Thoughts on the Roman Occupation of Judea

  Frequently within the Christian churches, the Romans in the gospels are portrayed as vicious bad guys on the order of the faceless Stormtroopers from Star Wars. But not once have I ever heard in a church how the Romans came to occupy Judea to begin with, or when. It’s always assumed in sermons and religious media that they came as brutal invaders.

The truth is that they were asked to come to settle a civil war, and restore order. From a certain point of view, they came and stayed as an ancient equivalent of the modern day United Nations Peacekeeping Forces. The Romans were big on what they saw as bringing Roman law and order to the world. They dealt with pirates in the Mediterranean, establishing safe trade routes. They also interfered in the politics of other kingdoms where there might be a potential threat to that Roman order, though when a kingdom was brought into the empire as a client state, they were generally left to run their own affairs, worship their own gods, and attend to their own business as long as there was peace and they posed no problems for Rome. 

In the 60s BCE, There was a violent and vicious civil war in Judea between the two potential heirs of the Hasmonean dynasty established by the Maccabees as to who would take the throne and the high priesthood. This civil war had raged across Judea, and was destroying it. The Hasmonean queen, Alexandra-Salome, had died leaving two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus who both claimed the right to the throne and the high priesthood. The Sadducees sided with Aristobulus and the Pharisees sided with Hyrcanus. Things weren’t going well for Aristobulus and the Sadducees as Hyrcanus and his forces had pushed them back to the Temple, where they were holed up. Aristobulus sent a message to Pompey’s representative in Syria, Aemilius, begging for help. He then promised Aemilius 8000 kg of silver if he would back him. Aemilius did, and Hyrcanus was routed. Then Aristobulus sent a message to Pompey claiming that Aemilius had extorted 8000 kg of silver from him. Pompey came to see what was going on for himself. Pompey arrested Aristobulus for his treachery and supported Hyrcanus. Hyrcanus gave Pompey access t0 the lower city, but things got worse as Aristobulus’ followers, the Sadducees, holed themselves up in the Temple. Then Pompey led his forces to siege the upper city and take the Temple, killing Aristobulus’ remaining defenders. This was when Pompey entered the Temple and the Holy of Holies. He saw everything which was in the Temple, and then left, ordering the Temple cleansed for normal worship the day after, setting up Hyrcanus as High Priest and thus ruler of Judea as a client kingdom under Rome’s jurisdiction, redistricting it so that only Galilee in the north and Judea in the south were under direct “Judean” rule. Samaria, the coastline, and the part of the kingdom on the other side of the Jordan were all placed under direct Roman oversight under the Legate of Syria.

For the next hundred years or so, from the time of the Siege of Jerusalem in 63 BCE to the crucifixion of Christ in 33 CE, there were constant insurrections and rebellions by the Judeans against the Romans. It’s almost certain that a great many of these insurrections were political rather than truly religious in nature stemming from the original civil war between the Pharisees and the Sadducees which brought the Romans in the first place. These insurrections were violent. Roman soldiers were killed just doing their jobs over and over again.

All of these events provide the historical and political context for what we see happening in Judea and Galilee in the Gospels.

Consider the modern day analogy of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. These soldiers were sent to bring threats to the United States to justice, and restore and maintain order within these countries. Almost twenty years later, those soldiers are still there trying to maintain order and rebuild those countries with religious terrorists continuously attempting to murder them and tear down everything they try to do to establish order and a lasting peace. Soldiers who manage to come home from these countries are often deeply scarred emotionally and psychologically, and many are very bitter against the very people they were trying to help. The same was true of the situation in Vietnam where, after so many years of terrorist attacks, American soldiers couldn’t tell friends from foes any longer.

What didn’t and still doesn’t seem to be understood, is that had the Judeans done what Jesus taught towards the Romans, they would have drawn down their forces and left Judea to its own devices as a self-governing province. Had they quit trying to rebel, had they turned the other cheek, had they loved their “enemies” and gone the extra mile, the Romans would have had no need to keep so many troops stationed there. The crucifixions would have stopped. The only reason the Romans grew increasingly more brutal was because of the constant insurrections and murders. Jesus was literally telling those listening to Him, Pharisees and Sadducees alike no less, how to restore the kingdom and they preferred rebellion and murder, continuing their civil war by other means. Had they listened to Him, had they listened to what their God Himself was telling them to do, they would have virtually been given their nation back by the Romans. They refused to do it. The reason why the Romans came and destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE was because of another insurrection, and Rome was done with them. They wanted order and they were going to make certain of it.

Notice also that Jesus never once speaks ill of the Romans or the Roman occupation. He never once condemned them, spoke against them, or encouraged rebellion in any way even when they were nailing Him to the cross. I would venture to say that He knew perfectly well why the Romans were there, why they were acting the way they were, and that they didn't really want to be in Judea any more than the Judeans wanted them there. By the time we meet the Romans in the Gospels, they had been there for less than a hundred years, and had been dealing with insurrectionists and religious terrorists the entire time. It occurs to me that, contrary to popular opinion, the Roman occupation of Judea was a kind of temporary reprieve or mercy from God towards the people there. If they hadn’t established control over the region, the Judeans would have destroyed themselves with their civil war.

Here should also be mentioned the Gospel portrayal of Pontius Pilatus, the Roman governor who sentenced Jesus to death. It’s clear from the Gospel accounts he wanted nothing to do with it. He had no desire to intervene in questions about their religion. He really didn’t want to risk starting yet another insurrection. He actively sought a way to find a compromise to where Jesus wouldn’t be sentenced to death. He knew it was because of the same group of people who were still embroiled in their own political conflict that Jesus was brought before Him, and he wasn’t going to take the bait if he could help it. The Romans also considered justice a virtue, and Pilatus knew that this wasn’t about justice. The only reason, according to Scripture, he gave Jesus over to be crucified was to avoid another insurrection at the hands of the High Priests, Pharisees, and Sadducees, and he himself squarely placed the responsibility for His execution on their heads, literally washing his hands of it.

It’s difficult to look at it this way, but there was also a reason why the Roman soldiers were so cruel to Him in the Praetorium. They had spent who knows how long being terrorized by Judean insurrectionists, watching friends die at their hands. Now, they have a prisoner whose charge is being "King of the Judeans." In other words, an insurrectionist leader. They called out the cohort to enjoy torturing Him as a way to avenge themselves by proxy on those insurrectionists. You see a similar psychology at work with soldiers today when they lose buddies to terrorists and IEDs. You see something similar with police officers too when they lose a comrade and then catch the killer. Mercy is not on their minds. Jesus knew this, and knew it wasn't about Him. "Father forgive them, they don't know what they're doing!"

There are always two sides to a story. Roman involvement in Judea during the time of the Gospels has always been told from a very one sided point of view, and history is always more complicated than just bad guys versus good guys. The Romans weren't always good guys, no. They were just as complicated as American soldiers and mercenaries are. But like those American soldiers and mercenaries in Afghanistan and elsewhere, they weren't always the bad guys either.

On the Union of Yahweh and Human Flesh and Blood in the Person of Jesus

 I’ve been thinking more lately on the Trinity, the Hypostatic Union, and the relationship of the Son to the Father. In traditional Orthodox theology, there is God the Father, God the Son who is Eternally Begotten of the Father, and God the Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father (the western inclusion of “and the Son” in the Nicene Creed is a later addition which began with Spanish bishops and worked its way throughout the entire western Catholic Church by the tenth century or so; it wasn’t a part of the original Creed documented at the Second Great Ecumenical Council). These three are one Being in three Hypostases. The thing about the Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity is that, while it is developed from the Scriptural accounts, this description and formula are nowhere to be found in either the Old or New Testaments. Rather, they were developed to uphold the New Testament understanding of Jesus Christ as being fully God and fully human, as well as the understanding that Jesus Christ is “I Am,” the God of Israel, while maintaining the distinction between His Father and Himself, and keeping to the declarations in Scripture that “Yahweh is our God, Yahweh is one” and there are no other gods next to Him. The problem comes in however that, as much as the doctrine of the Trinity attempted to clarify things, it actually managed, and continues to manage to this day, to cause more confusion on the subject.

Our main problem stems from identifying the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three separate personalities prior to the incarnation of Jesus Christ. It seems very clear in the Old Testament that Yahweh is presented as a single personality; an omnipresent, infinite, omnipotent, omniscient, and transcendent Being who is nonetheless immediately immanent, and who is always identified with being the Creator and originator of the skies, the land, the seas, everything in them, and the cosmos in general. On occasion, we see Him taking a bodily form of some sort in the Old Testament, particularly in Genesis. In the New Testament, John, using the philosophical language of the day, refers to this avatar of Yahweh as the “Logos,” a concept which his immediate Greek readers would have understood very well. In Genesis 3, He is heard walking in the Garden. In Genesis 18, He and two angels are received and entertained by Abraham and then they go for a walk together. In Genesis 32, Jacob wrestles with Him all night and sees Him face to face and lives. In Exodus 3, Yahweh speaks to Moses out of a thorn bush which appears to be on fire, but not burning. In Exodus 24, Moses and the leaders of Israel see the God of Israel, Yahweh, standing in a humanoid form as if all of space and time are bending around His shape, and then they feast in his presence. In Judges 13, Samson’s parents recognize the Angel of the Lord as the Lord Himself and make sacrifices to Him which He accepts. And of course, Daniel has a vision of the “Ancient of Days” sitting on His throne in a humanoid form  lit up like the sun. In every case here, there is no distinction revealed in personalities between the unseen and transcendent Yahweh (what we would call “God the Father”), and the bodily avatar of Yahweh with whom people walked, talked, and interacted (what we would call “God the Son”). They are taken as the same person by the Biblical authors. We do not see this avatar being referred to as the Son of Yahweh, but Yahweh Himself. 

In the New Testament, we see something very different. We see Jesus regularly distinguishing Himself as a separate personality from His Father. We see this in the voice from Heaven which calls Jesus His beloved Son at least twice. We see this in Jesus’ regular prayer to His Father. We see this in Jesus regularly referring to the Father as a distinct personality from Himself in the third person, even as He also refers to Himself several times in the Gospel of John especially as “I Am.” We know that Jesus is a human being. He was born from human flesh and blood regardless of the unusual nature of His conception. He ate, he drank, he slept, presumably he used the toilet, he sweated, he wept, he got tired, and every other indication of total humanity. And, according to Scripture, Jesus Himself had a definite point of origination. He had a beginning. There was a time when Jesus Christ did not exist because He had not been born, He had not been given a distinct name, He hadn’t been conceived.

It is my belief, that prior to the incarnation, there was no separate personality between the invisible, transcendent Yahweh and His physical manifestation. While He had no need for an avatar subject to space and time to know and understand us, human beings had a need for an avatar of Him to interact with directly. He and His avatar had been one and the same personality.

This changed when Jesus was conceived. By joining His avatar to human flesh and blood which grew around it and intertwined with it, and which flesh and blood would develop its own personality as it experienced its environment, that avatar would forever be a separate personality bound to the memories and experiences which programmed the brain of that flesh and blood human being. Yahweh grown together in a womb with human flesh, bone, blood, and DNA all contributed by the mother. Yahweh relinquishing His own identity as Yahweh to adopt the unique identity of a human being, who then in turn would later do the same, submitting as a separate and unique personality in thought, word, and action to Yahweh with whom His psyche was intertwined from conception. There then, at the moment of Jesus’ conception, becomes a distinction between the personalities of God the Father and God the Son precisely because there now exists a Son of God in space and time where there had not before.

We fall into false teaching when we overemphasize either Jesus’ humanity or His divinity. It is equally wrong to claim that Jesus is only God as it is to claim that He was only a human being. It is equally wrong to claim that Jesus existed from eternity as it is to claim that He was an ordinary man. Yahweh, both transcendent and bodily avatar, existed from eternity without beginning and end, but Jesus, as a human being, had a beginning.

When the Holy Spirit Leads People Elsewhere

 All too often, whether we're conscious of it or not, we are taught to adhere to the idea that our denomination of Christianity is the only one to which the Holy Spirit will lead people. If someone really wants to "get saved" they need to come to "our church." They need to listen to "our pastor" preach. They need to adhere to our theological bullet points. They need to be a part of our tribe and not someone else's. The truth is that this sentiment is the very definition of heresy and one of the primary things Paul was trying to combat in 1 Corinthians.

The Holy Spirit testifies to Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit leads people to Jesus Christ. There are dozens of denominations and churches out there where a person can draw closer to Jesus Christ, fall in love with Jesus Christ, and be discipled to follow Jesus Christ. Do any of them have it all exactly right? Does the Catholic? No. Does the Orthodox? No. Does the Lutheran? No. Does the Calvinist? No. Does the Mennonite? No. Does the Baptist? No. Does the Mormon? Certainly not. Does the Evangelical? No. If someone slavishly adhered to the theology I've written about, would they have everything completely accurate? Nope. I try, but I'm not that good. But each one of these does have Jesus Christ. Someone can get to know Jesus Christ through each one of these. Someone can start the journey of drawing closer to Christ, walking with Him, learning from Him, and remaining with Him through all of these.

History bears me out on this. There are saints and saintly writings and accounts of the intervention of the Holy Spirit from all of these denominations and churches, and have been over the last two thousand years. Questioning one's devotion or even salvation because they're "not a part of our group" or because their practice or theological framework looks a little bit different than yours is the beginning of the very factionalism that Paul was trying to combat.

Yes, there were some doctrinal issues which Peter, Paul, and John explicitly touched on in their letters. There were people that Paul got really upset with because of what they were teaching. Let's look at that for a minute. The biggest one he got upset with was when people were teaching that following the Jewish Torah and being circumcised was necessary. This of course was nonsense because the Torah had been fulfilled by the New Covenant and was no longer in effect. There was no Torah to which to return. It was pointless. He wrote specifically about the resurrection because either Jesus rose from the dead and was taking us with Him or it was all for nothing. There was no in between. Another which John explicitly wrote about was the idea that Jesus hadn't actually been a physical, biological human being. To John, this was absolute nonsense too. He had seen Him, known Him, ate with Him, probably slept around the campfire near Him. He had seen Him, heard Him, touched Him, heard him belch and so on. The same was true with those who declared that Jesus wasn't the Son of God. John himself had seen Jesus display powers only God or a god could have and humble the gods of Rome on their own turf. It was ludicrous and blasphemy of the Holy Spirit to tell people that Jesus wasn't the Son of God when those who saw Him knew perfectly well that He was. Also realize that John was writing when Jesus was still within living memory for a lot of people, and he was writing to combat propaganda being spread among the Jewish people by the Sanhedrin about Jesus.

The differences between most churches and denominations have nothing to do with any of this, but tend to veer into the differences of practice, worship, church leadership, and minor arguments of theological mechanics that no one can actually verify and don't actually affect one's devotion to and practice of Jesus Christ in the long run. Yes, the Mormon church teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate beings. Yes, it's contrary to the Ecumenical Councils, the Nicene Creed, and the testimony of both the New Testament and the Book of Mormon itself. But in the long run, even this really isn't an obstacle for someone to devote themselves to and become a disciple of Jesus Christ. God's big enough to handle even a misunderstanding like this. There's a reason why the disciples never really tried to nail down the Trinity or Hypostatic Union in their writings. It just wasn't important enough to them. It was enough to know that Jesus was both a flesh and blood human being as well as Yahweh, as well as being distinct from His Father. The details of the when and how just weren't a thing; probably because Jesus Himself didn't elaborate.

Our focus should never be to lead people into "our church," but to help people learn to love Jesus Christ and be His disciple; to encourage them to Love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, intellect, and strength, and to love the people next to them like themselves. This is the priority and should be the priority. They need to know that He died for their sins, was buried, raised on the third day, ascended, and plans to take them with Him. They need to know what He taught and how to put it into practice. They need to know that they need to stay put in Him and not walk away. They need to know that, in order to be His disciple, they can't trust their own physical or biological responses, but they have to step aside for Him to live His life through them.

The external trappings of Christianity are going to look different with different people, and so are some of the explanations. That's actually okay. We don't need to bring them into line with our theological or cosmological frameworks in order for them to benefit from Christ and be His disciple. But what always needs to be present is the devotion to Christ, the remaining in Him, and the practice of unconditional, self sacrificing love towards God and every other person. If God wants to correct their theology, that's His prerogative.