The Holy City Go Boom!!
This is the second to last post in my series on the Olivet Discourse being fulfilled in the destruction of Jerusalem by General Titus in AD 70 and the case for partial preterism (a system of eschatology that I kind of subscribe to) based upon R.C. Sproul’s book The Last Days According to Jesus. In this post, I want to chronicle the destruction of Jerusalem and bring into the picture Flavius Josephus and that his account of its destruction is a large key to the preterist case for both Revelation and the Olivet Discourse referring to AD 70.
First, some historical context. Jerusalem was destroyed in 587/6 BC (or BCE, whatever) by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon as God’s judgment against Judah’s unfaithfulness. The northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed in 722 BC by Shalmaneser of Assyria. In 539 BC, Babylon fell to Persia and Cyrus allowed the Hebrew exiles to return to Judea and practice Judaism as long as tribute was paid. In 332-323 BC, Alexander defeated the hated enemy of Greece, Persia and King Darius. In 332, he was welcomed into Jerusalem by the Jews, wisely seeing his victory. Alexander died of fever in 323 after a long march from the Hindus river valley to Babylon. The Macedonian Empire was divided into four kingdoms ruled by his four top generals until Alexander’s heir could take the throne, but the baby died. Judea was annexed into Egypt, which was ruled by Ptolemy I in 320 BC. In 198 BC, Antiochus III of the Seleucid dynasty in Syria captured Judea in one of its many wars with Ptolemaic Egypt (which by the way if you read Daniel 11 about the prince of the north vs. the prince of the south, you’ll see that the history between these two kingdoms matches Daniel’s vision perfectly!). During all of this time, from Alexander to Seleucid, the Jewish culture was being Hellenized–a process of assimilating Greek culture. It climaxed when Antiochus IV (aka Antiochus Epiphenes) desecrated Jerusalem when he saw the Jews celebrating his supposed death. He halted the Temple cult, outlawed having the Old Testament, and banned circumcision in 175 BC; all three were capital offenses. This led to Matthias, the Hasmonean priest, to start the Hasmonean revolt (aka The Maccabean Revolt) which won Jewish independence in 142 BC. This independence would last until Pompey conquered the area in 63 BC. The Jewish king was stripped of his independent power, but the Jews were allowed to have native rulers. In 27 BC, Augustus Julius Octavius Caesar was declared emperor and reigned until AD 14. Then his adopted son, Tiberius, reigned until AD 37. Caliglia, who tried to have his own statue set up in the Jewish Temple and nearly started the Jewish War, reigned until AD 41 when he was assassinated. Claudius I took over until AD 54–he banned the Jewish people from the city of Rome at one point. His adopted son Nero then reigned from AD 54 until his suicide in AD 68. In less than three years, three emperors reigned, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. Each man was killed and replaced by his successor. General Vespasian, who was leading the war in Judea, was then placed upon the throne before the one year after Nero’s death occurred (this is sometimes called “The Year of the Four Emperors” when the empire almost destroyed itself by falling into civil war). His reign restablized the empire and established the Flavian dynasty. Nero’s death ended the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Vespasian ruled from 69 AD-79 AD. His son Titus, who sacked Jerusalem, then took up the reigns of the Empire. His reign was only two years when he died from sickness in AD AD 81. His brother Domitian reigned until AD 96. That covers biblical history from the Exile of Judah until the end of the New Testament Era.
Now and eye witness to the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of Titus was Flavius Josephus. He was born sometime between AD 37 and 38, and died sometime after 100 AD. He was a priest, claiming to be of the Hasmonean line. Josephus was a Pharisee, after studying all of the major religious sects in Judaism. He was a general for the Jews during the Jewish War. He also thought of himself as a statesman and prophet as well. Josephus was then arrested by the Romans of Jotapata, upon which he defected and eventually became a Roman citizen serving with Vespasian. He also was a witness to Titus’ Triumph of his successful siege of Jerusalem. Much of what scholars know of New Testament times in Palestine comes from Josephus, he is an invaluable resource. However, some of his accounts seem or are (depending on how nice you want to be to the man) to be biased. Nineteenth century scholars rejected Josephus on this issue. He wrote four works, Antiquities of the Jews, Against Apion, The Life of Flavius Josephus, The Jewish Wars.
It is this last book, The Jewish Wars, that helps us peer into Titus’ siege of Jerusalem. In book five, he gets down to the very fine details of the city. He describes the fighting of the Jews amongst themselves that helped to weaken their resistance against the Roman Legions. There is a controversial passage in The Jewish Wars 5.6.3 (book.chapter.paragraph) where a phrase that reads as “The Stone Cometh” in some manuscripts reads as “The Son Cometh.” In 5.9.4 of The Jewish Wars, Josephus tells his people that God is not fighting on their side and to repent. In book six, a woman took her new-born infant, who was sucking at her breast, killed it, cooked it, ate half of it and gave the rest to bystanders. He also describes the looting of the temple by the Romans in 6.5.1.
Now there was something strange that Josephus reports during this time. He writes,
Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them. Thus there was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year. Thus also before the Jews’ rebellion, and before those commotions which preceded the war, when the people were come in great crowds to the feast of unleavened bread, on the eighth day of the month Xanthicus, [Nisan,] and at the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared to be bright day time; which lasted for half an hour. This light seemed to be a good sign to the unskillful, but was so interpreted by the sacred scribes, as to portend those events that followed immediately upon it. At the same festival also, a heifer, as she was led by the high priest to be sacrificed, brought forth a lamb in the midst of the temple.
Josephus tells of strange astronomical phenomena. “There was a star resembling a sword, which stood over the city, and a comet, that continued a whole year.” He says that this was read by the people as a good sign, a sign of victory. Or may be the very presence of God in their midst. Even Roman historian Tacitus reports of strange astronomical signs from Rome during this time (The Histories 1:5-7). This is also to say that a heifer giving birth to a lamb is very unfathomable. Josephus even records some signs that he is unsure of reporting,
Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple,] as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, “Let us remove hence.”
Now Sproul notes a connection with Josephus’ testimony, cited above, and Ezekiel’s prophecy shortly before the Babylonian sacking of Jerusalem. Listen to the words of Ezekiel when he writes,
Over the heads of the living creatures there was the likeness of an expanse, shining like awe-inspiring crystal, spread out above their heads. And under the expanse their wings were stretched out straight, one toward another. And each creature had two wings covering its body. And when they went, I heard the sound of their wings like the sound of many waters, like the sound of the Almighty, a sound of tumult like the sound of an army. When they stood still, they let down their wings. And there came a voice from above the expanse over their heads. When they stood still, they let down their wings.
And above the expanse over their heads there was the likeness of a throne, in appearance like sapphire; and seated above the likeness of a throne was a likeness with a human appearance. And upward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were gleaming metal, like the appearance of fire enclosed all around. And downward from what had the appearance of his waist I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him. Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around.
Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. (Ezekiel 1:22-28)
Notice the connection of the great sound here in Ezekiel and with what Josephus reports. When Ezekiel saw this vision of the chariot-throne of Yahweh, there was a great voice. But let us follow Ezekiel further into chapter 10. If there is one common theme in Ezekiel before God announces the fall of Jerusalem to him in 586 BC, it was that he saw the glory of Yahweh, the shekinah, slowly moving further away from Jerusalem and towards Babylon, where the first group of exiles that placed Ezekiel in Babylon where he prophesies from. In Ezekiel 10:15-19 we see,
And the cherubim mounted up. These were the living creatures that I saw by the Chebar canal. And when the cherubim went, the wheels went beside them. And when the cherubim lifted up their wings to mount up from the earth, the wheels did not turn from beside them. When they stood still, these stood still, and when they mounted up, these mounted up with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in them.
Then the glory of the Lord went out from the threshold of the house, and stood over the cherubim. And the cherubim lifted up their wings and mounted up from the earth before my eyes as they went out, with the wheels beside them. And they stood at the entrance of the east gate of the house of the Lord, and the glory of the God of Israel was over them.
Josephus interprets the voice he heard that said, “Let us remove hence” as the same thing that Ezekiel witnessed in his prophecy. Sproul says on page 126, “It is significant that this earlier destruction of the holy city was marked by this kind of vision-sign.” This Ichabod that Josephus records for us was also mentioned by Tacitus as well.
In The Jewish Wars 6.5.3, a man named Jesus made dire predictions concerning Jerusalem. Josephus records,
But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, began on a sudden to cry aloud, “A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!” This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city. However, certain of the most eminent among the populace had great indignation at this dire cry of his, and took up the man, and gave him a great number of severe stripes; yet did not he either say any thing for himself, or any thing peculiar to those that chastised him, but still went on with the same words which he cried before. Hereupon our rulers, supposing, as the case proved to be, that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, “Woe, woe to Jerusalem!”
Listen to how Josephus concludes his narrative of the fall of Jerusalem in The Jewish Wars 6.9.3,
Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, the greater part of whom were indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself; for they were come up from all the country to the feast of unleavened bread, and were on a sudden shut up by an army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a straitness among them, that there came a pestilential destruction upon them, and soon afterward such a famine, as destroyed them more suddenly.
Sproul concludes that Jesus’ prophecy in the Olivet Discourse was fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem. And, only though these are small glimpses into Josephus’ record of the fall of Jerusalem. It is quite obvious that there are significant connections between what Josephus, and Tacitus too, reports and what Jesus prophesied in the Olivet Discourse. However Sproul does not want to press full preterism in his book, being a postmillennialist. Neither do I. So in my next post in this series, as well as my final post, I will hopefully show the difference between partial/moderate and full/radical preterism.
(Cross posted at Think Wink.)
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