Jews

I

The Babylonian Captivity

Babylonians from the east ultimately overran the kingdom of Judah at the beginning of the 6th century bc, in what the Judeans understood as a sign of religious failure on their part. The Babylonians destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem, a catastrophe still commemorated by many Jews today in the fast day known as Tishah b’Ab (the ninth of the month of Ab). The Babylonians also exiled many of the elite members of the community, including priests who officiated in the Temple. The exile began the period known as the Babylonian Captivity.

With this exiled community, the Jewish diaspora (dispersion) began. Historians know very little about Jewish life in the diaspora in its earliest centuries, however. The land of Israel remained the center of Jewish life for many centuries.

The Bible describes the Babylonian conquest not as an imperial power overwhelming a smaller state, but as a sign from God that the kingdom of Judea had not behaved with the proper piety. It interprets the exile as punishment for sin, not as imperial policy to control a conquered enemy. According to this interpretation, the kingdom could be restored and the covenant could live on if the people of Judea repented. The interpretation could also remove geographic limits from the covenant: Jews could serve God anywhere on Earth. Historians do not know how many Jews believed the latter interpretation; they do know that it became the officially recognized ideology of the community’s religious leaders and that it was instrumental to the ability of many Jews to retain a distinct identity despite their dispersion.

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Persian Rule

The Persian Empire defeated the Babylonians in about 540 bc, some 50 years after the Babylonian conquest, and added the land of Israel to its empire. The Persians allowed the exiles to return, and some did, but others chose to remain in the diaspora. The Persians ruled through a system of vassal (dependent) states, allowing conquered populations to govern themselves within the larger framework of Persian imperial law. The Temple in Jerusalem was rebuilt toward the end of the 6th century bc, becoming once again the central place of worship for the Jews. It remained so until the Romans destroyed it in 70 ce. Many books of the Bible were composed or edited into their final form during the two centuries of Persian rule, and it is clear that Jews absorbed much from Persian culture.

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The Hellenistic Age

The Persian Empire, in turn, was overrun by Alexander the Great of Macedonia in the mid-4th century bc. For nearly two centuries, the Jews were ruled by Alexander and the monarchs who succeeded him in the states he had conquered. This period—between Alexander’s conquest of the Persian Empire and the establishment of Roman supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean in 31 bc—is known as the Hellenistic Age. During this time the culture of the Greeks (Hellenes in Greek) dominated the eastern Mediterranean region and the Near East. As far as historians can tell, the Jews continued to enjoy considerable autonomy, or self-rule, in the province of Judea. During the Hellenistic Age more books of the Bible were written or achieved their final form.

The confrontation with Hellenism (Greek culture) proved fateful for the history and identity of the Jews. Many Jews found Hellenistic culture deeply attractive and consciously absorbed many of its ideas about life. Other Jews were repelled by it, especially Hellenism’s worship and depictions of the many Greek gods and its cultivation of the human body as a standard of perfection. They objected not only to its polytheism but also to its belief in human beings and human experience, rather than the divine, as the measure of all things. Even these Jews, however, absorbed much from Hellenism.

The differing attitudes of Jews toward Hellenism produced tension in the Jewish community of Judea. That tension eventually resulted in a civil war that soon became a rebellion against Greek rule, after King Antiochus IV forbade Jewish worship and desecrated the Temple by placing a statue of the Greek god Zeus in it. Jews prevailed in this rebellion and interpreted their victory as a miracle. The rededication of the Temple in 165 bc following this victory is commemorated in the holiday Hanukkah. The Jews achieved a period of relative independence, extending from 142 to 63 bc, under the rule of the Hasmonean (or Maccabee) family, who had led the rebellion.

L

Roman Rule

In 63 bc the Romans added Judea to their developing empire. Judea became a place in which Jewish, Greek, and Roman cultures met amid great tension. During the rule of both the Hasmonean and Roman dynasties, many different groups or sects of Judaism emerged. Each of these sects had its own view of God, the afterlife, the Temple, and other aspects of the religion. The best known of these groups were the Pharisees and Sadducees, and later, the early Christians.

Many historians believe the Pharisees resisted Hellenism and kept the Temple ritual alive. It seems that the Sadducees formed an aristocratic priestly class. Unlike the Pharisees, who believed in a life to come and a Messiah, the Sadducees believed that people should make the best of this life. Christianity, too, began as a Jewish sect. Jesus proclaimed that the kingdom of God was about to arrive, but he angered the Pharisees by his teachings, which they feared strayed from strict observance of Jewish law. Jesus, in turn, denounced the Pharisees. After the crucifixion of Jesus, his disciples remained part of the larger Jewish community for a time, eventually diverging to form a distinct religious group.

Roman policy in Judea was uneven. The Romans sometimes ruled through Jewish kings, such as Herod, and at other times through Roman military governors, such as Pontius Pilate. Over time many Jews developed considerable resentment toward Roman rule, and in 66 ce open revolt broke out. The Romans finally crushed the rebellion in 73 ce, when they captured Masada, the fortress occupied by the last Jewish holdouts. During the war, in 70 ce, the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem. Jews still commemorate this destruction, along with the first destruction of the Temple by the Babylonians, with fasting and prayer on Tishah b’Ab.

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The End of the Biblical Period

During the period of Roman rule the Hebrew Bible appears to have achieved its final form. No new books were added to the biblical canon thereafter, nor were any deleted. From the 1st century ce until today, the Jews have revered and studied this sacred collection of 39 books, all of them written in Hebrew except for a few sections that are written in Aramaic.

At the end of the biblical period the Jewish community was divided, with various groups practicing the Jewish religion in their own ways. Out of this turmoil a group of religious leaders called rabbis emerged in the 1st century ce. Over the next centuries rabbis gave shape to the kind of Judaism that dominated Jewish life until modern times. The rabbis subjected each of the rules and laws of the Bible to examination and interpretation, and they developed a voluminous body of oral law called Halakhah (Hebrew from the verb halakh, meaning “to go”). These oral laws were written down during the 1st through the 5th centuries ad and became part of the Talmud and Midrash. The interpretations of the rabbis were characterized by a deep concern for fulfilling the laws and morals of the Bible. They promoted a belief in political quiescence (inactivity), insisting that only redemption through a Messiah could restore Jewish sovereignty to the land of Israel.

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