Between the Greek and the Roman era a religious party the Perushim or Pharisees, separated ones, appeared who repudiated the royal religious establishment its high priest and the Sanhedrin. According to Josephus they had strong popular support. He relates that at the end of the civil war Alexander Jannaeus returned to Jerusalem with many of his Jewish enemies among his captives. He was feasting with his concubines overlooking the city when he ordered eight hundred of them to be crucified. While they were dying in agony he ordered their wives and children brought up and their throats cut before their eyes. Since Alexander died of chronic alcoholism in 76 BCE, the event must have taken place around the turn of the century. It was also recorded by the Essenes of Qumran whose Leader of Righteousness, a figure resembling Jesus, was among the ones crucified. Alexander's widow Salome tried unsuccessfully to restore national unity by bringing the Pharisees into the Sanhedrin and making their oral law part of the royal justice but she died in 67 and her sons fell out over the succession. By adding new elements, nowhere to be found in the Torah, the Oral Law now became major part of the newly modified Jewish liturgy. The enlarged Jewish world became bitterly divided. It now included many part Jews and non Jews whose devotion to the Torah was suspect since they routinely questioned many of its archaic statements and pushed for more improvements based on the success of the Pharisees. Previously Rome was encouraging the independence of small, weak nations struggling against the Greeks, however an expansive minded Jewish kingdom pushing its intolerant religion on its neighbors by forcibly converting them was unacceptable to the Roman senate. Antipater, a former chief minister, was born in Idumea. His family was forcibly converted by the Hasmonaeans.

Half Jew, half Hellenizer, it was natural for him to come to terms with the Romans. He preferred to flourish under Roman protection as opposed to the endless civil wars a Jewish specialty. In 63 he came to terms with general Pompeii thus Judea became a client state of Rome. His son Herod a wise and brilliant politician and a far seeing statesman, only part Jew by birth, did more for the Jews than any ruler they ever had before him. Herod the Great ruled from 37 to 4 BCE. Both Jewish and Christian historians find it difficult to come to terms with the actions of this man. His father helped him to become the governor of Galilee. During his office as governor he tracked down and executed a group of rigorist guerrillas led by a man named Hezekiah without a religious trial. Herod was forced to appear before the Sanhedrin but he successfully intimidated the judges by bringing his armed guard along. In the year 43 he executed another fanatic Jew by the name of Malichus who poisoned his father. Herod's act aggravated the rigorists who held that religiously motivated murder doesn't count. In 40 BCE a faction led by Antigonus seized Jerusalem. The governor, Herod's brother Phasael, was arrested and committed suicide in prison. Hyrcanus II. the high priest was rendered ineligible for his office by mutilation as Antigonus personally bit off his uncle's ear. Herod barely escaped and made his way to Rome and appeared before the senate. His application was successful and he was declared an allied king and friend of the Romans' who put thirty thousand infantries and six thousand cavalries at his disposal. Herod retook Jerusalem and set about to render the power of rigorist Judaism ineffective by separating state and religion and depending more and more on the diaspora Jews. Herod's role model was Solomon who started his reign by ordering his father's ministers murdered. Following his idol's footsteps Herod had forty six leading members of the Sanhedrin executed and turned it into a strictly religious court. He forbade it to get involved in secular matters. His other dream was to implement a building program that would dwarf Solomon's efforts and perpetuate himself by colossal buildings and endowments. Herod's devoted his life to spending on gigantic scale. He wanted to show the world that ordinary Jews, once allowed to think for themselves without the overpowering and aggressive orthodox element on their backs, were talented and civilized people making important contribution to the Mediterranean world.

Emperor Augustus's favored general Agrippa was a close friend of Herod's who spread the special protection of Rome over the scattered Jewish communities as they followed the Roman conquest. The diaspora Jews became Herod's best friends. He paid for synagogues, libraries, baths and charitable enterprises. During his days Jews laid down the foundation for welfare groups in their communities to provide for the poor, the sick, for widows and orphans, to bury the dead and bring solace and assistance to the prisoners. He was also a benefactor of other racial groups. He financed institutions of the Greek culture especially stadiums since he was a keen sportsman himself. He helped to revive the Olympic games with money and his organizational skill, rebuilt the temple of Apollo in Rhodes, built a new wall for Byblos, a forum for Tyre and one for Beirut. An aqueduct for Laodicea, theaters for Sidon and Damascus, gymnasiums for Ptolomais and Tripoli, baths for Ascalon and had the main street of Antioch paved. Jews living in those places became most popular and basked in the glory of their munificent brother. Herod extended his pan Judaism to Palestine rebuilding Samaria, that was destroyed by John Hyrcanus, built a temple at Banyas and created the new city of Caeserea with the biggest harbor of the Mediterranean. He built the fortress of Antonia in Jerusalem the Herodium Kypros near Jericho and the fortress of Masada, situated at the south western corner of the Dead Sea, cut out of sheer rock overlooking the wilderness. Herod envisioned an international Jerusalem to make the city the capital of all Jews and adherents. He relied on the Diaspora Jews as they were more enlightened than the backward tribal Jews of Judea. The Diaspora Jews were receptive to Greek and Roman ideas and more likely to encourage a modified, less bloody and gory form of worshipping Yahweh, more compatible with the modern world. The Law required that Jews make a pilgrimage to the Temple three times a year (Deuteronomy 16:16 and Exodus 23:17). Herod encouraged the practice by providing Jerusalem with modern facilities but above all he undertook the rebuilding of the Temple. First he erected three powerful towers: the Phasael later renamed Tower of David the Hippicus and the Mariamne named after his wife before he had her murdered. He also built a theater and an amphitheater.

In the year 22 Herod announced the rebuilding of the Temple dwarfing the glory of Solomon his idol. For two years he trained a work force of ten thousand workmen and a thousand builder priests to work in forbidden areas. He did everything with strict adherence to religious customs. For the altar and its ramp only unhewn stones were used untouched by iron to please the rigorists. The sanctuary encompassed an area of one hundred cubits opposed to Solomon's sixty. The gates fittings and decorations were plated with gold and silver. According to Josephus the exceptionally white limestone walls and the glitter of gold and silver provided a striking view from far away as travelers approached the city. Some of the blocks of stone measured forty five cubits in length, ten cubits in height and six cubits in breadth. The Corinthian pillars reached the height of twenty seven feet and it took three men to reach around them. The visitors ascended the platform from the city by hundreds of thousands during the great feasts by a vast staircase and a main bridge. Once inside, droves of money changers provided holy shekels to pay temple fees and buy sacrificial animals. From here on Greeks and Latins were forbidden to proceed further upain of death. Tinner courts were continuously raised by steps. The Court of Women had special corners for Nazorites and lepers. From it rose the Court of the male Jews. Still higher a flight led up to the Court of priests the sacrificial area. Here an eternal fire was kept lit an idea taken from the Egyptians along with incensing of the secret parts. The secret of producing the sweet smelling incense was the duty of the Avtina family whose women folks were banned from using any kind of artificial scent on their bodies to prevent corruption. The Temple was extremely wealthy. Over and above the regular income of half shekel tax on all male Jews of twenty years of age and over, kings, rulers, statesmen and individual visitors donated vast quantities of golden vessels and plate. The inner temple where the sacrifices were performed was an awful, nauseating place especially at feast times. The screams and bellows of terrified beasts blending with ritual cries and chants were punctuated by enormous blasts from the sofar. Blood was cascading in torrents and made the onlookers sick to the stomachs. Aristeas of Alexandria attended as a pilgrim and reports that he saw a mob of seven hundred priests performing sacrifices in one massive event: 'The platform was hollow, containing thirty four cisterns, the largest holding over two million gallons of water to carry away the rivers of blood. There are many openings at the base of the altar invisible to all, except to those performing the sacrifices. The blood is collected in great quantities and washed away in the twinkling of an eye...' writes Aristeas. There were regular sacrifices two lambs at dawn and two at sunset, in addition each pilgrim offered at least one individual sacrifice that was open for gentiles as well. It was considered a status symbol to offer the lifeblood of several beasts to Yahweh. Herod's friend Marcus Agrippa made the grand gesture of offering a hecatomb or one hundred beasts for slaughter. Herod himself was very generous to the temple and paid for the entire building program out of his own pocket. He succeeded to erode the importance of the high priest who was a Sadducee and supported his deputy the segan who was a Pharisee. Eventually the Pharisees won overall control. In the last months of his reign Herod set up a golden eagle over the main entrance to the Temple as a final touch to his decoration scheme. The diaspora Jews loved the idea but the rigorists objected and incited a group of Torah students to climb up and smash it.

Herod immediately removed the high priest from office had the students arrested, tried and burned alive in the Roman theater in Jericho. By that time Herod was terminally ill and died in the spring of 4 BCE. According to Herod's will, which was approved by the Romans, his son by his first wife Doris took over Judea. He was an incompetent ruler though and two years later the Romans deposed him taking direct control. In 37 the old king's grandson Herod Agrippa took over. He was an able ruler but died in 44 and Rome imposed direct rule again. With the exception of the orthodox trouble makers the Roman's method of running the empire was generally accepted by the population. They respected local religions, social and political institutions as long as they did not cause trouble or unrest. Everybody prospered under their rule and it was much preferred to what most have known before, since every time the priestly class started something it was the common people who paid for it with their lives and property. The diaspora Jews, six million strong, supported the Romans the rigorists of Judea did not. Opposed to the more enlightened Greek and Latin speaking and well educated Diaspora Jews the Jews of Judea were narrow minded religious extremists who believed that Yahweh will personally lead them to victory against the Romans. Consequently they were easily incited to partake in uprisings against the kittim inevitably followed by ferocious reprisals sparking further defiance in turn. Such was the uprising led by Judas of Gamala in the year six protesting the direct rule imposed after Herod's death. An other one erupted in 44 led by Theudas after the death of Herod Agrippa. Under the Procurator Felix (52-60) four thousand rigorists occupied Mount Olive awaiting the walls of Jerusalem to crumble like Jericho's. The uprising in sixty six led to the total destruction of the Temple and the one in 135 resulted in the dispersion of the Jews of Judea. The Jews were basically divided into followers of the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel. Ezekiel son of Buzi a learned senior priest was a member of the elite of Judah forced into exile in Babylon in 597 BCE. His wife died during the siege and he was trying to cope with his bitterness and despair by drinking in excess. Eventually his hallucinations and visions became frighteningly realistic.

He enjoyed sitting on the banks of the Chebar canal sipping his Assyrian white until great and colorful visions overwhelmed him in his drunken stupor. 'As I looked behold a stormy wind came out of the north and a great cloud with brightness round about it and fire flashing forth continually and in the midst of the fire as it were gleaming bronze. And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: They had the form of men, but each had four faces' (Ezekiel 1:4-6). Using his extremely rich and powerful vocabulary he compares colors with the intensity of precious stones describes dream like sequences and terrifying images curses and violence in every detail. His delirium has complete control over him. After each bewildering bout he asks himself 'Why do I always have to talk in riddles?' Trying to sort out his weird visions Ezekiel decided that these were heavenly messages to confirm God's power to men. Empires will fall and disappear in the long run. They will perish through God's power on their own without requiring any interference. Salvation will come to each Jew through religious purity. Ezekiel insisted that the calamities that befell the Jews were the result of breaking the Law. Each person had the individual responsibility to Yahweh. Behold all souls are mine, Yahweh told Ezekiel. To have a country is unimportant even dangerous. Jewish religion could best be practiced under reasonably liberal foreign rule. As it happened in Babylon under the benevolent rulers the Jews lived in peace and prospered. When they were offered the choice to return home most preferred to stay in Babylon. They collected money and goods to provide financial assistance to the hotheads and troublemakers who elected to return to West Arabia, Egypt or Judah.

The Greeks attacked the Jews for their abnormal way of life which Hecateus of Abdera called an inhospitable and anti human form of living. While the Greeks were promoting oneness the Jews deemed non Jews ritually unclean even forbidding marriage to them. In short the Greek speaking world began to conceive the Jews as the only people on earth who refused to associate with the rest of humanity. In Babylon on the other hand where the autocratic rulers used the many talents of the Jews to their advantage the apartness of the Jewish community was not noticed or objected to by the general population which had other things to worry about than the Jews and was less sophisticated than the Greeks. As time passed the Babylonian Talmud became more detailed than it's Jerusalem counterpart. For a long time it was regarded as the main source of instructions for Jews everywhere except in Judah. The Jews of Babylon regarded themselves as the most reliable repository of Jewish tradition and the purest blood. All countries are dough compared to the yeast of the land of Israel but Israel is dough compared to Babylonia asserts the Babylonian Talmud. The Book of Daniel dates from early Hasmonaean times (168 BCE). It uses historical examples to whip up hatred against pagan imperialism the coming of God's kingdom and effective liberation under the Son of Man. Martyrdom is presented as most desirable since Daniel promises resurrection and personal immortality: 'And many of those whosleep in the dustof earth shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt' (Daniel 12:2). This idea was nowhere to be found in the written texts and the Sadducees immediately rejected it. Even the Pharisees who condoned verbal additions were puzzled. At the outset of the first century the Ethiopic Book of Enoch reinforced the notion by mentioning the Last Day and the Day of Judgment when all the elect will come into their kingdom. All this was not Jewish and came from Egypt where it was developed much earlier.

Eventually the Pharisees accepted it mainly because it fitted into the Judaic concept of the rule of the Law and to draw into their orbit the poor who knew the abysmal odds for salvation and happiness on this side of eternity. The idea suddenly became so popular that many even started to believe that this heavenly kingdom was real as well as imminent and their duty was to hasten its arrival. Such were the Sicarii who took to assassinate their opposing Jewish brothers especially at festival times. They were the ultra violent fringe of the Zealots whose role model was Phinehas whose story is told in Numbers 25:6-8: ' ... and behold, one of the people of Israel came and bought a Mid'ianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the tent of meeting. When Pin'ehas the son of Elea'zar, son of Aaron the priest saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took a spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the inner room and pierced both of them, the man of Israel and the woman through her body ...' According to Josephus the Zealot movement was founded in 6 BCE by a man named Judah. The Zealots practiced violence as opposed to the Sadducees and the Pharisees who have accepted the foreign rule. In those days the legitimacy of terrorism was hotly debated. Unfortunately it was eventually condoned. Many sects were living on the desert's fringe. One violent segment called the Essenes settled at Qumran by the Dead Sea. They kept large collection of scrolls hidden in caves sealed in tall jars. One of them called The War of the Children of the Light Against the Children of the Darkness was a detailed training guide against the Romans. Their camp had a defensive layout with watch towers and fortifications. It was eventually destroyed by the Romans between 66 and 70. There were non violent groups of cave monks and hermits. The Therapeutae came from Egypt where desert communities existed for thousands of years. The Margherians lived in Syria. Baptist groups operated along the Jordan river.  

John the Baptist who was executed by Herod Antipas was one of them. He followed the writings of Isaiah and Enoch and warned that the Messiah is coming all must confess their sins repent and receive baptism by water in preparation for the quickly approaching Last Judgment. As Isaiah put it: 'Clear yea in the wilderness the way of the Lord, who would be the Messiah described by Enoch as the Son of Man' (Isaiah 40:3). This notion of dire urgency is still very much alive today in rabbinical circles unhindered by the fact that two millennia have passed since the immediate arrival of the Messiah was declared. The idea of a Messiah had its origins in the Jewish belief that King David's descendants will reign over Israel and have dominion over all alien people to the end of time. Isaiah's description of this future king as the dispenser of justice strongly reinforced this view mainly because Isaiah was the most widely read, popular and beautifully written text among all writings. The readers wanted to believe in the Messiah assuming that he will be a political as well a military leader. Jewish leaders were confused but were persuaded by Gamaliel the Elder, a former head of the Sanhedrin, to take a wait and see attitude. According to him the authenticity of the true Messiah will be eventually demonstrated by the success or failure of his movement. He quoted the case of Theudas and Judas of Galilee both of whom perished and their followers dispersed because their mission lacked divine sanction. Followers of the Baptist and the other sects should be left alone to see if they can demonstrate to possess divine sanction. The word messiah means anointed in Aramaic. During the Greek rule it was changed to messiah although the Greek word for anointed is christos. Among the tons of religious writings produced by the Jews, Jesus of Nazaret was never mentioned nor was any reference to him ever found in any secular historical source. The first record about Jesus was written by Rabbi Saul better known as St. Paul who encountered Jesus in his dream. Later records written about him state that he was a Jewish universalist and not a nationalist who, like the Baptist, was profoundly influenced by the pacifist wing of the Essenes and the vision of Isaiah in chapter 53. His background was heterodox Judaism influenced by the progressive hellenization of Galilee. The Jewish reform movement found an ally in the Seleucid monarch Antiochus Epiphanes. After replacing the orthodox high priest Onias III with Jason (Joshua) he began to transform Jerusalem into a Greek city and renamed it Antiochia. He constructed a gymnasium at the foot of the Temple mount. It is recorded in 2 Maccabees 4:12-14 that the Temple priests ceased to show any interest in the service of the altar. Neglecting the sacrifices they would hurry to take part in the unlawful exercises on the training ground apparently with unusual zeal. In 167 a decree was published abolishing the Mosaic Law and replacing it with a secular one. The abolishment came from Menelaus, a Jewish reformer, who envisioned Greeks and Jews living together in harmony and the halting of the barbaric, bloody temple sacrifices. He believed that such a drastic move was the only way to end the obscurity and absurdity of Temple worship. It was a militant display of militant nationalism. Rabbinical records describe how Miriam married to a Seleucid officer and who came from the same priestly family as Menelaus stormed into the Temple and struck her sandal against the corner of the altar with the cry: wolf, wolf, you have squandered the riches of Israel.

The Hasidim (most pious Jews) brushed aside the rreformers' arguments for universalism. To them there was no difference between it and the old Baal worship condemned over and over again in the Scriptures. Stories about the victims of the ensuing struggle like the murder of the ninety years old Eleazar and the seven brothers, described in the Second Book of Maccabees, were fed into the propaganda of religious purity and Jewish nationalism to provide martyrs. Consequently it was the rigorists who were able to appeal to deep rooted Biblical instincts to attack the existing order. In the town of Modin a reformer was killed by Matthias Hasmon head of a priestly family. His five sons led by Judas Maccabeus then launched a guerrilla campaign against Seleucid garrisons and their supporters. By 164 BCE they were able to occupy the Temple and purge it of its sacrileges. This event is celebrated today as the feast of Hanukkah. In 162 Antiochus turned on Menelaus and had him executed. The Hasmonaean family responded by signing and alliance with Rome and were accepted as the rulers of an independent state. In 152 Jonathan was recognized as the high priest an office the Hasmonaeans were to hold for the next one hundred and fifteen years. Judah became independent after 440 years of foreign rule. In this narrow enclave of orthodox Judaism it was difficult almost impossible for moderates to speak out without risking an attack from religious extremists whose strength was in atavism and superstition drawn from the remote past of taboo and brutal interventions from Yahweh. This mob became an important part of the Jerusalem scene making not only the city but the whole country extremely difficult to govern. In their battle against Greek culture pious Jews began to develop a strictly religious method of education where all Jewish boys were taught the Torah and nothing else, rejectinany form of knooutside the Law including their own history. Two thousand years later Jewish children are still denied knowledge of their rich and remarkable history in exchange for memorizing ancient, useless incantations and teaching them fairy tales instead. The Sadducees, descendants of the high priest Zadok, dominated the Temple. They insisted that all genuine laws must be written and unchanged. In addition they followed the Book of Decrees that laid down a system of punishments. Who was to be stoned, burned, beheaded or strangled. They formed a committee of elders the Sanhedrin to discharge religious and legal duties. The hereditary high priest performed the functions of a secular ruler.

Simon was the last of the Maccabaean brothers. He was murdered by the Ptolemies along with two of his sons. The third, John Hircanus, reigned between 134 and 104 BCE. He issued his own coins as high priest. His son Alexander Jannaeus (103-76) called himself Jonathan the King. Soon all the problems of earlier monarchy quickly revived. The Hasmonaeans started out as the avengers of martyrs but ended up as oppressors themselves. John Hyrcanus believed in the fundamentalist writings stating that it was Yahweh's own will to restore the Davidic kingdom. In addition he insisted that it was himself who was destined to go about it. With no regards to history he accepted the orthodox notion that the whole of Palestine was the divine inheritance of the Jews and it was his duty to conquer it. He hired an army of mercenaries and set about to murder his neighbors. He trampled Samaria and razed their temple on Mount Gerizim then demolished the city itself. Next he pillaged and burned the Greek city of Scythopolis and had the unprotected residents massacred whose only crime was that they were Greek speaking. He conquered the twin cities of Adora and Marissa in the province of Idumaea and forcibly converted the residents to Judaism. His son Alexander Jannaeus invaded the territory of the Decapolis a league of ten Greek speaking cities by the Jordan. The Jewish nation thus vastly and rapidly expanded in terms of territory into Galilee and Syria west to the sea south and east to the desert. Doing so, a large non Jewish population was absorbed consisting of mostly pagans even savages. According to Jewish tradition John Hircanus had high reputation to govern the nation and was honored as high priest as well but his son Alexander Jannaeus turned into a monster and a despot. During the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles he refused to perform the libation ceremony and pious Jews pelted him with lemons. He flew in a rage and ordered six thousand of them killed. According to Josephus the civil war following the revolt of the rigorists lasted six years and cost fifty thousand lives.

Jesus is a Greek name it is Joshua in Aramaic. According to the Greek New Testament his father's name was Joses and his mother's Maria both Greek names (Joseph and Miriam in Aramaic). Joses died when Jesus was baptized in the year 28. Two of his brothers Judah and Simon had Aramean names two other James and Joses had not (Jacob and Joseph in Aramean). Jesus was closest to the Pharisees with Baptist and Essene ties. He was a Hakim or pious Jew working for holiness to make it general. He considered other fractions false Pharisees the enemies of true Judaism and sided with those opposing the Temple cult that he saw as an obstacle concentrated on a man made structure run by hereditary hierarchies depending on earthly wealth to sustain it. He regarded the Temple as the source of evil and predicted its destruction. On the issue of the Law, Shammai the Elder took the rigorist view, stating that only the written Pentateuch was to be considered valid siding with the Sadducees. Opposing him was Hillel the Elder a Pharisee who came from Babylon and brought with him a human and more universalist interpretation of the Torah. The Hakkaim and Jesus with them accepted Hillel's view. According to Shammai unless one took the Torah in exact detail it became meaningless. Hillel believed that if you got the spirit right the detail took care of itself. Jesus in his teachings seem to have sided with Hillel. His theology presented a clear perspective of death judgment and afterlife following Isaiah, Enoch, the Essenes and John the Baptist. He offered his ideas to the pious Jews as well as to the am ha-arez, the Samaritans, even the Gentiles. But Jesus offered two doctrines. One for the masses and a different one to his immediate circle of followers. It was for them he elaborated in detail to explain what will happen to him as a person while alive and in death and established his claim to be the Messiah. He was adamant that every man including the poor the ignorant even the sinner can have a direct relationship with God. His attitude toward the Temple and the fact that he presented his teachings in Jerusalem pushed his opposition too far. While false teachers were normally banished to some remote area his silence infuriated his enemies who sent him to the Pilate as a state criminal for punishment and hopefully execution. The proceedings however as described in the Scriptures were so irregular that it is doubtful that a Roman official would even consider such accusations or impose capital punishment for such obviously concocted even silly charges. In addition the assertion that the Sanhedrin was not allowed to impose capital punishment is a blatant falsification of the truth. With the exception of Christian sources there is no reference ever found to account for Jesus. Even the Gospels are extremely vague on the subject. Only Matthew and Mark say anything about his origins and birth both flagrantly at odds with each other on several subjects. Were his visitors at the manger shepherds or kings? Was he a carpenter or a king? Did he come from Nazareth or was it Bethlehem? Was Jesus a meek lamb like individual or a powerful and majestic sovereign? Was he crucified on the Passover or on the day after? Why do the four apostles give three different versions of his last words on the cross? Often when history is evoked it is sheer embarrassment. Luke 2:2 for instance quotes Quirinius as the governor of Syria in the days of Caesar Augustus when in fact Quirinius was a Roman God whose shrine was located on one of the seven hills surrounding Rome. From the works of Josephus we know of a senator named Publius Sulpicius Quirinius who was sent to Syria by Augustus to liquidate the assets of the deposed Archelaus.

The Great Revolt of 66 was forced upon the Jews just like many other terrifying events in their history by a few religious maniacs. This time there was even a survey conducted in the countryside to find out how farmers and ordinary workers felt about such possibility. It was vigorously and overwhelmingly opposed by all save a vocal and ferocious rigorist minority that lived in a dream world believing that Yahweh can order up assorted miracles for the Jews. When the crunch came however the innocents put up a heroic if futile resistance on the rigorists' behalf which was doomed to failure from the beginning. Great powers of antiquity as well as modern times always relied on certain elements seldom a majority to help govern occupied territories, collect taxes and in general do the dirty work. In Persian times the returning Jews were given free hand, and the promise of Persian armor if needed, to abuse the native residents of Judah and impose their rule over them. At the beginning of their occupation the Romans supported and assisted the Jews to oppose the Greeks and allowed them to expand and prosper along with their growing empire. After the death of Nero onwards however, relations between the Jews and Rome began to deteriorate. The Romans believed that they provided fair leadership, peaceful and secure working conditions for the general population and reacted decisively against religious splinter groups harassing them as well as inciting their neighbors. They were also concerned and further disturbed by the rigorist notion that those who came forth from Judea should possess the world. Eventually the Romans began to relmore andmore on the Greeks to assist them to govern Palestine. The Greek merchants who constituted the elite also became tax collectors, civil servants and many pursued military carriers under Roman leadership. The Greeks held strongly universalist views the rigorists did not. Furthermore when the Macabees crushed all reforms and returned to strict orthodoxy the rigorists began drifting more and more toward violence. By the time the conflict filtered down to the common people it was the ordinary Jews with universalist views who were caught up in the controversy and suffered most as a consequence.

In the year 66 following a lawsuit won by the Greeks of Caesarea the Jewish quarter was attacked by a Greek mob. The Roman garrison did not interfere. At the same time in Jerusalem the Roman procurator, a Greek by the name of Gessius Florus, decided to extract money from the Temple treasury to cover tax arrears. In response a Jewish mob of radical nationalists who identified the Jewish middle and upper classes with the Greeks attacked and killed the members of the Roman garrison and burned the Temple archives to destroy all records of debts. Following the massacre in Jerusalem, Cestius Gallus the Roman legate in Syria assembled a large force and marched on the city. Confronted with heavy opposition he ordered a retreat that turned into a rout. Rome took charge and sent Titus Flavius Vespasian to lead four legions against Judea. On the way to Jerusalem Vespasian wiped out all military opposition along the coast and the countryside when he was proclaimed emperor and returned to Rome. His twenty nine year old son Titus took over and completed the siege and the capture of Jerusalem. After the withdrawal of Gallus, Eleazar ben Ananias, a senior priest was sent to Galilee with two other priests to prepare the population for the conflict. He found most people opposed to war. The farmers hated the ultra Jewish nationalists. They didn't like the Romans either but were against getting involved in fighting a loosing battle with them. According to Josephus the farmers wouldn't join up voluntarily and when conscripted they deserted as soon as they had a chance. Josephus, familiar with the awesome strength of the Roman military, saw the futility of attempting to fight them and retired on Jopata. After a token resistance he surrendered to Vespasian. Josephus insists correctly that the resistance of Jerusalem was not only utterly hopeless from the beginning but it was also unconscionable. The Romans had sixty thousand men and the best equipment against 25000 Jews most of them simple citizens and refugees unwilling hostages of the militants and extremists led by Eleazar ben Simon, Simon de Giora and his Sicarii and the Idumeans under John of Giscala. The Romans stormed the Antonia then took the Temple and burned it to the ground. A month later Herod's citadel fell. The people were massacred or sold as slaves others died in the arenas of Caesaria, Antioch and Rome.

The last fortress to fell was Masada. This spectacular 1300 feet high rock on the edge of the desert was turned into a fort by Herod the Great between 37 and 31 BCE. Later in his life he used it as a summer palace. In Roman times it became a show place for visitors. In 66 it was besieged by ultra orthodox militant Jews led by a man named Menahem son of the zealot founder Judah the Galilean. The Roman garrison, not more than an honor guard, surrendered their arms under the promise of safe passage. The promise was not kept and they were murdered by the zealots. Thus a situation was created shedding light to the ferocity and persistence of the later Roman counterattack. The Romans sent general Flavius Silva and the entire tenth legion with auxiliaries and countless Jewish prisoners as laborers to defeat less than a thousand insurgents and refugees now led by Eleazar son of Menahem who was killed during one of his many power struggles in Jerusalem. On the end Eleazar had the defenders, who contemplated surrender, killed by a handful of zealots who eventually committed suicide. Indubitably these were ultra religious people profoundly influenced by archaic tribal lore and the terrible power of ancient Jewish literature. After the fall of Jerusalem anti Jewish sentiment continued to spread. A general desperation set in among all Jews helped along by a wave of government hostility under emperor Hadrian who came to dislike oriental religions and was particularly incensed by the Jewish custom of circumcision. He saw the custom as an arbitrary and barbaric mutilation of infants, a form of human sacrifice, and forbade it's practice on pain of death. He supported pro Greek policies and set out to create a pagan city on the ruins of Jerusalem where he planned to build a temple dedicated to Jupiter on the Temple Mount. After spending four years in the East, Hadrian returned to Rome in 132 when the militant elements, under Simon bar Kokhba or Kosiva, struck and sustained an open revolt for the next three years.

The Romans brought in twelve legions isolating and starving out the resistors. The rebels occupied the ruins of Jerusalem for a while and finally retreated to the town of Betar in the Judean hills. It fell to the Romans in 135. By the mid second century the Jews ceased to write history abandoned speculative philosophy and all its traditional forms like wisdom, poetry, psalmody, allegory, historical novellae and apocalyptic writings for one solitary form of literary work: endless commentaries on religious law. As this task was continued for centuries the Jews became oblivious of their rich past new intellectual trends even the very existence of an outside world. The enlightened diaspora Jews, specially the intellectuals living in urban centers, became the main source for Christian converts. Large segments of Jews, even the veterans who fought the Romans before, did not condone the strategy of fundamentalist extremists that culminated in the destruction of Jerusalem and the final defeat in 133. They were followers of Jonathan ben Zakkai, deputy head of the Sanhedrin, who was smuggled out of besieged Jerusalem in a coffin. He opposed the revolt and supported the idea that faith was served better without the corruption of the state. He received permission from the Romans to set up a center to regulate the Jewish religion at Jabneh (Jamnia) west of Jerusalem. There the state and the Sanhedrin were ceremonially buried and in their place a synod of rabbis was set up who met in a vineyard. The rabbi and the synagogue became the institutions of Judaism. The Academy at Jabneh made calculations for the calendar and completed the canonization of the Bible. There it established community prayers, the rules of fasting and pilgrimage. This new spirit was in marked opposition to the violent and self destructive actions of the zealots and nationalists who dragged the Jewish nation to its destruction and dispersal. 'Do not hurry to tear down the altars of gentiles' - the rabbi Jonathan was remembered as saying - 'least you be forced to rebuild them with your own hands'. And again: 'If you are planting trees and someone tells you that the Messiah has come put the sapling in first, then go and welcome the Messiah'. Before the year 70 there were many joint Jewish-Christian places of worship where ideas were exchanged. These places often displayed Jewish heritage and Christian enlightenment in peaceful harmony.

Following the eighties the Twelfth Benediction known as Birkat-ha-Minim, originally directed against the Sadducees, was recast to include Jewish followers of Jesus urging the others to have them turned out of the synagogues. By 132 Christians and Jews were seen as enemies. Roman authorities were often petitioned by either side to give them separate status but the withdrawal to basic Judaism was not all encompassing. Dura Europos was once a Roman frontier town on the banks of the Euphrates river in northern Syria. A synagogue dating from the year 245 was laid bare by archeologists during excavations in the area. Astonishingly the walls were to be coveredwith sacred murals illustrating Biblical stories. Some thirty painted panels depict the messianic theme of the Return, the Restoration and Salvation. There are paintings of the patriarchs, Moses and the Exodus, the Loss of the Ark and it's return and David and Esther. An other place of worship was discovered at Tiberias on Lake Galilee where a fourth century synagogue was found decorated with human and animal images among the zodiac signs laid out on the mosaic floor. While scholars are theorizing about these unusual finds it is now documented that many Jewish-Christian communities of the Diaspora had carried their traditions in a different manner to suit their advanced culture. Even illustrated Bibles have been found to have existed in the second and third centuries indicating that Christian art was actually based on Jewish-Christian originals. An important development in the history of the Jews took place when they began to differ from the original primitive and violent religion by preferring peace to conflict. After 135 Judaism renounced every kind of violence, even the righteous kind, as it implicitly denounced the state and put its trust in peace. At Jabneh the scholar took over from the warrior. They saw that even heroic deeds were futile since they grew out of atrocities perpetrated by primitive and violent zealots, ending in tragic results, destroying the innocent who happened to be around. The Jewish sages in Europe were in general opposed to a new country in Palestine even to visit Erez Israel. As Zadok of Lubin wrote toward the end of the eighteenth century: Jerusalem is the loftiest of summits to which the hearts of Israel are directed ... But I fear lest my departure and ascent to Jerusalem might seem like a gesture of approval of Zionist activity. I hope unto the Lord, my soul hopes for His word, the day of Redemption will come. I wait and remain watchful for the feet of His anointed. Yet though three hundred scourges of iron afflict me, I will not move from my place. I will not ascend for the sake of Zionists. The latest Holocaust brought the lost fortress back in focus replacing Jabneh again with condoning violence. Contemporary Israel is divided on the issue. The rigorists, who are exempted from combat duty, are enthusiastic supporters. The other side that is expected to work hard then grab their weapons and risk their lives ever so often are not so sure. The hunting picture of the Ayatollah handing out copies of the Koran to the tens of thousands of faithful marching to their deaths is repeated in Jerusalem as rabbis hand out copies of the Torah to young Jewish soldiers. As time passed after Jabneh, concentrating on external peace and internal harmony became stronger. Without the protection of the state the Torah became a great cohesive force. Fierce arguments remained but were tempered by the strict rule of co-census sustained by the majority. Declared the Misnah: Three things sustain the existence of the world justice, truth and peace. Scholars used the Law to promote peace between husband and wife, parents and children, communities and the country. The prayer for peace was said by pious Jews three times a day.

Christianity with its central authority beginning with Paul found itself in great difficulties over dogma. Within the first three centuries of its existence the belief in one God was modified by declaring Jesus a deity, albeit with blood ties to Yahweh, leading to the Holy Trinity, further complicated by the Virgin birth theory the introduction of saints, the glorification of death and martyrdom. By the eleventh century East and West split up followed by the Reformation in 1517 causing the Roman arm to splinter. Further divisions produced countless dogmatic theologies somewhat different from their predecessors but all retaining most of the ancient, outdated, man made tenets. The Jews have escaped the problems of Christianity mainly because they are the least interested in death and are concentrating on life instead. The Torah was transformed into a timeless guide to every aspect of Jewish conduct and became the essence of the Jewish faith which is knowing God through the Law. It was regarded as the summation of Judaism, giving it the much needed strength to survive in a hostile world. The Torah is a finely polished religious document. On the other hand, the Law it is build around is cruel, archaic, outdated and impossible to honor in its full extent. Yahweh is still a tribal god created to handle Jewish affairs exclusively. Jewish bloodline through one's mother is still the major requisit for embracing Yahweh discouraging new members from joining. The number of practicing Jews have remained constant through the centuries as a steady flow of free thinking individuals, who were questioning its outdated tenets, continuously deplete their ranks. In 611 the Persians attacked Palestine and in 615, with the assistance of the Jewish residents, they conquered Jerusalem.