Events relating to palestine

Alexander moves south through Syria and Palestine, excluding the Persian fleet from their familiar harbours

Tyre, the only coastal city to offer serious resistance to Alexander, is taken and destroyed after a siege of seven months

Some 20 years after the death of Alexander the Great one of his generals, Ptolemy, extends his rule from Egypt to include Jerusalem

Antiochus IV places a statue of Zeus above the altar of the Temple in Jerusalem, provoking violent reactions from the Jews

Simon the Maccabee is appointed high priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, with the position declared hereditary in his family

The priestly Sadducees are confronted in the Sanhedrin by a new opposition party - the Pharisees

The Essenes, a Jewish sect, withdraw from secular life to form monastic communities in the desert

Pompey captures Jerusalem, bringing Judaea under Roman control

Herod, appointed king of Judaea by the senate in Rome, establishes his rule over Palestine

Herod the Great, king of Judaea, begins to build a spectacular new Temple for the Jews on the sacred mount in Jerusalem

According to the Gospel account, Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem two years before the death of Herod the Great - making the date 6 BC

Christians decide (though not until AD 525) that this is the year of Christ's birth, making it AD 1 in the Christian chronology

Jesus begins his ministry in Galilee, gathering disciples, preaching and healing

Jesus, at the Last Supper, associates the bread and wine with his own body and blood, establishing the sacrament of the Eucharist

Jesus is brought before Pontius Pilate who reluctantly sentences him to death for blasphemy

Jesus Christ is crucified, according to the accounts of his followers, outside the city wall of Jerusalem

Peter becomes the leader of the small community of Christians in Jerusalem

Herod Agrippa, a grandson of Herod the Great, restores a brief calm to Palestine

The leaders of the Christian church gather in Jerusalem to decide an urgent question - must Gentile converts undergo circumcision?

The Zealots play a prominent part in the uprising which expels the Romans from Jerusalem

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