Why the Ancient Romans Destroyed the Jewish Temple

Interview Transcript

Shirley Paulson

This is a fun new way to explore some Bible and Beyond issues today. We’re going to look at a very critical time in the history of Christian development, but with the aid of a historical novel that gets us emotionally involved in the story. So to do so, let me introduce Dr. Ward Sanford. Before becoming a novelist, he was a highly respected scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, and now, retired from that world, he’s turned his focus to the subject of the first century Judea and early Christian themes. His goal is to bridge the gap between biblical and historical study and compelling narrative fiction. The book we’re talking about today is titled Cry for Jerusalem. So welcome, Ward. It’s great to get to talk to you about this. 

Ward Sanford

Thank you, Shirley. Thank you for having me. I always enjoy discussing this.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah, great. Well, I have to say that the story is quite compelling. The actual history of this takes place in the years between 63 and 66 CE. So before we get into your story, maybe you could tell us some of the context of what was actually happening in Jerusalem and Rome in those critical years before we get into the human part of this. Just give us a little background.

Ward Sanford

Right, as you say, the first book is 63 to 66, the continuing three books go all the way up through 70 to the destruction of Jerusalem. Yeh, this is the close…just follows the close of the New Testament writings. And so, we’re picking up where the New Testament leaves off and describing the very dramatic years that followed up through the year 70. Rome was coming down harder and harder on Judea and a rebellion started that lasted from 66 to 70 and ended in a dramatic confrontation that really changed Western world history.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah, it sure did. All right, so the basic issue then is the tension growing between Rome and Jerusalem. But you tell the story in such a gripping way with people who…I mean, these are fictional characters—some of them—but some of them are also quite real. But they have feelings of fear and pride and attraction. Yeah, it really is easy to find ourselves in your story with these characters. Maybe you could give us a brief overview of the storyline as you set it up and then tell us why this particular story is compelling to tell it as you did. Let’s just go there.

Ward Sanford

So, this work is based on the writings of Flavius Josephus, the historian who people have heard the name, and I’d heard the name. But when I started reading his material, especially the book called The Jewish Wars, I was amazed to find out he was not just a historian. He was intimately involved in the conflict and everything going on there. So, he has a bird’s eye, eyewitness view and writes so many compelling details and stories and drama and complexity of everything going on. I just couldn’t believe I’d never heard these stories before. And then when you try to read his book though, it’s like reading a three-centuries-old English translation of the Greek, right? So, it’s quite challenging to wade through.

But I managed to find a modern English translation. When I started reading that, that’s when I really got excited about the stories. And then I realized, well, you know, maybe if somebody put these into novel form, people would really be attracted and interested. From the historical novels I’ve read, you kind of learn about history along the way, right? And you’re following characters that are very real and compelling. So, we were able to take a lot of characters right out of his history and add two or three more to really, really fill out the whole story and get a lot of people interested in the whole series.

Shirley Paulson

And do you think—I don’t know if it was possible—but could you sort of tell us the story of this particular book, right, for Jerusalem? Like, what’s Josephus doing and where does he go?

Ward Sanford

The basic plot line, yeh. So, I would say there’s five main characters, Josephus being one of them, going by the name of Joseph through the whole series. The first part he actually writes is true. He went to Rome to try to free some Jewish priests who had been taken captive there. So that’s part of how the plot line all begins. And we follow the main history points.

He meets some of the other main characters along the way. He gets introduced to Nero, who’s the emperor at the time. Then it turns out one of the main female characters he meets, who’s a Roman woman, is engaged to be married to Nero’s new tax collector, who’s going to be governor of Judea, who’s a real person. Both of these people, you can Google them. They’re actually mentioned by Josephus.

This new governor of Judea, Gessius Florus, he’s the antagonist of the whole series because he goes there to help to raise taxes. And basically, his first goal is to raid the Jewish temple of its gold, but he fails. And this is what really starts off the whole rebellion in 66. And then we follow everything that happens after that. Nero sends in general Vespasian with four more legions. They first attacked Galilee. And Josephus—being fluent in Latin and having been to Rome—he’s put in charge of defending Galilee because he knows Roman military tactics and things, but he’s captured there by the Romans. But instead of being put to death, he sort of befriends the Roman emperors and he’s kept in captivity for the next few years.

And then he sort of sees himself as a self-appointed liaison to the Romans to try to convince the Jews to surrender because otherwise these legions are going to destroy your city and the temple. So, let’s be real here, let’s be realistic. But of course, the rebels aren’t going to surrender. So of course he fails in that mission. And then having been with the Romans, the Jews basically see him as a traitor: “Well, you’ve basically gone under the Romans and are giving them all kinds of secrets.” And so for centuries Josephus has been one of the huge…seen as a traitor to the Jews. But on the other hand, he goes to Rome and writes down all this incredible amount of history of the Jews and gives them this wonderful gift of having recorded all the history that took place through the whole time period, not just that period.

Shirley Paulson

What a fascinating character. And you’re right, you bring out the drama beautifully along with the characters in this story. So, it does really come alive beautifully in your story. What would you say are the issues that brought the tension in Jerusalem to a climax? I mean, what made it come together that made it just get so terrible?

Ward Sanford

Well, so, Josephus tells us there was a series of Roman governors that just became more and more harsh. After Felix and Festus who are mentioned in Acts, then comes another governor named Albinus. He was even harsher on the Jews with more taxes. And then finally the straw that broke the camel’s back was Gessius Flores coming in and actually attacking Jerusalem to try to raid the temple of its gold. And the rebels decided they’d had enough and they were underestimated. There were thousands of them that managed to actually defeat the first Roman legion that was sent to try to capture Jerusalem. They ambushed them in a retreat and actually stole their eagle, which was very humiliating to the Romans. So, it was…Yeah, that part of the history, you know, I never even have heard of before.

Shirley Paulson

Well, there’s just so much building up at that time. We don’t really realize that when we’re reading the Bible. And then the disciples go off and evangelize and all that, and we don’t realize all the tension.

Ward Sanford

Or the fact that there was this is the big fire in Rome that you see Nero playing the violin or some of those kinds of things. But that was the big fire in Rome. So, Rome itself was running out of money drastically. And so, he was sending out tax collectors, everybody to try to milk as much as they could out of the local populaces, including Judea.  That was interesting that that event that happened in Rome carried all the way to Judea.

Shirley Paulson

And so, you’re talking about a real fire, right?

Ward Sanford

Yes, that’s a real historical fire that occurred in Rome in the summer of 64 that burned down half the city.

Shirley Paulson

Which would be significant since Rome was such an advanced, civilized kind of place with all kinds of things going on—lots of people, lots of things going on—so that was a big deal. You mentioned that they were taxing everybody, but it feels like Nero was really angry at the Judean province in particular. Maybe I’m reading this into your story, but do you think it was their Jewishness or was it something about the territory? What was it that provoked him with Judea?

Ward Sanford

Yeah, I’m not sure. It is known even from the Roman historians that suggest that Nero actually might have started the fire; but he certainly blamed the Christians for the fire. And then they knew that Judea was the source of what they called “the superstition”. So, whether that had anything to do with it…I think it was simply more the governor he chose was a very ambitious and ruthless man after not only gold for Nero, but probably siphoning some off for himself. The governors of the provinces at those times would enrich themselves by keeping half the taxes that they levied.

Shirley Paulson

Okay, you bring out such an important element of the Jewish world at this time that there were so many desperate ways of approaching the Romans. And even within the family setting in the story that you have, this one family is just so torn apart by all these things as you illustrate with the story with Joseph. Do you think that their strong opposition to each other ultimately just made them too weak to oppose Rome? Or do you think Rome was just going to win anyway?

Ward Sanford

Well, absolutely the internal conflicts contributed to their losses. Yeah, there were sects—I don’t know if you’d call them religious sects—maybe more political and class divisions there. Because the upper class—what they would consider the moderate Jews—they were all about just coexisting with Rome because they knew Rome was powerful and could, you know, smash them with their thumb anytime they wanted to. So, they were just trying to coexist with Rome. But the lower classes were feeling all of the economic suffering from the taxes. So, they started really disliking the upper middle class who they just started seeing as Roman collaborators, right? And so, this is how the lower rebellious classes started. There was even this group of assassins called the Sicarii, which we investigate some. They would like to try to go out and kill the Roman collaborators.

So, there was definitely class tension going on at the time. And then once they took over and the rebels did manage to kick them out… There were two big rebel factions. One of the rebel leader’s name was John of Gischala. He was from the North. He had all the Galileans following him when they came to Jerusalem. Also, there was another rebel leader named Simon Bar-Giora, and he led the other faction of the Southern Judeans. So, you had these two large rebel factions, and then you had the moderates, and they all ended up in Jerusalem. Once Vespasian came and started attacking from the outside in, they all ended up going to Jerusalem, which was the largest fortress city.

And then they started battling each other. So, they had the whole city split up and they were fighting each other. The city was divided in two. They were shooting at each other. And the worst part of it is—and this led up right to the year 70—instead of realizing the Romans are going to end up surrounding you and uniting, they were still fighting. And each had their own food supply and they burned each other’s food supplies to try to get rid of the other opposing rebel force.

And just soon after they did that, the Romans showed up and laid a siege on Jerusalem and now they don’t have their food supply. And so this led to enormous famine in the city during the siege. I mean, Josephus writes that a million people died in the famine. This is part of the reason for the title Cry for Jerusalem. It was just horrible, right? So, all of that internal fighting weakened them substantially before the Romans arrived.

Shirley Paulson

What a sad story. And clearly they didn’t want to attack each other when they were just desperately trying to fight off Rome.

Ward Sanford

You’re right. Once the Romans arrived they united, but it was too late. They wounded each other too much before the Romans arrived.

Shirley Paulson

Well, all stories need to have some kind of romance to keep the heart beating. And you do keep your readers hungry for more, I have to say. Are there any parts of the various romantic moments that had any historic truth, or was that all your imagination?

Ward Sanford

No, I can’t probably say there was too much historic truth in that. I have to say I’ve probably been inspired by movies I’ve seen over the years. And almost like scenes probably you could think of…like—I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the movie Braveheart—but like there’s romance between William Wallace, right, and the French queen. And she visits him in prison and we have like a scene similar to that. So, there’s these…what do call them? Romances that are….

Shirley Paulson

Unrequited romances?

Ward Sanford

Unrequited romances that are happening at a distance.  So, and this is true that at this time the thing started, Josephus already had a wife who died. So, he was a widower when it starts. He had another girl who he was…they sort of secretly had commitments to. But then when he had to leave for a while, she ended up being pledged to somebody else. So, now he’s got this former girlfriend, Leia, who’s already married, but they still have feelings for each other. So then we’ve got our main Roman soldier character who’s friends with these folks. And he starts getting eyes for our Roman lady Cleo, who was married to the governor. But he was very abusive. And she has to escape from her husband because of the abuse that’s going on. So we’ve got some almost triangular love stories going on.

I can also say I was probably inspired…I don’t know if you’ve ever seen War and Peace. I saw the British TV version that came out back in the 70s or 80s or something. There’s a lot of romance going on in there between all the different characters. And some very scenes like that. And in the end, you know, some of the people you thought were going to get together, don’t end up getting together. So, our series sort of has that flavor to it too. Maybe some of the obvious connections don’t end up being the people who end up getting together in the end, but that’s kind of the fun of the whole thing.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah. Right. Well, you do a beautiful job of keeping the story moving with the heartbeats of the characters. And then you feel the drama of the history all over quite well. Nice job with that. One of the elements of the story that struck me as historically quite accurate was your portrayal of the royal power. You know, the emperor—which we do have more information about the wealthy, powerful people than we do the poor people—but the emperor was not only a decision maker, but he had a firm grip on power over everybody who reported on him. Do you think that this supreme effort to create and maintain absolute authority and power is what actually became the impetus behind this ultimate force against the Judeans? What do you think about that?

Ward Sanford

Well, yeah, I mean, the emperor would certainly feel like he had to keep control of all the provinces, right? He’s certainly not going to let any of the provinces simply escape the thumb and the taxation of the Romans. So certainly, when Judea expelled the Romans, that was never going to stand under a Roman emperor.

Shirley Paulson

Mm-hmm. Well, I like the way you sort of make very clear the way the ‘paterfamilias’ works in that Roman system where there’s somebody at the top and everybody has to fall in line in some way. And that there are people who have power over others, ultimately…

Ward Sanford

Yeah, even our main character, Cleo, who’s the Roman noble woman, basically is assigned a marriage. She doesn’t have a choice. Her father decides who she’s going to marry, and that’s just basically, she has to go along with it.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah, yeah. Why, I was curious when I got to the end of the story, which is, again, quite a wonderful novel. The book is like 400 pages, so it’s quite a story.

Ward Sanford

Yeah, the first one’s 400. The last one’s like 700, so it’s a long series.

Shirley Paulson

Well, I was wondering when I got to the end of that, why did you stop at the year 66?

Ward Sanford

Now it continues, yep.

Shirley

Yeah, all right. In 66, you feel like it’s about to burst into some other bigger crisis. All right, so let’s go back to the internal issues going on there. You had included some, I don’t know, maybe brief references to Paul and Peter, who were specific followers of Jesus. Did you think of the followers of Jesus making any real difference in the story, or were they just kind of side characters in all this?

Ward Sanford

Yeah, you know, so my whole…one of my underlying ideas behind the novel series is not to make it like pro-Christian or pro-Jewish, but have a wide sort of a neutral stance to, to have it attractive to a wide audience. But on the other hand, the Christians are there. And to ignore them really isn’t to write accurate history. So, for example, in book two, our main Roman character ends up going to Rome and becoming one of the Praetorian guards and gets assigned prison duty. And lo and behold, he runs into Paul who’s in prison at the time. And, you know, that I kind of put that there after realizing that the time period is exactly when the time Paul is in prison. So, to have this encounter would certainly be a really historical thing to include in the novels, right?

And so, there are other Christians that they sort of run into and have a few discussions with. Certainly, the Jews at the time are aware of this sect of Christians that they call the Nazarenes, right? That are following this Jesus of Nazareth, that they’re certainly aware of. But themselves are not following.

Shirley Paulson

And I’m just kind of curious: I appreciate the fact that you’re not trying to make it sound like it’s leaning one way or the other, but it felt like it’s real. And I think this is historically true that it felt like really, it’s a Jewish story here.

Ward Sanford

Right. It’s certainly a Jewish story, yes.

Shirley Paulson

And the followers of Jesus are doing their own thing, but they’re not necessarily…

Ward Sanford

Right. They’re having enough problem in their conflicts with Rome rather than still any remnant conflicts with the Jews at the time. So the Jews, especially probably the Pharisees and things, didn’t like this new sect. They disagreed with them. But in terms of real danger and conflict, that was coming from Rome, you know. Under Nero, there was persecution and things.

Shirley Paulson

Which of these factions or sects or whatever you want to call them, do you feel really had the most power in the struggle among the Jews?

Ward Sanford

Well, and so Josephus clearly gives us some good descriptions of at least the religious sects, like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, who are more involved with being the priests in the temples, and the Essenes. So, he gives a few pages of descriptions of how each of these factions were. I’m not sure any one of them—probably the Essenes were more sympathetic to the Christians. They sort of didn’t like what was going on in the temple and with the other people in charge anyway. But the Pharisees and Sadducees certainly had disagreements, strong disagreements with the Christians.

Shirley Paulson

Yeah, and among each other, aside from the Jesus followers, who do you think was the most powerful? Do you think the military people or the peacemaking people, or who had the most power in this struggle here?

Ward Sanford

You mean within the city itself or in Judea?

Shirley Paulson

I mean, among all the different Jewish factions of those different factions.

Ward Sanford

Yeah, you know, they still, they still had the Sanhedrin and that was really kind of the governing slash religious body that really had the most control over things. I think there were Pharisees and Sadducees in the Sanhedrin. So, although these two sects saw themselves differently, they still were collaborating really in a more general sense.

Shirley Paulson

Okay.  And then maybe you could put Josephus in the context of these.

Ward  Sanford

Yeah, well, Josephus was certainly upper class.  He would have been educated, fluent in Latin and Greek as well as Aramaic and Hebrew. So, very well educated. It’s hard to imagine. He actually says in his autobiography that he spent time with the Pharisees for a number of years learning whatever they had to teach. So, he might have had a leaning in that direction, but didn’t follow officially to become one of the Pharisees, right?

Shirley Paulson

But he knew the Essenes pretty well too, didn’t he? 

Ward Sanford

He knew them all well enough that he could really describe what they all believed and thought in detail, right?

Shirley Paulson

So, I’m curious about how you read his changeover from being such a strong, “I’m coming from a Jewish family, very Jewish”, and then feeling like he’s really supporting Rome. Like, yeah, what happened? How’d that happen?

Ward Sanford

Yeah, what happened? Well, you know, he did go to Rome and encountered Romans and saw the grandeur of Rome. And you can tell from his writings, he even says that he thinks that God allowed Rome to build its civilizations. And so, to go against Rome was to go against, like—what would you say—the way that God allowed things to develop. So, yes, he was, he’s still in his own mind, very pro-Jewish, but saw Rome as a power that God allowed to exist. And so, to defy Rome was to defy the order that God had actually set up for the world.

Shirley Paulson

What I think is so interesting about that is I just don’t really think of Jews as acknowledging that their God was governing other people because…

Ward Sanford

No, they were very independent. They would not say that. But for example, in order to satisfy Rome, they actually offered sacrifices in their temple for the Roman emperor. Because I think the other societies were maybe more polytheistic; but to show that the Jews were not enemies of them, they allowed them these kind of sacrifices. And one of the things that Jews did that angered the Romans is that they stopped those sacrifices for the emperor. And that was like, well, that’s really a sign of hostility towards us, if you’re not doing that, right?

Shirley Paulson

Wow, okay. Okay, well, fascinating story, fascinating history, fascinating reality. And, you know, it’s interesting to kind of use the word “fiction” here because I think the main thing is that what you’re doing is you’re adding flesh and blood to some really important history.

Ward Sanford

Right. I struggle with the word ‘fiction’ because people hear that and say, “Well, you know, it was all made up anyway.” When in reality we’re taking a whole lot of history and adding a bit of like flesh and blood to it so that it becomes very readable.

Shirley Paulson

It is readable. You do a really nice job of keeping the story moving. I recommend people who really want to learn that story, that it’s a great way to do it.

Ward Sanford

Yeah, well, I think I was also influenced by reading a couple of Dan Brown’s novels, you know, because he keeps it moving and he has very short chapters. So, one of our goals was to keep short chapters and keep it moving.

Shirley Paulson

It does move. Let me ask you this then. What do you hope people will take away from the story besides experiencing a gripping historical novel? Like are there any particular lessons or issues that would help people understand our own lives better today? Like what’s this about?

Ward Sanford

Okay. So maybe two points there. The first is, I just hope they go, they just walk away saying, “Wow, I learned a whole lot of history I never knew before.” Because that’s what I love about historical fiction. You know, the second thing is I see these two rebel factions fighting each other internally before the real enemy shows up. And I almost see that happening in our country today. We’re so divided. We’re fighting each other instead of realizing that we’re not the enemy. We should keep a guard against who the real enemy is.

Shirley Paulson

You know, I have to say that on that point is so interesting the way your story shows the family having conversations together and wanting to be family and yet struggling with their differences, right? They’re family. Yeah, which does resonate with us today. How do you stay together with your common interests when you’re struggling so hard against this enemy ,and you have different ways of doing it?

Ward Sanford

Right. Even the different members of their family had different political views. And how do you stay unified?

Shirley Paulson

Well, all right. Ward, I want to thank you so much for this conversation. I think that you’ve moved us into a part of history that not many people know about, but is really critical to our understanding of how religion was evolving in that first century. It’s such an important time. So, thank you so much for being with us on Bible and Beyond today.

Ward Sanford

Well, thank you for having me, Shirley. It’s been fun.

Shirley Paulson

Thank you.