![]() But was the prospect of an answer to the question posed by the tragedy really so bleak? Perhaps not, for the Jews had the resources to deal with such a traumatic event. Thus Windisch evocatively described the impact of the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple, certainly capturing the emotional upheaval it caused the Jews of the 1st century and beyond. It seemed more hopeless than ever to expect an answer. Over the smoking ruins of Jerusalem the nagging and torturing question posed itself, the question of God. What was at issue was faith itself in the power, faithfulness, and goodness of God. It was not just that a people, lately flourishing, had been trampled underfoot. The major difference between them lay rather in the question of which sins exactly were judged to be responsible. In addition, the reason for the destruction was judged by both to be the sins of (certain) people. This will, moreover, was judged to be accessible through Scripture, both in terms of its prophetic value and its establishment of a metanarrative - redemptive history - that provided a framework for historical events. The temple was destroyed not apart from God or in spite of God, but in full accordance with his will. We will see that in both cases the meaning of the destruction was rooted in the firm conviction of the God of Israel's existence and his self-revelation in Scripture. This article analyses the efforts by two figures in this internal Jewish dialogue to provide this meaning, namely, the historian Josephus and Jesus of Nazareth. As such, contemporary Jewish figures wrestled with the meaning of the event. By all accounts it was a social, political, and theological disaster. The destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in AD 70 was an unquestionably traumatic event in the history of the Jewish people. IIICanadian Reformed Theological Seminary, Hamilton, Canada IIDepartment of New Testament Studies, Faculty of Theology, University of Pretoria, South Africa ITheologische Universiteit Kampen, The Netherlands Jesus, Josephus, and the fall of Jerusalem: On doing history with Scripture
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