By Cyril Anderson

Part 2 of 4

 Nebucadnezzar rewarded Daniel for this service by raising him to a high position as a governor in his empire, and Daniel continued high position during the time of the Persian rule by providing guidance and dream interpretation to King Darius of Persia.  Through his high position he was able, ultimately to secure the release of his people back to The Holy Land, as well as funds to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

  In another vision, described in Daniel chapter 9, Daniel warned the people that they had seventy weeks of years, that is, 490 years, from the time of the call to go forth to rebuild Jerusalem to reform themselves, to “finish transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity; to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal both vision and prophet (for their people).”  It warned that near the end of this period, a messiah (anointed one) would come, but that his mission would be cut short, presumably if the people had not strengthened themselves sufficiently at that point, and that after this, a people would come to destroy the city of Jerusalem.

 In about 520 BCE, some of the exiles return to Jerusalem and begin the rebuilding of the Temple.  The books of Ezra and Nehemiah’s describe the return and rebuilding of Jerusalem under the leadership of these two scholars during the period of about 450 BCE.  The book of Esther describes the rise to the throne of Persia of a Jewish woman, Esther, as queen to King Xerxes.   Esther used her influence with the king to foil a plot by Haman, one of the chief officers of the King, to kill all the Jews in the Persian Empire, which stretched at that time from North Africa to India.

 In the 5^th century BCE, Greece reached the height of its culture, largely under the influence of Athens, which produced such great philosophers as Socrates and Plato.  Athens, which was a great centre of philosophy, science, mathematics and culture, led a drive to unification of the Greek city-states in confederation in response to the threat posed by Persia, which was trying to make advances into Europe.  The Greeks, led by Athens and Sparta fought what were known as the Persian wars, achieving victory.  However, the Greek confederacy later degenerated into division and infighting that ultimately destroyed the parties involved in the Peloponnesian war.  Out of this tragedy came the rise of Macedon, under King Phillip.  Upon his death, Alexander, his son, became ruler of Macedon, forming an Hellenic Empire that conquered Persia, as prophesied by Daniel, with this empire stretching from Europe and Africa to India.  This empire served to spread Greek culture and ideas across the world. Upon his death however, the empire was divided into four empires again as prophesied by Daniel (reference), led by four of Alexander’s generals: Cassander in Macedon, Lysimachus in Thrace, Ptolemy in Egypt and Levant, Seleucus in Mesopotamia and Persia, extended Hellenic influence on Mediterranean region, including Holy Land in Judea.  A key formative influence on the Jewish community in Judea, and in the early Christian community was the fruitful interplay between the monotheistic theology of Judaism and the philosophic cultural influence of the Hellenic culture in the different parts of the Greek .  Important fruits of this mixture were the Septuagint, the early Greek translation of the Old Testament commissioned by one of the Ptolemaic Emperors and undertaken by seventy Jewish scholars, and the philosophy of Philo of Alexandria, mixing Jewish theology and Greek philosophy.   Later, the Christian religion, based on the Greek New Testament and the Jewish Old Testament rose out of the same influences.  The dynamic interplay of these two influences in Egypt, the Near East, Asia Minor, and Greece was a great creative force, but also a force of tension within the Jewish community of the time between tradition and the influence of the surrounding culture, between traditional and Hellenized Jews.  In the centuries after Jesus, Gnosticism appeared as a blend of Hellenic philosophy, Jewish scriptures, centred around the figure of Jesus.

Out of the decline of the Greek Empires that came in the aftermath of Alexander, Rome grew as a European power.   Rome rose first as a republic, and later as an empire.  Rome grew its influence over time, eventually conquering under its empire most of Europe, North Africa, the Near East, and Byzantium (modern Turkey).  Between 160 BCE and 60 BCE (When the Romans conquered Judea) the

Jews meanwhile managed to win semi-autonomous rule (Hasmonean era), all the while in conflict with the Seleucid and Ptolemaic kingdoms around them.  1^st Maccabees, part of the Old Testament Apocrypha recorded in the Catholic Bible, describes the leadership of Judas Maccabbeus, his brother Jonathan, his brother Simon, and their younger brother Jonathan.  Other sources, most notably, Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews, expands on this history, continuing the story up to the time of Jesus.  It was in this period that the first contacts between the Jews and the Romans, who were rising as a Republic with increasing influence and power in the region, took place.  The early Hasmoneans signed mutual defense treaties and treaties of friendship with the Roman senate of the time.

 By the time of Jesus (as), the temple had been rebuilt, with the temple as it was in the time of Jesus completed by Herod Agrippa.  The Israelites had been re-established in the land.  However, they were in a difficult position, thanks to the general wrongdoing of the people and the wrong guidance of the leadership of the people.  The Romans had gone from Republic to Empire, had conquered Palestine, and ruled Judea as a province of the Roman Empire.  There was a definite military presence in the streets of the cities of Palestine, with Roman soldiers patrolling the streets. 

 A bit should be said about the Roman system that supported this occupation.  The Roman system was one in which power was the main concern, a system in which the vast majority of human beings lived in grinding poverty and were seen largely by those in charge as expendable, interchangeable animals, beasts of burden, to be managed like some sort of herd.  This system denied the creativity, intelligence, and uniqueness of the human individual.  Compassion and mercy were not values of this system, but rather struggle for raw power through cruelness and physical might.  It was a sick mockery of everything that made humanity great. 

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