Although the Persian Empire was massive and covered much land, a new force grew from Macedonia and a young king named Alexander the Great rose to prominence. He later conquered the "known world" including Palestine from 336-323 BCE. Alexander defeats Persia's King Darius at Battle of Issus in 333 BCE and begins the Hellenistic Period in Jerusalem. When King Alexander died in 323 BCE, his kingdom was divided and given to the Ptolemies (Egyptians) and Seleucids (Syrians). The first to rule in Jerusalem was Ptolemy 1 from 300-201 BCE. During this time, the Jews in Jerusalem were allowed to do whatever they wanted as long as they paid taxes and didn't revolt. They were allowed to keep their high priesthood and Jewish traditions. The Seleucids begin to rule Jerusalem after defeating Ptoloemy V in 198 BCE and advocated "Hellenism" by forcing Jews to speak Greek to have linguistic unity. The Hellenistic Period (201-164 BCE) would change every aspect of Jewish life.
The architecture of Jewish tombs and buildings began to have Greek style architecture and Greek became the most spoken language of most Jews. The Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek and even Jesus quotes the Greek version Bible because it became the most used during the Hellenistic Period. When Antiochus IV came to power in 175-164 BCE, he deposes High Priest Onias III and sells the high priesthood to his brother Jason in 175 BCE. In addition, he suppressed Jewish resistance by looting temple treasury, outlawed Jewish religious practices, sacrificed pig on temple altar, and changed the temple to a temple for Zeus. This obviously caused hatred for the conservative orthodox Jews, but some Jews welcomed these changes. This eventually leads to Jewish divisions and development of different sects/factions. The growing frustration of the conservative Jews would lead to revolt.
This revolt becomes the "Maccabean Revolt" lead by Judas Maccabaeus. He lead the conservative Jews against the other Jews and Greeks using guerilla tactics. The revolt was surprisingly successful and retook the temple and Jerusalem from the Seleucids. They established Hanukkah to commemorate the victory and established self-rule for the first time since exile to Babylon. This lead to the Hasmonean Dynasty and kings who were said to be descendants of "Hasnom". The Golden Age was restored and Jewish territory expanded. However, rulers became increasingly Hellenized, secular, and corrupt. The kings declared themselves king and high priest which is ironic because the purpose of the revolt was to dispose of the messing of the high priesthood. They also forcibly Judaized surrounding Gentile regions.
This time period did not last for long because there was a lot of instability with Pharisees and Saducees who had different views of Judaism. Different Hasmonean kings favored different sides and Jerusalem was falling apart from the inside out. In 63 BCE, Rome led by Pompey arrived and took over Jerusalem and took authority away from the High Priest.
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