The Jewish World in the Time of Jesus

Charles Guignebert

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415155984
• eBook ISBN: 9781136201844
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Originally published between 1920-70, The History of Civilization was a landmark in early twentieth century publishing. It was published at a formative time within the social sciences, and during a period of decisive historical discovery. The aim of the general editor, C.K. Ogden, was to summarize the most up to date findings and theories of historians, anthropologists, archaeologists and sociologists. This reprinted material is available as a set or in the following groupings:
* Prehistory and Historical Ethnography
Set of 12: 0-415-15611-4: £800.00
* Greek Civilization
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* Roman Civilization
Set of 6: 0-415-15613-0: £400.00
* Eastern Civilizations
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* Judaeo-Christian Civilization
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* European Civilization
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BOOK I

THE POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF PALESTINE

CHAPTER I

THE COUNTRIES OF PALESTINE

I
PALESTINE

WHEN Jesus appeared in Israel the great mass of Jews were still living in Palestine. Palestine was a part of Syria under Roman rule, and comprised three main political divisions.¹

To the south lay Judæa, “ gloomy Judæa,” as Renan calls it, a series of rocky plateaux furrowed by deep gorges, the chief of which, the valley of the lower Jordan, ends in the enclosed basin of the Dead Sea. Judæa lay between the Dead Sea and the Mediterranean, stretching down through Idumæa towards Sinai, and up past Samaria towards Carmel. After A.D. 6., when Augustus deposed Herod the Great's son, Archelaus, on account of his shocking administration and intolerable tyranny, this region was under the direct rule of a Roman procurator.

To the north Palestine embraced Galilee, consecrated by Gospel tradition as the birthplace of Jesus. This stretched between the Jordan Valley, which opened out round the Lakes of Huleh ² and Gennesaret, and Phœnicia, which abutted on Syria. It combined with Perœa, the district beyond the lower Jordan (

), to form the Tetrarchy of Herod Antipas, another son of Herod the Great, who had his headquarters there until Caligula exiled him to Lyons in A.D. 39., although Augustus had previously transferred the Greek cities of Peræa to the direct authority of the Governor of Syria.

Lastly, on the north-east, lay the districts of Batanœa, Gaulanitis, and Trachonitis, between the upper Jordan and the Syrian desert, which were all grouped under the rule of a third Herod, Philip. These areas contained Jewish colonies, but were not themselves really Jewish. Philip, a prince with definite Hellenistic leanings, was even able to have a coinage struck with his image, which he would not have dared to do if the Jewish element had been dominant in his states.

Moreover, the inhabitants of Palestine were far from being all Israelites. Apart from the various not inconsiderable Semitic elements, Arabs to the south, and Phœnicians towards the coast, numbers of Greeks had landed at seaboard towns, such as Berytus, Tyre, Sidon, Ptolemaïs, Cæsarea and Joppa, or had come south from the Hellenized parts of Syria in the days of the Seleucids, and had settled in different parts of the country. But although they were well received by the Herodian princes, they did not find Judæa or the neighbouring states very attractive, apart from the coast towns. They got no sympathy or encouragement from the genuinely Jewish population, which was too dense to allow them a really comfortable existence in its midst. Nor could this lean and barren land offer either resources for their enterprise, or an adequate means of livelihood. On the other hand they formed large settlements in Galilee, especially in the busy and flourishing towns of Bethsaida, Capernaum, and Magdala, on the shores of the Lake of Gennesaret; and a little later they colcnized Tiberias. Already they had peopled Peræa, especially its northern section known as the Decapolis, or the Ten Cities, south-east of the Lake, where they had enjoyed special privileges from Rome ever since 63 B.C.; and finally, they had formed important settlements in Philip's Tetrarchy, through which ran the roads connecting Damascus with the coast.

It is necessary to get a clear idea of these countries of Palestine, since they not only constitute the setting of the Gospel story, but they give us its atmosphere, and throw its incidents into such clear relief that they have even been called the Fifth Gospel¹

II
GALILEE

The familiar claim that Galilee has not changed since ancient times is ill founded. We have only to compare Galilee as it is today with the descriptions given by ancient writers to realize the extent of Turkish ravages. Nevertheless, what we may call the character of the country has not suffered any profound change, and the environment of the Gospels—that is, the environment which the three Synoptic Gospels reflect—still persists in the daily life and ordinary customs of the people, even to the present day. A traveller who reaches Palestine with his mind full of the scenes of the Gospel narrative will find those scenes re-enacted before his eyes so faithfully as to leave little to the imagination.¹

It is perhaps unnecessary to describe the whole of Palestine, since it does not all concern Jesus directly, but we must at least glance at Galilee where he was born and grew up.²

At the time of the conquest and division of the Promised Land, the southern part of Galilee fell to the lot of the tribes of Naphtali and Asher, the northern part to those of Zebulon and Issachar, according to tradition.³ Later on Solomon must have held the district as a private possession since he seems to have given twenty Galilean cities to Hiram, King of Tyre, as payment for the costly materials the latter supplied for the construction of the Temple and the royal Palace.⁴ But in the eighth century B.C. the Assyrians of Tiglathpileser extended their conquests to the south of Syria, and seized the territory of Naphtali, dispossessing its rightful occupants, though whether by massacre, deportation, expulsion or voluntary exile, or by all four methods at once, is not clear.⁵ In any case genuine Jews do not seem to have been very numerous in any part of this northern region of Palestine. Be that as it may, their place was soon filled by the neighbouring Phœnicians and Aramæans, until the Jews fell into the habit of calling this lost territory Galil-ha-Goyim or the Circle of the Gentiles.¹ They did not renounce their claim to it but they do not seem to have made any attempt to re-establish their rights until the end of the Persian period. ²

They did not succeed until the time of the Maccabees in the course of the second century B.C.³ The Jews had completely regained possession long before the birth of Jesus; the former Gentile inhabitants had either accepted circumcision or moved elsewhere,⁴ and the country was referred to simply as Galil, the Circle, or Galilee.

It was not of any great extent, measuring something like fifty miles from north to south and twenty-two from east to west. It fell naturally into two distinct divisions, called by Josephus ⁵ Lower Galilee (

) to the south, and Upper Galilee (

) to the north. Lower Galilee is a land of plateaus and hills whose highest points scarcely reach 2,000 feet. Between them lie small fertile plains, like those of Zebulon and Tor'an, and they fall away to the west towards the plain of Jezreel, the Esdraelon of the Greeks, which means the Sowing of God (literally, God sows). Northward, about the latitude of the coastal town of Ptolemaïs, the country is traversed by a deep depression, through which rivers flow in opposite directions, some towards the bay of Acre, and some to the Lake of Tiberias. Beyond this depression lies Upper Galilee. Its mountains are not particularly high—the crowning peaks are under 4,000 feet—but they are huddled closely together and are fairly rugged. Rain is not scarce, owing to the neighbourhood of Lebanon which attracts the clouds, hence the soil is fertile and trees grow readily.⁶ In ancient times, walnuts, figs, vines and palms, and all the Mediterranean fruit-trees, flourished there. Their quality and abundance were renowned throughout Palestine and made Galilee the centre of an active trade.⁷

Josephus was astonished at the richness of Galilee.¹ It must be con...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION
• Full Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION: JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY
• BOOK I THE POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF PALESTINE
• BOOK II INNOVATIONS AND FOREIGN INFLUENCES
• BOOK III THE REAL NATURE OF JEWISH RELIGIOUS LIFE IN PALESTINE
• BOOK IV HELLENISTIC JUDAISM
• CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX