G-d Destroyed Pompeii 10 Years After The Destruction of The Temple

[Binyamin Yisrael]

Pompeii's destruction: Godly retribution?

By GIL SHEFLER

LAST UPDATED: 08/24/2010 01:23

Archaeology editor says Jews thought so.
BODIES OF several of Pompeii’s victims, found preserved in the lava that erupted from Mount Vesuvius

This day in 79 CE began as any other. The inhabitants of the Roman city of Pompeii were going about their business; the men were bathing in the bath houses, slaves were doing their chores, merchants were selling produce in the market.

Suddenly, the ground began to shake, and from the caldera of the Mount Vesuvius towering ominously above the city, a tremendous force was unleashed.

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Within seconds, a fiery cloud of smoke with temperatures reaching 250 degrees Celsius descended on the plains below, killing every living being in its way – men, women, children and livestock.

The catastrophic event, which according to the traditional count took place 1931 years ago today, was one of the most devastating in Roman history. Thousands perished, including much of the Roman elite vacationing in the area.

But for historians and archeologists, the eruption was an endowment that yielded a trove of well-preserved artifacts and information, frozen in time.

And now, from the Pompeii ashes, a new question arises for some: Was the destruction of Pompeii an act of divine retribution by the God of the Jews? Or rather, did Jews of the time see it that way?

The Temple had been razed by Roman legionnaires in 70 CE, only nine years earlier. So did Jews regard the Vesuvius eruption as the Hand of God punishing those who dared destroy His house in Jerusalem?

Hershel Shanks, the editor of the Biblical Archaeology Review, believes Jews indeed made the connection. In a paper titled “The Destruction of Pompeii – God’s revenge?” in the July/August edition of the magazine, Shanks cited ancient evidence to support his thesis.

Shanks recently told The Jerusalem Post that the idea to examine a connection between the two events came to him on a tour of the ruins of the Roman city located in the vicinity of modern-day Naples.

“On my own visit to Pompeii, I tried to find out when the destruction of the Temple occurred,” Shanks relates. “When I learnt of the supposed date, I thought, ‘Hey I wonder if anyone has connected the two.’” Shanks, described by the The New York Times as “probably the world’s most influential amateur Biblical archaeologist,” said he called Harvard’s Shaye Cohen, who directed him to Book 4 of the Sibylline Oracles, a text composed by “mostly Jewish oracles” shortly after the eruption.

The book first mentions the destruction of the Temple, and then seemingly refers to the Vesuvius eruption: “When a firebrand, turned away from a cleft in the earth [Vesuvius] In the land of Italy, reaches to broad heaven It will burn many cities and destroy men.

Much smoking ashes will fill the great sky And showers will fall from heaven like red earth. Know then the wrath of the heavenly God.”

The second piece of evidence cited by Shanks is ancient graffiti etched onto a fresco at a Pompeii building. The grafitti reads “Sodom and Gomorra.”

In Shanks’s opinion, the text is proof that a Jewish visitor to the ruins believed its fate followed that of the two sin cities that the Bible says were destroyed by God.

In any case, if the destruction of Pompeii was an act of divine retribution, then some Jews were also caught up in his vengeance. It is almost certain there were some Jewish individuals, perhaps a fullyfledged Jewish community in Pompeii, that perished along with the city’s gentiles.

Shanks said a fresco of King Solomon, the most ancient depiction of a biblical scene, is located not far from where the Sodom and Gomorra graffiti was found.

Also, relates Shanks, a vase with what some believe is an ancient kashrut stamp has been found in the famous ruins.

For Jews elsewhere, it is easy to imagine how news of the catastrophe at Pompeii would have been greeted with joy in light of the devastating defeat they had suffered only a few years earlier.

“It attacked the core of Roman society and, as if to emphasize the point, it extended all the way to Rome,” Shanks said. “You had the scary white and dark soot as far as Rome. There’s very good reason to conclude there was a perceived connection and in the eyes of some, God was clearly at work.”

[Binyamin Yisrael]

Rome originally conquered Israel under the leadership of a general named Pompey. This is clearly Divine Providence.

POMPEY THE GREAT (Latin, Cneius Pompeius Magnus):
 
Roman general who subjected Judea to Rome. In the year 65 B.C., during his victorious campaign through Asia Minor, he sent to Syria his legate Scaurus, who was soon obliged to interfere in the quarrels of the two brothers Aristobulus II. and Hyrcanus II. When Pompey himself came to Syria, two years later, the rivals, knowing that the Romans were as rapacious as they were brave, hastened to send presents. Pompey gradually approached Judea, however; and in the spring of 63, at the Lebanon, he subdued the petty rulers, including the Jew Silas (Josephus, "Ant." xiv. 3, § 2) and a certain Bacchius Judæus, whose subjugation is represented on a coin (Reinach, "Les Monnaies Juives," p. 28). Pompey then came to Damascus, where the claims of the three parties to the strife were presented for his consideration—those of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus in person, since the haughty Roman thus exacted homage from the Judean princes, while a third claimant represented the people, who desired not a ruler but a theocratic republic (Josephus, § 2; Diodorus, xl. 2). Pompey, however, deferred his decision until he should have subdued the Nabatæans.

The warlike Aristobulus, who suspected the designs of the Romans, retired to the fortress of Alexandrium and resolved to offer armed resistance; but at the demand of Pompey he surrendered the fortress and went to Jerusalem, intending to continue his opposition there (Josephus, "Ant." xiv. 3, § 4; idem, "B. J." i. 6, §§ 4, 5). Pompey followed him by way of Jericho, and as Aristobulus again deemed it advisable to surrender to the Romans, Pompey sent his legate Gabinius to take possession of the city of Jerusalem.

This lieutenant found, however, that there were other defenders there besides Aristobulus, whereupon Pompey declared Aristobulus a prisoner and began to besiege the city. Although the party of Hyrcanus opened the gates to the Romans, the Temple mount, which was garrisoned by the people's party, had to be taken by means of rams brought from Tyre; and it was stormed only after a siege of three months, and then on a Sabbath, when the Jews were not defending the walls. Josephus calls the day of the fall of Jerusalem "the day of the fast" (νηστείας ἡμέρα; "Ant." xiv. 4, § 3); but in this he merely followed the phraseology of his Gentile sources, which regarded the Sabbath as a fast-day, according to the current Greco-Roman view. Dio Cassius says (xxxvii. 16) correctly that it was on a "Cronos day," this term likewise denoting the Sabbath.

The capture of the Temple mount was accompanied by great slaughter. The priests who were officiating despite the battle were massacred by the Roman soldiers, and many committed suicide; while 12,000 people besides were killed. Pompey himself entered the Temple, but he was so awed by its sanctity that he left the treasure and the costly vessels untouched ("Ant." xiv. 4, § 4; "B. J." i. 7, § 6; Cicero, "Pro Flacco," § 67). The leaders of the war party were executed, and the city and country were laid under tribute. A deadly blow was struck at the Jews when Pompey separated from Judea the coast cities from Raphia to Dora, as well as all the Hellenic cities in the east-Jordan country, and the so-called Decapolis, besides Scythopolis and Samaria, all of which were incorporated in the new province of Syria. These cities, without exception, became autonomous, and dated their coins from the era of their "liberation" by Pompey. The small territory of Judea he assigned to Hyrcanus, with the title of "ethnarch" ("Ant." l.c.; "B. J." l.c.; comp. "Ant." xx. 10, § 4). Aristobulus, together with his two sons Alexander and Antigonus, and his two daughters, was carried captive to Rome to march in Pompey's triumph, while many other Jewish prisoners were taken to the same city, this circumstance probably having much to do with the subsequent prosperity of the Roman community. Pompey's conquest of Jerusalem is generally believed to form the historical background of the Psalms of Solomon.

[muman613]

I heard this from some Rabbi I have listened to (possibly Rabbi Tovia Singer, but I am not 100% certain)...

[Dr. Dan]

Prostitution was high. Even gay prostitution. Much of the remnants of that place contain those brothels at every corner. Perhaps Gd wanted to show us something

[Dr. Dan]

I've been to Pompeii.  From what has survived, you can see that it was a very sexualized society.  Arrows on the street were in the shape of penises and pornography was everywhere.  It looked like the place deserved what it got like Sodom and Gomorrah.

yup

[Binyamin Yisrael]

I saw it at the museum and that's when I decided to post about it.

http://www.fi.edu/pompeii/?gclid=CKqb3bSwz70CFSqXOgod2FIAPA

Next, it's coming to the California Science Center in LA.

https://www.californiasciencecenter.org/Exhibits/SpecialExhibits/pompeii/pompeii.php

[kahaneloyalist]

The saddest part of the whole story is that if the Jews had been united against the Romans the disaster would never have happened. It was only because we had weakened ourselves with civil war and allowing the Romans to act as judges in our dispute that the accursed Romans gained dominion over us.