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Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations (Vintage) | 
 enlarge | Author: Martin Goodman
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
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Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 47184
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 0375726136
Dewey Decimal Number: 930
EAN: 9780375726132
ASIN: 0375726136
Publication Date: November 11, 2008
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Product Description
A magisterial history of the titanic struggle between the Roman and Jewish worlds that led to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Martin Goodman—equally renowned in Jewish and in Roman studies—examines this conflict, its causes, and its consequences with unprecedented authority and thoroughness. He delineates the incompatibility between the cultural, political, and religious beliefs and practices of the two peoples and explains how Rome's interests were served by a policy of brutality against the Jews. At the same time, Christians began to distance themselves from their origins, becoming increasingly hostile toward Jews as Christian influence spread within the empire. This is the authoritative work of how these two great civilizations collided and how the reverberations are felt to this day.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
 Comments by Michael Calum Jacques author of '1st Century Radical'. November 13, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It was my pleasure to be supervised by Prof Martin Goodman whilst I was conducting research into aspects of First Century Palestine at St Cross College Oxford. As a summary reading of the various reviews posted about this book will reveal, it is relatively easy thing to find cavils with another scholar's work, but the task of reconstructing periods of history from the ancient world is an intricate one and can be, at times, a patently thankless exercise.
This chunky tome (even in paperback) spreads some 650 pages and is dense with valuable information and historical observations; it is a referential fund with respect to the areas of interfacing and interaction between the forces of Roman imperialism and the culture of the Jews.
But this is far more than either merely a cultural or an historical study; for example, Prof Goodman expounds an entire thesis regarding the origin and subsequent development and expansion of the messianic movement, amongst other things. In fact, more than one previous reviewer has been somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer density of the historical data contained herein.
As ever, Prof Goodman makes deft use of his sources and his treatment of Flavius Josephus is a model which most writers can only hope to aspire towards. Despite its length and scope, the author knows what to omit as well as what to include; apart from an abundance of pertinent observations, the reader is spared overbearing philosophizing although, inevitably, it is difficult to produce studies on events like the probable mass suicide at Masala without including a degree of comment, be that implicit or explicit.
This book is probably not something to read casually and deserves a notebook by its side. As a single volume reference book which 'does what it says on the cover' this reviewer has absolutely no hesitation in recommending it on the bases of its sound, thorough, scholarship and its general - albeit demanding in parts - readability.
Michael Calum Jacques
 Too much infornation September 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read this book because of my particular interest in the history of the Land of Israel, with the hope of finding some new insights into the 700-year conflict between Rome and the Jews, that started with Pompey's conquest of Judea in 67 BCE and continued through the Roman imperial and Byzantine periods, until the Muslim conquest of The Holy Land in 638. With his eminence in the fields of both Roman studies and Jewish studies, the author seems uniquely well-placed to shed light on this.
The book's prologue gives an excellent summary of the great Jewish revolt against Rome in 67 AD and the subsequent war, which ended (more or less) with the siege of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple in the year 70. The author then takes up the story again in part three of the book (chapter 11) with the immediate aftermath of the war, the two subsequent Jewish revolts against imperial Rome (115 and 132 AD) , and the subsequent relationships between the successors of Rome - the Byzantine empire and the Church - and the Jews.
In between, these two accounts (chapters 1 through 10), the author provides in exhaustive detail a profile of the two peoples and societies. After a three-chapter overview, he covers in the second part of the book a series of specific topics - identities, communities, perspectives, lifestyles, government, and politics - in a level of detail that far exceeded my needs or expectations. For each topic, he deals first with the Romans and then with the Jews, pointing out any similarities and contrasts between them. Throughout this systematic methodology, the author does not highlight the relevance of any of these detailed comparisons to the causes or the progress of the conflict, with the effect of creating (for this reader) a somewhat numbed impatience. Nor does this detail seem to be necessary for appreciating the the hoped-for insights, that are certainly to be found in the book.
When you read about the great revolt from the point of view of Jewish history, you hardly stop to think about Vespatian's transformation, from Roman general in charge of putting down the revolt in 67 to emperor in 69 - except insomuch as the pause in the Roman assault that accompanied Vespatian's withdrawal to Alexandria provided an opportunity for the Jews to regroup in Judea after their setbacks in the Galilee in the early part of the war. Goodman provides a detailed description of what was actually a civil war in Rome, the year of the 3 emperors (68) and Vespatian's eventual coup that left him in the imperial seat. He points out that Vespatian - up to that point "an obscure senator of mediocre talent and minimal prestige" - needed to give his claim the kind of legitimacy that mattered to the Roman populace - a victory over foreigners. Hence his instruction to his son Titus to prosecute the war as rapidly and comprehensively as possible, so that he would be able to preside over a triumph in Rome. "Titus had his eye less on Jerusalem than on Rome, and the need to to proclaim to the population ...that his father, the new emperor.. was not a thuggish nonentity propelled to power by a slaughter of Roman citizens in civil conflict, but a hero of the Roman state who had won victory in Judea."
The destruction of the Temple in 70 - a state that has existed from then until the present day - is such an existential feature of Jewish consciousness, that it does not occur to ask the question which Goodman addresses "Why did the Romans not permit the subsequent re-building of the temple ?" Judaism, after all was - unlike Christianity until Constantine - a "permitted" religion. Throughout the Roman empire, temples were - sometimes deliberately, sometimes by accident - destroyed and rebuilt all the time. Why not the Jewish temple ? In addition to raising the issue - an insight for this reader by and of itself - the author attempts to answer this question with an extended perspective of the motives and needs of the Flavian dynasty - Vespatian, Titus, Domitian - and the continuation of their oppressive policy towards the Jews by Trajan. Although this may not provide a definitive answer , it does give essential background to understanding the subsequent conflicts - the "War against Quietus" of 115 and the Bar Kochba revolt of 132-5.
Goodman also has a point of view on the well-aired question of whether Josephus' contention that Titus did not intend the temple to be destroyed should be taken at face value or not (he thinks it should); and throughout the latter part of the book, he provides similarily valuable gloss on the perspectives of Josephus and other ancient historians.
This was a worthwhile read; however, it would have been a much shorter and more accessible book if some of the mass of detail in its central chapters had been better harnessed in service of its core theme, the conflict between Rome and Jerusalem.
 Two OK books in one August 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is really two separate books. The first 2/3 of the book contrasts Roman and Judean civilization: there are lots of interesting little tidbits about Rome - for example, that emperors became known throughout the Empire through coinage, and that Romans believed in ghosts and even had a festival to appease them. But despite the title of the book, Goodman does not suggest that a clash of civiliations was inevitable.
Indeed, the last 1/3 of the book (focusing on the Jewish revolts against Rome and their aftermath) suggests otherwise. The first Jewish revolt against Rome itself took place through coincidence- brutes on both sides instigated various small provocations that fed on each other, ultimately leading to rebellion. The destruction of the Temple was not an inevitable result of the revolt; Roman generals may not have intended such destruction, since Roman generals generally did not glory in the destruction of enemy temples or the disrespect of enemies' deities. Thus, the destruction of the Temple may (as Goodman suggests, based on the work of Josephus) have been an accident; perhaps an anonymous solider fired a missile in the wrong place and started an unexpected fire.
But once the Temple was destroyed, a coincidence prevented it from being rebuilt: the legions attacking Jerusalem were led partially by Vespasian, who became emperor during the Jewish revolt. Because Vespasian lacked royal ancestry, he needed to legitimize his rule through military conquest. To do this, he had to present the Jewish war as a great achievement. Judean spoils were placed in the imperial palace, and the success of the war was mentioned in Imperial coinage. After the war, Jews throughout the Empire were forced to pay a special tax: the same amount of money that Jews traditionally directed to Temple upkeep was redistributed to the Imperial treasury.
After Vespasian's dynasty was overthrown, Jews may have had high hopes for the Temple's restoration. But then came another stroke of bad luck: after a couple of years of a relatively pro-Jewish emperor (Nerva), he died and his successor, Trajan, had few qualifications other than a father who was a hero of the Judean war - a fact that Goodman thinks may have contributed to Trajan's decision to reinstate the "Jewish tax", thus crushing Jewish hopes for the rebuilding of the Temple. Jewish frustration (according to Goodman) led to a revolt of diaspora Jews, which in turn may have caused Hadrian (Trajan's successor) to build a pagan city on the site of Jerusalem a few years later, which in turn may have been the cause of yet another disastrous Jewish revolt in 132. And because the Jews had revolted against Rome one too many times, they had become unpopular with Romans, which in turn may have led Christians to distance themselves aggressively from Jews, which in turn may have contributed to Christian anti-Semitism.
All very speculative- but persuasive.
christianity history could be better May 26, 2008
0 out of 7 found this review helpful
I have no sufficient knowledge of the relations between Judaism and the Romans, during the first few centuries from Christianity's foundation, to make any comment on the accuracy of the author's treatment of this aspect. But in so far as Prof. Goodman deals with the initiation and early history of Christianity, particularly in chapter 13, the book is a little disappointing. All we know of Jesus and early Christianity is contained in writings made after Jesus' death. Much scholarship has been devoted to questions as to the extent to which the early writings can be relied on, and of course the extent to which the versions we currently have differ from the original writings.
Authors such as L.Michael White and Bart Ehrman have recently dealt with such problems in considerable detail. It is true that Prof. Goodman engages in some discussion of the difficulty of ascertaining the facts of Jesus's life. But one might reasonably have expected more information about the topic, particularly in view of the apparent confidence the author has that he knows the true cause of Jesus' crucifixion(see the last few pages of the book), that being a point of considerable practical importance. INVICTUS
Interesting April 2, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
I appreciated reading the authors book. A little lengthy and sometimes slow moving. Highly informative on the politics, society and economics of this time period.Any challenging inferences made by the author encourages further study.Personnally, I need to review attitudes of the Roman Emperor and his son.Also, I need to refer to the exploites of the X Legion after Caesar and Nero. Books like this generate more interest.
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