3/8/11 Lecture 19

In today’s lecture we started to cover Jerusalem in the 20^th century. Leading up to the 20^th century we saw Jerusalem reestablished as a center for the Jewish faith. The idea of secular Zionism began to immerge when ethnic Jews (not necessarily religious Jews) began to move back to Jerusalem. Deeper than the need to settle in Jerusalem was the need for the Jews to settle together and the Zionists built the city of Tel Aviv as a central city. During this time period there was also a rise in European nationalism, which lead to a large number of Jews leaving for Palestine. The increase in the number of Jews in Palestine lead to increased conflict between the Jews and Arabs. In 1916 the Sykes-Picot Agreement left the areas of Palestine, Jordan, and Southern Iraq under British control. In 1917 the British made their intensions of establishing a Jewish national home in Palestine known with the Balfour Declaration. The condition was that they would do their best to facilitate this as long as it did not interfere with “the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities” (Balfour Declaration). The period of British mandate lasted from 1918-1948 during which time the British promised to protect the holy lands of all faiths. In 1922, Britain partitioned an area for a Jewish settlement west of the Jordan River. The area east of the Jordan was renamed Transjordan. In 1937 the Peel Commission suggested a “two state” solution to the escalating conflict between Arabs and Jews. With this plan, a Jewish state would include Galilee, the Upper Jordan Valley and the Coastal Plain. The Arab state would include the Central Hills, the West Bank, and Negev. Jerusalem would remain a neutral, international city. The U.N. approved the plan in 1947. The Zionists, who would receive less land, accepted the plan as a minimum the Arabs however, rejected the plan. This lead to fights breaking out in Jerusalem. This also marks the end of British mandate, as no resolution could be reached and the battle was not theirs to fight. This lead to the War of Independence, or the Arab-Israeli War, in 1948. The result of the war was the formation of Jordan (Arab) and Israel (Jewish) who split Jerusalem into East and West sides respectively. This is kind of where we left off in lecture, with Jordan and Israel fighting over Jerusalem, with both of them naming it as a capital city. 

2/22/11 Lecture 15

This post is for the lecture from last Tuesday that I missed on Byzantine Jerusalem. This period takes place between 312 CE – 637 CE. Jesus himself was Jewish and the first Christians were actually a branch of Jewish followers. They rejected the temple as a fixed holy place and started the idea of the Holy Spirit that walks with us. Faith became something that you were, that was in your mind, not something that you physically had to go do at a temple. This is all rooted in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Once the Jews were exiled from Jerusalem the Romans renamed the city Aelia Capitolia. In 285 CE the Roman Empire was split into 2 parts with two emperors in each kingdom. What ends up happening is that Constantine the Great takes over the entire kingdom and unites the Holy Roman Empire under one emperor again. Constantine the Great used Christianity politically to unite the entire kingdom. In 313 CE he issues the Edict of Milan that legalizes Christianity and fundamentally changes the way Christianity was to be practiced. Christianity was split up into many different sects with varying beliefs so Constantine had to bring them all together under one set of orthodox beliefs at the Council of Nicaea in 324 CE. This is where they came up with the doctrine of the trinity. This was the belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and that Jesus and the Father were both fully human and fully God. Constantine’s mom, Helena, comes to Jerusalem in 324 CE and destroys the pagan temple to Venus to find the place where Jesus was crucified. She then builds a new church over the spot where she though Jesus was crucified and this became the new center of Jerusalem. There is also record of Julian “the Apostate” trying to rebuild the Jewish temple in Jerusalem but he could not complete it, as he faced much resistance. Just like the Jews, the new Christians begin making their own Pilgrimages to Jerusalem. They recognize Jerusalem as a sacred place because it was the place where Jesus walked.

The Madaba Map, which is dated to the 6^th century CE, depicts the holy land and Jerusalem and is located on the floor of a church in Madaba. This mosaic helps shed some light on the geography of the city of Jerusalem during that time period. We see the temple mount depicted off on the side of the map and it is no longer the center or most important part of the city. The center of the map is actually the Cardo and Church of the Holy Sepulcher. This shows how much weight they placed on Jesus. All of the religious myths associated with Jerusalem turned away from the temple to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. 

2/24/11 Lecture 16

In today’s lecture we discussed the period of early Islamic Jerusalem and the general background of Islam. This early Islamic period begins in 638 CE when Caliph Umar takes over Jerusalem and ends in 1099 CE with the arrival of the crusaders. When Caliph Umar takes Jerusalem, it is part of the treaty with the Christian community that Jews not be allowed to settle in the city. Eventually he backed out of this and let Jews back into the city to settle. The Muslims continued to call the city Aelia initially, which means “the city of the Temple”. They then began to call it Bait Maqdis, which means “the city of the Holy House” but eventually shortened it to al-Quds or “the Holy”. They also referred to the temple mount as the Haram al-Sharif or “the noble sanctuary”. The Dome of the Rock was first constructed in 691 CE by Abd al-Malik in order to divert pilgrimage from Mecca. The Dome was paid for with 7 years of taxes collected from Egypt. The project was finished under budget so they used the remaining money to plate the Dome in pure gold. It was later converted to a church by the crusaders in 1099 CE but taken back in 1187 CE and restored by Salah ad- Din. The Dome is said to cover the stone where Muhammad ascended heaven on the back of his winged horse. The traditions of the Dome are overlapping with Jewish and Christian tradition and the inscription even says that we are all people of the book but states that Jesus was only a Messenger of God not part of God himself. The Al-Apsa Mosque was built during the reign of Caliph Walid, around 710 CE, in the spot of the origianal wooden Mosque that Caliph Umar built. The Islamic art and architecture is said to be amazing as it highlights geometrical design and shows the beauty of the written word. They use no images of people or animals so it really brings out the design.

Next we’ll look at a quick background of Islam the Prof. Cargill gave. Jerusalem has become the third holiest city in Islam behind Mecca and Medina. There are five pillars of Islam: testimony, prayer, almsgiving, fasting, and pilgrimage. In Jerusalem when a Muslim is on pilgrimage to Mecca they paint the door of their house with bright colors and if anybody steals from them while they’re gone it is one of the worst sins. I also learned today that the division of the Shiite and Sunni sects traces back to the origins of Islam. The Shiites are a kinship-based caliphate that supports Ali, while the Sunnis are more tradition-based and support Muawiya. 

2/15/11 and 2/17/11; Lectures 13 and 14

This week, 7^th week, we discussed Herodian Jerusalem including the time of Christ and Jerusalem in Revolt. When we left off last Pompey was controlling Jerusalem. In 63 BCE, in what was known as the “Abomination of Desolation”, Pompey entered the Holy of Holies, which of course is unheard of unless you are high priest. Eventually Herod the Great took Jerusalem in 37 BCE from the Parthians in a siege. Scholars often argue over whether or not Herod the Great was actually a good king. To me, Herod actually seemed to be a pretty good ruler, even though the Jews hated him. While Herod was loyal to Rome through taxes, he was very sensitive to the Jewish customs. Herod was forcibly “Judaized” as a child and he considered himself the king of the Jews during his reign from 37 – 4 BCE. He was a very effective ruler and he was best known for his massive building projects. He was also known in biblical accounts for the murder of massive amounts of innocent children, 2-years of age and younger, in an effort to kill Jesus. Scholars question whether this event actually took place though. Herod was a strong ruler who ruled with fear. His massive construction projects did give jobs to a large number of people. Some of the building projects credited to the Herodian Rule were: the fortress of Herodion, the city of Caesarea that included theaters and aqueducts, and the complete expansion of the 2^nd temple including the construction of the Western Wall. Closing the lecture on Herodian Jerusalem we talked about the time of Jesus and the lack of archaeological evidence of his existence. Some artifacts of been discovered but nothing that directly related to anybody named Jesus from that time period. We have to ask though, is the absence of evidence of Jesus evidence of absence?

Next we discussed the 1^st and 2^nd Jewish Revolts during the Roman Rule, which lasted from 63 BCE – 614 CE. The 1^st Revolt, or the “Great Revolt”, took place from 66 – 73 CE. The 2^nd Revolt, or the “Bar Kokhba Revolt”, lasted from 132 – 135 CE. When Herod’s rule ended his kingdom was split up between his 3 sons: Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Herod Philip. Roman procurators gradually replaced the three sons, basically Jerusalem fell under direct rule by the Romans. These rulers included Pontius Pilate, who is best known for the role he plays in the biblical accounts of Jesus’ crucifixion. Eventually, in 66 CE, we begin to see Jewish Revolts break out and the Roman governor of Syria is defeated. We see archeological evidence of this revolt from Jewish revolt coins that have been discovered. In 70 CE Titus, the son of the Roman Emperor, takes over Jerusalem and destroys the 2^nd Temple on the 9^th of Ab. The people of Jerusalem fled to the mountain holdout of Masada that Herod the Great built. In 73 CE the Romans took the holdout and the people committed suicide. Simon Bay Kokhba started the Bar Kokhba Revolt. This revolt has fewer sources but we do find archaeological evidence in the form of coins and letters regarding the revolt that date to the time period. Most of the coins were modeled after the 1^st revolt and some were overstrikes of other coins, which indicated they were trying to save money. The letters found were written in multiple different languages indicating that the people revolting did not speak Hebrew and were trying to make it look like the first revolt. The outcome of the Bar Kokhba Revolt was the massive, bloody punishment of the Jews by Emperor Hadrian. He banned circumcision and kicked the Jews from the rebuilt city of Jerusalem. 

2/10/11 Lecture 12

In today’s lecture we covered Hellenistic and Hasmonean Jerusalem. We started by talking about Alexander the Great and his military conquests from 336- 323 BCE. Jerusalem had been under a long period of Persian rule but Alexander the Great defeated the Persian King Darius in 333 BCE at the Battle of Issus. With that the Persian control of Jerusalem ended. When Alexander died in 323BCE his kingdom was split up and one group of successors, the Ptolemies, captured Jerusalem. This was a period in Jerusalem when the High Priest ruled the city and was in charge of all religious and administrative affairs. The Ptolemies allowed Jerusalem to elect their own High Priest but it was a time of increased Greek influence in the city. The Seleucids then came in and defeated the Ptolemies and began to rule Jerusalem. This is when we begin to see the aggressive Hellenization of the Jews. The Greeks believed that the city, or Polis, was the highest and most natural civil institution. They started to push their beliefs on Jerusalem and shaped it into the city that they felt it should be. It started with a theater and gymnasium but eventually every aspect of Jewish life was affected from coinage to art and entertainment. They kept them from practicing Judaism and even banned circumcision. Even some of the tombs at the time reflected the Greek influence on the city. The Jews had no choice but to either embrace their new culture or revolt.

Eventually the conservative Jews joined together and revolted. This was known as the Maccabean Revolt because of the famous leader Judas Maccabaeus. The revolting Jews attacked the renegade Jews and Gentile villages in Palestine using Guerilla tactics to outwit the superior Seleucid army. The revolt was surprisingly successful and the Jews were able to take back Jerusalem. This restored the golden age in Jerusalem and the Jewish territory expanded. This self-rule lasted for about 100 years. The more power they gained however, the more corrupt they became. They started to do the very thing they were revolting about and began to forcibly “Judaize” the surrounding territories. What was happening was a very Hellenistic form of Judaism. Eventually the rule ended with the Roman Conquest in 63 BCE by Pompey. 

2/8/11 Lecture 11

In today’s lecture we covered the Persian period in Jerusalem. The Persian period lasted from 539 – 333 BCE and marked the beginning of the “2^nd Temple” Period which lasted from 539 BCE - 70 CE. The sources of information we have from this period are mostly biblical. There are no non-biblical texts from this period that deal directly with Jerusalem. The biggest problem for Judaism at this point is finding a foundation for their beliefs without a temple. This comes with the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of a new Ark of the Covenant. While his vision was very far out there, what it did was signify the reemergence of God as a mobile being. This brings up the question, what happened to the old Ark? While this topic is greatly disputed, Professor Cargill thinks that it was most likely destroyed during the religious reforms of either Hezekiah or Josiah. There seems to be no evidence to support anybody’s claims on this issue as the Ark simply disappeared from the text after it was placed in the temple.

Next we talked about King Cyrus, the Persian king that conquered the Babylonians. In an effort to be viewed as a liberator and not a conqueror he set the Judean Exiles free. He also gave them money and told them to return home and rebuild their temple. This is tough for the Judeans because they had to rationalize history even if it meant naming a foreign king as God’s chosen deliverer. This is also where we see Judaism split into so many different schools of thought. This is probably because of the Zoroastrian influence that came from their time in exile in Babylon.  Also, while the Hebrew Bible says that God sent Cyrus, the Cyrus cylinder says that the Babylonian god Marduk fought with him to conquer Babylon.

All this time, back in Jerusalem, the people are learning to live just fine without a temple. When the exiled return there is a lot of disagreement as to whether they need another temple. In the end they do build another temple. This temple however, did not match the splendor of the first temple as the city was poor and under populated. They were also facing a heavy tax from the Persians at this time and the city was divided into people who had different opinions about the temple. 

2/1/11 Lecture 9

Today in class we finished talking about Josiah’s Jerusalem and began discussing the exilic Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple. Finishing up Josiah’s Jerusalem, we continued to look at the development of literacy in the ancient world. We examined the Mezad Hashavyahu Ostracon, which is a letter from a man pleading for his robes back. This is directly related to scripture in Exodus and Amos that requires that robes be returned to workers at the end of the day. This brings up the question of whether the scripture was written first or if it was oral tradition that was later taken down into writing. We also have examples of biblical blessings inscribed on pieces of jewelry long before we see them written in the biblical context.

In 586 BCE the Babylonians destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. This was the 2^nd Babylonian exile where the elites were exiled. The 1^st Babylonian exile took place in 597 BCE when the King Jehoiachin and the prophet Ezekiel were exiled. We have archaeological evidence of the destruction of the temple and a declining populationwith burnt layers and a lack of other artifacts. This marks the fall of the promise to David from 2 Samuel 7. The people have been kicked out of their land, the temple has been destroyed and it looks as if there is no hope for the people of Jerusalem. This is the idea that we closed on: what do you do when everything you believe, the foundation of your religion, contradicts everything you are seeing in reality?