Bar Kochba Revolt
Killing more than half a million Jews and destroying almost a thousand villages, the Bar Kochba Revolt (132-35) was a major event in Jewish history and a blotch on the reputation of the good emperor Hadrian. The revolt was named for a man called Shimon, on coins, Bar Kosibah, on papyrus, Bar Kozibah, on rabbinic literature, and Bar Kokhba, in Christian writing.
he rebels may have held land south of Jerusalem and Jericho and north of Herbron and Masada. They may have reached into Samaria, Galilee, Syria, and Arabia. They survived (as long as they did) by means of caves, used for weapons storage and hiding, and tunnels. Letters from Bar Kochba were found in the caves of Wadi Murabba'at around the same time achaeologists and Bedouins were discovering the Dead Sea Scroll caves.
[Source:The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography, by John J. Collins; Princeton: 2012.]
The war was very bloody on both sides, so much so that Hadrian failed to declare atriumph when he returned to Rome at the revolt's conclusion.
Why did the Jews rebel when it must have seemed likely the Romans would defeat them, as they had before? Suggested reasons are outrage over Hadrian's prohibitions and actions.
- Circumcision
Circumcision was a vital part of the Jewish identity and it is possible Hadrian made it illegal for Jews to practice this custom, and not just with proselytes. In the Historia Augusta Pseudo-Spartianus says Hadrian's prohibition against genital mutilation caused the revolt (Life of Harian 14.2). Genital mutilation could mean either castration or circumcision (or both). [Source: Peter Schafer "The Bar Kochba Revolt and Circumcision: Historical Evidence and Modern Apologetics" 1999]. This position is challenged. See: "Negotiating Difference: Genital Mutilation in Roman Slave Law and the History of the Bar Kokhba Revolt," by Ra'anan Abusch, in The Bar Kokhba War Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Second Jewish Revolt against Rome,
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