Page 32 - Attractive Deception - The False Hope of the Hebrew Roots Movement

period of Greek rule and influence over the Jewish people. Alexander died at the age of 33 in the
year 323 B.C.. He had conquered a massive area in the brief period of his conquests. Upon his death,
the territory over which he had established rule was split up under four of his generals. One of these
generals (Ptolemy) established rule over Egypt and adjacent lands. This became known as the
Ptolemaic Empire. Another general established rule over the land of Syria. This became known as
the Seleucid Empire.

Israel/Palestine was caught between these two Greek empires and control over the Jews changed
hands numerous times. For a period of time the Ptolemaic Empire of Egypt ruled over Palestine. This
rule was finally put to an end when the Seleucid King Antiochus III invaded Palestine in 201 B.C..
Palestine remained firmly under Seleucid control until the Maccabean Revolt that lasted from about
168-164 B.C.. By the time of the Maccabean Revolt, the Jews had been under Greek influence for
more than one and a half centuries. Numerous Greek cities had been built in the land of Palestine,
and a significant number of Jews had become Hellenized, having adopted Greek culture and in many
cases their religion as well. This led to a struggle between Orthodox Jews and Hellenized Jews, with
a state of civil war erupting between them at times.

Although the Talmud, the books of I and II Maccabees, and other Jewish sources describe the
Maccabean revolt against the Greek Seleucid rulers of Palestine as a righteous revolution
precipitated by Greek oppression, religious persecution, and the defiling of the second Temple in
Jerusalem, there is solid reason to believe this is a biased view. It was the policy of the Greeks to
allow conquered peoples to retain a significant amount of autonomy, as long as they paid taxes and
remained loyal to the Greek rulers. This was the condition of the Jewish people from the beginning
of Greek rule. Following is a letter recorded by the Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus that is
found in his writing Antiquities of the Jews. This letter was written by the Greek King of the Seleucid
Empire to the Greek ruler of the Ptolemaic Empire.

KING ANTIOCHUS TO PTOLEMY, SENDETH GREETING.
"Since the Jews, upon our first entrance on their country, demonstrated their friendship towards us,
and when we came to their city [Jerusalem], received us in a splendid manner, and came to meet
us with their senate, and gave abundance of provisions to our soldiers, and to the elephants, and
joined with us in ejecting the garrison of the Egyptians that were in the citadel, we have thought fit
to reward them, and to retrieve the condition of their city, which hath been greatly depopulated by
such accidents as have befallen its inhabitants, and to bring those that have been scattered abroad
back to the city. And, in the first place, we have determined, on account of their piety towards God,
to bestow on them, as a pension, for their sacrifices of animals that are fit for sacrifice, for wine, and
oil, and frankincense, the value of twenty thousand pieces of silver, and [six] sacred artabrae of fine
flour, with one thousand four hundred and sixty medimni of wheat, and three hundred and
seventy-five medimni of salt. And these payments I would have fully paid them, as I have sent orders
to you. I would also have the work about the temple finished, and the cloisters, and if there be any
thing else that ought to be rebuilt. And for the materials of wood, let it be brought them out of Judea
itself and out of the other countries, and out of Libanus tax free; and the same I would have observed
as to those other materials which will be necessary, in order to render the temple more glorious; and
let all of that nation live according to the laws of their own country; and let the senate, and the
priests, and the scribes of the temple, and the sacred singers, be discharged from poll-money and