E.P. Sanders -- Section 1

For the next roughly 14 blog posts I will be focusing each post around a chapter of the book by E.P.Sanders, "The Historical Figure of Jesus" (The Penguin Press, 1993. What I am going to start with today is the political situation at Jesus' time. I have summarized the chapter ("Chapter 3. Political Setting") in the form of a list.

Political Setting

1. The most important thing to know is that in Jesus’ time, Rome was the supreme power over the Eastern Mediterranean, though as I said above, Rome was usually not directly involved in day-to-day life
2. There were three main divisions of power in Jesus lifetime
a. Herod Antipas was tetrarch of Galilee (or THE Galilee as Fredrickson calls it…you pick) and Peraea
b. Pilate was prefect of Judea
c. Caiaphas was the high priest in Jerusalem
3. Generally, most subject powers were content to live under Roman rule; subjects paid tribute and Rome protected them. This is not to say everyone was content to live under Roman rule
4. The Jews in Palestine were pretty insignificant in relation to other groups within the empire
5. Antiochus Epiphanies was the emperor of the Seleucid empire starting in 175 BCE and was important because:
a. He contributed to the Hellenization of Jewish areas (helped along by Jerusalem’s aristocratic priests)
b. Hellenization refers basically to the act of adding Greek culture and facets of Greek life into the lives of people of another culture/area
c. The main Greek institution that pushed the Jews to reaction that Epiphanies added was a Greek educational institution known as a gymnasion (pronounced something like gim-nauseam, not gymnasium). Here boys were educated
i. The big problem with this was the fact that the boys exercised naked, making obvious the Jewish marker of the covenant: circumcision, while Greeks did not practice this custom, seeing it as mutilation.
ii. As such, many young males were wishing to reverse or disguise their circumcised penises (peni? Lol)
iii. This partial removal of circumcision, along with other aspects of forced Hellenization lead to the Maccabean revolt (also known as the Hasmonean revolt)
iv. With this revolt, the Hasmoneans established a new dynasty, ruling Jewish Palestine as high priests/kings
6. The Hasmoneans:
i. Enlarged the Jewish state
ii. Caused the conquest of Jerusalem in 63 BCE (making the Jewish state only partially independent) by the Roman general Pompey when two brothers (Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II) battled for power and asked Pompey for support
iii. Pompey:
1. chose Hyrcanus II and made him high priest and ethnarch
2. made Antipater, an Idumean as military governor (Antipater being important because he was the father of Herod the Great)
b. These events led Aristobulus II revolted and caused Antigonus to become king and high priest
7. Herod was then declared king of Judea by the Roman Senate, later winning the civil war caused by Aristobulus II with Roman troops
a. Herod then eliminated the rest of the Hasmoneans, fearing revolt because he was Idumean, not fully Jewish
b. When Herod died, his land was divided among his 3 sons,
Arhelaus, Anitpas and Philip
8. Jesus’ Galilee
a. Antipas governed Galilee, cooperating with Rome
b. Antipas was fairly observant of the Law (* note – anytime law is written as “Law,” it is in reference to the Jewish law)
c. Overall, the Jewish population was ok with Antipas
d. John the Baptist was executed by Antipas
9. Jesus’ Judea
a. Judea was Samaria, Judea (which included Jerusalem) and Idumea
b. Archelaus, Herod’s successor, had to do damage control after Herod had appointed an unpopular high priest and executed two popular teachers; however, he could not manage this, so the Romans eventually dismissed him
c. After Archelaus was dismissed, Augustus appointed a governor in 6 CE
d. This governor served as prefect (which was his post in Jesus’ day) and procurator at different times during his term in office
e. During his term, as usual, everyday governance was done by a small group of elders – the way it had been for a long time
f. Any Gentile that came into the Temple than a set point was subject to an immediate execution
g. The prefect had a great deal of power
h. In Jerusalem, governing power was up to the high priest along with his council
i. The high priest was a good choice for ruler because:
1. It was traditional
2. The office was revered by Jews
3. He was, to the Roman prefect, the spokesman for Jerusalem’s population
4. However, not all priests were respected or liked, and not everyone liked this system of governance
ii. Priesthood was hereditary
iii. However, this system had occasional upsets
i. Gentiles were not a significant presence in Jewish cities
j. Rome did not try and ‘Romanize’ their governed populations
k. There was defiantly a hope for a Messiah (literally the “anointed one” in Hebrew, with Christ (Christos) meaning the same thing in Greek)to come and bring divine intervention on behalf of the Jews
i. There were certainly other Messianic figures besides Jesus, such as
Theudas
ii. For example, in the 66 revolt, many people probably joined because they though God would deliver them – this hope for deliverance not necessarily include the expectation of a divine deliverer, a messiah