The Gifts of the Jews | Kingdom of David
The original diversity of late second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity meets the bottleneck of the great clashes between the Jewish rebellions and the Roman Empire. Out of the Anvil and the Hammer will emerge a new religion and a new Judaism forged from this dynamic explosive mix of civilizations.
God and Empire | How Imperial Invasion of Israel shaped Biblical Theology
The Chronology
1000 bce David consolidates religion in Jerusalem, his son Solomon builds the first Temple
722 Completion of Assyria's conquest of Israel; population deported.
Isaiah
622 King Josiah of Judah revolutionized the cultic system. He implements the notion that only one God should be worshiped by all Judahites and Israelites, and that Jerusalem should be the only legitimate place where sacrifices to YHWH should be made. The basis of these striking reforms is a "Book of Law" found at the temple in Jerusalem during repairs ordered by the young king.
Deuteronomy
586 Babylon conquers Jerusalem, destorys Temple, and deports population.
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Lamentations
532 Persia conquers Babylon, Cyrus the Great of Persia permits exiles to return and rebuild the Temple.
332 Alexander the Great conquers Judea. After his death in 323 bce, Ptolemies in Egypt and Seleucids in Syria rule Judea by turns for the next 150 years.
167 Seleucid ruler Antiochus Epiphanes introduces pagan rites at Jerusalem Temple, triggering the Maccabean revolt
Daniel
Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations
A magisterial history of the titanic struggle between the Roman and Jewish worlds that led to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Martin Goodman—equally renowned in Jewish and in Roman studies—examines this conflict, its causes, and its consequences with unprecedented authority and thoroughness. He delineates the incompatibility between the cultural, political, and religious beliefs and practices of the two peoples and explains how Rome's interests were served by a policy of brutality against the Jews. At the same time, Christians began to distance themselves from their origins, becoming increasingly hostile toward Jews as Christian influence spread within the empire. This is the authoritative work of how these two great civilizations collided and how the reverberations are felt to this day.
"I have always thought of the historical Jesus as a homeland Jew within Judaism within the Roman Empire. I have always thought of the historical Paul as a diaspora Jew within Judaism within the Roman Empire. For me, then, within Judaism within the Roman Empire has always been the absolutely necessary matrix rather than the annoyingly unnecessary background for any discussion of earliest Christianity. You can see that three-layer matrix, for example, in the sub-titles to the first and last books above. For the historical Jesus, The Life of a Mediterranean Peasant, emphasizes Rome, Judaism, and Jew."
John Dominic Crossan
"The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness," the War Scroll is one of the seven original Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in Qumran in 1947 and holds the Qumran library designator of “1QM,” meaning it was produced from the dig of cave 1.The War Scroll is a very important piece of literature in our understanding of the concepts of divine justice and retribution held by the Jewish community of the Essenes and the Qumran Community in the time of Jewish persecution by Rome.The scroll reflects a belief that in the end times evil would be eradicated by the Power of God and his Sons of Light.The Qumran community saw itself as a righteous light in the world, solidly on the side of good.
Levine, a professor of New Testament studies at Vanderbilt, joins the ranks of Bart Ehrman, John Dominic Crossan, and others in the search for the historical Jesus. In the first several chapters, Levine treads familiar ground, discussing Jesus within the context of Judaism and examining how Christianity evolved from a Jewish sect to a gentile church.
When the world's largest Christian denomination acknowledges that early "Christianity" was merely a sect of the Jewish religion—both during Jesus' life and for years thereafter—isn't it time to reexamine what the New Testament really says about the Man from Nazareth?
Today, we know more about Jesus' times than ever before. Yet Christian religious leaders have been reluctant to disseminate these new insights—largely because they reveal that Jesus was a Jewish prophet who insisted on adherence to traditional Judaism. In Jesus the Misunderstood Jew: What the New Testament Really Says About the Man from Nazareth, Dr. Robert Kupor illuminates the New Testament in a way that allows both Christians and Jews to understand this seminal document in a startling new light. Jesus the Misunderstood Jew will surprise and enlighten you.
Israel documentary
Jewish History
Christ is Jewish