From Wikipedia

The Kingdom Of David
Episode Two

The Book And The Sword

In 538 BC, the Persians conquered Babylon and King Cyrus freed all of the Babylonian’s captives. Not only were the Judeans allowed to return to their ancestral land, but they were given permission to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem.

Many Judeans, however, had found a successful life in their new surroundings and only the adventurous and deeply devout returned. When they did so, they faced a daunting challenge. It had been 70 years since their departure and the land was inhabited by many other groups of people who viewed the returnees as rivals for control of the land. Added to that was the fact that the city of Jerusalem itself was a wasteland that hadn’t been rebuilt. After an initial jubilation, the returnees soon became apathetic and construction of the new temple came to a grinding halt. Law and order was breaking down and eighty years after they had arrived, the return home of the exiles seemed like a horrible mistake.

Ezra and the Torah

Seeing anarchy breaking out in Judea, Persian King Artaxerxes sent Ezra to restore order. Ezra, a scribe and priest, brought with him a completed book of rules for the people in Jerusalem to live by - the Torah (or first five book of the Old Testament). Most of the returnees knew little of this book or its laws as it was a work in progress when they had first left Babylon. After gathering all the returnees in a public square, Ezra read aloud the entire contents of this new book and required the listeners to sign a covenant indicating that they would abide by its rules.

This was considered a democratic revolution as there was no longer any secret knowledge confined to a priesthood class. Everyone could now know what the priests knew. The people and city of Jerusalem were revitalized. The temple was completed and became the central focus of Jewish life. A yearly pilgrimage to the temple to offer a sacrifice became of paramount importance. (Later, when a monetary system replaced the barter system, a farmer from the countryside would sell his best animal, then travel to Jerusalem to purchase another for sacrifice at the temple).

One of the more controversial laws that Ezra had to impose on his subjects was the concept of marrying within the religion so as to keep it pure and uncorrupted. He had the unpleasant task of ordering many unorthodox marriages to be dissolved. Naturally, this led to discord among his subjects and the contents of the Torah pertaining to this topic were fiercely debated in public.

The Book of Job

Soon after their return to Jerusalem, a new story appeared that questioned Jews’ traditional views. The Book of Job told of a righteous man beset by catastrophe and affliction. Job’s plight challenged the Hebrews’ notion of a God who consistently rewarded the righteous and punished the wicked – a central idea of biblical history. Job moans, “I helped the good, but got only wrong. I hoped for light, and got only darkness.” His suffering poses one of life’s great questions and a critical challenge to Jews: If God does not reward obedience and punish sin, why bother obeying God’s law at all?

The Greeks

In the early 4th century BC, Alexander the Great invaded the Mid East and brought Greek culture with him with its emphasis on mind and body. This new culture proved to be the biggest threat to the Jewish way of life. A new economic system based on monetary exchange replaced the barter system allowing people the freedom to move about the empire. Soon there began a migration from the small villages to larger urban areas. New opportunities arose for the Jewish farmer who could now sell his products in distant markets. Jewish communities were established in other parts of the empire while Greek settlements became common in the Jewish region.

Some conservative Jewish leaders became alarmed that their traditions and ideologies were being buried under this pervasive materialistic culture.

Ben Sira: Lover of Wisdom

Ben Sira was deeply influenced by Socrates and Greek philosophy and applied the Greek tradition of study and debate to the Bible. Ezra had given the people the Torah with its laws to live by. Ben Sira gave the people, who were eager to look for alternatives to Greek culture, the concept of studying the lives of the Bible’s heroes and to search it's pages for Divine wisdom that the stories revealed.

Open to Interpretation

The Bible contains many passages that are ambiguous and seemingly contradictory and, as a result, new beliefs arose. One of those beliefs was the concept of an afterlife where rewards and punishments were mete out. Another belief was that the Bible was inspired by God which gave rise to the concept that reading it could prophecy future events. The most pronounced prophecy was that a time of turmoil was coming where God would stand by those that kept their covenants with Him.

Antiochus, the Madman

The Seleucid Empire succeeded Alexander upon his death in the early 4th century BC. At first, the Seleucid emperors were content to have Greek culture slowly influence Jewish customs. But, in 185 BC Antiochus IV, derisively labeled the madman in Judea, had a different idea when he decreed that all of his subjects were to follow one common religion in order to unify the empire. That religion wasn't monotheism.

Antiochus was able to buy off Jason, the high priest at the Jerusalem Temple. Soon, Jason and other priests began to revoke one of the most visible symbols of the Jewish covenant with God - circumcision. The Greeks loved athletic contests where the athletes participated in the nude. So as to not look out of place, these priests and other Jewish males had cosmetic surgery performed to obliterate this most pronounced symbol of the covenant.

Naturally, many other Jewish leaders took offense at this latest turn of events. It was bad enough that Greek culture worshiped more than one god, but the concept of worshiping the human body above all else was bringing Judea to the breaking point.

The Maccabees

The final profanity occurred when Antiochus IV ordered that the temple in Jerusalem be transformed into a Greek temple. An uprising started in the rural town of Modi'in. A priest named Mattathias refused to pay homage to a statue of Zeus and took out his anger by killing some of the emperor's emissaries. After fleeing to the countryside, he was able to gather many other supporters to start a major war. When confronted with the prospect of having to break the commandment banning warfare on the Sabbath day, Matathias and 1,000 of his allies chose to stay true to the word and paid the ultimate sacrifice.

After their martyrdom, Mataithias’s son, Judah, and the other rebels realized that the faith could easily be annihilated if they continued to adhere to that principle. After debating the issue, they came to the conclusion that only offensive Sabbath day warfare was banned and that it was perfectly permissible to conduct defensive operations on that particular day. Judah’s brilliant military campaigns over a 3 year period of time soon earned him the nickname of Maccabee (hammer) and by 164 BC the Seleucid forces were routed from the country.

Hanukkah

After the Maccabeean victory, attention was turned towards cleansing the temple and building a new altar. Unfortunately for Judah, the Seleucid forces regrouped and defeated him, mortally wounding him in the process. After Judah’s death, his brother Jonathan took over.

By 152 BC the Seleucid Empire was undergoing internal strife between two rivals to the throne. Jonathan offered his 10,000 strong army to the weaker of the two contenders in exchange for Judean autonomy. His gamble paid off, Judea regained is sovereignty and Jonathan became the head priest of the Jerusalem temple.

The victory convinced the Judeans of the Bible’s prophecy that God would come to the aid of those who were zealous for the law of God. That conviction would grow in the years ahead and set the stage for a true cataclysm when another great empire arrived in the Middle East - Rome.