Thus Spake God's Creator;
A JEWISH MAN CLAIMING TO BE THE MESSIAH and living.very comfortably.
in the province of Judea/Syria located on modern day Israel, Lebanon, and
parts of modern day Jordan and Syria. Before Roman rule, Judaea/Syria was
ruled by the Seleucids led by Antiochus IV. These people forced the citizens
of Judea and Syria to worship their Greek gods and give up the Jewish
religion that they had been worshiping long before the Seleucids came. After
years of being mistreated by the Seleucids, a tribe of Judaeans, known as the
Macabees, led the Jewish people in a revolt against the Seleucids. After much
fighting, the Macabees were victorious. The Seleucids were forced to pull out
of Judaea/Syria. Simon, the last son of the Macabees, became the new king.
During the Macabees' rule, they conquered several neighboring areas, and
flourished. In 63 BCE General Pompey the Great convinced the state of
Judea/Syria to join the Roman empire.
DURING ROMAN RULE
When Judaea/Syria first entered the Roman empire, they were not actually
ruled by a Roman governor. They were, however, ruled by a king who was, for
the most part, controlled by the Roman government. However, several times
there was no king and a Roman governor would temporarily take over in the
interim. According to the Jews' historian, Josephus, a Jewish leader
claiming to be the Messiah, or the divine ruler of the Jews, named Jesus, was
born in 4 BCE and was executed by a Roman ruler who was temporarily in
charge, Pontius Pilate. This Christian cult has spread through the empire
and shows little sign of stopping. In 66-70 CE, a group of Jews revolted
against Nero's empire, but were easily subjugated by general and soon to be
emperor Vespasian, and his son Titus, who punished them by burning down their
capital of Jerusalem. However, the Jews are a stubborn race of people.
After they revolted again in 135-138, Hadrian had them exiled out of Judaea
and renamed Judaea/Syria Palaestina. After 395, with the empire too big for
the Western Empire to control, Palaestina was under the control of the
Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine Empire. Though several
times another power would temporarily take over, for the most part it was
stable until the Arabs took it in 638 CE.
AFTER ROMAN RULE
The Arabs took nearly all the Middle East in the years directly following
their prophet Muhammad's death, and Palaestina was only one of the victims.
Life was enlightened there much more than in Europe. Damascus, the lead city
in Syria, was made capital of the Islamic Empire from 660-750. After
centuries of Muslim rule, in 1099 Christian Crusaders from the West sacked
Jerusalem and conquered much of Judea and Syria in their rampages. However,
in 1187, after repelling two other Crusades, Kurdish Muslims under the
command of Saladin took the area, which was never to be ruled by Christians
again. The area was ignored by all for centuries. In 1517 the brutal
Ottoman Turks swept through the Middle East, erasing the last traces of the
Byzantine Empire and conquering Judea and Syria. The Ottoman Empire went
into decline in the next several centuries, finally the British and French
divided the remaining territories after WWI, the British recieving what they
called Palestine. Palestine was divided into the provinces of Trans-Jordan
and Palestine. After WWII, the State of Israel was formed out of much of
what was once Judea and parts of Syria. The Arab regimes in that area refuse
to accept Israel, and there have been problems between them ever since.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current Religious News:
http://fullcoverage.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/World/Religion_News/
.
|
