PART II
THE IDENTITY OF BABYLON

JERUSALEM A.D. 66-70

The fact of history is that Jerusalem at the time of the apostles was a city which was subject to Rome without any real authority of its own. At the middle of the first century it had become an oppressed city, not only subject to its Roman masters but precarious in its existence. It was threatened with annihilation. In his book The Holy City, a history of Jerusalem, Albert Williams describes events in the city leading up to its destruction.

"From the year 44 to the dread date of 66, events in the Holy City degenerated into a long parade of procurators who seemed helpless to quiet the rebellious Jews. One by one they came to the imperial seat at Caesarea, and one after another admitted themselves unable to cope with the inflamed tempers of their subjects ... To combat the increasing recalcitrance of the residents of Jerusalem, the successive procurators became increasingly tyrannical and brutal to the Jews. At last, in the year 66, the caldron of hatred spilled over into open battle.

"Those who hoped to live out their lives in some semblance of peace now packed such of their belongings as they could carry and fled the city, seeking homes in other sections of Palestine than Judea, for the zealots determined it a capital offence for any Jew even to desire to live at peace under Roman rule." 1

Bearing in mind the desperate situation of Jerusalem at this time, abandoned by most of her children and facing destruction at the hands of fired up Roman legions, we consider the following comment by Bro. Whittaker (Revelation, page 214).

"In A.D. 66, the well supported early date for the writing of Revelation, Jerusalem also was a city which 'had a kingdom over the kings of the Land.' Indeed, not only was Jerusalem a city with special authority over the various tetrarchies adjoining Judaea, but also the temple had an amazing degree of authority over Jewish communities in all parts of the Roman empire."

The Land was occupied by legions of Roman soldiers and was ruled, not from Jerusalem, but from Caesarea, by a governor appointed by Rome. Not since the days of Herod the Great had Jerusalem been even nominally in control of the Land. The tetrarchs were mere figureheads, particularly at this time, who answered to no one in Jerusalem but rather to Roman authority. Indeed, even the high priests in Jerusalem were, from the time of Christ, practically Roman appointees.

The scene was set for the destruction of Jerusalem some time before the event occurred. That is why Jesus had warned his followers to flee the city when the Roman armies appeared. And appear they did in A.D. 66. While the destruction of the city did not occur until A.D. 70, it must have been plain to all observers, and to many within the city itself, that the die was cast.

It is revealed by historians that Jewry outside the Land were not so affected by the destruction of their temple and holy city as might be supposed. Many of them, living in Gentile lands, had come to face the fact that the strength of Rome would prevail. Unlike the zealots in Jerusalem, Jews outside Palestine were realists, and they were somewhat prepared for their ties to Jerusalem to be broken; "... even before the destruction the sacrifices had ceased to be the main liturgical element, as the focus of religious life had to a large extent shifted to the synagogue, and Torah study ...".2 The synagogue system was already in effect before the fall of Jerusalem, and it would assure the survival of the Jews as a separate people. There were autonomous Jewish communities in various parts of the Roman empire; in one of them, Alexandria in Egypt, the Jews were largely self-governed. The community there had its own seventy elders and even its own temple. So it was that when Judaea sought to throw off the Roman yoke, no real support was to be had from the Jews in dispersion. A Jewish historian writes: "Nobody will join Jews in a war against the Roman Empire. Not even the Jewish Diaspora will lift a finger. Thus the war is lost before it is fought." 3

"The Jews of the Diaspora stood aside virtually completely from the revolt of the province of Judaea in 66-70 A.D. Not only was there no widespread rising in support of the homeland but the amount of external help forthcoming for the rebels in Palestine seems to have been negligible. ... The Diaspora within the Roman empire had no quarrel with Rome and therefore no wish to jeopardize their own favorable position by supporting the rebellion." 4

In A.D. 66-70 Jerusalem was able to exercise little authority or influence over Judaea or the Jewish community in other parts of the Roman world. The truth is that none of the Babylon phrases from the Apocalypse can be applied with any credibility to Jerusalem.

1 Williams, The Holy City, p. 249.

2 A History of the Jewish People, "The Jewish Diaspora in the Second Temple Era", ed. H. H. Ben-Sasson, pp. 277-281.

3 The Jewish World: History and Culture of the Jewish People, ed. Elie Kedourie, p. 107.

4 Smallwood, The Jews Under Roman Rule, p. 357