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Facts About Israel's History - Part 2
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John Henry
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Mar 25, 2005 21:59 PST
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40 Significant Facts About Israel's History
By Clarence H. Wagner, Jr.
PART TWO
Fact #11
Jesus was born approximately 3 BC and spent his entire life and ministry in
the Land of Israel. The religious and political influences of this period
greatly affected His ministry and ultimately resulted in His crucifixion in
Jerusalem, which was then part of the Roman province of Judea.
Herod was not a very popular king for two main reasons. First, he was a
puppet of the Romans who were occupiers and made the people subject to
Rome. More importantly, Herod was Idumean (from the line of Esau), making
him illegitimate as a true king of Israel because he was from the wrong
covenant/family line. This was good for the Romans, because Herod was
acceptable enough to be king, but also unacceptable enough that they knew
the people would never follow him into a revolt.
In AD 6, Judea was brought under direct Roman administration, because the
heirs of Herod who sat on the throne of Judea became progressively
ineffective.
Simultaneous with the introduction of direct Roman rule, a Jewish
Resistance Movement, called the Zealots, began to organize and rebel
against Rome. Eventually, a full-scale revolt against Roman rule took place
in AD 66-73.
Fact #12
In AD 70, the Roman siege of Jerusalem lasted for 134 days, resulting in
the sacking of Jerusalem by Titus and the destruction of the Second Temple
of God.
According to the first century historian, Flavius Josephus, an estimated
one million Jews perished in the siege of Jerusalem alone, with many killed
elsewhere in the country and tens of thousands sold into slavery.
Nearly 1,000 Jewish men, women and children who had survived the fall of
Jerusalem occupied and fortified King Herod's mountaintop palace complex of
Masada on the western shore of the Dead Sea. For three years, they held out
against repeated Roman attempts to dislodge them. When the Romans finally
broke through the fortress, they found that the defenders and their
families had chosen to die rather than be enslaved. Ten men were chosen by
lot to kill everyone, then one killed the nine and only one killed himself.
The ten lots, written on broken pottery shards, were discovered by
archaeologists when Masada was excavated in the 1960-70s.
After the fall of Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin (Supreme Jewish Council headed
by the High Priest with religious, civil and criminal jurisdiction) was
reconvened in Yavneh and later in Tiberias. With the Second Temple, the
central focus of Judaism, destroyed, the Sanhedrin needed to interpret how
Judaism would be practiced. The priests of the Temple were replaced by
community rabbis and, in the absence of a central place of worship, the
synagogue became the hub of each community. Judaism had to be reinterpreted
so that it could survive without the Temple in Jerusalem. The beginnings of
rabbinical Judaism were established here.
Fact #13
Meanwhile, Christianity was spreading throughout the world. According to
the Book of Acts, Jerusalem was the seat of the first Church Council (Acts
15) and remained the center of the faith for centuries. Christianity spread
from Jerusalem out to the provinces of the Roman Empire, yet encountered
opposition, because new religions were forbidden under Roman Law.
Christianity was considered a "religio ilicita," an illegal religion, and
Christians were gravely persecuted and even put to death for their faith.
There was a brief period of Jewish sovereignty at the turn of the first
century, which was followed by a revolt of Shimon Bar Kochbah from AD
132-135. There was a large-scale slaughter of Jews. Jerusalem was razed and
then rebuilt by Hadrian and renamed "Aelia Capitolina," after himself (his
family name being Aelia). Jews were excluded from Jerusalem. To further
blot out the connection between the Jews and the land of Judea, Samaria and
Galilee, Hadrian renamed it Syria Palestina, a name that remains in
opposition to the name "Israel" to this day.
Fact #14
Constantine, the Emperor of Rome, became a Christian in AD 306. No longer
was Christianity persecuted in the Empire. Rather, it became the religion
of the Empire, and Judaism and the Jewish people were persecuted.
In AD 324, the Holy Roman army swept into Jerusalem to claim the origins of
the faith and established Byzantine rule. In 326, Queen Helena (mother of
Byzantine Emperor Constantine) visited Jerusalem and began building major
churches including the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the
Nativity in Bethlehem.
Fact #15
In the early 7th century at the dawn of Islam, Jerusalem changed hands
several times. In 614, the Byzantine lost Jerusalem to the Persians, and
then regained it in 629. However, in 638 Islamic forces swept in, under the
Caliph Omar Ben Hatav, capturing Jerusalem and the land of the Bible and
placing it under Arab Muslim rule. From 688-91, the Dome of the Rock was
built by Abdal-Malik on the Temple Mount. Even though it is the most
prominent feature on the Temple Mount, the more holy site to the Moslems is
the Al Aksa Mosque, which was a Byzantine Church before being converted
into a mosque. Supposedly, Mohammed stopped off on this site on his way to
heaven, even though Jerusalem is never mentioned in the Koranic texts.
Life under Islamic rule continued uninterrupted for about 400 years, with
caliphs ruling first from Damascus, then from Baghdad and Egypt. In the
11th century, conflict between Moslems and Christians began to increase. In
1009, the Moslem Caliph Hakim ordered the destruction of churches and
synagogues.
Fact #16
In 1096, the First Crusades from Europe captured Jerusalem. This Crusader
rule lasted until 1291. When the Crusaders entered the land, they
slaughtered Moslems and Jews in their wake. They even killed many
Christians because they "looked" Middle Eastern and were assumed to be
Moslems. In Jerusalem, Jews were found praying in their synagogues for
God's mercy when found by the Crusaders. By Crusader accounts, they put
wood around the synagogues and burned the Jews alive while they sang the
hymn, "Christ, We Adore Thee." Those who were not killed were sold into
slavery.
In 1099, the First Latin/Christian Kingdom was established by Godfrey of
Bouillon. In 1187, the Moslem warrior, Saladin, captured Jerusalem from the
Crusaders. In 1192, Richard the Lionhearted tried and failed to reconquer
Jerusalem. Yet the Crusaders remained in the land until 1291, when Moslem
Mameluks from Egypt put an end to Crusader domination of the Land, as they
conquered the entire region.
The Crusaders mainly concentrated on fortifying cities and building
castles. They also opened up transportation routes from Europe that allowed
for better trade and an onslaught of Christian pilgrimage. Although the
Land was under Christian domination, it did not become a Christian country.
Fact #17
The Moslem Mameluks conquered the Christian Crusaders and ruled from
1291-1516 and the Land became a forgotten province ruled from Damascus.
Akko, Jaffa, and other ports were destroyed for fear of new Crusades, and
international commerce was interrupted. The urban centers were virtually in
ruins, most of Jerusalem was abandoned, and the small Jewish community
living there was poverty-stricken. The period of Mameluk decline was
darkened by political and economic upheavals, plagues, locust invasions and
devastating earthquakes.
In 1517, Turkish Sultan Selim conquered Jerusalem and the Land of Israel
for the Ottoman Empire. Turkish rule lasted until 1917, when World War I
resulted in the breakup of this empire into multiple states within the
Middle East.
In 1535-8, the Turkish Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilt the ramparts and
wall around Jerusalem. In 1541, the Moslems sealed the Golden Gate to
prevent Messiah's entrance (according to Jewish tradition).
The Ottoman Turks divided the land into four districts and attached it
administratively to Damascus.
At the beginning of Ottoman rule, it is estimated that 1,000 Jewish
families lived in the country, residing mainly in Jerusalem, Nablus,
Hebron, Gaza, Safed and the villages of Galilee. The community was
comprised of descendants of Jews who had never left the Land, as well as
immigrants from North Africa and Europe.
Under the Turks, Jews immigrated to the land, with as many as 10,000
settling in Safed.
Fact #18
The 19th century saw signs of Western progress with European powers
jockeying for position, often through missionary activities. British,
American and French scholars launched studies of biblical geography and
archaeology, consulates were opened in Jerusalem, steamships began to bring
travelers and trade from Europe, postal and telegraphic connections were
installed, and the first road was built connecting Jerusalem and Jaffa. The
Land's rebirth, as the crossroads of three continents, was accelerated by
the opening of the Suez Canal.
Of all the groups living in Jerusalem, since 1818 the Jewish population has
been the religious majority. The first official census in 1844 confirms
Jewish religious majority: 7,120 Jews, 5,760 Muslims, and 3,390 Christians.
Up until 1860, everyone in Jerusalem lived inside the walls of the ancient
city and the gates were secured at sunset each day. At this time, the
population had grown to the point that there was no more room. The first
Jewish suburb, Mishkenot Sha'ananim, was built near the Jaffa Gate outside
the Old City walls in 1860 by Sir Moses Montefiore. Seven similar
neighborhoods were also built outside the walls, e.g., Nahlat Shiva (1869),
Mea Shearim (1873-75), and Yemin Moshe (1892), etc. These became the
nucleus of the New City of Jerusalem. Some are the quaintest and most
interesting neighborhoods of Jerusalem today.
By 1880, the Jewish population was the absolute majority in Jerusalem.
Fact #19
In the 1880s, we begin to see major fulfillment of Bible prophecy,
concerning the Jewish people and the Land of Israel.
The modern State of Israel is directly connected to biblical Israel, as
attested to by its history and the manner in which its modern rebirth has
so closely coincided with Bible prophecy. Just as God arranged for Joshua
to bring the Children of Israel into the Promised Land 3,500 years ago, in
our day God arranged for the Jewish people to come back to their ancestral
homeland.
The Turkish Ottoman Empire ruled the entire Middle East region from 1516 -
1917.
During these 400 years of harsh Turkish rule, the land of Palestine
(Israel) was sparsely populated, mostly by nomadic peoples. By the end of
the 18th century, much of the land was owned by absentee landlords and
leased to impoverished tenant farmers. It was poorly cultivated and a
widely-neglected expanse of eroded hills, sandy deserts, and malarial
marshes encroached on what was left of agricultural land. Its ancient
irrigation systems, terraces, towns and villages had crumbled. Taxation was
crippling, with its forests being taxed. When the people could not pay the
tax, the trees were cut down to fuel the steam engines carrying goods
between Istanbul, Beirut, Damascus and Cairo. The great forests of the
Galilee and the Carmel mountain range were denuded of trees; swamp and
desert encroached on agricultural land. "Palestine" was truly a poor,
neglected, no-man's land with no important cities.
Mark Twain, who visited Palestine in 1867, described it as a "...desolate
country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds - a
silent mournful expanse ... We never saw a human being on the whole route
... There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the
cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the
country."
The report of the Palestine Royal Commission [British] quotes an account of
the condition of the Coastal Plain along the Mediterranean Sea in 1913:
"The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable
for transport by camels and carts... no orange groves, orchards or
vineyards were to be seen until one reached Yavne village... houses were
all of mud. Schools did not exist... The western part, towards the sea was
almost a desert... The villages in this area were few and thinly
populated... many villages were deserted by their inhabitants."
The French author, Voltaire, described Palestine as "a hopeless, dreary
place." In short, under the Turks, the land suffered both from neglect and
a low population.
Fact #20
Today, the Land of Israel is rejoicing with life, which has been restored
to the country since the Jewish people began their return in the late
1800s. This process has not been without its difficulties. Remember,
however, when we read the book of Joshua, we see that even though God said
He was bringing the Israelites into their Promised Land, which He gave
them, the movement into the land was not without its great problems. The
enemies of the Bible and God's plans are always in opposition to it.
In the 1880s, while still under Turkish rule, it is as though a giant
electro-magnet were turned on in the Land of Israel. Jews began to
immigrate to what was then called Palestine. They came from Yemen in the
south and Russia in the north, Morocco in the west, and Iraq in the east.
This move into Israel was the beginning of the fulfillment of the prophetic
return to Zion, which has been taking place over the past 120 years in a
series of Aliyot, or large moves of Jewish populations into the land of
Israel. (Aliyah is a Hebrew term for "going up" or immigration.) Despite a
myriad of difficulties, the Jewish people were not prevented from coming
home to Zion by the millions.
The First Aliyah (immigration) started in the 1880s when new Jewish
communities began to spring up, including Petah Tikva, Rosh Pinna, Rishon
le Zion, Gedera, and Zichron Ya'acov. Jews purchased land at high prices,
73% of it from absentee Arab landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and
Beirut.
About 80% of the Arabs living in Palestine came from different parts of the
Ottoman Empire to work for these landlords and were debt-ridden peasants,
semi-nomads and Bedouins. Most of the land purchased had not been
cultivated previously because it was swampy, rocky, sandy, or for some
other reason, regarded as uncultivable.
According to the Peel Commission (British, 1937): "The Arab charge that the
Jews have obtained too large a proportion of good land cannot be
maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was sand dunes or
swamp and uncultivated when it was purchased."
Moreover, the price the Jews paid for this barren land was exorbitant. In
1944, Jews paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for
arid or semi-arid land; in the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was
selling for about $110 per acre (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture).
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