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Post by rakovsky on Sept 27, 2019 19:22:42 GMT -8
So you are saying that the Roman conquest was due to sometimes Jews who visited the Temple had brushed against other Jews who hadn't followed the purity rules very strictly, ie. something comparable to Orthodox Jews visiting the Temple after making accidental contact with Reform Jews?
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Post by alon on Sept 28, 2019 5:13:32 GMT -8
So you are saying that the Roman conquest was due to sometimes Jews who visited the Temple had brushed against other Jews who hadn't followed the purity rules very strictly, ie. something comparable to Orthodox Jews visiting the Temple after making accidental contact with Reform Jews? No, the Roman occupation was not the point. I was talking about the Shechinah leaving the Temple. Spiritually it would be disastrous to the nation. Why have a Temple to God if He is not present there? Worship in an empty Temple is worship of nothing. Even the pagans put idols in their Temples to attract their gods when they pray before it. But the God of the Jews was different. He needed no idol to attract Him. He wass always there, and it was His presence that attracted them! Hellenized Jews bringing their defilement into the Temple or the secondary defilement of others going to the Temple all transferred some tumah, uncleanness. Just like brushing the garments of a tumah person transfered some uncleanness to you, your presence then transferred some of that to the Temple. If enough built up then the Shechinah would leave. The Ruach HaKodesh, or Holy Spirit is not an unclean spirit that He should reside in filth. The presence would depart. Then worshiping there would be like you being told "You can still go to church, but you will be denied the Eucharist." Would you then climb those steps with the same attitude as before? Would you worship as before? Would you even go? I've never believed in nor taken the Eucharist, but I understand it is pretty important to all Catholics worship. So it's the best analogy I could think of. It'd be like telling a Pentecostal he could no longer speak in tongues, or telling a Baptist he has to be happy. What's the point in going then? It'd be like telling a Messianic he could no longer study  . It would rip the guts out of your focus of faith, your worship, your reason to even have a church or synagogue building. If whatever our focus on God's presence is not there, then there is no point in the building being there. So if the Romans, who were there for many reasons in God's plan, destroy the Temple because you revolted and tried to throw their pagan Greek loving backsides out, then you've lost nothing. Because your God cannot reside in a defiled building. And later when you do throw them out you can rebuild the Temple. But you cannot replace God if He leaves you. |
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Post by rakovsky on Sept 28, 2019 9:19:28 GMT -8
Why have a Temple to God if He is not present there?
They could use it as a gathering place for worship like synagogues, sending their prayers to God who would know about it in His omniscience. Or they could have it in case He returns.
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Post by rakovsky on Sept 28, 2019 9:33:09 GMT -8
Sure. One reason is that my EO jurisdiction usually only gives communion to people who had confession within a month, and it is not strict about demanding confession, so on a given Sunday only about half the people who show up to Church take communion. By comparison, I think that most Protestants only have communion served in their Church once a month. I notice in RC Churches that not many people don't take communion. But in terms of comparing it to how things are in my Church, I wonder how many RCs who do go up have been to confession recently. Maybe alot of RCs go up if they don't have any "mortal" sins.
Another reason is that there are plenty of places of pilgrimage in the EO and RC church where visiting them doesn't necessarily involve communion.
That's funny. Are they really unhappy?
I didn't look at it that way before........
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Post by rakovsky on Sept 28, 2019 9:43:28 GMT -8
My impression is that you are saying that the reason for the rebellion's defeat was that God was displeased because the Temple was defiled due to the ancient equivalent of Orthodox Jews who visited the Temple previously making accidental contact with those whom they would today name as "Conservative Jews" or "Reform Jews".
Maybe I didn't understand you and you were just saying that this caused the Divine Presence to leave the Temple, not that this was the whole cause for the defeat.
I can also understand your argument that sparing the Temple didn't matter any more due to the Divine Spirit leaving.
What I was saying was that if you want to justify a rebellion against Rome, then it would make a stronger case if the Romans were severely imposing on the Jews enough for it to be morally justified. You might be using as an argument that the Temple was getting accidentally polluted by the indirect touch of Reform Jews. But I am not sure that the Romans were forcing the Temple visitors to disregard Halakhah on this matter or that even the rebels were going to make sure it didn't happen. The Zealots killed some Temple priests, and earlier the Maccabbean leaders were Hellenized. There were two First Century chief priests with Greek style names I think as well.
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Post by rakovsky on Sept 28, 2019 10:14:13 GMT -8
The Josephus.org website gives these causes in its article "Causes of the War Against the Romans":
In the entry "Josephus Decides War was Necessary", the website has:
Since Vespasian was a patron of Josephus and Vespasian replaced Nero, Josephus was OK with saying that Nero was to blame. In fact, maybe Vespasian captured Josephus while a general, Nero was killed, and then Vespasian replaced Nero as emperor.
Of course, this does not answer the question of why God would WANT the Jewish rebels to be defeated.
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Post by alon on Sept 28, 2019 15:10:19 GMT -8
So it wold be reduced to the status of a synagogue? And how then would they maintain such an expensive synagogue? Typically when that happens anywhere the building is closed down in hopes of future use, then it falls into disrepair. But this is no ordinary building- there is no future use! I see no provision for HaShem’s return once He left. I used to be Southern Baptist. So it’s a Baptist joke. Maybe the Eucharist was not such a good analogy. On the other hand, if you were told you could never take it again you’d just say “Oh well, it’s just like I didn’t go to confession.” I doubt you’d be so blasé about it. No. You said the possibility the Temple would be destroyed was a reason not to fight, and I showed how it didn’t matter. Then you (not me) tied that to their defeat somehow. Two totally unrelated concepts. I also tried to show you how they understood corruption to build up in the Temple and its consequences, and how they would see this as a reason to fight, not as a reason not to fight. They lost in large part because of Josephus treachery, and no matter how much anyone likes him or wants him recognized as some great historian, there is absolutely no denying that point. But as a traitor and a self promoting braggart his status as either great or as a historian is very much in question. The Greeks and the Romans were pagans. Pagans ruling God’s land was unacceptable. Neither was the British ruling in the Colonial US. Or India, nor for that matter in Israel the aftermath of WWII. People yearn to rule themselves. It’s not that hard to understand. And you don’t think having a foreign army occupying your country is justification for rebellion? Being humiliated any time the lowest soldier sees fit to assault you, paying taxes to another country, seeing your family abused? These are just minor inconveniences, right? In my view, the ones who must answer charges morally justifying their stance are those who refuse to go to war, who say they will take freedom if their neighbor earns it for them but they won’t do anything to make the Romans angry! For that, there is no moral justification. And Josephus, by his own words has no moal justification. That was just an example of how easily defilement could occur, not the whole method of defilement. Just having a Greek or Roman on the Temple Mount would have been seen as defilement. I cannot stress enough how vile he Jews thought these people were! There was a saying of the time, “It is better to feed your son the flesh of swine than to teach him to speak Greek.” The Jews hated the Greek language, customs, society, religious practices, and the Greeks as well. And they hated that the Romans were serious Grecophiles as well as pagans themselves! They hated temples to Greek and Roman gods (which tended to be the same things, just different names) being in their land. They hated their landmarks given pagan names and myths, like the beautiful grotto in Galilee called the “Gates of Hell” where hundreds of minor gods came and went, rising from the bowels of the earth like an inverted Jacob’s Ladder. I don’t know where you got that the Maccabean leaders were Hellenized, but anti-Hellenization sentiment was a prime moving factor in that revolt! Being Hellenized was a sure death sentence if you were caught by the Maccabees. Speaking Greek, regardless the reason could get you killed. As to halacha, only your rabbi and/or Beit Din (religious ruling body and court) could set halacha. The Greeks and later Romans could have inhibited their keeping halacha, but there were halachic provisions for that. But on the other hand, continually having your halachic customs and worse keeping inhibited was a bitter pill to swallow. Might be it would make a fellow want to revolt, … that is, at least until he talked with Josephus. |
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Post by rakovsky on Sept 28, 2019 18:27:35 GMT -8
Here is a list of reasons that I came across. I am not sure how many of them are good: ****Josephus saw the writings of Daniel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel in the Bible as pointing to the Roman conquest. So you could theorize that the nation had been making the same kinds of violations that had led tot he Babylonian captivity. One theory goes that the 490 years of Daniel 9's prophecy and the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity were based on the nation's failure to observe the 7 year sowing cycle. Under this theory, the nation had failed to observe the sowing cycle in the decades leading up to both the Roman and Babylonian conquests. ****Origen says that Josephus attributed the Temple's destruction to the killing of Jesus' brother James, but that Josephus should have looked for the cause of it in Jesus' death. In fact, Josephus narrates both the killing of Jesus and James as among the troublesome events in Books 18-20 of his Antiquities that led to the Temple's destruction. ****At least some rabbis associated the prophecy in Daniel 9 with the destruction of 70 AD. How do the rabbis explain the failure of the revolt, with regards to the Lord's wishes? Do they address the issue? ****If I were to try to take a secular, non-religious examination, I could say that Rome's forces vastly outweighed the Jewish rebels'. Look at how severely the Romans defeated even massive Briton forces belonging to Boudicca in the same era. It would be unlikely strategically for the Jewish revolt to defeat the Roman forces in the war even under normal circumstances, not accounting for divine intervention. So you could say that it didn't have to do with God's wishes really, and that it was just an issue of a much larger, skilled, or stronger army defeating a weaker one. ****John the Baptist preached that the axe was laid to the tree even before Yeshua started His ministry. The tree is one of the images for ancient Israel in the Bible. John's preaching seemed to be aimed primarily at repentance and morality. So there must have been reasons, particularly moral ones, for the catastrophe even before Yeshua arrived publicly in His ministry. But were Jews in the early 1st century really so much more immoral than in other periods of time, or compared generally with other ancient nations of their period? ***Some people have pointed to as a key factor in the event, since the promised rewards or catastrophe based on how well it was observed. But in that case, what violations of the were so strong as to bring about the disaster, the defeat of the cities, and the Temple's ruination? ****Josephus claims that the Romans were tolerant toward Judaism and acted with restraint regarding the Temple services. If that is true it would be harder morally to advocate for a religious revolt against a powerful empire that would bring major casualties, when the Romans were supposedly allowing the Jews to do their own thing in terms of observance. Judaism was a recognized permitted religion in the empire. But were the Romans really tolerant enough of Judaism? ****You replied to me that God could have imposed the defeat in order to scatter the Jews among the nations so that they would spread knowledge of Judaism. But that seems more like Christian evangelists' theory for early persecution of Christians in Judea - ie. the local persecution goaded the evangelizing Christian believers to scatter abroad more - than a justification that the defeated rebels themselves would make. ****Maybe to discern God's reasons you could compare the ideal situation with the less pleasant reality in Judea. In the ideal situation, the nation would be observing , the Shmita cycle, avoiding pointless internecine strife and the kind of immorality that Yeshua criticized, it would have national independence as well as religious liberty with the priestly line performing in the Temple under a Davidic descendant. As I understand it, the Judean leadership in the 1st century BC-AD rejected the legitimate priestly line that belonged to Onias IV, who became a refugee in Egypt where he set up his own Temple. The leaders like the Maccabbean rulers also were not really interested in inviting back the Davidic descendants to rule over them. I am not teaching my own view however with this Factor, but rather inviting you to contrast the ideal situation with the reality in order to find possible divine reasons for the defeat. |
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Post by alon on Sept 28, 2019 22:06:23 GMT -8
Here is a list of reasons that I came across. I am not sure how many of them are good: They are all speculation. ****Josephus saw the writings of Daniel, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel in the Bible as pointing to the Roman conquest. So you could theorize that the nation had been making the same kinds of violations that had led tot he Babylonian captivity. One theory goes that the 490 years of Daniel 9's prophecy and the 70 years of the Babylonian captivity were based on the nation's failure to observe the 7 year sowing cycle. Under this theory, the nation had failed to observe the sowing cycle in the decades leading up to both the Roman and Babylonian conquests. Josephus saw prophecy as an excuse for his perfidy and treachery.
****Origen says that Josephus attributed the Temple's destruction to the killing of Jesus' brother James, but that Josephus should have looked for the cause of it in Jesus' death. In fact, Josephus narrates both the killing of Jesus and James as among the troublesome events in Books 18-20 of his Antiquities that led to the Temple's destruction. The killing of James is one theory, and of course the killing of Jesus another. I doubt either made much of an impact on the man who engineered a suicide pact in which he alone survived. The deaths of others doesn't seem to have bothered him much.
****At least some rabbis associated the prophecy in Daniel 9 with the destruction of 70 AD. How do the rabbis explain the failure of the revolt, with regards to the Lord's wishes? Do they address the issue? I'm sure they do, but I haven't studied their works on that. Your best bet for that kind of information is the Gemara.
****If I were to try to take a secular, non-religious examination, I could say that Rome's forces vastly outweighed the Jewish rebels'. Look at how severely the Romans defeated even massive Briton forces belonging to Boudicca in the same era. It would be unlikely strategically for the Jewish revolt to defeat the Roman forces in the war even under normal circumstances, not accounting for divine intervention. So you could say that it didn't have to do with God's wishes really, and that it was just an issue of a much larger, skilled, or stronger army defeating a weaker one. We've been over that. The Jews almost did defeat Rome and reclaim their land not much later. And again, it was only because a sizeable portion of their army stood down; this time because of R Akiva's proclaiming Bar Kochba the Messiah and their demanding all fighting for them bend the knee and declare him as such. ****John the Baptist preached that the axe was laid to the tree even before Yeshua started His ministry. The tree is one of the images for ancient Israel in the Bible. John's preaching seemed to be aimed primarily at repentance and morality. So there must have been reasons, particularly moral ones, for the catastrophe even before Yeshua arrived publicly in His ministry. But were Jews in the early 1st century really so much more immoral than in other periods of time, or compared generally with other ancient nations of their period? Actually in some ways they were immoral, in that killing the competition was not uncommon, especially between Pharisees and Saducees. On the other hand, it was expected the time of Messiah was at hand. So there were many competing sects, all trying to "out moral" the next and usher in the Messianic age. We have to quit looking at Judaism in that tme as a homogenous unit in order to understand it/them.***Some people have pointed to as a key factor in the event, since the promised rewards or catastrophe based on how well it was observed. But in that case, what violations of the were so strong as to bring about the disaster, the defeat of the cities, and the Temple's ruination? See above.****Josephus claims that the Romans were tolerant toward Judaism and acted with restraint regarding the Temple services. If that is true it would be harder morally to advocate for a religious revolt against a powerful empire that would bring major casualties, when the Romans were supposedly allowing the Jews to do their own thing in terms of observance. Judaism was a recognized permitted religion in the empire. But were the Romans really tolerant enough of Judaism? We've been over this topic several times already, and my answer hasn't changed.
****You replied to me that God could have imposed the defeat in order to scatter the Jews among the nations so that they would spread knowledge of Judaism. But that seems more like Christian evangelists' theory for early persecution of Christians in Judea - ie. the local persecution goaded the evangelizing Christian believers to scatter abroad more - than a justification that the defeated rebels themselves would make. In order to discern God's reasons, all we can really do is look at the results. And this was a major one.
****Maybe to discern God's reasons you could compare the ideal situation with the less pleasant reality in Judea. In the ideal situation, the nation would be observing , the Shmita cycle, avoiding pointless internecine strife and the kind of immorality that Yeshua criticized, it would have national independence as well as religious liberty with the priestly line performing in the Temple under a Davidic descendant. As I understand it, the Judean leadership in the 1st century BC-AD rejected the legitimate priestly line that belonged to Onias IV, who became a refugee in Egypt where he set up his own Temple. The leaders like the Maccabbean rulers also were not really interested in inviting back the Davidic descendants to rule over them. I am not teaching my own view however with this Factor, but rather inviting you to contrast the ideal situation with the reality in order to find possible divine reasons for the defeat. Alcimus, who managed to unseat Onias IV was a Hellenist. He was opposed by the Macabees for both not being in the priestly line and for being in favor of Hellenization. But he went to the Selucids for help, and hey sent an army to support him. The Saducees themselves gained power only because they were pro Roman, quislings for the invader. They killed Pharisees off by the thousands with the support of their pagan benefactors. One leader crucified hundreds at a time, making their families watch. Where then is the moral imperative, to revolt or stay home? You speak like they had no chance of winning. But they won over a vastly superior Geek army, and later came within a hairs breadth of winning over the same Roman army- and that in a severely depleted condition. So your "moral defense" of the traitor Josephus falls apart on every front.
Again, all we can do to discern God's will is look at the results. Ideally the Jews would have continued to be the beacon that drew men to God. Some were. But as a whole, they were not. On the other hand, had everything not unfolded exactly as it did Messiah might never have come. God created the exact time, place, people, and circumstances to reveal His Messiah. At no other time in history would His coming have worked so well. |
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Post by rakovsky on Sept 29, 2019 11:09:15 GMT -8
So it wold be reduced to the status of a synagogue? And how then would they maintain such an expensive synagogue? Typically when that happens anywhere the building is closed down in hopes of future use, then it falls into disrepair. But this is no ordinary building- there is no future use! I see no provision for HaShem’s return once He left. No. You said the possibility the Temple would be destroyed was a reason not to fight, and I showed how it didn’t matter. Then you (not me) tied that to their defeat somehow. Two totally unrelated concepts. I also tried to show you how they understood corruption to build up in the Temple and its consequences, and how they would see this as a reason to fight, not as a reason not to fight. They lost in large part because of Josephus treachery, and no matter how much anyone likes him or wants him recognized as some great historian, there is absolutely no denying that point. But as a traitor and a self promoting braggart his status as either great or as a historian is very much in question. The Greeks and the Romans were pagans. Pagans ruling God’s land was unacceptable. Neither was the British ruling in the Colonial US. Or India, nor for that matter in Israel the aftermath of WWII. People yearn to rule themselves. It’s not that hard to understand. And you don’t think having a foreign army occupying your country is justification for rebellion? Being humiliated any time the lowest soldier sees fit to assault you, paying taxes to another country, seeing your family abused? These are just minor inconveniences, right? In my view, the ones who must answer charges morally justifying their stance are those who refuse to go to war, who say they will take freedom if their neighbor earns it for them but they won’t do anything to make the Romans angry! For that, there is no moral justification. And Josephus, by his own words has no moal justification. That was just an example of how easily defilement could occur, not the whole method of defilement. Just having a Greek or Roman on the Temple Mount would have been seen as defilement. I cannot stress enough how vile he Jews thought these people were! There was a saying of the time, “It is better to feed your son the flesh of swine than to teach him to speak Greek.” The Jews hated the Greek language, customs, society, religious practices, and the Greeks as well. And they hated that the Romans were serious Grecophiles as well as pagans themselves! They hated temples to Greek and Roman gods (which tended to be the same things, just different names) being in their land. They hated their landmarks given pagan names and myths, like the beautiful grotto in Galilee called the “Gates of Hell” where hundreds of minor gods came and went, rising from the bowels of the earth like an inverted Jacob’s Ladder. I don’t know where you got that the Maccabean leaders were Hellenized, but anti-Hellenization sentiment was a prime moving factor in that revolt! Being Hellenized was a sure death sentence if you were caught by the Maccabees. Speaking Greek, regardless the reason could get you killed. As to halacha, only your rabbi and/or Beit Din (religious ruling body and court) could set halacha. The Greeks and later Romans could have inhibited their keeping halacha, but there were halachic provisions for that. But on the other hand, continually having your halachic customs and worse keeping inhibited was a bitter pill to swallow. Might be it would make a fellow want to revolt, … that is, at least until he talked with Josephus. ^Good recap. I got lost. I started with my goal of trying to find why God would have wanted the defeat, and then considering if failing to care about what conquerors would do to the Temple would be a factor. Herod Agrippa II was telling them not to fight, so as to spare the Temple.
Good point about the Maccabbeans being anti-Hellenistic in their revolt against the Greeks. But it seemed from my reading like eventually Maccabbean society did take on some Greek ways. The Maccabbean books themselves were translated into Greek and I think one of the Maccabbean books like 3 Maccabbees was originally written in Greek. Some of the Maccabbean line's nobility took on Greek names too, IIRC. I could be misremembering this though.
You asked about justifications for war, like having to pay taxes to a foreign power. Like I mentioned earlier, we are getting into a weird issue I feel especially in the Christian context, unfortunately. Because for example Yeshua said to pay Caesar's money taxes to Rome. Maybe you can interpret that differently. But even if you can, another thing is the whole "just war theory" like deciding based on Christian principles when a war could actually be just. Aquinas laid this out and one of his requirements was whether there was a reasonable chance of success. And I am skeptical about this. OK, they beat the Greeks, but the Romans beat the Greeks too. And then are we going to justify Puerto Rico or Native Americans rebelling in the 19th century as a God-given cause. Maybe some will do that, but it feels like a weird issue. It feels like there should be more factors than just the right to national self-determination in order to make a strong case for rebellion. Actually it looks like at first Josephus believed that there was a decent case at the outset due to abusive Roman governors like Florus, IIRC.
If we are going to justify revolt, then another factor is what the revolt would look like if it succeeds. If the rebel factions under the Zealots took over, would they enact an ideal state and system faithfully following and acting morally? This also looks doubtful based on lots of circumstances like their infighting, the way that the Sanhedrin had been acting toward Nazarenes, etc.
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Post by alon on Sept 29, 2019 11:45:06 GMT -8
^Good recap. I got lost. I started with my goal of trying to find why God would have wanted the defeat, and then considering if failing to care about what conquerors would do to the Temple would be a factor.
Easy to do.
Herod Agrippa II was telling them not to fight, so as to spare the Temple.
I imagine he would say that, since he had a lot invested there! His continued office also was dependent on his keeping the peace.
Good point about the Maccabbeans being anti-Hellenistic in their revolt against the Greeks. But it seemed from my reading like eventually Maccabbean society did take on some Greek ways. The Maccabbean books themselves were translated into Greek and I think one of the Maccabbean books like 3 Maccabbees was originally written in Greek. Some of the Maccabbean line's nobility took on Greek names too, IIRC. I could be misremembering this though.
The entire OT was also translated into Greek, as was the NT. Doesn't mean any of them were ever written using even one word of Greek. As to the effects of Hellenization, it was impossible not to be effected by it once introduced. This was part of the problem the purists had with it. It was the most genious ploy of Alexander the Great; to Hellenize those he conquered so he wouldn't have to expend so many troops maintaining conquered lands.
You asked about justifications for war, like having to pay taxes to a foreign power. Like I mentioned earlier, we are getting into a weird issue I feel especially in the Christian context, unfortunately. Because for example Yeshua said to pay Caesar's money taxes to Rome. Maybe you can interpret that differently. But even if you can, another thing is the whole "just war theory" like deciding based on Christian principles when a war could actually be just. Aquinas laid this out and one of his requirements was whether there was a reasonable chance of success. And I am skeptical about this. OK, they beat the Greeks, but the Romans beat the Greeks too. And then are we going to justify Puerto Rico or Native Americans rebelling in the 19th century as a God-given cause. Maybe some will do that, but it feels like a weird issue. It feels like there should be more factors than just the right to national self-determination in order to make a strong case for rebellion. Actually it looks like at first Josephus believed that there was a decent case at the outset due to abusive Roman governors like Florus, IIRC.
There are many things to factor in. And I think the hundreds and thousands executed on crosses by Rome at the behest of their quislings just because they were of a different religious sect might be a major mitigating factor to add to that list, as we discussed.
If we are going to justify revolt, then another factor is what the revolt would look like if it succeeds. If the rebel factions under the Zealots took over, would they enact an ideal state and system faithfully following and acting morally? This also looks doubtful based on lots of circumstances like their infighting, the way that the Sanhedrin had been acting toward Nazarenes, etc. There is always the chance something like what happened in the Russian Revolution, when Lenin hijacked it and installed a Communist government might happen. Or more civil war might ensue. But we cannot know that, and those would be an outside chance anyhow. Probably a Temple based government led mostly by Pharisees (who were over half the population at the time), with a Beit Din in Jerusalem and smaller ones in the outlying areas would have been installed. That is what they had in the short interlude of freedom between Greek and Roman conquerors. They would have restored the priestly line, which Herod Agrippa II had polluted and outright usurped. But I am sure there would have been some sectarian strife. Regardless, I'd argue that not knowing what your government would look like is no reason not to revolt. Look at the US after the Revolution. There was a huge argument over strong federal gov't or states rights. The right side (states rights) won, only to be undone by the War Between the States later.
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Post by rakovsky on Sept 29, 2019 13:07:09 GMT -8
****John the Baptist preached that the axe was laid to the tree even before Yeshua started His ministry. The tree is one of the images for ancient Israel in the Bible. John's preaching seemed to be aimed primarily at repentance and morality. So there must have been reasons, particularly moral ones, for the catastrophe even before Yeshua arrived publicly in His ministry. But were Jews in the early 1st century really so much more immoral than in other periods of time, or compared generally with other ancient nations of their period? Actually in some ways they were immoral, in that killing the competition was not uncommon, especially between Pharisees and Saducees. On the other hand, it was expected the time of Messiah was at hand. So there were many competing sects, all trying to "out moral" the next and usher in the Messianic age. We have to quit looking at Judaism in that tme as a homogenous unit in order to understand it/them.This seems to me like one of the key factors if one is going to moralize the defeat.
Josephus nowhere says that the people of Japha were especially immoral in particular, but rather this would have to be something extrapolated to the rebellion in general in order to make that kind of viewpoint.
In Book II, Chapter 13, Josephus writes critically about the sicarii rebels as killing political opponents:
In Book II, Chapter 15, 3-5, Josephus narrates how Florus asked for the Temple servants to come out to meet them, and the Temple servants, whom Josephus calls the "servants of God", implored the rebels to show the Romans peace:
[/quote][/div] So, when the Temple servants went out to meet Florus, Florus' soldiers did not return the servants' salutation, and Florus had given instruction to attack if there was an offensive reply from the Jews. So Florus' soldiers attacked when the rebels cried out against the Romans, even though the Temple servants wanted peace.
In this way, Josephus is blaming both Florus' forces and the rebels for that slaughter. He is saying that in this instance, the rebels were egging on a fight when they didn't need to and the Temple servants were in harm's way.
Then in Book II, Chapter 19, Josephus describes how the rebels killed the priests who called out to the Roman forces in peace, and Josephus theorizes that Cestius didn't capture Jerusalem at that point because God didn't want him to: the capture would have put an end to the war, but Josephus asserts that God was already so averse to the city and Temple that he didn't want the war to end at this point:
Whiston theorizes in his footnote 30 that this episode is the event of the Abomination of Desolation that made the Nazarenes leave Jerusalem before it was destroyed. Whiston writes that this provided "an opportunity of calling to mind the prediction and caution given them by Christ about 33½ years before, that when they should see the abomination of desolation, [the idolatrous Roman armies, with the images of their idols in their ensigns, ready to lay Jerusalem desolate], stand where it ought not; or, in the holy place; or, when they should see Jerusalem compassed with armies, they should then flee to the mountains."
In Book II, Chapter 20, Josephus narrates how he built walls around Japha and other Galilean cities and trained a major army there. Further, he told his soldiers, Josephus is implying that they need to observe good order in war, and that if they acted criminally as "they used to indulge themselves in", then God would be their antagonist. So based on this reasoning, the criminality of the rebels that he narrates in his writing like their killing of the priests was a factor in making God their antagonist.
In Book III, Chapter 7, Josephus notes that Vespasian interpreted Josephus' arrival in Jotapata to be a chance from God to catch Josephus: Based on the rest of the story, Josephus seems to agree with this idea that God wanted Vespasian to catch him. So on one hand in Chapter 7, Josephus shuts himself up in a place of sure custody due to the providence of God, and on the other hand Josephus later writes in the same Chapter, (Chp. 7, section 31) that in contrast the forces of Japha were shut outside the city by God's will. The two ideas seem related. In his mind, God wanted the city of Japha to be defeated and Josephus to be captured at Jotapata.
I might be reading too much into it, but the way that he decries killing oneself as offensive to God, and the way that the soldiers around him killed eachother remind me of how in Japha he blames the inhabitants of Japha for shutting out the city's own forces to get slaughtered.
Later, in Chapter 10, Titus hears how the people in the city had a tumult among themselves and announces that God is delivering the Jews to the Romans, and that they must use the moment and prent their uniting again:
So it looks like a major factor that Josephus sees in the defeat, which he repeats through his writing, is that the Jewish forces were divided between each other. So in the case of Japha, one force (in the city) locked out another force (the army outside) despite the outside force's calls to be let in.
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Post by rakovsky on Sept 29, 2019 13:58:17 GMT -8
If you want to go by the New Testament reading or understanding of the events, then the main reason is Yeshua's death, as it says in Luke's gospel that not one stone shall be left Unturned because they knew not the hour of their visitation. If you want to go by the , then consider that the most important rule is to love God with all your soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. The zealots killing of their priests and the rebels internecine fighting and the abuse has that he described certainly were violations of the most important parts of the . You could look in terms of ritual Purity or ritual observance for factors in the defeat like the failure to observe the 7-year growing cycle but as far as what the Lord's motives might have been I think that those ones would be the most important. Under Greek rule, sure there were violations, major violations of the 's ritual rules and cleanliness of the Temple, but as you described, the maccabean Rebels were able to achieve power. In this case, if you suppose that the rebels were trying to achieve ritual purity, then failure to achieve ritual Purity would be hard to consider a factor in the rebels defeat. |
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Post by alon on Sept 30, 2019 11:06:10 GMT -8
If you want to go by the New Testament reading or understanding of the events, then the main reason is Yeshua's death, as it says in Luke's gospel that not one stone shall be left Unturned because they knew not the hour of their visitation. If you want to go by the , then consider that the most important rule is to love God with all your soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. The zealots killing of their priests and the rebels internecine fighting and the abuse has that he described certainly were violations of the most important parts of the . I just go by the Bible, which takes both into account; and history (what God did/allowed), but those answers are speculative.You could look in terms of ritual Purity or ritual observance for factors in the defeat like the failure to observe the 7-year growing cycle but as far as what the Lord's motives might have been I think that those ones would be the most important. Under Greek rule, sure there were violations, major violations of the 's ritual rules and cleanliness of the Temple, but as you described, the maccabean Rebels were able to achieve power. In this case, if you suppose that the rebels were trying to achieve ritual purity, then failure to achieve ritual Purity would be hard to consider a factor in the rebels defeat. You are still confusing the laws of ritual purity which concern not defiling the Temple to the point the Divine Presence leaves, and reasons for its destruction and the rebels defeat. But take out that concept and you have some good points there.
It's Rosh HaShannah, so I'll answer the longer post later. Probably a bit at a time, as I'll be getting busy for a while now.
L'shanah Tova! Happy New Year! |
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Post by rakovsky on Sept 30, 2019 15:18:54 GMT -8
It's Rosh HaShannah, so I'll answer the longer post later. Probably a bit at a time, as I'll be getting busy for a while now.
L'shanah Tova! Happy New Year! You can if you like, but I feel that we answered the questions in this thread enough, so you don't have to.
Happy New Year.
Peace.
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- there are 70 faces to 
