Victor R. Claveau, MJ
In the year AD 66, Gessius Florus, the last Roman procurator, robbed entire cities and communities, stole vast sums of silver from the Temple and did not prosecute bandits so long as they gave him part of their booty. The atrocities went unpunished by Rome, and the outraged Jewish masses, led by the Zealots, rioted and wiped out the small Roman garrison stationed in Jerusalem.
Cestius Gallus, the Roman ruler in neighboring Syria, sent in a larger force of soldiers. But the Jewish insurgents defeated them as well. This was a heartening victory that was to have a terrible consequence. Never again were the Jews to achieve so decisive a victory.
When the Romans returned, they had 60,000 heavily armed and elite troops. Their first attack was launched against the northern area of Galilee, and an estimated 100,000 Jews were killed or later sold into slavery.
The final catastrophe took place at Jerusalem. Outside the city, Roman troops prepared to besiege it; inside the city, the Jews were engaged in a suicidal civil war. There was a hatred of the people for the aristocratic High Priesthood, and this found expression at the time of the Great Revolt. When the Zealots dominated Jerusalem, they killed or expelled the priests and chose a stonemason to fill the office of High Priest. He was to be the last Jewish high priest.
Destruction of the Second Temple
The Jews died by the thousands, more from plague and famine than from the wounds of war. During the summer of AD 70, the Romans breached the city’s walls and began an orgy of violence and destruction. Shortly thereafter, they destroyed the Second Temple. This was the final and most devastating blow against Judea.[1]
Of those who survived, thousands were transported to fight wild beasts in the amphitheaters of Antioch and Cæsarea, or to slave to death in the mines of Sinai. According to Jewish historian Joseph ben Mattitiahu Hacohen, commonly referred to as Josephus (c. AD 37-100), as many as 1.1 million Jews were killed and 90,000 were captured and sold into slavery.[2] When people today speak of the almost 2,000-year span of Jewish homelessness and exile, they are dating it from the failure of the revolt and the destruction of the Second Temple.
In addition to the more than one million Jews killed, the rebellion resulted in the complete loss of the Levitical priesthood. All the priests who could trace their authority from Aaron, the brother of Moses, were killed.
From that time to this, there have been no Jewish Temple sacrifices. The Encyclopedia Judaica readily admits: “Those currently designated ‘priests’ are ‘presumed priests,’ inasmuch as there is no legally sufficient proof testifying to their descent from ancient priestly families.”[3] In other words, Jews have no way of knowing whether an individual is of Levitical lineage because all the records were destroyed with the destruction of the Temple.
Orthodox Jews still pray three times a day for the restoration of the Temple and the sacrifices.
Destruction of the Temple Predicted
Noted Jewish, general and historian Josephus Flavius, who lived in the time of the destruction of the Second Temple wrote about the signs which were believed to be forerunners to the forthcoming catastrophe:
“So it was when a star, resembling a sword, stood over the entire city of Jerusalem and a comet which continued for a year…
And again, when before the revolt and the commotion that led to war, at the time when the people were assembled for the Feast of the Unleavened Bread [Pesah] … at the ninth hour of the night, so brilliant a light shone round the altar and the sanctuary that it seemed to be broad daylight, and this continued for half an hour …
“For before sunset throughout all parts of the country, chariots were seen in the air and armed battalions hurling through the clouds, and encompassing the city.
Moreover, at the feast which is called Pentecost [Shebuoth] the priests, on entering the inner court of the Temple by night, as was their custom in the discharge of their ministrations, reported that they were conscious first of a commotion and a din, and after that, of a voice as of a host: We are departing hence!”[4]
Josephus went on to write about additional signs which portended the end of the Temple more clearly:
“Forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the western light could not be kindled. And the portals of the sanctuary used to open by themselves, until Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai reproached them saying: “Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Why dost thou frighten thyself! Well do I know that thy fate is to be destroyed.
“Moreover, the eastern gate of the inner court – it was of brass and very massive, and when closed toward evening, could scarcely be removed by twenty men; fastened with iron-bound bars, it had bolts which were sunk to a great depth into a threshold consisting of a solid block of stone.
“This gate was observed at the sixth hour of the night to have opened of its own accord. The watchman of the Temple ran and reported the matter to the captain, and he came up and with difficulty succeeded in shutting it.
“This again, to the uninitiated, seemed the best of omens, as they supposed that God had opened to them the gate of blessing. But the learned understood that the security of the Temple was dissolving of its own accord, and that the opening of the gate meant a present to the enemy, interpreting the portent in their own minds as indicative of coming desolation.”[5]
According to Zev Vilnay, writing in Legends of Jerusalem:
“A thread of crimson wool was tied to the doors of the sanctuary. If it turned white, this was a sign that the Holy One, Blessed be He, had forgiven the sins of Israel, as in the words of Isaiah: “Though your words be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isaiah 1:18).
“Originally they used to fasten the thread of scarlet on the door of the [Temple] court on the outside.
“If it turned white, the people would rejoice.
“And if it did not turn white, they were sad….
“Forty years before the destruction of the Temple, the thread of crimson never turned white – but it remained red.”[6]
Why was Jerusalem Destroyed?
“Jerusalem was destroyed only because of the desecration of the Sabbath.
Jerusalem was destroyed only because the morning and evening prayers were abolished.
Jerusalem was destroyed only because the children of the schools remained untaught.
Jerusalem was destroyed only because the people did not feel shame toward one another.
Jerusalem was destroyed only because no distinction was drawn between the young and the old.
Jerusalem was destroyed only because one did not warn or admonish the other.
Jerusalem was destroyed only because men of scholarship and learning were despised.
Jerusalem was destroyed only because there were no longer men of faith and hope in her midst.
Jerusalem was destroyed only because her laws were founded upon the strict letter of the Torah and were not interpreted in the ways of mercy and kindness.”[7]
Jews believe that God allowed the destruction of the Second Temple because of the sin of causeless hatred, Jew against Jew, which was rampant among the people.
All that may be true, but was there another, a far more important reason for the rejection of the Jewish sacrifices and the destruction of the Temple?
Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod, who died in the year BC 4. If, as scholars believe, He was thirty-three years old when He was crucified, it would have been in the year AD 29. The Jewish war ended approximately forty years later. Why, for forty years before the destruction of the Temple, did God rejected the sacrifices of the Jews? Is it because the one true sacrifice of Christ had taken place? Is it possible God gave the Jews a generation of forty years in which to accept Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah and to recognize the new priesthood established in and through the apostles, and then allowed the destruction of the Temple and the old priesthood? I will let the reader answer these questions!
The next period in the history of the Jewish Bible is at the end of the first century, some 10 to 30 years after the destruction of the Temple. By that time, a strong rabbinical academy had been established by Yohanan ben Zakkai at Yavneh (in Greek: Jamnia), located near the coast between Jaffa and Ashod, approximately 12 miles south of present day Tel Aviv. Rabban (Rabbi) Zakkai knew that in order to preserve the organic body of Judaism, it would be necessary to have an organized group of men to take over the duties and responsibilities of the then-defunct Sanhedrin. He therefore organized a council of teachers, the Bet Din, which served as senate, as court and as parliament — in other words, the voice of scattered Israel.
On the whole, the Yavnean sages proved to be very adept ideologically; they mitigated the disaster of AD 70 by offering alternate means of religious expression in the absence of the Second Temple.[8]
It was at this great center of learning the rabbis held a synod in AD 84, where two major decisions were reached: First, Judaism would be shaped primarily by the remembered insights of Hillel the Elder[9]; second, the Jewish canon, which had been developing for centuries, was closed, except for some decisions regarding “the Writings” (especially Ben Sirach and Esther).[10]
[1] Note: As an interesting sidelight, when the Second Temple was destroyed, all the archives were also destroyed. Our Jewish brothers and sisters are still waiting for the Messiah. If today someone claimed to be the long awaited Messiah, how could he possibly prove he was of the lineage of the House of David? See Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 3, 375.
[2] Josephus, Flavius Wars of the Jews, The Complete Works of Josephus (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1981) 568-570. Note: Josephus is regarded as the major Jewish historian after the close of the Old Testament period.
[3] “Priests and Priesthood,” Encyclopedia Judaica, Vol. 13, 1088.
[4] Josephus, 6,5,3.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Vilnay, Zev, Legends of Jerusalem: The Sacred Land, Vol. 1, 114-115.
[7] Ibid. 115-116.
[8] Shanks, Hershel, ed., Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development (Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1992), p. 133.
[9] Hillel (Zaken “the Elder”; the greatest of the sages of the Second Temple period. He is said to have held the office of patriarch (nasi) for 40 years until approximately the year 10 AD Yohanan ben Zakkai was one of Hillel’s disciples. Hillel’s grandson, Rabban Gamaliel the Elder, who lived in the first half of the first century, is said to have been a teacher of St. Paul (Acts 22:3).
[10] Shanks, Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism: A Parallel History of Their Origins and Early Development, 311.