Saturday, 10/21/17
One of the Apostles, Simon
the Zealot, belonged to that Jewish political party that were anxious for home-rule
without being rebellious towards Rome.
But after the year 60 A.D. a
faction of the Zealots became vicious, with those members carrying short daggers
known as "shikas." The shika bearing Shikaries took to laying in ambush
for Roman patrol.
The Roman senate were
perplexed as to ways to deal with the Shikaries who hid themselves in Jerusalem's
back alleys. With the dour situation causing the Roman senators to throw up
their hands, in the year 69 A.D. they reached the drastic decision to send
their General Vespasian to completely destroy Jerusalem.
Vespasian sealed off Jerusalem,
constructing massive catapults to throw fire and destruction on the temple and
its surrounding city.
In Jerusalem, the Pharisees had
opposed to the Shikaries, always remaining obedient to Rome, and so Vespasian
allowed the Pharisees and their families to leave Jerusalem, and to travel to Jamnia,
a camp the Pharisees owned on the Mediterranean.
Settled in there, this
"people of the temple" were perplexed as to what they should call
themselves since the destruction of their temple.
Now, back in 450 A.D. the
Jews had decided on taking the old Law of Moses as their civil law. That had
been good enough, but subsequently they had added thousands of new laws, the
Mishna, to the genuine Law.
In today's reading Paul said,
"It was not through the law (the Mishna) that the promise was made to
Abraham."
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