Thoughts on the End Times [10]: An Overlooked End Times Event
We conservative Christians are familiar with the Bible, but less so with extra-biblical history. For example, we don’t know much about Jewish history between Malachi and Matthew or about events that took place after the things recorded in the Book of Acts.
At the end of Acts, Paul arrives in Rome (AD 60) and the biblical history ends with Paul living there for two years (till AD 62), waiting for a hearing before Caesar. Early church fathers tell us what happened after that.
The emperor at the time was Nero. The great fire in Rome (July AD 64) completely destroyed three of Rome’s fourteen districts and severely damaged seven additional ones. Nero blamed the Christians, and a vicious persecution ensued in which Nero martyred Peter (crucified upside down) and Paul (beheaded) between AD 64-67.
During these years Jewish hostility to Roman influence in Judea was building. Tired of corrupt priests and Herodians doing Roman bidding, allowing acts of Roman sacrilege in the Temple and burdening the people with heavy taxation to finance Nero’s lavish fantasies, Judea was a powder-keg of rebellion. The match that lit it was the seizing of Temple funds by the Roman procurator Gessius Florus (AD 66). He sparked a riot and the furious Jews overthrew the Roman garrison in Jerusalem. News of the victory spread spirit of revolt northward, where Jewish fighters again defeated the Romans.
Emperor Nero sent Vespasian and Titus (Vespasian’s son) with three Roman legions to crush the rebellion. Vespasian began in the north (AD 67), systematically routing strongholds in Galilee, mercilessly shedding rivers of Jewish blood and enslaving thousands of Jews – the aged, the women, and the children. He headed south toward Jerusalem.
When Nero committed suicide in AD 68, Vespasian returned to Rome (his army declared him the new emperor), leaving his son, Titus, to finish the war against the Jews.
Titus laid siege to Jerusalem in April AD 70 during Passover. Trapped within the city walls, Jewish factions began fighting among themselves. Some claimed the Messiah was marching through the desert to decimate Titus; others that the Messiah was hidden in the city, waiting for the right moment to be revealed and lead the Jews to victory. These rumors, along with the ancient belief that God’s city and Temple were indestructible, kept Jewish hopes alive. But as Jesus had warned (Matthew 24.23-28), the Messiah’s appearance to save Jerusalem never materialized.
As Jerusalem’s supplies ran out, the situation in the city grew desperate. Josephus reports starving mothers eating their own children. Jews who left the city and surrendered hoping for mercy found none. They were immediately crucified. Thousands of crosses stood around the city walls, and Josephus reports that the Romans, bored with the siege and angry at the rebels, entertained themselves by experimenting with nailing victims to the crosses in different horrific postures.
The Romans finally breached the city’s exterior wall in July. They broke through the interior wall to the Temple a month later. They dismantled the Temple stone by stone on August 30, AD 70 and then set fire to the site. Jerusalem’s final defenses collapsed in September.
The Jewish rebellion died with a whimper in AD 73 when the remaining rebels, trapped in the fortress at Masada, committed suicide rather than be captured and tortured by the Romans.
You can read a firsthand account of these events in Josephus’ Wars of the Jews (Books 5-7), but you can also read what Jesus said about these things. He predicted the siege of Jerusalem (Luke 19.43) and the destruction of city and the Temple (Luke 19.44 cf. 21.5-6, 20-24 cf. Matthew 24.1-2), framing it as a judgment for Israel’s long-standing rejection of the prophets and their rejection of Him, the true Messiah (Matthew 23.37-39 cf. Luke 19.44, 21.22). Jewish Christians, hearing that the Romans were coming at the beginning of the war (AD 67) and heeding Jesus’ warnings, fled Jerusalem and survived the devastation.
I don’t think Jesus’ words were mere random predictions. I believe the fall of Jerusalem, usually ignored by end times specialists, has significance for our understanding of the end times – which I’ll discuss in future blogs.
At the end of Acts, Paul arrives in Rome (AD 60) and the biblical history ends with Paul living there for two years (till AD 62), waiting for a hearing before Caesar. Early church fathers tell us what happened after that.
The emperor at the time was Nero. The great fire in Rome (July AD 64) completely destroyed three of Rome’s fourteen districts and severely damaged seven additional ones. Nero blamed the Christians, and a vicious persecution ensued in which Nero martyred Peter (crucified upside down) and Paul (beheaded) between AD 64-67.
During these years Jewish hostility to Roman influence in Judea was building. Tired of corrupt priests and Herodians doing Roman bidding, allowing acts of Roman sacrilege in the Temple and burdening the people with heavy taxation to finance Nero’s lavish fantasies, Judea was a powder-keg of rebellion. The match that lit it was the seizing of Temple funds by the Roman procurator Gessius Florus (AD 66). He sparked a riot and the furious Jews overthrew the Roman garrison in Jerusalem. News of the victory spread spirit of revolt northward, where Jewish fighters again defeated the Romans.
Emperor Nero sent Vespasian and Titus (Vespasian’s son) with three Roman legions to crush the rebellion. Vespasian began in the north (AD 67), systematically routing strongholds in Galilee, mercilessly shedding rivers of Jewish blood and enslaving thousands of Jews – the aged, the women, and the children. He headed south toward Jerusalem.
When Nero committed suicide in AD 68, Vespasian returned to Rome (his army declared him the new emperor), leaving his son, Titus, to finish the war against the Jews.
Titus laid siege to Jerusalem in April AD 70 during Passover. Trapped within the city walls, Jewish factions began fighting among themselves. Some claimed the Messiah was marching through the desert to decimate Titus; others that the Messiah was hidden in the city, waiting for the right moment to be revealed and lead the Jews to victory. These rumors, along with the ancient belief that God’s city and Temple were indestructible, kept Jewish hopes alive. But as Jesus had warned (Matthew 24.23-28), the Messiah’s appearance to save Jerusalem never materialized.
As Jerusalem’s supplies ran out, the situation in the city grew desperate. Josephus reports starving mothers eating their own children. Jews who left the city and surrendered hoping for mercy found none. They were immediately crucified. Thousands of crosses stood around the city walls, and Josephus reports that the Romans, bored with the siege and angry at the rebels, entertained themselves by experimenting with nailing victims to the crosses in different horrific postures.
The Romans finally breached the city’s exterior wall in July. They broke through the interior wall to the Temple a month later. They dismantled the Temple stone by stone on August 30, AD 70 and then set fire to the site. Jerusalem’s final defenses collapsed in September.
The Jewish rebellion died with a whimper in AD 73 when the remaining rebels, trapped in the fortress at Masada, committed suicide rather than be captured and tortured by the Romans.
You can read a firsthand account of these events in Josephus’ Wars of the Jews (Books 5-7), but you can also read what Jesus said about these things. He predicted the siege of Jerusalem (Luke 19.43) and the destruction of city and the Temple (Luke 19.44 cf. 21.5-6, 20-24 cf. Matthew 24.1-2), framing it as a judgment for Israel’s long-standing rejection of the prophets and their rejection of Him, the true Messiah (Matthew 23.37-39 cf. Luke 19.44, 21.22). Jewish Christians, hearing that the Romans were coming at the beginning of the war (AD 67) and heeding Jesus’ warnings, fled Jerusalem and survived the devastation.
I don’t think Jesus’ words were mere random predictions. I believe the fall of Jerusalem, usually ignored by end times specialists, has significance for our understanding of the end times – which I’ll discuss in future blogs.