Salvation By Grace

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Temple
• http://www.eyeonisrael.com/israel-atlas.html: excellent map of Israel throughout history

Patriarchs to Roman Empire – Overview:

2000 BC

• Abraham and Sarah have Isaac

Isaac and Rebekah have Jacob (Israel) and Esau (older son)

• Jacob although younger became the child of the patriarchal promises

Jacob

• Jacob had twelve sons by his two wives Leah, Rachel and two concubines Bilhah, Zilpah, and thus sired the twelve Tribes of Israel. His sons were Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Joseph, and Benjamin
• His favorite son, Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery and taken into Egypt

While in Egypt, Joseph was blessed by God and miraculously rose to high political office in the foreign land

• During a sever drought, the sons of Israel traveled to Egypt in search of food for the family back in Canaan
• Much to their surprise they were confronted by the very brother they had betrayed, and now their lives were in his hands
• But Joseph provided food for them and saved their lives
• Israel and all his children moved from Canaan to Goshen in the northeastern delta of Egypt
• The Hyksos rule of Egypt may well have been the time when the children of Israel lived in Egypt and multiplied so rapidly
• But once the Hyksos were expelled, “a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know about Joseph”

For the next several hundred years, the Israelites were enslaved by the Egyptians, and forced to build their cities and drive their economy

1446 or 1275 – Exodus

• Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt to the Sinai peninsula where he died

Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan circa 1000 BC

Israel became a loose confederation of 12 tribes and ruled on and ad-hoc basis by “judges”

• They longed for a leader

Samuel was a prophet and judge who led Israel in the time of transition from judges to kings

• With God’s blessing Samuel anointed Saul as the first king of Israel
• But Saul failed to maintain his relationship with god and was eventually rejected as king

After Saul’s failure, God instructed Samuel to anoint a man after God’s own heart, David

• Under David’s strong leadership, Israel finally defeated the Philistines and forged a degree of peace and security (Israel’s golden age)
• Though there continued to be much internal strife during his reign, he was able to leave a unified kingdom to his son, Solomon

Solomon expanded Israel’s borders in close to what may be called an empire

• He brought great wealth and prosperity to Israel
• Solomon constructed the first temple
• Solomon, like Saul before him, allowed his hear to turn away from God

Shortly after the death of Solomon, Israel split into two weaker nations, Israel in the north and Judah in the south

• Assyrians were starting to rise to power, but as Assyria went through a period of internal weakness and 750-700 BC and the Israel and Judah remained prosperous
• However, social injustice and moral decay began to consume the soul of Israel and Judah
• Backdrop for prophets: Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, and Micah

Northern Israel fell quickly into religious apostasy and political unrest, In 722 BC the capital of northern Israel, Samaria, fell to the Assyrians

Judah, the southern kingdom by contrast maintained one ruling family (the Davidic dynasty) until 587 BC when Jerusalem, Judah’s capital fell to the Babylonians

The Neo-Assyrian Empire was a period of Mesopotamian history which began in 934 BC and ended in 609 BC.

• During this period, Assyria assumed a position as a great regional power, vying with Babylonian and other lesser powers for dominance of the region,
• The Chaldeans of southern Babylon were growing ever more rebellious and difficult to contain for the Assyrians and they soon became independent and replaced the Assyrians
• The Babylonians destroyed the temple in 587
• Backdrop of the OT prophets Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel

Persians then ruled until Alexander the Great around 330 BC

Roman empire gained control around 100 BC

Jerusalem:
According to the biblical account, David’s first action as king of Israel was to conquer Jerusalem and declare it the capital of his kingdom.

• Even though the city was not the perfect choice from many points of view, a geopolitical constraint dictated this choice.
• Mount Moriah is an important place where Abraham bound Isaac and thus the Temple was to be built there.
• David is said to have conquered Jerusalem in approximately 1004 BC and made it a center of his government.
• He brought the Ark of the Covenant to the city.
• Jerusalem became the political and spiritual nexus of the ancient Hebrews.
• King David was instructed by God not to build the Temple, leaving the task to his son Solomon.
• The concentration of religious ritual at the Temple made Jerusalem a place of pilgrimage and an important commercial center.

The city served as the capital of the united kingdom of Israel, but became the capital of the less powerful of the two kingdoms (Judah) after the death of Solomon and the division of the country into two kingdoms.

• It regained its central status after the conquest and destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BC.
• In 586 BC the city was invaded by the Babylonians.
• At the order of King Nebuchadnezzar II (a ruler of Babylon in the Chaldean Dynasty) the city was torched, the Temple was razed, and the people were taken into exile.
• Jewish tradition holds this incident to be the first exile of the Jewish nation.

The Temple – Overview:

First temple: 957 BC – destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC

Second temple: 515 BC – destroyed by the Roman in 70 AD

• All of the outer walls still stand, although the Temple itself has long since been destroyed, and for many years it was believed that the western wall of the complex was the only wall standing

Solomon’s Temple, also known as the First Temple, was, according to the Bible, the first temple of the ancient Hebrew religion in Jerusalem.

It functioned as a religious focal point for worship and the sacrifices known as the korbanot in ancient Judaism.

The First Temple was built by King Solomon in seven years during the 10th century BCE in 957 BC

Completed in the 10th century BC, it was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BC.

The reconstructed temple in Jerusalem, which stood between 516 BC and 70 AD, was the Second Temple.

The Temple is believed to have been situated upon the hill which forms the site of the present-day Temple Mount, in the center of which area is the Dome of the Rock.

• Under the Jebusites the site was used as a threshing floor. 2 Sam. 24 describes its consecration during David’s reign.
• Two other, slightly different sites for the Temple have also been proposed, on this same hill.
• One places the stone altar at the location of the rock which is now beneath the gilded dome, with the rest of the temple to the west.
• The Well of Souls was, in this theory, a pit for the remnants of the blood services of the korbanot.
• The other theory places the Holy of Holies atop this rock.

Two different Jewish temples actually occupied this mountain at different times.

The first was proposed by King David but was not built until his son, Solomon gained the throne.

• David made great preparation for the temple but, according to the Bible was not allowed to because of the wars he had fought.
• This temple stood for a number of years until it was destroyed by the invading armies of Nebuchadnezzar when Jerusalem fell and was taken into exile as captives.
• It was at this time that the Ark of the Covenant, which occupied the Holy of Holies (the inner sanctuary of the temple)was believed to have disappeared from history).

Roughly some 70 years later, under the leadership of Jewish leaders such as Ezra and Nehemiah and with the blessing of the Persian King Cyrus, the temple was again rebuilt and stood until the time of Jesus Christ, during the reign of King Herod.

• Herod refurbished the temple, built my Ezra/Nehemiah, making it into a grandiose building far excelling its previous glory and splendor.
• Unfortunately, this notoriety was short-lived, as the building was razed by the Romans, some 70 years later.
• The so-called “Wailing Wall” in Jerusalem, is actually part of the original retaining wall built around the temple mount as a foundation for the original temple by King Solomon.
• The Temple Mount in Jerusalem is the site where the First Temple of Solomon and the Second Temple were built.
• At the center of the structure was the Holy of Holies where only the high priest could enter.
• The Temple Mount is now the site of the Islamic mosque, the Dome of the Rock (690 AD).
• The Dome of the Rock is located at the visual center of an ancient man-made platform known as the Temple Mount to the Jews and the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) to the Muslims.
• The platform, greatly enlarged under the rule of Herod the Great, was the former site of the Second Jewish Temple which was destroyed during the Roman Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD.
• In 637 AD, Jerusalem was conquered by the Rashidun Caliphate army during the Islamic invasion of the Byzantine Empire.

When Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire, Jerusalem and Judea fell under Macedonian control, eventually falling to the Ptolemaic dynasty under Ptolemy

Israel Political History:

As Rome became stronger it installed Herod as a Jewish client king.

• Herod the Great, as he was known, devoted himself to developing and beautifying the city.
• He built walls, towers and palaces, and expanded the Temple Mount, buttressing the courtyard with blocks of stone weighing up to 100 tons.
• Under Herod, the area of the Temple Mount doubled in size.
• In 6 AD, the city, as well as much of the surrounding area, came under direct Roman rule as the Iudaea Province[41] and Herod’s descendants through Agrippa II remained client kings of Judea until 96 AD.
• Roman rule over Jerusalem and the region began to be challenged with the first Jewish-Roman war, the Great Jewish Revolt, which resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD.
• In 130 AD Hadrian Romanized the city, and renamed it Aelia Capitolina.

Jerusalem once again served as the capital of Judea during the three-year rebellion known as the Bar Kochba revolt.

• Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 AD) against the Roman Empire was a second major rebellion by the Jews of Iudaea and the last of the Jewish-Roman Wars.
• Simon bar Kokhba, the commander of the revolt, was acclaimed the Messiah, the king prophesied to restore Israel.
• The revolt established a Jewish state for over two years, but a massive Roman army finally crushed it.
• The Romans then barred Jews from Jerusalem.
• Jewish Christians hailed Jesus as the Messiah and did not support Bar Kokhba.
• They were barred from Jerusalem along with the rest of the Jews.
• The war and its aftermath helped differentiate Christianity as a religion distinct from Judaism.
• According to Cassius Dio, 580,000 Jews were killed, 50 fortified towns and 985 villages razed.
• The Talmud, however, claims a death toll in the millions.
• The latter figure is unlikely, because there were simply not that many Jews in the region at that time.
• Cassius Dio claimed that “Many Romans, moreover, perished in this war.
• Therefore, Hadrian, in writing to the Senate did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors: ‘If you and your children are in health, it is well; I and the army are in health.’” [1]

Hadrian attempted to root out Judaism, which he saw as the cause of continuous rebellions.

• He prohibited the Torah law, the Hebrew calendar and executed Judaic scholars.
• The sacred scroll was ceremoniously burned on the Temple Mount. At the former Temple sanctuary, he installed two statues, one of Jupiter, another of himself.
• In an attempt to erase any memory of Judea, he wiped the name off the map and replaced it with Syria Palaestina, after the Philistines, the ancient enemies of the Jews; previously similar terms had been used to describe only the (smaller) former Philistine homeland to the west of Judea.
• Since then, the land has been referred to as “Palestine,” which supplanted earlier terms such as “Iudaea” (Judaea) and the antiquated “Canaan.”
• Similarly, he re-established Jerusalem as the Roman pagan polis of Aelia Capitolina, and Jews were forbidden from entering it.
• Constantine I allowed Jews to mourn their defeat and humiliation once a year on Tisha B’Av at the Western Wall.
• Jews remained scattered for close to two millennia; their numbers in the region fluctuated with time.
• Modern historians have come to view the Bar-Kokhba Revolt as being of decisive historic importance.
• The massive destruction and loss of life occasioned by the revolt has led some scholars to date the beginning of the Jewish diaspora from this date
• the presence of Jews outside of the Land of Israel, is a result of the expulsion of the Jewish people out of their land, migrations from there, and religious conversion to Judaism
• They note that, unlike the aftermath of the First Jewish-Roman War chronicled by Josephus, the majority of the Jewish population of Judea was either killed, exiled, or sold into slavery after the Bar-Kokhba Revolt, and Jewish religious and political authority was suppressed far more brutally
• The Romans succeeded in recapturing the city in 135 AD and as a punitive measure Hadrian banned the Jews from entering it.
• As a result the city became entirely pagan (non-Jewish).
• Hadrian proceeded to rename the entire Iudaea Province to Syria Palaestina after the Biblical Philistines in an attempt to thwart future rebellion and to de-Judaize Judea
• Enforcement of the ban on Jews entering Aelia Capitolina continued until the 4th century AD.

The terms Byzantine Empire (a historiographical term used since the 19th century) and Eastern Roman Empire are expressions used to describe the Eastern Roman Empire

• During the 3rd century, three crises threatened the Roman Empire: external invasions, internal civil wars and an economy riddled with weaknesses and problems.
• Constantine moved the seat of the Empire, and introduced important changes into its civil and religious constitution.
• In 330, he founded Constantinople as a second Rome on the site of Byzantium
• Under Constantine, Christianity did not become the exclusive religion of the state, but enjoyed imperial preference, since the Emperor supported it with generous privileges: clerics were exempted from personal services and taxation, Christians were preferred for administrative posts, and bishops were entrusted with judicial responsibilities
• The Eastern Empire was largely spared the difficulties faced by the West in the third and fourth centuries, due in part to a more firmly established urban culture and greater financial resources, which allowed it to placate invaders with tribute and pay barbarian mercenaries.

Constantine instituted several legislative measures which had an impact on Jews.

• They were forbidden to own Christian slaves or to circumcise their slaves
• Conversion of Christians to Judaism was outlawed.
• Congregations for religious services were restricted, but Jews were allowed to enter Jerusalem on Tisha B’Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple.
• In the five centuries following the Bar Kokhba revolt, the city remained under Roman then Byzantine rule
• During the 4th century, the Roman Emperor Constantine I constructed Christian sites in Jerusalem such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
• Jerusalem reached a peak in size and population at the end of the Second Temple Period: The city covered two square kilometers (0.8 sq mi.) and had a population of 200,000
• From the days of Constantine until the Arab conquest in 638, Jews were banned from Jerusalem,but were allowed back into the city by Muslim rulers.
• By the end of the 7th century, an Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik had commissioned and completed the construction of the Dome of the Rock over the Foundation Stone.
• In the four hundred years that followed, Jerusalem’s prominence diminished as Arab powers in the region jockeyed for control.

In 1099, Jerusalem was besieged by the First Crusaders, who killed most of its Muslim and Jewish inhabitants, apart from many Christians.

• The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the dual goals of conquering the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land and freeing the Eastern Christians from Islamic rule.
• What started as an appeal by Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus for western mercenaries to fight the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia quickly turned into a wholescale Western migration and conquest of territory outside of Europe.
• That would be the first of several conquests to take place over the next four hundred years
• In 1187, the city was taken from the Crusaders by Saladin.
• Between 1228 and 1244, it was given by Saladin’s descendant al-Kamil to the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.
• Jerusalem fell again in 1244 to the Khawarizmi Turks, who were later, in 1260, replaced by the Mamelukes.
• In 1517, Jerusalem and its environs fell to the Ottoman Turks, who would maintain control of the city until the 20th century.
• This era saw the first expansion outside the Old City walls, as new neighborhoods were established to relieve the overcrowding.
• The first of these new neighborhoods included the Russian Compound and the Jewish Mishkenot Sha’ananim, both founded in 1860.

In 1917 after the Battle of Jerusalem, the British Army, led by General Edmund Allenby, captured the city.

• The League of Nations, through its 1922 ratification of the Balfour Declaration, entrusted the United Kingdom to administer the Mandate for Palestine and help establish a Jewish state in the region.
• The period of the Mandate saw the construction of new garden suburbs in the western and northern parts of the city and the establishment of institutions of higher learning such as the Hebrew University, founded in 1925

As the British Mandate for Palestine was expiring, the 1947 UN Partition Plan (Part III) recommended “the creation of a special international regime in the City of Jerusalem, constituting it as a corpus separatum under the administration of the United Nations.”

• The international regime was to remain in force for a period of ten years, whereupon a referendum was to be held in which the residents of Jerusalem were to decide the future regime of the city. (Jerusalem had a Jewish majority both in 1948 and in 1958.)
• However, this plan was not implemented as the Haganah and the Jordanian Arab Legion fought for control of the city.
• On May 28, the Arab Legion gained control over the Old City; all of its Jewish inhabitants were either taken prisoner or handed over to the Red Cross to be permanently transferred to Israeli-controlled areas.
• At the end of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, Jerusalem found itself divided between Israel and Jordan (then known as Transjordan).
• The ceasefire line established through the Armistice Agreement of 1949 between Israel and Jordan, cut through the center of the city from 1949 until 1967, during which time West Jerusalem was part of Israel and East Jerusalem was part of Jordan.
• In 1949, Israel designated West Jerusalem as its capital
• Contrary to the terms of the Armistice Agreement of 1949 between Jordan and Israel, Israelis were denied access to Jewish holy sites, many of which were desecrated, and only allowed extremely limited access to Christian holy sites.

6 day war:

• Following the 1967 Six-Day War Israel captured East Jerusalem, asserted sovereignty over the entire city, and later in 1980 declared Jerusalem, “complete and united”, to be the capital of Israel.
• However, East Jerusalem has been seen by the Palestinian Arabs as a possible capital of a proposed Palestinian state.
• They also refer to Security Council resolution 252, which considers invalid expropriation of land and other actions that tend to change the legal status of Jerusalem.[68] The status of the city and of its holy places remains disputed to this day.
• In 1967, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria massed troops close to Israeli borders, expelled UN peacekeepers and blocked Israel’s access to the Red Sea.
• Israel saw these actions as a casus belli for a pre-emptive strike that launched the Six-Day War, during which it captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula and Golan Heights.
• The 1949 Green Line became the administrative boundary between Israel and the occupied territories. Jerusalem’s boundaries were enlarged, incorporating East Jerusalem.
• The Jerusalem Law, passed in 1980, reaffirmed this measure and reignited international controversy over the status of Jerusalem.

In 1992, Yitzhak Rabin became Prime Minister following an election in which his party promoted compromise with Israel’s neighbors.

• The following year, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, on behalf of Israel and the PLO, signed the Oslo Accords, which gave the Palestinian National Authority the right to self-govern parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in return for recognition of Israel’s right to exist and an end to terrorism.
• In 1994, the Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace was signed, making Jordan the second Arab country to normalize relations with Israel.
• Public support for the Accords waned as Israel was struck by a wave of attacks from Palestinians.
• The November 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a far-right-wing Jew, as he left a peace rally, shocked the country.
• At the end of the 1990s, Israel, under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, withdrew from Hebron (main city of the west bank) and signed the Wye River Memorandum, giving greater control to the Palestinian National Authority.