Talk:Bar Kokhba revolt

Bar Kokhba and the Jewish students of Jesus

I removed the following unsourced dubious claim from the article. It requires clarification, citation, and discussion.

"At the time, Jewish Christians were still a minor sect of Judaism, and most historians believe that it was this messianic claim in favor of Bar Kokhba that alienated many of them, who believed that the true Messiah was Jesus, and sharply deepened the schism between Jews and messianic Jews.[dubious]"

The main problem is, the claim fails to distinguish between the Jewish students of Jesus via the Twelve Apostles (who Jesus commanded to obey the Pharisees) versus the Nonjewish students of Paul who styled himself as “the Apostle to the Nonjews”. These Jewish and Nonjewish movements remained separate movements, albeit seemed to have formally allied with each other at the socalled “Council of Jerusalem” (see Galatians). The Jewish students of Jesus remained full members of the Jewish community, in good standing.

The Bar Kokhba Revolt appears to have ended with the virtual extinction of the Jewish students of Jesus. The implication is these Jewish students supported the Bar Kokhba Revolt. At the very least, the Roman armies made no distinction and genocided the Jewish students of Jesus along with the rest of the Jews of Jerusalem.

After the Bar Kokhba Revolt, the Romans tried to make Jerusalem “Jew free”, enforcing the earlier attempt to redefine Jerusalem as the Roman colony Aelia Capitolina. At this point, the Jewish “bishops” in Jerusalem since the days of James the Just, ceased to exist. In their place, the Romans installed a Nonjewish bishop, in other words, a Nonjewish student of Paul.

The Nonjewish students of Paul never became Jews. The Jewish students of the Twelve Apostles never ceased to be Jews. And there never was a conflict between these two spiritual traditions.

When the Rabbinate declared the “Notsrim” a heresy, literally a different “kind” of spiritual tradition, they refer specifically to the Nonjewish students of Paul, who are, by definition, Nonjewish. Jews were forbidden to become Nonjewish students of Paul. This verdict has no impact on Jewish students who follow the Twelve Apostles - but this distinction becomes moot after the Bar Kokhba disaster when any surviving Jewish students seem to merge back into the wider Rabbinic Jewish community.

While ignoring any special personal status of Jesus, Rabbinic tradition defacto incorporates almost every halakhic position that Jesus himself taught. Including: leniencies to save life on Shabat, the “greatest” commandment being love God thus love neighbor, do whatever the Pharisees say, and so on.

In sum, the period between the Crucifixion and the Genocide of Jerusalem became an opportunity to introduce biblical spirituality to Nonjews in a new way, however the biblical tradition as Jews understand it continues to remain intact.

Hadrian anti-semitic?

(moved from Talk:History of anti-Semitism) (moved from Talk:Hadrian)

Hadrian [...] raises a new temple to Jupiter on the ruins of the Second Temple.

This is standard operating procedure in the Roman religion: you tear down opposing holy sites and build your own temple on top of their ruins. No evidence this was motivated by anti-Semitism, that I can see. Indeed, the whole section seems only partially related to anti-Semitism, falling into the more general category of "history of nasty stuff done to Jews". I'm less sure about this, but wasn't collective punishment such as decimation a standard Roman technique too? Our article on Hadrian doesn't suggest that he was anti-Semitic. Perhaps it should, if we're going to be making that accusation here. Martin 23:05, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The only thing that suggests Hadrian was anti-Semitic is his ban on circumcision, enacted (I think) before the revolt, and its truth is debatable -- the only source that reports the ban is rather dubious. His actions after the revolt were unquestionably hostile towards Jews, but he had reasons other than a hatred of Jews qua Jews. (For reading on this, and ancient anti-Semitism in general, I recommend the essay "Anti-Semitism" in Antiquity: The Problem of Definition, by Shaye J. D. Cohen, in History and Hate: The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism (ed. David Berger).)

Err, and attacking Judaism as a religion could be seen as anti-Semitic, I suppose, but again the issue is cloudy; the Romans made conquered barbarians worship Roman gods as a standard practice of Romanization, and the vast majority of said barbarians, being polytheists, didn't object too loudly. --MIRV 23:58, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

AFAIK, circumcision (brit-milah) has utmost religious importance in Judaism. Hadrian loathed it, and forbade this mutilation (as he called it) on pain of death. I'm not sure how far his projects of pagan temple advanced _before_ the uprising, but that's secondary. For what he did before and for his inadequate response to the uprising, he well deserves a place in the roaster. Humus sapiens 08:09, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

brit milah is indeed an important Jewish ritual. However, one cannot presume that every person who dislikes circumcision is anti-Semitic. It may be that Hadrian loathed circumcision because it was a Jewish ritual because he loathed the Jews. However, he may have loathed circumcision for other reasons. Further, note that we're not even sure that Hadrian did ban circumcision, as MIRV states. Martin 19:27, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hadrian's dislike of circumcision (assuming that the Augustan History can be trusted -- Antoninus Pius did rescind a ban on the practice, but it's not clear that said ban was originally Hadrian's) may have been based on anti-Semitism, or it could have been part of a general Greco-Roman dislike for mutilation of the body (especially the male body) -- the ancient Greeks detested such mutilations, and Hadrian was strongly influenced by Greek thought and culture. --MIRV 19:44, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've moved the content from history of A-S here, and left a stub to point to this article. Feel free to improve it radically. I wasn't sure about the title - perhaps "Hadrian in Judea" would be better? Martin 23:55, 9 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Spelling should be Bar Kokhva and not Bar Kokhva

In the name בר כוכבא the ב/b letter is translated to a V Weralldust (talk) 11:00, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Reference: chaos (Aharon Oppenheimer refs)

Please go to previous state of affairs here.

The article "... Circumcision ..." credited to Aharon Oppenheimer appears with various years (2003, 2005), and in two different volumes published by Siebeck, which is out of question. And the URL leads to a different volume altogether! Schäfer as editor is the common denominator.

Pls also check the other Oppenheimer refs.

Who introduced the refs? I guess he/she would know best how to fix the mess. Cheers, Arminden (talk) 20:30, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Restored to edit before mine. Refs being a mess, consolidating them probably increases the chaos. Arminden (talk) 20:35, 5 December 2024 (UTC)