I'm giving Goodman's 'Rome and Jerusalem' 5 stars based on its sheer informational content. I could downgrade it on its punctuation, thin documentation and readability but won't do so because--in terms of pure scholarship--I find this tome to be remarkable.
It's not a page-turner. Ir might even pass for a scholarly reference book except that it isn't footnoted. From my point of view, this is a good thing. If Goodman had footnoted every last documentable point, this long book might have been twice as long, or even longer. I do a great deal of reading about ancient subjects and THOUGHT I knew a lot about Rome, Judea and ancient Judaism. Man, was I wrong. Despite the author's intention to highlight the clashes between ancient Romans and Jews, he has produced something even greater. He gives us information and insights into multiple details of ancient Roman, Jewish and Christian society that I was unaware of. Rome is a Devil's Brew of ambition and power. A man struggles to the top to become emperor and, once he makes it, he is--as often as not--torn down and slaughtered, just as he did to his predecessor. Even those few emperors who did manage to die of natural causes must have had to fend off innumerable plots against their power time and again. Paranoia, madness and mass murder could be the result. It makes me wonder why successful Roman people weren't simply satisfied to be successful--and Safe. Why chance it all on the roll of highly lethal dice? The answer must lay in the Roman mind. Upward grabs at power must have been very nearly instinctive.
Jews in Judea and the Diaspora had their own set of virtually insurmountable problems. There were a number of religious factions [Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Sicarii, Zealots] competing for preeminence in Israel and in the Temple, itself. Most of these factions were 'Templecentric" and required--absolutely required--the Jerusalem Temple to make their bloody sacrifices to God. Even this wasn't true of all groups. The Samaritans were Jewish but believed it more fitting to worship and sacrifice to God on one of their sacred mountains. At one point a Temple-oriented Jew asks a Samaritan about the Temple. The Samaritan answers, "Why would you desire to go to that dung-heap? Better you worship on the mountain." This story makes Christ's parable about the "Good Samaritan" all the more understandable.
I think that First-Century Jerusalem Jews--as well as others in Judea and indeed in the "Diaspora"--can be likened to fundamentalist [and even Jihadist] Muslims in our own age. They were uncompromising, emotional and resisted compromise. At one point, and familiar to us, a Roman Legionnaire provokes a major revolt by reviling a copy of the Torah and then tearing it apart. Nevertheless, they lived more-or-less at peace and for a long time--in their conquered land under Roman governance. Unfortunately [in retrospect] for them, independence movements--fueled by a Messianic beliefs and promoted by radicals such as the Zealots and Sicarii--became ever stronger. Rebellion broke out. The rebels--in conformation with their religious beliefs--were initially successful. They defeated a Roman Legion and drove the Romans from Judea. In a sense, this 'victory' was the worst thing that could have happened to them. All was well for two years. The Jews printed their own coinage and engaged in internecine feuds. They may have thought that they were covered by God's hand and that Rome--at best--was a Paper Tiger.
Nope. Roman legions under Vespasian and his son, Titus, struck back. Vespasian, feeling his oats, felt that his time had come. He returned to Alexandria and Rome and made his bid for Imperial power. Titus, now an agent for his ambitious father, conquered Judea, Jerusalem and reduced the Temple to rubble. Vespasian's power was reinforced by this victorious, punitive campaign. Tens of thousands jews were slain and many were led into slavery. Vespasian enjoyed the fruits of his calculation. He was awarded with a great Triumph through Rome and one of the primary Jewish ringleaders was ritually strangled in the old traditional way.
Jews, all over the Western World were appalled. The very practice of Judaism was dependent on the Jerusalem Temple--a Temple that no longer no longer existed--but, worse yet, one that the Romans wouldn't permit to be rebuilt. In the amazing spectacle in which a structure of stone and cement is more important than life itself, the Jews rebelled--BIG rebellions--in A.D. 115 and 130. There may have been even more that go undocumented. Mountains of Jews are slaughtered in holocausts that, in terms of percentage of Jews killed, may have exceeded the Nazi Holocaust of a later generation. Why? What possible excuse could there be for rebellion when you already had horrific examples of what had happened in the past? Frustration, hatred and Messianic expectations? Maybe.
Antisemitism, which probably was an insignificant factor in earlier times, grew in proportion to the trouble that the Jews had caused for the Romans. To this can be added that Diaspora Jews were an integral part of the greater Roman society but, insular people that they were, held themselves apart from it. Differences can be tolerated but they rarely breed love. They can--and oftentimes do--breed suspicion and hostility. This didn't change when gentile Romans became [previously Jewish] Christians. In that Christianity was a subset of Judaism and, in that the Jews were despised, Christians set themselves as far from Judaism as possible. They started to forget that Jesus and his disciples were Jews, themselves. As a matter of fact, the utter demolition of the Jerusalem Temple was a fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy that "not one stone will remain." Therefore Christians were in no mood to tolerate Jews and they were most certainly in no mood to see the Temple rebuilt.
Everything follows from that.
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Top reviews from other countries
- GiulianiReviewed in the United Kingdom on August 14, 2014
Why they wail at the wall
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A strong recommendation...
