The Land of Edom AKA Idumea, Enemies of Jews and Why

Nadene Goldfoot                                             

Mentioned in Gen.33:14;  Num. 24:18

In the southeast section of Israel was a country called Mount Seir, otherwise known as EDOM or IDUMEA.    It was in the mountains and easily fortified.  The land was most fertile.  EDOM was south of the Dead Sea and bordered on the Red Sea at Elath and Ezion Geber.
                                                                     

Esau and Jacob, twins of Isaac

The Edomites were Semitic people, traditionally the descendants of Esau who was the oldest twin of Isaac, twin brother of Jacob. Evidently they were not identical twins.   When they grew up, they became enemies even though they were twins.  Though born minutes apart, Esau was born first and claimed the right of the first born inheritance.  Jacob managed to get it instead, by trickery,  angering Esau, of course.   What Jacob had done was to approach Esau when he was very hungry after a hunt and had bought Esau's birthright from him in exchange for a mess of pottage.   Their mother, Rebekah also showed her favoritism by helping Jacob to trick Isaac when he was blind and dying into thinking that he had given his birthright to Esau.  It was Jacob who later struggled with an angel and by overcoming him, was given the new name of ISRAEL.   This was the way this story explains by such symbolism the relationship between the 2 nations which became hostile to each other.  The Talmud speaks of Esau with villainy and violence which indeed, Jacob's tricking Esau had brought out.  Anger and retribution knows no end as we see today.

These mountain Edomites lived by hunting.  They were stronger than the Horite people, who were there before the Edomites took the land over, and so organized themselves along tribal lines with a chieftain they called the Allooph.  This arrangement later consolidated like other people into a monarchy.  (An Israeli general is called an Aluf in Hebrew.)

Thus, the Edomites became the traditional enemies of the Israelites.  They fought King Saul and were defeated by David who annexed much of their land.  They regained their independence during the reign of Jehoram (853-843 BCE)   This was after King Solomon had died and Jehoram was the 9th king after Solomon's death in 920 BCE.  However, wars between the 2 state were frequent.
                                                                           

Assyrians leading away captive Israelites of 10 of their tribes

By the 8th century BCE, the Edomites were vassals of Assyria who would attack northern Israel in 722-721  BCE and take the best of the men and women as captives.  This is the time Israel lost 10 of their 12 tribes.
                                                                             

At the time of the destruction of the 1st Temple in 586 BCE by Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian,  they also plundered and looted along with the Babylonians all the gold and silver from the Temple.  They probably aided and abetted them in their thievery and destruction.
                                                                             

Judeans return from Babylon to Jerusalem 

They got their upcoming by being driven from their home on the mountain by the Nabateans, forcing them to occupy southern Judah during or after the period of the Exile of Judeans in Babylon. Taken there in 586 BCE, many Judeans were able to return in 538 BCE, making their kidnapping last for 48 years.
                                                                       

Nehemiah (5th century BCE), famous for his writings, had to teach  the people about their
religion and get them to rebuild the Temple. He became the governor of Judah.

The Edomites were then conquered by John Hyrcanus (135-104 BCE) son and successor of Simon the Hasmonean who had become the ruler and  who forcibly converted them to Judaism, and from then on they were part of the Jewish people.  John  became a high priest.  It was John's sons defeated the Samaritans and gained control of Bet Shean and part of the Valley of Jezreel.  Only his last years of rule had become tranquil.
                                                                           
HEROD was one of the Edomite descendants and had died in 48 CE.  During Titus' siege of Jerusalem (79-81 CE), they marched in to reinforce the extreme elements by killing all they suspected of having peace tendencies.  Titus, the Roman emperor was the son of Vespasian, the Roman Emperor 69-79 CE. .  He had taken over command of the Roman army in Judea from his father in 70 CE when they destroyed the 2nd Temple.  This happened after a 5 month siege.  The destruction of the Temple was deliberate an done in hoping to eliminate the Jews' national religion and center of the religion.
                                                                     

His mistress was Bernice, who was also his niece and  a Jewish princess.  Thereafter, they stopped figuring in Jewish history.  The name EDOM in our Talmud is a synonym for an oppressive government, especially Rome which was the worst.  This was replaced by the Middle Ages and was applied to Christian Europe.

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Tankakh (Old Testament)

Pharisees and Sadducees of 2nd Temple and Christianity

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                    

                                                  King  Solomon's Temple

Moses (1391-1271 BCE) didn't just bring down 10 Commandments.  Throughout the 40 years of wandering during the Exodus, started when he was 80 years old already,   he wrote 613 more laws for the future Jews to follow till he died at age 120.  What do we Jews believe, anyway?  The ideas we have of course came from Moses, but they were also interpreted by the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Two traumatic events happened to the Jewish people.  The Assyrians attacked and carried away people in 721 BCE.  The Babylonians attacked twice; in 597 and 586 BCE.  They also carried away people.  They destroyed Solomon's Temple.

The Jews rebuilt the Temple.  During the 2nd Temple period from 538 to 515 BCE, there appeared a political party as well as a religious one, the Pharisees (the lenient ones) , who were probably a continuation of the Hasideans, a pious Jewish religous sect.  It was first recorded during the persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes in the 2nd century BCE when its member suffered martyrdom rather than desecrate the Sabbath and formed the backbone of the Hasmonean revolt.  .  They were a fairly narrow body and kept a closed membership to the masses.  Their job was to teach the traditions to everyone with stories to develop a holy spirit in them.  They felt there was a huge gap of knowledge between the masses regarding  their own law and themselves and therefore the masses were not practicing it.

They sat apart from the masses in order to keep themselves pure.  In other words, they were scrupulous about keeping kosher.  They would eat with their own groups and ate only consecrated food in the Temple, or kosher food that had been prepared in the Temple kitchen.

The Pharisees put the people of Judah's life within a halakhic framework found in the Oral Law which they regarded as vital as the Written Law (the Tanakh). The oral law was the interpretations and analysis of the written law and was handed down orally from generation to generation.  It's said it also was given to Moses with the written law.   Their doctrine was to embrace the whole life of the community, touching on the theological foundations of life, questions of fate, good and evil, the immortality of the soul, and eschatology.

They admitted Divine predestination but also man's responsibility for his deeds.  They believed in life after death, the resurrection of the dead, the Messiah that they needed and the Day of Judgment.

Not all Pharisees were angels in their behavior, of course.  The Talmud lists 7 hypocritical types.  However, they "were in reality not like the derogatory New Testament picture" that paints them as terrible people.  It just so happens that "they were responsible for strengthening morality and introducing the elasticity which enabled Judaism to withstand its subsequent tribulations."

The Pharissees had the chutzpa to bring into their culture the cult-folk-customs not mentioned in the Torah, such as the Water-Drawing Festival (Simchat bet ha Shoevah), which dismayed the Sadducees.  This was a festival of water-libation observed at the end of the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles.  The Sadducees didn't want it included in their observances because it had no authority in the Pentateuch, but the people nevertheless observed it enthusiastically.  The ceremonies are elaborately described in the Mishnah under (Sukkah 5).  It fell into abeyance with the destruction of the Temple but has been revived in an altered form in modern Israel.  I can understand that any holiday involving water emergence or enjoyment would be loved in the hot land of Judah.The Pharisees have been carried into the stream of historic Judaism.

Bill O'Reilly of Fox News on TV  has written a book that carries out the derogatory essence of the New Testament. Yes, the Gospels may be sacred to Christians, but they hold a lot of anti-Semitism towards the Jews.  O'Reilly's book is "Killing Jesus," the act that the Christians have been blaming Jews for during  the past 2,000 years.  It has only been recently that Pope Benedict XVI finally forgave us, but that was the pope himself.  The masses haven't all agreed with him as yet.  The pope also wrote a book, Jesus of Nazareth."  "In 'Jesus of Nazareth' excerpts released in 2011, Benedict uses a biblical and theological analysis to explain why it is not true that the Jewish people as a whole were responsible for Jesus' death.  Perhaps he still believed that some Pharisees were still responsible.  I'm not sure.  We've been suffering for this as a people  from the Crusades to the Inquisition in Spain.  All Jews have suffered from anti-Semitism and this is what has got the masses going, the death of Jesus.  From there they have managed to find all sorts of reasons why they hate Jews.  We've become the scapegoats of the world.  

Interpretations to the contrary have been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews. " While the Vatican has for five decades taught that Jews weren't collectively responsible, Jewish scholars said recently that  the argument laid out by the German-born pontiff, who has had his share of mishaps with Jews, was significant and would help fight anti-Semitism today.  Of course O'Reilly's  main references must rely on the four Gospels which are loaded with attacking Jews.  Jesus had died on the cross, and that was something the Romans had been doing to thousands of Jewish men for any slight indiscretion to their own Roman government.  But the Christians forming a group after his death blamed the Pharisees and Sadducees for it to have happened.   This happened during Herod's time of ruling, a man who was appointed ruler over the Judeans by the Romans.

It was Pontiius Pilate who ruled in the case of Jesus.  He was a procurator, a governor of Judea under the Roman emperors and ruled from 26 to 36 CE.  As a procurator, he had full powers to inflict punishment including the death penalty, which meant to be placed on the cross.  He executed  with the cross Galilean patriots (Jewish men) without a trial and introduced Roman military standards into Jerusalem, used Temple funds for the construction of an aqueduct and maltreated the Samaritans for which he was finally recalled to Rome.  Jesus was crucified during his term of office along with thousands of other Jews.

The problem lies with the Gospels referring often to the Sadducees and Pharisees because Jesus was in constant conflict with them.  They were the ruling group of Israel in religion.  The Christians in the Gospel claim that the two groups conspired to put Jesus to death, as told in (John 11;48-50;  where it mentions that many Jews were believing in Jesus, the Romans were going to take their nation, and Caiaphas, a high priest (18-36 CE) that year said that one man should die for the people and that the whole nation would perish otherwise so he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation. Joseph Caiaphas  was appointed as high priest by the procurator, Valerius Gratus and also served under Pontius Pilate.  The New Testament represent him and his father-in-law Annas as being responsible for the prosecution of Jesus and the arrest of the apostles.  He was removed by the Syrian governor, Vitellius.  Then they (other priests ?) took counsel together to put Jesus  to death.  After that Jesus didn't walk up to the Jews anymore but went into the countryside  near the wilderness into Ephraim with his disciples.   Mark in 14:53; and 15:1), also presented anti-Semitic words  Other mentions of the Sadducees are found in Act 4:1 and Acts 5:17.  The Sadducees are implicated in the death of James by writer Josephus (Acts 12:1-2).  He was writing for a Roman audience.

The Catholics teach in their Catechism for the Catholic church that from the beginning of Jesus' public ministry, that certain Pharisees and partisans of Herod, together with priests and scribes had agreed to destroy Jesus.  The reason was that they suspected Jesus of demonic possession and accused him of blasphemy and false prophecy which were religious crimes which the Law punished with death by stoning.  It's because he had expelled demons, forgave sins, healed on the sabbath day and had his own interpretation of the Law concerning purity and had tax collectors and public sinners as friends.

In order to disassociate themselves with Jews, the new Christian leaders who wrote the Gospels did paint an ugly view of the Jews of Jesus's day on purpose, I say.  They were starting a new movement and needed followers.  They believed strongly that because Jesus had pardoned people for their sins that this was a sign that manifested him to be the Savior God himself (cf.Jn 5:16-18).  Jews did not and do not today recognize any man as G-d  so saw him only as a man who made himself to be thought of as a G-d possibly since he never came out and said he was G-d as far as they knew.    Remember, it was the Romans who had been occupying Judah  and they believed in such things as men and women who were half god and half man.  That was going on at that time.  A culture of belief in half god half man or demigods was rubbing elbows with a strict monotheistic culture and they were an invading group also spreading their belief system just by being there and most likely celebrating their festivals.  Achilles, half man an half god born from a nymph; Dionyses, son of Zeus, Jason, son of Jupiter, Hercules, son of Zeus.  All were worshipped and were men.

My problem with the accusation against the Pharissees and Sadducees is that the Gospels were written several hundred years after the fact.  What is being accused has only gossip to go by.  Even in Jewish law there has to be several witnesses.  This was an accusation that was political in order to put down Judaism and heighten Christianity.  It could have taken place without this false accusation on its own merits if they were worthy.  I do not blame the writers of the gospel for what they have laid on us Jews, for in Jesus' supposed words, "They knew not what they had done."  I blame the people since then for not having the common sense to stop blaming future generations of Jews for something they think went on so long ago.  Of course to them, it is killing their G0d or deicide.  One thing I noticed is that the Pharisees are blamed for the deaths by stoning, yet it was actually the Sadducees who were as strict as that, telling me the Gospels didn't know as much about the two political/religious groups as they thought they did.  It was the Pharisees who were the lenient ones.

"The debate really comes down to the question: When was the New Testament originally written? And this question leads to another important question: Even if it was written at an early date, how do we know the New Testament that exists today is the same as the original? How do we know the modern translations aren't full of human errors, additional content, or the interpretations of countless human scribes?"  "The earliest manuscript of the New Testament was discovered about 50 years ago. P52 is a small papyrus fragment of the Gospel of John (18:31-33 on the front; 18:37-38 on the back), and it has been dated to about 125 AD.  So that's at least 100 years after the fact.  "The manuscripts dating from 100 to 300 AD are almost entirely papyrus fragments. These fragments are named with a "P" followed by a number. The vast majority of them were found in Egypt in the twentieth century, and are now kept in various museums and libraries throughout the world, including at Dublin, Ann Arbor, Cologny (Switzerland), the Vatican and Vienna." Pieces that they have found considered important were from 300, 350 and 450 CE.  John, so profoundly anti-Semitic, also was different from the other renditions in that  throughout John’s Gospel, Jesus openly presents himself as the divine Son of God, not hiding his identity as he does in Mark.  So people reading this Gospel get the double whammy; Jews killed their G0d.  

Right around Easter, some actors usually put on a Passion Play.  After seeing this, many people are imbued with hatred for Jews and want to kill or maim someone.  Hopefully this book of O'Reilly's will not have the same intention or results.  

The Pharisees had been  in competition with the Sadducees. (the strict ones)   The Sadducees had absolute control of the Temple.  Many feel the Sadducees were incapable of adapting to a changing environment while the Pharisees admitted the principle of evolution in their legal decisions.  Remember, this was at least 2,044 years ago and they had decisions to make like that.  The Sanhedrin's seats were taken mostly by the Sadducees.  They worked at keeping the peace with the Romans, who were the occupiers.

The Sadducees stuck with the letter of the written text.  Their name seems to have come from the high priest Zadok whose descendants served in the same office until 162 BCE.  Evidently the well connected priests and prominent aristocrats belonged to the Sadducees, who were thus influential in political and economic life.  To them the Jewish religion was the Temple cult . They differed from the Pharisees in the nature of their religious outlook and way of life.  In their view, people must aspire to well-being in their world without expecting recompense in the world to come. They had no belief in a future world like resurrection, or the immortality of the soul and also rejected the existence of angels and spirits.  They were purists.  They stuck with the Written Law and allowed no more expansion on that. So did the Essenes.   So they behaved severely in cases involving the capital penalty and they interpreted the Lex Talionis ( eye for an eye punishment)  literally instead of in the sense of monetary compensation which was adopted by the Pharisees.
Their beliefs were carried out in the Temple where they had the role of priests and they opposed the Pharisaic innovation like the Water-Drawing Festival.  This might have given a foothold to non-sacerdotal circles.  They were the supporters of the Hasmonean kings from the reign of John Hyreanus, but they lost their influence under Salome Alexandra and suffered at the hands of Herod.  Their whole power and existence was bound up with the Temple cult, and on the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE they disappeared.

The one thing they all agreed upon was that there was but ONE G-d.  At this point in time, all the other points of the religion were being debated.  It would take another 1,000 years for a rabbinical scholar to emerge and straighten out our religion for us, for Rashi was born in 1040 in Troyes, France and became so well known for his dissertations.  He wrote a commentary on the Bible, the Jewish Tanakh.

 Joseph Caro, who wrote the Shulhan Arukh, (Prepared Table) or table of laws  in 1564-65,  is another man who set the record straight as we observe Judaism today with his codes.  He was born in 1488 in Toledo, Spain and died in 1575.  The Spanish Inquisition occurred in 1492, so he ultimately found his way to the Holy Land.  He lived in Safed, where one can visit his synagogue today.  His writing became the authoritative code.  This rabbi was interested in Kabbalah.  The Pharisees had won out after all.  .

References: http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Jesus-Bill-OReilly/dp/0805098542/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396460615&sr=1-1&keywords=killing+jesus+bill+o%27reilly
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/pope-exonerates-jews-for-death-of-jesus-1.346699
http://dictionary.infoplease.com/lex-talionis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_demigods
http://greece.mrdonn.org/greekgods/hercules.html
http://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2014/04/sanhedrin-court-of-ancient-israel.html
http://www.religionfacts.com/christianity/features/new_testament_manuscripts.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberammergau_Passion_Play
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Catechism of the Catholic church online
New Testament "Holy Bible" The World Publishing company, Cleveland and New York, King James Version

The Armenian Jews: Where They Came From-Where They Went

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                   

Armenian historians have written that Jews came to Armenia right after the destruction of the 1st Temple of Solomon.  This would have Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE who destroyed it.  Armenia is a part of Western Asia and is east of the Caspian Sea. Yerevan, Armenia is 779 miles away from Jerusalem, Israel.  If it is 9:26pm in Jerusalem, it is 11:26pm in Yerevan.  One could drive from Portland, Oregon to Cottonwood Heights, Utah and also cover 779 miles.  It would have made quite a camel caravan of traveling.  Traders would have made the trip before and possibly led people there.  
                                                                               

The Temple was rebuilt from 538 to 515 BCE and then was called the 2nd Temple.  It took 71 years to regain this 2nd Temple.  Of course, ties existed between the Jews who stayed in Armenia and the Jews of Judah during the 2nd Temple days.  Judah had been a section of Israel that split off when King Solomon died in 933 BCE.  The state of Judah lasted with kings till Zedekiah was the last king from 597 to 586 BCE when they were attacked.  

The Romans had taken over Jerusalem making Herod a King of Judea.  He lived from 73 BCE to 4 BCE.  He was the son of Antipater, the Idumean  and  had a Nabatean mother, Cypros.  Antipater had helped the Romans take over Jerusalem.  He had at one time been the ruler of Idumea (Edom).  This was a country in SE Eretz Israel, also called Mount Seir. Edomites were traditional enemies of the Israelites.  They had fought against the first Jewish King Saul and King David.  In the 8th century the Edomites were vassels of Assyria.  It was John Hyrcanus who forced them to convert to Judaism.   Edom  was a mountainous country and was south of the Dead Sea and bordered on the Red Sea at Elath. They were Semites, traditionally descendants of Esau and were hunters.   Herod  was a cruel ruler and a murderer.  He had ordered the slaughter of the innocents at Bethlehem.  

 One of his grandsons, Aristobulus, was made king of Little Armenia by Nero.  Two other grandsons ruled Greater Armenia.While young, Herod had been appointed Governor of the Galilee of Judah by his father.  He showed no problem coming on very strong with the population and executed any who disagreed with him.  For this the Sanhedrin wanted to give him the penalty of death for killing, but Hyrcanus and Sextus Caesar, governor of Syria, intervened with higher powers.  

The Romans also allied with  King Tigranes II the Great of Armenia. Armenia became the strongest state in the Roman republic.   He lived from 140 to 55 BCE.  Tigranes brought with him 10,000 Jewish captives to Armenia when he left Judah because of the Roman attack on Armenia in 69 CE.  He also became king of Syria as well.  Like Armenia, Tigranes was a pagan.  

Many Jews settled in Armenia during these next generations.  The Talmud mentions a Rabbi Jacob of Armenia and a school at Nisibis.  

From the 4th century on, the Jewish population started to shrink  because of exile and emigration.  Medieval travelers found many small Jewish communities at Nisibis and other places.  

Armenian Christians lived in Jerusalem since the 5th century and there is an Armenian quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem.  

The longest river in Europe is the Volga River.  It flows through Central Russia and along this river lived a Turkic people, including the: "Azerbaijanis, Chuvashes, Kazakhs, Tatars, Kyrgyz, Turkmens, Uyghurs,Uzbeks, Bashkirs, Qashqai, Gagauz, Yakuts, Crimean Karaites,Krymchaks, Karakalpaks, Karachays, Balkars, Nogais and as well as past civilizations such as the Göktürks, Kumans, Kipchaks, Avars, Bulgars,Turgeshes, Khazars, Seljuk Turks, Ottoman Turks, Mamluks, Timurids,Khiljis, and possibly Huns and the Xiongnu".  

Since Turkey bordered Armenia, it is good to know that there came to be many  varieties of people in the area.  However, Khazaria did not come about to its fullest till the 8th to 10th centuries CE.  They were made up of either Turkish or Finnish tribes  and their capital was Itil in the Volga delta and were called the White Ugrians. 
 "The Khazars probably belonged to the West Turkish Empire (from 552 C.E.), and they may have marched with Sinjibū (Istämi), the first khāqān of the West Turks, against the Sassanid (Persian) fortress of Ṣul or Darband"

 Hungarians were called Black Ugrians.  The Khazar royal house intermarried with the Byzantiums.  Their king Bulan and supposedly 4,000 of his royal household converted to Judaism in the 8th Century CE.  Their Prince Obadiah saw to it that they were converted properly.  The original Khazars came from the east. 

We have some Jews leaving Armenia in the 300's and their neighbors, Turkey and Russia, having Khazaria appearing in their lands by the late 700's.  Whether any Jews had drifted into Khazaria is not known.  That is a long span of time.  Being Christians from Armenia went to Jerusalem in the 5th century tells me that Jews from Armenia must have gone back, also.  As proof of this, Jews have been praying every day to return to Jerusalem lest they should lose their right arm if they forget it.  This remembering and returning is very important.  

Then from 360 to 370 there was an increase in Jewish Hellenistic immigration into Armenia.  Many Armenian towns became mostly Jewish.  By the same token, the Persian Shapur II began deporting thousands of Jews to Persia (today's Iran).  

Hellenism made an impact in Armenia so studies did not grow here.  During the Medieval days, most of the Jews left, thought to become part of the Kurdish Jewry.  A cemetery lies in Vayots Dzor in the city of Eghegis SW of Yerevan with more than 40 tombstones that date to the 13th century and 16 with Hebrew and Aramaic inscriptions.  

Much later in the 19th century, Jews entered Armenia from Persia and Poland, so then they had a mixture of Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews.  From 1840 they had communities in Yerevan.  Hundreds of displaced Jews moved to Soviet Armenia.  Then there were at least 10,000 Jews living there.  Another wave came in between 1965 and 1972 made up of the intelligentsia, military and engineers.  They were attracted to a more liberal society.  

The Ottoman Empire learned a lot from the Germans who were their allies in WWI.  Muslim leaders were visiting with Hitler during WWII who were against the Jews.  The empire committed Armenian genocide and slaughtered from 1 million to 1 1/2 million Armenians.  They massacred the males and forced the women and children in marches in the Syrian desert.  Other ethnic groups were to be next.  Today of course there is still this divide between the Armenians and the Turks because of this needless slaughter that took place in 1915.  .  

Today there are less than 1,000 Jews in Armenia because of  emigration and assimilation.  Between 1992 and 1994, more than 6,000 Jews  immigrated to Israel because of economic and political reasons hurting Jews.  However, in 1995, Chabad House was established in Yerevan.  They offered classes about Judaism, Hebrew, Jewish traditions and free meals.  

Resource:  The new Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga_River
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_people
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/khazars.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/armenia.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigranes_the_Great
http://www.ldolphin.org/chron.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide

The Revolt Against Syrians By Jews; the Hasmoneans

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                         

Israel was divided in half in 933 BCE when King Solomon died.  The southerly of the 2 kingdoms was Judah and the northerly kingdom remained as Israel.  The last king of Judah was Zedekiah who ruled from 597 to 586 BCE.  This is when the Babylonians attacked and large numbers of the inhabitants were deported.  An attempt to perpetuate a subject state was made under Gedaliah, a member of the former royal house, who became governor of Judah by being appointed by the Babylonians after the destruction of the 1st Temple in 586 BCE.   His rule ended with his assassination  in 582 BCE by the commander Ishmael ben Nethaniah and his followers who were planning a revolt against Babylon.  Gedaliah's supporters then had to flee to Egypt for safety.  .

The descendants of the exiled Jews living in Babylon continued to love their national and religious ideals. Their condition improved when the ex-king Jehoiachin was let out of prison and was given the royal honors in 561 BCE.   After 538 BCE the exiled were able to renew Jewish life and return to the area of the former kingdom of Judah because Cyrus of Persia permitted them to return to Judea if they wanted.  He had just overthrown Belshazzar of Babylonia.   They had been kept away for about 70 years.     The canonical prophets carried on their activity and great parts of the Bible were composed and the essential traditions of Judaism were developed and preserved during  this period.

The Hasmoneans were a priestly family and dynasty founded by Mattathias of Modiin in Israel.  The priestly line was started by Aaron, brother of Moses.  They were probably called Hashmonai (Hasmonean) after his ancestor, Hashmon, but  the name could have come from a place-name found in Josh.5:27.
                                                                       

Mattathias was a patriot, a priest and a landowner of Modiin. He had 5 sons; Judah the Maccabee, Jonathan, Simon, John, and Eleazar. Mattathias killed the royal official who was sent to make the Jews worship Zeus.  This was the focus of the revolt of his sons against Antiochus Epiphanes.  Mattathias was the leader of the revolt and was staying in the Judean hills and waged a guerilla war on the Syrians.  He was killed and his son, Judah the Maccabee, took over.  He was later called the Hammerer because he hammered away at the Syrians.  We remember Judah and his brothers being victorious over Antiochus Epiphanes and their rededication of the Temple that the Greeks had taken over.  They had placed statutes of their gods in the Temple which was for the one and only unseen G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the people that believed in one G-d who came to be known as the Jews.  We remember these brave brothers during Hanukkah, which always happens in close proximity to Christmas.

Antiochus was the name of 13 Greek kings of the House of Seleucus who ruled Syria in the Hellenistic Period.  Antiochus III reigned from 223 to 187 BCE.  He transferred 2,000 Jewish families from Babylon to Lydia and Phrygia.  He captured Jerusalem in 198 BCE and treated the Jews with understanding.  Antiochus IV Epiphanes followed him and reigned from 175 to 163 BCE.  He fought against Egypt in 168 BCE but was turned back by Rome in his 2nd expedition.  He occupied Jerusalem, plundered the Temple treasure and tried to Hellenize Judea by force in order to convert it into a frontier-province that was reliable.
                                                                       

The Hasmoneans were rebelling against the hellenizing policy by the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes.  It was from 166 to 164 BCE that the Hasmoneans fought a number of successful battles against the Syrians which caused the Syrians to fight back against them with great cruelty.  Thousands of Jews were killed and many were sold into slavery.  Antiochus E.  brought in gentile settlers into Jerusalem and fortified the Acra as a stronghold of the Hellenizers to rule the city.  Then he began a religious persecution of the Jews, and forbid circumcision and the observance of the Sabbath.  He desecrated the Temple altar and set up pagan altars in other towns and compelled the Jews to take part in pagan ceremonies.  This caused the Hasmonean uprising.  His son, Antiochus V reigned from 164 to 162 BCE and continued the war against the Jews until 163 BCE when he granted them religious and some political autonomy in return for their acceptance of his rule.  In 164 BCE, however, Judah had captured Jerusalem back and rededicated the Temple.

This was followed by a series of raids to rescue the Jewish populations of Ammon, Idumea, Gilead and the Galilee They were defeated in 163 at Bet Zechariah where Eleazar was killed.  The Hashmoneans were able to obtain terms securing Jewish religious freedom, but Judah and his party, aspiring for political freedom also, continued the fight and Judah fell at Elasa in 160 BCE.  John was murdered shortly afterwards and Jonathan took over the leadership.  He was able to secure the high priesthood and governorship of Judah in 150 BCE.  Simon succeeded in gaining exemption from tribute by 147 BCE and was confirmed by the people as hereditary high priest, ethnarch and general in 142, but was murdered in 135 BCE.

His son, John Hyrcanus, who succeeded him, suffered a crushing defeat by Antiochus VII Sidetes.  Jerusalem was taken by the Syrians after a prolonged siege and Judea once more became a Seleucid province.  After the defeat of Antiochus in his war against Parthia, John launched a successful offensive against Transjordan, Samaria and Idumea, which marked the change of the Hasmoneans to a semi-Hellenized secular military dynasty.  This led to his adherence to the aristocratic Sadducee party.  He was succeeded by his sons Judah Aristobulus (105-4) and Alexander Yannai (104-76), one of whom was the first to adopt the royal title.  .

Josephus (Flavio Josefo) told of an argument recorded in 63 BCE between the father, John Hyrcanus and his son, Judah Aristobulus, about winning the favor of Pompey and get the scepter of his people.

Pompey (106-48 BCE) was a Roman general who arrived in Syria in 65-3 BCE and became the arbiter in a dispute between Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus I (104-103 BCE)  for the throne of Judea. Aristobulus  was the eldest son of John Hyrcanus and was to have been high priest with the administration of the state of Judah being left in his mother's hands.  However, he murdered his mother and his brother, Antigonus and imprisoned his other brothers.  He then extended the northern boundaries of Judea.  He was an admirer of Greek culture and called himself Philhellene.

Ultimately Pompey favored Hyrcanus II.  He captured Jerusalem and the Temple from Aristobulus' supporters.  He left the shrine intact, although he entered the Holy of Holies.  The state of Judea was made a tributary and stripped of the territories acquired by the Hasmoneans.  Aristobulus and his family were taken to Rome to grace Pompeys triumph.  Pompey terminated Jewish independence that had been enjoyed since Simon the Maccabee.

 Either the father or his son had accused the other of encouraging piracy.  There is evidence of Jews who fought pirates in the 1st century before the common era, or 100 BCE.  This was written about by Jose Chocron Cohen in an article written for the Center for Sephardic Studies in Caracas. Flavio Josefo told about Hebrew sailors in Roman ships that fought against attacks from the port of Jaffa.

The 2nd son of John Hyrcanaus, Alexander Yannai (104-76),  set up a standing mercenary army and conquered Transjordan, Idumea and the coastal plain.  He was against the Pharisees who opposed his war policy, and this led to a civil war in which he was the winner.  Yannai's widow was Salome Alexandra (76-69).  With her death, the Hasmoneans declined.  Her sons, Hyrcanus II and Aristobulus II had a lot of strife which led to the intervention and eventual domination of Antipater and his son Herod, with Roman assistance.

Pompey reduced the country's territory in 63. He had seized the Temple in Jerusalem.  This is when, after a civil war, the 2 brothers appeared in Damascus to urge their claims before Pompey  Hyrcanus became king after his mother's death,  but Aristobulus II had usurped the throne.  He remained a puppet, while the efforts of Aristobulus II and his sons, Alexander and Antigonus Mattathias  tried to regain power but failed to do so.However,   Aristobulus II the younger son,  reigned from 67-63 BCE as King of Judea.

When Julius Caesar rose to power, Aristobulus II was released from prison in 49 and was promised 2 legions with which to attack Pompey's supporters in Syria.  He was poisoned before he was able to start.

 Aristobulus II had a son, Antigonus (Mattathias) who was the last Hasmonean king and ruled from 40 to 37 BCE.  With the support of the Pathians, he captured Jerusalem in 40 and put Herod's brother, Phasael, to death and mutilated his own uncle Hyrcanus so as to disqualify him for the high priesthood.  Then he was high priest and King of Judea.  The Romans then drove the Parthians from Syria in 39 and Herod attacked Antigonus who was defeated in battle.  He fortified himself in Jerusalem, but was captured after a 5 months siege and put to death.
                                                                         

 Hyrcanus's granddaughter, Mariamne,  had married Herod but was put to death by him in 29.  So were the surviving Hasmoneans; Aristobulus II in 35, Hyrcanus II in 30, and Mariamne's sons, Alexander and Aristobulus in 7.  Mariamne's brother was Aristobulus III. and was the last Hasmonean high priest.  He was the grandson of Aristobulus II.  Herod was suspicious of him but feared Mark Antony, so he appointed Arisobulus III as the high priest at the age of 17.  The people showed that they accepted and liked him very much when he appeared in his robes on the Feat of Tabernacles and this made Herod jealous.  He had him killed by drowning in a swimming pool in Jericho.

Resource:  The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Jose Chocron Cohen's article for Center for Sephardic Studies in Caracas
Josephus 

Jews: What Happened to Them After King Saul of Israel

Nadene Goldfoot
Saul,  of the Tribe of Benjamin,  was chosen  to be the first  king of Israel (about 1020-1004 BCE..  David, from the tribe of Judah,  was the next king and founded a dynasty of  4 hundred years until the Babylonian conquest.  He had created a kingdom and made Jerusalem its capital (abt 1,000 BCE).  Solomon, his son,  (965-928 BCE) caused the kingdom to become an important power in the Middle East.  He built the First Temple (960 BCE).  During his reign Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer were founded.

Solomon died and the kingdom split into two:  Judah with the capital in Jerusalem under King David's descendants and Israel which continued with the original name and its half with a new capital in Samaria, ruled by a series of dynasties. Their first king was Jeroboam, from the tribe of Ephraim (933-912 BCE).

Israel came to an end in 722 BCE when Assyria conquered it and part of the population was exiled.  Sargon II was the conqueror who resettled it with Cutheans (idolaters, possibly of Assyrian people)  who intermingled with the remnants of the Israelites.  They had converted but retained their idol worship and finally Jews were not allowed to marry them.  The capital, Samaria, became a center in the Persian period and became a Macedonian colony in 331 BCE.  It became a village in the Arab period.

The Samaritans are probably the descendants of the remnant of Ephraim or Manasseh tribes and the non-Israelite colonists brought in and live today as a small ethnic group and separate religious sect in Nablus and in Israel. Their religion is a primitive form of Judaism but their bible is only the Pentateuch with variations.  To them, the sanctuary is Mt. Gerizim.

Judah was conquered in 586 BCE by the Babylonians who destroyed the First Temple.  A large part of the population was exiled to Babylon (Iraq today) and others fled to Egypt.  Large Jewish communities had existed since that time in both Israel and Judah until before 1917 when they dwindled.
The prophets existed during this 500 year period.  Their message basically was the struggle for social justice.
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The Babylonian Empire was finally overthrown by the Persians (Iran) so the land of Israel was also under Persian rule.  King Cyrus of Persia allowed the Jews to return to the Land and rebuild the Temple (538 BCE).  Jews then lived in their land autonomously for 400 years under the Persians.

After 332 BCE Jews were under Hellanistic rule.  In 168 BCE the Hellenistic ruler of Syria, Antiochus Epiphanes IV tried to limit Jewish autonomy and replace monotheistic belief with idolatry.  The Jews revolted under the leadership of a Hasmonaean family and regained their independence.  It's thought that the Hasmonaeans were of the tribe of Levi.  They ruled Judah.  Herodian then ruled after that.

By 63 BCE the kingdom was part of the Roman Empire.  Herod  ruled and he was responsible for the reconstruction of the Temple. Herod was the son of Antipater the Idumean  and his wife, a Nabatean named Cypros.  He had been appointed by his father to be the governor of Galilee.  He was appointed king of Judea by the Roman senate and had captured Jerusalem in 37 CE with the help of the Romans.  Idumean or Edom was a country in SE Eretz Israel, also called Mount Seir.  It lay south of the Dead Sea and bordered the Red Sea at Elat.  The people were of Semitic origin, descendants of Esau and lived by  hunting.  They were traditional enemies of Israelites.  They fought Saul but were defeated by David.  They were conquered by John Hyreanus who forcibly converted them to Judaism, and then they became a part of the Jewish people.  Herod was one of their descendants.  John Hyreanus was the son of Simon the Hasmonean (135-104 BCE)  who beat Ptolemy in taking Jerusalem.

Jerusalem became an important metropolis with about 200,000 people.  Herod died in 4 BCE.  Romans tightened their rule.  In 66 CE Jews revolted against the Romans until 70 CE when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the 2nd Temple.  In 73 CE, Masada, the last Jewish fortress was taken by the Romans.   At this time the Jewish population was about 3 million.

Bar Kokhba was a leader who revolted against the Roman Empire and died in 135 CE in the revolt against Hadrian.  He was a descendant of King David.  Letters written by him were discovered near the Dead Sea.  The Romans had been rebuilding Jerusalem as a Roman colony and they were prohibiting circumcision.  There were 580,000 Jewish casualties in this revolt.  Many others died of hunger and disease.  Judah fell into desolation.  Jerusalem was then barred to Jews.  The revolt lasted over 3 years involving the best of the Roman forces.

Then many Jews were driven into exile and large Jewish communities emerged in other Middle East countries and beyond. They wandered as far as Saudi Arabia where whole Jewish tribes were forced to convert to Islam or be killed.  Jewish communities were founded all over the Middle East.and came to be known as the Sephardi Jews as contrasted by the Ashkenazi Jews who wandered farther into Europe.

 Jews had originally entered the land of Canaan with Moses (1391-1271 BCE) and consisted of the children of the 12 sons of Jacob, his 2 wives who were sisters (Leah and Rachel) and their 2 handmaids (Zilpah and Bilhah)  who had founded their own tribes.  Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, Gad, Asher, Dan and Naphtali.  Judah was always the largest of the tribes.  Jews think of themselves as being either Cohens, Levites or Israelites.  Today with the development of DNA studies, the Cohen gene (haplogroup J1)  has been found. The interesting factor is that most of these people are also functioning as the Cohen in their synagogue, showing why this is called the Cohen gene.  This is an inherited position in the synagogue that comes with certain responsibilities, namely being called as the first reader from the Torah on Saturday (Shabbat).  It shows that oral history has passed down correctly for 2,000 years.  Another J1 line is the J1c3d which is is thought to come from Arabs and originating from Esau, Isaac's half brother.  This branch does not reflect many Jews but is a Semitic line.

We must remember that Abraham and his father, Terah, left Ur (Iraq) to establish a monotheistic religion. If Abraham and his father were J1....they left ancestors and relatives in Ur who also went on to establish more individuals who would have spread J1...  Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were the 3 who would have continued the Jewish or Cohen J1  Y haplogroup.  Branches of families have been found, such as the Cohen J1c, J2a1b, J2a4 and the other Semitic J1 such as J1c3d who today are Muslims. Also, Jews have been scattered all over the earth, especially in the Middle East.  No wonder we are finding similar Ydna among Jewish and non-Jews.

Resource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribe_of_Benjamin.
Facts About Israel from division of information ministry for foreign affairs, Jerusalem
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeroboam
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Origins_of_the_Bible/Other_Ancient_Texts/Books_of_Maccabees/First_Maccabees.shtml
http://www.schechter.edu/AskTheRabbi.aspx?ID=477 Cutheans
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Victar/Haplogroup_J1c3d_(Y-DNA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3AHaplogroup_J1c3d_(Y-DNA)
http://kahana.hubpages.com/hub/More-on-the-Kohanim-DNA-Question