Bar Kochba
Preparations for Revolt
Emperor Hadrian promised the Jews that he would rebuild Jerusalem and the Jewish Temple. While on his way to Egypt in 130 CE, he stopped off for a visit to Judea and changed his mind. He decided to rebuild Jerusalem as a Roman colony dedicated to himself. He also decided not to rebuild the Temple. He left his nephew Aquila in Jerusalem to begin organizing the labor force and making plans for the new city.
A year later, Hadrian returned to Judea for a brief visit while on his way back from Egypt. He finalized his plans for the city and attended to a few other administrative matters. That's when Rabbi Akiva and the revolutionaries learned that Hadrian planned to rebuild Jerusalem as a Roman colony with an idolatrous temple in the place of the Temple of the LORD.
The Roman historian Dio Cassius describes how the rebels began quiet preparations for war. They manufactured weapons, ostensibly to sell to the Roman army, but they made them of a quality beneath imperial standards. The Roman army rejected the weapons. The revolutionaries secretly distributed the weapons among themselves. They fortified strategic positions in Judea and Galilee. They prepared caves. They dug out extensive tunnels and underground networks for places of refuge if they should need to flee. They created underground chambers where they could meet together in secret and make their plans.
Unlike the first Jewish Revolt (66-70 CE), the Bar Kochba Revolt did not have Flavius Josephus to write a long, detailed, eyewitness record of the war. The Bar Kochba Revolt (132-135 CE) had no chronicler. The only surviving contemporary accounts of the war come from the Roman historian Cassius Dio and the Jewish believer Aristo of Pella. An eleventh-century Byzantine monk abbreviated the account of Cassius Dio down to a few paragraphs. The original version no longer survives. The writings of Aristo of Pella no longer survive except for two abbreviated paragraphs that appear in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History. We piece together the rest of this critical chapter in Jewish and Christian history from obscure rabbinic and Christian traditions, scattered Roman inscriptions, revolt-era coins, and recently discovered archaeological evidence.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Plowing of Tzion
Hadrian placed a man named Quintus Tinneius Rufus as governor over Judea. According to rabbinic stories, he knew a good deal about Judaism and had frequent conversations with Rabbi Akiva. Jewish sources remember his name as Turnus Rufus, a play on "Tyranus," i.e., the Tyrant.
Before leaving Syria in 132 CE, Hadrian appointed him to govern Judea and command the two legions stationed in the province. He also entrusted him with the rebuilding of Jerusalem. In this capacity, Tinneius Rufus must have worked closely with Hadrian's nephew Aquila, who was supervising the project.
Tinneius Rufus chose the ninth day of the month of Av (132 CE) for the official groundbreaking of the new Roman colony Aelia Capitolina. He must have known the significance of the fast day in Jewish history, particularly the destruction of the Jewish Temple just sixty-two years earlier.
In accordance with the Roman ritual, he yoked a team of oxen to a plow and plowed out a furrow marking off the new city's boundaries. The Mishnah says, "On the ninth of Av….. the city was plowed" (m.Taanit 4). The Jewish believers living in the city must have seen this as a fulfillment of the words of the Prophet Micah who prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, "Thus the LORD of hosts has said, 'Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become ruins, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest'" (Jeremiah 26:18; cf. Micah 3:12).
Tinneius Rufus made sacrifices to the emperor and the gods of Rome and announced the city's new name: Aelia Capitolina. "Aelia" in honor of Emperor Aelius Hadrian. "Capitolina" in honor of the god Jupiter Capitoline (Zeus), the head of the Roman pantheon, whose new temple was to stand on the Temple Mount. The construction project commenced immediately.
The Jewish believers in Jerusalem watched as teams of workmen and slaves converged on the ruins of the city. The plans to build a temple to Jupiter did not surprise them. The Master had predicted that they would see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.
The bishop, Judas Justus, had to make a decision. Should he instruct the community to evacuate the city, or should they stay and wait for the final redemption through the coming of the Master? He had said, "When you see the abomination of desolation standing where it should not be ... then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains" (Mark 13:14). Judas Justus decided to wait until that hour. He did not want the community to lose its tenuous claim within the city, and as of yet, the idolatrous temple had not yet been built.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Tomb of Shlomo
Over the next months, masons and quarrymen began their work while other teams of workers cleared rubble and leveled surfaces. Judas and the believers hoped that the Messiah would come before the Romans completed the construction of Jupiter's temple. Other Jews shared their optimism about the imminent arrival of the Messiah, even though they were not looking for Yeshua of Nazareth. The Roman desecration of Jerusalem sparked a new messianic enthusiasm. The Jews of Judea anticipated that the Messiah must soon arrive and drive the forces of Gog and Magog out of the holy city, rebuild the Temple, and inaugurate the Messianic Era. They began to watch for signs and omens portending the rise of the Messiah.
The Roman historian Cassius Dio records two ominous signs. "The people had had forewarning before the war. For the tomb of Solomon, which the Jews regard as an object of veneration, fell to pieces of itself and collapsed" (Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.13). The tomb, located in the City of David, survived the first revolt and the fall of Jerusalem. Sometime early in 132 CE, the monumental tomb collapsed on its own accord. Cassius Dio says that, in the same year, "many wolves and hyenas rushed howling into their cities." This strange omen must allude to Isaiah's prophecy against Babylon:
Desert creatures will lie down there, and their houses will be full of owls; ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there. Hyenas will howl in their fortified towers and jackals in their luxurious palaces. Her fateful time also will soon come and her days will not be prolonged. (Isaiah 13:19-22)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Shim’on Bar Kosiva
Rabbi Akiva and his revolutionary followers knew the story of the first revolt against Rome. They knew about how the Zealots and revolutionaries had turned against the population and against one another, spilling more Jewish blood than the Romans. They remembered how, before Jerusalem fell, three opposing factions of Jews made war against one another within her walls. The Zealots had the bloodguilt of fratricide on their hands. Simon son of Gioras and John of Gischala conducted themselves as irreligious bandits, robbers, and murderers. God did not rescue them.
Akiva knew that a successful revolt would require strong leadership from a single leader who could unite the Jewish people. He also believed that God would fight for the Jewish people if they honored Him by remaining faithful to His commandments.
The terrorist leader Shim'on bar Kosiva had a reputation as a fearsome warrior. He commanded a large following of Jewish revolutionaries. He must have been from the house of David because he made messianic claims to the throne of David. According to Jewish legend, he was so strong that he could catch the catapult stones hurled from Roman siege engines and throw them back against the Roman lines. He kept a lighted blade of straw in his mouth and fanned it with puffs of breath so as to give the impression that he was spewing out flames. His men honored and feared him. He claimed to fight for God and to wield miraculous powers. According to the Jewish believers, "he possessed the character of a robber and a murderer" (Ariston of Pella).
Bar Kosiva and Rabbi Akiva worked closely with a priest named Eleazar, whom they considered the high priest. (The name Eleazar HaKohen appears on some coins from the revolt.) Together, the three leaders represented the three major parties in Judean Jewery. Rabbi Akiva represented the rabbinic party; Bar Kosiva represented the Zealots, and Eleazar HaKohen represented the Levitical class.
Bar Kosiva began with raids against Roman garrisons in January (Adar) of 132 CE. His men employed guerrilla techniques, raiding Roman outposts and ambushing patrols. They set fire to the countryside, seizing supplies and stealing weapons. They combined hit-and-run, terrorist tactics with acts of sabotage.
Rufus did not take the insurrection seriously at first. The revolutionaries appeared to him as a small group of Jewish bandits. He quickly realized his mistake. The war escalated, and foreigners joined with the Jews to fight the Romans:
At first the Romans took no account of them. Soon, however, all Judaea was astir. Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance. They were gathering together and acting with hostility against the Romans, partly in secret and partly by overt acts. Many outside nations, eager for gain, also joined them. One might almost say that the whole earth was stirred up over the matter. (Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.13)
The ferocity of the rebels shocked Rufus, and he found it difficult to respond. No sooner did the Jews strike than they retreated into their holes and hiding places. They "did not dare try direct confrontation with the Romans in the open field, but they occupied the advantageous positions in the country and strengthened them with mines and walls" (Cassius Dio). The rebels seized strategic fortresses like the Herodian near Bethlehem. Archaeologists working at the Herodian discovered evidence of extensive tunneling and siege preparation from the Second Jewish Revolt.
Bar Kosiva's rebels also left evidence of their presence in the caves of the Judean wilderness near the Dead Sea. In the middle of the previous century, Israeli archaeologists found numerous artifacts from the revolt, including written correspondence between Bar Kosiva and his officers.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Rufus The Tyrant
At this time the Jewish revolt grew far more serious. The emperor sent an auxiliary force to Rufus, governor of Judea. Using the madness of the Jews as a pretext, Rufus proceeded against them without mercy. He indiscriminately slaughtered thousands of men and women and children, and in accordance with the laws of war reduced their country to a state of complete subjection. (Aristo of Pella in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.6.1)
Eusebius had the writings of a Jewish believer named Aristo of Pella. Aristo seems to have been an eyewitness to the events he describes. In some form or another, Aristo left a brief chronicle of the war and its impact on the local population of Jewish believers.
According to Aristo, Rufus realized that the two legions stationed in Judea (the tenth and the sixth) were not adequate to simultaneously protect Roman cities, guard Aelia Capitolina, police the territory, and pursue the rebels. He sent an urgent request for reinforcements. Eusebius says, "Hadrian sent him an army to crush the rebels." Auxiliaries from other legions converged on Judea.
Rufus believed that a harsh, disproportionate response would shock the revolutionaries and stop the revolt abruptly. He directed the auxiliaries against the Jewish population. They marched into Jewish villages and cities and left no survivors. The indiscriminate reprisals that were directed against innocent civilians explain why Jewish literature changed his name from Tinneius Rufus to Tyranus Rufus: Rufus the Tyrant.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Bar Kochba: Son of the Star
The leader of the Jews at this time was man by the name of Barcoceba, which signifies a star. (Aristo of Pella quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.6.2)
The massacres galvanized Jewish resistance. The Jewish people rallied behind Bar Kosiva, their warlord and hero.
Rabbi Akiva believed that God was using Shim'on bar Kosiva to fulfill the messianic prophecies. He imagined that the final redemption had come and Bar Kosiva was the redeemer. He publicly declared the warlord to be the Messiah. He began to call Bar Kosiva by the name Bar Kochba (N391) 72), "Son of the Star," a messianic title based on the prophecies of Balaam:
I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near; a star shall come forth from Jacob, a scepter shall rise from Israel, and shall crush through the forehead of Moab, and tear down all the sons of Sheth. (Numbers 24:17)
A generation later, however, Rabbi Judah the Prince said, "Do not read the verse as 'A star shall come forth from Jacob, but read it as if it says, 'A lie shall come forth from Jacob'" (Lamentations Rabbah 2:4). Instead of reading the text literally, Rabbi Judah instructed his disciples to change one Hebrew letter and read the word "star (kochav, J915)" as "lie" (kozev, an2). He made the wordplay as a historical comment on the rise of Bar Kochba—a lie who had come out of the Jewish people.
After the Bar Kochba Revolt failed, the sages refused to refer to him by his real name (Bar Kosiva) or his messianic name (Bar Kochba). Rabbinic literature so consistently refers to Bar Kosiva as Bar Kozeva, "Son of the Lie," that history forgot his name. Until the discovery of the Bar Kochba letters in the 1950s, no one knew the man's real name.
The Jewish believers may have been the first to start referring to Bar Kosiva as Bar Kozeva. The Jewish believers had a motive for doing so even before the revolution collapsed. An apocryphal, Jewish-Christian document from the Bar Kochba era called Apocalypse of Peter refers to Bar Kochba with the words, "But as for that Liar, he is not the Messiah!"
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
False Messiah
Barcoceba ... possessed the character of a robber and a murderer, but nevertheless, relying upon his name, boasted to them, as if they were slaves, that he possessed miraculous powers. He pretended that he was a star that had come down to them out of heaven to bring them light in the midst of their misfortunes. (Aristo of Pella quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.6.2)
Naturally, the Jewish believers objected to Bar Kosiva's messianic claims. The second-century Jewish believer Aristo of Pella is the only contemporary historian to actually record that Bar Kosiva referred to himself as Bar Kochba. Aristo explains that Bar Kosiva claimed to possess supernatural powers. He claimed to have descended from heaven to redeem Israel. He performed "signs and wonders in order to deceive."
The Talmud records that some of the sages challenged his messianic claims. When "Bar Koziba" claimed "I am the Messiah," they replied, "The prophecies about the Messiah say that he will not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his ears hear, but he will be able to smell the truth" (b.Sanhedrin 93b with reference to Isaiah II:3):
When Rabbi Akiva beheld Bar Koziba, he exclaimed, "This is the king Messiah!" Rabbi Yochanan bar Torta replied, "Akiva, grass will grow in your cheeks and he will still not have come!" (Lamentations Rabbah 2:4)
In his official correspondence to his officers, Bar Kosiva does not directly refer to himself as the Messiah, but he calls himself the Nasi Yisrael, a generic term with some ambiguity. It could be understood as merely a political title like "prince" or "president of Israel," or it could be interpreted as a messianic title in light of Ezekiel's prophecies about the Davidic Prince who will preside over Israel in the Messianic Era. Coins struck by the rebel government during the Bar Kochba revolt refer to him as Shimon Nasi Yisrael, i.e., Simon the Prince of Israel. Although the title allows for ambiguity, the implication is messianic.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Nine-Fingered Army
Rabbi Akiva's messiah was a religious leader. He required his men to observe the Torah's ceremonial laws strictly. Nevertheless, he did not seem too concerned with the weighty matters of the Torah, nor did he seem concerned about invoking God's help in the war. He had so much confidence in his own prowess and the strength of his army that he used to lead his men into battle with the prayer, "O God, neither help us nor hinder us!"
Bar Kosiva demanded absolute loyalty from his followers. Before accepting a man into his army, he required the candidate to prove himself by cutting off one of his own fingers, presumably the small finger of the left hand. The sages objected. Jewish law forbids any type of self-mutilation. They sent Bar Kosiva a rebuke: "How long will you continue to blemish the men of Israel?"
Bar Kosiva replied, "How else can they be proven worthy?"
Bar Kosiva's correspondence with his officers confirms his reputation for cruelty. Sometimes he reminded his officers of punishments he had given to others. Rabbinic lore remembers him kicking a certain sage to death.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Roman Casulaties
The Bar Kochba Revolt spread through the wider province of Judea and even into Arabia. Jews everywhere joined in the uprisings. The size of the rebel army in Judea swelled to such an extent that they could challenge Tinneius Rufus directly.
Shim'on bar Kosiva united the revolutionary forces and brought them against the legions and the auxiliary army. All indications point to a decisive rebel victory. The tenth legion lost several thousand men. Replacements had to be transferred from the Classis Misenensis, a military unit below the rank of legionaries. The twelfth legion simply ceased to exist. The survivors from the two legions must have withdrawn to the coast at Caesarea and sent for reinforcements.
The rebel victory against the undefeatable Roman army shocked the empire. Cassius Dio admits that the size of the defeat was sufficient to humble both the emperor and the army:
Many Romans perished in this war. When Hadrian wrote to the senate [to report on the war], he did not employ the opening greeting traditionally used by the emperors, "If you and our children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health." (Cassius Dio, Roman History 69:13)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Liar Coins
Contracts and documents found along with the Bar Kochba letters in the Judean wilderness employ a dating system based on the revolt. For example, one deed, written in Hebrew, begins with the date, "On the second of Kislev, in the third year of Shim'on ben Kosiva, Nasi of Israel ..."
A series of coins issued by the rebel government declared the beginning of the final redemption and the freedom of Jerusalem. The coins date them-selves, "Year One of the Redemption," "Year Two of the Freedom of Israel," and "The Freedom of Jerusalem." The contracts and coins help establish a chronology for the revolt.
Talmudic sources refer to these coins as Kozbian coins, i.e., "liar coins." Archaeologists and collectors have found thousands of the bronze and silver coins. All of them are actually Roman coins overstruck with the new faces. Occasionally, the original Roman inscriptions are still visible behind the Hebrew letters. Several coins depict the front face of the Temple; other images on the coins include the palm branch, the citron, a libation jar, a cluster of grapes, a palm tree, a vine leaf, priestly trumpets, and a Levitical lyre. One coin depicts a star shining above the Temple, symbolizing the rise of Bar Kochba, the Son of the Star.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Freedom of Yerushalayim
Shim'on bar Kosiva and his revolutionaries must have made an assault on the detachment of the tenth legion assigned to guard Jerusalem and must have overrun it. The Bar Kochba coins proudly declare the freedom of Jerusalem.
The rebels surely put to death any construction workers, municipal planners, and Roman officials still at work on Aelia Capitolina. They must have thrown down the foundations of Jupiter's temple and any other pagan edifices that they might have found on the Temple Mount. They may have rebuilt an altar to the LORD and reinstituted the daily sacrifices, but they did not attempt to rebuild the Temple. The Torah says that the Temple can be built only when "He gives you rest from all your enemies around you so that you live in security" (Deuteronomy 12:10). The rebels knew that, although they had won the battle, they had not yet won the war. They knew that they had only a short while until the Romans returned in greater numbers.
Shim'on bar Kosiva and his rebels probably occupied the Herodian towers where the tenth legion kept their garrison, the only fortifications still standing in the city. Since Jerusalem did not have walls or defenses, Bar Kochba and his rebels did not attempt to hold it with a standing force. Instead, the army occupied and fortified the nearby city of Bethar, just five miles southwest of Jerusalem at a strategic position overlooking the Rephaim Canyon and the Jerusalem-Beit-Guvrin road. From Bethar, they could guard Jerusalem.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Holy Martyrs of Jerusalem
The conquest of Jerusalem brought Bar Kosiva and his followers into contact with the community of believers living there. Rabbi Akiva probably counseled Bar Kosiva to deal with the believers heavy-handedly. The revolutionary messiah hardly needed encouragement. The Bar Kochba letters show that the rebel government took strong action against Jews who failed to support the revolt. Even if the believers had been inclined to join the rebellion, they could not endorse Shim'on bar Kosiva's political leadership without accepting his messianic claims.
Rabbi Akiva and Bar Kosiva were not about to exempt the Yeshua-followers from conscription on the basis of their conscientious objections. They needed to convert the believers or silence them because criticism of Bar Kosiva's messianic claims could weaken the entire revolution. Bar Kosiva probably met with the bishop Judas Justus and offered him an opportunity to join the revolt. If the believers would acknowledge him as the messiah and join him, very good. If not, he promised to put them all to the sword. Eusebius' Chronicle for the year 133 CE reports the ensuing massacre:
Hadrian's Year 17 (AD 133) Cochebas, duke of the Jewish sect, killed the Christians with all kinds of persecutions, (when) they refused to help him against the Roman troops.
The Jerusalem community of disciples, first founded by the apostles on the day of Shavu'ot in 30 CE, came to a noble end as the disciples willingly laid down their lives for the sake of the Master's name. We may assume that Judas called Justus, the third bishop over Jerusalem, died at the hands of Shim'on bar Kosiva and his men, along with the rest of the believers in Jerusalem.
The apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter contains a short epitaph in memory of the believers who perished during the Bar Kochba Revolt:
This deceiver is not the Christ. And when they reject him, he shall slay them with the sword, and there shall be many martyrs. Then shall the twigs of the fig-tree, that is, the house of Israel, shoot forth: many shall become martyrs at his hand. (Apocalypse of Peter 2)
Therefore those who die by his hand shall be martyrs, and shall be reckoned among the good and righteous martyrs who have pleased God in their life. (Apocalypse of Peter 2)
Bar Kosiva did not limit his war against the believers to those within the environs of Jerusalem. He persecuted and put to death Jewish believers wherever he found them in the land of Israel. He did not single out any other sect of Judaism for maltreatment.
His tactics against the Jewish believers resemble those of the Roman tri-bunals. He subjected them to severe torture to try to force them to renounce the Master and curse His name.
At that time, Justin Martyr, a Roman native of Neapolis, Samaria, was not yet a believer, but he provides important, local testimony about the fate of the Jewish believers during the revolt:
In the Jewish war which lately raged, Barchochebas, the leader of the revolt of the Jews, gave orders that Christians alone should be led to cruel punishments, unless they would deny Jesus Christ and utter blasphemy. (Justin Martyr, First Apology 3I.6)
Not all believers withstood the torture and social stresses. Clues in the apocryphal Apocalypse of Peter seem to indicate that many of the believers denied the Master and accepted Bar Kochba as the Messiah:
Then shall false christs come and awake expectation, saying, "I am the Christ who has now come into the world." And when they perceive the wickedness of their deeds they shall turn away and deny him whom our fathers praised, the first Christ whom they crucified and therein sinned a great sin. (Apocalypse of Peter 2)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Great Persecution
Jews everywhere were showing signs of disturbance. They were gathering together and acting with hostility against the Romans ...One might almost say that the whole earth was stirred up over the matter. (Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.13)
Emperor Hadrian received the startling news about the defeat of Tinneius Rufus and his legions. He realized that the revolt could very quickly spread through the Diaspora and erupt into chaos everywhere. Cassius Dio says that the signs of Jewish revolt began to appear everywhere, and the matter agitated the whole empire. Only two decades earlier, Jewish revolutionaries in the horrid Kitos War had turned against the Romans and the local Gentile populations. That war brought infamy on the Jews. Roman propaganda described the Jews as savage and cruel cannibals disemboweling their victims and bathing in their blood.
The outbreak of a new war in Judea probably had the same effect on the Jewish Diaspora that the first Jewish Revolt had. Paranoid and anti-Semitic Gentile populations throughout the empire turned against the Jewish citizens in their midst, putting many to death and driving out others. Once again, believers too closely associated with the Jewish community shared the Jewish fate, while those who survived did so by disassociation with Jews and Jewish practices.
Hadrian issued a punishing and unprecedented series of anti-Jewish laws. He thought he could legislate Jewishness out of existence. He made laws effective immediately banning Judaism, the practice of Torah, and the observance of the Sabbath. The Talmud says that the government "issued cruel decrees against us and forbade us the observance of Torah and the statutes and the redemption of sons" (b.Baba Bathra Gob):
The government had issued a decree that they should not study the Torah and that they should not circumcise their sons and that they should profane the Sabbath. (b.Rosh HaShanah 19a)
On pain of death, the new laws forbade the wearing of tefillin and tzitzit. The government also banned the ordination of rabbis. To add further insult to the injuries, the government also forbade the Jews from making lamentation over those put to death.
Jewish refugees fled the Roman Empire and immigrated to Mesopotamia, where they joined the great Babylonian Diaspora. After the revolt failed, refugees from Judea and Galilee fled to Babylon as well.
The great persecution of the Hadrianic Era must have left a mark on emerging Christianity. When observance of the Sabbath became illegal and punishable by death, the Ignatian observance of the "Lord's Day" instead of the Sabbath became an increasingly attractive option. Jewish believers might also have found that following the Gentile Christians' interpretation of Paul and Torah provided them with a convenient theological justification for compliance with the Hadrianic laws.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
March on Yehudah
Then, indeed, Hadrian sent against them his best generals. First of these was Julius Severus, who was dispatched from Britain, where he was governor, against the Jews. (Cassius Dio, Roman History 69:13)
Hadrian ordered reinforcements to converge on Judea from all over the world. To compensate for the heavy losses to their legions, the Senate began forced conscriptions in Italy and Asia Minor, a method of raising an army that the Romans employed only rarely and only in dire circumstances.
Scholars disagree over how many legions were involved. At a minimum, the two legions already stationed in Judea received reinforcements from seven more legions, some in full force, some in auxiliary forces. In those days, it took a long time to move that many armies over that much distance. For most of the year 133 CE, the rebels had time to dig in and fortify themselves while the Roman forces assembled, organized, and marched against them.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Martyrdom of Rabbi Akiva
The Romans found and arrested Rabbi Akiva during the Days of Awe between Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur. Tinneius Rufus must have been delighted to have the rabbi under his control.
The Romans kept him imprisoned at Tiberias for several years, until the fall of Bethar. Then Rufus condemned him to be flayed alive with iron combs. The soldiers led Akiva to the execution at the time for reciting the Shema. His disciples watched. As the soldiers combed the flesh from his body, Akiva said to his disciples, "All my life, I have been troubled by the verse that says, 'You shall love the LORD ... with all your soul' I wondered if I would ever have the opportunity to fulfill this commandment. Now I do." He recited the first words of the Shema, "Hear O Israel, the LORD our God the LORD is One," and he prolonged his pronunciation of the word "one (echad)" until his soul left his body.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Strategic Strangulation
In view of their numbers and their desperation, Severus did not attempt to attack his opponents in the open at any one point. Thanks to the large number of soldiers and subordinates under his command, he isolated small groups and deprived them of food. Shutting them up, he was able, rather slowly, to be sure, but with comparatively little danger, to crush, exhaust, and exterminate them. (Cassius Dio, Roman History 69:13)
The Roman General Severus arrived in the land and assessed the situation. He realized that his overwhelming Roman force could certainly subdue the rebel army, but he also realized that a direct confrontation would exact a heavy toll on the legions. Rome had already lost thousands of legionaries to the Jews, and Severus did not want to lose more.
The Jewish freedom fighters had the advantage in fighting on their home terrain, and in that they were willing to die for their cause. They fought to defend their homeland, their families, and their deity. In their desperation, the Jewish rebels would not hesitate to run themselves against Roman swords.
Severus decided to surround Judea and slowly strangle the rebellion by dividing it and cutting its contacts with the outside world. If they could not move supplies, the rebels would eventually run out of food. Severus preferred to let starvation do the hard work. Over the course of the ensuing year, he slowly tightened the noose around the villages and cities of Judea.
As the Romans advanced, the populations withdrew into fortified cities. Unable to get supplies in and out of the cities, the populations succumbed to starvation and famine. It was a slow way to wage a war, but it spared Roman lives. As they conquered each village, the Romans put the inhabitants to death and demolished the city, razing it to the ground before moving on to the next. "Very few of the Jews survived. Fifty of their most important garrisons and nine hundred and eighty-five of their most famous villages were razed to the ground" (Cassius Dio). Within a year, the majority of the surviving revolutionaries had pulled back to the safety of Bethar, the last fortified city.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
The Siege of Beit-Tar
The war raged most fiercely in the eighteenth year of Hadrian, at the city of Bithara, which was a very secure fortress, situated not far from Jerusalem. When the siege had lasted a long time, and the rebels had been driven to the last extremity by hunger and thirst ... (Aristo of Pella in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.6.3)
In the third year of the revolt, Severus camped his armies outside the walls of Bethar.
Aristo of Pella said that the war reached its culmination at the siege of Bethar. Rabbinic lore about the fall of Bethar remembers it as a tragedy on par with the fall of Jerusalem and the burning of the Temple.
Today, an Arab village by the name of Bittir preserves the location of Bethar, some six miles southwest of Jerusalem. The villagers refer to the nearby ruins of ancient Bethar as Khirbet el Yahud, i.e., "the Jewish ruins." The site, which is covered in groves and gardens, has never been excavated.
The city occupied a hill overlooking the Rephaim Canyon, which protected it on the east, west, and north sides. The dilapidated remains of the city walls and the foundations of its towers are sufficient to reconstruct the city's plan. On the south side, a narrow saddle of land connects the hill to the main ridge of mountains. A deep, defensive moat cuts across the saddle.
The rebels had prepared Bethar by storing up provisions and water sufficient to sustain the population for a prolonged siege. They dug out tunnels and secret passages by which they could leave and enter the city undetected. Despite all these preparations, they could not lay up enough provisions for the number of refugees that Severus and his armies drove ahead of them as they advanced. The influx of survivors from the rest of Judea strained the city's reserves.
When the Romans arrived at Bethar, they encircled the city with a large circumvention wall. Severus made the enclosed area broad enough to include the exits from secret tunnels. After the legions completed the wall, nothing could get in or out of the city without the permission of the Roman besiegers. Then the army settled in to let starvation do its work. The siege of Bethar probably lasted less than a year.
After several months, the population exhausted the food and water sup-plies, and the siege-famine began. Severus ordered his men to breach the city's defensive moat and begin constructing a siege ramp against the city.
Observers who view the site from the air today can make out the remains of the Roman circumvention wall, siege ramp, and the remains of Roman encampments. The camps were large enough to host two legions. An inscription cut in the rock near the city's spring even gives the names of the legions:
Leg V Mac et XI Cl-that is, units from the fifth, the Macedonian Legion, and from the eleventh, the Claudian Legion.
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Ninth of Av
The instigator of the rebellion had suffered his just punishment ... (Aristo of Pella in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.6.3)
On the ninth day of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, the Romans breached the city. The battle must have been terrible, but the half-starved rebels could scarcely offer resistance. A terrible massacre ensued, and the bodies piled up quickly. "They slew the inhabitants until the horses waded in blood up to the nostrils, and the torrent of blood rolled along stones the size of forty seahs and flowed out to sea, staining the water red for a distance of four miles" (Lamentations Rabbah 2:4).
The Romans spared no one. They took no prisoners. They wrapped school children in their scrolls and set them on fire. They ruthlessly beat their victims to death.
They did not allow the Jews to bury the dead. They left the corpses lying in the ruined streets. According to Cassius Dio, over the course of the war, the Romans killed more than half a million revolutionaries in combat, and many more Jews than that died of famine and disease:
Five hundred and eighty thousand men were slain in the various raids and battles, and the number of those that perished by famine, disease, and fire was past finding out. Thus nearly the whole of Judaea was made desolate. (Cassius Dio, Roman History 69:13)
Hadrian's decree that the dead of Bethar should remain unburied caused the Jewish people great sorrow. Many years later, during the reign of Emperor Antonius Pius, Shim'on ben Gamli'el Il ordained a season of fasting and prayer on behalf of the dead at Bethar. He then depleted his inheritance to bribe the Romans to grant him permission to bury the dead of Bethar. The sages felt such gratitude for permission to bury the dead that they established Av 15, the day upon which this occurred, as a national holiday. They also added a new blessing to the Grace after Meals to thank God for allowing them to bury the dead of Bethar-the fourth blessing that contains the words, "He did good, He does good, and He will do good for us."
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.
Palestine and Aelia Capitolina
From that time on, a decree issued by the command of Hadrian prohibited the whole nation from ever going up to the country around Jerusalem. The emperor ordered that Jews should not even be allowed to see the land of their fathers from a distance. Such is the account of Aristo of Pella. Therefore, when the Romans had emptied the city of its Jewish population and totally destroyed its ancient inhabitants, a different race came to colonize it. The Roman city which subsequently arose changed its name and was called Aelia in honor of the emperor Aelius Hadrian. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.6.3-4)
After the war, Hadrian continued to enforce his harsh and vindictive laws against the practice and propagation of Judaism. Jewish sources remember those years as "the persecution." During those days, the Roman authorities could arrest Jews for simply observing the Sabbath or other matters of Torah. Hadrian hoped to wipe out Jewish identity and Jewish nationalism.
He attempted to permanently erase Jewish associations with Judea. He changed the name of the province to Palestine, a name derived from association with the ancient Philistines. He deported the Jews of Judea, especially those in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and made a law prohibiting Jews from seeing Jerusalem, even from a distance. In his Chronicle for Hadrian's nineteenth year (135 CE), Eusebius says, "The Jewish War that was conducted in Palestine reached its conclusion, all Jewish problems having been completely suppressed. From that time (on), the permission was denied them even to enter Jerusalem" (Eusebius, Chronicle for Hadrian's year 19 (135 CE; Armenian version) quoted in Yadin, Bar-Kokhba: The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Last Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome).
The Jewish center of gravity in the land shifted from Judea to Galilee. Subsequent generations of sages congregated in Galilean cities like Tiberias and Sepphoris (Tzippori).
The work on Aelia Capitolina continued. If any Jewish believers remained in the city to tend the little synagogue of the apostles, the Romans sent them away. The temple of Jupiter rose up over the Temple Mount. An idol of Jupiter, the abomination of desolation, stood in the holy place, beside a statue of Hadrian. The late fourth-century church father Jerome stated, "The statue of the mounted Hadrian stands to this very day on the site of the holy of holies" (Jerome, On Matthew 24:15). According to Eusebius' Chronicle, Hadrian also set up a marble idol of a pig in front of the Bethlehem Gate, "signifying the subjugation of the Jews to Roman authority."
The Romans also thoroughly desecrated the other holy place in Jerusa-lem: Golgotha and the tomb of the Master. They buried the hill of Golgotha and the small cemetery containing the Master's empty tomb beneath a load of fill composed of earth, debris, and rubble. They leveled the fill to create a platform for the temple of Venus (Aphrodite). In so doing, the Romans inadvertently marked the location of Golgotha and the Master's tomb for future generations.
Two centuries later, Constantine ordered the pagan temple dismantled and the hill and the tomb excavated. The excavators uncovered both in exactly the locations they anticipated. Constantine's builders enclosed Golgotha and the location of the tomb within a large church. Today's Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a Crusader-era structure built on the ruins of Constantine's church, preserves the holy place of the Master's death and nearby burial.
The Romans began colonizing the city the year after the fall of Bethar. Among the Gentiles, who found homes and careers in the new Roman colony, many Gentile Christians managed to establish themselves, but no Jewish believers were among them. Eusebius notes the end of the assembly of Jewish believers in Jerusalem and the end of the "bishops of the circumci-sion" in the holy city:
As the assembly there was now composed of Gentiles, the first one to assume the government of it after the bishops of the circumcision was Marcus. (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 4.6.4)
References
This lesson is adapted from Daniel Lancaster's teachings in The Sent Ones, as presented by First Fruits of Zion for the Torah Club.