Hasmonian Jesuralem: a Jewish city in a hellenistic orbit

Judaism, Spring, 1997 by Lee I. Levine

By the hasmonean period (CA. 160-63 B.C.E.), Jerusalem had been under Jewish hegemony for almost one thousand years. The city had come to be regarded, by Jew and non-Jew alike, as a quintessentially Jewish city. Its population was overwhelmingly Jewish, as were its leadership, calendar, and public institutions, first and foremost of which was the Temple.

In the course of the First and Second Temple periods, Jerusalem had evolved into the central, sacred site of the Jewish people. This status was not created overnight, but resulted from an ongoing process spanning many centuries. Beginning with David's decision to conquer the city and transform it into his political and religious capital, it culminated in Josiah's decision to centralize Jewish sacrificial cult in the city. Whereas beforehand it had been permissible to offer sacrifices to the God of Israel anywhere in the country, now only those sacrifices brought to the Jerusalem Temple were recognized as legitimate and sanctioned.

The centrality of the city became even more pronounced in the ensuing Second Temple period. Chronicles emphasizes God's choice of Jerusalem by relating that a fire descended from heaven onto the altar David built there (1 Chronicles 21:26; cf. 2 Samuel 24:25) and by explicitly identifying Moriah of the 'Aqedah story with the Temple Mount (2 Chronicles 3:1). Cyrus's recognition of the city by virtue of its holy Temple was to be repeated later on by Hellenistic and Roman conquerors. Antiochus III's edict on behalf of Jerusalem upon its capture ca. 200 B.C.E. is clear testimony to this status (Antiquities 12, 138-144). Moreover, the transformation of the city into the capital of a substantial political kingdom, first in the days of the Hasmoneans and later under Herod, further imbued Jerusalem with a status and importance heretofore unmatched.

Parallel to this enhanced political status, Jerusalem also enjoyed a heightened religious standing. Isaiah, as noted, had already envisioned the city as a spiritual focus for all nations (2:1-4), and in the aftermath of the destruction Ezekiel describes the city as the center of the world and its name as "the Lord is there" (5:5, 48:35), while 2 Chronicles refers to the Lord as "the God of Jerusalem" (32:19). Deutero-Isaiah (48:2, 52:1) and Nehemiah (11:1) extend the realm of holiness beyond the Temple (Isaiah 27:13; Jeremiah 31:22) to embrace all of Jerusalem, while Zechariah takes this one step further and includes all of Judaea as well (2:14-17). Centuries later, these ideas were elaborated in the Letter of Aristeas (83), Jubilees (8:17-19), as well as by Josephus (War 3, 52) and Philo (Embassy 37, 281). During the Second Temple period, the twin concept of eschatological and heavenly Jerusalem made its appearance (Enoch 85-90) and became even more prominent in the generation following the destruction of the Second Temple (4 Ezra; 2 Baruch; cf. also Revelations 21-22; Hebrews 12).

The Jewish Dimension of Second Temple Jerusalem

The Second Temple period witnessed continued efforts at defining Jerusalem as an essentially Jewish city by emphasizing its uniqueness and particularity. Ezra and Nehemiah's attempts to distinguish the city and its population from the surrounding world was a religious policy that reflected Judaea's geographic and political isolation; this policy would be continued by various leaders and groups down to the end of the Second Temple era. We have the testimonies of a number of Greek writers from the early Hellenistic period for the relative success of this policy. Hecataeus of Abdera, for instance, described the uniqueness of Jerusalem, its Temple, and people, as well as the success of Jewish society in preserving its ancestral traditions. Ben Sira advocates a similar posture, and the second-century Hasidim in the time of Judah Maccabee seem to have followed an agenda with an intensive Jewish focus.(1)

Moreover, during these three centuries, between Ezra and Nehemiah on the one hand and the Hasmoneans on the other, a number of practices and literary works evolved that clearly expressed this particularistic social and religious thrust. This proclivity was expressed early on in a variety of ways, from banning of foreign merchants from the city on the Sabbath, to emphasizing the use of Hebrew, to driving out foreign wives.(2) The division of the Jewish population into priestly mishmarot and lay ma'amadot, with semi-annual obligations in the Temple, also seems to have evolved at this time, as did a series of halakhic requirements, such as bringing new produce to Jerusalem or spending the "second tithe" in the city four times every seven years.(3) The emergence of apocalyptic literature in the third century is a further expression of Jewish particularism, as was the newly established centrality of the Torah in Jewish religious life, a centrality which found expression in a regular communal-reading framework which evolved at some point during this period.(4)

This introversive focus on the Jewish body polity was given a dramatic boost in the mid-second century, with the ascendance of the Hasmoneans and the establishment of a sovereign state boasting ambitious territorial designs. Among the changes effected, the following can be mentioned: