Annas was appointed by the Roman legate Quirinius as the first High Priest of the newly formed Roman province of Judaea in AD 6 – just after the Romans had deposed Archelaus, Ethnarch of Judaea, thereby putting Judaea directly under Roman rule.
The Maccabees, also spelled Machabees, were a group of Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire. They founded the Hasmonean dynasty, which ruled from 167 to 37 BCE, being a fully independent kingdom from 104 to 63 BCE. They reasserted the Jewish religion, expanded the boundaries of Judea by conquest, and reduced the influence of Hellenism and Hellenistic Judaism.
The Hasmonean dynasty was a ruling dynasty of Judea and surrounding regions during the Hellenistic times of the Second Temple period, from c. 140 BCE to 37 BCE. Between c. 140 and c. 116 BCE the dynasty ruled Judea semi-autonomously in the Seleucid Empire, and from roughly 110 BCE, with the empire disintegrating, Judea gained further autonomy and expanded into the neighboring regions of Perea, Samaria, Idumea, Galilee, and Iturea. The Hasmonean rulers took the Greek title basileus ("king") as the kingdom became a regional power for several decades. Forces of the Roman Republic intervened in the Hasmonean Civil War in 63 BCE and made it into a client state, marking the decline of Hasmonean dynasty; Herod the Great displaced the last reigning Hasmonean client-ruler in 37 BCE.
John Hyrcanus was a Hasmonean (Maccabean) leader and Jewish high priest of the 2nd century BCE. In rabbinic literature he is often referred to as Yoḥanan Cohen Gadol, "John the High Priest".
Zadok or Zadok HaKohen, also spelled Ṣadok, Ṣadoc, Zadoq, Tzadok or Tsadoq, was a Kohen (priest), biblically recorded to be a descendant from Eleazar the son of Aaron. He was the High Priest of Israel during the reigns of David and Solomon. He aided King David during the revolt of his son Absalom, was subsequently instrumental in bringing Solomon to the throne and officiated at Solomon's coronation. After Solomon's building of the First Temple in Jerusalem, Zadok was the first High Priest to serve there.
Aristobulus II was the Jewish High Priest and King of Judea, 66 BCE to 63 BCE, from the Hasmonean dynasty.
John Hyrcanus II, a member of the Hasmonean dynasty, was for a long time the Jewish High Priest in the 1st century BCE. He was also briefly King of Judea 67–66 BCE and then the ethnarch (ruler) of Judea, probably over the period 47–40 BCE.
Eleazar ben Simon was a Zealot leader during the First Jewish-Roman War who fought against the armies of Cestius Gallus, Vespasian, and Titus Flavius. From the onset of the war in 66 CE until the destruction of the temple in 70 CE, he fought vehemently against the Roman garrisons in Judea and against his fellow Jewish political opponents in order to establish an independent Jewish state at Jerusalem. Although the Jewish defeat at Jerusalem cannot be entirely attributed to Eleazar ben Simon, his inability to establish unity with John of Gischala and Simon bar Giora resulted in a bitter civil war that weakened the Jewish resistance against Rome. Eleazar ben Simon and his Zealots' radical anti-Roman policies and eradication of the moderate temple aristocracy from Jerusalem in 67 CE also prevented any peaceful agreement with Rome to avoid the death and destruction which ensued in 70 CE.
In Judaism, the High Priest of Israel was the head of the Israelite priesthood. He played a unique role in the worship conducted in the Tabernacle and later in the Temple in Jerusalem, as well as in some non-ritual matters. Like all priests, he was required to be descended from Aaron. But unlike other priests, the high priest followed more restrictive laws, wore unique priestly garments, and was the only priest allowed to perform certain ceremonies.
Joshua ben Gamla, also called Jesus the son of Gamala, was a Jewish high priest in about 64-65 CE. He was killed during the First Jewish–Roman War. While the Talmud refers to Joshua ben Gamla, the earlier Greek works of Josephus Flavius call him Γαμάλα μὲν υἱὸς Ἰησοῦς a semitism for: The son of Gamala, Jesus.
Onias IV was the son of Onias III and the heir of the Zadokite line of High Priests of Israel. He built a new Jewish temple at Leontopolis in Ptolemaic Egypt where he reigned as a rival High Priest to the hierarchy in Jerusalem. While he never gained leadership in Judea, he still held influence in Egypt; the territory most heavily populated by Jews was called the Land of Onias in reference to his influence.
Onias I was the son of the Jaddua mentioned in Nehemiah. According to Josephus, this Jaddua is said to have been a contemporary of Alexander the Great. I Maccabees regards Onias as a contemporary of the Spartan king Areus I. "Josephus is ... mistaken in placing it in the time of Onias III instead of Onias I, who was high priest c. 300 B.C. ."
Johanan, son of Joiada, was the fifth high priest after the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem by the Jews who had returned from the Babylonian captivity. His reign is estimated to have been from c. 410–371 BCE; he was succeeded by his son Jaddua. The Bible gives no details about his life. Johanan lived during the reigns of king Darius II of Persia and his son Artaxerxes II, whose Achaemenid Empire included Judah as a province.
The Samaritan High Priest is the high priest of the Samaritan community in the Levant. According to Samaritan tradition, the office has existed continuously since the time of Aaron, the brother of Moses, and has been held by 133 priests over the last 3400 years. However, the historicity of this claim is disputed. One account by Josephus suggests that its office holders are an offshoot of the Zadokite high priests of Jerusalem from around the time of Alexander the Great. As of 2013, the incumbent high priest is Abdel V.
Jewish tradition has long preserved a record of dates and time sequences of important historical events related to the Jewish nation, including but not limited to the dates fixed for the building and destruction of the Second Temple, and which same fixed points in time are well-documented and supported by ancient works, although when compared to the synchronistic chronological tables of modern-day chroniclers, belabored mostly by western scholars of history, they are, notwithstanding, often at variance with their modern dating system. Discrepancies between the two systems may be as much as 2 years, or well-over 100 years, depending on the event. Prior to the adoption of the BC / AD era of computation and its synchronization with the regnal years of kings and Caesars recorded in historical records, Jews made use of the earlier Seleucid era counting, or, in Hebrew, minyan li-šṭarōth, by which historical dates were marked, from the time of Alexander the Great.
Hellenistic Palestine is the term for the history of the region of Palestine during the Hellenistic period, when Achaemenid Syria was conquered by Alexander the Great and subsumed into his growing Macedonian empire. Following his death and the division of his empire among the Diadochi, the region came first under Ptolemaic rule beginning in the late 4th century BCE with Ptolemy I Soter, followed by Seleucid rule beginning in the early 2nd century BCE with Antiochus III the Great. Later the same century, the Maccabean revolt weakened the grip of the Seleucid Empire and paved the way for the emergence of the rule of the local Hasmonean dynasty. Following the 63 BCE Siege of Jerusalem by Pompey the Great, the region was annexed by the Roman Republic, marking the end of Hellenistic Palestine and the beginning of Roman Judea.
The Second Temple period in Judaism began with the end of the Babylonian captivity and the Persian conquest of the Near East in 539 BCE. The Second Temple was then built, and finished around 516 BCE. The conquests of Macedonia under Alexander the Great in 332 BCE saw Judea and the Near East placed under Greek influence during the Hellenistic period; Hellenistic Judaism blended both Greek and Jewish traditions. The Maccabean Revolt of 167–142 BCE was fight a first for Judean autonomy against a suppression of traditional Judaism, and later acquired outright independence under the rule of the Hasmonean family in an independent Hasmonean kingdom. The Hasmoneans would rule until 63 BCE, when they were reduced to client king status as Roman puppets; that too would end in 37 BCE, with King Herod the Great taking control, leading to the Herodian dynasty. Herod's death would lead to both the Herodian Tetrarchy where smaller regions ruled by members of his family, as well as direct Roman control by the governors of Roman Judea. The period would come to an end with the First Jewish–Roman War of 66–73 CE. Jerusalem was conquered in 70 CE, and the Second Temple was destroyed.
