Rome and Jerusalem: The clash of ancient civilizations by Martin Goodman is a monumental work that shows his deep knowledge about the Roman and Hebrew civilization. Goodman describes the Mediterranean world, the relationships between Romans and Jews, and conflicts caused by the uprisings of the Jews, which led to the destruction of the second temple in 70 AD. He examines both the similarities and differences between Roman and Jewish society, differences which led to the siege of the city of Jerusalem by the Roman army. Goodman examines the greatness of the Roman Empire and all the different ethnic groups that were part, including the Jewish, which was a key part.
Unlike other historians Goodman does a good job to portray the uniqueness of…show more content… Romans could not understand the fact that the Jews worshiped one god, while the Jews were disapproving of Roman sexual immorality, but there was tolerance among both sides. The Jews paid taxes regularly and public tribute offered to the gods as a visible symbol of Roman rule, but yet the war was inevitable. An authority that has to apply extreme violence, such as war, to maintain control is an authority that has failed. The case of the Romans in Judea is exemplary. They were never accepted neither by the elite nor by the local population. Theirs was a failed attempt, to build in Judea that they had developed in other provinces. I do not agree with Martin Goodman who argues the Jewish War was the result of a fortuitous combination of events. That there were mistakes committed by the Romans on the rule of the Jewish is true, but we need to understand which and why. Account should be taken of the fact that there was no other ethnic group to which the Roman Empire granted the privileges that was given to the Jews. But there's more, Romans exempted the Jews from the worship of the Emperor and respected the ban imposed by the Jewish religion, to worship images. They gave up even the public exposure of the imperial insignia at Jerusalem and to the portrait of the emperor on the coins minted at Caesarea, which was the seat of the Prefect. It cannot therefore be denied the fact that the Roman authorities tried to meet the special needs and the religious sensibilities of Jews. I believe that the ultimate reason for the failure will be found in the incompatibility of these two structural political systems, the Roman Empire and the Jewish theocracy. The fact that in the Jewish theocracy, the rule of men is only an intermediary of the divine will, and that there is no undisputed source of interpretation of the manifestations of God in Judea, explains both why the traditional elite was