Aug 25, 2020
The Talmudic Age #14 For Jews living in the eastern Mediterranean in the second and third centuries of the Common Era, following two catastrophic revolts against their Roman overlords, the best thing to do was to get as far away from Rome’s power and authority as humanly possible. Eastward they fled, to Babylonia. The...
Aug 25, 2020
Aftermath #13 It could easily be argued that without a temple the Jewish people would have gone extinct. After all, isn't that what naturally happens to conquered people down through the centuries? Yet, something new and inexplicable was about to happen that would change the course of history. Indeed, the aftermath...
Aug 25, 2020
Hanukkah to Rome #13 It is a day and age when foreign rulers exert a "hard tyranny" over the land of Israel. In one little town a local Jewish priest is carrying a swine to the altar, when an elderly fellow priest named Mattathias is filled with rage, grabs a spear, and runs him through. He summons his five sons to his...
Aug 25, 2020
Hanukkah to Rome #12 It is a day and age when foreign rulers exert a "hard tyranny" over the land of Israel. In one little town a local Jewish priest is carrying a swine to the altar, when an elderly fellow priest named Mattathias is filled with rage, grabs a spear, and runs him through. He summons his five sons to his...
Aug 25, 2020
Out of Babylon #11 Flashback to the sixth century BCE. With the final demise of Jerusalem, we see that the end result of generations of civil war between Israel and Judah is extinction for both. The lesson? When any society is fundamentally weakened from within, it eventually succumbs to invaders from without....