Biblical Hebrew Blog by ClassicalHebrew.com

A 3rd Century CE Roman grave has revealed a startling find- a small golden scroll with the Hebrew prayer, known as the Shema, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). The scroll is a Greek transcription of the prayer, and was found resting in an infant’s grave. This finding may push back by 600 years the evidence of a Jewish Presence in modern day Austria.

To read more go to the University of Vienna.

Some caution needs to be exercised however since the finding is an isolated one, and may have been carried as an amulet by a non-Jew. Despite these concerns, it is an exciting find given the quality of the amulet and its dating.

This finding is analogous with the silver-scrolled amulets found outside of Jerusalem at Ketef Hinnom which are much older than the Dead Sea Scrolls. These amulets were also found in a family grave and parallel the Priestly Blessings found in Numbers 6: 24-26.

"The Lord (Yhwh) bless you, and Keep you,
The Lord make his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you,
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace."

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The Second Temple Period is one that extends from the return of the first of the exiles in 539 BCE following the declaration of Cyrus, or with the dedication of the Temple in 516 BCE, until the Temple’s destruction in 70 CE.

Throughout this period, the Jewish people were ruled by several different empires and underwent many religious and political changes. From the beginning of the era until Judea was conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE, the Persian Empire ruled the region, enabling religious freedom. Although Judea, led by the High Priest, still enjoyed a relative religious autonomy until Antiochus IV’s decrees, Alexander’s occupation brought about a tremendous cultural change: Judea was now subject to Western influence which would last for the next thousand years, until the Arab conquest in the 7^th Century CE. Subsequent to Alexander’s death, Judea was under various Hellenistic rules: (Egyptian) Ptolemaic and later Seleucid. As a result of the Seleucid king Antiochus IV’s (Epiphanes) decrees against the Jewish religion, a rebellion led by the priestly Hasmonean family erupted in 167 BCE. Judea, led by the Hasmoneans, who also assumed the High Priesthood, gained full independence at around 140 BCE, which lasted until 63 BCE when Judea was conquered by the Roman general, Pompey.

Under Roman rule, Judea remained somewhat independent, as a vassal state, and finally became a Roman province in 4 CE. In 66 CE, the Great Revolt against the Romans broke out, which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple in 70 CE. Still, the Judeans remained the majority in Palestine at least until their next failed attempt at gaining independence in the Bar Kokhbah Revolt (132-135 CE).

There is not much historical and archaeological knowledge of the period prior to the Hasmonean Revolt, but from that point until 70 CE we have many sources. This was a period of major cultural and religious evolution, during which the later biblical books and many of the books of the Pseudepigrapha and Apocrypha were composed. The era was that of the flourishing of the Judean sects, among them the Qumran Sect and its’ writings – the Dead Sea Scrolls. Towards the end of this period Jesus came into action and early Christianity was born.

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