Ancient Israel: History

Political and Non-Political, All Categories fused into one set

1200’s BCE - Main Events (All Facts)

• Period of time when the events of the Book of Exodus take place

• Period of time when the events of the Book of Joshua take place

1190 BCE - 1020 BCE - Main Events (All Facts)

• Period of time when the events of the Book of Judges take place

  • During this period, the Israeli tribes finished settling in the land of Canaan

  • These “judges” were military chiefs and spokesmen of God

1107 BCE - 1067 BCE - Deborah (All Facts)

• Was the 4th Judge of pre-monarchic Israel

• Is the only female judge mentioned in the Hebrew Bible

• Was a prophetess

1050 BCE - 1010 BCE - Saul (All Facts)

• First King and Founder of the state of Israel

Kingdom of Israel (All Facts)

• Established itself as one of the great nations of the eastern Mediterranean

• It was comprised of ex-nomads who settled down and established a stable state, administered by an increasingly complex bureaucracy and defended by a substantial standing army

1010 BCE - 970 BCE - David (All Facts)

• Unified the 12 disparate tribes of Israel, especially those in the northern part of the Kingdom of Israel, who resented the increasing power of those in Jerusalem

• Established Jerusalem as the capital of the Kingdom of Israel, after having conquered it and the Jebusites early on in his reign

970 BCE - 930 BCE - Solomon (All Facts)

• Forced to overcome his own half-brother in the struggle for the throne, he built on his predecessor’s success to preside over what was seen as a golden age for the Kingdom of Israel

• Established himself as a monarch whose influence extended far beyond his own nation

• Under his reign, the state of Israel

  • enjoyed unprecedented stability, with a strictly hierarchical bureaucracy, arranged in 9 departments and based on an Egyptian model, in order to create and maintain a fully unified kingdom

  • Maintained a professional army that boasted an elite chariot corps of 4,000 horses and1,400 vehicles

  • Underwent an economic boom in which it has used slave labor drawn from prisoners of war in order to develop copper mines at Wadi Araba

  • Had craftsmen that became well-known

  • Trading was extensive, with close-knit relations having been developed with the neighboring Phoenician states

    • Exemplified by the visit of the Queen of Sheba, who traveled 1500 miles to meet him and experience his fabled wisdom and wealth for herself

    • Exemplified by King Hiram of Tyre who provided craftsmen, raw materials, and the boats to transport both to him for the building of the Temple of Jerusalem

• Built

  • his namesake palace

  • the Temple of Jerusalem

Temple of Jerusalem (All Facts)

• Built by Solomon on Mount Moriah to house the Ark of the Covenant, which became known throughout the world

• Created in just 7 years, it combined a vestibule, a cella (internal area) and the Holy of Holies

931 BC - 910 BC - Jeroboam (All Facts)

• Became the first king of Northern Israel after Israel became divided between North Israel (Israel) and South Israel (Judah)

• Led a successful revolt of the northern tribes against Rehoboam and the southern tribes of Judah

930 BC - 913 BCE: Rehoboam (All Notes)

• Became the first king of Judah (Southern Israel) after Israel became divided between North Israel (Israel) and South Israel (Judah)

885 BCE - 874 BCE - Omri (All Facts)

• 6th King of Israel

• Eliminated a usurper to the throne of Israel, his predecessor, of which he led a successful coup against

• Moved Israel’s capital to Samaria, which replaced Jerusalem

• Fostered close ties with Syria

874 BC - 853 BC: Ahab (All Facts)

• 7th King of Israel

• Married Jezebel, a Phoenician who worshipped Melkart, the god of Tyre

• On his wife’s instructions, he built a temple to the Phoenician god Baal in Samaria

• Under his reign, the priests of the Temple of Baal in Samaria gained increasing influence at court

• Under his reign, the worship of God, once the state religion, declined to the status of a persecuted minority cult

• Two fundamentalist prophets, Elijah and his successor Elisha opposed him and his husband Jezebel and challenged not only Baal but also every aspect of the undeniable sophistication that Jezebel had brought to Israel’s courts

  • Their efforts eventually won as Baal became banished and God returned to reign supreme

760 BCE - 750 BCE - Main Events (All Facts)

• Period of time when the events of the Book of Amos take place

760 BCE - 750 BCE - Amos (All Facts)

• Peasant prophet from Judah

• Warned of a coming Day of Judgement

  • On this day, the justice of God will be seen to be done , and the children of Israel will suffer for their unrighteous ways

733 BCE - 722 BCE - Hoshea (All Facts)

• 19th and Final King of Israel

• Vassal king installed by Tiglath Pileser III

• Refused to perform an act of allegiance to Tiglath Pileser III’s son Shalmeneser V and was thus captured by the Assyrians, but the city of Samaria held out until after his rule, when it fell to the Assyrians under Sargon II

• Led an uprising against the Assyrians until it was brutally crushed by Sargon II of Assyria

733 BCE - Assyrian Exile (All Facts)

• Event in which the once-proud northern kingdom of Israel is being effectively wiped off the map by the namesake army of occupation, following the surrender of the city of Samaria after a siege

• Sargon II and the namesake forces acting on his orders begun mass deportations of captured Israelites during this event, removing every trace of its tribes from Samaria

• Over 27,000 Israelites were deported, most of them having been used as slaves in forced labor camps

• To complete the sweeping cultural changes to the area and to the Israelites, the namesake group re-designated Samaria a province and begun repopulating it with foreign deportees from Syria, Babylon, and Arabia

• After this event, only one Israelite kingdom, that of the kingdom of Judah, remained

716 BC - 687 BC: Hezekiah (All Facts)

• 13th King of Judah

687 BCE - 642 BCE - Manasseh (All Facts)

• 14th King of Judah

• Became king at age 12

• Died after occupying the throne for 45 years

• During his reign, he was dependent on Assyria for everything touching on religion and politics, eventually making it so that the Assyrian gods were honored in the Temple of Jerusalem

640 BCE - 608 BCE - Josiah (All Facts)

• 16th King of Judah

• Became king at age 8

• Under his reign, the “Book of the Covenant” (Torah) is found in the Temple of Jerusalem

  • This book, the words of God Himself, attacks the Judaeans for their worship of idols and threatens national disaster if true religion is not restored

• Launched a program of wholesale religious reform aimed at returning the country to the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

  • Did this as a result of the discovery of the “Book of the Covenant” (Torah) under his rule

  • Had the “Book of the Covenant” (Torah) read to the assembled population of Israel (Judah) where he made a public vow promising to obey God and have Judah pledge itself to following all of God’s commandments

  • Purified the Temple of Jerusalem, destroying everything in it that was related to pagan gods

  • Suppressed all the pagan holy places which grew up around the country over the years prior to his rule, in which he

    • desecrated pagan temples

    • destroyed pagan idols

    • stripped pagan priests of their religious authority

  • Made the practice of divination illegal (prophesying the future on the basis of various signs)

  • Restored the Passover meal and celebration to its full importance

650 BCE - 570 BCE - Main Events (All Facts)

• Period of time in which the events in the Book of Jeremiah take place

597 BCE - Babylonian Exile (All Facts)

• Event in which Jerusalem, the holiest city in Judah, fell to the invading armies of King Nebuchadnezzar II and the namesake civilization

• Event in which Jerusalem was utterly destroyed and its population was deported

• King Nebuchadnezzar II had raided the city, replacing the young King Jehoiachin with his uncle Zedekiah, who was to rule as a puppet of the namesake empire

• It was during this event that the prophet Jeremiah preached that submission to the namesake empire was the only way Judah could atone for years of what he condemned as immorality

515 BCE - Main Events (All Facts)

• Year in which the reconstruction of the Temple, or the Second Temple, was completed

425 BCE - Main Events (All Facts)

• Year in which Nehemiah arrived to get the Jews to really return to their traditional worship

473 BCE - 403 BCE - Nehemiah (All Facts)

• Senior Jewish official at the Persian court and governor of Judah

• Under his guidance

  • the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt, 91 years after the end of the Babylonian Exile

  • the newly-confident people of Israel enjoyed fresh enthusiasm for their faith

• Only upon his arrival did the Jews really return to traditional worship in the Second Temple when it was reconstructed prior to his time as a leader of the people Israel

• Involved the whole community of Israel in the 52-day rebuilding of the city walls, an unprecedented effort of construction

• Capitalized on Jewish national feeling to reinstitute religious observances, notably keeping the Sabbath and outlawing mixed marriages

• Wrote many of the sacred texts, combining old and new writings to create an authoritative basis for the newly-flourishing Judaism

315 BCE - Main Events (All Facts)

• Year in which the Song of Songs, or alternatively, Songs of Solomon, a collection of love poems, is written

  • The book was compiled anonymously from different sources

  • Some considered the poems to be profane

Septuagint (All Facts)

• Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures

• Translated by 70 translators from around the world in Ptolemaic Egypt in Alexandria in 283 BCE

Mattathias (All Facts)

• Father of Judas Maccabaeus

• Was a major opponent of the Syrian occupiers after King Antiochus IV sacked the Temple and began his attempt to impose Hellenism on the Jews

Judas Maccabaeus (All Facts)

• Leader of the Jews in Judea in revolt against their Syrian rulers

• Priest of the house of Hashmon (Hasmonean Dynasty)

• His name in Hebrew means “the Hammerer”

• Was one of the five sons of the priest Mattathias

• Urged on by his father to resist the king, he and a few companions began living as guerrillas in a mountain hideout, gradually having built up an army of some 6K partisans

  • After a two year campaign against Antiochus IV, he and the partisans won

  • The Seleucids (Syrians) still remained in power, however

  • Nevertheless, he entered Jerusalem in triumph and promised to restore the Jewish Temple

• Purified the Temple of Jerusalem and re-established Judaism by 165 BCE

  • This occurred due to his successful rebellion against the Hellenization of the country after he and his people’s religion was prohibited by Antiochus IV

167 BCE - 160 BCE - Maccabean Revolt (All Facts)

• Revolt in which Judas Maccabaeus and the Jews in Judea defeated Antiochus IV and their Seleucid overlords (Syrian rulers)

  • They successfully rebuffed attempts to turn their holy city, Jerusalem, into a Greek colony

  • They rejected all efforts to

    • dedicate their Temple of the Olympian Zeus

    • suppress the worship of Jehovah

• Jewish partisans defeated a large Syrian (Seleucid) army under generals Gorgias and Nicenor

  • The Seleucids (Syrians) still remained in power, however

142 BCE - Main Events (All Facts)

• Year in which the Jews liberate Jerusalem and make it their capital

37 BCE - 4 BCE Herod the Great (All Facts)

• Was the Client King of the Roman Senate under Augustus for Judaea

  • Romanized Judaea

• Was heir to the royal line of the Idumean Antipater

  • Was a Roman citizen since 47 BCE

  • Was nominated as king of Judaea by Marcus Antonius in 40 BCE

  • Was unable to take power until Roman troops drove a Parthian invasion force out of Jerusalem

• Was

  • A brutal ruler

  • Subtle diplomat

• He kept

  • His subjects quiet

  • His Roman allies satisfied

• His military power rested on a group of forts, notably the Antonia in Jerusalem, manned by a gentile mercenary army

• Governed with

  • Efficient bureaucracy

  • Highly effective secret police

• Enthusiastic builder who

  • Restored / Reconstructed the Temple of Jerusalem

    • Was glorified and enlarged to cater for the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims who visited it every year

    • Was planned to be the largest structure in the known world at the time

  • Created several new cities

  • Built his namesake palace

    • Where he lived and ruled

• Upon his death, his kingdom was divided between his three sons

  • Was unlikely mourned by his Jewish subjects, many of whom regretted the alliance with Rome

  • Was unpopular among the all the Jewish sects including the Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, and Zealots

Judaism (All Facts)

• Unified in their belief

  • of a single god

  • that a messiah will appear to free the Jewish nation and establish Jehovah as the true God of the world

• By 10 BCE, however, it became increasingly divided by rival sects

Pharisees (All Facts)

• Origins lay in the popular uprising of Judas Maccabaeus in 165 BCE

• Believed that

  • Everyone should receive a proper religious education, suitably adapted for the needs of everyday life

  • Religious devotion should be a personal, inner emotion

  • There would be Resurrection after death and the “Last Judgement,” when everyone, alive or dead, will face God

Sadducees (All Facts)

• Priestly caste of Jews prominent around 10 BCE

Essenes (All Facts)

• Reject a worldly, social life in favor of religious communes where the Law can be studied in depth without interference from the outside world

• Predicted the imminent end of the world and believed in two messiah, one descended from King David and the other from Aaron

Zealots (All Facts)

• Combined the Pharisees’ beliefs with militaristic nationalism

4 BCE - Main Events (All Facts)

• New tax legislation required all Jews to return to their home town, resulting in overcrowding

66 - 74 - Great Jewish Revolt / First Roman-Jewish War (All Facts)

• Revolt in which the “Zealots” and Jews fight against their Roman overlords, which they lost

• Despite the Romans having acknowledged Jewish sensibilities by exempting them from the requirement to sacrifice to the Cult of Rome, they still revolted anyway

  • This was due to the taxes imposed on them and the plundering of the Jewish temple

• Had begun under the reign of Nero and continued under Vespasian

• 70 - Jerusalem falls to Titus and the besieging Roman armies and the Jewish Temple is thus sacked and destroyed by Titus and the Romans