Scripture as in Identity and the Politics of Erasure
When questioning the Hebrew scriptures and assuming their “newness” because of the dating of the Masoretic text to approximately the 10th Century CE, the assertion is assailed to put in doubt its reliability vis-à-vis other considered texts, i.e., the Greco-Christian Septuagint and Qumran scrolls from non-genizah caves.[1] Any credible attempt to question the reliability of the Hebrew scriptures – either based on late dating of the complete text or the lack of archaeological evidence for writings predating the Septuagint – must also consider how the scriptures were handled by the various conquerors of the Jews throughout history. Any meaningful assessment of historical changes in Jewish practices must recognize the profound trauma of the Jewish struggle to adapt to constant attacks, destruction, and control across different eras, all while fighting simply to survive.
For ancient Israel and later Jewish civilization, written texts were not merely religious artifacts; they were the foundation of law, identity, continuity, and national memory. The Torah and its associated legal, genealogical, and historical records functioned as the constitutional framework of Jewish society. Unlike many ancient cultures whose identity was preserved primarily through kingship or territorial control, Jewish survival rested in its scriptures, scribal culture, and institutional memory. For this reason, from Babylonian and Greek to Roman periods and after, political and religious regimes seeking to dominate or assimilate Jewish populations targeted Jewish culture and its scriptures and texts. What follows in this post is a historical reconstruction of these events, identifying the perpetrators, their motivations, and the long-term consequences for Jewish history.
Babylonian Conquest: the Burning and Destruction of the Jewish Temple
The Babylonians conquered Judah in 586 BCE, completely destroying the city, leading to mass death and forced displacement. They destroyed the First Temple (Solomon’s Temple), the royal palace, and much of Jerusalem, leaving ruins and ash. King Zedekiah was captured, his sons executed, and he was taken to Babylon, along with many Judeans, starting the Babylonian Captivity. The Babylonian conquest of the city by King Nebuchadnezzar II was brutal, leading to significant loss of life, the destruction of the city, the burning of homes, and the plundering and dismantling of King Solomon’s Temple. The local ruler of the Kingdom of Judah, King Zedekiah, tried to flee the city with his retinue but was eventually caught and taken captive to Babylon.[2]
The Hebrew Bible describes the suffering during Babylonian siege of Jerusalem: “So the city was besieged unto the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. On the ninth day of the [fourth] month the famine was sore in the city, so that there was no bread for the people of the land. Then a breach was made in the city, and all the men of war [fled] by night by the way of the gate between the two walls…. And he [Nebuzaradan, the Babylonian captain of the guard] burnt the house of the Lord, and the King’s house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great man’s house, burnt he with fire.”[3] According to professor Shimon Gibson, “King Zedekiah simply was not willing to pay tribute to Nebuchadnezzar and the direct result of this was the destruction of the city and the Temple,”[4]
In the history of the development of war’s destructive force through the ages, the complete destruction of cities and the annihilation of populations were recurring tactics and outcomes of warfare.[5] The presumption of scrolls or any religiously significant item surviving if not taken, as did Titus in Rome during Titus’s triumph,[6] would be unfathomable. Ancient siege warfare was a form of total war that often ended in the destruction of an entire city and the massacre or enslavement of its population. “Leaders from Alexander the Great to Julius Caesar all commanded great sieges that ended in fearsome slaughters.”[7] The ancient Hebrew prophets and Greek poets described siege warfare as a world without limits or structure or morality, and in which men violated deep-seated taboos about sex, pregnancy and death.[8] The destruction of Jewish scriptures during this era was not incidental damage of war but, in many cases, a deliberate strategy of cultural annihilation, including civic efforts by non-Jewish citizens in the empire.
Hellenistic Conquest and Destruction of Jewish Scripture
Following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BCE, Judea was overtaken and absorbed into a Greek world. Greek religious cultural influence coexisted with Jewish religious life without suppressing it but after Alexander’s passing his successor, Antiochus IV Epiphanes imposed Hellenization on Jewish cultural life. The book of 1 Maccabees[9] provides the earliest direct testimony of state-sponsored book destruction in Jewish history. It records that royal decrees were issued ordering the destruction of Torah scrolls, and that possession of Jewish scripture became a capital crime. The text states that “they tore to pieces and burned with fire the books of the law wherever they found them.”[10] This was not symbolic outburst, but organized destruction conducted by state officials and military forces.
These actions were accompanied by imposing restrictions on Jewish practices, which included the banning of circumcision, Sabbath observance, and dietary laws, forming a unified policy of religious and cultural eradication. Scholars widely interpret these measures as an early example of ideological censorship comparable to later imperial book burnings in China and Rome.[11] Antiochus and his agents understood that if Jewish scripture survived, so too would Jewish resistance. The environment was ripe for the Maccabean Revolt that began not only as a military uprising but as a defense of scriptural and ritual continuity. The Greek (Seleucid) influence led to revolts and under Roman rule major wars ensued. During this tension-filled era, the Septuagint was compiled and later was adopted as the Christian Old Testament. This replaced the Jewish scriptures’ influence in ancient Greco-Rome.
Vulnerability of Temple Archives by Pompey
In 63 BCE, the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem by intervening in a Hasmonean civil war. While ancient sources do not record a mass burning of scrolls during this event, the Temple – the very heart of Jewish archival life – was profaned and placed under Roman control. Josephus reports that Pompey even entered the Holy of Holies, an act of profound religious violation.[12]
The Temple functioned not only as a cultural center but as the national archive of texts for the Jewish people. It housed legal precedents, priestly genealogies, land deeds, court rulings, and copies of sacred texts.[13] In Roman imperial practice, the confiscation or removal of legal records from conquered peoples was routine. Scholars argue that significant portions of Temple-based records were either seized or quietly destroyed during this transition, especially those connected to claims of sovereignty or ancestral land rights.[14] Roman administrators understood that controlling legal and historical documents was essential for long-term governance. This marked the beginning of Rome’s transformation of Jewish textual culture from a sovereign archive to a vulnerable, contested body of material.
Jewish Archival Catastrophe under Roman Destruction
From 30 CE, Judea was primarily controlled by the Roman Empire, through client kings like Herod the Great, then directly by prefects, all under ultimate Roman authority. Philo, In Flaccum,[15] describes anti-Jewish riots in Alexandria (38 CE) which included destruction of synagogues and communal archives. Though this is early Roman imperial period the event reflects Greek civic hostility towards Jews. Following years of rebellion, Roman forces under Titus, son of Emperor Vespasian, laid siege to Jerusalem. Josephus, an eyewitness who later wrote under Roman patronage, describes the final burning of the Temple in haunting terms, noting that the sanctuary was engulfed in flames despite initial orders to preserve it.[16]
The destruction of the Temple was not simply the loss of a building. It was the obliteration of the central archive of Jewish civilization, synagogues, libraries, and private collections. Within its chambers were stored Torah scrolls, legal rulings of priestly courts, genealogical registries, and historical annals that traced the continuity of families, offices, and tribal identities.[17] When the structure burned, these materials were either incinerated or buried under massive destruction layers. Josephus, in Jewish War, describes priests leaping into the flames with sacred scrolls to save them—implying scrolls were burning as the Temple burned. The loss of genealogical records and early Torah copies in 70 CE is considered one of the most devastating losses of Jewish textual culture in antiquity. Scholars, such as Seth Schwartz,[18] Shaye J.D. Cohen,[19] and Goodman[20] comment that the Temple and surrounding administrative structures were destroyed beyond recovery. Noteworthy, however, the absence of surviving scrolls does not mean they were not destroyed. This is recognized among archaeologists as preservation bias.[21] Modern archaeology has confirmed widespread fire damage in Jerusalem’s destruction strata, with carbonized scroll fragments recovered in later excavations.[22] The scale of loss was unprecedented. Rome’s intention was clear: to destroy not only Jewish resistance but the institutional memory that could sustain future identifying claims and their autonomy.
Confiscation of Community Records and the Fiscus Judaicus
After the fall of Jerusalem, Roman policy turned from conquest to long-term suppression. Emperor Vespasian imposed the Fiscus Judaicus, a tax levied specifically on Jews throughout the empire. This tax required formal registration of Jewish identity, property, and affiliation. To implement this system, Roman officials seized or copied community records, synagogue lists, and legal archives.[23] Josephus, in his Jewish War, refers to the burning of sacred books and the execution of Jewish scholars during the period of the revolt against Rome. The result was the removal of documents from Jewish possession, and Jewish institutional autonomy ended. The confiscation of community documents destabilized rabbinic courts and local governance, as written precedents either vanished or became controlled by imperial authorities.
Hadrian Criminalizing the Torah Post Bar Kokhba Revolt
The most ferocious assault on Jewish textual life came after the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132–135 CE). Emperor Hadrian, determined to prevent any further Jewish revolt, transformed Judea into the Roman province of Syria Palaestina, and sought to erase Jewish presence from the land. Rabbinic sources preserve vivid accounts of this repression. Teaching Torah became a capital offense. Public reading of scripture was forbidden. Rabbis – including Rabbi Akiva – were executed for transmitting the text of the law. The Babylonian Talmud records that anyone found teaching Torah was put to death.[24]
The Roman historian Cassius Dio describes the destruction of Jewish towns and villages, reporting that hundreds of thousands died and entire regions were depopulated.[25] With the destruction of schools and centers of learning, countless manuscripts were lost. This was not merely retaliation for revolt but a deliberate attempt to end Jewish literary culture by criminalizing the transmission of texts themselves. These restrictions caused a transition of Jewish learning into clandestine spaces, with scrolls hidden, buried, rather than publicly archived. It was a period of heightened survival of their faith against forces desiring it not to.
Religious Warfare: Greek and Roman Polemics vs Jewish Faith
Physical destruction of Jewish texts was supported by a parallel campaign of intellectual delegitimization. Greek and Roman writers sought to portray Jewish writings as fabricated, antisocial, or dangerous. Apion of Alexandria, a prominent Greek polemicist of the first century CE, accused Jews of inventing their history and promoting hatred of outsiders.[26] Tacitus, one of Rome’s most esteemed historians, described Jewish practices as hostile to the rest of humanity and framed Jewish law as superstition rather than legitimate tradition.[27] Such portrayals did not directly burn manuscripts, but they created a cultural climate in which Jewish texts were seen as threats to social order. Josephus responded to these assaults in Against Apion, defending the antiquity and reliability of Jewish records.[28] However, once Jewish writings were framed as subversive, their destruction could be more easily justified during times of crisis. Josephus, in his Jewish War, refers to the burning of sacred books and the execution of Jewish scholars during the period of the revolt against Rome.
Early Christianity and the Reframing of Jewish Scriptures
In the second through fourth centuries CE, Christianity became the imperial religion, while Jews were vilified.[29] While Christians preserved a reorganized Hebrew Bible and labeled it their ‘Old Testament,’ they increasingly reinterpreted Jewish texts as obsolete, superseded, or cursed. Church fathers such as Origen, Justin Martyr, and Eusebius argued that Jews had lost their divine mandate and that Jewish interpretation of scripture was spiritually blind.[30] John Chrysostom went further, delivering sermons in which he described synagogues as places of evil and spiritual corruption.[31] Though not always direct instructions to burn books, this rhetoric normalized hostility toward Jewish institutions, including their libraries and scrolls.
By the late fourth century, Christian emperors issued laws restricting synagogue construction and limiting Jewish public life. These imperial Christian policies led to the loss of communal archives and increased vulnerability of Jewish manuscripts, many of which were destroyed in local outbreaks of religious violence.[32]
The repeated destruction of Jewish scriptures forced a radical transformation in Jewish textual culture. The loss of Temple archives, court records, and centralized repositories meant that Judaism could no longer rely on state-like institutions for preservation. It continued its oral tradition and memorization with rabbinic decentralized manuscript copying. The Mishnah and later the Talmud emerged directly from this historical trauma. These works represent not only religious development but a cultural strategy of survival in a world where written texts could be burned and teachers executed.[33]
Final thoughts – history of destroying Hebrew Scriptures
The history described is one that can be summed up as a history of destroying Hebrew scriptures. Powerful regimes understood that Jewish survival was rooted in its text, and so Hebrew scriptures became the target. The perpetrators were not isolated mobs but states: Seleucid kings, Roman emperors, imperial legions, and later Christian authorities aligned with Roman power. From the Seleucid book burnings under Antiochus IV to the Roman obliteration of Jerusalem’s Temple archives and the later suppression of Jewish textual life under Hadrian and early Christian emperors, the written foundations of Judaism were repeatedly attacked at the textual level of life. These acts were not accidental byproducts of war but calculated strategies of control. The loss of Jewish texts during the ages represents one of the great cultural catastrophes of antiquity, the effects of which are still felt in the fragmentary nature of early Jewish historical memory.[34]
The destruction of the Temple was a monumental loss, but the Jewish people continued to preserve their traditions, albeit under difficult life threatening circumstances. Orwell’s 1984 says “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.” Orwell considered ‘power’ as allowing those who possessed it to create their own historical narrative.
I rest that the Jewish text has experienced historic odds against it by adversity and persecution from groups whose environment facilitated the emergence of a new faith. The existence of later Jewish literature is not to be considered novel, as the Hebrew scriptures’ existence stands as a testimony to what was lost and what had to be rebuilt from fragments and memory, despite the darkness experienced through the Middle Ages and through the Enlightenment.[35] The survival of Judaism and its sacred texts is therefore not evidence of minimal destruction, but of endurance against extraordinary forces desiring their disappearance from history.[36] Though its ashes were fertilizer to the spawning of new religious faiths.
#Jewishhistory #Jewish-hatred #hebrewscriptures #faith #christianity #anti-semitism #christianrootsofanti-semitism #religion #religion #hebrewscrolls
All rights reserved 2025, Word from Vine.
[1] Scholars have recently assessed that the caves in Qumran where the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) were found had multiple uses and were not as initially thought of being for a single use and purpose. While Cave 4, that had fragmented portions of scrolls not being wrapped in linen nor placed in pottery jars may have served as a ‘Genizah,’* Cave 1 had numerous near-complete scrolls that were wrapped and placed in jars, e.g., the Isaiah scroll, which could have served as a library, and Cave 7 has only scrolls written in Greek. Stephen Pfann, “Reassessing the Judean Desert Caves: Libraries, Archives, Genizas and Hiding Places” in Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 25 (2007).* (a Genizah is a respectful place of storage for unusable sacred materials, e.g., prayer books, scrolls, ritual items, documents with divine names, used to discard text that had God’s name on it)
[2] “Evidence of the 587/586 BCE Babylonian Conquest of Jerusalem Found in Mount Zion Excavation,” August 12, 2019, Inside UNC Charlotte, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, Research. The Mount Zion Archaeological Project, co-directed by UNC Charlotte professor of history Shimon Gibson; Rafi Lewis, a senior lecturer at Ashkelon College and a fellow of Haifa University; and James Tabor, UNC Charlotte professor of religious studies.
[3] 2 Kings 25:1-9.
[4] Shimon Gibson, co-director Mount Zion Archeological Project, UNC Charlotte.
[5] Major Dominic J. Caraccilo, Warfare History Network, February, 2000. Richard H. Schultz, Jr.’s ‘The Secret War Against Hanoi’.
[6] Megan Sauter, August 23, 2025, Bible History Daily, Biblical Archeological Society, April 24, 2017. “The most famous evidence is the relief panel on the Arch of Titus in Rome, built by his brother Domitian to commemorate the victory. This panel shows Roman soldiers carrying the Menorah and other sacred objects through Rome, a powerful historical depiction. The arch celebrates Titus’s military victories during the First Jewish-Roman War (66–74 C.E.) – when the Romans infamously burned the Temple in Jerusalem. One of the arch’s panels depicts Roman soldiers carrying captured treasures from Jerusalem’s Temple, including a large menorah, through the streets of Rome.”
[7] Paul Bentley Kern, Ancient Siege Warfare, Indiana University Press, 1999.
[8] Ibid.
[9] 1 Maccabees 1:56–57 records that Antiochus’ officials burned Torah scrolls and executed anyone found with them.
[10] 1Maccabees 1:56–57.
[11] Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism (University of California Press, 1998), 234–246.
[12] Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 14.4.4.
[13] Shaye J.D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (Westminster John Knox, 2006), 41–46.
[14] Martin Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem (Vintage, 2007), 102–108.
[15] Philo of Alexandria’s “In Flaccum,” with translation by Pieter Willem van der Horst, details the persecution of Jews in Alexandria under the Roman governor Aulus Avillius Flaccus, with Philo critically examining Flaccus’s moral and political downfall.
[16] Josephus, The Jewish War 6.4.5–7.
[17] Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE (Princeton University Press, 2001), 83–89.
[18] Schwartz, Imperialism, Schwartz discusses the long-term impact of the 70 CE and 135 CE catastrophes, arguing that Judaism was “shattered” by these events, including the loss of its central institutions and, implicitly, its records, leading to the later emergence of Rabbinic Judaism as we know it.
[19] Cohen, Shaye J.D. From the Maccabees to the Mishnah. Westminster John Knox, 2006.
[20] Goodman, Martin. Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations. Penguin, 2007.
[21] Houston, George. The Life of Literature in Ancient Rome. Yale University Press, 2014.
[22] Naama Vilozny, “Burnt Scrolls and the Destruction Layer of Jerusalem,” Israel Antiquities Authority Reports (2016).
[23] Goodman, Rome and Jerusalem, 378–382.
[24] Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 61b.
[25] Cassius Dio, Roman History 69.12–14.
[26] Josephus, Against Apion 2.7–15.
[27] Tacitus, Histories 5.4–5.
[28] Josephus, Against Apion 1.1–3
[29] J.B. Lorenzo, Apostolic and Patristic Era Anti-Jewish Sentiments, https://wordfromvine.life/blog.
[30] Origen, Contra Celsum 2.5–8.
[31] John Chrysostom, Homilies Against the Jews 1.
[32] Robert L.Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews (University of California Press, 1983), 110–120.
[33] Cohen, From the Maccabees, 201–210.
[34] Paul Johnson, A History of the Jews, 1987.
[35] J.B. Lorenzo, Christian Theological Antisemitism: From Patristic Thought Through Enlightenment Culmination – Word From Vine, https://wordfromvine.life/blog.
[36] Between 13th and the 18th Century, the burning of Jewish texts, particularly the Talmud, intensified, especially in Catholic Europe, driven by religious conflict, Inquisitional pressures, and accusations of blasphemy, with significant events like the 1242 Paris Disputation where 24 wagonloads of Talmud burned, setting a precedent for later acts, highlighting Christian theological challenges to Jewish texts, and the 1553 Papal burning of Jewish texts under Pope Julius III in Italy marking a severe escalation alongside wider censorship and expulsions of Jews. These acts aimed to ending Jewish learning, control Jewsih religious thought, and enforce Christian dominance over Jewish beliefs.