The Jewish Revolt Against Rome Begins

The event

By the mid-first century, Roman governance of Judea had grown increasingly heavy-handed, marked by a string of procurators remembered for corruption, tactlessness toward Jewish religious sensitivities, and outright cruelty — the final and worst of them, Gessius Florus, is blamed by the Jewish historian Josephus for provoking the final crisis by seizing funds from the Temple treasury. Combined with decades of simmering nationalist and religious fervor, including armed factions like the sicarii and various zealot groups who believed armed revolt against Rome was not only justified but commanded by God, the situation finally boiled over into full rebellion in AD 66.

The rebels' early successes were startling — they even managed to ambush and destroy much of a Roman legion under the governor of Syria, Cestius Gallus, sent to restore order. Rome's response was to send one of its most capable generals, Vespasian, with his son Titus serving alongside him, to crush the revolt methodically, region by region, beginning in Galilee (where the Jewish commander Josephus himself was captured and later became a Roman client, chronicling the war from the Roman side).

Decades before any of this happened, Jesus had wept over Jerusalem and warned that 'the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you... and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you' (Luke 19:43-44), and in the Olivet Discourse he told his disciples plainly that of the Temple's magnificent stones, 'there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down' (Matthew 24:2). The revolt that began in AD 66 was the beginning of the fulfillment of exactly that warning.

Scripture references

• Luke 19:41-44
• Matthew 24:1-2

Other witnesses

• Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Books 2-3

Further reading

• Bible Odyssey (SBL): Josephus — on the revolt's chief eyewitness
• Bible Odyssey (SBL): The Roman Empire