A long time ago now I read The Jews in the Roman World by Michael Grant, author of The Fall of the Roman Empire, which I read last year. In all my years of Hebrew school, we never really discussed an objective ancient or more modern history of the Jews. This book interested me as a way to learn about a historical period I’ve read about before, but with a focus on my ancestors.
The book was not what I had thought it would be, but was quite interesting nevertheless. It began with a chapter on the pre-Roman history of the Jews, which was substantially based on the bible, but also included verification from other sources. Basically, there isn’t much written record of that time besides the bible. Grant presents much of the later stories in the bible, of prophets, kings, etc, as historically accurate, for the most part, or at least reflecting events that probably did occur.
The first part of the book then goes on to the time of the Roman Republic and describes the interactions between the Jews and the pagan Romans. The Jews were allowed to govern and police themselves, according to their own laws, almost a sovereign nation. This special separate status meant that the Jews would be seen as outsiders, a reputation that they have maintained, not without cultivation, through modern times. This was the period of the two temples in Jerusalem and so forth.
The second part of the book describes the birth and evolution of Christianity and its eventual separation from Judaism and adoption as the official religion of the Roman Empire. One question the book asks, but doesn’t quite answer is why the Roman Empire eventually became Christian as opposed to Jewish, especially after the persecution of the Christians and more agreeable, although still rocky, relationship with the Jews. I would have liked for it to have gone into more detail on Constantine’s conversion, but that was right around where the book left off.
I had hoped that this book would shed some light on the modern day interactions between group in the middle east by describing the historical origins of the region. Instead, written history just doesn’t go back far enough. The lights come up in the written record and the scene is already set, with the Israelites over here, the Philistines over there, etc. It seems that oral history compressed the events of preceding generations into myth and the written record isn’t able to shed much light on events preceding its inception. It really brought home to me how closely the history bumps up against prehistory and the distinction between the two.