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• Week 1: The general background and overview of the era, and why this era was so important. One form of spirituality was dying, and another form was being born. A brief overview of Israelite spirituality prior to this period, and the “new spirituality” which came out of this period. This era was also hugely productive in terms of literary output. The concept of “canon.”
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• Week 2: Ancient Israelite religious and cultural traditions developed under foreign Imperial rule. For Ancient Israel, foreign domination was the norm. In the second Temple period, Israel was again under Imperial rule, but a type that they had never faced before. This ultimately became an existential threat and the biggest single issue of the time: Hellenisation. The forced cohabitation of Greek and Hebrew cultures became the overriding and central issue of the era. We witness both clash and accomodation of the two cultures. Enculturation through urban planning: What is a Polis and how did they function? Polises and the initial “Hellenising” of the Greek province of “Coele-Syria.” The new waves of construction in Judaea under Roman rule and under King Herod the Great, and the later wave of construction in the Galilee under Herod’s sons Antipas and Phillip. A number of Galilean reactions to the Galilean Polises.
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• Week 3: The Maccabees – opposing Hellenisation through guerilla warfare. The Maccabees were anti-Hellenistic “freedom fighters” who took on the Greek Empire and decisively won. So how did they also lose so decisively? The Maccabean dynasty, “Policide,” and their newly inaugurated festival of “Sukkot b’Kislev.” Maccabean court propaganda: The Books of the Maccabees and the Book of Daniel. Tertullian: “What hath Athens to do with Jerusalem? The less the better!”
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• Week 4: Horace: “Conquered Greece took captive her savage conquerer and brought her arts into rustic Latium.” Rome conquers Greece, but the Romans continue the Hellenising policies of the former Empire. Rome rebuilds and re-colonises the Polises destroyed by the Maccabees. The end of the Maccabean dynasty. Ruling Judaea through Roman created and appointed aristocratic “Synods.” The “Gentile zone,” the “Samaritan zone,” the “Greek zone” and “Judaea.” “What have the Romans ever done for the Jews”? “Nothing!”
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• Week 5: Rampant sectarianism and gradual societal breakdown. The time honoured Religio-social institutions welding society together cease to operate in their intended sociological functions. Hellenised Kings and rulers governing Hellenised colonists and a largely anti-Hellenistic indigenous population. Various ways religious leaders vied for followers amongst the populace: The rise of Sectarianism. The diverse second Temple sects as responses to Hellenisation.
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• Week 6: Societal breakdown leads to war. An “integrated” society rapidly “dis-integrates.” The “Jewish War” against Rome and the inevitable result. The end of the second Temple and the end of the era. The new spirituality becomes the groundwork, already laid, for the even bigger tragedy already on the horizon. The Rabbi’s response: How to sacrifice without a Temple, how to be a Jerusalemite without a Jerusalem, and how to be an Israelite without an Israel.
