History of Ancient Israel

By baetzcar

  • 1000 BCE- King David

    After Saul and his son were killed in battle, David became king. When he was king he made Israel a secure and prosperous empire. King David made Jerusalem Israel's capital city.

  • 964 BCE- King Solomon

    When King Solomon was ruling, he built a great temple in Jerusalem. Was supposed to be used to keep the Ark of the Covenant and for when people needed to make sacrifices this is where they would make them. When Solomon started to get rich off of the temple, the Lord got very angry. After Solomon died, the Lord divided Israel. The southern kingdom renamed itself Judah, after David's tribe.

  • 722 BCE- Assyrians

    The Assyrians were commanded by God to take over Israel after it became corrupt. To make sure that Israel would not rebuild itself, the Assyrians exiled them to non-Jewish people.The people who lost their ethnic identity are call the "Ten Lost Tribes of Israel."

  • 586 BCE- Babylonians

    Under the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonians took over the Assyrians and captured Jerusalem. They torched the Assyrians buildings. The great Temple was destroyed.

  • 515 BCE- The Persians

    After being away for 50 years, around 50,000 Jews returned to Jerusalem. Cyrus, the Persian king, allowed this. The other Jews did not return because they were living in the diaspora. King Cyrus allowed the Jews to rebuild the holy Temple in 515 BCE.

  • 430 BCE- Ezra

    Ezra was a priest and a scribe who led the priestly class. He read the Torah for hours in a public square.

  • The Greeks

    Alexander the Great was the one to bring the Greek culture into the Middle East in the 4th century BCE. Many Jews (even priests) adopted the Hellenistic attitude of scepticism.

  • 164 BCE- Antiochus 4

    Was a Hellenistic ruler of Syria. Tried to abolish the Torah and make everyone Hellenistic. He burnt copies of the Torah, killed families who would circumsise their sons, buildt an altar to honor the Greek god Zeus in the Jews sacred Temple and would make sacrifices to it.

  • 164 BCE- Maccabees

    The Maccabees are Hebrew fighters. They were called by the Hasmon family of priests to create a rebellion against Antiochus 4. It was a succesful rebellion causing Israel to be back to normal with Jerusalem as the main city.

  • The Hasmonean Family

    The Hasmonean Family were the rulers of Israel. Under their rule, the Jews went into three sections and formed in Judaea. The Sadducees (priests and wealthy people), the pharisees (liberal citizens), and the Essenes.

  • The Romans

    The Roman general was supposed to go in from Syria to try and find new rulers to end the civil war that was going on. Instead, he took over. Romans ruled over Judaea for 4 centuries. The Jewsish people started to believe that they would eventually be rescued from the suffering that they were enduring.

  • Messiah

    The Messiah was supposed to come to Earth and take away all of the evil to make peace on Earth. The Messiah was supposed to be a king that nobody could ever possibly take over. Many people thought that the Messiah was Jesus.

  • 66 CE- 1st Rebellion Against the Romans

    The anti-Roman militias were Called Zealots. The Jews did an armed rebellion against the Romans in 66 CE. After resisting, the Jewish defenders of Jerusalem were demolished in 70 CE. The Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

  • 132-135 CE- 2nd Rebellion Against the Romans

    After the second rebellion, Jerusalem was finished. The Jews who survived were not allowed to read the Torah, observe the Sabbath or circumcise their son. Jerusalem was rebuilt into a Roman city. After all of this, Judaism was lost.