Cite This Work While the messianic idea survived in Judaism, it became much more tightly controlled, concealed in mystical and exegetical tradition. His independent kingdom lasted for three years before being crushed through great Roman effort. [9], In 132, the revolt led by Bar Kokhba quickly spread from central Judea across the country, cutting off the Roman garrison in Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem). Byzantine control of the region was finally lost to Muslim Arab armies in 637 CE, when Umar ibn al-Khattab completed the conquest of Akko. [56] Bar Kokhba's fate is not certain, with two alternative traditions in the Babylonian Talmud ascribing the death of Bar Kokhba either to a snake bite or other natural causes during the Roman siege or possibly killed on the orders of the Sanhedrin, as a false Messiah. These included Jewish Christians who also joined in the fighting against the Romans and whom bar Kosiba [a leader of the Jewish revolt] supposedly ousted from his ranks if they refused to renounce Jesus. To Christians, the revolt was furt… Shortly after the eruption of the revolt, Bar Kokhba's rebels inflicted heavy casualties to Legio X Fretensis, based in Aelia Capitolina (Jerusalem). The Jewish sage Rabbi Akiva, who was the spiritual leader of the revolt,[45] identified Simon Bar Kosiba as the Jewish messiah, and gave him the surname "Bar Kokhba" meaning "Son of a Star" in the Aramaic language, from the Star Prophecy verse from Numbers 24:17: "There shall come a star out of Jacob". Jewish messianism was abstracted and spiritualized, and rabbinical political thought became deeply cautious and conservative. iv.6,§2; Orosius "Hist." (Mishnah Taanit 4:6). [8] One interpretation involves the visit in 130 CE of Hadrian to the ruins of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. For the Jews, the revolt was the last in a series of historical disasters, and for the most part, they sought to escape its trauma through silence. Bar Kokhba Revolt coinage were coins issued by the Judaean rebel state, headed by Simon Bar Kokhba, during the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire of 132-135 CE. In 2014, one half of a Latin inscription was discovered in Jerusalem during excavations near the Damascus Gate. Jews were hiding in caves in order to be able to perform the mitzvahs.When discovered by Roman soldiers, they resisted, in some cases successfully. It is possible that the rebels regained control of the city of Jerusalem, and they must have held large portions of ancient Judea. The Bar Kokhba revolt (A.D. 132-135) was the last in a series of conflicts between Rome and its province of Judaea in the first and second centuries A.D. After the conclusion of the Jewish War (A.D. 66-70) in A.D. 70, relations only became more strained, with periodic eruptions of … According to Lamentations Rabbah, the head of Bar Kokhba was presented to Emperor Hadrian after the Siege of Betar. [46] The name Bar Kokhba does not appear in the Talmud but in ecclesiastical sources. The tensions continued to build up in the consequence of the Kitos War, the second large-scale Jewish insurrection in the Eastern Mediterranean, the final stages of which were fought in Judaea. The Jewish sources are far more explicit, with tales of Roman soldiers smashing babies against rocks and the mass slaughter of civilians. [84], Until 1951, Bar Kokhba Revolt coinage was the sole archaeological evidence for dating the revolt. The historical memory of the Bar Kochba Revolt has been much weaker than that of the Jewish revolt of 70 CE, perhaps because of the spectacular tragedy of the Temple’s destruction, perhaps because no detailed history of it still survives today. The Zionist youth movement Betar took its name from Bar Kokhba's traditional last stronghold, and David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first prime minister, took his Hebrew last name from one of Bar Kokhba's generals. According to a Rabbinic midrash, the Romans executed eight leading members of the Sanhedrin (The list of Ten Martyrs include two earlier Rabbis): R. Akiva; R. Hanania ben Teradion; the interpreter of the Sanhedrin, R. Huspith; R. Eliezer ben Shamua; R. Hanina ben Hakinai; R. Jeshbab the Scribe; R. Yehuda ben Dama; and R. Yehuda ben Baba. Eccl." On Lag Ba'Omer, Israeli children celebrate the Jewish rebels' victory over the Romans 2,000 years ago. The war had no chronicler such as Josephus Flavius, at least none whose work has survived. Dio recounts that, following the war, "Hadrian, in writing to the Senate, did not employ the opening phrase commonly affected by the emperors, ‘If you and your children are in health, it is well; I and the legions are in health’" (69:14.3). While by no means comprehensive, these sources do provide several important details. Galilee became an important center of Rabbinic Judaism, where the Jerusalem Talmud was compiled in the 4th-5th centuries CE. Severus' arrival almost doubled the number of Roman troops facing the rebels. Bar Kochba followed the same strategy that the Jews had followed in the first rebellion against Rome. Eusebius also describes an intense messianic aura surrounding Bar Kochba, who he calls 'Barchochebas,' saying this means "son of a star." Even the causes of the Bar Kochba revolt remain unclear. Despite the reference to Jerusalem, as of early 2000s, archaeological finds, and the lack of revolt coinage found in Jerusalem, supported the view that the revolt did not capture Jerusalem. [8] These coins include references to "Year One of the redemption of Israel", "Year Two of the freedom of Israel", and "For the freedom of Jerusalem". [13] They note that, unlike the aftermath of the First Jewish–Roman War chronicled by Josephus, the Jewish population of Judea was devastated after the Bar Kokhba Revolt,[13] being killed, exiled, or sold into slavery, and Jewish religious and political authority was suppressed far more brutally than before. The deeply ambivalent rabbinical position regarding Messianism, as expressed most famously in Maimonides "Epistle to Yemen," would seem to have its origins in the attempt to deal with the trauma of a failed Messianic uprising. The cave systems were often interconnected and used not only as hideouts for the rebels but also for storage and refuge for their families. [citation needed]. Aharon Oppenheimer, ‘The Ban on Circumcision as a Cause of the Revolt: A Reconsideration,’ Aharon Oppenheimer, התגלית שהוכיחה: מרד בר כוכבא חל גם בשומרון. What details of the actual revolt remain to us are mostly through the epitome of Cassius Dio. Rabbinical literature ascribes the defeat to Bar Kokhba killing his maternal uncle, Rabbi Elazar Hamudaʻi, after suspecting him of collaborating with the enemy, thereby forfeiting Divine protection. The rebels incorporated combined tactics to fight the Roman Army. When it was spoken of, it was usually to degrade Bar Kochba as a false messiah and lament the extremism that led to the doomed revolts against Rome. 2005. The fate of Bar Kochba himself is not clear, though the sources indicate that he most likely died in the final battle for Beitar or shortly before. 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