0:06

Welcome to the Times of Israel's Daily Briefing.

0:08

Today is Saturday, June 7, day 246 of

0:10

the War

0:13

with Hamas. I'm Amanda Bor-Sheldan. In

0:17

honor of this week's Jerusalem Day,

0:19

I'm bringing you a special bonus

0:21

episode from our weekly What Matters

0:23

Now podcast series. I

0:25

speak with Professor Jody Magnus about her

0:27

new book Jerusalem Through the Ages and

0:30

dig into the archaeology of

0:32

Israel's capital. Enjoy! Welcome

0:38

to What Matters Now, the Times

0:40

of Israel's weekly podcast delving into

0:42

one issue affecting Israel and the

0:44

Jewish world right now. I'm your

0:47

host, Amanda Bor-Sheldan. This

0:49

Wednesday, Israel marked Jerusalem

0:51

Day, which celebrates the

0:53

reunification of Jerusalem following

0:55

the 1967 Six-Day War.

0:58

But the capital has a rich

1:00

and fascinating history of rulership changes

1:02

since its foundation in about 1000

1:05

BCE. Professor

1:08

Jody Magnus just published her

1:10

latest book Jerusalem Through the

1:12

Ages From Its Beginnings to

1:14

the Crusades through the Oxford

1:16

University Press. She stopped

1:18

by the Times of Israel's

1:20

Jerusalem offices to speak about

1:22

the eternal ancient city's rulerships

1:25

and populations throughout the eras.

1:28

Jerusalem Throughout the Ages is

1:30

a 700-page weighty tome that

1:33

delves into the city's history

1:35

through archaeological evidence and also

1:37

texts, including the Bible and

1:40

extra-biblical materials such as the

1:43

Egyptian Armana letters. Magnus

1:45

is the keen and distinguished professor

1:48

for teaching excellence in early Judaism

1:50

at the University of North Carolina

1:53

at Chapel Hill and the author of 11 books, from 2011

1:55

until 2023. three

2:00

Magnus-directed excavations at

2:02

Hukuk in Israel's

2:05

Galilee and uncovered

2:07

breathtaking mosaics. So

2:09

this Jerusalem Day, we take a

2:12

quick break from our current war

2:14

and ask archaeologist Professor Jody Magnus,

2:17

what mattered then? A

2:25

scrappy army fighting three enemies,

2:28

an unlikely victory, and

2:31

a country forever changed. Join

2:34

host Dr. Noam Weissman for

2:37

a special unpacking Israeli history

2:39

miniseries, where he shares the

2:41

story of the Six-Day War as you've never

2:43

heard it before. Travel

2:46

back to 1967, as

2:48

Noam recounts the tense lead-up to war,

2:50

the fierce battles fought, and

2:53

the aftermath that continues to affect

2:55

Israel to this day. But

2:58

what led to this war? How

3:00

did Israel emerge victorious? And

3:03

how have the outcomes impacted Israel's position

3:05

in the region and the world

3:07

between then and now? Unpack

3:10

the six days that changed Israel

3:13

forever in this three-part special of

3:16

Unpacking Israeli History. Listen

3:19

to these episodes and more wherever you

3:21

get your podcasts. Brought

3:26

to you by Unpacked, a division of Open

3:28

Door Media. Amanda S. Jody,

3:36

thank you so much for joining me today in

3:38

our Jerusalem offices. Well, thank you

3:40

for having me, Amanda. Such a pleasure always

3:42

to speak with you. Now,

3:44

this week we in Israel

3:46

are marking Jerusalem Day, which

3:49

marks the reunification of the

3:51

capital city Jerusalem in 1967.

3:53

And you just coincidentally happened

3:56

to just write a book

3:58

called Jerusalem Three-Part. the ages.

4:01

Your quest in this book, which is over

4:03

700 pages in the

4:05

print version, is to match

4:08

up different accounts, meaning the text as

4:10

we know it, which obviously a

4:12

lot of it comes from the

4:14

Bible, but not just to match

4:17

all of that up with the

4:19

archaeological evidence and see what Jerusalem

4:22

was like throughout the ages. And one of

4:24

the threads that you pull through a lot

4:26

of the different eras, you start of course

4:28

with the Jepicite era and move on, is

4:31

the use of water, which

4:33

I thought was very interesting. But

4:35

I'm kind of more interested because

4:37

of Jerusalem Day to speak about

4:40

the composition of the city in

4:42

different eras. So in the

4:44

Jepicite era, for example, there

4:46

are texts outside of the Bible

4:48

from Egypt, for example, and what

4:51

are we hearing through those texts

4:53

about who lived in Jerusalem then?

4:56

Right. Oh, let me just before we

4:58

continue, just qualify and

5:00

say that my goal was not

5:02

to match the biblical

5:05

text with the archaeology, but

5:07

rather to use

5:10

all available sources of evidence, whether

5:12

it's the biblical books or outside

5:14

sources like we have from Egypt,

5:17

as you just mentioned, and the

5:19

archaeology. They don't necessarily all correspond.

5:21

They most of the time don't

5:23

necessarily give the same information, provide

5:26

the same kind of information. Sometimes

5:28

they appear to be contradictory, the

5:30

different sources. But

5:32

yes, my goal was to sort

5:34

of provide a comprehensive overview based on

5:37

the different kinds of sources that we have. We're

5:39

not here to prove the Bible. Exactly

5:41

right. And that is definitely, that should

5:43

not definitely be the goal of archaeology,

5:45

right? Archaeology is not a handmaiden to

5:48

proving the Bible or anything like that. And

5:51

so yeah, so we do have ancient

5:54

texts from Egypt from the

5:57

18th and 14th centuries, BCE,

6:01

where Jerusalem is mentioned by

6:03

an earlier name, Ruch Al-Imum,

6:05

or Ruzalim is how I

6:07

think it's usually pronounced. And

6:10

there we get a picture of sort of a

6:13

kind of, it's a picture that's typical

6:16

of the Bronze Age and especially

6:18

the latter part of the Bronze Age, where

6:22

it's at this point Canaan still, right, is

6:25

divided into a series of these kind

6:27

of small city states, usually

6:29

with some sort of a fortified

6:32

core, fortified city or urban center

6:34

at the core. And

6:37

so we have texts that were sent

6:39

letters basically that were sent by

6:41

the governor or ruler

6:43

of Jerusalem to

6:45

Egypt, you know, requesting help to

6:48

the Pharaoh, requesting assistance from

6:51

various outside threats. And

6:53

so yeah, it's a picture that's actually

6:55

largely consistent with what we know about

6:58

the division of the country in

7:00

the latter part of the Bronze Age.

7:03

In terms of archaeology, obviously, these

7:06

letters are evidence and they're things you

7:08

can hold in your hand, etc. But

7:10

in terms of the archaeology of what

7:12

we see on the ground here in

7:14

that era, I mean, there are so

7:16

many different theories about what the kingdom

7:18

was. Of course, the nomadic theory that

7:20

is getting some kind of popularity recently

7:22

that King David was more of a

7:24

nomad and that's why we don't have

7:26

a lot of proof. But what are

7:28

you actually seeing in terms of the,

7:31

shall we call it invasion or the conquering

7:33

of the city at that point? Yeah,

7:36

actually, you know, I can't think

7:38

of a single example

7:41

where we have archaeological evidence

7:43

of destruction in the city

7:46

that might be associated with King David

7:48

or let's say the time of King

7:50

David. People

7:52

who read the book will see

7:54

that archaeologists are very divided among

7:56

themselves about the nature and extent

7:58

of the city. Right,

10:01

yeah, no, it's a really interesting thing.

10:04

And in this regard, Jerusalem is

10:06

quite different from the other great cities

10:08

of the Mediterranean world. If you think

10:11

of Athens or Rome or Istanbul, all

10:14

of them are big cities that

10:16

existed over the course of many centuries

10:18

like Jerusalem, but they have

10:21

location, location, location, right? They're on bodies

10:23

of water, they have connections with the

10:25

rest of the world. And

10:28

Jerusalem was never like that. Jerusalem is

10:30

basically, I like to describe

10:32

it as a poor, isolated mountain town, not

10:35

on any major trade routes or anything

10:37

like that. Yes, there were roads that

10:40

went through and still go through the

10:42

country in this area, but it was

10:44

never a city that was important for

10:46

that reason. And even until today, Jerusalem

10:48

is the poorest major city in Israel.

10:50

So the importance of Jerusalem,

10:53

it's special, it's different from the

10:55

other great cities of the Mediterranean

10:57

world, its specialness and its importance

10:59

doesn't derive from a location

11:02

on trade routes or a strategic

11:04

location, but rather is really

11:06

connected with the whole

11:08

development of this being the location

11:10

where the presence of

11:12

the God of Israel dwells. And

11:14

that is a tradition that has

11:16

existed from way back until today.

11:18

You mentioned strategic location, and if

11:21

I'm not wrong, three

11:23

sides of the old city

11:25

of ancient Jerusalem were pretty strategically

11:27

protected by natural events,

11:30

meaning cliffs and things of that

11:32

nature. Yes, that's true. So

11:35

let's define strategic here. So

11:37

when I'm talking about strategic, I mean,

11:39

in the big picture. So for example,

11:42

in antiquity, and even until today,

11:44

the easiest way, the easiest route

11:46

to go from the major power

11:48

center to the south and antiquity

11:50

that was Egypt, to

11:52

the northeast, the major power centers in

11:54

the northeast, which were in Mesopotamia, the

11:56

area of modern Iraq, let's say Syria,

11:59

Iraq, the easiest way

12:01

to go is always the coastal road, right?

12:03

That's flat terrain. You know, when Alexander the

12:05

Great marches through with his army, he goes

12:07

down the coast. I mean, the Pharaoh's armies,

12:09

they always went, why was Megiddo so strategic?

12:11

Because it guarded the outlet of a mountain

12:13

pass that you reached once you went up

12:15

the coastal road, and then you cut across

12:18

Jerusalem, on the other hand, lies in the

12:20

middle of the country, on top of a

12:22

watershed of a mountain ridge. And

12:25

so it's not a strategic, I mean, it doesn't mean

12:27

that there weren't roads, but it's

12:29

not a location where, generally speaking, anybody

12:32

passed through on their way to get

12:34

somewhere else. So in that

12:36

regard, that's what I mean by strategic.

12:38

What you're talking about is sort of

12:40

the micro level, let's say, so that

12:42

the city itself, yes, you're right, is

12:45

perched on this sort of area that

12:47

is, you know, flanked by valleys. And

12:50

in fact, the earliest settlement, which is what

12:52

we call today the City of David, right?

12:55

This little hill that comes out to the

12:57

south of the Temple Mount, which is sometimes

12:59

called the Eastern Hill or the Southeastern

13:01

Hill or the Lower City, that

13:04

hill is indeed protected

13:07

on two of its three sides by

13:09

deep valleys, the Kidron Valley on the east, the

13:12

Tyropion Valley on the west, to the north, it

13:14

simply rises up towards the Temple Mount. So

13:16

in that regard, yes, it is a

13:18

good location, but it was really chosen

13:21

mainly because of its proximity to the

13:23

water, you mentioned water, and of course,

13:25

the major source of water in Jerusalem

13:27

throughout time, and especially in

13:29

its earliest periods, was the

13:31

Gichon Spring, and that spring comes out

13:34

of the ground at the eastern foot

13:36

of that little spur, that hill, and

13:38

that's really why that was selected as

13:40

the place where people first settled and

13:43

remained actually the heart of the city

13:45

for a very long time after that.

13:48

Let's move on to the Israelite

13:50

period, and one thing that, of

13:52

course, anyone who reads the Bible

13:54

is aware of is all the

13:56

different kinds of peoples that were

13:58

in the land. the

16:00

fish, aside from sharks, were being

16:02

brought from various points, whether

16:05

to the north or the south or the Mediterranean. And

16:08

so we do have a lot of evidence for

16:11

trade and context between Jerusalem, the

16:13

people of Jerusalem, and other parts

16:16

of the country and even other

16:18

countries outside in the Iron Age.

16:31

With what seems like an endless amount

16:34

of information at our fingertips, we tend

16:36

to forget that wondering about things is

16:38

really part of the journey to finding

16:40

answers we're looking for. So

16:43

when it comes to the hot

16:45

topics of Israel, Judaism, and Zionism,

16:48

there's so much to wonder about right

16:50

now that it's hard to know where

16:52

to turn. Enter the latest weekly podcast

16:54

from Unpacked, Wondering Jews

16:56

with Michal and Noam. Join

16:59

hosts and educator extraordinaires Michal

17:02

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17:04

tackle these topics and the uncomfortable

17:06

questions that surround them, with

17:08

the goal of working towards the answers

17:11

together with their listeners. And

17:14

tune in for a special

17:16

episode featuring a fellow wanderer,

17:18

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17:21

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17:23

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Jews is brought to you by Unpacked, a

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division of Open Door Media. So

17:47

let's look at the Judahite era and

17:49

there's something there that has always puzzled

17:51

me and I think puzzles a lot

17:53

of people. And that is

17:56

the plethora of these terracotta

17:58

figurines. And I always kind

18:00

of wondered, okay, are these guys

18:02

meant to be Jews who are

18:04

using these or are they the

18:06

different peoples? Is this an

18:08

opportunity to say, hey, there are a

18:10

lot of different ethnicities that were living in

18:12

Jerusalem at this time or I don't

18:15

know. And it's also of course the

18:17

period or just after the period when

18:20

we hear about the Queen of Sheba

18:22

coming. And so you understand that there

18:24

are these intermarriages for probably political reasons

18:27

going on. So what was the

18:29

mix in Jerusalem then? Yeah, by

18:31

the way, Solomon had

18:34

many, many non-Israelite wives, right?

18:36

And of course, what we're talking about

18:38

here is an Israelite population rather than

18:40

a Jewish population because we're before 586 BC

18:44

BCE. So yeah, this is

18:46

one of the mysteries, one of the many

18:48

mysteries is that more

18:51

of these little clay figurines have

18:53

been found in excavations in Jerusalem than

18:55

at any other site in the

18:57

country, which really kind of is completely

18:59

contradictory to what you might think. They're

19:02

these small clay figurines, they're called Judean

19:04

pillar figurines or Judea pillar

19:06

figurines, JPFs for short.

19:09

And generally, they're called that because they're sort

19:11

of like the body is cylindrical, is basically

19:14

a cylinder. And then on top, what

19:16

you have is a head of a

19:18

woman with features and hair,

19:21

and then her arms usually

19:23

are shown crossed and

19:25

cradling large breasts. And

19:29

so the emphasis, what seems to be

19:31

an emphasis, first of all, they're female,

19:33

what seems to be an emphasis on

19:35

large breasts, or at least in some of

19:38

them, sort of suggests a connection to fertility. And

19:40

so many scholars have connected these with some

19:43

sort of a worship of fertility

19:45

cult or like little ass starte figurines

19:47

or something like that, quite possible. I

19:49

have a discussion of it in my

19:52

book, with the various views

19:54

of different scholars, because there's a lot of

19:56

debate whether these actually were in fact, connected

19:58

with some sort of a worship or a

20:00

cult. I don't have

20:02

strong opinions one way or the other about what

20:05

they were used for, but

20:07

I don't think that we should

20:09

be surprised because again, what we're

20:11

looking at the past through our

20:13

lenses today. And if

20:16

you look at the overall material

20:18

culture of in our late Iron

20:21

Age Jerusalem, right? If

20:23

you look at the overall material

20:25

culture, we see a lot of

20:27

outside influences, for example, on the

20:29

forms of tombs, very clear, right?

20:32

I have a big discussion of

20:34

tombs, burial customs and tombs. So,

20:37

of course, just like today, the ancient

20:40

Israelites were part of a larger context

20:42

in this region. And I

20:44

don't think it's surprising to see

20:46

other influences, other cultural influences on

20:48

the material culture. Okay, so we

20:50

see in the next

20:52

period in your book, the Persian period,

20:54

we see from Ezra and

20:57

Nehemiah, this condemnation, which I

20:59

found really interesting. And the idea

21:01

of purity, what is it, that's

21:03

what you're talking about when you're

21:05

talking about like, Jews began after

21:07

that. But what

21:10

do you make of that? Of the concern

21:12

with purity? The concern with purity and the

21:14

intermarriage. To separate yourselves. Yeah. Does it mean

21:16

that there was so much of it that

21:18

it had to be condemned? Were

21:21

they just seeing it so much in front

21:23

of their eyes that they had to really come down strong?

21:25

Or what's going on there, do you think?

21:28

Oh, boy. Okay, so I'll admit now

21:30

that you're a little outside my field

21:32

of expertise as an archaeologist, because really

21:34

what this goes to is evaluating sort

21:36

of the, again, the relevant biblical books,

21:38

in this case, the books of Ezra

21:41

and Nehemiah, and also

21:43

sort of what we might consider

21:45

to be the origins of Judaism itself, right?

21:47

Because as you say, we are now talking

21:49

about a period of Judaism rather than Israelite,

21:52

the Israelite period which preceded it. And

21:55

so, this again has been the subject of

21:57

a lot of debate among scholars.

22:00

why do we see this? I think

22:02

that part of it, so I'm just going to say

22:04

part of it, I think, has to do with the

22:07

larger context. And that is

22:09

that what we have are, in this

22:12

period, we have Judahites,

22:15

the people, former people of Judah

22:17

from before 586 BCE,

22:19

who had been sent into exile

22:21

in Babylonia. And then some of

22:23

them return, right, with Ezra after,

22:26

you know, after the Persian King Cyrus issues

22:29

the ascetic, so about, let's say, 60 to 65

22:31

years after the initial exile, and they're allowed to

22:33

come back. And

22:35

it's important to bear in mind that the

22:37

people who come back are elite. And

22:41

when the Babylonians in 586 BCE

22:44

had exiled the

22:46

people of Judah, the

22:48

people who were exiled were the

22:50

elite, the lower classes, the majority

22:53

of the population, right, they remained

22:55

behind. And in the meantime, they

22:57

had intermarried with, you know, non-Israelite

23:00

peoples, which by the way, was

23:02

not uncommon before 586 BCE.

23:05

But you see these elites coming back. And

23:09

I think that part of what we are seeing here,

23:11

at least part of it, is

23:13

a sort of, I call it a

23:15

snobbish elite concern for genealogical

23:18

purity, right, the purity of bloodlines, which

23:20

again is something that aristocrats, right, if

23:22

you're going to, and

23:24

so I think partly that is what is driving,

23:26

so they come back and of course, okay, so

23:28

here are all these descendants

23:30

of the original Judahite population who

23:33

in the meantime had intermarried. And

23:35

so I think that part

23:37

of it reflects a worldview that

23:40

is an elite worldview and a concern

23:42

that is very much focused on purity

23:44

of bloodlines. Now, I don't want to

23:46

be overly simplistic, and I don't want

23:49

to get attacked for saying this. So I

23:51

say, I'm sure the picture is no doubt much

23:53

more complex than that. But I

23:55

do think that that at least is part of

23:57

what, you know, drives this concern that we see.

32:00

the things that he did was to

32:02

rebuild the Second Temple on a massive

32:04

scale. Did he do this

32:06

only because he wanted to win the favor of

32:08

the Jewish population? Who, overall, many of them didn't

32:11

particularly like him. Some of them did, but many

32:13

of them did not. So was it just to

32:15

sort of, you know, get them to like him?

32:17

Or, and therefore

32:20

the motives would be very cynical, right?

32:23

Or is it that he genuinely, you

32:25

know, wanted to dedicate a temple to

32:28

the great God, right? The God of

32:30

Israel. I actually think

32:32

that's also true. I do. But I

32:34

also think that Herod kind of had a

32:37

kind of a Roman outlook on the worship

32:39

of gods. I think he had, the Romans

32:41

had an inclusive outlook when it came to

32:43

worshiping gods. It's kind of like, sort

32:46

of like Hinduism today, where you have

32:48

this multitude of different deities. And

32:51

I mean, you know, make basically

32:53

innumerable numbers of deities. And in the

32:56

eyes of the Romans, every God deserved

32:58

respect and piety. You should be pious

33:00

towards all gods. And so they had

33:02

a kind of a very inclusive view

33:05

of how to treat gods. And

33:08

I think Herod actually kind of

33:10

shared that view. We see him dedicating

33:12

pagan temples outside of his Jewish territories,

33:14

for example, at Caesarea and Samaria, but

33:16

even outside of his kingdom. And

33:19

so, I actually think

33:21

that, you know, he shared that kind

33:23

of inclusive Roman view. I have

33:26

a whole other, and I don't really talk about

33:28

it much in the book. I have a different

33:30

article that I published a few years ago, where

33:33

I also think that Herod, in

33:35

rebuilding the Jerusalem temple on such a

33:37

massive scale, was trying

33:39

to situate himself as having

33:41

fulfilled the expectations associated with

33:44

a Davidic Messiah. And

33:46

so basically, situating himself kind of

33:48

in the line of David and

33:50

Solomon, even though he, of

33:53

course, was not, let's

33:55

say, fully Jewish, right? He was not, he

33:57

was right. So anyway, that's all, but it's

33:59

very Yeah,

36:00

no, absolutely. And in fact,

36:02

and I talk about this

36:04

as well, Herod had

36:07

had games dedicated to the Emperor that

36:09

were held in Jerusalem. And yes, even

36:11

though we don't have remains that we

36:13

can identify, he built arenas for Roman

36:15

types of spectacles, Greek and

36:18

Roman types of spectacles. So you know,

36:20

you have the theater and some sort

36:22

of a hippodrome or stadium. So, yes,

36:24

absolutely. As well as we can

36:26

see reflected again in the material culture, that

36:30

at least the wealthier Jews of Jerusalem were

36:32

decorating their houses in the latest Roman fashion,

36:35

to some degree adopted Roman types of cuisine,

36:37

even if they were keeping kosher, but still

36:40

cooking food in kind of a Roman manner,

36:42

preparing it and serving it in a Roman

36:44

manner. So absolutely, we can

36:46

see various aspects of Roman influence

36:49

or Hellenistic and Roman influence on

36:52

the lives of Jerusalem, again, particularly

36:54

the elite in Jerusalem. And that's

36:56

really trickling down as you would

36:58

expect from the highest levels. So,

37:00

you know, what the ruler, what

37:03

Herod and his family are doing, kind of those

37:05

fashions then are imitated or adopted by

37:08

the people just underneath.

37:10

Okay, so now we're up to 70 CE,

37:13

basically. And of course, this

37:15

is a major, major blow to

37:17

the Jewish people, the destruction of the temple.

37:19

What are we seeing on the ground in

37:21

terms of the makeup of the city

37:23

after the Romans conquered it? Yeah,

37:26

well, so this is so

37:28

the chapter that follows the

37:30

Herodian period is Aelia Capitolina,

37:32

which is basically Hadrianic Jerusalem.

37:36

The city lies in ruins for a certain period, the

37:38

camp of the 10th Legion is here, the 10th Legion

37:41

was camped in Jerusalem after 70. There

37:43

are huge debates about where the camp of the

37:45

10th Legion was located, leaving that

37:48

aside. But Hadrian then

37:50

founds Jerusalem as a colony, colonial

37:52

Aelia Capitolina, a Roman colony, and

37:55

as a consequence of the Bar Kokhba

37:57

revolt, bans Jews from living in Jerusalem.

38:00

and its immediate environs. There is one

38:03

settlement that has been discovered to the north

38:05

of Jerusalem in Shua-Fad in a salvage excavation

38:07

that I talk about that

38:09

was inhabited apparently by a Jewish population

38:12

and apparently an elite and including

38:14

apparently also some priestly families

38:17

between the two revolts. But

38:19

it appears to have been abandoned at around

38:21

the time or by the time the Bar

38:24

Kokhba revolt broke out. So Hadrian city of

38:26

Aelia Capitolina consisted of no

38:28

Jews at all. They were banned from living

38:30

in the city. And basically what

38:32

you have then is a population of

38:34

you know either some local people who

38:36

were not Jews but mainly you know

38:38

Roman soldiers, Roman veterans and you know

38:40

and their families. And that

38:43

means that it was a relatively small population

38:45

because by excluding the Jews you excluded a

38:47

large part of the population. And

38:49

the way that Hadrian rebuilds the city is

38:51

along sort of Roman lines right. It's a

38:54

kind of got a Roman layout. The

38:56

Aelia Capitolina it's a very

38:59

interesting period. It's probably

39:01

together with the Persian period. One

39:04

of the least known periods in the

39:07

archaeology of Jerusalem. And I think that's

39:09

for several reasons. First of all the

39:11

remains are very difficult to identify. Part

39:14

of the problem has to do with

39:16

the dating of pottery of this period

39:18

but also because whatever remains there were

39:20

seem to have been largely obliterated by

39:23

later building, overbuilding in the Byzantine period

39:25

and later periods. And

39:27

I think also until recently not so

39:29

much now but until in let's

39:32

say fairly recently it was

39:34

relatively neglected compared to

39:36

other periods. And that's because

39:39

you know who's got an investment in

39:41

Jerusalem? Well, Jews, Christians,

39:45

Muslims, but

39:47

the Romans hey they're not around anymore

39:49

right. So you know so it wasn't

39:51

like people had an investment in what

39:53

did Roman Jerusalem look like and so

39:55

it kind of attracted less scholarly attention.

39:58

But there is now a lot of work. being done on

40:00

Aelie Capitolina. A lot of it has been

40:02

done by my friend and colleague,

40:05

Schlemied Wechsler-Budoloch, who I mentioned throughout that chapter

40:07

and also in other parts of the book,

40:10

who wrote a really, what is really sort

40:12

of the basic reference now for the city

40:14

in this period. And she

40:16

and I have a couple

40:18

of disagreements on issues relating

40:20

to Aelie Capitolina, but overall,

40:23

she's like the go-to source

40:26

for whatever information we have on

40:28

the city in this period. So you

40:30

mentioned the local people who were

40:33

not Jews. Right. What would they

40:35

have been? Yeah, well, you know,

40:37

so there were populations in,

40:40

let's say, the province of Judea, right, which

40:43

was what it was for the Romans before

40:45

the time of Hadrian. There

40:47

were populations who were not Jewish, right?

40:49

We know, for example, that places like

40:51

Caesarea Maritima were overwhelmingly, right, not Jewish.

40:54

You go into areas to the north,

40:56

into the area of Samaria, whatever. So

40:59

there were certainly populations. So it's possible that

41:01

some of those people were among, so as

41:04

I say, so it's possible that we have some of

41:06

the local non-Jewish inhabitants in

41:08

the city. But

41:10

because it's the nature of it,

41:12

it's a Roman colony, by definition,

41:15

a lot of the population presumably

41:17

consisted of members of

41:19

the Roman military, Roman veterans, military

41:21

veterans, and their families. And by the way,

41:23

their families could have also included locals, because

41:25

a lot of these Roman

41:28

soldiers, and especially when they became veterans, would

41:30

intermarry with, you know, with local women who

41:32

happened to be around, right? So they would,

41:35

so that's the kind of population that

41:37

you would envision. Very interesting if you look

41:40

at the remains in the city. We

41:42

do have quite a bit of evidence for

41:44

kind of this typical Roman, let's

41:47

call it pagan Roman presence, both

41:49

in the pottery styles, in

41:52

some shrines that have been discovered around

41:54

the city, in depictions on coins, things

41:57

like that. So the character of

41:59

the city is different from what it would have

42:01

looked like before 70. Well,

42:03

amazing. And that period was very

42:05

short-lived, relatively speaking. Well,

42:09

that's actually a really interesting question. So,

42:11

one of the big debates among scholars,

42:14

and I don't think it's ever been

42:16

resolved, is how long Hadrian's ban was

42:18

in effect. How long

42:20

were Jews prohibited from living in Jerusalem and

42:23

its environs? When were they allowed to come

42:25

back and start re-inhabiting the city? And

42:28

from what I can see among

42:30

various scholars, the picture

42:32

that seems to emerge is that

42:34

either Jews were pretty much still

42:37

banned, you know, did not, you don't

42:39

really have Jewish settlement in Jerusalem

42:42

for hundreds of years afterwards.

42:46

Or if Jews were allowed back into

42:48

the city, it was a very small, a

42:51

very minor presence. So,

42:54

yeah, for hundreds of

42:56

years, what happens, of course, at some point is

42:59

that the Roman Empire becomes a Christian

43:02

empire. So, now we're going into the next chapter,

43:04

right, the Byzantine period. But the Roman Empire becomes

43:06

a Christian empire,

43:08

and so Jerusalem becomes a Christian

43:10

city. But as a Christian city, it

43:12

still wasn't Jewish. And again, the

43:14

question is, were there Jews living in Jerusalem

43:17

under Byzantine Christian rule? If

43:19

there were, it was, again, a

43:22

very, very small presence, very, very

43:24

small, if at all. And

43:26

so, if you talk about, well, how long

43:28

did it remain like this? It's actually for

43:30

a very long time, until we get, ironically,

43:32

until we get to the Sassanid Persian and

43:34

then the Muslim conquests in the seventh century.

43:36

Yeah. Okay. Well, fascinating.

43:39

I guess part of my question is,

43:42

these early Christians, were they pagans or

43:44

were they former Jews? Ah,

43:46

yeah. Well, that's another great question, right? So,

43:48

who exactly? They

43:51

were probably both. I

43:53

mean, we don't, it's just like everything else.

43:56

For sure, some of them were Romans who

43:59

converted, like, local. let's say

44:01

local population, not Jewish population who

44:03

converted to Christianity, but presumably

44:05

there were Jews who also converted

44:08

at some point, whether they were living in Jerusalem

44:10

at that point or not. And

44:13

the same thing you could talk about the same

44:15

kind of process once Islam enters the

44:17

picture, right? And again, you have a population

44:19

though. So it's interesting, you know, there

44:21

are all these kind of modern debates about, you

44:24

know, who has the

44:26

right to the country and the city and all

44:28

of this and yeah, we were here first and

44:30

we were here first and the fact of the

44:32

matter is that the picture is so muddy and

44:34

what you have is, you know, these kind

44:37

of new populations coming in, but also the

44:39

former population staying, but then some of them

44:41

change religions of the court. And so it's

44:43

really, I mean, this is why I'm very

44:46

much opposed to archaeology being used as a

44:48

tool to justify any kind of modern political

44:50

claims. I mean, archaeology is a science, it

44:52

should not be mixed with, you know, with

44:54

modern politics and it shouldn't be used

44:57

to justify anybody's claims in my opinion to one

44:59

side or to the other. What

45:01

you just said is exactly my point in

45:04

asking you about your book in this angle

45:06

because your book is so rich and we

45:08

could speak about so many different topics in it,

45:10

but what really stood out to me is

45:12

this shifting population throughout the city

45:14

and of course because of the

45:17

quote-unquote reunification of the capital that

45:19

was marked this week, it just,

45:21

I wanted to emphasize to our

45:23

listeners how Jerusalem has been so

45:26

dynamic over the millennia and yes,

45:28

right now it is run by

45:30

the Jewish state and

45:33

hopefully to it for many, many

45:35

years to come, but

45:37

it is fascinating to hear just

45:40

how it has been like an accordion,

45:42

you know, just contrasting and

45:45

growing in the city size as

45:47

well alongside it. Right. And,

45:49

you know, if we want to talk about a real

45:52

kind of a break aside from 70, the

45:54

book ends with the Crusader period. I mean, basically

45:57

the last period that I cover, it doesn't really

45:59

end quite with that. But the last period

46:01

that I cover is the Crusades, which by the

46:03

way, I didn't want to include because my expertise

46:06

goes up through the early Islamic period,

46:08

which is the chapter right before that.

46:11

My editor insisted that I include the Crusades

46:13

because people are interested in the Crusades and

46:15

he thought it would sell more copies of

46:17

had a Crusades in the title. But also

46:19

wouldn't you say that a lot of what

46:21

we're seeing in front of our eyes, or

46:23

maybe not a lot, but some of what

46:25

we see in front of our eyes is

46:27

from this period? Absolutely. Yeah, no. And

46:30

so in the end, it was kind

46:32

of a pain for me to do because I was not very

46:35

well acquainted with the period of

46:38

the Crusades, but I'm glad he

46:40

insisted. I do like the

46:42

way the chapter came out. And yes, absolutely, I

46:45

stress that a lot of the appearance of the

46:47

old city today does go back to the Crusades.

46:49

And you can just walk through the streets of the old

46:51

city and see it in front of you. And I

46:54

describe that. But talking about

46:56

breaks, I mean, the Crusades are

46:58

a real break because when the

47:00

Crusaders took the city, they basically

47:02

massacred the non-Christian

47:04

inhabitants. And

47:07

then they were banished. I mean,

47:09

there were no Jews and no

47:12

Muslims in Crusader

47:14

Jerusalem, none. So

47:16

we have another period where there's basically what

47:20

we would today call an ethnic cleansing of

47:23

the city. And it's quite dramatic,

47:25

as a matter of

47:28

fact. And we have a lot of sources. That's one of

47:30

the nice things about covering the Crusades. We have a lot

47:33

of written sources that we can use and also maps,

47:35

give us a great deal of information. The

47:39

population was diverse within the limits of

47:42

being Christian. In other words, there were

47:44

many different kinds of Christian groups in

47:46

Crusader Jerusalem, including Eastern Christians and Western

47:49

Christians, but there were no Jews or

47:51

Muslims. And so again, if we

47:53

talk about kind of tracing the history

47:56

of the city and its population over the course

47:58

of time,