ABSTRACT
It is ironic that the Romans entered Judaean politics by invitation of one Jewish faction that was in a power struggle with another. In 76 b.c.e. Alexander Jannaeus, the last great king of the Hasmonean line, died. To punish the Jews for the war the Romans imposed the fiscus Judaicus, the "Jewish tax". The half-shekel tax, which Jews throughout the empire had formerly contributed to the Temple in Jerusalem, was now collected for the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. The destruction of the Temple did not mean the end of Judaism, however. The theological and religious crisis the destruction caused seems to have been much less severe than that experienced in the aftermath of the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple in 586 b.c.e., perhaps because during the Second Temple period new Jewish institutions and ideologies had been created that prepared Judaism for a time when the Temple and the sacrificial cult would no longer exist.
