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Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations | 
 enlarge | Author: Martin Goodman
Publisher: Knopf
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
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Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 86886
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 624
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.7
ISBN: 0375411852
Dewey Decimal Number: 933.05
EAN: 9780375411854
ASIN: 0375411852
Publication Date: October 23, 2007
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Condition: Excellent, unmarked/Hardcover w/ dust jacket; Hardcover in very good condition. Excellent unmarked text crisp, clean and tight! BUY IT NOW!. Satisfaction Guaranteed!
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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.
In 70 C.E., after a four-year war, three Roman legions besieged and eventually devastated Jerusalem, destroying Herod’s magnificent Temple. Sixty years later, after further violent rebellions and the city’s final destruction, Hadrian built the new city of Aelia Capitolina where Jerusalem had once stood. Jews were barred from entering its territory. They were taxed simply for being Jewish. They were forbidden to worship their god. They were wholly reviled.
What brought about this conflict between the Romans and the subjects they had previously treated with tolerance? 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. He explains how Rome’s interests were served by a policy of brutality against the Jews. He makes clear how the original Christians first distanced themselves from their origins, and then became increasingly hostile toward Jews as Christian influence spread within the empire. The book thus also offers an exceptional account of the origins of anti-Semitism, the history of which reverberates still.
An indispensable book.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 flawed by numerous conceptual and factual errors February 1, 2008
Wes Howard-Brook (Issaquah, WA)
20 out of 28 found this review helpful
It was with great anticipation that I took up Martin Goodman's latest volume, having learned much from his 1996 work, "Mission and Conversion." However, I found myself initially disappointed by his reliance on Josephus as a central source for Judean/Jewish self-understanding. Further reading compounded my disappointment by revealing numerous factual errors.
Josephus is certainly one primary source that cannot be ignored when seeking to understand Jerusalem in the first century and its relationship to Rome. However, as authors such as Richard Horsley have shown (e.g., in his "Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs: Popular Movements at the Time of Jesus"), Josephus's elite status both covers up and fails to understand the diversity of views among people "below" him. Goodman's presentation would lead an uninformed reader to overreliance on Josephus's "view from above."
Goodman knows that the very term "Jew" is unclear in the first century, but gives short shrift to the extensive evidence provided by Shaye JD Cohen in his "Beginnings of Jewishness" (2001), using the term "Jews" to refer to a wide variety of people. One begins to suspect a hidden agenda, which is then brought out partially into the open on pp. 185-186:
"The notion that Jews in the late Second Temple period saw themselves as sinners permanently punished by God and in need of salvation from the sufferings of exile and Roman domination is a myth expressed particularly by New Testament scholars in order to provide a theological grounding for the mission of Jesus to Israel."
This "myth" has been argued more and more in recent years, with enormous evidence to support it. A primary exponent has been N.T. Wright (see "The New Testament and the People of God" [1996] and "Jesus and the Victory of God" [1997]). However, beyond this polemical statement, Goodman provides no evidence to support his statement.
It becomes more and more clear that at least part of Goodman's agenda is to refute Christian perspectives on first century Jerusalem's relationship with its Roman context. The ironic result, however, is precisely the kind of polemic that led to the division over Jesus in the first place. For instance, Goodman mentions some of the apocalyptic texts popular at the time (e.g., 4 Ezra) but fails to understand how apocalyptic "works" in terms of its "bifurcated" time structure (see, e.g., my co-authored "Unveiling Empire: Reading Revelation Then and Now"). Thus, he repeatedly refers to "end of the world" predictions within such literature that make "New Jerusalem" a fantasy world (p. 195) rather than an available, God-given alternative to empire generally, and in the first century context, Rome in particular.
Other errors abound. For instance, on p. 245, he refers to the rabbinic anticipation that all "Israel have a share in the world to come" as a "belief in the afterlife," when what is being referenced is the messianic "age to come" which, as clearly stated in texts such as Daniel 12, was anticipated as an earthly kingdom of God. Hence, the very Jewish Jesus could tell his disciples to pray: "Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Neither the rabbis nor Jesus were speaking of "afterlife," but of the world made "righteous" by God's definitive action. Then on p. 263, he claims that "the garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus was arrested, was a kitchen garden or an orchard." However, there is no such place mentioned anywhere in the New Testament or other contemporaneous documents referring to a "garden of Gethsemane." For example, Mark 14.32 refers to a "place" or "spot" "called Gethsemane" on the Mount of Olives. John 18.1 refers simply to a "garden," which is clearly symbolic, not geographic, given that gospel's numerous echoes of the book of Genesis (see also John 19.41). To make the leap from a nonexistent place (which comes from a naive conflating of the two gospel texts) to a factual sounding categorization of it is very poor scholarship indeed, and renders many of Goodman's other statements suspect. I often found myself wondering if I could trust him on topics for which I didn't already have enough background from which to evaluate his claims.
There is a lot of solid literature on the first century relationships among Rome and its clients and other dependent peoples. Unfortunately, this volume is not among them.
 Clash of men...culture...faith.. December 21, 2007
lordhoot (Anchorage, Alaska USA)
16 out of 18 found this review helpful
Martin Goodman's book, Rome and Jerusalem is a detail study on why those two cities went to war against each other that resulted in utter destruction of the latter. The author takes a great deal of time and energy trying to explored the similarities and differences of the two cities to explained why the Jewish people so foolishly decided to revolt against the most powerful military forces of their times, not only once but twice!
From this book, I began to realized how stubborned the Jewish people were during that time period and amazingly, how tolerant Rome was in response. Not too many conquering power of the ancient world would tolerant two such revolts without whole scale genocidal slaughter and enslavement. Penalty of Jewish second revolt was diaspora of their people to four corners of the Roman Empire and lost of their homeland until the post World War II period. The book also reflects on the fact that anti-Semitism of the Jews originated strongly with the second revolt, a reflection of the Roman distaste for people who caused them so much problem.
If I was disappointed about one thing, it was that the author spent a considerable amount of pages writing about culture, way of life, religion and that sort things to mark the similarity and differences between the two cities. I was hoping on more detail view of the two Jewish Revolts, especially the second one since there isn't much written about it. However, he does make it clear the Zealots, a minority among the Jews were primary responsible for the destruction of many of their fellow citizens and their nation as a whole. Of course, after watching a fictional mini-series like Masada, I am not surprised by the terror tactics used by the zealots to enforced their will and to provoke a massive Roman response like murdering Roman prisoners after guaranteeing their safety.
Overall, this book gives a very good background information on the clash between the Roman Empire and the Jewish state but it doesn't give much on the actual revolts itself.
 A non-fiction page-turner December 4, 2007
Reader
15 out of 18 found this review helpful
If you have any interest in the ancient world, you will not be able to put this one down. Every page yields new insights. The book is structured as a detailed refutation of everything you thought you knew about the mutual antipathy of the Romans and the Jews resulting in the destruction of the Second Temple. Whatever you thought you knew about Second Temple Judaism will be turned upside down. Whether or not you agree with the author's ultimate conclusion as to why the Temple was destroyed or are swayed by his belief that the aftermath of that destruction is still being felt today, the writer's erudition and plain-speaking, straightforward prose will draw you in.
An in-depth look at the two "eternal" cities December 17, 2007
Jonathon R. Howard (Davis, CA United States)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
A fascinating an in-depth look at these two iconic cities. Goodman pulls out all the stops in this exploration of The Roman Empire from the 1st to 4th century CE and it's responses and interactions to one of it's most exotic members, Jews in Palestine. Goodman explodes all the theories you've heard before about why the Jews were persecuted and how antisemitism developed in western Europe. Goodman points out that both Jews and Romans were content with the status-quo that had developed by the beginning of the 1st century CE, and if it hadn't of been for political radicals in Jerusalem, the fall of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty in Rome, and the beginning of Christianity as a faith independent of Judaism history would have played out quite differently. A great read for fans of Roman and Jewish history
Magisterial - with all that can imply! January 5, 2008
Robert Ashton (St. Louis, MO USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
You can be sure that any book which includes on its cover the words "magisterial" (twice), "monumental" and "massive" is not going to be a quick read. Martin Goodman's 550 plus page analysis of the relationship between the Jews and Rome is clearly a work of scholarship. His knowledge of both Rome and the Jews during the Roman Empire is prodigious.
His conclusion is not new that the Jews, prior to the destruction of the temple in 70, had actually been treated relatively well under the Romans and given, in many ways a privileged position compared to other conquered people. The Romans, like most world powers (the British and now Americans) were arrogant and sure that their ways must be the best - the God or Gods must be on their side! However, he shows convincingly that the strength of the Roman response to the various Jewish revolts and the subsequent opprobrium were driven more by political needs of Vespasian and his successors in Rome then any underlying prejudice to the Jews. He also clearly shows how the longer term anti-Jewish sentiments were created more by the Christians as they tried to separate from what were now the "impious" and "malodorous" Jews and establish that the destruction of the temple was God's punishment for the Jews' murder of Jesus, as he had prophesied.
In its Prologue ("The Destruction of Jerusalem") and its Epilogue ("The Origins of Antisemitism"), Goodman shows his ability to write succinctly and clearly. Many parts of the rest of the book can be more of a struggle as he includes multiple quotes and diverts off the main theme. Just one example of this is his section "Diversity and Toleration". It is important to understand how tolerate Rome was, however he goes on at great length about Spanish, Greek and other examples - about half way through I would have been happy to take his word on some of this.
The final couple of paragraphs of the book give me some concern as he tries to project this forward to today. It seems his inclusion of Moses Hess's vision for a Jewish state in Palestine (called "Rom and Jerusalem" - just like Goodman's book) as a test of tolerance towards Jews is an oversimplification of the issue of the creation of a Jewish state by Christian countries in the middle of Islamic lands. However, this is a minor variation from an otherwise balanced and objective analysis of a complex situation. This book is worth reading but with a little more editing it could have been a great book.
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