From Abraham to BC/AD
2050 BC to 0 AD
Introduction.
Following the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct 7, 2023, I began to ponder, “What is it that I believe about this? Was Hamas justified in attacking Israel? How should Israel respond? Should Israel even be a nation? I reflected on what I had learned when I studied Mid East history at the Naval Academy and even found my main textbook. Regarding Palestine, the gist of the book was that in Palestine, the Arabs were really given a raw deal. So I decided to re-read the book while also doing extensive other research and then to write a series of essays on what I learned from my study. As I wrote them, I posted them on one of my blogs and provided links to them from my Facebook page. I had expected it would take 3 or 4 essays to cover the most relevant material. After writing the 15th essay, I stopped. I had made it through the First Arab Israeli War that ended in 1949. At that point, I felt that I had a good enough understanding of the history of Palestine to develop informed opinions on what I believed.
I thoroughly enjoy studying and teaching history. Had I had less love for the finer things in life, I would have been a history professor instead of a real estate developer. I now have the finer things. With OLLI, I have an opportunity to scratch my teaching itch.
A question has come up – what constitutes Palestine? Is it the same as ancient Israel or the Promised Land? It is approximately ancient Israel, but it is much less than territory God promised to Abraham. For these essays, Palestine is the inhabitable land on the eastern Mediterranean Sea north of Egypt and south of Syria. In ancient times it would have included what is Jordon today. When the Ottoman Empire fell in 1917, it became necessary to establish specific boundaries for Palestine. The eastern boundary they eventually settled on was the Jordon River.
A. Abraham to End of Old Testament.
We all know some history from the Bible. We know it was once called the Land of Canaan and that is where Abraham journeyed when he left Ur in Mesopotamia. That was around 2100 BC. Before Abraham had any children, God promised him that one day his descendants would exceed the number of stars in the sky and that they would occupy “The Promised Land” which included the land of Canaan. When he was about 90 years old, Abraham had a son by his wife Sara’s servant, Hagar, (at Sara’s request). That son was named Ishmael and tradition has it that he is the father of the Arabs. A decade or so later, Sara, at age 100, gave birth to her only child, Isaac. Isaac had two sons and the youngest was Jacob who later in life was given the name Israel by God. Israel was the father of 12 sons whose names represent 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel including the tribe of Judah from whence the name “Jew” is derived. The other two tribes were named after the two sons of Israel’s 11th son, Joseph. Joseph was sold into slavery by his older brothers and ended up becoming Pharoah’s chief of staff. During a terrible famine, Joseph invited his family to move to Egypt where they were given land and became shepherds. Over the next four centuries, the descendants of Israel went from being honored guests to becoming slaves. They prayed to God for deliverance from their captivity and so God sent Moses in around 1,450 BC to lead His Chosen People out of Egypt back to “The Promised Land”. They arrived in Canaan around 1,400 BC. During the course of their journey, Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible known as the Torah by the Jews and the Pentateuch by Christians. The Torah is the basis for most Jewish law.
The nation of Israel reached its zenith in the middle of the 10th century BC when Solomon was king and built the first temple in Jerusalem. After Solomon, the kingdom was split in two: the one in the south consisted of two tribes, Judah and Benjamín, and the one in the north was made up of the other ten tribes. From that point on, the Israelites were pretty much at the mercy of their more powerful neighbors. In 722 BC, Assyria conquered the northern kingdom and obliterated its culture by sending most of its inhabitants to other parts of the Assyrian empire and bringing in new inhabitants to what became known as Samaria. Those people conquered by the Assyrians are sometimes referred to as the Lost Tribes of Israel.
The southern kingdom, referred to as Judah (Benjamín was a much smaller tribe), rocked along for another century and a half until in 586 BC when they were conquered by the Babylonians, led by Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonians plundered and then destroyed the magnificent temple Solomon had built. (Included in the plunder was the Ark of the Covenant a la Indiana Jones fame.) The leading people of Judah were taken captive and forcibly resettled in Babylon (where Bagdad is today). Over a half century later, Babylon was conquered by the Persians, led by Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Dynasty. Cyrus allowed the Jews to return to Palestine in 538 BC, some 70 years after they had been exiled. One of the first things the returning Jews did was start building a new temple which was completed in 515 BC. About 75 years later, the then king of Persia, Artaxerxes I, allowed his cupbearer, Nehemiah, a Jew, to return to Jerusalem and assist with beautifying and dedicating this second temple. (Ezra was a contemporary.) At that time, Palestine was a province within the Persian Empire being governed by a satrap appointed by the Persian king. That is approximately where the Old Testament ends.
B. The New Testament Era
The New Testament picks up with the birth of Jesus, which scholars think was actually around 5 BC. Cyrus’ dynasty in Persia is long gone. Greeks displaced them had a huge influence on the culture in Palestine. Palestine is now a province in the Roman empire. There was a new temple in Jerusalem – much larger and grander than the first temple built by Solomon. It was built by King Herod, who was the king of the Jews when Jesus was born. The New Testament covers a period of about 100 years, though it is very sketchy on one of the most significant events in the history of Palestine from the standpoint of the Jews: the Jewish Roman War from 66-70 AD. We will cover that later. The most significant event in human history occurred during the New Testament era: Jesus’s incarnation, his ministry, his death and resurrection, and the establishment of Christianity as a religion.
C. Era between the Old & New Testaments
The Old Testament ends with the Jews returning to Palestine after being exiled in Mesopotamia by the Babylonians and then being released after the Persians overthrew the Babylonians. Cyrus, the first Persian king, founded what is known as the Achaemenid dynasty in 590 BC. It was during his son-in-law’s reign, Darius I, that the Roman Republic was founded (509 BC.) The Achaemenids ruled for 228 years until Alexander the Great, from Macedonia in northern Greece, displaced Darius III in 330 BC.
We are all somewhat familiar with the battles of Marathon & Thermopylae between the Persians and the Greeks in 490/480 BC, when Darius and later his son, Xerxes, sent huge armies and fleets to conquer the Greek city states. Their endeavors ultimately failed when the Persians were decisively defeated by the Athenians in the naval battle of Salamis. While in Greece, the Persians burned Athens before heading home.
One of Alexander’s justifications for invading Persia was payback for their invading Greece 150 years before. Within a decade (334-324 BC), Alexander’s army conquered about 2 million square miles of territory extending from Albania to western India. (By contrast, Napoleon conquered 500,000 sqm.) And then Alexander died at age 32 leaving his huge empire with no heir for his key generals to fight over, divide up, and rule. Palestine initially went to Ptolemy I, who also took Egypt and Syria. Another general, Seleucus, acquired the lion’s share of the Macedonian empire, and obtained Syria from Ptolemy. In about 200 BC, the Seleucids took Palestine from the Ptolemies. Both empires promoted Greek culture within their domains.
Meanwhile, Rome was in a deathmatch with Carthage. In the 2nd Punic War, which ended in 201 BC, Rome lost some 300,000 men to Hannibal which was about 1/6 of Rome’s total adult male population. The 3rd and final Punic War ended in 164 BC
Maccabean Revolt/The Hasmonean Dynasty (141-37 BC). Antigonus IV came to power in 187 BC. He was a terrible king who wanted all his subjects to worship Zeus and therefore decided to ban the practice of the Jewish religion and require the Jews to sacrifice to pigs. This led to the Maccabean revolt in 167 BC. A priest named Mattathias, a devout follower of the Mosaic Law, was the initial leader of the rebellion. He was killed within a year and three of his sons took turns being the leaders. Judas defeated the Seleucid army, captured Jerusalem, and cleansed the temple where a statue to Zeus had been set up. When he was killed, his brother Jonathan stepped up. And when he was killed, Simon was next. Simon is credited with founding the Hasmonean dynasty by making himself king of the Jews. He, like his brother Jonathan, had himself appointed as the high priest. Because they were not descendants of Aaron (the brother of Moses and the first high priest of Israel), this move upset the Pharisees and caused a rift among the Jews. Simon’s son, John, who succeeded him, was known as John Hyrcanus I. He ruled for over 30 years to the end of the 2nd century BC. He was able to extend the boundaries of his Judean kingdom to include Samaria and Edom. Hyrcanus I forced the Edomites to accept Judaism, and that later gave Herod I, the son of an Arab mother and an Edomite father, the ability to claim to be a Jew.
Rome takes Palestine. Hyrcanus I established a positive relationship with Rome. Hyrcanus II enlisted the Roman General Pompey to help him displace his brother on the throne. Pompey, who ended the Seleucid dynasty, also besieged and conquered Jerusalem in 63 BC. He appointed Hyrcanus II as high priest. Over the next two decades, Pompey would go from being partners with Julius Caesar to fighting and losing a civil war against him. Caesar ended the Roman Republic in 46 BC becoming Dictator for Life and was assassinated two years later. His nephew, Octavian, also known as Caesar Augustus, conquered Egypt, which was ruled by Cleopatra. the last of the Ptolemian dynasty. Augustus was Emperor of the Roman Empire, which included Palestine, when Jesus was born.
Herod I was made King of Jews by the Roman Senate in 37 BC and thereby ended the Hasmonean dynasty. (This, of course, upset most of the Jews.) Herod I built some of the most impressive structures in the Roman world including the third and greatest of all the Jewish temples in Jerusalem. He also built the fortress at Masada. Herod’s temple figured prominently in Jesus’ life. The Jewish-Roman War (66-70 AD) ended at Masada. (Note: Herod I ranks among the most fascinating men I have ever studied in history.)
After conquering Palestine in 63 BC, my reading of history is that for about the next century, the Romans made a special effort to accommodate the Jews there. Unlike other regions of their empire, the Romans (1) did not require Jews to serve in the Roman army because they refused to work/fight on the Sabbath, (2) did not require them to worship Roman or Greek gods, and (3) did not establish Roman settlements in predominantly Jewish lands. During that period, the Romans allowed the upper-class Jews who were willing to work with them to maintain law and order and to remain in positions of power and privilege.
I have included maps showing the Macedonian and Roman empires during this period. As you will note, Rome extended its boundaries to the west to include essentially the entire Mediterranean and up the eastern Atlantic seaboard from Spain to the English Channel. Looking to the east, the Romans absorbed much of the western half of the Macedonian empire. They developed a fabulous road system, excellent ports and sea lanes, and maintained strict law and order throughout their empire. This set the stage for the early Christian evangelists to spread their faith throughout Europe, North Africa, and western Asia.
As we complete the presentations in class, I will make available links to the Power Point presentation excluding any videos shown in the presentation. Links to the videos are provided separately to reduce the file size of the PPT presentation.
When you click on the Link below, choose the dropdown box for “Open in”. It will show you the Power Point Web Presentation which you click on. Then you select from the line at top: “Slide Show” and then select “From Beginning”. After you complete the Power Point, then watch the video.
Following the PPT Presentation is a link to a Zoom recording of the class. You will need to enter the passcode to access the Zoom recording.
Below is a link to the only video shown in Presentation 1. It is entitled “The Temple – Herod’s Crowing Glory”
Link to the Zoom Recording of the class for Presentation #1 is below. Passcode:d8%%CGB*
Be sure to read the essay for Session #2 before attending next week’s class.
Links to other Session Essays: https://quotesbydavid.com/history-of-palestine/