I was just kind of curious about that.
I look at history, and I know many I think refer to them with different terms. Have they always been called the "jews" and are they still generally the same as when they starting writing the bible, before, Jesus and even Rome? I just find it interesting to be honest.
As well, one thing that realy confuses me, in thr bible the Jews were said to be slaves in Egypt, but yet noe in popular culture and the entertainment industry, I see amfee famous Jewish celebrities having Egyptian themed stage designs, costumes and even music videos. I also notice some contention between and Jews.
This video is a good example...
The English word "Jew" comes to us through several languages, ultimately from the Hebrew word Yehudim, meaning something like "Judahites" that is, "people from Judah".
Originally there was one kingdom, Israel, which was ruled by Saul, then David, then Solomon. After Solomon the kingdom was divided into the Northern Kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah. The Northern Kingdom fell around the 7th century BC to the Assyrian Empire, leaving only the Southern Kingdom free. However in the 5th century BC the Babylonian Empire conquered Judah and took the people captive; and the captives in exile came to identify themselves less by their Tribal affiliation (the twelve tribes of Israel, as Benjamanites, or as Simeonites, etc) and more as
Jews. Yehudim, the people of the Southern Kingdom of Judah now in a shared experience as captives.
When the coalition of Medes and Persians conquered Babylon, the king Cyrus gave an edict which allowed the Jews to return to their homeland, rebuild Jerusalem and the Temple. Judah remained a province of the Persian Empire, but the Jews had religious freedom and were allowed a certain amount of self-rule; as the Persian Empire allowed religious freedom and gave subjugated peoples limited autonomy--which helped stabilize the Empire internally.
In the mid-4th century BC Alexander, King of Macedonia in Greece began conquering, first he united all the Greek city states and realms under his banner, and then set to conquer the Persian Empire, which at the time stretched from Egypt to the Indus River--it was by far the largest empire that had ever existed at that point in history. In Alexander's conquest of Persia he also conquered Judah, and the Jews became subjects of the Greek Empire. When Alexander the Great died, his empire divided among his generals, known as the Diadochi, who then turned on one another. Alexander's general Ptolemy took Egypt and up through Judah, and generally the Ptolemies allowed the Jews a fairly great deal of freedom--they continued to worship freely.
However the Seleucids who ruled Syria went to war with the Ptolemies several times, in a series of wars known as the Syrian Wars. And finally the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes successfully conquered Judah and took it away from the Ptolemies. Under Antiochus the Jews suffered a great deal as the Seleucids tried to force the Jews into becoming Greeks--adopting Greek customs, forbidding circumcision, prohibiting rest on the Sabbath, and the most serious and egregious offense came when Antiochus had a pig sacrificed in the Holy of Holies in honor of the Greek god Zeus and installed an image of Zeus in the Jewish Temple.
This act, along with all the various acts of oppression against the Jews, eventually led to an armed uprising under the Maccabees, the two brothers Jonathan and Judas Maccabeus. Who successfully overthrew the Seleucids, and for the first time in centuries the Jews were independent and the Maccabean Kingdom of Judah had a king again in the form of the Hasmoneans.
However this was short lived, after about a hundred years, Julius Caesar was happily conquering the known world, and under his general Pompeii, Judah fell subject to Roman rule, and the Romans set up a puppet king under the Idumaean (Edomite) Antipater, the father of Herod the Great. The Idumaeans had been force-converted to Judaism under Hasmonean rule about a century earlier.
This was the historic setting of Jesus' birth.
As one might suspect the Jews were not happy about being subjects of another foreign power, and there were several minor uprisings, such as under Judas the Galilean; which led to the rise of the Zealots, militaristic freedom fighters who opposed Roman rule. Finally, however, around 67 AD a Zealot uprising began and full scale war broke out in Judea, Jerusalem fell to the Zealots, who executed many of the priests in the Jewish Temple (who were seen as Roman corroborators), Rome's response was deadly--the armies of the Roman general Titus surrounded and laid seige to Jerusalem, and in 70 AD the city fell, and the Jewish temple fell.
That wouldn't be the last time Jewish rebellion broke out in the Roman Empire. Around 130 AD Simon bar Kochba, who was heralded as the messiah by many Jews, led a massive military campaign that was eventually crushed again by the Romans. This time the Romans took measures to crush any future Jewish rebellion--they expelled all Jews from Jerusalem, and made it a Roman colony, renaming it Aelia Capitolina. Further, the Emperor Hadrian erected a Pagan Temple on the the ruins of the Temple Mount and dedicated it to Jupiter Capitolinus.
This was the beginning of the modern Jewish Diaspora. Jews remained expelled from Aelia Capitolina/Jerusalem for centuries, even after the Roman Empire had become predominantly Christian under the Constantinian dynasty. Jews were briefly permitted to return under Julian the Apostate, who also encouraged a rebuilding of the Jewish Temple, but the plan never came to fruition because Julian died, and his successor Jovian, a Christian, re-instituted the imperial ban against the Jews. It wouldn't be until the Muslim conquest of the region in the 7th century AD that Jews would be permitted to enter Jerusalem again.
There was already a diaspora throughout the Roman world and Mesopotamia, the Arabian peninsula, and Ethiopia, but the events which occurred in Roman times led to an increased Diaspora--and under Pharisaism, Jewish religious focus shifted away from the Temple in Jerualem to the local Jewish community under the rabbinate and synagogue.
Modern Jews are Jews, the descendants of and converts to the religion of those people who experienced all these things. Modern Jews are, indeed, Israelites.
-CryptoLutheran