Christianity Can’t Save the Jews. Can Historical Criticism Cure Them?
Posted by: John Phoenix
In “God, the Jews, and us: a deceitful civilizational contract”, I retold how the Romans, having failed to incorporate Israel within Hellenistic civilization, decided to erase it from history. In 70 AD, after four years of war, Vespasian and his son Titus conquered Jerusalem, looted and burned its temple, and compelled all Jews of the Empire to pay two drachmas a year to Jupiter’s temple on Capitoline Hill, instead of to Yahweh’s temple as they used to do. Half a century later, Emperor Hadrian tried to erase Jewish identity by forbidding circumcision under penalty of death. This triggered the Bar Kokhba revolt in the years 132-135 CE (“The Jews began war, because they were forbidden to mutilate their genitals,” according the Historia Augusta).[1]&n...
