
because "you resort to the sword, you commit abominations and
each of you defiles his neighbour's wife" and then he asked "shall
you then possess the Land ?" Of course the implied answer is no.
No because the Jews stayed away from the words of God and were
punished by the loss of the promised land.

But there is redemption : Ezekiel always insisted not on the sin
itself but on the possibility of a redemption as "one is responsible
for one's acts." It is a complete change of mentality for the time :
« Everyone according to his ways. ». The new idea is that the son
will not pay for the faults of his father but if he is "righteous and
does what is lawful and right, he shall surely live." (Ez. XVIII)

God, said Ezekiel, gives His Love to everyone and everyone has a
chance for salvation : nobody is doomed and there is no eternal
damnation if one is righteous. With Ezekiel, the soul of Israel
revived and the spirit of Torah got a new lease of life : the people
of Israel did not doubt to get a chance to come back to the Land :
"A new heart, I will give you ; and a new spirit I will put within you...
You shall dwell in the land which I gave to your fathers." (Ez.XXXVI)

At the time of the exile (597), nobody in the world could possibly
believe that Babylon would fall : however 60 years later in 539 the
Persian Cyrus took the city in two weeks. On October 29, Cyrus
himself entered the city of Babylon and arrested king Nabonidus.
He then assumed the titles of "king of Babylon, king of Sumer and
Akkad, king of the four sides of the world." The master of the world
is henceforth the Aryan Cyrus (4) who came from the mountains of
Iran and believed in one unique fair and good God like the Jews.

Ezekiel (VIth century). According to the midrash
Canticles Rabbah, it was Ezekiel whom the
three pious men, Hananiah, Mishael, and
Azariah, asked for advice as to whether they
should resist Nebuchadnezzar's command and
choose death by fire rather than worship his idol

Judith, a rich and beautiful widow from the town of
Bethulia, was respected for her devotion to God. The
Assyrian army under commander Holofernes
besieged Bethulia. Judith came to the Assyrian
camp. She managed to deceive Holofernes with a
false report about the situation in the besieged town.
Invited to a private party with Holofernes, she
waited until he got drunk and chopped his head off.
She brought the head to Bethulia. Next day Bethulian
soldiers, armed with the head of the enemy’s
commander, managed to drive them away.

       Cyrus was lenient to the Jews because he understood their
  faith and their belief in one unique God. Furthermore Isaiah
  had predicted the victory of Cyrus and the King was flattered
  by this anticipation of his victories :"Who says of Cyrus, he is
  my shepherd and he shall fulfill all my purpose ; saying of
  Jerusalem, She shall be built, and of the Temple, your founda-
   tion shall be laid."(Isaiah, XLIV) Isaiah had named it "ointed by
   the God" which means "messaiah".

  It is amazing to think that more than 2000 years ago an Aryan
  prince understood better the Jews and their faith than an
  uneducated and stubborn Austrian corporal. But the most
  amazing is that this corporal knew nothing about the
   Aryanisation of the Persians and was incapable to conceive
   that the Jews had dealt with powerful princes when Germany
   was a land of barbaric tribes.

  The Jews applauded to Cyrus and greeted him as a liberator.
   the great king authorized the rest of the Jewish people to
   leave for Judah. In 538 he signed a decree to this effect :
  "the Lord has given me all the kingdom of the earth, and he has
charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem which is in Judah.
Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and
let him go up to Jerusalem, and rebuild the house of the Lord, the
God of Israel..."(Ezra,I,2). What a fantastic action from an Aryan toward
Jews and what grandeur in his mind and generosity in his heart. How
could Hitler have ignored this grandiose deed ? It is a mystery that
only ignorance and rabid anti-semitism can explain.

Cyrus the Great listening to the Jewish notables
who ask permission to be repatriated to Israel.
During his reign, Cyrus maintained control over a
vast region of conquered kingdoms, achieved
partly through retaining and expanding Median
satrapies. Further organization of newly
conquered territories into provinces ruled by
vassal kings called satraps, was continued by
Cyrus' successor Darius the Great. Cyrus' empire
demanded only tribute and conscripts from many
parts of the realm.

   Anyway, the Jewish people thought that the Prophets had
told the truth and they exulted : "O give thanks to the God of
Heaven for his steadfast love endures for ever." (Psalms,
CXXXVI). About 40,000 Jews departed for Israel but not all,
some wealthy Jewish bankers, like the Murashus, prefered to
stay and helped financing the return of their fellow citizens.
Between 537 and 522 a series of waves of immigration from
Babylon to Judah occured and the Land of Canaan
repopulated. Immediately, the Jews started to rebuild the
Temple (Ezra, III,7) :"So they gave money to the masons and
the carpenters". Cyrus had even given a grant to finance the
reconstruction of the temple.

But the new comers got into a brawl with the Samaritans who
had taken over during the exile and the reconstruction of the
Temple came to an halt. In 529 Cyrus the Great disappeared :
nobody knows exactly what happened to him and accounts
vary. His successors are his son Cambyses II (529-522) and his
grandson Darius (549–485). At this time, the prophets are
Haggai andt Zechariah : the first one urged the Jews to restart
the building of the Temple (Haggai, I,7) :"Go up to the hills and
bring wood and build the House, that I the Lord may take
pleasure in it and that I may happen in my Glory."

So the Jews set themselves to work again and once more the
Persian King, the Aryan, gave a grant ; the rebuilding was
completed in 4,5 years whereas it has taken 7 years to
Solomon to build his Temple. But this one was less
magnificent, less glorious : it was a more simple Temple
dedicated to prayer and humility rather than to the Glory of
God and especially of his founder, king Solomon. And it was
still lacking some essential part : the Arch of the Covenant (4)
and Palestine became a Persian province.

The Murashu family
stemmed from Judahite
deportees. After rooting in
Nippur, a commercially
important city southeast of
Babylon, they became a
leading banking family of
Mesopotamia. The family
was central to the region's
economy for at least a
century and a half. 730
tablets of the banking house
of Murashu and Sons were
recovered from the ruins of
Nippur. By the mid-seventh
century B.C.E., soon after
the deportation of the
Israelites to the area,
financiers appeared who
instituted a reformed system
of credit whereby
interest-bearing capital was
offered for private enterprise
and for governmental
purposes. Most important
among the new institutions
engaged in such enterprise
were the Jewish banking
houses of "Murashu and
Sons," and of "Egibi and
Sons." They expanded the
scope of credit from
agrarian assistance to the
energizing of industry and
commerce.

The cylinder has been considered
as the world's first known charter of
human rights, as there are passages
in the text have been interpreted as
expressing Cyrus’ respect for
humanity. It promotes a form of
religious tolerance and freedom.
He allowed his subjects to continue
worshipping their gods, despite his
own religious beliefs, and he even
restored the temples of foreign gods.

This monument is supposed to be
the tomb of Cyrus the Great and
lies in the ruins of Pasargadae,
now a UNESCO World Heritage
Site (2006).

From the Vth century to the Christian era, it is the time of the Greeks
and the Romans and the small Jewish entity fought desperately against
both those influences. It was also the era of the major prophets,
Nehemiah and Ezra. In Persia, it was the time of Zoroastrianism that, like
the Bible, purported that there is one universal and transcendental
God, Ahura Mazda, the one Uncreated Creator to whom all worship is
ultimately directed. Contrary to this belief, Greeks with their
mythological and plural Gods and Romans with their various deities are
mere Pagans and their influence is strongly rejected by the Jews and
their prophets.

Canaan is only a "satrapy" i.e. a mere Persian province with some
autonomy ruled by a satrap (governor) appointed by the Persian king.
However the Persians accepted that a High Priest represented to the
Satrap and the King the Jewish community. The Hight Priest was
seconded by notables, Levites and wealthy families members who
eventually formed the Sanhedrin.

But history is changing. In 490 BC the Greeks stopped the expansion
of the Persian empire and defeated Darius at the historical battle of
Marathon. It was not the end of the Persian empire but a terrible blow
to its influence : however the Jews stayed under the yoke of the
Persians and started to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem as far as the
Broad Wall. But a Samaritan named Sanbal'lat was angry and enraged
by this and ridiculed the Jews (Nehemiah, III 4) : he plotted together
with the Arabs, the Ammonites and the Ash'dodites and denounced
them to Artaxerxes, Persian king, and in 446 the wall were distroyed by
the Satrap (Nehemiah, I,3).

However, Nehemiah and Ezra were then officials at the court of
Artaxerxes and Nehemiah persuaded the Prince to let him go back to
Jerusalem and deal with the problem of the walls. The king agreed and
Nehemiah went back to Jerusalem in 445 and in 52 days he
reconstructed the walls, chased the financiers from the Temple and
implements a very large social reform :"Thus I cleansed them (the
Levites) from everything foreign, andI established the duties of the
priests and Levites, each in his work ; and I provided for the wood
offering, at appointed times, and for the first fruits." The last words of
the Book of this remarkable prophet are extremely touching in their
humility :"Remember me, O my God, for good." (Nehemiah, XIII,30).

The Greek phalank at Marathon. The hoplites, with
the exception of the Spartans, were not actually as
uniformly equipped as depicted because each
soldier would buy his own arms and decorate them
at his discretion.

A reconstruction of beached Persian ships at
Marathon prior to the battle of Marathon.

"We will never allow our sons and daughters, our parents and grandparents to be wiped
off the face of the earth again," IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi
said in April 2008 in his address at the March of the Living ceremony in
Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. "We have learned our lesson and we are taking threats
to destroy Israel seriously."

The scribe Ezra was another extraordinary man and a fierce prophet : he
too managed to leave Babylon for Jerusalem "in the seventh year of
Artaxerxes the king" with a decree from the king providing him with all
the necessary help and means. There as "he had set his heart to study
the law of the Lord, and to teach his statutes and ordinances in Israel",
he imposed upon his people a more radical religious and social reform
than Nehemiah : for instance, he convinced the Levites to make "a
covenant with our God to put away all these (foreign) wives and their
children". (Ezra, X). In other terms, he implemented a rather harsh
dictatorship of the Bible and the Torah (Law) : he anathematized
marriage with foreigners that "increased the guilt of Israel" (Ezra, X,10)
and established what he called "the hedge of the law".

The Samaritans opposed with violence those reforms and the hatred
between the two communities goes back to this era : but it is from this
time that the Bible received its definitive form and during the next
centuries the Canon will be set for ever. Around 150 BC, the list of
Books composing the Bible was set for good.

Ezra thanking God for his help

However the Greeks are henceforth not very far away from
Jerusalem now. The times of Nehemiah are also those of Pericles
and when Ezra left Babylon, Socrates was testing a new beverage
named hemlock. But Athens and Jerusalem embodied two very
different sets of minds : the first one was expecting every
problem to be solved by reason and rationalization (intelligence)
whereas the second contented herself with answers coming from
the faith (soul). One is rationale, the other is mystic. One has the
arrogance of the nouveaux riches, the other the certitudes of the
ancient riches and of the pious.

With Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), the old Persian Empire
ruled now by Darius III (380-330) burst open like a piece of flesh
under the surgeon's knife : the single battle of Arbeles
(Gaugameles) in 331 gave to the Macedonian full control over
Mesopotamia. It was the end for the Aryans of the Middle East and
it was a sad moment for the Jews who will not meet so well
disposed Aryans until after WW2 and the Holocaust.

Alexander the Great was too well disposed to the Jews, he visited
Jerusalem where he was greeted by the High Priest as a liberator
and he granted to the Jews freedom of religion. To him, the Jews
are a strange people rooted in an archaic religion and it does not
really matter whether they share the views of the Hellenes about
sciences and philosophy. But Alexander passed away rapidly, too
soon in 323 and the Hellenistic influence was about to spread
vividly all over the ancient world. The Jews will have nothing of
this.

Less than 20 years after Alexander's death, his empire is in tatters
and his Generals are fighting each others : they made a show of
their devotion to Alexander's memory, and except for Ptolemy
they spoke of the need to keep the empire unified. But between
them came rivalry. Power rivalry was again manifesting itself as
one of the bigger sins of all time.

Eventually the Ptolemies built in Egypt a very solid dynasty that
last 3 centuries and ended with Cleopatra and the Seleucides,
descendants of Seleucus, one of the most capable Generals of
Alexander, reigned over the Fertile Crescent and produced some
great kings like Antiochus III.

Submitted to the expansion of Hellenization, the Jews opposed
their determination and their faith : for the Greeks, freedom is the
possibility to make their own laws and to worship the Gods of their
choice ; for the Jews, it is to abide by the Law of God and to
worship God only.

Socrates notably argued that knowledge
and virtue are so closely related that no
human agent ever knowingly does evil: we
all invariably do what we believe to be best.
This teaching was in full contradiction with
the teachings of the Torah that says that no
man is irresponsible but that all men are
redeemable.

Seleucus, became ruler between
what is today Turkey and Pakistan.

Useless to say that there are profound divergences : things turned sour
with the Antiochus, notably with Antiochus IV Epiphanes, said Antiochus
Epimanes (the mad). Antiochus' lack of lasting military achievements was
offset by his policy of Hellenization. He was not only a lavish benefactor
of shrines to Greek gods across the eastern Mediterranean -- including
the temple of Zeus at Athens --, in territories he controlled he actively
promoted the cult of the living ruler founded by his father, representing
himself as the manifestation of the supreme god, Zeus (hence the
epithet epiphanes).

Soon after he assumed the Seleucid throne (175 BCE), Antiochus filled
the vacant office of Onias III, high priest of the Jewish temple state in
Jerusalem, with a Hellenized Judean priest who took the Greek name
Jason, but replaced him in 172 BC with his brother Menelaus, on
promise of greater tribute. To curry Antiochus' support, these rival
priests completely Hellenized Jerusalem, promoting Greek culture &
building a gymnasium for Olympic sport. Furthermore, Antiochus
destroyed the dear walls, built a Greek citadel near the Temple that was
occupied and desecrated by setting up an "abomination of desolation"
(an idol), forbid to read the Torah, to circumcise the new-born, to
possess Jewish scriptures on pain of death and to celebrate the
Shabbat.

Like Hitler, Arno Breker, Hitler's favorite sculptor,
found his inspiration in Greek models and
sculpture. For Hitler, nothing was superior to
greco-roman architecture and art and nothing
interesting was created after 1911.

It was too much for the pious Jews (Hassidim) of Jerusalem who refused
Hellenization, the line has been crossed (III Maccabees VI). A family raised
against the ramping Hellenization and the religious persecution : they
were the Maccabees. The eldest Maccabeus, Mattathias, called forth the
people to holy war against the Greek "invaders", and his three sons
Judas, Jonathan and Simon Maccabaeus began a military campaign
against them. In 165 BC the Temple was freed and reconsecrated, so that
ritual sacrifices may begin again. The festival of Hanukkah was instituted
by Judas Maccabeus and his brothers to celebrate this event (I Macc. IV.
59).

After the death in combat of Judas, Jon and Simon continued the fighting
and in 142 BC the king Demetrius II abandoned the citadel and granted
independence to the Jewish community. Simon became ethnarch of
Judah and founded the Hasmonean dynasty but they had a tendency to
Hellenization and once more the Hassidim staged a revolt by setting
themselves aside : thus they were called the "separated" (Pharisees) but
the real power was henceforth held by the Sadducees who were
supporting a less strict application of the Law and of the Judaic religion.
However The Sadducees argued that national power had saved the
people and their religion. They were not opposed to Judaism and were
for the forcing of Judaism on the pagans.

The Hasmonees did well in developing their small empire : John Hircan I,
son of Simon, took advantage of the death of Antiochus VII to expand the
limits of Judah and eventually the kingdom grew bigger than the one of
David. But he made the big mistake to fight the Pharisees and his son
Alexander Jannai (103-76 BC) ointed himself King and High Priest, a
decision that incited the leader of the Essenes to withdraw into the
desert with his partisans, just as Moses did.

Furthermore Alexander became totally mad at the Pharisees and
persecuted them with sadism and cruelty : there were reports of him
banqueting with his concubines on the terrace of his palace while 800
crucified Pharisees died in excruciating pain. His reign was a time of
terror.

The Triumph of Judas Maccabeus by
Gerrit van Honthorst

The Sadducees were members of the
priestly families; their authority was
based upon position and birth. It was a
tradition that their leader, the high priest,
must be from the tribe of Levi and the
family of Zadok.

His widow Salome Alexandra reigned from 76 to 67 and adopted a more
lenient policy, she tried to rule with the Pharisees who seized this
opportunity to increase their influence within the Sanhedrin. At her death,
her two sons John Hyrcan II and Aristobulus II -who was a lover of the
Greeks- fought each other and Judah was torn by civil war. At the same time,
Roma General Pompey (64 BC) marched into Syria, deposed the king
Antiochus XIII Asiaticus, and made that country a Roman province. In 63 BC,
he advanced further south, in order to establish the Roman supremacy in
Phoenicia and Judah. A delegation of Pharisees went in support of Hyrcan.
Pompey decided to link forces with the good-natured Hyrcan and their joint
army of Romans and Jews besieged Jerusalem for three months, after which
it was taken from Aristobulus. Pompey entered in triumph in Jerusalem and
went to the Temple.

He went to the Temple to satisfy his curiosity about stories he had heard
about the worship of the Jewish people. He made it a priority to find out
whether the Jews had no physical statue or image of God in their most
sacred place of worship. To Pompey, it was inconceivable to worship a God
without portraying him in a type of physical likeness, like a statue. What
Pompey saw was unlike anything he had seen on his travels. He found no
physical statue, religious image or pictorial description of the Hebrew God.
Instead, he saw the Torah scrolls and was thoroughly confused.

Pompey the Great (106-48) could
not believe that the Jews
worshiped a God with no face, no
statue, no image. The God of the
Jews was an abstraction for the
Romans and their beliefs a long
sequence of riddles. The Romans'
God were for the Jews the epitomy
of stupid pagan superstitions.

Judah became a Roman province. The ancient kingdom of David lost its
independence for more than 2000 years. Eventually in 42 BC, a man called
Herod, the second son of Antipater the Idumaean, a high-ranked official under
Ethnarch Hyrcanus II, was named tetrarch of Galilee by the Romans. However,
many of the Jews were very upset by this since most Jews did not consider
Herod to be a true Jew. In 40 BC, Antigonus tried to take the throne again
with the help of the Parthians, this time succeeding. Herod fled to Rome to
plead with the Romans to restore him to power. There he was elected "King
of the Jews" by the Roman Senate. In 37 BC, the Romans fully secured Judea
and executed Antigonus. Herod took the role as sole ruler of Judea and took
the title of basileus (Gr. Βασιλευς) for himself, ushering in the Herodian
Dynasty and ending the Hasmonean Dynasty. He ruled for 34 years.

He was compared to Talleyrand for his political acumen and his diplomatic
skills but he was a tyrant hated by the Jews. He embarked on a policy of great
works, rebuilt a second Temple more majestic than the Temple of Solomon,
ordered the killing of his own children, of his beloved wife Mariamne and of
anybody suspected of opposition. He reigned by terror, was responsible for
the slaughter of the innocents (Matthew 2:16-18) in order to eliminate any
rival on the throne and finished his life in total paranoia and immense
sufferings of the bowels. He ran into his palace mad and dejected. He died in
the year 4 BC. Jesus Christ was 2 years old.

After his death, the ending of the Judean kingdom accelerated : the Romans
had enough of the political agitation of the region. In 45 AD, the emperor
Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome and when, in 66 AD, the Zealots, a sect
of religious fanatics, started a rebellion against the Roman occupation of
Judah, the emperor Nero fought back : in 70 AD under Vespasian the Roman
legions destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple of Herod, and in 73 AD, his
dreadful Xth Legion (5) sieged the fortress of Masada where 960 Jews had
taken refuge and planned to fight a forlorn battle. They eventually chose to
commit a collective suicide and the Xth Legion finally entered an empty
fortress.

The account of the siege of Masada was related to the Jewish historian
Josephus by two women who survived the suicide by hiding inside a cistern
along with five children. Because Judaism strongly discourages suicide,
Josephus reported that the defenders had drawn lots and killed each other in
turn, down to the last man, who would be the only one to actually take his own
life. True or not, the tragic episode of Masada is a landmark on the history of
the Jews as a nation and as an united religious community.

Jerusalem was left a ruined city by the siege, its Temple destroyed and the
walls were rubble. Anyway constant troubles were present in the diaspora
cities, especially in 115-117 and antisemitism began to spread out through the
Roman empire. The last Jewish risings were triggered by Hadrian's hostility to
Judaism, under the influence of Tacitus. Hadrian introduced pan-Hellenistic
policies and forbid circumcision on pain of death.

After Hadrian departed from the region, the Jews struck again and caused a
great deal of troubles for the Romans. Eventually legions had to be imported
massively in the region, some from Britain and the Danube. The last
stronghold of the Jews fell in 135 AD with the death of Simon bar Kokhba
(Kosiva) in Betar. The Roman vengeance was awesome : 50 forts, 985 towns,
villages and agricultural settlements were destroyed, 580,000 Jews died in
the fighting and some many were taken in slavery that "the price of a Jewish
slave dropped, according to Saint Jerome, to less than a horse".

Hadrian transformed the ruined Jerusalem into a Greek "polis" (city). These
two catastrophes, of 70 and 135 AD, ended Jewish state history in antiquity
and precipated the final separation of Judaism and Christianity.

Henceforth the Jews went into diaspora that lasted almost 2000 years until
they reunited themselves in the nation of Israel in 1948.

After the fall of Jerusalem, many
Jews took refuge in Herod's
fortress at Masada. The Romans
built a ramp on the west side to
gain access to the fortress.

The Byzantine liturgy had 14,000 Holy
Innocents and an early Syrian list of saints
states that there were 64,000. The
Catholic Encyclopedia in 1910 suggested
that these numbers were probably inflated,
and that for a town of that size probably
only between six and twenty children
would be killed, with a dozen or so more in
the surrounding areas.

(1) Abram changed his name to Abraham after the birth of his son Ismael and just before to be circumcised ;
his wife Saraï changed to Sarah
(2) Some Egyptian monuments mention an enigmatic people : the "Apiru". In one of these was carved on
the stone walls a scene depicting men working at a wine press. Beneath the picture was a title which ran:
"Straining out wine by the Apiru". The date of the monument is believed to be during the reign of queen
Hatshepshut and Tutmose III, about the year 2290 (1470 b.c.e.). Scholars immediately recognized the
similarity of the word "Apiru" to "Hebrew", with a scene depicting manual labour, as described in Exodus
for Hebrew people under bondage in Egypt. From the Papyrus Leiden, dated to the reign of Ramsesse II,
about the year 2510 (1250 b.c.e.), the following statement is made in a letter: "Issue grain to the men of the
army and to the Apiru who draw stone for the great pylon of Ramsesse II". Again we see Apiru in bondage in
Egypt down to the time of Ramsesse II. They were being used as quarrymen and manual labourers.
These references to the Apiru in Egyptian documents and on monuments show their presence in Egypt,
and their social importance, for more than three centuries. The same people are called elsewhere "Habiru"
or "Habiri".
(3) YAHWEH or YWH in Hebrew means "He is, the one who is" i.e. God. He could not be represented
(4) The Persians are not a semitic race like the Jews and the Arabs, they were part of those huge waves of
Aryan people from Europe who started to migrate to the Fertile Crescent around the XIIth century, first in
Crete. It is an ironical point of history that Herr Hitler totally overlooked.
(5) In the summer of 68, the Xth Legion Fretensis destroyed the monastery of Qumran, where the Dead Sea
Scrolls are believed to have originated. Its winter camp was at Jericho.

sons : Esau and Jacob who was the smartest and prevailed
in getting the birthright against his brother. During this time,
the Hyksos reigned in Egypt as Pharaohs : they were the
Shepherds Kings and seemed to have accepted and
protected the Hapiru. Jacob had 12 sons who are the
originators of the 12 tribes of Israel but his favorite
was Joseph because he was the smartest. One day, his
jealous brothers threw him in a well from where Joseph
was rescued by an Arabe tribe who sold him as a slave in
Egypt.
But Joseph was so smart that he managed to acquire
some position at the Pharaoh's court and called back
his brothers in Egypt. Joseph died aged 110 and his tribe
stayed a long time in the region of the Bitter Lakes until
the Hyksos dynasty was chased and the new Pharaoh
ceased to protect the Hebrews (Ex.I, 8) , as they were now
known.

Hammurabi king of Mesopotamia may have
been the ruler of the kingdom when Abram
decided to flee with his tribe.

Retour à Babylone

After the bar Kokhba revolt, emperor
Hadrian, viewing Judaism as the root of
the rebellions, banned Torah study,
outlawed Sabbath observance,
condemned meeting in synagogues and
ordered Jewish scholars killed.