outhouse

No one here, and no scholar disputes this. everyone agrees with that statement.


using Josephas, Sanders is cutting back by 3/4 of his amount.

Sarpedon

Oh, well that's different, what is his total then?

outhouse

they were a oppressed people. standing up against the well trained roman army VS peasants with wooden pitchforks was no match. Jews knew it was suicide.

outhouse

let's assume there was 300,000 inside the temple.


many starved when the zealots burned the food supply, as they wanted the jews to fight.


the romans waited them out for a long time catching jews as they tried to escape the starvation.

You should know this, how many jews did they put on a cross as they tried to escape, facing the temple??


how many escaped out the tunnels before they were caught?

Horatio Parker

The million was by way of proportion to the total of 8M which everyone believes is too high.

outhouse

300,000 to 400,000 city and pilgram population during passover.

Sarpedon

So you were joking then? my apologies.

Cool, so where did all that other stuff come from?

If there were 300,000 in the siege, then there's still 2.2 million outside. Why was the city not relieved? And how does an army of 70,000 keep so many under siege? Why didn't the 300,000 fight? The romans were good, but they weren't super men. Lots of people beat the Romans. It is true that in world war 2 the japanese besieged and took Singapore even though they were outnumbered nearly 10 to one, but such a thing is exceedingly rare. Were the jews really so bad at fighting?

Again, all these problems go away if you simply reduce your estimates. There's no problem in thinking 70,000 can subdue a population of just under a million. There's no worry of revolts and riots if the population of jews elsewhere in the empire is a couple of million instead of 6.

outhouse

No

unless you state outside as in, all the levant


knowing there are 4 different groups of jews, and only the zealots and only a sect of those zealots were in control in the temple. plus many in the temple were pilgrams.

this was just another tax war jews knew they couldnt win but had to fight due to the poor poverty stricken conditions the romans kept jews in with over taxation.



oppressed jews did not have weapons or training or a army, it would be suicide

pluse relieved by whom? poverty striken untrained peasants?

Sarpedon

This sounds like a very incompetent revolt.

And I am responding to claims that the 2.5 million jews were inhabitants of palestine. If you do not share that opinion, my apologies. I thought you had concurred with that estimate earlier. You did agree with the claim that jews were 10% of the empire's population, so I assumed that you agreed with the 2.5 million in palestine, and 5 million or so abroad.

Now I know well the difference between one armed and trained for war and one who is not, but there are many ways of waging war, and the difficulties of keeping a city under siege are many. If the walls of Jerusalem are 1 mile around, then the lines of circumvallation and contravallation must have been at least two each. What was stopping a peasant rabble army from beseiging the beseigers, as what happened to Caesar at Alesia? Sure, Caesar won in the end, but it was a near thing. And if one believes what the bible says, untrained poverty stricken jews can take up arms and beat anyone, no matter how numerous or well equipped. I say that tongue in cheek, but surely a nation with such a violent history wouldn't have forgotten everything when they became incorporated into the roman empire? Surely there were local soldiers and so forth, the legions didn't police EVERYTHING.

I think I need to read more about this war, can you recommend a good book, preferably an impartial one by a military historian rather than a religious scholar?

Duke Leto

Wish I could help you. I want to say Goldsworthy but only his "Roman Army at War" would touch on the subject.