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Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire
A new history of two centuries of Jewish revolts against the Roman Empire, drawing on recent archeological discoveries and new scholarship by leading historian Barry Strauss.
Jews vs. Rome is a gripping account of one of the most momentous eras in human the two hundred years of ancient Israel’s battles against Rome that reshaped Judaism and gave rise to Christianity. Barry Strauss vividly captures the drama of this era, highlighting the courageous yet tragic uprisings, the geopolitical clash between the empires of Rome and Persia, and the internal conflicts among Jews.
Between 63 BCE and 136 CE, the Jewish people launched several revolts driven by deep-seated religious beliefs and resentment towards Roman rule. Judea, a province on Rome’s eastern fringe, became a focal point of tension and rebellion. Jews vs. Rome recounts the three major the Great Revolt of 66–70 CE, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, culminating in the Siege of Masada, where defenders chose mass suicide over surrender; the Diaspora Revolt, ignited by heavy taxes across the Empire; and the Bar Kokhba Revolt. We meet pivotal figures such as Simon Bar Kokhba but also some of those lesser-known women of the era like Berenice, a Jewish princess who played a major role in the politics of the Great Revolt and was improbably the love of Titus—Rome’s future emperor and the man who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.
Today, echoes of those battles resonate as the Jewish nation faces new challenges and conflicts. Jews vs. Rome offers a captivating narrative that connects the past with the present, appealing to anyone interested in Rome, Jewish history, or the compelling true tales of resilience and resistance.
Jews vs. Rome is a gripping account of one of the most momentous eras in human the two hundred years of ancient Israel’s battles against Rome that reshaped Judaism and gave rise to Christianity. Barry Strauss vividly captures the drama of this era, highlighting the courageous yet tragic uprisings, the geopolitical clash between the empires of Rome and Persia, and the internal conflicts among Jews.
Between 63 BCE and 136 CE, the Jewish people launched several revolts driven by deep-seated religious beliefs and resentment towards Roman rule. Judea, a province on Rome’s eastern fringe, became a focal point of tension and rebellion. Jews vs. Rome recounts the three major the Great Revolt of 66–70 CE, which led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, culminating in the Siege of Masada, where defenders chose mass suicide over surrender; the Diaspora Revolt, ignited by heavy taxes across the Empire; and the Bar Kokhba Revolt. We meet pivotal figures such as Simon Bar Kokhba but also some of those lesser-known women of the era like Berenice, a Jewish princess who played a major role in the politics of the Great Revolt and was improbably the love of Titus—Rome’s future emperor and the man who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple.
Today, echoes of those battles resonate as the Jewish nation faces new challenges and conflicts. Jews vs. Rome offers a captivating narrative that connects the past with the present, appealing to anyone interested in Rome, Jewish history, or the compelling true tales of resilience and resistance.
384 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 19, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
November 7, 2025
3.5
In 66 CE, the tiny nation of Judea, with a population of approximately 2.5 million, engaged in the first of three major revolts against the Roman Empire, which had an estimated population of between 59 and 76 million, an endeavor that ultimately led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple at its center. Why did a tiny nation embark on what in hindsight appears to be a self-destructive path? Barry Strauss, Professor Emeritus of History at Cornell University and a leading authority on ancient military history, attempts to answer this question in his engaging and accessible narrative history, Jews vs. Romans: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire.
The book spans the period from 63 BCE to 135 CE, focusing on three major revolts: the Great Revolt (also known as the Jewish War), which took place from 66 to 74 CE; the Diaspora Revolt, from 116 to 117 CE; and the Bar Kokhba Revolt, from 132 to 136 CE. Strauss examines the internal divisions within Judea and the causes and consequences of the revolts for the Jewish people and the practice of Judaism. In addition, Strauss claims that he breaks new ground through his exploration of regional geopolitics and his investigation of the impact of Judea's positive relationship with Parthia (Iran), Rome's archenemy, on the course of the conflict.
While Strauss examines political and social forces, at heart, he is a military historian. He devotes nine chapters to the Great Revolt, chronicling military maneuvers and critiquing Josephus, the main primary source for this period. To his credit, Strauss does not employ academic jargon, and the narrative is accessible, even when he engages in intellectual debates. I recommend the book to anyone interested in this historical period. For military history buffs, it is a must.
In 66 CE, the tiny nation of Judea, with a population of approximately 2.5 million, engaged in the first of three major revolts against the Roman Empire, which had an estimated population of between 59 and 76 million, an endeavor that ultimately led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple at its center. Why did a tiny nation embark on what in hindsight appears to be a self-destructive path? Barry Strauss, Professor Emeritus of History at Cornell University and a leading authority on ancient military history, attempts to answer this question in his engaging and accessible narrative history, Jews vs. Romans: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire.
The book spans the period from 63 BCE to 135 CE, focusing on three major revolts: the Great Revolt (also known as the Jewish War), which took place from 66 to 74 CE; the Diaspora Revolt, from 116 to 117 CE; and the Bar Kokhba Revolt, from 132 to 136 CE. Strauss examines the internal divisions within Judea and the causes and consequences of the revolts for the Jewish people and the practice of Judaism. In addition, Strauss claims that he breaks new ground through his exploration of regional geopolitics and his investigation of the impact of Judea's positive relationship with Parthia (Iran), Rome's archenemy, on the course of the conflict.
While Strauss examines political and social forces, at heart, he is a military historian. He devotes nine chapters to the Great Revolt, chronicling military maneuvers and critiquing Josephus, the main primary source for this period. To his credit, Strauss does not employ academic jargon, and the narrative is accessible, even when he engages in intellectual debates. I recommend the book to anyone interested in this historical period. For military history buffs, it is a must.
November 8, 2025
I was absolutely blown away by this book. I’ve read several of Barry Strauss’s earlier works—The War That Made the Roman Empire, the Death of Caesar , Masters of Command, and Ten Caesars—but Jews vs Rome is on an entirely different level. This is, without question, his finest work.
Strauss dives into two centuries of Jewish resistance against the Roman Empire and tells the story with such emotional depth and narrative drive that I often forgot I was reading history. His writing here feels more passionate, urgent, and human than in his previous books. The stakes are high, the characters—both famous and forgotten—feel alive, and Strauss captures the resilience of the Jewish people with clarity and respect.
As someone who reads a lot of Roman history (maybe too much!), I still gained new insights from this book. Strauss illuminates aspects of the Jewish-Roman conflict that rarely get this level of attention. I especially appreciated the cast of characters section—it kept the many figures straight without slowing down the momentum. And for fellow deep-divers, his bibliography and notes are outstanding. He points you toward next steps if you want to keep learning.
When I finished, I was so taken by the story—and by Strauss’s craftsmanship—that I immediately started reading it again. That almost never happens.
If you’re into ancient history, read this.
If you’re into military history or religious history, read this.
Even if you’re not, still read this. Strauss has written something powerful—accessible, scholarly, and emotionally resonant.
Highly recommended. One of the best history books I’ve read this year.
Strauss dives into two centuries of Jewish resistance against the Roman Empire and tells the story with such emotional depth and narrative drive that I often forgot I was reading history. His writing here feels more passionate, urgent, and human than in his previous books. The stakes are high, the characters—both famous and forgotten—feel alive, and Strauss captures the resilience of the Jewish people with clarity and respect.
As someone who reads a lot of Roman history (maybe too much!), I still gained new insights from this book. Strauss illuminates aspects of the Jewish-Roman conflict that rarely get this level of attention. I especially appreciated the cast of characters section—it kept the many figures straight without slowing down the momentum. And for fellow deep-divers, his bibliography and notes are outstanding. He points you toward next steps if you want to keep learning.
When I finished, I was so taken by the story—and by Strauss’s craftsmanship—that I immediately started reading it again. That almost never happens.
If you’re into ancient history, read this.
If you’re into military history or religious history, read this.
Even if you’re not, still read this. Strauss has written something powerful—accessible, scholarly, and emotionally resonant.
Highly recommended. One of the best history books I’ve read this year.
October 21, 2025
Read this book now! Strauss answers so many questions I have had about the relations between Romans and Jews. The Roman empire was vast and all they asked of their provinces was to pay their taxes and keep the peace. That essentially meant no troublemakers allowed, and that included Jesus. He was crucified by prefect Pontius Pilate because he was a threat to the Romans. Christianity becomes a Jewish offshoot and those believers are called Jewish Christians. The Romans were Pagans as is well known, but their beef with Jews was that they would not bow down to the Roman rulers or their numerous gods because Jews believed that there is only one god. Romans even went so far as to make circumcision illegal because they simply found it disgusting.
The Jews of Judea just simply would not go with Roman rule no matter how lenient the Romans may have been. Jews were allowed to govern themselves at one point with King Herod and build a majestic temple in which they could worship as they wished. And so on three occasions the Jewish population revolted and all three were repressed with harsher and harsher penalties on the populations including the destruction of the temple, taxes and numerous killings. They even renamed Judea with Syria Palestina as a punishment. So now you know where the original name of Palestine comes from. In fact, the colosseum in Rome was built with the looting of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. It’s no wonder why that temple sight is so sacred to Jews. You may think that the mosque in Jerusalem was built on top of the temple, and technically it is, but in fact it is built on top of both the Jewish temple and a pagan temple. When the Jewish temple was destroyed the Romans punished the Jews even further by building a pagan temple on top of it. Therefore, that mosque is literally the third layer.
The book is so much more in depth than what I have described here, but these are the highlights. There are so many people and things that have happened since the 1st century to the year 600 in the middle east that I did not know about and this book puts it all into place and wraps it up tightly with a nice bow. In the end, just like most empires, the Roman empire finally succumbed to the Germans in the west and then a millennia later to the Islamists in the east. Shades of their past glories are seen throughout Europe and the Middle East. I only think of what could have been for Jews and Judea if they just lived with Roman rule because it eventually collapsed. Judea would have thrived for a millennia and then some. Now Israel as we know it is 78 years old and struggling to survive, but just as it has over the years and through countless rulers it remains. Keep in mind that when Israel was born again in 1948 the name was chosen over Judea because it represents Jewish nationalism and independence. It is obviously aptly named.
The Jews of Judea just simply would not go with Roman rule no matter how lenient the Romans may have been. Jews were allowed to govern themselves at one point with King Herod and build a majestic temple in which they could worship as they wished. And so on three occasions the Jewish population revolted and all three were repressed with harsher and harsher penalties on the populations including the destruction of the temple, taxes and numerous killings. They even renamed Judea with Syria Palestina as a punishment. So now you know where the original name of Palestine comes from. In fact, the colosseum in Rome was built with the looting of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. It’s no wonder why that temple sight is so sacred to Jews. You may think that the mosque in Jerusalem was built on top of the temple, and technically it is, but in fact it is built on top of both the Jewish temple and a pagan temple. When the Jewish temple was destroyed the Romans punished the Jews even further by building a pagan temple on top of it. Therefore, that mosque is literally the third layer.
The book is so much more in depth than what I have described here, but these are the highlights. There are so many people and things that have happened since the 1st century to the year 600 in the middle east that I did not know about and this book puts it all into place and wraps it up tightly with a nice bow. In the end, just like most empires, the Roman empire finally succumbed to the Germans in the west and then a millennia later to the Islamists in the east. Shades of their past glories are seen throughout Europe and the Middle East. I only think of what could have been for Jews and Judea if they just lived with Roman rule because it eventually collapsed. Judea would have thrived for a millennia and then some. Now Israel as we know it is 78 years old and struggling to survive, but just as it has over the years and through countless rulers it remains. Keep in mind that when Israel was born again in 1948 the name was chosen over Judea because it represents Jewish nationalism and independence. It is obviously aptly named.
August 29, 2025
This is a fantastic book to those who wish to understand the Jews in the era from the fall of the hashmonian dynasty to the bar kochva rebellion (about two centuries ending in 137 CE) . It provides thorough overview of the groups, narratives , incentives and realities of the time .
Personally, I find the following question fascinating- how did the Jews shifted from a warrior society (which is obviously described in the Bible ) to a learner society ? Such a cultural revolution must have been a huge drama , and it was!
This book is great source to understanding this shift and the dramas and geopolitics behind it .
Personally, I find the following question fascinating- how did the Jews shifted from a warrior society (which is obviously described in the Bible ) to a learner society ? Such a cultural revolution must have been a huge drama , and it was!
This book is great source to understanding this shift and the dramas and geopolitics behind it .
October 14, 2025
Pretty interesting. The timeline could have been clearer.
January 28, 2026
Extraordinară carte!
Cred că am subliniat mai bine de 20% din ea, atât de mult m-a fascinat!
Cartea prezintă conflictele și tensiunile dintre evrei și Imperiul Roman în perioada 63 î.Hr.–136 d.Hr. — de la cucerirea Iudeii de către Roma, până la Rebeliunea lui Bar Kokhba.
Mi-a plăcut foarte mult stilul, care te prinde ușor și te face să continui lectura fără efort. De asemenea, are și referințe biblice, iar în anumite situații autorul se bazează nu doar pe fapte istorice, ci și pe Biblie.
Dacă aș putea, i-aș da 6 stele.
Cred că am subliniat mai bine de 20% din ea, atât de mult m-a fascinat!
Cartea prezintă conflictele și tensiunile dintre evrei și Imperiul Roman în perioada 63 î.Hr.–136 d.Hr. — de la cucerirea Iudeii de către Roma, până la Rebeliunea lui Bar Kokhba.
Mi-a plăcut foarte mult stilul, care te prinde ușor și te face să continui lectura fără efort. De asemenea, are și referințe biblice, iar în anumite situații autorul se bazează nu doar pe fapte istorice, ci și pe Biblie.
Dacă aș putea, i-aș da 6 stele.
February 8, 2026
Fantastic book. Very helpful for my Church History classes.
March 25, 2026
Very interesting book about the fight of the Jewish people against the might of the Roman Empire.
October 6, 2025
Not my favorite of Strauss’s work, but mostly because it paints in broad brush strokes instead of the detail oriented approach I loved about The Death of Caesar, and The War that Made the Roman Empire. Though, this is to be expected for a history covering 200 years of history, and there is still lots to learn. Sometimes the writing feels terse and wooden, and sometimes the arc of the narrative felt disjointed.
Being as steeped in the Christian tradition as the West is, usually Jewish history is confined to what we read in the Old and New Testaments, relegated to being told by religious teachers that have a vested interest in telling the story as fits their narrative. Strauss here is levelheaded, and gives us a full picture of the Jewish revolutionary spirit from Jewish and Roman sources. I admire the Jewish people for their courage and idealism in waging unwinnable battles against the greatest empire of the age. They offer such a shining example of dogged resilience, proving that those who are defeated but go down fighting rise again. Historically speaking, they’ve always been the underdog, consistently a thorn in the side of their more militarily sophisticated enemies. But, this makes me question all the more Israel’s current Palestinian campaign. I will not pretend to be knowledgeable of middle eastern geopolitics. But my initial reaction is that it certainly seems roles have been reversed and Israel has become the oppressor they revolted against so often in their long history
Being as steeped in the Christian tradition as the West is, usually Jewish history is confined to what we read in the Old and New Testaments, relegated to being told by religious teachers that have a vested interest in telling the story as fits their narrative. Strauss here is levelheaded, and gives us a full picture of the Jewish revolutionary spirit from Jewish and Roman sources. I admire the Jewish people for their courage and idealism in waging unwinnable battles against the greatest empire of the age. They offer such a shining example of dogged resilience, proving that those who are defeated but go down fighting rise again. Historically speaking, they’ve always been the underdog, consistently a thorn in the side of their more militarily sophisticated enemies. But, this makes me question all the more Israel’s current Palestinian campaign. I will not pretend to be knowledgeable of middle eastern geopolitics. But my initial reaction is that it certainly seems roles have been reversed and Israel has become the oppressor they revolted against so often in their long history
September 24, 2025
A bit dense but overall a very interesting deep dive. The history book on the shelf really is always repeating itself!
April 23, 2026
“If I forget thee, O Jerusalem let my right hand forget her cunning.” - Psalm 137
This work is entertaining and eminently relevant. As is the case with ancient history, truth must be considered carefully, which Strauss makes clear in the way of weighing archaeological evidence, contextualizing events, and disputing ancient historians.
We begin with Judea, a geographical area situated between great, contesting imperial powers Rome and Persia. The people of Judea became provincial subjects of Rome when Pompey the Great conquered Judea.
Jewish life under Roman rule worked well enough, evidenced by the flourishment of Jerusalem and the Second Temple beginning under Herod the Great. But harmony under the sanctioned government was perpetually delicate. The spiritual fire in the heart of the Jewish race, a mighty testament of endurance, chafed under the rule of a pagan empire. In The Holy Land, as they believed, only God’s law was legitimate.
—
Strauss details great revolts; the conquerings of Jerusalem, the Great Diaspora, and the geurilla war of Bar Kokhba; all effectively ended under Hadrian. Rome had had enough, and the Jews in Judea were eradicated, enslaved, or depopulated. Those still alive were forced from Jerusalem, their spiritual home and Mecca.
The destruction of The Second Temple under Vespian/ Titus and the partial eradication of the Jewish race led to a fundamental severance of Christ followers from Judaism; and, importantly, the endurance of Rabbi-led Judaism - a religion of internal spiritual resolve, of spiritual armor. Horrendously, as history has shown, the ‘spiritual armor preserved the Jewish soul, but it left many, many Jewish bodies unprotected.’
—
When describing Rome, the Roman politicians somewhat engender resemblance to modernity. Indeed, ‘Hadrian was neither the first nor last western statesman to underestimate the degree of resistance to outside reformers in the Middle East.’ The emperors inscribed their achievements on coins and monuments; they celebrated war caused by their incompetence; and they withdrew troops in defeat, yet claiming victory in title.
To rival Rome, there was Persia (known today as Iran), Rome’s only remaining imperial rival. Whereas Rome was a master of lining up large numbers of troops on a battlefield, seiging cities, and crushing opponents; Persia was a master of asymmetric tactics: the strategic retreat, support of proxies, bribery, or formenting rebellion in the enemy’s rear. It was rumored that Persia may have started the Great Diaspora rebellion. A rebellion which threatened the prized Roman city Alexandria. ‘By threatening to seize control of the harbor of Alexandria, the rebels could have cut the grain supply between Egypt and Italy, a lifeline as vital to the Romans as today’s oil route from the Middle East.’ Needless to say, it was a severe threat to Rome, the dominant power who was habitually frustrated by irregular warfare.
Today, the Middle East is again at a boil. A militant nationalist religion is rooted in modern Persia, where followers believe, similar to many ancient Jews, in apocalypse and a messianic return. These radicals may have little patience for those, often in the elite, who still believe in collaboration. It should be appreciated that when the Roman seige surrounded the rebellious Jews, across a hundred years and many fortifications, never once did the rebels surrender.
As Churchill said, “Nations that go down fighting rise again, but those who surrender tamely are finished.”
And so, ‘today, after two millenia, the Jewish people have reestablished a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland… The Jews have returned to Jerusalem.’
This work is entertaining and eminently relevant. As is the case with ancient history, truth must be considered carefully, which Strauss makes clear in the way of weighing archaeological evidence, contextualizing events, and disputing ancient historians.
We begin with Judea, a geographical area situated between great, contesting imperial powers Rome and Persia. The people of Judea became provincial subjects of Rome when Pompey the Great conquered Judea.
Jewish life under Roman rule worked well enough, evidenced by the flourishment of Jerusalem and the Second Temple beginning under Herod the Great. But harmony under the sanctioned government was perpetually delicate. The spiritual fire in the heart of the Jewish race, a mighty testament of endurance, chafed under the rule of a pagan empire. In The Holy Land, as they believed, only God’s law was legitimate.
—
Strauss details great revolts; the conquerings of Jerusalem, the Great Diaspora, and the geurilla war of Bar Kokhba; all effectively ended under Hadrian. Rome had had enough, and the Jews in Judea were eradicated, enslaved, or depopulated. Those still alive were forced from Jerusalem, their spiritual home and Mecca.
The destruction of The Second Temple under Vespian/ Titus and the partial eradication of the Jewish race led to a fundamental severance of Christ followers from Judaism; and, importantly, the endurance of Rabbi-led Judaism - a religion of internal spiritual resolve, of spiritual armor. Horrendously, as history has shown, the ‘spiritual armor preserved the Jewish soul, but it left many, many Jewish bodies unprotected.’
—
When describing Rome, the Roman politicians somewhat engender resemblance to modernity. Indeed, ‘Hadrian was neither the first nor last western statesman to underestimate the degree of resistance to outside reformers in the Middle East.’ The emperors inscribed their achievements on coins and monuments; they celebrated war caused by their incompetence; and they withdrew troops in defeat, yet claiming victory in title.
To rival Rome, there was Persia (known today as Iran), Rome’s only remaining imperial rival. Whereas Rome was a master of lining up large numbers of troops on a battlefield, seiging cities, and crushing opponents; Persia was a master of asymmetric tactics: the strategic retreat, support of proxies, bribery, or formenting rebellion in the enemy’s rear. It was rumored that Persia may have started the Great Diaspora rebellion. A rebellion which threatened the prized Roman city Alexandria. ‘By threatening to seize control of the harbor of Alexandria, the rebels could have cut the grain supply between Egypt and Italy, a lifeline as vital to the Romans as today’s oil route from the Middle East.’ Needless to say, it was a severe threat to Rome, the dominant power who was habitually frustrated by irregular warfare.
Today, the Middle East is again at a boil. A militant nationalist religion is rooted in modern Persia, where followers believe, similar to many ancient Jews, in apocalypse and a messianic return. These radicals may have little patience for those, often in the elite, who still believe in collaboration. It should be appreciated that when the Roman seige surrounded the rebellious Jews, across a hundred years and many fortifications, never once did the rebels surrender.
As Churchill said, “Nations that go down fighting rise again, but those who surrender tamely are finished.”
And so, ‘today, after two millenia, the Jewish people have reestablished a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland… The Jews have returned to Jerusalem.’
December 14, 2025
Jews to Rome: don’t tread on me! The book sheds light on the fact that Rome wasn’t a monolithic Death Star, it was an empire trying to hold it’s edges together, and struggling to deal with the hornets nest that was the province of Judea whose population was game and heroic despite being outmanned and out-sworded.
March 4, 2026
Barry Stauss presents the story of Judea from 63 BCE to 135 CE when it was under the control of the Roman Empire. During this time there were three major revolts against Roman rule. This was unusual as the Roman empire normally had less resistance after subjugating their territories.
Strauss presents the case that the Jews had a strong cultural perspective that they should only obey God and not the heathen Romans. The Romans approach was to shape the local leadership to support Roman rule and were somewhat flexible about local religious observances. The key problem was then when the Jews engaged in open revolt the Roman response was to ruthlessly eradicate the opposition and any local population that resisted. After the third revolt a significant part of the Jewish population of Judea was killed or sold into slavery. This resulted in an interesting evolution in Jewish faith and culture, which allowed Judaism to spread and evolve without having a home country for two thousand years until Israel was re-established in modern times.
I found this book to be interesting and remarkable readable. It is well documented and Strauss is clear about what is in historical records and what is reasonable surmise. Yet it does not read like a historical tome.
The focus of the book is on the Jews, but as a Christian I found some of the perspectives about Christianity in general, and Pontius Pilate specifically highly informative. Pilate was expected to keep the peace and suppress any threats to Roman rule. So while Jesus was not causing a rebellion, he presented a threat to obedience to Rome. Reading that part of the book reminded me of the Biblical story of the crowd demanding that Jesus be crucified or Pilate was not a friend of Ceasar.
While there is little in the historical record for third rebellion, the amount of information available for the first two was remarkable. Barry Strauss did a wonderful job of making it interesting and accessible.
Strauss presents the case that the Jews had a strong cultural perspective that they should only obey God and not the heathen Romans. The Romans approach was to shape the local leadership to support Roman rule and were somewhat flexible about local religious observances. The key problem was then when the Jews engaged in open revolt the Roman response was to ruthlessly eradicate the opposition and any local population that resisted. After the third revolt a significant part of the Jewish population of Judea was killed or sold into slavery. This resulted in an interesting evolution in Jewish faith and culture, which allowed Judaism to spread and evolve without having a home country for two thousand years until Israel was re-established in modern times.
I found this book to be interesting and remarkable readable. It is well documented and Strauss is clear about what is in historical records and what is reasonable surmise. Yet it does not read like a historical tome.
The focus of the book is on the Jews, but as a Christian I found some of the perspectives about Christianity in general, and Pontius Pilate specifically highly informative. Pilate was expected to keep the peace and suppress any threats to Roman rule. So while Jesus was not causing a rebellion, he presented a threat to obedience to Rome. Reading that part of the book reminded me of the Biblical story of the crowd demanding that Jesus be crucified or Pilate was not a friend of Ceasar.
While there is little in the historical record for third rebellion, the amount of information available for the first two was remarkable. Barry Strauss did a wonderful job of making it interesting and accessible.
December 28, 2025
Later review 2 (28.12.2025): Mă grăbeam să ajung undeva după ce am citit cartea, nu aveam timp de review.
Și, acum că mă gândesc să las o completare la review, realizez că ar fi mai autentic și mai expresiv să notez review-urile în timp ce citesc cartea și la final să le integrez într-un singur review complet.
Deci, într-un limbaj mai des stradă, mai de golăneală, pot spune despre evreul din acea perioadă, 30BCE-400AD, că e ca un maidanez la care-i crapi capu în timp ce l-ai prins la colț și el tot vrea să te muște. (Tu fiind legionarul roman)
Altă impresie: Evreii au fost obișnuiți cu războiul, "de când lumea", la propriu. Nu doar în perioada din carte, ci și înainte și după, în antichitate și în perioada modernă (1948-2025). Cartea scoate foarte bine în evidență cum și de ce s-au comportat evreii așa, ce motivații au avut și ce scopuri au urmărit, în perioada imperiului roman.
Mi-a plăcut dar m-a și scârbit simultan, curajul evreilor de a negocia cu imperiul roman.
Interesantă tare toată istoria Templului.
Și influențele externe, imperiul Parților (o bună lecție de istorie), și relațiile comerciale ale evreilor cu toate țările vecine și chiar mai departe. Fascinant cât de bine erau "dispersați" prin toate regiunile.
Later review 1 (27.12.2025): Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, said he's reading this book.
I was intrigued. So I read it.
It did not dissapoint.
On the contrary, it stirred my curiosity.
The book also offers a complementary view of the events that happend during Jesus' life. Me gusta.
---
Cartea face cât un serial foarte bun de istorie.
Trebuie doar să ții pasul.
Am citit și epilogul, glosarul și acknowledgments.
Cartea are o bibliografie impresionantă și un index util, pe care am uitat să îl folosesc.
Are 2 hărți la început: foarte folositoare!
Autorul mai are 15 cărți...
Și, acum că mă gândesc să las o completare la review, realizez că ar fi mai autentic și mai expresiv să notez review-urile în timp ce citesc cartea și la final să le integrez într-un singur review complet.
Deci, într-un limbaj mai des stradă, mai de golăneală, pot spune despre evreul din acea perioadă, 30BCE-400AD, că e ca un maidanez la care-i crapi capu în timp ce l-ai prins la colț și el tot vrea să te muște. (Tu fiind legionarul roman)
Altă impresie: Evreii au fost obișnuiți cu războiul, "de când lumea", la propriu. Nu doar în perioada din carte, ci și înainte și după, în antichitate și în perioada modernă (1948-2025). Cartea scoate foarte bine în evidență cum și de ce s-au comportat evreii așa, ce motivații au avut și ce scopuri au urmărit, în perioada imperiului roman.
Mi-a plăcut dar m-a și scârbit simultan, curajul evreilor de a negocia cu imperiul roman.
Interesantă tare toată istoria Templului.
Și influențele externe, imperiul Parților (o bună lecție de istorie), și relațiile comerciale ale evreilor cu toate țările vecine și chiar mai departe. Fascinant cât de bine erau "dispersați" prin toate regiunile.
Later review 1 (27.12.2025): Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, said he's reading this book.
I was intrigued. So I read it.
It did not dissapoint.
On the contrary, it stirred my curiosity.
The book also offers a complementary view of the events that happend during Jesus' life. Me gusta.
---
Cartea face cât un serial foarte bun de istorie.
Trebuie doar să ții pasul.
Am citit și epilogul, glosarul și acknowledgments.
Cartea are o bibliografie impresionantă și un index util, pe care am uitat să îl folosesc.
Are 2 hărți la început: foarte folositoare!
Autorul mai are 15 cărți...
November 10, 2025
A well written history of the Jewish conflicts with the Roman Empire. At first I got lost in the swirl of names, but Strauss does a good job getting a more clear narrative flow in the three major revolts.
January 5, 2026
A compelling account of the Jewish Wars by a master of the craft. It reads like a historical novel because of the richness of the characters. Check out our podcast with Barry Strauss at So We Speak - Dec 2025.
April 12, 2026
Barry Strauss writes on page 2 of this book:
“It is my hope that the history of this period, these people and these struggles, will offer context for the clash of civilizations we are witnessing today and forge a deeper understanding of the forces that propel them.”
Of course, the modern world is built upon the ancient world, and illuminating connections can be made between them. But the danger of writing ancient history in the light of modern times is that the modern historian will distort ancient history in terms of his or her political bias (some unconscious bias is of course always to be expected). Jews v. Rome seems to me to fall into this pit of the politicization of ancient history. Indeed – ironically in view of the book’s celebration of anti-imperial revolts -- the very term “clash of civilizations” invokes the right-wing, confrontational and imperialistic worldview of the US neoconservatives.
My problems with the book started with an Author’s Note on the very first page, and a map a few pages later. Here is the Author’s Note:
“Judea, sometimes spelled Judaea, has several different meanings. On the one hand, it refers either to a country that was first an independent kingdom and then a province in the Roman Empire. On the other hand, it refers to a region within that country, namely the region of Jerusalem and its hinterland. To avoid confusion, I refer to the province and kingdom as Judea and to the region as Judah. Both are the same word in Hebrew, Yehudah, or in Latin, Judaea.”
A few pages later, we are given a map that shows an area between Lebanon/Syria and Egypt in ancient times that up till recent years, as a matter of accepted scholarly usage, has been named as “Palestine”. Strauss’s term “country” in the quotation above implies that the kingdom and later province of Judea covered the whole area; and the map confirms this implication, because this map of the whole area between Syria/Lebanon and Egypt is headed: ”Judea”.
In recent years, there has been a tendency among scholars of the time-period covered in the book – the mid-first century BCE to the early second century CE -- not to use the name “Palestine”. The justification usually given is that the term has nowadays become politically sensitive because it is linked to the “delegitimization” of the State of Israel. But it seems to me that the trend towards abolition of the previously generally recognized name “Palestine” is itself driven by the political agenda of Israel apologists, who want to eliminate mention of Palestine and imply misleadingly that the whole land in ancient times belonged to the Jews.
The change in scholarly usage in recent years is well illustrated by two different translations that I possess of Josephus’s The Jewish War. The first translation, in the Penguin Classics series, was first published in 1959; there were two revised editions, in 1970 and 1981. In all three editions, a map of the area in Josephus’s time (the first century CE) is headed: “Palestine”. But in a recent translation of The Jewish War, published in 2017 in the Oxford World’s Classics series, a map of the area in Josephus’s time is headed: “Judea and its environs”.
But the three words “and its environs” are very significant, because they concede that the term “Judea” does not cover the whole land. As Strauss has pointed out, the name “Judea” refers to three entities: a) a small area around Jerusalem where the Jews settled after their return from Babylon; b) a Hasmonean/Herodian kingdom, which varied in extent over the years, depending on conquests, defeats, acquisitions and losses of neighbouring territories, but which never – even when it reached its greatest extent during the reign of Herod the Great, when it covered most of the land -- incorporated the whole land; c) a Roman province ( which, initially at least, was technically, as Strauss points out on page 44, a kind of sub-province of the wider Roman province of Syria), that again varied in extent over the years, but again never encompassed the whole land (the province was always much smaller than Herod’s kingdom and in its early stages consisted of only three small areas: Judea, Samaria and Idumea).
Strauss’s refusal to use the name “Palestine” for the whole land and insistence on calling it “Judea” lead him into all kinds of confusions, contradictions, errors, inconsistencies and sleights-of-hand. To list some of these:
a) As I have already set out, Strauss wrongly implies that the word “Judea” covers the whole “country”. On page 3, Strauss writes “In the Roman era, the country was commonly called Judea.” There is no footnote here and he presents no evidence for this claim.
b) So far from avoiding confusion by calling the small area around Jerusalem “Judah” instead of the accepted scholarly name “Judea” (so as not to confuse the small area with the erroneous name of the whole land), Strauss introduces more historical confusion, since “Judah” is the accepted scholarly term for the Jewish kingdom that was destroyed centuries earlier by the Babylonians.
c) Strauss erroneously suggests on page 25 that the Kingdom of Nabataea in the south of Palestine was part of Herod’s kingdom; whereas much later in the book, on page 261, he admits that Nabataea was independent.
d) On page 143, Strauss is finally forced to use the word “Palestine” when he mentions the Greek city of Pella, which was one of ten autonomous Greek cities in Palestine; he writes: “Pella was one of the Greek cities of Palestine, located in the foothills of the Jordan River, about twenty miles south of the Sea of Galilee.”
e) Most confusingly of all, on page 4 Strauss repeats the Zionist myth that the name “Palestine” was only given to the land by the Emperor Hadrian in the second century CE, as a punishment for the Jews after the crushing of the Bar Kokhba Revolt: “As if to add insult to injury, the Romans changed the name of the country from Judea (‘land of the Jews’) to Syria Palaestina or simply Palestine (‘land of the Philistines’).” Strauss gets into all kinds of contortions in connection with this Zionist myth, because, even while trying to repeat it again on page 271, he is forced to concede that “Greek authors such as Herodotus and Aristotle used the name ‘Palestine’ to refer to Canaan more broadly”. This is the only mention of the word “Canaan” in the book; Strauss admits that the whole land is broader than just “Judea”, whereas he has been implying throughout the book that Judea covered the whole land. He tries to suggest that Hadrian was lobbied by Greeks, because of their cultural rivalry with the Jews, to call the whole land Syria Palaestina; but it is far more likely that Hadrian simply used the name that had been current for centuries.
After all the obfuscation, Strauss finally makes it clear on page 271 that “Judea” and “Israel” (clearly the name he would have liked to use throughout the book, but he does not dare to) were only the Jewish names for the whole land, not the names commonly in use among other peoples: “Palestine was not a new name, but it was not a name used by Jews, who referred to their country as Judea, the Land of Israel, or simply Israel.” The implication even here, however, is that only the Jews matter.
I have gone into so much detail on what might seem a small point because the recent trend of abolishing the name “Palestine” in books about Jewish ancient history has become so prevalent that I think a stand should be made against this politically motivated tendency.
To return to the beginning of the book: summing up its message on page 4, Strauss writes:
“There is a holy fire, burning in the hearts of warriors, that leads to glory or oblivion. For two centuries it burned in the hearts of the nation that is the subject of this book, the Jewish people…. It was left to the Romans to drown the blaze in rivers of blood. Only then did a new generation of rabbis emerge from the ruins and turn the fire into light…. The Jewish people survived, learning how to become a religion without a state. Then, twenty centuries later, they created a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland, Israel.”
In other words, Strauss’s main argument goes like this: During the two centuries spanned by his book, Judaism was a warrior religion, inspiring a warrior people who fought bravely to defend their Temple and State. After the final crushing of the last rebellion, however, Judaism turned into a religion of rabbis, peace and moral and spiritual values, which enabled Judaism to survive in exile for two thousand years, but also left Jews vulnerable to persecution and ultimately extermination. After two thousand years, however, with the birth of Zionism and Israel, the ancient warrior spirit of the Jewish people has reawakened – and this time has succeeded, because of its strategic know-how, where the ancient rebels failed.
At the end of Chapter 11, about the Bar Kokhba Revolt -- the last chapter in the book before the Epilogue -- Strauss repeats this message:
“After the failure of Bar Kokhba, the rabbis would come into their own as the leaders of their people. They did everything they could to put the Jewish rebel spirit to sleep. But it woke up again" (p. 273).
And in the Epilogue, Strauss writes:
“Spiritual armour preserved the Jewish soul, but it left many, many Jewish bodies unprotected…. Jewish history shows that the spirit is the most important thing, but it is not the only thing. To survive, a people also needs a sword. Not only that; it needs a strategy. The heroism of the rebels against Rome fired the heart even when it didn’t save the state. Zionism, the very model of a national liberation movement, has finally achieved what eluded Simon son of Giora and Simon Bar Kokhba” (p. 286).
Linked to Strauss’s main argument is a recurrent theme in the book that, during these two ancient warrior centuries in Judea, the Temple was all-important in Judaism. On page 4, Strauss writes:
“Rome destroyed the Jewish capital, Jerusalem, and its crowning glory, the Temple. Rome ended the daily sacrifices that marked the heart of Judaism and ruined the priesthood who carried them out.”
And on page 63, Strauss writes: “The Temple was everything. For the Jews it was not only the chief religious site, but the chief political site as well.”
Strauss’s argument that it was only after the crushing of the Bar Kokhba Revolt that the Rabbis became of primary importance in Judaism makes no historical or logical sense. If the Temple had indeed been “everything”, its destruction would have meant the end of Judaism. The reason that Judaism survived was precisely that the Temple had become by this time a kind of façade. It was still revered and its destruction was of course mourned by the Jews, but for centuries real authority had resided with the Rabbis, who were the heirs of the Prophets.
Even before the destruction of the First Temple in the early 6th century BCE, the Prophets had inveighed against those who regarded the ritual sacrifices in the Temple as more important than morality. See Isaiah 1: 11-17: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord.... Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth.... Learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Or see Micah 6: 7-8: “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousand rivers of oil?... what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
(Incidentally, while discussing on page 45 the problem that the census of Quirinius -- described in the Gospel of Luke, 2: 2-4, as the reason that Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem from Nazareth for the birth of Jesus -- took place ten years later, Strauss omits mention of the prophecy in Micah 5: 2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem; and Strauss speculates on page 33 that Herod the Great might indeed have perpetrated the Massacre of the Innocents -- despite no reference to this by any ancient historian -- but omits mention of the very similar legend surrounding the birth of Moses.)
During the Babylonian exile, after the destruction of the First Temple, the Jews, who had taken with them into exile the rudiments of the Bible, including Prophetic writings, preserved their identity as a community by editing and expanding the Bible. It is thought by many scholars that synagogues began in Babylon; and after the return from exile, Rabbis (initially called Hasidim and later Pharisees) emerged. The Jews rebuilt the Temple, but the Temple was only important to them because its ritual was set out in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.
Furthermore, Strauss’s dichotomy between a warrior Judaism centred round the Temple during the two centuries of revolt and a later stateless Judaism of pacifist rabbis centred round the Torah makes no sense in view of the close involvement of the Pharisee rabbis in the 66CE Jewish War and the Bar Kokhba Revolt. The rabbis had always been highly antagonistic to the Hasmonean and Herodian kings; and the Pharisee movement was at the heart of the resistance to the Roman Occupation; the Zealots were the militant wing of the Pharisees. Unlike Strauss, the Pharisee rabbis did not glorify war; but they did rebel against tyranny. The early rebel leader Judas of Galilee is thought to have been a Pharisee; and also many scholars believe Jesus of Nazareth to have been a Pharisee rabbi who claimed to be the Messiah and led a resistance movement against Rome (Strauss in contrast supports, on pages 50-51, the unconvincing view of Geza Vermes that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah but was simply a wonder-working faith-healer who was crucified by the Romans only because he attracted a following and so was seen as a trouble-maker).
In Chapter 11, Strauss over-emphasizes Bar Kokhba’s links to the Temple and underplays the role of the rabbis in the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which many scholars regard as mainly Pharisee-directed; many scholars believe that Bar Kokhba himself was a Pharisee (this is backed up by the cache of his letters found in a cave in 1953).
Strauss’s dichotomy between the warrior Temple Judaism of Judea -- revived after two thousand years by Zionism and Israel -- and the pacifist Rabbis’ Torah Judaism of exile thus seems to me to be another Zionist myth.
But the most troubling message of the book is its claim that Zionism and Israel have succeeded where the ancient rebels failed. True, Zionism succeeded in establishing a state. But, despite its undoubted achievements, Israel has proved to be infinitely more of a failure than the movements led by Simon ben Giora and Simon Bar Kokhba. They and their followers were brave men and women who went down fighting for freedom. Israel has turned into a replica of the worst of the oppressors of the Jews, having committed the worst of crimes: genocide.
The book's last four sentences are:
"The Jews have returned to Jerusalem. Their state prospers, but it struggles to find acceptance by its neighbours. Israel is a small state fighting for its place among much larger states and empires, east and west. After so many changes in history, some constants remain" (p. 287).
Israel would find acceptance by its neighbours if it stopped bombing them and withdrew to its internationally accepted legal borders. Its attempts to eradicate the Palestinians from historical Palestine are mirrored on a literary level by the current effort to eliminate the name “Palestine” from history books. The weirdest thing about Jews vs. Rome is that it celebrates revolts against the Roman Empire, the arch-superpower of the ancient world; yet the book tries to draw a parallel between these anti-imperial revolts and an apartheid, genocidal, nuclear-armed regional bully that is supported by the arch-superpower of the modern world.
My ultimate verdict is that this book is Zionist propaganda, not history.
“It is my hope that the history of this period, these people and these struggles, will offer context for the clash of civilizations we are witnessing today and forge a deeper understanding of the forces that propel them.”
Of course, the modern world is built upon the ancient world, and illuminating connections can be made between them. But the danger of writing ancient history in the light of modern times is that the modern historian will distort ancient history in terms of his or her political bias (some unconscious bias is of course always to be expected). Jews v. Rome seems to me to fall into this pit of the politicization of ancient history. Indeed – ironically in view of the book’s celebration of anti-imperial revolts -- the very term “clash of civilizations” invokes the right-wing, confrontational and imperialistic worldview of the US neoconservatives.
My problems with the book started with an Author’s Note on the very first page, and a map a few pages later. Here is the Author’s Note:
“Judea, sometimes spelled Judaea, has several different meanings. On the one hand, it refers either to a country that was first an independent kingdom and then a province in the Roman Empire. On the other hand, it refers to a region within that country, namely the region of Jerusalem and its hinterland. To avoid confusion, I refer to the province and kingdom as Judea and to the region as Judah. Both are the same word in Hebrew, Yehudah, or in Latin, Judaea.”
A few pages later, we are given a map that shows an area between Lebanon/Syria and Egypt in ancient times that up till recent years, as a matter of accepted scholarly usage, has been named as “Palestine”. Strauss’s term “country” in the quotation above implies that the kingdom and later province of Judea covered the whole area; and the map confirms this implication, because this map of the whole area between Syria/Lebanon and Egypt is headed: ”Judea”.
In recent years, there has been a tendency among scholars of the time-period covered in the book – the mid-first century BCE to the early second century CE -- not to use the name “Palestine”. The justification usually given is that the term has nowadays become politically sensitive because it is linked to the “delegitimization” of the State of Israel. But it seems to me that the trend towards abolition of the previously generally recognized name “Palestine” is itself driven by the political agenda of Israel apologists, who want to eliminate mention of Palestine and imply misleadingly that the whole land in ancient times belonged to the Jews.
The change in scholarly usage in recent years is well illustrated by two different translations that I possess of Josephus’s The Jewish War. The first translation, in the Penguin Classics series, was first published in 1959; there were two revised editions, in 1970 and 1981. In all three editions, a map of the area in Josephus’s time (the first century CE) is headed: “Palestine”. But in a recent translation of The Jewish War, published in 2017 in the Oxford World’s Classics series, a map of the area in Josephus’s time is headed: “Judea and its environs”.
But the three words “and its environs” are very significant, because they concede that the term “Judea” does not cover the whole land. As Strauss has pointed out, the name “Judea” refers to three entities: a) a small area around Jerusalem where the Jews settled after their return from Babylon; b) a Hasmonean/Herodian kingdom, which varied in extent over the years, depending on conquests, defeats, acquisitions and losses of neighbouring territories, but which never – even when it reached its greatest extent during the reign of Herod the Great, when it covered most of the land -- incorporated the whole land; c) a Roman province ( which, initially at least, was technically, as Strauss points out on page 44, a kind of sub-province of the wider Roman province of Syria), that again varied in extent over the years, but again never encompassed the whole land (the province was always much smaller than Herod’s kingdom and in its early stages consisted of only three small areas: Judea, Samaria and Idumea).
Strauss’s refusal to use the name “Palestine” for the whole land and insistence on calling it “Judea” lead him into all kinds of confusions, contradictions, errors, inconsistencies and sleights-of-hand. To list some of these:
a) As I have already set out, Strauss wrongly implies that the word “Judea” covers the whole “country”. On page 3, Strauss writes “In the Roman era, the country was commonly called Judea.” There is no footnote here and he presents no evidence for this claim.
b) So far from avoiding confusion by calling the small area around Jerusalem “Judah” instead of the accepted scholarly name “Judea” (so as not to confuse the small area with the erroneous name of the whole land), Strauss introduces more historical confusion, since “Judah” is the accepted scholarly term for the Jewish kingdom that was destroyed centuries earlier by the Babylonians.
c) Strauss erroneously suggests on page 25 that the Kingdom of Nabataea in the south of Palestine was part of Herod’s kingdom; whereas much later in the book, on page 261, he admits that Nabataea was independent.
d) On page 143, Strauss is finally forced to use the word “Palestine” when he mentions the Greek city of Pella, which was one of ten autonomous Greek cities in Palestine; he writes: “Pella was one of the Greek cities of Palestine, located in the foothills of the Jordan River, about twenty miles south of the Sea of Galilee.”
e) Most confusingly of all, on page 4 Strauss repeats the Zionist myth that the name “Palestine” was only given to the land by the Emperor Hadrian in the second century CE, as a punishment for the Jews after the crushing of the Bar Kokhba Revolt: “As if to add insult to injury, the Romans changed the name of the country from Judea (‘land of the Jews’) to Syria Palaestina or simply Palestine (‘land of the Philistines’).” Strauss gets into all kinds of contortions in connection with this Zionist myth, because, even while trying to repeat it again on page 271, he is forced to concede that “Greek authors such as Herodotus and Aristotle used the name ‘Palestine’ to refer to Canaan more broadly”. This is the only mention of the word “Canaan” in the book; Strauss admits that the whole land is broader than just “Judea”, whereas he has been implying throughout the book that Judea covered the whole land. He tries to suggest that Hadrian was lobbied by Greeks, because of their cultural rivalry with the Jews, to call the whole land Syria Palaestina; but it is far more likely that Hadrian simply used the name that had been current for centuries.
After all the obfuscation, Strauss finally makes it clear on page 271 that “Judea” and “Israel” (clearly the name he would have liked to use throughout the book, but he does not dare to) were only the Jewish names for the whole land, not the names commonly in use among other peoples: “Palestine was not a new name, but it was not a name used by Jews, who referred to their country as Judea, the Land of Israel, or simply Israel.” The implication even here, however, is that only the Jews matter.
I have gone into so much detail on what might seem a small point because the recent trend of abolishing the name “Palestine” in books about Jewish ancient history has become so prevalent that I think a stand should be made against this politically motivated tendency.
To return to the beginning of the book: summing up its message on page 4, Strauss writes:
“There is a holy fire, burning in the hearts of warriors, that leads to glory or oblivion. For two centuries it burned in the hearts of the nation that is the subject of this book, the Jewish people…. It was left to the Romans to drown the blaze in rivers of blood. Only then did a new generation of rabbis emerge from the ruins and turn the fire into light…. The Jewish people survived, learning how to become a religion without a state. Then, twenty centuries later, they created a sovereign state in their ancestral homeland, Israel.”
In other words, Strauss’s main argument goes like this: During the two centuries spanned by his book, Judaism was a warrior religion, inspiring a warrior people who fought bravely to defend their Temple and State. After the final crushing of the last rebellion, however, Judaism turned into a religion of rabbis, peace and moral and spiritual values, which enabled Judaism to survive in exile for two thousand years, but also left Jews vulnerable to persecution and ultimately extermination. After two thousand years, however, with the birth of Zionism and Israel, the ancient warrior spirit of the Jewish people has reawakened – and this time has succeeded, because of its strategic know-how, where the ancient rebels failed.
At the end of Chapter 11, about the Bar Kokhba Revolt -- the last chapter in the book before the Epilogue -- Strauss repeats this message:
“After the failure of Bar Kokhba, the rabbis would come into their own as the leaders of their people. They did everything they could to put the Jewish rebel spirit to sleep. But it woke up again" (p. 273).
And in the Epilogue, Strauss writes:
“Spiritual armour preserved the Jewish soul, but it left many, many Jewish bodies unprotected…. Jewish history shows that the spirit is the most important thing, but it is not the only thing. To survive, a people also needs a sword. Not only that; it needs a strategy. The heroism of the rebels against Rome fired the heart even when it didn’t save the state. Zionism, the very model of a national liberation movement, has finally achieved what eluded Simon son of Giora and Simon Bar Kokhba” (p. 286).
Linked to Strauss’s main argument is a recurrent theme in the book that, during these two ancient warrior centuries in Judea, the Temple was all-important in Judaism. On page 4, Strauss writes:
“Rome destroyed the Jewish capital, Jerusalem, and its crowning glory, the Temple. Rome ended the daily sacrifices that marked the heart of Judaism and ruined the priesthood who carried them out.”
And on page 63, Strauss writes: “The Temple was everything. For the Jews it was not only the chief religious site, but the chief political site as well.”
Strauss’s argument that it was only after the crushing of the Bar Kokhba Revolt that the Rabbis became of primary importance in Judaism makes no historical or logical sense. If the Temple had indeed been “everything”, its destruction would have meant the end of Judaism. The reason that Judaism survived was precisely that the Temple had become by this time a kind of façade. It was still revered and its destruction was of course mourned by the Jews, but for centuries real authority had resided with the Rabbis, who were the heirs of the Prophets.
Even before the destruction of the First Temple in the early 6th century BCE, the Prophets had inveighed against those who regarded the ritual sacrifices in the Temple as more important than morality. See Isaiah 1: 11-17: "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord.... Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth.... Learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." Or see Micah 6: 7-8: “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousand rivers of oil?... what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”
(Incidentally, while discussing on page 45 the problem that the census of Quirinius -- described in the Gospel of Luke, 2: 2-4, as the reason that Mary and Joseph travelled to Bethlehem from Nazareth for the birth of Jesus -- took place ten years later, Strauss omits mention of the prophecy in Micah 5: 2 that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem; and Strauss speculates on page 33 that Herod the Great might indeed have perpetrated the Massacre of the Innocents -- despite no reference to this by any ancient historian -- but omits mention of the very similar legend surrounding the birth of Moses.)
During the Babylonian exile, after the destruction of the First Temple, the Jews, who had taken with them into exile the rudiments of the Bible, including Prophetic writings, preserved their identity as a community by editing and expanding the Bible. It is thought by many scholars that synagogues began in Babylon; and after the return from exile, Rabbis (initially called Hasidim and later Pharisees) emerged. The Jews rebuilt the Temple, but the Temple was only important to them because its ritual was set out in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.
Furthermore, Strauss’s dichotomy between a warrior Judaism centred round the Temple during the two centuries of revolt and a later stateless Judaism of pacifist rabbis centred round the Torah makes no sense in view of the close involvement of the Pharisee rabbis in the 66CE Jewish War and the Bar Kokhba Revolt. The rabbis had always been highly antagonistic to the Hasmonean and Herodian kings; and the Pharisee movement was at the heart of the resistance to the Roman Occupation; the Zealots were the militant wing of the Pharisees. Unlike Strauss, the Pharisee rabbis did not glorify war; but they did rebel against tyranny. The early rebel leader Judas of Galilee is thought to have been a Pharisee; and also many scholars believe Jesus of Nazareth to have been a Pharisee rabbi who claimed to be the Messiah and led a resistance movement against Rome (Strauss in contrast supports, on pages 50-51, the unconvincing view of Geza Vermes that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah but was simply a wonder-working faith-healer who was crucified by the Romans only because he attracted a following and so was seen as a trouble-maker).
In Chapter 11, Strauss over-emphasizes Bar Kokhba’s links to the Temple and underplays the role of the rabbis in the Bar Kokhba Revolt, which many scholars regard as mainly Pharisee-directed; many scholars believe that Bar Kokhba himself was a Pharisee (this is backed up by the cache of his letters found in a cave in 1953).
Strauss’s dichotomy between the warrior Temple Judaism of Judea -- revived after two thousand years by Zionism and Israel -- and the pacifist Rabbis’ Torah Judaism of exile thus seems to me to be another Zionist myth.
But the most troubling message of the book is its claim that Zionism and Israel have succeeded where the ancient rebels failed. True, Zionism succeeded in establishing a state. But, despite its undoubted achievements, Israel has proved to be infinitely more of a failure than the movements led by Simon ben Giora and Simon Bar Kokhba. They and their followers were brave men and women who went down fighting for freedom. Israel has turned into a replica of the worst of the oppressors of the Jews, having committed the worst of crimes: genocide.
The book's last four sentences are:
"The Jews have returned to Jerusalem. Their state prospers, but it struggles to find acceptance by its neighbours. Israel is a small state fighting for its place among much larger states and empires, east and west. After so many changes in history, some constants remain" (p. 287).
Israel would find acceptance by its neighbours if it stopped bombing them and withdrew to its internationally accepted legal borders. Its attempts to eradicate the Palestinians from historical Palestine are mirrored on a literary level by the current effort to eliminate the name “Palestine” from history books. The weirdest thing about Jews vs. Rome is that it celebrates revolts against the Roman Empire, the arch-superpower of the ancient world; yet the book tries to draw a parallel between these anti-imperial revolts and an apartheid, genocidal, nuclear-armed regional bully that is supported by the arch-superpower of the modern world.
My ultimate verdict is that this book is Zionist propaganda, not history.
October 18, 2025
A lot of Jewish history, some of which I’d forgotten, some with new perspective. Interesting insight into the reason for the construction of the Colosseum in Rome, which I just visited.
October 16, 2025
A Jewish war that lasted two centuries
Barry Strauss’s book, “Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire,” will surprise most readers and give them much fascinating and surprising information. We learn, for example, that Jews did not need to engage in long-lasting battles against Rome, lose sovereignty over their country, and have many of its citizens expelled from their country for two thousand years, had it not been for sinat chillum, “baseless hatred” of some Jews against other Jews.
Barry Strauss is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor at Cornell University. He is considered a leading expert on military history. He wrote fourteen other books on ancient wars before this 359-page 2025 volume, with an index of nineteen pages in two columns per page. He wrote several on Rome and Greece, as well as on comparing ancient and modern battles. His books are in easy-to-read English, without any attempt to use scholarly language to impress readers. An added treat, thanks to his deep knowledge of the subject, is a wealth of fascinating details about events and people, including their impact on the past, present, and future.
In tractate Yoma 9b, the Talmud states that the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and its bloodshed were due to sinat chinam, “baseless hatred,” of some Jews against fellow Jews. The Talmud explains that even while Judea’s inhabitants were engaged in Torah study and proper acts of kindness, the destruction occurred because of their internal hatred for one another.
Strauss does not mention this talmudic observation because this is not his field of interest. Still, he shows the terrible mistreatment of groups of Jews fighting each other numerous times during the two centuries they also fought for and against Rome. This situation still exists today, leading me to think that some of the worst antisemites are Jews.
In Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire, Strauss tells the history beginning in 63 BCE, when the Roman general Pompey (106-48 BCE) was able to conquer and take control of Judea because of Jewish rivalry in Judea, the name Israel had at that time, to 136 CE when the Bar Kokhba Revolt was crushed. This was a turbulent period in Jewish history, marked by political resistance and religious fervor, clashes of internal Jewish hatreds, and opposition to the might of the Roman Empire.
The book is filled with fascinating information presented in a balanced tone. Strauss does not romanticize rebellion, nor does he demonize Rome. Instead, he presents a clear-eyed view of the motivations, missteps, and consequences on both sides, offering a portrait of an ancient, long-lasting struggle that echoes in other struggles, both ancient and recent.
To understand the significance of this two-hundred-year series of wars between a small country and a world power, one needs to compare the Judean two-century battles with the American fight against the then world power, England, in 1775.
In 1775, the war between America and England started with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April. The British attempted to seize colonial military supplies in Massachusetts, but colonial minutemen intercepted them. This led to armed conflict that spread throughout the year, including the significant engagement at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June. The Second Continental Congress formed the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander.
If the founders of America had been forced to surrender in 1775, as the Judeans were in 63 BCE, and had continued to fight for two centuries, as the Judeans did, the American fight would not have ended until 1974.
The two centuries were marked by Judean hatred toward Rome due to its conquest and control of Judea in 63 BCE. There were three pivotal violent rebellions against Rome: the Great Revolt of 66 to 74 CE, which resulted, among other calamities, in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE; the Diaspora Revolt of 116 CE; and the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132 to 136 CE. There were also many more minor battles before and sandwiched within these three. In each struggle between Judeans and Rome, thousands of Judeans fought alongside the Romans against their brothers.
Strauss breathes new life into these ancient events. For example, he doesn't just recount the destruction of the Temple or the mass suicide at Masada. He places these ancient events in a broader geopolitical and human context. As a result, readers gain insight into the internal divisions within the Jewish world since the beginning of time, the often-overlooked roles of women such as Queen Helena (died around 60 CE), who converted to Judaism, Berenice, the Jewish daughter of King Agrippa (born 28 CE), who supported the Romans, as well as the repetitive clashes between empires.
He challenges older narratives found in other histories and brings fascinating nuances to familiar stories. His prose is both scholarly and accessible, making this book valuable for academics, students, and general readers alike. His portrayals of figures like Simon Bar Kokhba, who was killed in 136, are complex and evocative, capturing both heroism and hubris.
Strauss’s book is a masterful addition to the literature of ancient history and a powerful reminder that the past is a mirror image and snapshot of current struggles, and what motivated the past continues to shape the world we live in.
While the Judeans physically lost the final battle in 136, they left their descendants with a sense of pride and nobility that is reflected in modern Israel, not in ancient Rome, which no longer exists.
Barry Strauss’s book, “Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire,” will surprise most readers and give them much fascinating and surprising information. We learn, for example, that Jews did not need to engage in long-lasting battles against Rome, lose sovereignty over their country, and have many of its citizens expelled from their country for two thousand years, had it not been for sinat chillum, “baseless hatred” of some Jews against other Jews.
Barry Strauss is a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Professor at Cornell University. He is considered a leading expert on military history. He wrote fourteen other books on ancient wars before this 359-page 2025 volume, with an index of nineteen pages in two columns per page. He wrote several on Rome and Greece, as well as on comparing ancient and modern battles. His books are in easy-to-read English, without any attempt to use scholarly language to impress readers. An added treat, thanks to his deep knowledge of the subject, is a wealth of fascinating details about events and people, including their impact on the past, present, and future.
In tractate Yoma 9b, the Talmud states that the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and its bloodshed were due to sinat chinam, “baseless hatred,” of some Jews against fellow Jews. The Talmud explains that even while Judea’s inhabitants were engaged in Torah study and proper acts of kindness, the destruction occurred because of their internal hatred for one another.
Strauss does not mention this talmudic observation because this is not his field of interest. Still, he shows the terrible mistreatment of groups of Jews fighting each other numerous times during the two centuries they also fought for and against Rome. This situation still exists today, leading me to think that some of the worst antisemites are Jews.
In Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire, Strauss tells the history beginning in 63 BCE, when the Roman general Pompey (106-48 BCE) was able to conquer and take control of Judea because of Jewish rivalry in Judea, the name Israel had at that time, to 136 CE when the Bar Kokhba Revolt was crushed. This was a turbulent period in Jewish history, marked by political resistance and religious fervor, clashes of internal Jewish hatreds, and opposition to the might of the Roman Empire.
The book is filled with fascinating information presented in a balanced tone. Strauss does not romanticize rebellion, nor does he demonize Rome. Instead, he presents a clear-eyed view of the motivations, missteps, and consequences on both sides, offering a portrait of an ancient, long-lasting struggle that echoes in other struggles, both ancient and recent.
To understand the significance of this two-hundred-year series of wars between a small country and a world power, one needs to compare the Judean two-century battles with the American fight against the then world power, England, in 1775.
In 1775, the war between America and England started with the Battles of Lexington and Concord in April. The British attempted to seize colonial military supplies in Massachusetts, but colonial minutemen intercepted them. This led to armed conflict that spread throughout the year, including the significant engagement at the Battle of Bunker Hill in June. The Second Continental Congress formed the Continental Army and appointed George Washington as its commander.
If the founders of America had been forced to surrender in 1775, as the Judeans were in 63 BCE, and had continued to fight for two centuries, as the Judeans did, the American fight would not have ended until 1974.
The two centuries were marked by Judean hatred toward Rome due to its conquest and control of Judea in 63 BCE. There were three pivotal violent rebellions against Rome: the Great Revolt of 66 to 74 CE, which resulted, among other calamities, in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE; the Diaspora Revolt of 116 CE; and the Bar Kokhba Revolt of 132 to 136 CE. There were also many more minor battles before and sandwiched within these three. In each struggle between Judeans and Rome, thousands of Judeans fought alongside the Romans against their brothers.
Strauss breathes new life into these ancient events. For example, he doesn't just recount the destruction of the Temple or the mass suicide at Masada. He places these ancient events in a broader geopolitical and human context. As a result, readers gain insight into the internal divisions within the Jewish world since the beginning of time, the often-overlooked roles of women such as Queen Helena (died around 60 CE), who converted to Judaism, Berenice, the Jewish daughter of King Agrippa (born 28 CE), who supported the Romans, as well as the repetitive clashes between empires.
He challenges older narratives found in other histories and brings fascinating nuances to familiar stories. His prose is both scholarly and accessible, making this book valuable for academics, students, and general readers alike. His portrayals of figures like Simon Bar Kokhba, who was killed in 136, are complex and evocative, capturing both heroism and hubris.
Strauss’s book is a masterful addition to the literature of ancient history and a powerful reminder that the past is a mirror image and snapshot of current struggles, and what motivated the past continues to shape the world we live in.
While the Judeans physically lost the final battle in 136, they left their descendants with a sense of pride and nobility that is reflected in modern Israel, not in ancient Rome, which no longer exists.
September 21, 2025
To me it is an interesting book but not a great book. I had problems with it holding my interest. It started out a little slow, got interesting and then towards the last quarter of the book my interest started to flag a bit.
December 1, 2025
A badly written, biased mix of tabloid speculation and some academic knowledge
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 15, 2026
I'll preface that I haven't read much other history that was about time THAT long ago (60s BCE to 140ish CE). It's clear that dealing with primary sources that far in antiquity is a huge challenge and that writings from that time need to be heavily contextualized with the author's vantage, social status, and intended audience. I don't really know how to write this review so I'll go with what I think the author should've done vs what I feel he did. Obviously I am just some armchair book critic on Goodreads and neither an author nor historian so it doesn't matter what I think.
How it could've gone (my numbers, completely made up):
"Josephus, our only surviving source for this event, puts the number of soldiers between 10k and 25k. Based on logistical information from other surviving sources about the distribution of Roman armies during those times, and how many soldiers could conceivably be stationed in a city who's population was only 80k in that era (according to multiple corroborating sources [citation/citation]), it is likely that even the low end of the range is exaggerated. 5k or even 3k soldiers may have had similar impact and be a more plausible estimate. This is consistent with his common practice for his Roman publishers and audience, as discussed.
...
Scarce records exist of event X. Our primary Jewish sources of the time are EFG - likely writing to influence local Jewish audiences - claim ABC people were involved. Contemporary Christian sources are limited to HIJ - who would've been looking back through this lens - contradict this and downplay its severity.
"
How (it felt like) it went:
"Rome fielded 25k furious soldiers to subdue the rebels. As usual, Josephus cannot be trusted with numbers as he was a groveling little Roman rat coward. Later on, Josephus tells us that 500 Jews bravely fought back against the 25k and decimated their number before being killed. Here, Josephus is probably telling the truth.
...
A Christian source* (who's this person in the footnote?) says X, but there are no Jewish sources so we just don't know. (then why are you reporting it?)
"
It all felt insanely biased, arbitrary, editorialized, and not like historical research at all. I don't know if historians have the concept of malpractice but that's what I'd call it. Despite pointing out some flaws of using scripture/spiritual literature for historical analysis (the Torah puts x event during the reign of y person, which all historical scholars agree is impossible), Strauss later quotes the Talmud without any other references to emphasize the mythic heroism of Bar Kokhba, putting words in the mouth of Hadrian without any of the qualifications reserved for every claim of Josephus. Christian or other sources are relegated to curiosities and often unnamed outside of the footnote, which inhibits my ability to determine their trustworthiness.
It certainly made me want to go read Josephus' The Jewish War (modern editions of which will hopefully have footnotes qualifying his estimates or corroborating/contradicting his statements), and learn more about Roman and Jewish history during this pivotal era. A quick glance at Strauss's bibliography tells me that he has written a large number of other books on Roman military history, so maybe one of those will elucidate the grounds for some of his claims which I had to take at face value.
Also Strauss' narrative style doesn't work for me.
How it could've gone (my numbers, completely made up):
"Josephus, our only surviving source for this event, puts the number of soldiers between 10k and 25k. Based on logistical information from other surviving sources about the distribution of Roman armies during those times, and how many soldiers could conceivably be stationed in a city who's population was only 80k in that era (according to multiple corroborating sources [citation/citation]), it is likely that even the low end of the range is exaggerated. 5k or even 3k soldiers may have had similar impact and be a more plausible estimate. This is consistent with his common practice for his Roman publishers and audience, as discussed.
...
Scarce records exist of event X. Our primary Jewish sources of the time are EFG - likely writing to influence local Jewish audiences - claim ABC people were involved. Contemporary Christian sources are limited to HIJ - who would've been looking back through this lens - contradict this and downplay its severity.
"
How (it felt like) it went:
"Rome fielded 25k furious soldiers to subdue the rebels. As usual, Josephus cannot be trusted with numbers as he was a groveling little Roman rat coward. Later on, Josephus tells us that 500 Jews bravely fought back against the 25k and decimated their number before being killed. Here, Josephus is probably telling the truth.
...
A Christian source* (who's this person in the footnote?) says X, but there are no Jewish sources so we just don't know. (then why are you reporting it?)
"
It all felt insanely biased, arbitrary, editorialized, and not like historical research at all. I don't know if historians have the concept of malpractice but that's what I'd call it. Despite pointing out some flaws of using scripture/spiritual literature for historical analysis (the Torah puts x event during the reign of y person, which all historical scholars agree is impossible), Strauss later quotes the Talmud without any other references to emphasize the mythic heroism of Bar Kokhba, putting words in the mouth of Hadrian without any of the qualifications reserved for every claim of Josephus. Christian or other sources are relegated to curiosities and often unnamed outside of the footnote, which inhibits my ability to determine their trustworthiness.
It certainly made me want to go read Josephus' The Jewish War (modern editions of which will hopefully have footnotes qualifying his estimates or corroborating/contradicting his statements), and learn more about Roman and Jewish history during this pivotal era. A quick glance at Strauss's bibliography tells me that he has written a large number of other books on Roman military history, so maybe one of those will elucidate the grounds for some of his claims which I had to take at face value.
Also Strauss' narrative style doesn't work for me.
May 9, 2026
Okay. I've figured it out. I APPRECIATE Barry Strauss. I mean, I really can't argue against his credentials, and he absolutely knows what he's talking about. The problem I have with Barry Strauss is the fact that he is 1) a military historian--these guys are the driest of the dry, and 2) he's writing pop history for mass consumption, which means that he (and other academics who start publishing outside peer review) is not only painting with broader strokes, he is also arguing for interpretation that would not fly for peer review.
As a history of the Roman occupation of Palestine/Judea, this is fine. It's dry as hell to read, which is well within Strauss's MO, so I imagine it'll turn off a lot of readers. Strauss is a product of the highbrow academic elite. I can respect that, but I really can't wait for that shit to be done. Call me bitter because it's why I didn't go on for a PhD, but liberal elitism is why conservative populism won't freaking die.
Where this falls apart is in the rhetorical argument. Histories like this are deceptive in their objectivity. On one hand, there is the noble desire by academics to write accessible history for average readers who like the subject but didn't get to major in it. On the other hand, the dry composition masks the fact that history Is. Not. Objective. Historical facts are objective. The Roman occupation in Palestine led to Jewish uprising and rebellion. That happened. We know it from written and archeological evidence. What people don't understand is that the narratological structure of history is always always ALWAYS subjective. This is where peer review, for better or worse, is important. It's also why historians like Barry Strauss and Mary Beard, etc, are drawn to pop history, because they want to express their subjective opinions through history.
I don't necessarily have an issue with this. Arguably, I'm only bitching about this because I vehemently oppose Strauss's opinion in this book, which is basically that Zionism is great. What makes me angry is the tone he takes that will read with such subtlety that it will go over the heads of too many readers. Again, this is a problem across the board. Academic elites insist that they're objective, when really they're just dampening their own credibility for the sake of capital and bolstering elitism. This does nothing to defy white supremacy or authoritarianism, and only justifies them when those opinions are shared with them.
This'll be the last Strauss history I read, more because I'm tired of the dry execution, but also because I've read him enough to finally stick it in my mind that it's not Barry Strauss I want to read but Barry Cunliffe. I get them confused all the time, like Mary Beard and Mary Roach (Only I like both of them, and they don't write in the same genre). In smaller part I'm also not going to read anymore because it's really just not the time to bother with wishy-washy rhetoric that tries to hide in the shadows of dull composition. If you're going to say something, say it with your chest, man.
Finally, military history... interesting as hell, but GOD... why do y'all make it so damn boring?!
As a history of the Roman occupation of Palestine/Judea, this is fine. It's dry as hell to read, which is well within Strauss's MO, so I imagine it'll turn off a lot of readers. Strauss is a product of the highbrow academic elite. I can respect that, but I really can't wait for that shit to be done. Call me bitter because it's why I didn't go on for a PhD, but liberal elitism is why conservative populism won't freaking die.
Where this falls apart is in the rhetorical argument. Histories like this are deceptive in their objectivity. On one hand, there is the noble desire by academics to write accessible history for average readers who like the subject but didn't get to major in it. On the other hand, the dry composition masks the fact that history Is. Not. Objective. Historical facts are objective. The Roman occupation in Palestine led to Jewish uprising and rebellion. That happened. We know it from written and archeological evidence. What people don't understand is that the narratological structure of history is always always ALWAYS subjective. This is where peer review, for better or worse, is important. It's also why historians like Barry Strauss and Mary Beard, etc, are drawn to pop history, because they want to express their subjective opinions through history.
I don't necessarily have an issue with this. Arguably, I'm only bitching about this because I vehemently oppose Strauss's opinion in this book, which is basically that Zionism is great. What makes me angry is the tone he takes that will read with such subtlety that it will go over the heads of too many readers. Again, this is a problem across the board. Academic elites insist that they're objective, when really they're just dampening their own credibility for the sake of capital and bolstering elitism. This does nothing to defy white supremacy or authoritarianism, and only justifies them when those opinions are shared with them.
This'll be the last Strauss history I read, more because I'm tired of the dry execution, but also because I've read him enough to finally stick it in my mind that it's not Barry Strauss I want to read but Barry Cunliffe. I get them confused all the time, like Mary Beard and Mary Roach (Only I like both of them, and they don't write in the same genre). In smaller part I'm also not going to read anymore because it's really just not the time to bother with wishy-washy rhetoric that tries to hide in the shadows of dull composition. If you're going to say something, say it with your chest, man.
Finally, military history... interesting as hell, but GOD... why do y'all make it so damn boring?!
October 26, 2025
Where's the beef?
Strauss states that “This book’s contribution is to focus on the Jewish state’s unique position between East and West, between Parthia and Rome.” And it does focus on that, but often with speculation and a lot of arguments, that, while logical, don't seem definitive. In fact, I'm left more confused about how the Jews were seen by the Romans because Strauss's contention is Parthia/Persia lay behind the Romans' particular treatment of the Jews, but so was the fact that they were seen as a long-standing part of the empire.
Then there is the fact that we have to rely on a very opinionated Kremlinology of Josephus. Strauss makes an heroic effort to guide us through Josephus's contradictions, but I often wonder if this is even possible. Perhaps some of the archaeological discoveries Strauss talks about would have served as a better spine for this book.
Going more in depth, at least, according to some of the other sources would have been helpful. Despite the book being titled Jews vs. Rome, Strauss says its purpose is to focus on the Parthian element of that conflict. A lot more background about the Jews in Parthia and their relationship with their government would have been helpful.
Where Strauss's work here does shine is in sort of pointing out how the Romans treated the Jews still echoes today, perhaps even more so, because the Romans were the last power to fight the Jews until the 20th century. There is an interesting thread to be pulled from this book on how these threads still echo. Christians being in the most loyalist wing shows itself in the progression of the Gospels and their attitude toward the Jews. The guilt for Jesus's crucifixion shifts steadily from the Romans to the Jews the more time passes.
Indeed, Strauss's original purpose, to discuss how Jews were seen both as foreign and domestic enemies, in a time where they could and did fight, so clearly echos today it seems as if *that* should have been the book's purpose, if not a more general focus talking about the gospels.
Still, this is an interesting collection on the Jewish and Roman conflicts. Some of the incidents are described too briefly, but as a whole, it is worth reading and thinking about, even if I have to say this book could have been great, it's still good.
Strauss states that “This book’s contribution is to focus on the Jewish state’s unique position between East and West, between Parthia and Rome.” And it does focus on that, but often with speculation and a lot of arguments, that, while logical, don't seem definitive. In fact, I'm left more confused about how the Jews were seen by the Romans because Strauss's contention is Parthia/Persia lay behind the Romans' particular treatment of the Jews, but so was the fact that they were seen as a long-standing part of the empire.
Then there is the fact that we have to rely on a very opinionated Kremlinology of Josephus. Strauss makes an heroic effort to guide us through Josephus's contradictions, but I often wonder if this is even possible. Perhaps some of the archaeological discoveries Strauss talks about would have served as a better spine for this book.
Going more in depth, at least, according to some of the other sources would have been helpful. Despite the book being titled Jews vs. Rome, Strauss says its purpose is to focus on the Parthian element of that conflict. A lot more background about the Jews in Parthia and their relationship with their government would have been helpful.
Where Strauss's work here does shine is in sort of pointing out how the Romans treated the Jews still echoes today, perhaps even more so, because the Romans were the last power to fight the Jews until the 20th century. There is an interesting thread to be pulled from this book on how these threads still echo. Christians being in the most loyalist wing shows itself in the progression of the Gospels and their attitude toward the Jews. The guilt for Jesus's crucifixion shifts steadily from the Romans to the Jews the more time passes.
Indeed, Strauss's original purpose, to discuss how Jews were seen both as foreign and domestic enemies, in a time where they could and did fight, so clearly echos today it seems as if *that* should have been the book's purpose, if not a more general focus talking about the gospels.
Still, this is an interesting collection on the Jewish and Roman conflicts. Some of the incidents are described too briefly, but as a whole, it is worth reading and thinking about, even if I have to say this book could have been great, it's still good.
April 7, 2026
I think this is a great book with so much information, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to learn more about Jewish history and/or the origins (of some) of the Jewish diaspora. However, I did have several problems with it.
First, I think contextualization is such an important thing in telling history. One of my favorite history podcasters will do an episode on something that happened in the 1800s, but he'll start the story all the way back in 1200 or earlier to give the entire story. I feel like there was a lot of important contextualization of Jewish history (especially events that occurred after 700 BC) that were brushed over and not fully explained. Particularly, the Babylonian exile, and more importantly, the Maccabean revolt. I really think a whole chapter's length of time should've gone into telling those stories because they are so important in characterizing the spirit of the Jewish people and contextualizing the events that took place under Roman occupation. I also think the roles/classes/ethnic makeup of the city and general area could've been expanded on, especially that of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes!
My other big complaint is I find the title a bit misleading. Over half the book is dedicated to the First Jewish Revolt, and the Second and Third Revolts only get a chapter each. Spending so much time on the First Revolt and so little on the Third seems insane to me, because it is so important and there is so much to talk about there. I feel like part of the reason for this was because a lot of the account of the First Jewish Revolt was a retelling of Josephus' Histories, with some additional outside sources and commentary on the trustworthiness of his writings. I encountered a similar issue with Barry Strauss' book on the Trojan War, which was largely just going through the Iliad's plot with occasional outside commentary or evidence. So ultimately, I don't think this was really a history of two centuries of rebellion, but a history of the First Jewish Revolt, with a sort of 'extended epilogue' on the Second and Third Revolts.
Overall, this was a great book for learning about the topic, and I think it's highly informative. However, I don't think it's the most comprehensive account of the entire period from Pompey's conquest of the territory to the end of the Third Revolt.
First, I think contextualization is such an important thing in telling history. One of my favorite history podcasters will do an episode on something that happened in the 1800s, but he'll start the story all the way back in 1200 or earlier to give the entire story. I feel like there was a lot of important contextualization of Jewish history (especially events that occurred after 700 BC) that were brushed over and not fully explained. Particularly, the Babylonian exile, and more importantly, the Maccabean revolt. I really think a whole chapter's length of time should've gone into telling those stories because they are so important in characterizing the spirit of the Jewish people and contextualizing the events that took place under Roman occupation. I also think the roles/classes/ethnic makeup of the city and general area could've been expanded on, especially that of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes!
My other big complaint is I find the title a bit misleading. Over half the book is dedicated to the First Jewish Revolt, and the Second and Third Revolts only get a chapter each. Spending so much time on the First Revolt and so little on the Third seems insane to me, because it is so important and there is so much to talk about there. I feel like part of the reason for this was because a lot of the account of the First Jewish Revolt was a retelling of Josephus' Histories, with some additional outside sources and commentary on the trustworthiness of his writings. I encountered a similar issue with Barry Strauss' book on the Trojan War, which was largely just going through the Iliad's plot with occasional outside commentary or evidence. So ultimately, I don't think this was really a history of two centuries of rebellion, but a history of the First Jewish Revolt, with a sort of 'extended epilogue' on the Second and Third Revolts.
Overall, this was a great book for learning about the topic, and I think it's highly informative. However, I don't think it's the most comprehensive account of the entire period from Pompey's conquest of the territory to the end of the Third Revolt.
May 4, 2026
Good histories have a narrative flow that pull you along like a novel, even if that means streamlining and condensing events into a coherent narrative. This book fails in that. Strauss is constantly interrupting what should be an interesting story with asides, diversions, and constant caveats. For example, Josephus is briefly introduced early on, then chapters later in the middle of important events his lengthy biography is dropped in out of nowhere. Just as the great revolt starts he mentions how long it's going to last, how many lives, etc., like spoiling the end of the movie at the beginning. There's just a constant back and forth all over the place that is not integrated into any kind of story flow, like an ADHD narrative voice. It recovers somewhat in the last third, but there's still a constant waffling on sources, like "well, he could have been this, or could have been that, maybe he was this other thing." Why bring up endless alternatives if there's no evidence of them? So it's a tough slog. I'm comparing this to another history I'm rereading, Passage Through Armageddon by W Bruce Lincoln, if you want to know how narrative history is done right.
November 15, 2025
I learned a lot from this history of Judaism under Rome. After a quick dive into government and intellectual life under the House of Herod, it focuses on the three main Jewish revolts: the Jewish War of AD 70, the Kitos War of 116 (about which we know sadly little), and the Bar-Kokhba Rebellion of 132. I'd known about the Jewish War, but only a few facts about the others.
On the one hand, it feels like the revolts all fell apart through inadequate preparations and poor decisions, especially the AD 70 revolt which neglected to take advantage of the terrain to ambush the Romans and instead fell to infighting. On the other hand, it feels like all of this was futile against the huge might of Rome. And considering how hostile the rebels were to Christianity, I can't shake the feeling that the poor decisions were Divine judgment on them.
And finally the Jewish spirit of temporal rebellion was crushed, and this shows again how heavy the yoke of Rome was.
On the one hand, it feels like the revolts all fell apart through inadequate preparations and poor decisions, especially the AD 70 revolt which neglected to take advantage of the terrain to ambush the Romans and instead fell to infighting. On the other hand, it feels like all of this was futile against the huge might of Rome. And considering how hostile the rebels were to Christianity, I can't shake the feeling that the poor decisions were Divine judgment on them.
And finally the Jewish spirit of temporal rebellion was crushed, and this shows again how heavy the yoke of Rome was.
September 11, 2025
What I most appreciate about this book is that it doesn't simply focus on the Jewish War (66-70 AD) and the fall of Masada, but takes a larger look--in both directions--at the larger history between Judea and Rome.
The author takes the time to set the stage for the conflicts by showing how Roman and Jewish activity in other parts of the empire (and beyond) shaped the events in the Judean epicenter of their shared story. Yet, even when the narrative visits places like Armenia, Syria, or Parthia, it does so in a manner that is relevant to the Jewish vs Roman story, and not as a mere sidebar.
The only ding I would count against this book is that sometimes the author goes out of his way to (repeatedly) remind the reader of his perspective about the overall reliability (or lack thereof?) of the writings of Josephus.
The author takes the time to set the stage for the conflicts by showing how Roman and Jewish activity in other parts of the empire (and beyond) shaped the events in the Judean epicenter of their shared story. Yet, even when the narrative visits places like Armenia, Syria, or Parthia, it does so in a manner that is relevant to the Jewish vs Roman story, and not as a mere sidebar.
The only ding I would count against this book is that sometimes the author goes out of his way to (repeatedly) remind the reader of his perspective about the overall reliability (or lack thereof?) of the writings of Josephus.
October 23, 2025
Ancient Rome has gone down in Jewish history as the ultimate enemy of the Jewish people. Even the Babylonians, who destroyed the First Temple in Jerusalem, were not considered as evil. Perhaps that’s because the Jewish population was able to rebuild the Temple about 70 years later and did not suffer two centuries of repression under the Babylonians. Yet, as Barry Strauss writes in his military history “Jews vs. Rome: Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World’s Mightiest Empire” (Simon and Schuster), the many Jewish revolts against Rome also pitted Jew against Jew. Those who supported the empire not only accepted Roman rule, but saw the rebellions as increasing the oppression under which they lived.
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/book...
See the rest of my review at https://www.thereportergroup.org/book...
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