Episode 76. Roman Judaea: From the Covenant to Direct Rule

Works Cited Primary Sources The Hebrew Bible (the Tanakh). The principal source for the pre-Hellenistic period of the Jewish religious tradition. The five books of Torah preserve the foundational material on the covenant and the Israelite religious framework. The historical books—Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings—preserve the narrative of the Israelite kingdoms. The prophetic books preserve the religious and political commentary of the pre-exilic and exilic periods. The book of Ezra preserves the principal account of the return from Babylonian exile. The composition and dating of these texts is the subject of substantial modern scholarly debate. They are used here as the religious tradition's own self-understanding, with the caveat that the historical and archaeological evidence is treated with appropriate critical care.The First and Second Books of Maccabees, preserved in the Greek-language Septuagint translation. The principal sources for the Hasmonean revolt of 167 BCE and following. First Maccabees is a substantial historical narrative, probably composed in the late second or early first century BCE. Second Maccabees is a more theological treatment of the same events, with a more developed framework of divine intervention and martyrdom.Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews. Comprehensive Jewish history written in the late first century CE, drawing on biblical and post-biblical Jewish sources, Hellenistic historians, and Roman documentary materials. The principal source for the Hasmonean and Herodian periods, and for the procuratorial administration of Judaea up to the outbreak of the Jewish War.Josephus. The Jewish War. Focused narrative of the war of 66 to 73 CE, with substantial background on the immediate prewar period. Josephus served as a Jewish military commander in the early phase of the war before defecting to Rome, which gives the text both insider knowledge and the political bias of a defector. Both elements require careful source-criticism.Tacitus. Histories, Book 5. The fifth book of Tacitus's Histories preserves an extended Roman ethnographic and political account of the Jewish people and their religion, written from a hostile Roman perspective. The Pompey-in-the-Temple material is preserved at 5.9. To be used with appropriate source-criticism throughout.Secondary Sources Goodman, Martin. Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations. Allen Lane, 2007. The major recent treatment of the Roman-Jewish relationship across the entire imperial period. The structural framework of this episode owes substantial debts to Goodman's analysis.Grabbe, Lester L. A History of the Jews and Judaism in the Second Temple Period. T&T Clark, 2008. Detailed scholarly history of the period from the return from exile through the Bar Kokhba revolt.Sanders, E. P. Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE to 66 CE. SCM Press, 1992. Focused study of Jewish religious practice during the late Hasmonean and early Roman periods, which is the immediate background for both the Jesus movement and the Pauline mission that will be the subject of the next episode.Schäfer, Peter. The History of the Jews in the Greco-Roman World. Routledge, revised edition, 2003. Standard scholarly history of the Jewish community across the relevant period.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/real-roman-history/donations