For the Freedom of Zion

January 10, 2022
Wellesley College history professor Rogers (The Mysteries of Artemis of Ephesos) takes an engaging if flawed look at the first-century rebellion that led to the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and forced a paradigm shift in the practice of Judaism. Rogers argues that Roman governor Florus’s order to arrest Jewish people who complained about bird sacrifices outside a synagogue in 66 CE sparked a lengthy and bloody war between the Roman Empire and its Jewish subjects in Judaea, and “the most significant revolt in the history of the early Roman Empire,” a conflict that included a monthslong siege of Jerusalem and “turned Jews and their theological heirs back to the word of God.” The author undermines the authority of his account, however, with biased historical sources, namely Jewish general–turned–Roman collaborator Flavius Josephus’s history of the insurrection. Rogers fares better when noting the sweeping impact of the failed revolt—such as the rabbinic shifting of religious practices away from a central site. Despite its shortcomings, this is a valuable study that complements Martin Goodman’s Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations.