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mar 11 2011: lecture 17.2 & 18

I don’t understand any of this 20th century Jerusalem stuff… all this fighting over land, partitioning land, etc… doesn’t make sense to me. Anyway…

We finished the lecture on 20th century Jerusalem. From the War of Independence, Israel actually got more land than they actually would have from the Peel Plan (Jordanians got the east, Israelis got the west, Palestinians got nothing). The Arabs were hoping that they would be able to gain control over everything. The Six-Day War in 1967 went on, but I’m not sure what happened or what it means, but apparently, Palestinians were upset about the whole land/state situation. They denied the Peel Plan because they were hoping to be able to take all the land they wanted, but after the UN partitioned the land, the Palestinians got no land because it was divided by the Jordanians and Israelis. The six-day war united Jerusalem, let to the Intifada or Palestinian uprising in 1987 and then Palestine’s declaration of independence in 1988, then the Declaration of Principles—The Oslo Accords, which were signed by Israel and PLO in 1993. Apparently there were a lot of terrorism in Jerusalem.

Today, in the 21st century, there is still conflict between the different people in Jerusalem and the surrounding area (between Israelis and Palestinians?). After the September 11 attack, there was more tension and Palestine attacked Israel… Although I did not understand the past two lectures, what I got from it is that in the recent few hundred years, there has been unrest between the people in Jerusalem and the surrounding places because they are fighting over land. There is still unrest. They built a tall wall to divide the lands and prevent people they don’t want from entering their land. Professor Cargill talked about how he got knocked over by a rocket and got searched because of this issue over land. I think I have trouble understanding this stuff because it just sounds ridiculous. Plus, I don’t get politics and stuff. But, I hope they find a peaceful solution soon so everyone can be happy.

mar 8 2011: lecture 16.2+17.1

After Saladin gave the it to the Jews, the Western Wall began becoming something similar to what the Temple was in terms of its holiness and stuff. Saladin also gave the Jews the Maghribi Quater.

Around 1141CE, Judah Halevi, from Spain, promoted aliyah (immigration to Jerusalem) toward Jews so that Shekhinah (or the presence of God) could be in Jerusalem again. He believe that Jerusalem was where heaven’s gates were (axis mundi…). Maimondies, who was a Jewish philosopher, believed that Jerusalem was the center for Jewish people and believed that the Haram should be treated as if the Temple was still around. He believed that Jerusalem was the focal point of Jewish people. Therefore, during this time, Zionism, or the notion that Jewish people should go to Jerusalem and settle there because it was their promise land from God. European Jews began immigrating to Jerusalem as well (there is a windmill representing this). Census records show the impact of the rise of Zionism as the Jewish population in Jerusalem increased dramatically.

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In the 1800s, Secular Zionism arose. People began buying land in jerusalem from Palestinians to move in and set Jerusalem as a homeland for Jews. However, religious Jewish people saw this as impious because they believed that if you wanted to be Jewish, simply living in Jerusalem is not enough because you must follow the laws and live the lifestyle to truly be Jewish; just living in Jerusalem does not make you Jewish. Theodore Herzl believed that it is not Jerusalem, the city itself, that is important, but that having a Jewish state is what matters (Zionist state in Uganda?). He was called the Messiah the Son of David standing before us” (Messiah=anointed person who brings people together and leads Israel). Zionists therefore built a Jewish homeland in Tel Aviv. Anti-Semitism also increased with the rise of Nationalism in different European countries. Jews fleed from Russia and Eastern Europe to Palestine. The number of Jews therefore increased and conflicts with Arabs in Palestine.

World War I changed things. The Ottomans, Germany, France, and Britain joined together. Jerusalem became the headquarters for VIII Turkish Corps. The Armenians were heavily persecuted in Turkey; they flee to Jerusalem. At the end of the war, General Allenby takes Palestine (1917). The UK and France divided the Ottoman empire in 1916 (French: Turkey, northern Iraq, Lebanon, Syria; UK: Palestine, Jordan, southern Iraq). Jerusalem had some French influence, but mostly British. On November 2, 1917, the British (Balfour) wrote to Lord Rothschild (he was Jewish) that they will support Jewish Zionism and Jewish people forming a state in Palestine as long as non-Jewish people were left alone/their rights (civil and religious) were preserved. However, this was confusing to both the Jewish people and the Palestinians. The Jewish people interpreted it as Britain saying that they’re going to allow them to have their own state, and so did the Palestinians (finally have their own state). Winston Churchill wrote the British White Paper (1922) to try to clarify. In 1922, the British partitioned the west of Jordan for Jewish settlement and the east of Jordan was given to Abdullah I to rule (Transjordan). Conflict between Jews and Arabs emerged (getting angry that Jews were moving in), so the international community proposed the Peel Commission in 1937, which was the partitioning of Palestine (sectioning off Palestine into two states, but Jerusalem being an “international city” (since it is God’s city). This was approved by the UN in 1947. The Jewish people saw it as a “bare minimum” and agreed to it, but the Arabs were not because they felt that there was an unfair balance between land and population. Therefore, civil war broke out. The Jews were upset about the British occupying Jerusalem, so they had conflict too. The British left because they were being attacked by Jews and because the plan was rejected by the Arabs. They couldn’t solve the problem. After they left, there was war in 1948 between the Arabs and Jews. The UN created a truce between the two people in July 1948 with the Green Line. The result of the War of “Independence” in 1948 was Israel got a state and Jordan got a state. Jerusalem becomes divided also (Jordanian in East and Israeli in the West). Israel defiled the International Community and made their half of Jerusalem into their capital, and the Jordanians said that Jerusalem was their second capital.

Israelies and Jordanians try to make peace because they wanted money from tourism.

mar 3 2011: lecture 14.2+16.1

We finished the lecture on Islamic Jerusalem. Solomon’s Stables were vaults that were under the southeast corner of the Temple Mount, and they were only attributed to Solomon and had nothing to do with him.

In 750 CE, the Abbasids (who ruled out of Baghdad) took over Jerusalem, and they tried to clear any memory of the Umayyids, like their palaces. Al-Ma-mun tried to take credit for the building of the Dome of the Rock, but he was stupid because the date was like 100 years before. He continued polemic against Christian beliefs (like Jesus being God, the idea of the Trinity, etc. because they saw it as polytheism and their belief was that only God can be God). In 965 CE, things got a bit more hostile between the Muslims and Christians after Muhammad al-Sanhaji, who was the governor of Jerusalem at the time, killed John, the Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem.

After the Abbasids were the Fatimids in 969-1099 CE, who ruled out of Egypt. They were Ishma Illi (spelling?), not Sunni Muslims, a small minority. Every change in new ruler affected the Christians and Jews; one would say, yeah, you can worship your religion and the next would say, no, you have to be Muslim. The Fatimids, however, appointed Jewish and Christian governors. In 969-1029CE was the War of Sixty Years where the Byzantine/Christians took Jerusalem again. In 1009CE, “mad” Caliph al-Hakim destroyed Jewish and Christian prayer houses, like the Holy Sepulcher, because he was Muslim (very intolerant).

In 1033CE, there was an earthquake (Jerusalem is on an earthquake fault) damaged the Dome of the Rock (restored in 1034-1035CE) and the city walls (rebuilt in 1034-1064CE). In 1070-1098CE, the Seljuqs come into Jerusalem and wreaked havoc. In 1098CE, damaged Jerusalem to take the city back from the Seljuqs. Muslims were fighting Muslims, which weakened themselves and allowed the Byzantines take back Jerusalem.

Insert Crusader Jerusalem lecture here.

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The second part of lecture was on Mamluk (1250-1516CE) and Ottoman (1517-1918CE) Jerusalem (after the Crusader period).

Mamluk Jerusalem was more of a movement than a dynasty. Jerusalem was still under Islamic power at this time. Mamluks were soldiers that were slaves who converted to Islam. Jerusalem became increasingly seen as a place of religious significance rather than a place of power, so Jerusalem became a religious center (Ziyara—visit to Jerusalem in contrast to Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca), not a political center. During this Mamluk movement, the development of the Haram or building up of the Jerusalem Temple mount grew. Islamic schools called madrasas grew. They had their own style of architecture and used alternating colored stones and the muqarnas style. The Ghawanima Minaret was built around 1298CE on the northwestern corner of the Haram (minarets were where they sang to signal people to pray). Things were added and in the Islamic quarter. Even though Jerusalem was still under Islamic rule during this time, the Jewish quarter also grew. Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (aka Nachmanides) from Spain incorporatic mysticism to Judaism. He made an aliyah (or moved to Jerusalem) in 1267CE. There was no more Temple for the Jewish people to worship in, but it was okay because of this new mystical, spiritual form of Judaism. Nachmanides said that the temple is spiritualized and that it is a bath to God, not a physical structure.

Jerusalem was capitulated to the Ottomans in 1516. The Ottoman era was very long (1516-1918). This was when Jerusalem was finally under a strong, centralized government, especially with Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled from 1520-1566). Mohammed Ali from Egypt took Jerusalem in 1831, but the Ottomans took it back in 1840. In 1869, the Suez Canal was built.

Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent did a lot of renovating in Jerusalem to remake the city as a powerful center of Islam. He rebuilt the city walls (1536-1541), refurbished the Haram with Syrian tiles on the exterior of the Dome of the Rock… During this time, a lot of Jewish people who were in refuge came back to Jerusalem. They were allowed to practice their own religion, and there was no special Jewish taxes. Also, while Islamic sites were being restored and renovated, so were Christian cites, like the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Suleiman gave the Western Wall to the Jewish people so they can pray there. It is said that the Shekhinah, or the presence of God, went to the Western Wall after the destruction of the Temple and that the heaven’s gates are directly above it.

mar 1 2011: lecture 15

Today we had a guest lecturer talk about Crusader Jerusalem. The Crusader period in Jerusalem only lasted about 100 years. There were a few factors that led Jerusalem under Christian rule again in 1099. One of the factors was politics, such as the Roman empire emerging in eastern Europe. In 1054, the Great Skism split Christianity (eastern orthodox and Roman Catholic). One of the other factors was religion with a “holy war” mentality; there were many religious persecutions.

Two important sources used to help reconstruct the Crusader period is the from William of Tire, who gave a Christian perspective on the crusade, and from Ibn al-Qalanisi in the Damascus chronicle, which was from a Muslim’s perspective.

On November 27, 1095, Pope Urban II gave an important speech in France, asking France to go east and help them (Byzantines) against the Muslims and to free Jerusalem on the way. This caused a lot of people to go help. Poor people who went to Jerusalem by foot killed people on the way to get food and such. Some helped the crusade by preaching the crusade and trying to get money to be able to get materials needed for the crusade.

The first crusade was made up of “waves” of people going to Jerusalem. The Peasant’s Crusade. Peasants were very gung-ho about going on a crusade because they had nothing to lose, so they set off right away, but they ran into Turks on the way and got slaughtered. Nobles waited a few years to save money, forces, and materials before heading out and did not head out until 1097-1098. The crusaders came into Jerusalem on its weak side, the north. 1099, it was back to Crusader/Christian Jerusalem by Godfrey of Boullion, who did not want to be king, so he gave rule to religious leaders in 1100. There emerged four Latin kingdoms in result: Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, and Jerusalem. Jerusalem was the one “in charge” of the principalities. Crusader Jerusalem became partitioned off into different quarters: Patriarch’s quarter (where religious stuff were centered because the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was here), Templar’s quarter (knights, people who fought; based upon Temple Mount), Syrian quarter, and Amenian quarter (still have this quarter today?). During the Crusader period, they made slight changes/added “monuments” such as adding a cross to the top of the Dome of the Rock (although we can’t see it today), turned the al-Asqa Mosque into a housing place for knights, built churches (~42) like St. Anne’s Church, etc. The Knights Templar was created in 1118 CE to protect people on their pilgrims to Jerusalem. The second crusade was led by St. Bernard (1146). Then in 1187, Salah ad-Din took Jerusalem easily back into Muslim control after the battle at Horns of Hattin (near Galilee). He was able to unify the Muslim factions and then take out the crusaders. Salah ad-Din gave Christians “safe passage” because they surrendered Jerusalem.

feb 24 2011: lecture 14.1

We talked about Islamic Jerusalem (638-1099 CE).

The Sasanians took Jerusalem from the Byzantines in 614 CE. They let the Jews come back to Jerusalem. However, in 628 CE, under Heraclius, the Byzantines took Jerusalem back and continued the Hadrian policies against the Jews because Jerusalem was a Christian city and they did not want Jews in their city. Here is some background on Islam: Muhammad was like their Jesus. After he died, he had no heir, so caliphs were made. There was Ali, who was Muhammad’s son-in-law, and Mu’awiya. People who supported Ali became the Shi’atu Ali, which was a caliphate that was kinship-based. People who supported Mu’awiya became the People of Tradition (Sunna) and the Community, which was tradition-based. Today, the Shi’ites (from Ali and about 10-15% of Islams today) and the Sunnis (from Mu’awiya and about 75-80% of Islams today) are the two dominant groups of Islam. Anyway, in 638 CE, Caliph Umar, an Islam, took Jerusalem and ended the Byzantine era. When he took Jerusalem, he promised the Christians that he wouldn’t allow Jews in Jerusalem, but later, he let them come back.

Jerusalem is an important city to Islamic tradition because it was the quibla or where Muslims prayed to (the direction), specifically the Haram Sharif, before they moved their direction to Mecca after Muhammad had a revelation and turned to pray to Mecca instead. More specifically, when they pray to Mecca, they are praying towards the Kaaba, which is a curtain-covered rectangular building that is made from granite from the hills of Mecca. On the eastern corner of the Kaaba is a black stone that is said to have been around since the time of Adam and Eve. It was supposedly a meteorite that fell from the sky and served as a connection between Heaven and earth (Eliade stuff again). This became the new center for Islam and is the most sacred place in the religion. Before Islam, the Kaaba was actually a pagan shrine because it contained idols and statues in it. However, it is important to note that Muslims don’t worship the Kaaba, but they simply pray to it and it is the focal point of prayer. The five “pillars” or important “things” of Islam is shahada (testimony/witness; recite “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger”), salat (prayer; pray five times a day toward Mecca), Zakat (giving to the poor/needy), sawm (fasting during Ramadan month), haaj (pilgrimage to Mecca, which is the goal of every Muslim to do at least once). Before going on their haaj, Muslims paint their doors to signify that they are on their pilgrimage.

Islamic Jerusalem included the Umayyad Dynasty (638-750 CE) and was ruled out of Damascus. During this time, Abd al-Malik built the Dome of the Rock (691 CE) to try to get Jerusalem to be an important place of prayer again and to get people to take pilgrimages to Jerusalem instead of Mecca, so he built an alternative shrine. The Al-Asqa Mosque was also built when Caliph Walid, who was Abd al-Malik’s son, ruled (705-715 CE).

The Dome of the Rock was originally called the Mosque of Omar (but it is not a mosque; it is a shrine). Abd al-Malik built it (finished) in 691 CE (began in 687 CE). Under Ad al-Malik, the Dome of the Chain was also built, which is the small dome next to the Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Rock is an octagonal building that has a lot of geometric patters. It has a Christian style, and that is because Abd al-Malik hired Christian architects to build it (the style is similar to the Martyria, which is a Christian/Byzantine church… with Christian arcitectural traditions). On the Dome of the Rock, there are also calligraphy in addition to the mosaics. On it is an inscription that talks about a thought that is anti-Christian; Muslims don’t believe that Jesus was God… They believe that only God is God. The Dome of the Rock holds many traditions such as the place where Abraham supposedly sacrificed his son (debated whether it was Ishmael or Isaac; Muslims believe it was Ishmael?), Muhammad’s stop on his Mi’raj (Night Journey, ascension to heaven; chapter 17 in Qur’an; farthest mosque=Jerusalem; Al-Aqsa mosgue supposedly this place) where he got there from riding an al-Buraq (winged horse thing with human head), and the place of final judgment (like court… thing with the chain; if person can’t hold chain, he is lying). The Dome of the Chain is where the final Judgement will happen. This place is an axis mundi.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is supposedly the “farthest mosque” where Muhammad rode the al-Buraq to. It was built by Caliph Walid around 705-715 CE.

feb 22 2011: lecture 13

We talked about the time after the Romans took Jerusalem, banned Jews from the city, and turned the city, essentially into a Christian city; called Byzantine Jerusalem (312-637 CE). This time was when the Jewish sect, Christianity, began becoming prominent, after Jesus lived. The people who believed in Jesus’ teachings were called “The Way” and then began referring themselves to “Christians.” When Jesus was around, he kept predicting the destruction of the temple, and this led to people beginning to have a more spiritual faith.  John 4:19-26 records Jesus telling a woman that they don’t need the temple to worship and that people need to worship spiritually. This was very different from traditional Jewish worship because it was dependent on the Temple in Jerusalem (like sacrificing at the Temple). However, this new idea of spiritual faith was good/convenient for the Jewish people because they were banned from Jerusalem by the Romans and their temple was destroyed. Jerusalem is an important city for Christians because it is, supposedly, where Jesus was crucified, buried, and resurrected.

In 285 CE, the Roman empire changed in how they ruled. Emperor Diocletian split the administration (Tetrarchy) into two sides—East and West—because the empire was growing so much and there became problems between the east and west. He was the emperor of the East and he made Maximian the “vice emperor” of Rome by making him emperor of the West. They both had “co-emperors” (Diocletian had Galerius and Maximian had Constantius). This didn’t work very well, especially when it was time for new rulers. Long story short, Constantine the Great (Constantius’s son) got rid of Tetrarchy and made himself the one Emperor of the Byzantine empire. The experimentation of the Tetrarchy allowed Constatine the Great to reach this power. He ruled from 312-337 CE. He is said to have used Christianity as a way of uniting the empire. In 313, he legalized Christianity with the Edict of Milan. During this time, different beliefs of Christianity began emerging. Some people believed that Jesus was a spirit and not human and that he was God who came down to earth. Others believed that Jesus was born human, but he lived such a righteous life that God made him divine. Others didn’t like that Jesus was a Jew. Etc. There were a lot of infighting between the different beliefs. The East and West were divided by different religious leaders and beliefs. Constantine tried creating standard beliefs, one orthodoxy (Council of Nicaea in 324 CE); birth of the idea of the Trinity (God, son, holy spirit; Jesus fully God and fully human). The western Christianity/Nicean Christianity won over the eastern Christianity (people who believed anything else called “no longer Christian”…burned at the stake, killed). Can be seen as “glorious period” of Christianity because what is “Christian” figured out and different ideas worked out to find one set of ideas, but can also be seen as destruction of Christianity because it is different from what Jesus taught. Constantine made his mother, Helena, as an Augustus. She had all these visions and things. She had the Church of the Holy Sepulcher be built where it was believed to be where Jesus was crucified and resurrected, and this replaced the Temple Mount as the center of Jerusalem (Jesus as centerpiece).

After Constantine the Great and Helena, Julian “the Apostate” (because he rejected Christianity and all the reforms Constantine made) ruled (361-363 CE). He wanted to rebuild the Jewish Temple. In 391, Theodosius makes Christianity the state religion… as opposed to Constantine who just legalized it. In 527-565 CE, Justinian expanded jerusalem and built the Nea/new Church (for St Mary—“mother of God”) and the Church of Holy Zion. Christianity being used as political tool?

There were Jewish pilgrimages (3 festivals during pre-destruction ear and the 9th of Ab during post-destruction). As the city was now Christian, there also emerged Christian Pilgrims such as the Empress Helena Augusta with the First Christian Pilgrimage (326 CE), Pilgrim of Bordeaux (333 CE), Egeria (381 CE), Gregory of Nyssa (338-395); benefits of going on pilgrimages promoted (spiritual faith to benefit/blessing of physically being in sacred space).

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was the new center of Jerusalem (as depicted on the Madaba mosaic map (6th century CE). It is where Adam is said to be buried, where the binding of Isaac occurred (tradition moved from Mt. Moriah, which was a Jewish tradition), where God came to earth as man…

feb 17 2011: lecture 12

Today we talked about the Jewish revolts after the Roman rule: The Great Revolt, or the first revolt (66-73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba Revolt, or the second revolt (132-135 CE).

An important person to note is Flavius Josephus, who was paid by the Romans to write the history of the Jews. With that, his works, The Jewish War and Antiquities of the Jews, are in a pro-Roman viewpoint, meaning that the Romans were given little blame for what happened. There was also Tacius who wrote Histories and believed that an apocalyptic messiah from David will come to rescue the Jews.

After Herod the Great died in 4 BCE, his three sons were given parts of land. Archelaus was appointed the ethnarch, or ruler of the people (people stopped using “king” after Herod), of Judea (he got Judea and Samaria), but he was an ineffective ruler and was exiled by Rome in 6 CE and replaced by direct rule. Herod Antipas was the tetrarch, “ruler of a quarter,” of Perea and Galilee (the administry of Jesus took place mostly in Galilee, so he was recorded/referenced a lot…) from 4 BCE to 39 CE and was exiled. His area was heavily populated with Jews, so he made sure not to offend their traditions and did things like not putting faces on their coins. Herod Philip (aka Philip II, Philip the techtrarc) ruled Iturea and Trachonitis (in the north, south of Demascus (spelling?) and ruled from 4 BCE to 34 CE when he died. His coins had his face/image on them, but his land was far away from Jewish populations, so it was cool (Side note: visit Dead Sea before it’s gone! We will be the last generation to have it). These lands and Herod’s sons were eventually replaced by Roman procurators—direct Roman rulers sent from Rome, such as Pontius Pilate (only Roman ruler mentioned in gospels), who presided over Jesus’ trial (and ordered the execution) and was governor from 26 to 36 or 37 CE. He was ineffective and provoked the Jews and was recalled to Rome. He put pagan symbols on coins (insensitive to the Jews). The Roman governers who were placed in Jerusalem were not very good—inexperienced and inept—so conflict grew within the different Jewish sects. People began believing in a apocalyptic, crazy messiah would come to save them (Jesus?). Law and order after each Roman governor began falling, and so in 66 CE, Jewish militants/terrorists/dagger men began stealthily stabbing Roman soldiers; open revolt. A way to assert authority and declare your independence is to have your own money, so the Jewish people began making their own coins.

The first revolt broke out in 66 CE with Mucianus, the Roman governor of Syria, taken down. The Romans put Vespian in charge of Galilee, Transjordan in 67 CE and then he becomes Emperor in 70 CE (he began the revolt against the Jews). Titus, his son, finishes the revolt and destroys the temple on the 9th of Ab or 70 CE (also, fall of Northern City). People fled and went to Masada (a big plateau thing). The temple was in ruins until Hadrian made it into a temple for the Roman god of Jupiter (135 CE). The destroyed temple brings about cognitive dissonance again. Vespasian implemented fiscus iudaicus, which was a tax for Jewish people. The temple was destroyed and Jewish people had to pay a special tax, so it made some people want to “stop” being Jewish or say that they are not so they don’t have to pay the tax. This gave rise to modified forms of Judaism (without temple, how do you practice being Jewish? Synagogues, Kosher traditions, etc.) Christianity is a Jewish sect that resulted from this. They had a coin that had an image of the defeat of the Jews by the Romans (ivdea capta, ivdaea devicta; Jerusalem depicted by a woman crying next to a tree).

The second revolt, the Bar-Kokhba revolt, began in 132 CE and ended in 135 CE (3-year revolt). It was named after Simon Bar-Kokhba (he changed his name to Bar-Kokhba, trying to establish himself as messianic guy). He couldn’t call himself the king or priest because he was from neither families, so he used the “loaded term” of nassi/prince. Like how coins were minted and used for propaganda in the first revolt, Bar-Kokhba also minted coins. However, he was poor so he overstriked coins. He put the temple on the coins because he knew that the temple was important and that in order to reassert himself as the messiah who was to come and overthrow Rome and reestablish the Jewish kingdom, he would need to promote the idea of taking back Jerusalem. After the revolt, Emperor Hadrian banned circumcision and even banned Jews from coming to Jerusalem. He changed the city into Aelia Capitolina (135-330 CE) (with temple to the god of Jupiter). This was the end of Jerusalem for a while. This stirred new Jewish traditions that did not rely on worshiping at the Temple, such as synagogues, or local meeting places. Jewish people weren’t supposed to worship God outside Jerusalem (Hezekiah, Josiah), but they were no longer allowed in Jerusalem, so the Jewish religion began becoming spiritualized with the growing use of synagogues. The use of synagogues makes the religion also become decentralized because there were synagogues everywhere. No more central high priesthood that controls everything—Rabbinic tradition. Also went from religion of sacrifice to religion of the law/book—the Torah—with prayer as sacrifice (pray toward Jerusalem). There were Torah shrines (box/arc with Torah in it) in the middle of the synagogues.

Jewish religion survives the destruction of Temple through these changes.

feb 15 2011: lecture 11

After the fall of the Hasmoneans in Jerusalem, the Romans came in with Antipater and then when he died, Herod eventually took over. Although unemployment was high under Herod’s time of ruling, there were construction job opportunities because Herod had many things built such as the Western Wall, temple mount, a palace, theater, drainage systems, a port (with the discovery of concrete that hardened under water), etc. Whether Herod was a good ruler for the Jews or whether he was a bad ruler is debated. The Bible describes him as a bad ruler because he was part of the people who were Judaized by the Hasmoneans and therefore was a “half-Jew.” He also worked for the Romans and collected taxes for them. However, he gave respect to Jewish traditions such as not putting faces on coins, letting the Jews choose their own High Priest, etc.

We also talked about Jesus. There is no archaeological evidence that Jesus existed, but scholars say that he probably did exist because there is evidence that people believed that he existed and was a prophet. Having no archaeological evidence for the existence of Jesus does not mean he did not exist, however. Jesus inspired a new branch of Judaism—Christianity. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was built on the spot where Jesus was supposedly buried and resurrected.

feb 10 2011: lecture 9 and 10

The Hellinistic Period of Jerusalem began in 333 BCE when Alexander the Great took over after defeating the Persians in the Battle if Issus. He dies in 323 BCE and then the kingdom became divided. Under the Ptolemies (from Egypt), Jerusalem was allowed to govern itself and was given the right to choose its own High Priest. Later under the Seleucids (from Syria), Hellenization was heavily pushed upon the people in Jerusalem and tried to turn it into a Polis. Every aspect of Jewish life was effected by the Greeks in power from art and architecture to the Bible, which was translated into Greek because the Greek language became predominant. In 175 BCE, Antiochus IV began ruling. He set harsh rules against the Jewish people like banning circumcision. He also offended their religion by sacrificing a pig on their Temple and then changed the Temple into a temple honoring Zeus. The Jewish people revolted.

After Hellenization in Jerusalem, the Jewish people revolted (the Maccabean revolt) against the Greeks. They succeeded in about 165-164 BCE and was able to get Jerusalem and the Temple and be in control of their own selves. The tradition of Hanukkah was created at this time. This marked the beginning of the Hasmonean period. The leaders of the Hasmonean Dynasty were supposed to rule temporarily until a new king came, but they held onto their position and even called themselves the High Priest as well. They became Hellenized. They also did what the Greek people did by imposing their traditions by forcing foreign people to become Jewish (forcing circumcision too). They also imposed a temple tax of the Temple and kept other Jewish practices. The Hasmonean period declined with infighting among the rulers and the Romans were able to come in and take over in 63 BCE.

feb 8 2011: lecture 8

Today’s lecture was on the Persian period (539-333BCE). This is during the Second Temple Period (539 BCE-70CE) after the destruction of the temple by the Babylonians. After the skilled people were exiled out of Jerusalem to Babylon and after the temple was destroyed, they experienced cognitive dissonance. However, Ezekiel had an apocalyptic vision of a new mobile ark with wheels (BTW, ark seems to have “disappeared” after Solomon; was put into the Temple [1 Kings 8] but then when ark of covenant not included in the list of things the Babylonians took; Prof. Cargill thinks that the ark was destroyed during Hezekiah’s religious reformation… his paper on this is pending!) and a new Jerusalem (Ezekiel 1). His vision signified that God was still there despite the cognitive dissonance and that He is mobile again. After the exile, people’s views on God changed from God as a direct, interactive being to a more distanced God that operates through angels and other things.

King Cyrus was able to conquer the Babylonians and take over. He was considered to be the liberator of the people who were exiled because he was telling them to go back to Jerusalem for economic benefit and to be seen as liberators, not conquerors (noted in the Cyrus Cylinder). The Hebrew Bible accounts for this as well in 2 Chronicles and Ezra. It was typical for the Jews to see foreign conquerors taking over as punishment from God, and with the similar idea, Jews began seeing Cyrus’ taking over of the Babylonians as God’s will as well. However, Cyrus begins being seen as God’s “anointed one” (Isaiah 44-45), which is strange or “wrong” because he, a foreign person and not even a Jew, was not part of the Davidic line. During this time, the High Priest returns as a strong point and significant again with Joshua. Also, whether a new temple should be built or not was questioned. There grew conflict between the Jews who were coming back to Jerusalem from exile (with Persian backing, power, and money) and the Jews who were and have been in Jerusalem because the the Jews who were already there did not want a rebuilding in the temple (the conflict is described in Nehemiah 4:16-23 during the construction of the new temple).