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.