Utterly Tragic history between Old and New Testaments

 

The piece of Jewish history we are missing from the Bible (between Testaments) is like a horror show of Jews gaining then wasting independence with immoral rulers.  It began with Greeks overthrowing the Persians who ruled Palestine. In 323BC Alexander the Great died and the empire was divided between 4 generals.  Seluceus got Syria and Palestine and his dynasty ruled Israel for 160 years. But things went poorly. Judas Maccabeus and sons, Jonathan and Simon,led a guerilla revolt against Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Antiochus had a statue of Zeus built over the altar in the Temple at Jerusalem,164 BC, then offered a pig to Zeus as sacrifice. The “Abomination of Desecration” was too much for the Jews who fought a war led by the Maccabe brothers and won independence.  Simon succeeded brother Jonathan and was declared High Priest, National Governor, and Commander of the Army. Maccabean heirs=Hasmonean Dynasty.  But Simon was assassinated by the Ptolemies of Egypt in 134 BC. 

            John Hyrcanus, Simon’s son, came to power.  “Hyrcanus” indicates his close ties to Greek culture (Hellenization), and he hired a mercenary army to battle the Seleucids, whose Syrian empire was breaking up.  The Samaritans opposed Hyrcanus. They were a group composed of Jews left behind from the Babylonian Captivity 400 years before who had intermarried with Arabs and altered their faith into a pseudo-Judaism. Their language, Aramaic, became dominant and hence became the tongue of Jesus.  Hyrcanus laid siege to Samaria, destroyed their temple atop Mt. Gerizim, but he didn’t try to gather them back into the Jewish traditions.  He then conquered Edom and forced  the Idumeans (as Edomites are called) to convert, at least in name only.  Conquest, not faith, was the motivation for Hyrcanus.

            Aristobulus I succeeded Hyrcanus and ruled for just one year.  More Greek than anything, he wore a crown and took the title of ‘king’ rather than ‘ethnarch’ as his forebears had done. His brother Alexander Janneus then became king and married his widow, Salome Alexandra. He was a ruthless ruler who even killed another brother.  In a 6-year war with the Pharisees (sect which disagreed with the priestly succession), he killed 50,000 Jews. He fiercely defeated the Ptolemaic Empire of Egypt, the Nabateans (Arab traders south of Dead Sea), the Decapolis and Transjordan (northern Greek-settled areas).  But he was so sacrilegious as High Priest, his own people rebelled.  He refused to perform the water libation ceremony properly, pouring the water on his feet instead of the altar.  The crowd gasped and began to pelt him with citrons. Continued criticism led him to kill 6000 people in Jerusalem. An insurrection resulted with Seleucid help.  After narrowly defeating the dissidents, he had 800 Pharisees crucified.  On his deathbed, 76 BC, he gave power to his wife Salome, who was evidently the power behind the thrones.

            Salome had Pharisee relatives whom she had protected. She brought about peace in the realm by bringing back the Sanhedrin as a supreme court, stocking it with Pharisees. She stripped leadership posts from the Hellenized Sadducees who rivaled them.  And she fortified various cities so that Cleopatra and the Ptolemeies thought twice about attack.  But she ruled for only 9 years and her son Aristobulus II was conspiring to overthrow her the day she died. Thereupon a civil war broke out between Aristobulus II and his brother Hyrcanus II.  Both brothers rejected most Jewish traditions and were essentially Greeks with wives to match. First Hyrcanus, then Aristobulus was defeated, eventually leading to a siege of the Temple Mount which was totally trashed. Finally,63 BC, the Roman General Pompey moved in with Roman legions and a puppet Governor, Herod the Great, to take control of Palestine. Herod emplaced a massive Roman tax system that, over time drove many farmers bankrupt.  By his death in 4 BC, Herod personally owned half the land in Palestine, taken over from destitute farmers.   The Hasmonean dynasty had become a farce of fathers killing sons and wives in power grabs, religious leaders leading Hellenized lives.  That is the world to which Jesus was born.