While the Hasmonean rulers Hyrrcanas and Aristobulus were getting distracted by fighting over rule, the Romans, lead by Pompey the Great, came and took over. Pompey the Great was responsible for the Abomination of Desolation in 63 BCE when he stepped into the Holy of Holies – an act deemed unfathomably wrong by any Jew. This essentially led to his desecration of the Temple. Pompey the Great then set up Herod as one of the local rulers – the local ruler of Galilee. Herod the Great was from Idumea and had been forcibly “Judaized” by the Hasmoneans meaning he was only half Jewish. During his reign from 37 – 4 BCE, he was very helpful in aiding the Romans by being their Client-King, but at the same time the Jews resented him. While he did accommodate the Jews by not defiling their Temple when besieging Jerusalem and engaged in numerous building projects (aqueducts, ports, theaters, etc) in which he employed Jewish workers as builders, they still saw him as superficially Jewish and were always afraid of him. On the other hand, he was a very impulsive dictator. It is a constant debate as to whether or not he was a good king, considering economically and religiously speaking he was a good king but at the same time he subdued his own people who were trying to revolt against he Romans.
The lecture continued on to an introduction of Jesus. Professor Cargill emphasized that there is absolutely no archaeological evidence for the existence of Jesus even though most scholars including atheists continue to acknowledge that he most likely existed – only few scholars doubt Jesus’ existence. Professor Cargill had also mentioned that the absence of evidence cannot be equated with the evidence of absence. This phrase really stood out to me and I thought summed up the lecture very well.
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