Mara Ben Serapion
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-Nicen...f_Serapion
In 37 BC, Antigonus II, the last Hasmonean king of Judaea was killed by some combination of Herod and/or Mark Antony. This was the end of any sort of independent Judaean kingdom and the beginning of about 140 years of rule by one Herodian monarch or another under the tutelage of Rome. The Jews did resist with Parthian help but were overcome. Their "kingdom" was thus "driven away."
This last effectively rules out the 73 AD date as the jews were not dispersed at the end of the Great Revolt but rather at the end of the bar Kochba revolt in 135.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ante-Nicen...f_Serapion
Quote:Or the Jews by the murder of their Wise King, seeing that from that very time their kingdom was driven away from them?
In 37 BC, Antigonus II, the last Hasmonean king of Judaea was killed by some combination of Herod and/or Mark Antony. This was the end of any sort of independent Judaean kingdom and the beginning of about 140 years of rule by one Herodian monarch or another under the tutelage of Rome. The Jews did resist with Parthian help but were overcome. Their "kingdom" was thus "driven away."
Quote:For with justice did God grant a recompense to the wisdom of all three of them. For the Athenians died by famine; and the people of Samos were covered by the sea without remedy; and the Jews, brought to desolation and expelled from their kingdom, are driven away into every land.
This last effectively rules out the 73 AD date as the jews were not dispersed at the end of the Great Revolt but rather at the end of the bar Kochba revolt in 135.
