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139-647: The postdiluvian Cainan does not appear in the Masoretic Text , the most common Hebrew version of Genesis, where Arpachshad is noted as the father of Salah. He is also omitted from the Samaritan Pentateuch and the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus . Helen Jacobus has argued that the omission from the Masoretic text is deliberate. Despite his name being omitted from the Masoretic text,

278-410: A completely satisfactory solution. There are four words having one of their letters suspended above the line. One of them, מ שה , is due to an alteration of the original משה out of reverence for Moses ; rather than say that Moses's grandson became an idolatrous priest, a suspended letter nun ( נ ) was inserted to turn Mosheh into Menasheh ( Manasseh ). The origin of the other three

417-633: A finer pen) and frequently the Masorah. During the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries the Franco-German school of Tosafists influenced in the development and spread of Masoretic literature. Gershom ben Judah , his brother Machir ben Judah , Joseph ben Samuel Bonfils (Tob 'Elem) of Limoges , Rabbeinu Tam (Jacob ben Meïr), Menahem ben Perez of Joigny , Perez ben Elijah of Corbeil , Judah ben Isaac Messer Leon , Meïr Spira, and Meir of Rothenburg made Masoretic compilations, or additions to

556-634: A fortified town in the Lower Galilee , was besieged for 47 days before it fell to treachery; the city was razed, many people were killed, and the rest were enslaved. Gamla , the major Jewish stronghold in the Golan Heights , fell after a one-month siege. Following a lull in military operations caused by civil war and political turmoil in Rome , Vespasian was summoned to Rome and appointed Emperor. In early 70 CE, Titus moved to besiege Jerusalem,

695-632: A frontier region between the Seleucid Empire and Ptolemaic Egypt . Under the Hellenistic kingdoms, Judea was ruled by the hereditary office of the High Priest of Israel as a Hellenistic vassal. At the same time, Hellenism gradually spread to varied degrees on all sides in the region through a variety of contacts, but especially as a result of the development of commerce and the arrival of Greek settlers. Between 301 and 219 BCE

834-821: A messianic sect from within Second Temple Judaism. In 66 CE, the Jews of Judea rose in revolt against Rome, sparking the First Jewish–Roman War (66-73 CE), also known as the Great Jewish Revolt. Flavius Josephus , a contemporary Jewish historian who fought as the commander of Jewish forces in Galilee but later defected to the Roman side, chronicled the events of the war in his book The Jewish War . Vespasian , an experienced Roman general,

973-509: A mighty army camped near them, appealed to Pompey to decide between them. Three delegations then appeared before Pompey: one sent by Aristobulus, one sent by Hyrcanus, and another from "the people" who demanded to abolish the Hasmonean dynasty, which had transformed the rule of the priests into the rule of kings. Pompey heard the delegations but refrained from deciding. Eventually, in 63 BCE, Pompey invaded Judea, conquered Jerusalem , desecrated

1112-615: A moderate, mostly defensive policy that included the formation of a large and deterring army. Her nine-year reign is described as one of peace and economic prosperity, during which the country recovered from wars. The queen clearly supported the Pharisees , even allowing them to persecute and punish the Sadducees. Her rule had a distinct Hellenistic flavor, as there was no tradition of female rule in Judea. Hasmonean kings attempted to revive

1251-490: A peak in size and population during the late Second Temple period. The majority of scholars estimate that city's population at that time to have been between 70,000 and 100,000. Herod II ruled Ituraea and Trachonitis until his death in 34 CE when he was succeeded as tetrarch by Herod Agrippa I , who had previously been ruler of Chalcis . Agrippa surrendered Chalcis to his brother Herod and ruled in Philip's stead. On

1390-465: A perfect text sanctified in its consonantal base quickly spread throughout the Jewish communities via supportive statements in Halakha , Aggadah , and Jewish thought; and with it increasingly forceful strictures that a deviation in even a single letter would make a Torah scroll invalid. Very few manuscripts are said to have survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE . This drastically reduced

1529-622: A reversed nun is found referred to as a nun hafucha by the masoretes. In some earlier printed editions, they are shown as the standard nun upside down or rotated, because the printer did not want to bother to design a character to be used only nine times. The recent scholarly editions of the Masoretic Text show the reversed nun as described by the masoretes. In some manuscripts, however, other symbols are occasionally found instead. These are sometimes referred to in rabbinical literature as simaniyot (markers). The primary set of inverted nuns

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1668-508: A revolt whose nature was lost to time. Antiochus IV issued decrees forbidding many traditional Jewish practices and began a campaign of persecution against devout Jews. This triggered a revolt against his rule, the Maccabean Revolt . These decrees were a departure from typical Seleucid practice, which did not attempt to suppress local religions in their empire. Scholars of Second Temple Judaism sometimes refer to Antiochus' reign as

1807-565: A substantial number of traditions about this other Cainan exist in the history of literature: According to the Book of Jubilees , Cainan was taught to read by his father, and he found, carved on the rocks by former generations, an inscription preserving the science of astrology as taught by the Watchers , who had rebelled from God before the deluge. He is also stated to have married a daughter of Madai named Melka. In The Patriarchal Age: or,

1946-461: A testimony to the city's former might. Josephus wrote that over a million people perished in the siege and the subsequent fighting. While contemporary studies dispute this figure, all agree that the siege had a major toll on human life, with many people being killed and enslaved, and large parts of the city destroyed. After the fall of Jerusalem, Titus returned to Rome, leaving the remaining Jewish strongholds, including Herodium and Machaerus , to

2085-455: A thought which some of the readers might expect them to express. The assumed emendations are of four general types: Among the earliest technical terms used in connection with activities of the Scribes are the mikra Soferim and ittur Soferim . In the geonic schools, the first term was taken to signify certain vowel-changes which were made in words in pause or after the article; the second,

2224-420: Is based entirely on Ben Asher: they are all eclectic. Aside from Ben Asher and Ben Naphtali, the names of several other Masorites have come down; but, perhaps with the exception of one—Phinehas, the head of the academy, who is supposed by modern scholars to have lived about 750—neither their time, their place, nor their connection with the various schools is known. Most scholars conclude that Aaron ben Asher

2363-545: Is concise in style with a profusion of abbreviations, requiring a considerable amount of knowledge for their full understanding. It was quite natural that a later generation of scribes would no longer understand the notes of the Masoretes and consider them unimportant; by the late medieval period they were reduced to mere ornamentation of the manuscripts. It was Jacob ben Chayyim who restored clarity and order to them. In most manuscripts, there are some discrepancies between

2502-469: Is doubtful. According to some, they are due to mistaken majuscular letters; according to others, they are later insertions of originally omitted weak consonants. In fifteen passages within the Bible, some words are stigmatized; i.e., dots appear above the letters. The significance of the dots is disputed. Some hold them to be marks of erasure; others believe them to indicate that in some collated manuscripts

2641-469: Is found surrounding the text of Numbers 10:35–36. The Mishna notes that this text is 85 letters long and dotted. This demarcation of this text leads to the later use of the inverted nun markings. Saul Lieberman demonstrated that similar markings can be found in ancient Greek texts where they are also used to denote 'short texts'. During the Medieval period, the inverted nuns were actually inserted into

2780-523: Is largely a reworking of the Tiberias . Levita compiled likewise a vast Masoretic concordance, Sefer ha-Zikronot , which still lies in the National Library at Paris unpublished. The study is indebted also to R. Meïr b. Todros ha-Levi (RaMaH), who, as early as the 13th century, wrote his Sefer Massoret Seyag la-Torah (correct ed. Florence, 1750); to Menahem Lonzano , who composed a treatise on

2919-417: Is not supported by archeological evidence. Alexander Jannaeus ( r.  103–76 BCE ) waged a series of expansionist wars, primarily against the Hellenistic cities surrounding Judea. Unlike his predecessors, who were focused on the concentration of the Jewish population in one country, his military efforts were motivated by a desire to control key economic points such as ports and trade routes. On

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3058-728: Is the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible from Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic to Koiné Greek . The reason for the production of this translation seems to be that many of the Alexandrian Jews had lost the ability to speak Hebrew and Aramaic. At the turn of the 2nd-century BCE, a successful military campaign in Coele-Syria led by the Seleucid Antiochus ;III finally brought

3197-630: The Dead Sea Scrolls indicate that multiple versions of the Hebrew scriptures already existed by the end of the Second Temple period . Which is closest to a theoretical Urtext is disputed, as is whether such a singular text ever existed. The Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to as early as the 3rd century BCE, contain versions of the text which have some differences with today's Hebrew Bible. The Septuagint (a Koine Greek translation made in

3336-725: The Diaspora . Others remained in the Land of Israel, and some converted to Christianity . Jewish historians occasionally refers to this time period, which corresponds with the world's late antiquity, as the Rabbinic or Talmudic period. After the destruction of the Second Temple, Judaism separated into a linguistically Greek and a Hebrew / Aramaic sphere. The theology and religious texts of each community were distinctively different. Hellenized Judaism never developed yeshivas to study

3475-535: The First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 CE), resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, which ended the Second Temple period. As Second Temple Judaism developed, multiple religious currents emerged and extensive cultural, religious, and political developments occurred. The development of the Hebrew Bible canon , the synagogue and Jewish eschatology can be traced back to the Second Temple period. According to Jewish tradition, prophecy ceased during

3614-686: The First Temple was destroyed. After the Babylonians annexed Judah as a province , part of the subjugated populace was exiled to Babylon . This exilic period lasted for nearly five decades, ending after the Neo-Babylonian Empire itself was conquered by the Achaemenid Persian Empire , which annexed Babylonian territorial possessions after the fall of Babylon . Soon after the conquest, Persian king Cyrus

3753-457: The Greek gods ; he then killed a Seleucid official who ordered the sacrifice. According to 1 Maccabees , he declared, "Let everyone who is zealous for the law and supports the covenant come out with me!", and fled with his sons and followers to the wilderness of Judea. These events signaled the start of the Maccabean Revolt . When Mattathias died, his son Judas Maccabeus took over as leader of

3892-518: The Holy of Holies , imprisoned Aristobulus, and declared Hyrcanus an " ethnarch ", a title inferior to the title "king". Judea then became a vassal kingdom of the Roman Republic . After Pompey's conquest of Judea in 63 BCE, Hyrcanus II assumed the role of ethnarch; however, his advisor Antipater was ruler in practice and managed the kingdom's affairs. Some cities which were conquered by

4031-798: The Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem . It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem , and ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Roman siege of Jerusalem . In 587/586 BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the Kingdom of Judah ; the Judeans lost their independence upon the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem , during which

4170-617: The Tetrarchy . The central part of the Tetrarchy was given to Herod Archelaus , including Judea proper, Idumea and Samaria . Herod's death in 4 BCE caused the release of built up frustrations of the people who were suppressed by his brutality. Many people were impoverished because of Herod's high taxes and spending. When he died, his building projects that once allowed for job opportunities were stopped, and many people lost their jobs. This built up frustrations that ultimately contributed to

4309-557: The 'Antiochene crises' for the Jews, and as a period of civil war between Hellenized and orthodox forms of Judaism. According to 1 Maccabees , 2 Maccabees , and Josephus , the Seleucid Emperor Antiochus IV ( r.  175–164 ) moved to assert strict control over the Seleucid satrapy of Coele Syria and Phoenicia after his successful invasion of Ptolemaic Egypt (170 to 168 BCE) was turned back by

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4448-547: The 10th century. However, codification of the base consonants appears to have begun earlier, perhaps even in the Second Temple period . The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran , dating from c. 150 BCE – 75 CE , shows that in this period there was no uniform text. According to Menachem Cohen , the Dead Sea scrolls showed that "there was indeed a Hebrew text-type on which the Septuagint-translation

4587-623: The English translation of the Old Testament for the King James Version (though not always followed). Next to Ibn Adoniyah, the critical study of the Masorah has been most advanced by Elia Levita , who published his famous "Massoret ha-Massoret" in 1538. The Tiberias of the elder Johannes Buxtorf (1620) made Levita's researches more accessible to a Christian audience. The eighth introduction to Walton's Polyglot Bible

4726-677: The Gaspheni; Epiphanius the Cajani. Besides the particulars already mentioned, it is said Cainan was the first after the flood who invented astronomy , and that his sons made a god of him, and worshiped his image after his death. The founding of the city of Harran in Mesopotamia is also attributed to him; which, it is pretended, is so called from a son he had of that name." – Anc. Univ. Hist. , vol. i, p. 96, note . The Alexandrian World Chronicle states: And Arphaxad begat Cainan, from whom

4865-683: The Great issued a proclamation known as the Edict of Cyrus , encouraging the exiles to return to their homeland after the Persians raised it as an autonomous Jewish-governed province . Under the Persians ( c.  539–332 BCE ), the returned Jewish population restored the city and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem. In 332 BCE, the Achaemenid Empire fell to Alexander the Great , and the region

5004-593: The Greek of Aquila of Sinope and Theodotion and what we now know as the Masoretic Text are minimal. Relatively small variations between different Hebrew texts in use still clearly existed though, as witnessed by differences between the present-day Masoretic Text and versions mentioned in the Gemara , and often even halachic midrashim based on spelling versions which do not exist in the current Masoretic Text. The current received text finally achieved predominance through

5143-686: The Hasmoneans were removed from Judaean rule, including Azotus , Jaffa and Samaria , as well as Scythopolis and several cities in Transjordan , which formed the semi-autonomous Decapolis . Hyrcanus II's rule was unstable. Alexander II , Aristobulus II's son, raised a large army and seized Jerusalem, forcing Hyrcanus to leave the city. The Roman general Aulus Gabinius invaded Judea in retaliation, sent Hyrcanus back to Jerusalem, and reinstated him as high priest. When Caesar's civil war broke out, Julius Caesar attempted to install Aristobulus on

5282-479: The Hebrew into the Greek; rather they testify to a different pre-Christian form of the Hebrew text". On the other hand, some of the fragments conforming most accurately to the Masoretic Text were found in Cave ;4. Tannaitic sources relate that a standard copy of the Hebrew Bible was kept in the court of the Second Temple for the benefit of copyists and that there were paid correctors of biblical books among

5421-520: The Hebrew word masorah "tradition" . Originally masoret , a word found in Book of Ezekiel 20:37 (there from אסר "to bind" for "fetters"). According to the majority of scholars, including Wilhelm Bacher , the form of the Ezekiel word masoret "fetters" was applied by the Masoretes to the מסר root meaning "to transmit", for masoret "tradition." (See also Aggadah § Etymology .) Later,

5560-586: The History and Religion of Mankind (1854), George Smith writes: It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the omission of the name of Cainan from the Hebrew text, and the consequent general rejection of him by historians, there are more traditions preserved of him than of his son Salah. "The Alexandrine Chronicle derives the Samaritans from Cainan ; Eustachius Antiochenus, the Saggodians; George Syncellus ,

5699-571: The Judah described in the Bible: a Jewish monarchy ruled from Jerusalem and including all territories once ruled by David and Solomon. In order to carry out this project, the Hasmoneans forcibly converted neighbor nations to Judaism. Some scholars argue that the Hasmonean dynasty institutionalized the final Jewish biblical canon . After Salome Alexander died in 67 BCE, Hyrcanus II , her older son,

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5838-496: The Kethiv-Qere readings and more. These observations are also the result of a passionate zeal to safeguard the accurate transmission of the sacred text. Even though often cited as very exact, the Masoretic "frequency notes" in the margin of Codex Leningradiensis contain several errors. The Masorah magna , in measure, is an expanded Masorah parva . Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (BHS) includes an apparatus referring

5977-409: The Masorah into the margin, he compiled at the close of his Bible a concordance of the Masoretic glosses for which he could not find room in a marginal form, and added an elaborate introduction – the first treatise on the Masorah ever produced. Due to its wide distribution, and in spite of its many errors, this work is frequently considered as the textus receptus of the Masorah. It was also used for

6116-462: The Masorah may be divided into three periods: (1) creative period, from its beginning to the introduction of vowel-signs; (2) reproductive period, from the introduction of vowel-signs to the printing of the Masorah (1525); (3) critical period, from 1525 to the present time. The materials for the history of the first period are scattered remarks in Talmudic and Midrashic literature, in

6255-525: The Masorah of the Pentateuch entitled "Or Torah"; and in particular to Jedidiah Norzi , whose "Minḥat Shai" contains valuable Masoretic notes based on a careful study of manuscripts. Second Temple period Canaan State of Israel (1948–present) The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years (516 BCE – 70 CE) during which

6394-434: The Masoretes included a standard division of the text into books, sections, paragraphs, verses, and clauses; fixing of the orthography, pronunciation, and cantillation; introduction or final adoption of the square characters with the five final letters ; some textual changes to guard against blasphemy (though these changes may pre-date the Masoretes – see Tikkune Soferim below); enumeration of letters, words, verses, etc., and

6533-539: The Masoretic Concordance. The Small Masorah consists of brief notes with reference to marginal readings, to statistics showing the number of times a particular form is found in Scripture, to full and defective spelling, and to abnormally written letters. The Large Masorah is more copious in its notes. The Final Masorah comprises all the longer rubrics for which space could not be found in the margin of

6672-526: The Masoretic Text and the old Greek. However, despite these variations, most of the Qumran fragments can be classified as being closer to the Masoretic Text than to any other text group that has survived. According to Lawrence Schiffman , 60% can be classed as being of proto-Masoretic type, and a further 20% Qumran style with a basis in proto-Masoretic texts, compared to 5% proto- Samaritan type, 5% Septuagintal type, and 10% non-aligned. Joseph Fitzmyer noted

6811-567: The Masoretic Text. The Masoretic Text is the basis for most Protestant translations of the Old Testament such as the King James Version , English Standard Version , New American Standard Bible , and New International Version . After 1943 , it has also been used for some Catholic Bibles , such as the New American Bible and the New Jerusalem Bible . Some Christian denominations instead prefer translations of

6950-406: The Masoretic notes are those that detail the Qere and Ketiv that are located in the Masorah parva in the outside margins of BHS. Given that the Masoretes would not alter the sacred consonantal text, the Kethiv-Qere notes were a way of "correcting" or commenting on the text for any number of reasons (grammatical, theological, aesthetic, etc.) deemed important by the copyist. The earliest tasks of

7089-418: The Masoretic notes is primarily Aramaic but partly Hebrew. The Masoretic annotations are found in various forms: (a) in separate works, e.g., the Oklah we-Oklah ; (b) in the form of notes written in the margins and at the end of codices. In rare cases, the notes are written between the lines. The first word of each biblical book is also as a rule surrounded by notes. The latter are called the Initial Masorah;

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7228-401: The Oral Law. Rabbinic Judaism (centered in the Land of Israel and Babylon) almost entirely ignores the Hellenized Diaspora in its writings. It is unknown whether Hellenized Judaism ultimately vanished as its adherents assmiliated into the Christianized Greco-Roman society, or if it persisted as a distinct, bible-oriented community that later affected the development of Karaite Judaism . By

7367-420: The Pharisaic school and became the mainstream form of the religion. During the same era, Christianity gradually separated from Judaism , becoming a predominantly Gentile religion. A few decades after the First Jewish-Roman War, the Bar-Kokhba Revolt (132–135 CE) erupted; its brutal suppression by the Romans further dwindled the Jewish population in Judea and enhanced the role of Jewish diaspora . During

7506-451: The Prince (so-called because he was a descendant of the royal line of David ) and Joshua the Priest (a descendant of the line of the former High Priests of the Temple) and their construction of the Second Temple in the period 521–516 BCE. The Cyrus Cylinder , an ancient tablet on which is written a declaration in the name of Cyrus referring to restoration of temples and repatriation of exiled peoples, has often been taken as corroboration of

7645-414: The Ptolemies ruled Judea in relative peace. Jews often found themselves working in the Ptolemaic administration and army, which led to the rise of a Hellenized Jewish elite class (e.g. the Tobiads ). This period also saw the rise of a Hellenistic Judaism , which first developed in the Jewish diaspora of Alexandria and Antioch, and then spread to Judea. The major literary product of this cultural syncretism

7784-513: The Roman Legions. The war ended in 73-74 CE with the siege of Masada . According to Josephus, the siege resulted in the mass suicide of the Sicarii rebels and resident Jewish families, though the historicity of the mass suicide is debated. The failure of the First Jewish Revolt eventually led to two subsequent Jewish uprisings against Rome: the Diaspora Revolt and the Bar Kokhba Revolt in Judaea, both of which ended in catastrophic failure. The Diaspora Revolt, which erupted between 115 and 117 CE,

7923-406: The Roman forces, which led to widespread devastation and the near-total expulsion or annihilation of Jews from these regions. Two generations after the First Jewish-Roman War, the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-136 CE) erupted. One reason seems to be the re-establishment of Jerusalem as a Roman colony under the name of Aelia Capitolina . The revolt was brutally suppressed by the Romans and resulted in

8062-697: The Samaritans from the east come from. And Cainan begat Salathee, whence the Salathees are made. (Latin: Et arfaxad genuit cainan, unde fiunt qui ab oriente samaritae . Cainan autem genuit Salathee, unde fiunt Salathii.) [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Singer, Isidore ; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia . New York: Funk & Wagnalls. {{ cite encyclopedia }} : Missing or empty |title= ( help ) Masoretic Text The Masoretic Text ( MT or 𝕸; Hebrew : נֻסָּח הַמָּסוֹרָה , romanized :  Nūssāḥ hamMāsōrā , lit.   'Text of

8201-418: The Scribes" ( tikkune Soferim ; Midrash Genesis Rabbah xlix. 7), assuming that the Scribes actually made the changes. This view was adopted by the later Midrash and by the majority of Masoretes. In Masoretic works these changes are ascribed to Ezra ; to Ezra and Nehemiah ; to Ezra and the Soferim ; or to Ezra, Nehemiah, Zechariah , Haggai , and Baruch . All these ascriptions mean one and the same thing: that

8340-451: The Second Temple and expanding the Temple Mount , and founding Caesarea Maritima as a major port city. Herod also constructed the enclosure around the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron , the fortress at Masada , and Herodium . The Herodian kingdom under Herod experienced a period of growth and expansion. After Herod's death in 4 BCE, the kingdom was partitioned to several parts to each of his three sons (initially four parts), forming

8479-430: The Septuagint as it matches quotations in the New Testament . The oldest manuscript fragments of the final Masoretic Text, including vocalications and the masorah, date from around the 9th century. The oldest-known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex , dates from the early 11th century. The Aleppo Codex , once the oldest-known complete copy but missing large sections since the 1947 Civil war in Palestine , dates from

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8618-415: The Temple court, at variance with each other. The differences between the three were resolved by majority decision. This may describe a previous period, although Solomon Zeitlin argues it is not historical. An emphasis on minute details of words and spellings, already used among the Pharisees as basis for argumentation, reached its height with the example of Rabbi Akiva (died 135 CE). The idea of

8757-412: The Text-Critical Masorah. The close relation which existed in earlier times (from the Soferim to the Amoraim inclusive) between the teacher of tradition and the Masorete, both frequently being united in one person, accounts for the Exegetical Masorah. Finally, the invention and introduction of a graphic system of vocalization and accentuation gave rise to the Grammatical Masorah. The most important of

8896-416: The Tradition') is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible ( Tanakh ) in Rabbinic Judaism . The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocalization and accentuation known as the mas'sora . Referring to the Masoretic Text, masorah specifically means the diacritic markings of the text of the Jewish scriptures and

9035-417: The allegedly desecrated temple. This event is commemorated by the Jewish festival of Hannukkah . The Maccabean cause was aided further in 164 BCE when Antiochus IV died and his generals fought over guardianship of his young son Antiochus V ; this turmoil ended when Antiochus IV's nephew, Demetrios I , returned from exile in Rome, deposed Antiochus V, and ascended to the Seleucid throne. Demetrios continued

9174-442: The archeological evidence, virtually all scholars support Dio's claim of massive depopulation. The revolt put an end to Jewish aspirations for the reconstruction of Jerusalem and the Temple as well as, more concretely, for Jewish settlement in the district of Judea. The province of Judaea was renamed Syria Palaestina . Jewish presence in Judaea significantly dwindled after the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt. Nevertheless, there

9313-470: The authenticity of the biblical decrees attributed to Cyrus, but other scholars point out that the cylinder's text is specific to Babylon and Mesopotamia and makes no mention of Judah or Jerusalem. Professor Lester L. Grabbe asserted that the "alleged decree of Cyrus" regarding Judah, "cannot be considered authentic", but that there was a "general policy of allowing deportees to return and to re-establish cult sites". He also stated that archaeology suggests that

9452-458: The cancellation in a few passages of the "vav" conjunctive, where it had been wrongly read by some. The objection to such an explanation is that the first changes would fall under the general head of fixation of pronunciation, and the second under the head of Qere and Ketiv (i.e. "What is read" and "What is written"). Various explanations have, therefore, been offered by ancient as well as modern scholars without, however, succeeding in furnishing

9591-445: The causes of the First Jewish–Roman War . In 6 CE, the country fell into unrest, and the Herodian ruler of Judea was deposed in favor of forming the new Iudaea Province under direct Roman rule. The Roman province of Judaea extended over parts of the former regions of the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms . It was created in 6 CE with the Census of Quirinius and merged into Syria Palaestina after 135 CE. Jerusalem reached

9730-415: The center of rebel resistance in Judaea. The city had been taken over by several rebel factions following a period of massive unrest and the collapse of a short-lived provisional government . The first two walls of Jerusalem were breached in three weeks, but the Roman Army was unable to breach the third and thickest wall due to a stubborn rebel standoff. According to Josephus , a contemporary historian and

9869-429: The changes were assumed to have been made by the Men of the Great Assembly . The term tikkun Soferim ( תקון סופרים ) has been understood by different scholars in various ways. Some regard it as a correction of biblical language authorized by the Soferim for homiletical purposes. Others take it to mean a mental change made by the original writers or redactors of Scripture; i.e. the latter shrank from putting in writing

10008-610: The concise marginal notes in manuscripts (and later printings) of the Tanakh which note textual details, usually about the precise spelling of words. It was primarily copied, edited, and distributed by a group of Jews known as the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries of the Common Era (CE). The oldest known complete copy, the Leningrad Codex , dates from the early 11th century CE. The differences attested to in

10147-544: The death of Herod Antipas in 39 CE Herod Agrippa became ruler of Galilee also, and in 41 CE, as a mark of favour by the Emperor Claudius , succeeded the Roman prefect Marullus as ruler of Judea. The era from roughly 4 BCE to 33 CE is also notable as being the time period when Jesus of Nazareth should have lived, primarily in Galilee, under the reign of Herod Antipas. It is therefore considered in specifically Jewish history as being when Christianity arose as

10286-476: The differences between the two are found in more or less complete Masoretic lists and in quotations in David Ḳimḥi, Norzi, and other medieval writers. The differences between Ben Naphtali and Ben Asher number about 875, nine-tenths of which refer to the placing of the accents, while the rest relate to vowels and consonantal spelling. The differences between the two Masoretes do not represent solely personal opinions;

10425-515: The early Second Temple period; this left the Jews without their version of divine guidance when they felt most in need of support and direction. Under Hellenistic rule, the growing influence of Hellenism in Judaism became a source of dissent for those Jews who clung to their monotheistic faith; this was a major catalyst for the Maccabean revolt. In the latter years of the period, Jewish society

10564-539: The empire's administrative structures, which included the collection, codification, and administration of local law codes, was the driving force behind the Jewish Torah's redaction. Yehud's population significantly decreased during the Persian era; it is likely that it never exceeded 30,000. This represents a 70% decrease when compared to the late First Temple period. Jerusalem's area was also smaller compared with

10703-586: The ensuing Rabbinic period , the Jewish demographic center shifted to Galilee , where the Mishnah was compiled, and later to Babylonia , while smaller Jewish communities persisted across the Mediterranean . According to the Book of Ezra , the Persian Cyrus the Great ended the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE, the year after he captured Babylon. The exile ended with the return under Zerubbabel

10842-465: The extensive depopulation of Judea proper, more so than during the First Jewish–Roman War of 70 CE. Some scholars have described these events as genocide . According to Cassius Dio , 580,000 Jews perished in the war and many more died of hunger and disease, 50 fortresses and 985 villages were destroyed. In addition, many Judean war captives were sold into slavery. Some modern historians assert that Dio's numbers were somewhat exaggerated, but based on

10981-656: The first century, the Jewish community in Babylonia , to which Jews were exiled after the Babylonian conquest as well as after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE, already held a speedily growing population of an estimated one million Jews, which increased to an estimated two million between the years 200 CE and 500 CE, both by natural growth and by immigration of more Jews from the Land of Israel , making up about one-sixth of

11120-550: The first mention of such notes is found in the case of R. Meïr (c. 100–150 CE). Early rabbinic sources, from around 200 CE, mention several passages of Scripture in which the conclusion is inevitable that the ancient reading must have differed from that of the present text. The explanation of this phenomenon is given in the expression "Scripture has used euphemistic language" ( כנה הכתוב ), i.e. to avoid anthropomorphism and anthropopathism . Rabbi Simon ben Pazzi (3rd century) calls these readings "emendations of

11259-466: The following regarding the findings at Qumran Cave 4 in particular: "Such ancient recensional forms of Old Testament books bear witness to an unsuspected textual diversity that once existed; these texts merit far greater study and attention than they have been accorded till now. Thus, the differences in the Septuagint are no longer considered the result of a poor or tendentious attempt to translate

11398-574: The governmental balance and sparked opposition to his rule, resulting in the Judean Civil War , which Jannaeus brutally suppressed. Salome Alexandra ( r.  76–67 BCE ), Jannaeus' widow, ascended to power following her husband's death. Under her rule, the priesthood was separated from the other powers of government for the first time since the rise of the Hasmoneans. Salome appointed her son, Hyrcanus II , as high priest and his brother, Aristobulus II , as army commander, and pursued

11537-477: The inhabitants of the former Kingdom of Judah, returnees from the Babylonian exile community, Mesopotamians who had joined them or had been exiled themselves to Samaria at a far earlier period, Samaritans , and others. In 332 BCE, the region was conquered by Alexander the Great of Macedon , ushering in the Hellenistic period . After his death in 322 BCE, his generals divided the empire and Judea became

11676-536: The intervention of the Roman Republic. He sacked Jerusalem and the Temple, suppressing Jewish and Samaritan religious and cultural observances, and imposed Hellenistic practices ( c. 168-167 BCE). Antiochus' actions enraged the elites but also the rural population, who had remained mostly untouched by Hellenism. In 167 BCE, Mattathias , a Hasmonean -lineage Jewish priest, killed a Jew in his hometown Modi'in who stepped forward to offer sacrifice to

11815-537: The late First Temple period. The city shrank to its pre-eighth century BCE size, and its inhabited areas—the City of David and the Temple Mount —had a population of around 1500. Together with the surrounding farms and unwalled settled areas, Jerusalem's population was around 3000 people. The rest of the population lived in small, unwalled towns and villages. The Israel of the Persian period consisted of descendants of

11954-418: The leader of the revolt. He benefited from another internal Seleucid struggle between King Demetrius I Soter and an usurper, Alexander Balas . Both turned to Jonathan, attempting to win him over with concessions, and Alexander Balas even elevated him to the position of high priest. Alexander Balas was eventually able to assert himself, but he was quickly defeated by Demetrios' son Demetrios II . The battle for

12093-472: The main source for the war, the city was ravaged by murder, famine and cannibalism . On Tisha B'Av , 70 CE (August 30), Roman forces finally overwhelmed the defenders and set fire to the Temple. Resistance continued for another month, but eventually the upper and lower parts of the city were taken as well, and the city was burned to the ground. Titus spared only the three towers of the Herodian citadel as

12232-659: The major sources for the time period are the writings of Josephus , Philo , the Books of the Maccabees , Greek and Roman writers and later Rabbinic literature . The destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE is considered one of the most cataclysmic events in Jewish history. The loss of mother-city and temple necessitated a reshaping of Jewish culture to ensure its survival. Judaism's Temple-based sects disappeared. Rabbinic Judaism , centered around communal synagogue worship and Torah study , eventually evolved out of

12371-612: The marginal Masorah and the final Masorah. The category of marginal Masorah is further divided into the Masorah parva (small Masorah) in the outer side margins and the Masorah magna (large Masorah), traditionally located at the top and bottom margins of the text. The Masorah parva is a set of statistics in the outer side margins of the text. Beyond simply counting the letters, the Masorah parva consists of word-use statistics, similar documentation for expressions or certain phraseology, observations on full or defective writing, references to

12510-569: The notes on the side margins or between the columns are called the Small ( Masora parva or Mp) or Inner Masorah (Masora marginalis); and those on the lower and upper margins, the Large or Outer Masorah ( Masora magna or Mm[Mas.M]). The name "Large Masorah" is applied sometimes to the lexically arranged notes at the end of the printed Bible, usually called the Final Masorah, ( Masora finalis ), or

12649-448: The number of variants in circulation and also gave a new urgency that the text must be preserved. Few manuscripts survive from this era, but a short Leviticus fragment recovered from the ancient En-Gedi Scroll , carbon-dated to the 3rd or 4th century CE, is completely identical to the consonantal Masoretic Text preserved today. New Greek translations were also made. Unlike the Septuagint, large-scale deviations in sense between

12788-618: The officers of the Temple. The Letter of Aristeas claims that a model codex was sent to Ptolemy by the High Priest Eleazar , who asked that it be returned after the Septuagint was completed. Josephus describes the Romans taking a copy of the Law as spoil, and both he and Philo claim no word of the text was ever changed from the time of Moses. In contrast, an Amoraic narrative relates that three Torah scrolls were found in

12927-473: The other, examining, however, standard codices of other schools and noting their differences. The Masorah for the most part ended in the 10th century with Aaron ben Moses ben Asher and Ben Naphtali who were the leading Masoretes of the time. Ben Asher wrote a standard codex (the Aleppo Codex ) embodying his opinions. Ben Naphtali likely did as well, though it has not survived. However,

13066-408: The post-Talmudical treatises Masseket Sefer Torah and Masseket Soferim , and in a Masoretic chain of tradition found in ben Asher's Diḳduḳe ha-Ṭe'amim, § 69 and elsewhere. Jacob ben Hayyim ibn Adonijah , having collated a vast number of manuscripts, systematized his material and arranged the Masorah in the second Bomberg edition of the Bible ( Venice , 1524–1525). Besides introducing

13205-459: The prophesies of Ezekiel and his followers. The Persian era, and especially the period between 538 and 400 BCE, laid the foundations for the unified Judaic religion and the beginning of a scriptural canon. The final Torah is widely seen as a product of the Persian period (probably 450–350 BCE). This consensus echoes a traditional Jewish view which gives Ezra a pivotal role in its promulgation. It has been suggested that Darius ' reform of

13344-488: The prose books of the Bible were hardly ever written in stichs, the copyists, in order to estimate the amount of work, had to count the letters. According to some this was (also) to ensure accuracy in the transmission of the text with the production of subsequent copies that were done by hand. Hence the Masoretes contributed the Numerical Masorah. These notes are traditionally categorized into two main groups,

13483-500: The reader to the large Masorah, which is printed separately. The final Masorah is located at the end of biblical books or after certain sections of the text, such as at the end of the Torah. It contains information and statistics regarding the number of words in a book or section, etc. Thus, Book of Leviticus 8:23 is the middle verse in the Pentateuch. The collation of manuscripts and the noting of their differences furnished material for

13622-469: The reason that such faulty readings would belong to Qere and Ketiv, which, in case of doubt, the majority of manuscripts would decide. The last two theories have equal probability. In nine passages of the Masoretic Text are found signs usually called inverted nuns , because they resemble the Hebrew letter nun  ( נ ) written in some inverted fashion. The exact shape varies between different manuscripts and printed editions. In many manuscripts,

13761-463: The rebuilding of the Temple; this attitude was based partly on the exclusivism which the exiles had developed while in Babylon and, probably, partly on disputes over property. The careers of Ezra and Nehemiah in the 5th century BCE were thus a kind of religious colonisation in reverse, an attempt by one of the many Jewish factions in Babylon to create a self-segregated, ritually pure society inspired by

13900-462: The region into the Seleucid empire, with Jerusalem falling under his control in 198 BCE. The Seleucids, like the Ptolemies before them, held a suzerainty over Judea : they respected Jewish culture and protected Jewish institutions. This policy was drastically reversed by Antiochus IV , possibly due to a dispute over leadership of the Temple in Jerusalem and the office of High Priest or

14039-717: The reputation of the Masoretes , schools of scribes and Torah scholars working between the 7th and 11th centuries in the Rashidun , Umayyad , and Abbasid Caliphates , based primarily in the cities of Tiberias and Jerusalem and in Mesopotamia (called "Babylonia"). According to Menachem Cohen, these schools developed such prestige for the accuracy and error-control of their copying techniques that their texts established an authority beyond all others. Differences remained, sometimes bolstered by systematic local differences in pronunciation and cantillation . Every locality, following

14178-430: The return was a "trickle" taking place over decades, rather than a single event. The Persians may have experimented initially with ruling Judah as a Davidic client-kingdom under descendants of Jehoiachin , but by the mid–5th century BCE Judah had become in practice a theocracy , ruled by hereditary High Priests and a Persian-appointed governor, frequently Jewish, charged with keeping order and seeing that tribute

14317-415: The revolt. He used guerrilla tactics to defeat several small Seleucid armies while Antiochus IV was fighting a war in the east. The conflict was heavily religiously charged because, in order to distinguish themselves from their Jewish opponents, the Maccabees presented themselves as radical Jews and carried out large-scale forced circumcisions . Judas eventually succeeded in capturing Jerusalem and purifying

14456-497: The same time, he carried on his predecessors' conversion policy, and destroyed Pella because its inhabitants refused to convert. During his reign, the Hasmonean kingdom expanded to its greatest extent, now including the coastal plain, the northern Negev, and western parts of Transjordan. Jannaeus' dual role as king and high priest, his inclination towards the Sadducees , the high cost of the wars in both money and lives threatened

14595-447: The seven Books of Moses". Genesis, Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy as we know them but Numbers was really three separate volumes: Numbers 1:1–10:35 followed by Numbers 10:35–36 and the third text from there to the end of Numbers. The 85 letter text is also said to be denoted because it is the model for the fewest letters which constitute a 'text' which one would be required to save from fire due to its holiness. The history of

14734-547: The stigmatized words were missing, hence that the reading is doubtful; still others contend that they are merely a mnemonic device to indicate homiletic explanations which the ancients had connected with those words; finally, some maintain that the dots were designed to guard against the omission by copyists of text-elements which, at first glance or after comparison with parallel passages, seemed to be superfluous. Instead of dots some manuscripts exhibit strokes, vertical or else horizontal. The first two explanations are unacceptable for

14873-584: The subject, which are all more or less frequently referred to in the marginal glosses of biblical codices and in the works of Hebrew grammarians. Traditionally, a ritual Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) could contain only the Hebrew consonantal text – nothing added, nothing taken away. The Masoretic codices , however, provide extensive additional material, called masorah , to show correct pronunciation and cantillation , protect against scribal errors, and annotate possible variants. The manuscripts thus include vowel points , pronunciation marks and stress accents in

15012-430: The substitution of some words for others in public reading. Since no additions were allowed to be made to the official text of the Bible, the early Masoretes adopted other methods: e.g., they marked the various divisions by spacing, and gave indications of halakic and haggadic teachings by full or defective spelling, abnormal forms of letters, dots, and other signs. Marginal notes were permitted only in private copies, and

15151-501: The text and the masorah, suggesting that they were copied from different sources or that one of them has copying errors. The lack of such discrepancies in the Aleppo Codex is one of the reasons for its importance; the scribe who copied the notes, presumably Aaron ben Moses ben Asher , probably wrote them originally. In classical antiquity, copyists were paid for their work according to the number of stichs (lines of verse). As

15290-454: The text of the early Rabbinic Bibles published by Bomberg in the early 16th century. The talmud records that the markings surrounding Numbers 10:35-36 were thought to denote that this 85 letter text was not in its proper place. Bar Kappara considered the Torah known to us as composed of seven volumes in the Gemara "The seven pillars with which Wisdom built her house (Prov. 9:1) are

15429-477: The text was also called moseirah , by a direct conjugation of מסר "to transmit," and the synthesis of the two forms produced the modern word masorah. According to a minority of scholars, including Caspar Levias , the intent of the Masoretes was masoret "fetter [upon the exposition of the text ]", and the word was only later connected to מסר and translated as "tradition". Other specific explanations are provided: Samuel David Luzzatto argued that masoret

15568-515: The text, and is arranged alphabetically in the form of a concordance. The quantity of notes the marginal Masorah contains is conditioned by the amount of vacant space on each page. In the manuscripts it varies also with the rate at which the copyist was paid and the fanciful shape he gave to his gloss. There was accordingly an independent Babylonian Masora which differed from the Palestinian in terminology and to some extent in order. The Masora

15707-422: The text, short annotations in the side margins, and longer more extensive notes in the upper and lower margins and collected at the end of each book. These notes were added because the Masoretes recognized the possibility of human error in copying the Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes were not working with the original Hebrew manuscripts of the Bible and corruptions had already crept into the versions they copied. From

15846-685: The third and second centuries BCE) and the Peshitta (a Syriac translation made in the second century CE) occasionally present notable differences from the Masoretic Text, as does the Samaritan Pentateuch , the text of the Torah preserved by the Samaritans in Samaritan Hebrew . Fragments of an ancient 2nd–3rd-century manuscript of the Book of Leviticus found near an ancient synagogue's Torah ark in Ein Gedi have identical wording to

15985-646: The throne was a mistake that needed to be undone. Along with Aretas III , king of the Nabateans , these two formed an alliance and together they attacked and besieged Jerusalem. During the same period, Roman general Pompey was in the midst of a campaign in the Eastern Mediterranean. After defeating Mithridates VI of Pontus, Pompey conquered the Seleucid Kingdom, which became a Roman province called Syria . The warrying brothers, who saw

16124-519: The throne was now between him and the general Diodotos Tryphon , which strengthened Jonathan's position even more. This did not change when Tryphon was able to capture and murder Jonathan in Acre through treachery. In 142 BCE, Simon Thassi , the last of Mattathias' sons, took over as rebellion leader and high priest. He was eventually successful in destroying the Acra , a fortified complex in Jerusalem that

16263-622: The throne. In 37 BCE, Jerusalem was taken after a siege , and Antigonus was captured and executed. In 37-36 BCE, Herod the Great was appointed king of the Jews by the Roman Senate . The kingdom of Judea during his period is also referred to as the Herodian kingdom . As a close and loyal ally to the Romans, Herod extended his rule as far as Arabia and the Hauran. Herod undertook many colossal building projects, including fully rebuilding

16402-512: The throne; however, Aristobulus was poisoned, and his son Alexander, who was preparing to support him, was beheaded at Antioch at the command of Pompey. Antipater and his sons Phasael and Herod gained status and power at the expense of the Hasmonean dynasty's waning power. When the Parthians invaded the area in 40 BCE, they installed Antigonus II Mattathias , Aristobulus II's youngest son, as king. Phasael committed suicide, and Hyrcanus II

16541-618: The title of king for the first time and combined it with the office of high priest. People were now more open to Hellenistic influences that had been demonized as un-Jewish during the war; the Hasmonean kingship bore clear Hellenistic monarchy traits, but combined these with theocratic elements. Aristobulus conquered and annexed Galilee . The Galilee, which had previously been sparsely inhabited, mostly by pagan populations, but also by Jewish communities, experienced an influx of Jewish settlement following these conquests. Josephus writes that he had also subjugated and Judaized Iturea , but this claim

16680-504: The tradition of its school, had a standard codex embodying its readings. In the talmudic academies in Babylonia , the school of Sura differed from that of Nehardea ; and similar differences existed in those of Syria Palaestina as against that at Tiberias, which in later times increasingly became the chief seat of learning. In this period living tradition ceased, and the Masoretes in preparing their codices usually followed one school or

16819-516: The two rivals represent different schools. Like the Ben Ashers there seem to have been several Ben Naftalis. The Masoretic lists often do not agree on the precise nature of the differences between the two rival authorities; it is, therefore, impossible to define with exactness their differences in every case; and it is probably due to this fact that the received text does not follow uniformly the system of either Ben Asher or Ben Naphtali. Ben Asher

16958-460: The war against the Maccabees and backed their Jewish opponents. Around this time Judas was able to make a treaty with the Romans. Around 161 BCE, a Roman–Jewish Treaty was signed. In 160 BCE, the Seleucid general Bacchides defeated the Maccabees at the Battle of Elasa in 160 BCE; Judas' death during the battle dealt a blow to the rebels. After Judas died, his brother Jonathan Apphus took over as

17097-597: The weakening Seleucids out of the region, establishing itself as the last Jewish kingdom and preceding an almost 2000-year-long hiatus in Jewish sovereignty in the Levant . In 63 BCE, the Roman Republic conquered the kingdom. In 37 BCE, the Romans appointed Herod the Great as king of a vassal Judea . In 6 CE, Judea was fully incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Judaea . Growing dissatisfaction with Roman rule and civil disturbances eventually led to

17236-411: The world Jewish population at that era. During the 600 years of the Second Temple period, multiple religious currents emerged and extensive religious developments occurred. The development of the Hebrew Bible canon , the synagogue , Jewish eschatology can all be traced back to the Second Temple period. According to Jewish tradition, prophecy ceased during the early Second Temple period; this left

17375-413: Was a Karaite rather than a Rabbinical Jew, though there is evidence against this view. The two rival authorities, ben Asher and ben Naphtali, practically brought the Masorah to a close. Very few additions were made by the later Masoretes, styled in the 13th and 14th centuries Naqdanim , who revised the works of the copyists, added the vowels and accents (generally in fainter ink and with

17514-455: Was a continuous small Jewish presence and Galilee became its religious center. Jewish communities also continued to reside in the southern Hebron Hills and on the coastal plain. The Mishnah and part of the Talmud , central Jewish texts, were composed during the 2nd to 4th centuries CE in Tiberias and Jerusalem . Over the next centuries, more Jews emigrated to flourishing communities in

17653-485: Was a synonym for siman by extended meaning ("transmission[ of the sign]" became "transmitted sign") and referred to the symbols used in vocalizing and punctuating the text. Ze'ev Ben-Haim argued that masoret meant "counting" and was later conjugated as moseirah "thing which is counted", referring to the Masoretic counts of the letters, words, and verses in the Bible, discussed in Qiddushin 30a. The language of

17792-523: Was based and which differed substantially from the received MT." The scrolls show numerous small variations in orthography , both as against the later Masoretic Text, and between each other. It is also evident from the notings of corrections and of variant alternatives that scribes felt free to choose according to their personal taste and discretion between different readings. The text of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Peshitta read somewhat in-between

17931-471: Was deeply polarized along ideological lines, and the sects of the Pharisees , Sadducees , Essenes , Zealots , and early Christianity were formed. Important Jewish writings were also composed during the Second Temple period, including portions of the Hebrew Bible, such as the books of Ezra , Nehemiah , Esther and Daniel and writings that are a part of the Apocrypha and the Dead Sea Scrolls . Among

18070-428: Was driven by messianic expectations and the local tensions and violence experienced by Jews in the diaspora. This revolt saw Jewish communities in the Roman provinces of Egypt , Cyrenaica , and Cyprus rise in rebellion, characterized by attacks on local populations, temples, public structures, and roads. The Roman suppression was marked by severe retaliation and ethnic cleansing , involving local populations joining

18209-486: Was entitled to assume the throne and was already acting as high priest. However, Aristobulus II , her younger son, was more energetic and determined to become king. Aristobulus gathered an army to attack Jerusalem, forcing Hyrcanus to abdicate the crown. The abdication was formally carried out in the temple, and Aristobulus' son, Alexander, married Hyrcanus' daughter, Alexandra. However, Antipater , an Edomite noble who served as Hyrcanus' advisor, convinced him that giving up

18348-612: Was later incorporated into the Ptolemaic Kingdom ( c.  301–200 BCE ) and the Seleucid Empire ( c.  200–167 BCE ). The Maccabean Revolt against Seleucid rule led to the establishment of a nominally independent Jewish kingdom under the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE). While it initially exercised governance semi-autonomously under Seleucid hegemony, the Hasmoneans' kingdom increasingly exercised total self-governance as it undertook military campaigns to push

18487-475: Was paid. A second group of 5,000, led by Ezra and Nehemiah , returned to Judah in 456 BCE. The first was empowered by the Persian king to enforce the Torah , the second had the status of governor and a royal mission to restore the walls of the city. The Bible mentions tension between the returnees and those who had remained in Judah, the former rebuffing the attempt of the "peoples of the land" to participate in

18626-569: Was reduced to a village and the Samaritan Temple on Mount Gerizim was destroyed. Archaeological evidence places these events between 111 and 110 BCE. Hyrcanus also launched a military campaign in Idumea , capturing Marisa and Adora. The Idumeans were forced to convert to Judaism, by threat of exile or death, depending on the source. Following the death of Hyrcanus, his son Aristobulus I ( r.  104–103 BCE ) assumed

18765-451: Was relieved of his burden, establishing the now de facto independent Hasmonean state of Judea, minting coins for the first time, and doubling the state's territory. Around 110 BCE, Hyrcanus launched an invasion of Transjordan . His army laid siege to the city of Medeba and took it after a six-month siege. After this victory, he turned north and invaded Samaria , which had long separated Judea from Jewish settlements in Galilee. Shechem

18904-493: Was sent by emperor Nero to crush the rebellion. He arrived at Ptolemais along with legions X Fretensis and V Macedonica . There he was joined by his son Titus , who arrived from Alexandria at the head of Legio XV Apollinaris , as well as by the armies of various local allies including that of king Agrippa II. During the Galilee campaign , many towns surrendered without a fight, and others were taken by force. Yodfat ,

19043-469: Was taken as a prisoner to Babylon after having his ear severed in order to prevent him from ever acting as high priest again. Herod, who fled the Parthians, found his way to Mark Antony , who then controlled the eastern part of the Roman Republic. In agreement with his co-ruler Augustus , who controlled the western part, the two decided to appoint Herod as king of Judaea, and sent him with an army to seize

19182-457: Was the last of a distinguished family of Masoretes extending back to the latter half of the 8th century. Despite the rivalry of ben Naphtali and the opposition of Saadia Gaon , the most eminent representative of the Babylonian school of criticism, ben Asher's codex became recognized as the standard text of the Hebrew Bible. Notwithstanding all this, for reasons unknown neither the printed text nor any manuscript which has been preserved

19321-584: Was the last symbol of Seleucid rule in Judea. After Simon was assassinated and replaced by his son John Hyrcanus I ( r.  134–104 BCE ), Antiochus VII led a large army into Judea, forcing Hyrcanus to surrender as a vassal ruler in Jerusalem after a two-year siege. However, following Antiochus' death in the Seleucid-Parthian Wars in 129 BCE, the Seleucids were soon too weak to pursue an active policy outside of Syria ; Hyrcanus

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