Moreover, what is often claimed to be a
characteristic of our tradition's reliability -- its awareness of the history
of its own transmission -- appears to be faulty. The first three mishnahs of
Tractate Avot say: "Moses received the Torah from Sinai, and
handled it to Joshua. Joshua handled it to the elders, and the elders -- to the
prophets, and the prophets handled it to the men of the Great Assembly... Simeon the Righteous was one of the last men of
the Great Assembly... Antignos of Socho received [the Torah] from
Simeon the Righteous..."
This seems to be a consistent picture. However,
if we try to find out when all these people lived, the problems begin. On one
hand, the Gemara (Yoma 69a) tells us of the meeting between Simeon the
Righteous and Alexander the Great -- the meeting which saved the Second Temple
from destruction by Alexander's armies as they conquered the Land of Israel
from the Persians. On the other hand, the last prophets were Haggai, Zechariah,
and Malachi (Yoma 9b, Sotah 48b). They returned from Babylonian exile after the
edict of Cyrus was issued and took part in building the Second Temple (Ezra
5:1-2); the last of them -- Malachi -- lived after the Temple was built, when
sacrifices were already being brought there (Malachi 1:8). So the period of
"the men of the Great Assembly" seems to fit the period of Persian
rule over the Land of Israel.
Judaic tradition sees this period as rather
short: "The kingdom of Media and Persia [lasted] 52 years" (Seder
Olam Rabbah, Milikowski edition, chapter 30). Correspondingly, "the men of
the Great Assembly" are reported to be a single generation: "The Beit Din of Ezra was called the Great
Assembly, which consisted of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, Daniel and Hananiah
and Mishael and Azariah, and Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah, and Mordechai the
Linguist, and Zerubbabel, and many other sages, a total of 120 elders. The last
of them was Simeon the Righteous, who was one of the 120. He received the Oral
Torah from all of them, and he was the High Priest after Ezra." (Maimonides,
Foreword to "Mishneh Torah")
The 120 elders of the Great Assembly, according
to Maimonides, included all the Jewish sages of the Persian period -- from late
prophets to Simeon the Righteous. For a period of 52 years this is not
implausible.
However, the problem is: the account of 52
years is utterly unhistorical. From several independent Greek historical
sources we know that Persian rule over the ancient Middle East commenced with
Cyrus's conquest of the Babylonian empire (539 BCE) and ended when Darius III
was defeated by Alexander the Great (332 BCE). This period spanned the reigns
of the following Persian kings:
Cyrus
|
539-530
BCE
|
Cambyses
|
530-522
BCE
|
Darius
I
|
522-486
BCE
|
Xerxes
|
486-465
BCE
|
Artaxerxes
I
|
465-424
BCE
|
Darius
II
|
423-404
BCE
|
Artaxerxes
II
|
404-358
BCE
|
Artaxerxes
III
|
358-338
BCE
|
Arses
|
338-336
BCE
|
Darius
III
|
336-332
BCE
|
(See Mitchell
First, Jewish History in Conflict, Appendix B)
Though there are some disagreements between
ancient historians concerning the exact number of years each Persian king
ruled, the total length of the Persian period appears to be about 200 years
-- a discrepancy of 150 years from the Judaic tradition. This is too
much to be ascribed to the imprecision of Greek historical documents, which
usually does not exceed a dozen years. The dates in the table above are brought
according to the 2nd century CE Hellenistic Egyptian author Ptolemy. Ptolemy,
being an astronomer, took special care to mention the years of solar and lunar
eclipses. As dates of eclipses can be calculated, this also gave him a tool for
checking the accuracy of his chronological lists, called Ptolemy's Canon.
To us, the dates of eclipses -- which we can also calculate using our system of
calendar reckoning -- help fit the chronology of the ancient world into CE-BCE
terms. The table above lists only those Persian kings who ruled for more than a
year. Lest someone think that Greek historians artificially "created"
a long line of Persian kings and a protracted Persian period, in the 19th
century many Old Persian inscriptions were found in the ruins of ancient
Persian palaces -- and all these inscriptions give us a picture consistent with
Greek historical writings, and especially with Ptolemy's Canon (see M.
First, Jewish History in Conflict, pp. 164-168).
It is clear that people living at the beginning
of the Persian period (like the later prophets) could not meet those living at
its end, and that Simeon the Righteous, if he met Alexander in 332 BCE, could
not receive Torah from Daniel, Hananiah, and Mishael, and Azariah, who are
reported to be have been taken as children to the court of Nebuchadnezzar even
before the First Temple's destruction (Daniel 1:1-6), and therefore were quite
old men at the commencement of the Persian period in 539 BCE.
The date of the Second Temple's construction,
as given by the Judaic tradition, seems unhistorical: "Rabbi Yossi the son of Rabbi learned: the
Persian kingdom ruled 34 years during the [Second] Temple era, the Greek
kingdom ruled 180 years during the Temple era, the Hasmonean kingdom ruled 103
years during the Temple era, the kingdom of Herod ruled 103 years during the
Temple era." (Tractate Avodah Zarah 8b-9a)
If the whole Persian period lasted, according to
Chazal, 52 years, then it appears that the Temple was built 18 years after the
period began, in 521 BCE. However, the Scripture states that the Temple was
built "in the sixth year of the reign of Daryavesh the
king" (Ezra 6:15). There were three Persian kings
called Daryavesh (Darius), the third of them reigned only four years,
and the sixth year of both Darius I (516) and Darius II (417) are distant from
332 BCE, when the Greeks took over, by much more than 34 years.
Chazal determined that the Second Temple
existed for 420 years, and this served them (and also us) as a base for
calculating the shemitah years (see Erchin 11b-12b). But as we know,
the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 CE, and be the Daryavesh of
Ezra 6:15 Darius I or Darius II, we obtain a period much longer than 420 years
(586 or 487 years correspondingly). This means that our determination of
the shemitah years is incorrect.
Maimonides called the Great Assembly "the
Beit Din of Ezra," and indeed, in our tradition Ezra is considered the most
prominent of Jewish sages in the post-exilic period: "When the Torah had
become forgotten by Israel, Ezra came from Babylon and established it
anew" (Sukkah 20a), "Ezra was worthy of the Torah being given through
him" (Sanhedrin 21:2), etc. And yet we have no clear historical account of
Ezra's life from any other source. From Ezra 7:1-7 we learn that he came to the
Land of Israel in the seventh year of the Persian king Artachshasta. Greek
historians -- and after them, all Western historical sources -- brought this
name as Artaxerxes, and from the table above we can see there were three
Persian kings with this name: Artaxerxes I (465-424), Artaxerxes II (404-358),
and Artaxerxes III (358-338). The possible years of Ezra's arrival in Jerusalem
are 458, 397 and 351 BCE. According to Ezra 7:1, he came to Jerusalem after the
Second Temple was built. The Temple was built in the sixth year of Darius's
reign -- but as there were two Dariuses who reigned for at least six years --
Darius I (522-486), and Darius II (423-404) -- this detail does not seem to
help us either.
To know which Darius is referred to, one should
analyze the Scriptural account. It relates that the building began by
initiative of Cyrus, King of Persia, in the first year of his reign (Ezra
1:1-3). Cyrus permitted the Jews to "go up to Jerusalem, which is in
Judah, and build the house of the Lord G-d of Israel." The Jews who took
advantage of this permission and returned to the Land of Israel were led by
Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, who started
building the Temple a year and a month after their arrival in Jerusalem (Ezra
3:8). Because of intrigues by the gentile inhabitants of the Land of Israel,
who alarmed Persian authorities by describing the building as preparation for a
Jewish revolt against Persia, the building was stopped until the second year of
the reign of Darius, King of Persia, when it was resumed, again by Zerubbabel
the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Jozadak, under the spiritual
leadership of the prophets Haggai and Zechariah (Ezra 4:24-5:2). In the sixth
year of Darius' reign the building was finished (Ezra 6:15). This suggests that
the Darius spoken of is Darius I -- otherwise, Jeshua and Zerubbabel would have
to live 117 years (as adults) from the first year of Cyrus to the second year
of Darius II.
But in Ezra 4 we find gentile inhabitants of
the Land of Israel writing to the Persian kings Achashverosh and Artachshasta,
asking them to stop the building of Jerusalem. Artachshasta agrees with
them and halts the building of the Temple "until the second year of the
reign of Daryavesh, King of Persia" (Ezra 4:24). In Ezra 6:14 we find
that the Second Temple was built "according to G-d's will, and according
to the will of Koresh, Daryavesh, and Artachshasta, kings of
Persia." So before the Daryavesh in whose time the Temple was
built ruled, a king named Artachshasta reigned -- in that case, the
Temple could only have been built during the time of Darius II. Then Ezra could
not come to the Land of Israel before 397 BCE. The Scriptural account of Ezra's
lifetime is self-contradictory.
The book of Nechemiah often describes Ezra and
Nechemiah as contemporaries (see e.g. Nehemiah 8:1-9), and historical documents
discovered at the excavations at Elephantine, Egypt, suggest that Nechemiah
(and Ezra) lived at the time of Artaxerxes I. A letter by Elephantine Jews to
the Persian governor of Judah, dated to 408 BCE, mentions an appeal on a
certain issue to "Daliah and Shelamiah the sons of Sanballat, the satrap
of Samaria" (Encyclopedia Hebraica, Sanballat, v. 26, p. 141). Sanballat,
as we know, was the arch-foe of Nechemiah. If by 408 BCE Sanballat's sons had
already attained positions in the Persian administration, Sanballat's own term
in office as satrap of Samaria must have begun much earlier. Provided that
Nechemiah came to Jerusalem in the 20th year of Artaxerxes' reign (see Nehemiah
2), this could have happened in either 445 BCE (in the time of Artaxerxes I) or
384 BCE (in the time of Artaxerxes II). Based on the time of Sanballat's reign
in Samaria, we should eliminate the date of 384 BCE, and then we should date
the period of Ezra and Nechemiah as being during the reign of Artaxerxes I
(465-424 BCE), which means that the Second Temple was built in the sixth year
of the reign of Darius I (516 BCE) -- but then, again, we must conclude that
the account of Artachshasta's reign before the Temple was built is wrong.
In short, the Scripture gives us a completely
inconsistent account of Ezra's life, and some details seem confused, which
suggests that the author (authors?) of the books of Ezra and Nechemiah were a
bit overwhelmed by all those Dariuses and Artaxerxeses. However, to make his
confusion possible he had to have lived some time after all the relevant Dariuses
and Artaxerxeses had died -- that is, after the death of Artaxerxes II in 358
BCE. This means that the account of Ezra the Priest, the resuscitator of the
Torah, was composed only on the eve of or during the Hellenistic period, long
after whatever date is chosen for Ezra's death.
In this context it is interesting to note that
no inscription or historical document of the Persian era mentions people called
Ezra and Nechemiah, despite the Scriptural narrative's claims that they were
given authority by Persian kings and are said to have held very significant
positions in the Persian court: Nechemiah was the king's cupbearer (a position
of great significance according to Herodotus' "History," III, 34),
and Ezra was a sofer (safra in Aramaic and shapiru in Akkadian)
-- an official secretary and the person in charge of the royal archives (see Encyclopedia
Hebraica, v. 6, p. 314). We find mention of other people in such positions, and
even of Jewish officials of lower rank, in Persian historical documents -- but
nothing is said of Ezra and Nechemiah.
In the ninth chapter of the book of Daniel we
find that "in the first year of Daryavesh the son of Achashverosh of
the seed of Medes, who reigned over the kingdom of Chaldeans" Daniel
prayed and asked G-d to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. Rashi wrote in his
commentary on Daniel 9:1: "'In the first year of Daryavesh the
son of Achashverosh' -- it is not the Achashverosh who acted in the
days of Haman, for that one was king of Persia. But this one is Daryavesh the
Mede, who reigned over the kingdom of Chaldeans after Belshazzar was killed, as
is written above, 'And Darius the Mede took the power' (Daniel 6:1)."
However, it was neither the Medes nor king
Darius who captured "the kingdom of Chaldeans" -- Babylon -- but the Persians
under the rule of their great king Cyrus, whom the Scripture
calls Koresh and whose Persian name
was Kurush or Kurash. In autumn 539 BCE the Persian general
Gobyras entered the city of Babylon without any resistance and killed the
co-regent of Babylon, Prince Belshazzar. Cyrus himself entered the city 17 days
later. (Though Daniel 6:30 calls Belshazzar "the king of the
Chaldeans," he was not the king but the son of the last Babylonian king,
Nabonidus, and the de facto ruler of Babylon while his father was on military
campaigns. Incidentally, Daniel 5:18-22 calls Belshazzar the son of
Nebuchadnezzar.) The true king of Babylon, Nabonidus, surrendered to Cyrus of
his own will. There are varying accounts of what happened to him later:
according to the Greek historian Xenophon he was killed, but according to the
Babylonian historian Berosus, Nabonidus became Cyrus's vassal and was given the
small territory of Kerman in eastern Iran to rule (see Encyclopedia
Hebraica, Nabunaid, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, Belshazzar,
and also Mesopotamia, history of, The last kings
of Babylonia).
Daniel 11:2-4 calculates the total number of
Persian kings as four, and that figure is understood by later Rabbinic
tradition as three (Seder Olam Rabbah, Milikowski edition, section 28). But
again, there were many more kings in the Persian empire -- there are ten who
ruled more than a year and others who reigned less (see above). Thus the
account of the Persian period brought in the book of Daniel also appears to be
interwoven with error and unhistorical.
The problems with Jewish history during the
Persian period were so great that the Talmudic sages had no choice but to
"unite" Cyrus, Darius and Artaxerxes into the personality of a single
Persian king: "Koresh is Daryavesh is Artachshasta. Koresh --
for he was a kosher king, Artachshasta -- after the name of his kingdom,
and what is his personal name? Daryavesh." (Tractate Rosh HaShanah 3b)
But this is, of course, simply wrong. We have
seen from the table above that there were seven different Persian kings with
these names: Cyrus (Koresh), Darius (Daryavesh) I, II, and III, and Artaxerxes
(Artachshasta) I, II, and III. Each of them ruled in a different time, and the
history of each one's reign is known to us and was known in the time of Chazal,
too.
Nor are the things clearer about the person
described as he who handed on the Judaic tradition after the period of "the
Great Assembly" -- Simeon the Righteous. The Gemara in Yoma 69a describes
his meeting with Alexander the Great, whose troops conquered the Land of Israel
in 332 BCE. However, in Tractate Menachot 109b Simeon the Righteous is
described as the father of Onias the priest, the one who built the so-called
"Onias's Temple" [mikdash Chonio] in Leontopolis, Egypt, in the
mid-2nd century BCE. In this case, evidently, Simeon the Righteous himself
could not have lived before the late 3rd century BCE, and could neither meet
Alexander the Great nor transmit the Oral Torah after the end of the Persian
period. Were this not enough, in Tractate Sotah 33a we find: "And it happened to Simeon the Righteous,
that he heard the Divine Voice from the Holy of Holies, saying: the evil intent
which the foe said to be done with the Temple passed away,
for Gaskalgas has died and his decrees were abolished."
And though Rashi comments
that Gaskalgas is "the name of a Greek king," there never
was such a king in the Hellenistic world; of all gentile rulers who had any
plans concerning the Temple in Jerusalem, the
name Gaskalgas resembles only Gaius Iulius Caligula, the Roman
emperor in 37-41 CE. Caligula indeed suffered from megalomania, saw himself and
appeared in public as a deity, demanded his subjects worship him as a god, and
even built a temple devoted to the cult of himself. In his megalomania Caligula
also ordered his statue put in the Jewish Holy Temple. Agrippa I, who was
Caligula's friend and was appointed king of Judea by him, managed to persuade
the emperor to abandon his orders. A short time later, Caligula died.
This is the only possible basis for the
Gemara's story (despite the fact that Caligula's decrees concerning the Temple
were abolished before he even died). But of course, were Simeon the Righteous
to hear the Divine Voice after Caligula's death, he could neither meet
Alexander the Great in 332 BCE nor have a son who built a temple in Leontopolis
about 150 BCE. Again, the Judaic tradition has no clear account of a person
whom tradition itself claims to be one of its most prominent transmitters. This
makes the tradition largely unreliable as history, combined as it is with
legends and tall tales.
This is the fourth and final question
that I don’t have, in my own estimation, a satisfactory answer for (arnevet/shafan,
flat Earth, shemitah, and Persian history), but at the same time, a few notes
are in order.
Rabbi David Ganz, in his Tzemach David (also quoted by the
later Seder Hadorot from Rabbi Jechiel Halperin) writes: “With regard to the
number of, and times, of the Persian kings, many have become confused. Even
though that in Seder Olam chapter 30 and 28, it states that there were only
four Persian kings, nevertheless, you should know that according to Pirkei
D'Rabbi Eliezer … there were many more Persian kings … Also Rashi writes in his
commentary on Daniel 11:2: ‘the Sages said in Seder Olam that [the verse refers
to] Koresh, Achashverosh and Daryavesh … but in the book Jossipun ben Gurion it
is written that Koresh had a son that ruled after him, before the reign of
Achashverosh, and his name was Cambysus.’ Also Rav Sa'adya Gaon and Ibn Ezra mention there more than
four kings.”
In addition, the Tzemach David also explains that all of the
Persian kings were called Artaxerxes, similar to how all of the Egyptian rulers
were referred to as Pharaoh.
This, then, is the explanation of the Talmudic statement from
Rosh Hashanah: Koresh is Daryavesh is Artachshasta. Koresh --
for he was a kosher king, Artachshasta -- after the name of his kingdom,
and what is his personal name? Daryavesh." As both Rashi and Tosfot
explain over there, the Talmud is referring to Daryavesh II, the son of
Achashverosh. His real name was Daryavesh, but he was referred to as
Artachshasta, as all rulers of the Persian Empire were. In addition, he was
also called Koresh for his was a kosher king.
It would seem to me, based on my own studies of the subject,
that of the Persian rulers mentioned in Tanach, Koresh is synonymous with
Cyrus, Achashverosh is Xerxes I and his son, Daryavesh II, is Artaxerxes I.
Regarding the letter from Elephantine, the full text reads as
follows:
To our lord, Bagohi, governor
of Yehud, (from) your servants: Yedaniah and his associates, the
priests who are in the fortress of Yeb.
May the G-d of the Heavens perpetually
pursue the welfare of our lord greatly and grant you favors before Darius the
king and the "sons of the palace" a thousand times more than
now. May you be joyful and healthy at all times.
Now your servant Yedaniah and his
associates testify as follows:
In the month of Tammuz, in
the fourteenth year of King Darius, when Arsames departed and went to
the king, the priests of the god Khnub, who is in the fortress of
Yeb, conspired with Vidranga, who was administrator here, to destroy the temple
of Yahu in the fortress of Yeb. So that villain Vidranga sent this
order to his son Nefayan, who was in command of the garrison of the fortress
at Sawn: "The temple of the G-d Yahu in the fortress of Yeb shall be
destroyed." Nefayan consequently led the Egyptians with other troops.
Arriving with their weapons at the fortress of Yeb, they entered the temple and
burned it to the ground. They smashed the stone pillars that were there. They
demolished five great gateways constructed of hewn blocks of stone which were
in the temple; but their doors (are still standing), and the hinges of those
doors are made of bronze. And the roof of cedar in its entirety, with the . . .
and whatever else was there, were all burned with fire. As for the basins of
gold and silver and other articles that were in the temple, they carried all of
them off and took them as personal possessions.
Now, our ancestors built this temple
in the fortress of Yeb in the days of the kingdom of Egypt; and
when Cambyses came to Egypt he found it (already) constructed.
They (the Persians) knocked down all the temples of the Egyptian gods; but no
one damaged this temple. But when this happened, we and our wives and our
children wore sackcloth, and fasted, and prayed to Yahu, the L-rd of
Heaven, who has let us "see to" Vidranga. The axes removed the anklet
from his feet (?) and any property he had acquired was lost. And all those who
have sought to do evil to this temple—all of them—have all been killed, and we
have "seen to" them.
We have (previously) sent letters to
our lord when this catastrophe happened to us; and to the high priest
Yehochannan and his associates, the priests in Jerusalem; and to Ostan, the
kinsman of Anani; and the Judahite elites. They have never sent us a letter.
Furthermore, from the month of Tammuz, the fourteenth year of Darius the king,
until today, we have been wearing sackcloth and fasting, making our wives as
widows, not anointing ourselves with oil or drinking wine. Furthermore, from
then until now, in the seventeenth year of Darius the king, no
grain-offering, incense, or burnt-offering has been sacrificed in this temple.
Now your servants Yedaniah, and his associates, and the Judahites, all inhabitants of Yeb, state: If it seems good to our lord, remember this temple to reconstruct it, since they do not let us reconstruct it. Look to your clients and friends here in Egypt. Let a letter be sent from you to them concerning the temple of the G-d Yahu to construct it in the fortress of Yeb as it was before. And the grain-offering, incense, and burnt-offering will be offered in your name, and we will pray for you continuously—we, our wives, and our children, and the Judahites who are here, all of them—if you do this so that this temple is reconstructed. And you shall have honor before Yahu, the G-d of the Heavens, more than a man who offers him burnt-offerings and sacrifices worth a thousand talents of silver and gold. Because of this, we have written to inform you. We have also set forth the whole matter in a letter in our name to Delaiah and Shelemiah, the sons of Sanballat, the governor of Samaria. Furthermore, Arsames (the Persian satrap) knew nothing of all that was perpetrated on us.
Now your servants Yedaniah, and his associates, and the Judahites, all inhabitants of Yeb, state: If it seems good to our lord, remember this temple to reconstruct it, since they do not let us reconstruct it. Look to your clients and friends here in Egypt. Let a letter be sent from you to them concerning the temple of the G-d Yahu to construct it in the fortress of Yeb as it was before. And the grain-offering, incense, and burnt-offering will be offered in your name, and we will pray for you continuously—we, our wives, and our children, and the Judahites who are here, all of them—if you do this so that this temple is reconstructed. And you shall have honor before Yahu, the G-d of the Heavens, more than a man who offers him burnt-offerings and sacrifices worth a thousand talents of silver and gold. Because of this, we have written to inform you. We have also set forth the whole matter in a letter in our name to Delaiah and Shelemiah, the sons of Sanballat, the governor of Samaria. Furthermore, Arsames (the Persian satrap) knew nothing of all that was perpetrated on us.
On the twentieth of Marcheshwan,
the seventeenth year of King Darius.
As one can see, the date given in this letter is the 17th
year of King Darius. Therefore, I don’t think that this letter can honestly be
used as evidence against the dates given by Jewish tradition, as although if
one uses the dates given by conventional history, the 17th year of
Darius will correspond to 406 BCE, as you mentioned, one could explain using
the Jewish dates that the 17th year of Daryavesh II, falls out on 337
BCE, and as Daryavesh II was also called Artachshasta, the Second Temple was
built in the sixth year of his reign, in 348 BCE.
With regard to Simeon the Righteous and the Temple of Onias, I
note that Josephus writes the same story, in a way that parallels the story
mentioned in the Talmud. Josephus writes in his Wars of the Jews vii. 10, § 2-4:
“Now Lupus did then govern Alexandria, who presently sent Caesar word of this
commotion; who having in suspicion the restless temper of the Jews for
innovation, and being afraid lest they should get together again, and persuade
some others to join with them, gave orders to Lupus to demolish that Jewish
temple which was in the region called Onion, and was in Egypt, which was
built and had its denomination from the occasion following: Onias, the son of
Simon, one of the Jewish high priests fled from Antiochus the king of Syria,
when he made war with the Jews, and came to Alexandria; and as Ptolemy received
him very kindly, on account of hatred to Antiochus, he assured him, that if he
would comply with his proposal, he would bring all the Jews to his assistance;
and when the king agreed to do it so far as he was able, he desired him to give
him leave to build a temple some where in Egypt, and to worship God according
to the customs of his own country; for that the Jews would then be so much
readier to fight against Antiochus who had laid waste the temple at Jerusalem,
and that they would then come to him with greater good-will; and that, by
granting them liberty of conscience, very many of them would come over to him. So
Ptolemy complied with his proposals, and gave him a place one hundred and
eighty furlongs distant from Memphis. That Nomos was called the Nomos of
Hellopolis, where Onias built a fortress and a temple, not like to that at
Jerusalem, but such as resembled a tower. He built it of large stones to the
height of sixty cubits; he made the structure of the altar in imitation of that
in our own country, and in like manner adorned with gifts, excepting the make
of the candlestick, for he did not make a candlestick, but had a [single] lamp
hammered out of a piece of gold, which illuminated the place with its rays, and
which he hung by a chain of gold; but the entire temple was encompassed with a
wall of burnt brick, though it had gates of stone. The king also gave him a
large country for a revenue in money, that both the priests might have a
plentiful provision made for them, and that God might have great abundance of
what things were necessary for his worship. Yet did not Onias do this out of a
sober disposition, but he had a mind to contend with the Jews at Jerusalem, and
could not forget the indignation he had for being banished thence. Accordingly,
he thought that by building this temple he should draw away a great number from
them to himself. There had been also a certain ancient prediction made by [a
prophet] whose name was Isaiah, about six hundred years before, that this
temple should be built by a man that was a Jew in Egypt. And this is the
history of the building of that temple. And now Lupus, the governor of
Alexandria, upon the receipt of Caesar's letter, came to the temple, and
carried out of it some of the donations dedicated thereto, and shut up the
temple itself. And as Lupus died a little afterward, Paulinus succeeded him.
This man left none of those donations there, and threatened the priests
severely if they did not bring them all out; nor did he permit any who were
desirous of worshipping God there so much as to come near the whole sacred
place; but when he had shut up the gates, he made it entirely inaccessible,
insomuch that there remained no longer the least footsteps of any Divine
worship that had been in that place. Now the duration of the time from the
building of this temple till it was shut up again was three hundred and
forty-three years.”
As Onias’ Temple was destroyen in 73 CE, 343 years before
that would be 270 BCE – a bit after the passing of Simeon the Righteous (278
BCE). I also must point out that Josephus could not have copied this story from
the Talmuds, as he lived a good 300-400 years before they were redacted.
Now, what makes this confusing, is that in Josephus’ Antiquities
of the Jews xii. 4-9, he writes a completely different story – that seemingly
doesn’t mesh at all with the account given in the Wars of the Jews. I have not
yet studied this thoroughly to see if the accounts can be reconciled, but I
have a hunch that the answer has something to do with the duplicate names –
besides for dealing with the high priests from two temples (the Second Temple
and the Samaritan one), there are also multiple Simeons and Oniases (as well as
Elazars and Jochanans etc).
Which in turn, brings me to the next point about the Talmudic
Gaskalgas. You are correct that it is often explained that the name Gaskalgas
refers to Gaius Caligula, as the names share the same consonants – גסקלגס and Gaius Caligula – and the story
seems to be similar to the one mentioned in other sources, such as Philo. And Gaius
Caligula was definitely a Roman Emperor.
But Rashi is right as well. In chapter 30 of Seder Olam (a
source that Rashi had, as can be seen from the numerous times he mentions it in
his commentary to the Talmud), it lists the Greek rulers over Israel, among
them Gaskalgas. I am under the impression that this name would correspond to
Seleucus II Callinicus, as again, the consonants of both names match – גסקלקס and Callinicus (the
consonants ג'
and ק' seem to be
interchangeable, as can be inferred from the different versions of the name as
recorded in the Talmud and the Midrash).
Even
so, it remains difficult to say that this story with Galkasgas happened with
Callinicus, as he reigned between 246 and 225 BCE, while Simeon the Righteous
passed away around 278 BCE. Seemingly, one is forced to say that in addition to
there being to Gaskalgases, there were also two Simeon the Righteouses; one at
the beginning of the Second Temple, and the other, near the very end.
Finally, I would also like to mention an unusual line of
evidence to support the Jewish date of Simeon the Righteous’ meeting with
Alexander the Great, mainly because it is a piece of evidence that is very
uncommon to come across.
The Talmud records that one of the agreements that Simeon the
Righteous made with Alexander, was that the Jewish people would start using
Alexander’s reign as the basis for dating their documents (minyan shtarot).
Over time, this practice largely fell into disuse, but until the recent emigration
of Yemenite Jews to the State of Israel, the Yemenite Jews kept this practice.
Rabbi Joseph Kapach, in his commentary to Maimonides Laws of Divorce 1:27,
writes that the year of 5747 (which is when he wrote his commentary),
corresponds to 2298th year of shtarot (1986/7 minus 2298 is 312/11
BCE), and that: “We, the exiles from Yemen remain the only ones who are
faithful to the covenant of our forefathers, and their promise, and we were accustomed
in Ketubot, in Gittin, in contracts and in letters to each other, to only write
the date of the shtarot.”
I find it fascinating that the European Rabbinic historians,
such as R’ David Ganz and Rabbi Jechiel Halperin, reached the exact same date with
their calculations, as the date recorded by the distant Yemenite Jews.
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