Customer Reviews

Bar-Kokhba: The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Last Jewish Revolt Against Imperial Rome

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"Bar-Kokhba," by the famed Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin is a gripping account of the search in the 1960s for the remains of the nearly forgotten Bar Kokhba revolt of AD 132-135. Bar Kokhba rebelled against Roman authoraties, and was initially successful in securing "the redemption of Israel." He was declared the Messiah by his followers, but he was eventually defeated by the Roman army and ran to the ground at Bethar, where he was killed.

Yadin begins his book with an account of what records and legends of the rebellion were preserved by Roman and Christian historians and the Talmud, then he gets down to business with his and others' search in the caves bordering the Dead Sea for artifacts and documents relating to the revolt. They made several finds, most spectacularly 15 letters written by Bar Kokhba himself to some of his officers in the En-gedi. Well integrated with the text are many pictures --- of the artifacts recovered, the archaeological teams at work, and maps and diagrams.

An appendix includes the major accounts of the Bar Kokhba revolt from Jewish, Roman and Christian sources. I read this book in one day, and if you can find a copy (it's out of print) it would make an excellent addition to your personal library.

Anyone who is interested in Archaeology in general, or more specifically, in the Archaeology of the Holy Land will love that book. It is informative and well written, with abundant pictures. It is not a dry scientific treatise, but a work of vulgarization, within anyone's reach. It convey very well the excitement of the discoveries of the letters of Bar-Kokhba, who, until then, was more a figure of legend than history. I really like it and I read it twice in a row!

If you are interested in the history of Israel and/or Palestine, then this is a book for you. Mr Yadin writes well and makes you want to be on the scene, digging in the dirt for traces of an ancient civilization.

Yigael Yadin will remain Israel's most famed archeologist of all time. Yadin, along with 3 other scholars, were each given a section of land (much like that of the Qumran community) to dig for evidence regarding the people that inhabited the caves thousands of years earlier.

This book starts off with the historical documentation of Bar-Kokhba by writers such as Eusebius and Dio Cassius, along with commentary from the Talmud and Midrash Rabbah. Yadin goes out of his way to provide this documentation in the back of the book (with citations) and to me, was the most valuable information of the entire book, outside of the archeological dig itself.

This book is very well constructed, but could have been better written at times. While he offers first hand accounts of his archeological dig, at times the book appears to be more of a diary entry than a novel. (Yadin also provides translations of Bar-Kokhba's letters as well as photographs of them.)

Among other finds at the site, the most intriguing is saved for the last chapter of the book and interestingly, has nothing to do with Bar-Kokhba, but of a Jewish woman named Barbata. She was a widower who saved all of her legal documents in a leather bound purse that was found in the same cave as Bar-Kokhba's letters.

This is a good addition to any library, however, wish the book contained more historical documentation of the Second Roman-Jewish war and Bar-Kokhba himself, even though the letters provide an abundance of information in and of themselves.

This book describes some of the many Bar Kochba-related items the author and his team found while digging through abandoned caves in Israel.

What I learned from this book was how successful the Bar-Kochba rebellion was at first: it was capable of conscripting people into its army, minting coins and taking over property.

I also learned that literacy was not universal in ancient Israel. Most letters dug up by the author were written by someone other than the nominal author- sometimes by a professional scribe, sometimes by a close relative. One legal affidavit actually states that the author could not write, and that as a result her husband was drafting it in her name.