Читать книгу A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East онлайн

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The independence of the Hasmonean state was maintained until 63 BCE; and the evidence of the Qumran manuscripts indicates that literary activity continued apace in this period, attesting as it does to a wide variety of genres. Much of this activity is represented by works now in fragmentary form which treated the religious life of Israel in general or the ordering of the Yahad in particular: it seems that some of the pesharim may date from the later years of Hasmonean rule. In 63 BCE, however, the Romans took control of Jerusalem and Judaea, while confirming in office the reigning Hasmonean high priest John Hyrcanus II. The events leading to these political changes involved Jewish factionalism on a grand scale and effective civil war, one group of Jews aligning themselves with John Hyrcanus and his Pharisee supporters, another with his energetic brother Aristobulos II and the Sadducees. The Psalms of Solomon, composed originally in Hebrew and surviving in Greek translation, consist in their final form of 18 poems which reflect on this civil strife, the Roman intervention under Pompey which brought it to an end, and on its uncomfortable aftermath. Jewish attitudes are judged; the nature of Pompey’s invasion is critiqued and analysed; and the ultimate future of the Jews is entrusted to God and the activities of a Davidic Messiah (Atkinson 2004).