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Intertestamental Period
A timeline of events during the Intertestamental Period, occurring in Palestine, Greece and Rome, Egypt and North Africa, Syria and Turkey, and the Fertile Crescent.
A timeline of events during the Intertestamental Period, occurring in Palestine, Greece and Rome, Egypt and North Africa, Syria and Turkey, and the Fertile Crescent.
Greece and Rome
Diadochi fight for control of Alexander's kingdom
322 BC - 282 BC
Ptolemy gets Egypt, Palestine, southern Syria
Seleucus get most of Asia Minor, northern Syria, Mesopotamia and remainder of eastern empire
Antigonids get mainland Greece, Thrace, and other territory
Wars of the Diadochi
322 BC - 301 BC
Delos - oldest diaspora synogogue
200 BCE - 100 BCE
Jews expelled from Rome
139 BC
Jews expelled from Rome for “attempting to transmit their sacred rites to Romans”
Synagogue at Ostia (earliest layer), port city for Rome
40 - 70
The Jewish community in Ostia is mentioned in an inscription found in Castel Porziano, to the south-east of Ostia. We hear of the [universitas] Iudaeorum [in col(onia) Ost(iensi) commo]rantium, and of the gerusiarches ("president of the elders") Caius Iulius Iustus. In the necropolis to the south of Ostia, on the Pianabella, the funerary inscription has been found of an archisynagogus, Plotius Fortunatus. Note that these Jews have adopted Roman names.
Syria and Turkey
Alexander crosses into Asia Minor
334 BC
Alexander defeats Darius III at Issus
333 BC
Alexander takes Tyre
333 BC
Battle of Magnesia
190 BC
Antiochus defeated by Rome
Palestine
Palestine ruled by the Persians
538 BC - 332 BC
Second Temple built
516 BC
Ezra and Nehemiah
458 BC - 445 BC
Legend of Alexander's trip to Jerusalem to bow before the High Priest
333 BC
Antiquities 11.8.1-6
Jewish troops join Alexander's conquests(?)
332 BC
Ag. Apion 1.22 §§ 192.201-4
Samaria revolts, bringing Greek troops into Palestine
332 BC
Palestine ruled by the Ptolemies
301 BC - 198 BC
Ptolemy takes Palestine
301 BC
Allows High Priest Hezekiah to migrate to Egypt with a great many Jews
Joseph pays tribute when Onias refused
260 BC
Joseph, a Tobiad and nephew of High Priest Onias II, pays tribute when Onias refused
Joseph won tax farming rights from Ptolemy II
260 BC
Zenon papyri
Zenon visits Palestine
259 BC - 258 BC
Zenon was the secretary to a finance minister of Ptolemy II
Composition of Tobit
250 BC - 175 BC
http://www.backtoclassics.com/images/pics/bernardostrozzi/bernardostrozzi_thehealingoftobit.jpg
The Healing of Tobit by Bernardo Strozzi, 1635
Hyrcanus wins tax farming privileges from his father Joseph
250 BC - 200 BC
Hyrcanus, Joseph’s youngest son, wins tax farming privileges from him when his father and brothers shift their loyalty to the Seleucids
Antiochus III defeats Ptolemy V
200 BC
Antiochus III takes control of Palestine and southern Syria
Battle within Jerusalem between pro-Ptolemaic and pro-Seleucid factions
200 BC
Antiochus III grants tax reprieve to pro-Ptolemaic forces (Ant. 12.3.3-4 §§ 138-46) for repairs
Simon II repairs Jerusalem
200 BC
Palestine ruled by the Seleucids
198 BC - 142 BC
Seleucus IV raids temple treasury
187 BC - 177 BC
Seleucus IV tries and fails to raid temple treasury, although otherwise peaceful time
Hyrcanus ben Joseph builds palatial estate
180 BC
Hyrcanus ben Joseph of Tobiad family builds palatial estate at ‘Araq el-Emir in Transjordan
Onias III deposed as High Priest
175 BC
Onias III serves as high priest when his brother Jason paid bribe to Antiochus for high priesthood and to Hellenize Jerusalem. Onias III is deposed by Antiochus IV and replaced by Jason, who established Greek gymnasium education in Jerusalem.
Menaleus bribes Antiochus for high priesthood
172 BC
Menaleus bribed Antiochus for high priesthood (outbidding Jason) and sold off temple vessels. A riot ensues.
Onias III killed by Menaleus
170 BC
Jerusalem Temple plundered
169 BC
Citadel founded in Jerusalem
168 BC
Jason attacks Menaleus to regain high priesthood
168 BC
Antiochus sends army to put down riot and orders the suppression of Jewish religion.
Jews rebel
167 BC
Rebellion eventually led by the Maccabees
Temple desecrated by pagan cult
167 BC
Practitioners of Judaism persecuted
Maccabees retake the Temple
165 BC
December: Maccabees retake the Temple and restore the cult. Antiochus withdraws his decree.
Temple rededicated (Hanukah)
164 BC
Menaleus executed
162 BC
Menaleus executed, Alcimus appointed High Priest
Judas Maccabee defeats Nicanor
161 BC
Judas makes treaty with Rome
Judas Maccabee killed at Battle of Elasa
160 BC
Jonathan takes over
Death of High Priest Alcimus
159 BC
High priesthood vacant
159 BC - 152 BC
Treaty between Jonathan and Bacchides
157 BC
Syrians withdraw from Palestine
Jonathan serves as High Priest
152 BC - 142 BC
Appointed by Alexander Balas
Simon serves as High Priest
142 BC - 134 BC
Simon confirmed as High Priest, commander, and ethnarch in 140, supports rival Seleucid faction
Jews claim freedom from foreign rule
139 BC
Jews claim freedom from foreign rule, in theory but not reality
Composition of Judith
135 BC - 104 BC
Judith with the Head of Holofernes by Cristofano Allori, 1613
Antiochus VII invades and besieges Jerusalem
134 BC
John Hyrcanus I becomes High Priest
134 BC
John Hyrcanus I, Simon’s son, becomes high priest and makes peace with Seleucids
John Hyrcanus I serves as High Priest
134 BC - 104 BC
John Hyrcanus I serves as high priest ruling like king, but without title; makes independence real in 129/128
Simon assassinated
134 BC
Hasmonean expansion into Palestine
126 BC - 104 BC
Hasmonean expansion into Samaria, Idumea, and Galilee
Gamla Synogogue
10 BC - 70 AD
Dr. Lee Levine came forward in writing and in SBL sessions and elsewhere and made emphatically clear that there were indeed purpose built synagogues even in Jesus' day and thereafter, and that in fact the practice may well pre-date the Herodian era. One of the sites Levine most based his argument on was in the lower Golan Heights, at the village of Gamla, sometimes also called Gamala (from the Hebrew word for camel, because the hill on which the village rests looks like the hump, or perhaps the nose of a camel from a certain angle). As it turns out, Levine was absolutely and positively right. A little of the history of Gamla is in order, since it is not a city mentioned in the Bible.
The village seems to have begun as a Selucid outpost in the 2nd century B.C. where a fort was established as a sort of early warning signal for those living in the Holy Land. It seems to have begun to become a civilian settlement of Jews sometime later in that century. Bible readers may know this site if they have read Josephus' Antiquities, in particular 13.394 which recounts how Josephus himself, as a Jewish commander early in the Jewish war in the A.D. 60s fortified this outpost as one of his main lines of defense of Galilee from Roman attack.
Fertile Crescent
Darius III killed
331 BC
Alexander takes over Persian Empire as far as the Ganges in India
330 BC - 323 BC
Alexander dies in Babylon
323 BC
Antiochus III rules Seleucid Empire
222 BC - 187 BC
Antiochus IV Epiphanes rules Seleucid Empire
177 BC - 164 BC
Death of Antiochus IV
164 BC
Antiochus VII dies
129 BC
Antiochus VII dies; Judea is de facto independent; Hyrcanus campaigns in Transjordan
Egypt and North Africa
Jewish Temple erected at Elephantine in Egypt
525 BC
Alexander buried in Alexandria
323 BC
Earliest evidence of synagogue from Ptolemaic Egypt
300 BC - 200 BC
Translation of Torah into Greek
250 BC
c. 250 BC
Antiochus IV invades Egypt
170 BC
Onias IV flees to Egypt
170 BC
Onias IV fled to Egypt and built alternative temple at Heliopolis in c. 160 (Ant. 13.62-73)
Antiochus' first Egyptian campaign
169 BC
Antiochus invades Egypt again
168 BC
Antiochus IV invades Egypt again and Romans forced him to withdraw;
Onias IV builds a temple at Leontopolis
160 BC
Onias IV builds a temple at Leontopolis in Egypt after being expelled by the Hasmoneans (destroyed in 73 CE)