Page 47 - Advanced Bible Geography ebook

The interaction of Rome with the people of Israel began in 63 BC when the Roman general Pompey
conquered Jerusalem. Julius Caesar defeated Pompey in 45 BC and took control of Palestine and
recognized Judaism as a legal religion, which was also recognized by Augustus after Caesar’s
assassination in 44 BC. Augustus was ruling when Jesus was born (Luke 2:1).

Herod the Great

Herod came from a family that had been forced to convert to Judaism only a generation before he was
born. He was not religious, though he maintained the Jewish diet and rebuilt the Temple in Jerusalem.
Born of Arab parents (his father was an Idumean and his mother was a Nabatean), the vast majority of
Jewish citizens resented his appointment as their ruler. In the eyes of a Jewish community, he was
racially impure and a puppet of the hated Romans. He was also extremely immoral, violent and
paranoid. He was ruthless with his imagined enemies, murdering several members of his own family.
Among his victims were his favorite wife, her mother, her brother (who was serving as high priest) and
her grandfather. He killed three of his sons and an uncountable number of his actual enemies.
On the other hand, Herod built some of the most amazing structures in Israel’s ancient history,
singlehandedly fueling the country’s economy. Using resources from Rome and from his own immense
wealth, Herod directly employed thousands of workers.

The Temple Mount in Jerusalem

Even today, the walls of Herod’s expanded Temple Mount can be easily spotted in an aerial photo of Jerusalem
(top). Both the photo and the illustrations are from the west, facing east. The Mount of Olives is the hill directly
across from the Temple Mount. The Judean Wilderness and the Dead Sea are barely visible in the distance. In the
photo, the gold-domed Islamic building stands where (or very near) the Temple once stood. In the illustration,
note the close proximity of the likely place of crucifixion, just outside the city walls. The bottom illustration
suggests that the Temple was located south of the existing temple mount today and that today’s temple mount
was actually Fort Antonia, home of the 10 Roman legion (approximately 10,000 people). Josephus describes
th
Fort Antonia as a city within a city. It was approximately 36 acres, the size of the temple mount today. Later in
this study, we will look at this in more detail.

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