Old City of Jerusalem

Jerusalem is in the south of Canaan, a relatively poor and dry part of the fertile crescent. The northern Levant had the upper hand on trade, making it wealthier and more urbanized than the southern Levant; the former's advantage was due to near eastern trade routes that culminated at the Levantine bays, but the southernmost natural bay was Carmel, a solid 100+ kilometers to the north of Jerusalem. Mount Ephraim is the true center of Canaan, but Jerusalem is to the south on a hill (not even the tallest in the area) in the Judean plateau. Further, Jerusalem was too inland to have a Mediterranean harbor, and too far from the watershed highways to easily draw water. However, Jerusalem did have the Gihon Spring, the only spring in the region; it was this that likely determined its location.

Topography of the Old City

Israelite Kingdom

During this time the Israelites had their own kingdom of Israel, which eventually split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms before succumbing to foreign control. Since Jerusalem's history during the monarchic era is really a history of Ancient Israel, this period is covered in the chronicle of Ancient Israel and omitted here to avoid redundancy.

Assyrian Attacks, 745 BCE - 720 BCE

Excavations have shown that concurrent with the Assyrian attacks, settlement expanded from the eastern to the western hill as well. There was a population boom. This was perhaps due to movement of refugees from from Israel into the city of Jerusalem. As Assyrian campaigns encroached further south, people fled into Jerusalem.

Judean king Hezekiah took fortified Jerusalem against siege. Hezekiah fortified the broad wall Isaiah 22:9 - 22:11; and protected the water supply. The ability of Jerusalem to withstand the Assyrian onslaught gave rise to Zion Theology, which held that Jerusalem was impregnable due to the blessings of God who resided there.

Exilic Period

As part of a larger campaign for Babylonian control in the Levant, Babylonians deported the general population and destroyed the Temple. Babylonian troops deported Judah three times: 597 BCE, 586 BCE, and 581 BCE. First the elites and ruling class were deported 597 BCE. When revolt still erupted, the general population was deported and the Temple was destroyed 586 BCE. A third deportation removed a few lingerers 581 BCE.

Known as the Babylonian exile, the destruction and deportations were of fundamental importance to Judaism. Jerusalem was reduced to a desert wasteland.

Persian Era (Temple Rebuilt), 538 BCE - 333 BCE

When Persian king Cyrus conquered Babylonia, the former Babylonian empire fell under Persian control. The Levant was now part of the Persian empire. Canaan had been gutted and transformed by war and conquest. When the Assyrians exiled the Northern Kingdom, they had actually performed a swap and replaced the Israelites with Samaritans. The few remaining Jews intermarried with the newly planted foreigners II Kings 17 and became ethnically Samaritan. The Babylonians performed a similar swap when they deported Judah but Jews there had not yet been assimilated. The Northern Kingdom was now ethnically foreign, and the Southern Kingdom including Jerusalem was impoverished and arid.

Edict of Cyrus, 538 BCE

When Cyrus captured Babylon, he immediately issued the Edict of Cyrus, a decree that those who had been exiled by the Babylonians could return to their homelands and rebuild. This culminates in 515 BCE when the Israelites finished rebuilding the temple, 520 BCE - 515 BCE.

First Return, from 538 BCE

Temple Rebuilt, 520 BCE - 515 BCE

Second Return, mid-5th CENT BCE

The Second Return of Jews to the former land of Israel was led by Ezra (458 BCE) and Nehemiah (445 BCE). Ezra began the return by forming a so-called purified community without foreigners ezra 7-10. When Nehemiah arrived in Jerusalem, he had the Wall of Jerusalem rebuilt Neh. 2 - 3; Neh. 4:15 - 4:17. There were conflicts with the current inhabitants of the land, including some remnants of Jews and the particularly troublesome Samaritans led by Sanballat I II Kings 17.

Ezra is more the teaching of the law. Nehemiah is more the rebuilding of the walls, which were dedicated on 445 Sep 25 BCE.

Hellenistic Period, 332 BCE - 167 BCE

Battle of Issus, 333 BCE / 331 BCE

All of Persia (including the Levant) succumbed to Greek control when Alexander the Great defeated Persian king Darius III at the Battle of Issus (333 BCE or 331 BCE). The main source for Hellenistic Jerusalem is 2 maccabees, written in the 2nd CENT BCE and preserved in the Apocrypha.

Alexander the Great died in 323 BCE and his enormous Greek kingdom fractured among six generals. Jerusalem remained a backwater after Alexander's conquest, and remained so after Alexander died in 323 BCE and the six diadochoi (successors) vied to control Greek territory.

The Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Mesopotamia fought for Judah.

Josephus Flavius ... tells us that the high priest [in Jerusalem] refused at first to submit to Alexander because he had taken a vow to remain loyal to the last Persian king but, as a result of a dream, capitulated when Alexander promised that throughout his empire the Jews would continue to be governed according to their own Law. In fact, it is most unlikely that Alexander ever visited Jerusalem. ... [This legend] illustrated the complexity of the Jewish response to Hellenism. Some Jews instinctively recoiled from the culture of the Greeks and wantd to cling to the old dispensation; others found Hellenism congenial and saw it as profoundly sympathetic to their own traditions. The struggle between these opposing factions would dominate the history of Jerusalem for nearly three hundred years. Armstrong, p 103

Judah was a buffer zone between the Ptolemies in Egypt and the Seleucids in Mesopotamia and became a showdown. In time, caravans of troops stomped through as foreign empires vied for hegemony. Judah, an in-between zone, was underfoot. Jerusalem was not just between powers, but between ideologies.

Since Joseph, the Ptolemies had been intertwined with Hellenism's infiltration; and traditionalists supported their enemy's enemy, the Seleucids.

Ptolemaic Era, 3th CENT BCE

Jerusalem fell to the Ptolemies when Ptolemy I Soter (of the Tobiad dynasty) won Judah in 301 BCE. The Ptolemies were aloof from local affairs and Jerusalem was initially peacefully out of the way. The Tobiad dynasty introduced liberality to stuffy Jerusalem.

During the reign of Ptolemy II (282 BCE - 246 BCE), a Jerusalemite named Joseph landed the job of tax collection for the whole Syrian province. As a Tobiad, he seems to have been in line with the Tobiah who antagonized Nehemiah. Joseph advocated contact with foreigners, the Greeks, and to eschew strict Torah protocol. Joseph introduced high Hellenistic finance to Jerusalem, becoming the first Jewish banker. Joseph brought cosmopolitan views: the outside world was open to travel and colonization, not a source of fright that had to be kept at bay by laws that had become constricting.

Yet this was at odds with priests, conservatives, the unctuous, who lamented that materialism had caused a stampede for wealth that left the poor underfoot.

Seleucid Advance, 219 BCE - 200 BCE

Seleucid king Antiochus the Great (Antiochus III) kept winning and losing the Levant. In 201 BCE his troops were thrown out of Jerusalem by the Tobiads/Ptolemies.

Seleucid Era, 200 BCE - 167 BCE

At the Battle of Banias/Panium in 200 BCE, Seleucid king Antiochus the Great (Antiochus III) won the entire Levant from the Ptolemies. Jerusalem's Seleucid era was overall peaceful until the very end. The Jews were largely pro-Seleucid, especially the priestly conservatives. Antiochus rewarded them by permitting them to enforce strict Judaism in the Temple and the entire city, and he briefly remitted taxes.

Toward the end of the Seleucid era, the Seleucid king Antiochus IV crushed Jerusalem, banned Judaism and polluted the Temple (Antiochus' blasphemy) in response to what he interpreted as a revolt.

This climaxed the growing anti-Greek sentiment among the Jews, and precipitated the Maccabean revolt.

Maccabean Era, 164 BCE - 63 BCE

1 Maccabees begins by chronicling who were the Maccabees and their greater context. Then in 1 maccabees a dichotomy is asserted: either be a Jew and follow the Torah; or accept Hellenism and forget even circumcision. While there was initially a choice, the Seleucid kings eventually forcefully imposed Hellenism 1 maccabees and ratcheted their anti-Jewish sentiment. Then came the Zeal of Mattathias also recorded in Maccabees, which set the tone for Maccabean revolt against Antioch.

Maccabean Revolt, 168 BCE - 165 BCE

Mattathias galvanized of Jews to rebel against Seleucid repression. From a Maccabean perspective, it was one thing to be ruled by a foreign empire, but an entirely different thing if the Temple were intruded. A foreign ruler could pacify the Jewish Jerusalemites by keeping the Temple sacrosanct, its exclusivity from gentiles. But the moment the hegemon desecrated the Temple, the Jews would erupt and repulse his yoke. The temple was the nucleus of Jewish identity.

Rededication of Temple, 164 BCE

The Maccabees rededicate the temple at Jerusalem. Seleucid rule officially comes to end.

Hasmonean Dynsaty, 164 BCE - 63 BCE

Under Mattathias and Judas Maccabee, the Israelites wrested control of Jerusalem from the Hellenistic kings, thus returning native control of Jerusalem for the first time in 400 years. Sons of Mattathias especially Judas were very successful. Once Judas defeats Seleucid rulers in Juda and wherever he chooses blameless priests (see 1 maccabees). These military Jews had only the greatest care and delicate concern for the temple, the Maccabees were almost priestlike. The biblical authors emphasize this as a purification of the temple.

Maccabean rule is short lived in Jerusalem but this ideal of the sanctity of the temple amidst foreign occupation or rule will persist into the Roman period.

Maccabean rule grew increasingly corrupt and incompetent, thus allowing Rome to exert more and more influence. When infighting erupted in 70 BCE among Maccabean endeavorers for the throne, Rome sent a general named Pompey to exert Roman hegemony on the eastern Mediterranean seaboard. Pompey seized Jerusalem in 63 BCE, initiating an era of Roman rule.

Roman Era, 63 BCE - 135 CE

Pompey Takes Jerusalem, 63 BCE

Pompey swaggered into the temple, into the holy of holies, and razed the city walls. From the beginning, the arrival of Romans and direct Roman rule as an extreme offense. However, the Romans needed this otherwise politically unimportant landlocked sub-province as a buffer against the Parthians.

Herod the Great, 40 BCE - 4 BCE

Fearing antagonizing the Jewry and losing the area to opponents, Rome adopted a hands-off approach and placed Herod as King of the Jews in Canaan. They rightly judged that his leadership would please both Roman and Jewish interests. Herod was ab ideal middle-man because he knew Jewish custom well (having grown up near Jerusalem) but was a proved military hero for the Romans. He could navigate between the Romans and the Jews. After his death, Rome struggled to find a suitable replacement.

Following his death, dissatisfaction in Jerusalem with Roman rule grew and from 4 BCE to 66 CE there was a decline in the relationship between local Jews and Roman rulers. Then this culminates in the great Jewish revolt. The Jews begin to revolt against Roman hegemony.

First Great Revolt, 66 BCE - 70 CE

Sources regarding the First Great Revolt include Flavius Josephus who wrote The Jewish War (~70 CE) and Antiquities of the Jews (~80 CE), and Tacitus' text Histories. These sources reveal that zealous Jewish rebels who were unhappy with Roman authority in Jerusalem were able to inflame unhappiness to instigate a rebellion. The revolt broke out as a result of an idea called Messianism. A messiah was a David king or king-like figure, tying back to II Sam. 7 and the promise to David of an eternal throne in Jerusalem. Josephus and Tacitus' writings reveal that hopes for a Davidic dynasty had not disappeared, and some Jewish groups wanted to revive David and Solomon's kingdom a return to natural sovereignty, a repulsion of the Roman yoke.

Josephus tells us that while you jave people wanting to revive glory days, that some of the blame really comes from Roman governors. Josephus lays a lot of the blame for the outbreak particularly on Florus who took money from the temple treasury — this was the act which the Jews did not just sit by and watch.

A trend continuing in the Roman occupation from the Hellenistic era is that local Jewry were content with the status quo of foreign rule. However, revolt against foreign occupation was galvanized by foreign intrusion upon the temple. This happened with florus and this happened with the kmaccabees as well. This could be considered the immediate cause. Tacitus and Josephus blame Messianism for why Romans took decisive action against the Jewry and ultimately decided to destroy the temple.

Revolt erupted in 66 CE. Rome refuses to maintain the status quo in Roman Palestine and decides to eradicate any capacity for revolt. Vespacian is appointed in 67 CE to take the region under firm control.

Jerusalem Destroyed, 70 CE

Vespacian's son Titus conquers Jerusalem and horrifically sieges the city, wreaking famine and child-eating cannibalism upon the desperate inhabitants. Vespacian succeeds in his siege and conquers Jerusalem, destroying the city and sacking its contents. The booty funded the Flavian Ampitheater, and the MNQWL was erected to commemorate the event. Jews were forbidden from living in Jerusalem, and the fiscus judaicus was enacted, a half-shekel tax to be paid by all Jews to the temple of Jupiter in Rome.

Aelia Capitolina

Aelius Hadrianus became Romane emperor in 118 CE and wanted to transform destroyed Jerusalem into a cosmopolitan city he would call Aelia Capitolina. He would renovate its infrastructure and build a temple to Jupiter.

מרד בר כוכבא‎ Bar Kokhba Revolt

Hadrian's blasphemous plans precipitated the Bar Kochba revolt, which lasted until Simon Bar Koseba was killed in 135 CE amidst an enormous bloodbath whereby Rome exterminated the Jewry. The Jews were thenceforth banned from Jerusalem. The history of Judaism is no longer intertwined with Jerusalem again until the contemporary era; please read directly about Judaism henceforth for a chronicle of the Jews.

Aelia Capitolina, 135 CE - 312 CE

Jerusalem was razed and plowed over, a Roman tradition for founding a new settlement. Aelia was dedicated to Jupito, Juno and Minerva. Hadrian did not build upon the Temple Mount (instead he placed statues there) but he did build a temple to Aphrodite on Golgotha Hill.

Jew-Rome relations improved following the bottom-out of the Bar Kochba Revolt. Rabbinic Judaism now predominated, allowing the faith to persevere without the Temple nor Jerusalem. The home was now the center of the Jewish universe. Interestingly, with Jewish Christians now exiled, gentile Christians came filled the void in Jerusalem.

Byzantine Era: New Jerusalem

Classic image of a New Jerusalem

In revelations is the origin for the Legend of the True Cross. Socrates Scholasticus gives us the Legend of the True Cross. This idea of being cured by cross is the birth of the excavation of holy things associates with Jesus and taking these holy things back to Europe where they will be the basis of many of the legends into the modern each.

Muslim Era

The Crusades

Crusader architecture in Jerusalem was Romanesque, of great simplicity, reflecting their monastic use. It made great use of corinthian columns supporting Roman arches, and their structures had great acoustics; Saint Anne's Church is a stunning example of these acoustics. The Crusaders refurbished the Holy Sepulcher Church (destroyed by fire in 1009 ), thus transforming the Western Hill, and built 60-70 churches throughout the Old City and its immediate environ.

Unlike earlier Christians, the Crusaders, particularly the Templars, made the Eastern Hill their own. The Templars were a Crusader military elite, and their etymology is clarified by their choice to use the Eastern Hill as their headquarters. They used al-Aqsa Mosque and also the so-called Solomon's Stables, the area where King Herod had built arches to extend the southern part of the Eastern Hill. Also, the Templars placed a cross on the Dome, calling it Templum Domini.

Ayyubid Jerusalem

Ottoman Jerusalem

British Mandate

State of Israel

War of 1948

Fighting escalated and the War of 1948 emerged, culminating with Jewish victory and the founding of the State of Israel.

State of Israel Founded, 1948

Ben-Gurion proclaimed the State of Israel, and boundaries were established with neighboring nations, with the border known as the Green Line.

Six Day War, 1967

Israel seized the Sinai Peninsula and Gaza Strip from Egypt.