Bar Kokhba

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• SCHOLARLY AND FICTIONAL WORKS: see Bar Kokhba (works)

Shimon Bar Kokhba (2nd century CE) was the Jewish leader of the so-called Bar Kokhba revolt (or Third Jewish revolt) against the Roman rule in Judea around 132 CE.

Overview

Little is known about the origin of the figure Shimon Bar Kosiba and the causes of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132-135/6 CE). The revolt is known from Rabbinic sources and from a brief excerpt of the third-century Roman historian Cassius Dio. Archaeological data dating from 1952 to the present help fill in some of the gaps, however, much is left to scholarly reconstruction.

The Name 'Bar Kokhba'

The leader of the Bar Kokhba revolt was Shimon ben Kosiba, although he is more commonly known in scholarship and popular culture as Bar Kokhba. This name, which is a play on words, is based on Ben Kosiba’s name—Bar Kokhba (‘son of the star’) seems to be a soubriquet given to Ben Kosiba by his followers. Rabbinic literature also calls him by another name, Bar Koziba, which means ‘son of disappointment’ and refers to the revolt’s eventual defeat at the hands of the Romans.

In one of the Bar Kokhba letters, the phrase ‘Nasi Yisrael’ follows the name Shimon ben Kosiba, suggesting that he claims the role of leader among the Jews. Whether this title is self-appointed or was given to him by his followers is unknown.

Bar Kokhba in ancient sources

• See Bar Kokhba (sources)

Bar Kokhba Letters

The Bar Kokhba letters were either purchased from Bedouins or found in caves in the Judean Desert beginning in 1950. These letters, numbering around 26 plus fragments of additional letters, contain instructions from Ben Kosiba addressed to his subordinates. Only one letter addressed to Ben Kosiba has survived. Along with the letters, other legal documents not directly relating to the Bar Kokhba revolt were found: see Babatha.

The letters are extant in Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek, and generally follow typical Greco-Roman epistolary forms used around the time of the revolt, regardless of the language of the letter. This includes the initial greeting and the closing salutation formula. While Ben Kosiba’s name begins most of these letters, they are written in different hands, suggesting that Ben Kosiba dictated his letters to various scribes.

The Bar Kokhba letters deal almost exclusively with military matters such as supply, discipline and instruction, and thus do not offer much detail about the events of the revolt. The letters describe variegated matters: one letter deals with the confiscation of and instruction for a transportation of wheat to the custody of Ben Kosiba, another warns the recipients not to offer shelter to any man from Tekoa else they will receive punishment, while in yet another the Ben Kosiba requests reinforcements. Other letters emphasize the importance of the observance of Jewish ritual and tradition: one letter demands that ‘Eleazar bar Hitta’ be sent to Ben Kosiba before the Sabbath, while another requests a shipment of the four species—the lulav (palm branch), etrog (citron), hadas (myrtle), and arava (willow)—required for the proper observance of Sukkot (aka the feast of booths or tabernacles), along with a demand that the species be tithed.

The one letter sent to Ben Kosiba is addressed to the ‘beloved father’ of the sender, Shimon ben Mattanyah, while the sender addresses his fellow fighters as ‘brothers’. Michael O. Wise argues that the language used here is reminiscent of a ‘charismatic’ relationship between the recipient and the author, which supports the arguments that Ben Kosiba was seen as a messiah figure for at least some of his followers. This same letter reports the inclusion of Gentiles in the allies of the rebels, which suggests that the revolt was larger and more inclusive than just the Jews in Judaea.

Bar Kokhba in Rabbinic Literature

In the Jerusalem Talmud, Rabbi Akiba heralds Bar Kokhba as the messiah (y Ta’anit 4:8), citing Numb 24:17 (‘A star shall step forth from Jacob’) as a prooftext. The dictum is recited by Rabbi Akiba’s student Rabbi Shimon b. Yohai, whereas Rabbi Yohanan b. Torta responds to Akiba that ‘grass will grow between your jaws and still the son of David will not yet come!’

Lamentations Rabbah has a parallel legend (Lam. Rab. 2.5). Here, however, it is Rabbi Yohanan rather than Rabbi Shimon b. Yohai, who begins the tradition, “R. Yohanan said: Rabbi would expound A star shall step forth from Jacob thus: do not read “star” (kokhav) but “liar” (kozav).” Rabbi Akiba follows this with his statement of Bar Kokhba as the messiah, and Rabbi Yohanan b. Torta’s statement, as seen in y Ta’anit, follows.

Bar Kokhba in Non-Jewish Literature

Before the Bar Kokhba letters were discovered in the 1950s, our evidence for the Bar Kokhba revolt was minimal. In addition to the brief mentions in the Babylonian Talmud and Lamentations Rabbah, Roman historian Cassius Dio includes a brief excerpt in his historiography Roman History. Cassius Dio makes the claim that the cause of the revolt was the founding of the pagan city Aelia Capitolina on the ruins of Jerusalem, with a temple to Jupiter to be built right over the place where the Jerusalem temple stood (Roman History 69.12-14).

The Historia Augusta, Vita Hadriani makes the claim that the revolt was started over Hadrian's ban on circumcision (Historia Augusta, Vita Hadriani 14.2).

In Ecclesiastical History 4.6, church father Eusebius of Caesarea states that Aelia Capitolina was not founded until after the revolt, complicating Cassius Dio’s claim of the founding of the pagan city being the cause of the revolt. Unlike Cassius Dio, Eusebius lists the name of the leader of this revolt as “Bar Chochebas,” who he argues is a bandit who relies on the meaning of his name (“star”) to argue for a heavenly origin to his leadership. At the end of the war, Eusebius reports that the Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem. He also claims that followers of Jesus took no part in the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Bar Kokhba in Scholarship

From ancient sources we know that his real name was Shimon ben Kosiba. The Aramaic surname (Bar Kokhba = "son of a star") was given to him in reference to the messianic prophecy of Numbers 24:17. After the failure of the revolt, rabbinic writers would rather call him "Bar Koziba" (= son of disappointment").

Causes of the Revolt

The variation between Cassius Dio’s and Eusebius’ statements on the founding of Aelia Capitolina has led to great scholarly disagreement on the topic and the role it played in the Bar Kokhba revolt. Cassius Dio’s statement makes it clear that the founding of the new city Aelia Capitolina would be on top of the remains of the city of Jerusalem. This, along with the establishment of a temple to Jupiter on the site of the Beit Hamikdash, seems to have been too much for the Jews in Judaea, who planned to revolt once Hadrian was no longer in the near geographic vicinity.

According to the church father Eusebius, the founding of Aelia Capitolina on the site of Jerusalem happened after the revolt, after the Jews had been decimated and forbidden from entering into the site of Jerusalem. Eusebius states that after the Roman army put down the revolt, the Jews were not only forbidden to enter the city formerly known as Jerusalem, but they could not even be within sight of it. In addition to this expulsion, however, was the development of a Roman city with the name of Aelia Capitolina.

Scholars have made arguments in both directions, with the founding of Aelia Capitolina either being the cause of the revolt, or happening because of the revolt. Some scholars such as Yoram Tsafrir have persuasively argued that the two statements do not need to be contradictory: the founding of a city takes time, and Hadrian could have announced the founding of the Roman Colony Aelia Capitolina during his visit to the East around 130 C.E., which may have caused such outrage as to lead to the Bar Kokhba revolt. After the revolt was suppressed, the plan to found the colony could thus continue, this time combined with an expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem and the surrounding countryside as punishment for the revolt.

Numismatic evidence for the founding of Aelia Capitolina has been inconclusive: while some coins imprinted with the city name have been found in caves known to have been hideouts for the rebels along with coins imprinted in support of the revolt, the coins were not all found together in a hoard, and the size of the room where they were found is big enough that the coins could have been dropped or left there over a period of time, including after the revolt.

The satirical work Historia Augustus claims that a ban on genital mutilation (i.e. circumcision) was the cause of the revolt. However, had there been a blanket ban on Jewish circumcision, it is likely the revolt would not have been limited geographically to Judaea. Also, a blanket ban on circumcision goes against Roman policy in general. There was a history of policy respecting older, well-established religions, including Judaism. It is possible there would have been a ban on the circumcision of non-Jews in order to discourage proselytizing, but there is no evidence of a Roman ban on circumcision of Jewish boys, and thus this cannot be taken as a cause of the revolt.

Bar Kokhba in Popular Culture

Bar Kokhba has become the subject for numerous popular culture references.

Since the late 1800s, Bar Kokhba has been a popular subject for literature, operas, dramas, and in music. Below is a brief outline of some of the more well-known references.

Literature: In 1858 Kalman Schulman wrote the Hebrew novel Harisot Betar: sipur ‘al dever gevurat Bar Kokhva ve-hurban Betar bi-yad Adriyanus kesar Roma. 1888 saw The Son of a Star, an English novel by Benjamin Ward Richardson. In 1910 David Pinsky produced the Yiddish novel Rabbi Aqiva und Bar-Kokhba, while another Yiddish novel Bar Kokhba by Abraham Raphael Forsyth was written in 1941. Poul Borchsenius published the Danish novel Steiersønne in 1952. Prince of Israel is an English novel also from 1952 by Elias Gilner. 1953 saw the publication of the Hebrew Bar-Kokhba by Joseph Opatoshu. In 1983 the English novel If I forget thee by Brenda Lesley Segal was published. 1988 saw the publication of two novels: the first in Hebrew by S. J. Kreutner titled Kokav mi-mesilato. Haye Bar-Kokhba, and the second in English by Andrew Sanders titled My Husband, Bar Kokhba.

Opera: Bar Kokhba has been the subject of several opera projects. In 1882 Abraham Goldfaden created a Yiddish operetta titled Bar Kokhba. Le Fils de l’etoile is a French opera by Camille Erlanger and Catulle Mendes, written in 1903. Bar-Kochba is a German opera by Stanislav Suda and Karl Jonas in 1905. In the 1920s the Russian-Jewish composer Yaacov Bilansky Levanon who had emigrated to Palestine wrote an operetta on Bar Kokhba.

Theatre: Numerous dramas have also been written on the subject of Bar Kokhba. Yehudah Loeb Landau wrote the Hebrew drama Bar Kokhba in 1884. Saul Tchernichovski (1929) and Shmuel Halkin (1939) produced Hebrew dramas by the same name. In 1943 Lajos Szabolcsi wrote the Hungarian drama A csillag fia on the same subject.

Music: John Zorn is a Jewish American composer, arranger and saxophonist whose Masada Songbook includes the Bar Kokhba album. This eclectic album features a cast of musicians playing alongside Zorn performing ensembles from the Masada Songbook. Later, Zorn created the Bar Kokhba Sextet which features six musicians who regularly play with Zorn.

References

• Bar Kokhba / Benjamin Isaac and Aharon Oppenheimer / In: The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992 Freedman), dictionary, 1:598-601

• Bar Kokhba Revolt / Hanan Eshel / In: The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (2010 Collins / Harlow), dictionary,

• Bar Kokhba Letters / Michael O. Wise / In: The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (2010 Collins / Harlow), dictionary,

• Bar Kokhba Caves / Hanan Eshel / In: The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (2010 Collins / Harlow), dictionary

External links

• Wikipedia