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Introduction
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xiii Introduction Ancient Jerusalem was the capital of Judah and subsequently of the entire Jewish people for over one thousand years. Its history can be divided into two distinct periods : the First Temple period (ca. 1000-586 B.C.E.), when the city served as capital ofthe kingdom ofJudah, and the Second Temple period (538 B.C.E.-70 C.E.), when Jerusalem functioned largely under foreign rule. Despite the subjection of the Jews to foreign rule in the latter period, the city experienced dramatic growth as it achieved unprecedented political and religious prominence. This process peaked toward the close of the era, when the city, according to Pliny, attained international recognition as "by far the most famous of the cities of the East.'" We shall focus on the six hundred years of the Second Temple period by tracing the city's urban, demographic, topographical, and archaeological components , replete with its unusual variety of political regimes, public institutions, socioreligious groupings, and cultural and religious frameworks. Jerusalem found itself in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman orbits, respectively; these wider contexts profoundly influenced most aspects of city life and played a major role, both directly and indirectly, in shaping its urban profile. Persian policy, for example, enabled and repeatedly facilitated the return of tens of thousands of Jews from Babylonia. Later on, after Alexander the Great's conquest in 332 B.C.E., Jerusalem became an integral part of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, whose cultures likewise left an indelible mark on the character of the city. The city's art and architecture drew inspiration from Hellenistic and Roman models; public buildings such as the gymnasium, theater, hippodrome, and amphitheater were erected; kitchenware, furniture, jewelry, and coins popular 1. Natural History 5, 70. xiv INTRODUCTION in other cities of the Roman East were used widely in Jerusalem as well. In these respects and others, Jerusalem differed little from any other Greco-Roman city. Nevertheless, despite the profound impact of the Persian and Greco-Roman worlds, Jerusalem always retained a distinctive Jewish character, which found expression in its demography, calendar, holidays, religious institutions, forms of worship, historical memories, and other facets of urban life. Walking through the city's streets in the fIrst century C.E., one could not help but be struck by the absence of idols, statues, and fIgural art that set Jerusalem apart from all other urban centers of antiquity. Moreover, the number and variety of ritual baths and stone utensils for domestic use were unique to the city and attest to the marked emphasis on ritual purity observed by many of its inhabitants. This dual orientation, reflecting both the universal and the particularistic, distinguished Jerusalem within Jewish society and vis-a-vis the larger Roman world. As we shall see, this was the most Jewish of cities and, at the same time, the most cosmopolitan of Jewish cities. Scope and Sources The extensive literary and archaeological information at our disposal regarding the city and its population afford a remarkable opportunity for reconstructing urban life in Second Temple Jerusalem but, nevertheless, it is far from uniform. Sources regarding the Persian era are rather sparse; only a handful of biblical books (Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and perhaps Nahum and Joel) are dated to this period, and relevant archaeological fInds are almost negligible.2 The early Hellenistic era (332-175 B.C.E.) shares a similar dearth of source material. However, from the first half of the second century (175-141 B.C.E.) on, and especially with the rise of the Hasmonean dynasty (141--63 B.C.E.), a greater abundance of primary sources becomes available. These include the second half of the book of Daniel, 1 and 2 Maccabees, a series of apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books (e.g., Jubilees, parts of Enoch and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Judith), Josephus, the Dead Sea scrolls, a number of Hellenistic writings , and many more archaeological fmds than before.3 Compared to the earlier Second Temple period, the history of the city in the era's final 130 years (i.e., from Pompey's conquest in 63 B.C.E. to the destruction in 70 C.E.) is infinitely better documented, owing primarily to Josephus' detailed 2. See Widengren, "Persian Period," 489-503, and Grabbe, Judaism, 1:27-73. 3. Schiirer, History, 1:17-122; Schafer, "Hellenistic and Maccabean Periods," 539-559; and Grabbe, Judaism, 1:171-189. [54.172.95.106] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:55 GMT...