On Thursday, we talked about the Hellenistic period, Alexander the Great, the Hasmonean's, and more! During the Hellenistic period there was a Jewish rebellion leader named Josephus. He remained the rebellion leader until he got caught. Josephus claimed to be a prophet and he wrote a very pro-Roman history exaggerating all of the numbers he mentioned. Basically, each number he writes should be divided by ten and that is more realistically the number of people who died, or whatever the number is representing; however, his history is all we have.
Alexander the Great minted coins with pictures of him with horns on his head in order to resemble the Greek god Zeus. He conquered modern day Syria, Israel/Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, etc. Palestine was conquered in 332 BCE.
In Hasmonean Jerusalem, there was a Maccabean revolt around 165 BCE, which gave rise to the Hasmonean dynasty. The Hasmoneans minted their own coins, which put them in control of their own town. They put very Jewish images on the coins such as pomegranates and cornucopias. There were no human images. They did put Greek on the coins to appease the Greeks. During this time, Jews had control for about 100 years and this would be the last time they would have control and self government until the development of the modern state of Israel.
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