The Temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred. Are the Romans to blame for the baseless hatred that existed among Israel? After all, the destruction of the Temple was a direct result—whether intentional or an unfortunate mishap on the Romans’ part—of the baseless hatred, division, and quarrels among all kinds of different sects. Did Israel not fear this outcome? Did they not fear that the needless rebellions would fail and that they would suffer the consequences?
P.S. Obviously there were bad rulers among the Romans, but as is well known, they were very few and for very short periods.

Benjamin, please don’t waste my time with klutz kashyas.

In my humble opinion, this is not a "klutz kashya." In any case, it’s no worse than the question they once asked Haim K., whose answer was published in "Aliba Dehilcheta," as follows: "A Jew whose right hand is in a cast—may he wipe himself with his left hand?" Enough said.
With blessings and thanks

To Benjamin it was said—

See the Wikipedia entry "Divide and Rule": the Romans were masters of divide-and-rule, and encouraged internal division so that Roman rule would appear as the peacekeeper by way of the Pax Romana.

They came to power in Judea through the brotherly hatred of Hyrcanus and Aristobulus, who invited Pompey to be the arbiter, and he subjugated both sides. His successors continued the method and encouraged division and internal conflicts among their subjects.

Regards, Shatzios

Shatzios, the internal division began long before Roman rule and entirely independently of it. In fact, Judah Maccabee made the first alliance with Rome in 161 BCE. See at length in 1 Maccabees chapter 8.
P.S. With all due respect, I know the historical facts very well, quite apart from wiki.

With God's help, 9 Tammuz 5780

The ideological split within the Jewish people began in the Hellenistic period, when the Jewish people were first exposed to a culture trying to unify the world into a "global village" culturally. That is how the split began between the Hellenizers, mainly from the elite of the wealthy and the priests, and the common people, who remained loyal to the tradition of their ancestors.

With the Hasmonean victory, the Sadducean outlook developed among elite circles who had returned to Judaism but were already detached from ancestral tradition. They accepted the biblical text, but not its traditional interpretation, while the common people remained loyal to the tradition and its bearers. (And a third group arose, which withdrew and established a sect in the Judean desert.)

But the division was still limited, because they still had to cooperate in governing the state. Once the Romans came in, the independent leadership was eliminated. At first affairs were run by a vassal king, Herod, and after him by the Roman governors. They even determined who would be the High Priest. All matters of religion became more and more privatized, and countless fragmented groups arose. Josephus already describes the Sadducees as unable to unite, and even the Pharisees split into two houses. Around them sprang up countless strange and varied groups.

The oppressive, cruel, and corrupt rule of the Roman governors, who were replaced constantly and whose main concern was squeezing as much as possible from their subjects and filling the pockets of the ruling class—all this caused bitterness and a desire to rebel. Groups of rebels on the one hand, and people who feared confronting the regime on the other, argued and clashed with one another.

If the Hellenists left the people divided into two or three groups, Roman rule shattered the people into countless groups wrestling with one another, unable to find common ground until the very last moment.

Regards, Shatz

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And in any case, the fact that the destruction came upon the Jews because of their sin does not exempt their enemies from responsibility. Before Titus decided to destroy the Temple, he consulted with his military commanders. Some inclined to the view of Pangar, Duke of Arabia, that one should break the barrel with the snake wrapped around it; others held like Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai that one should distinguish between the rebels and the rest of the people—"kill the snake without breaking the barrel."

Roman sources testify, contrary to the story of Flavius, that the military commanders recommended to Titus not to destroy the Temple, and he did not accept their advice and decided to destroy it. (That is what I heard in 1994 in a lecture by Professor Isaiah Gafni.)

Titus’s decision to destroy it—a decision not required from a political-military standpoint—shows that his considerations also included an element of hatred, and not only practical calculation. Therefore he quite fairly earned the title "wicked."

Regards, Shatz

I mentioned in paragraph 2 the discussion over whether Titus himself ordered the Temple destroyed.

Flavius—whose very name already indicates his bias in favor of his patron Titus—claims (in The Jewish War) that the soldiers began burning the Temple on their own initiative. Titus called on them to stop, but because of the noise they did not hear his voice.

This version is problematic. The Roman way was not to destroy temples in conquered cities, so as not to get entangled with the gods of that temple. The only time they destroyed a temple was at the destruction of Carthage. It is hard to assume that soldiers, on their own authority, would decide in the presence of the commander to do something almost unprecedented like destroying a temple.

The Wikipedia entry "The Great Revolt" says that, as opposed to Josephus’ words in The Jewish War that Titus opposed the destruction of the Temple, in Antiquities Josephus simply states that Titus conquered and burned the Temple, and says nothing about his opposition to its destruction.

Likewise, the Christian chronicler Sulpicius Severus wrote (quoted in the Wikipedia entry "Titus") that Titus was the one who ordered the Temple burned. Severus is about 300 years later than Josephus, but he apparently relied on an earlier Roman historian.

Professor Gafni apparently relied on these two sources and preferred their testimony over Josephus’ testimony in The Jewish War, holding that there Josephus tried to defend his patron.

Regards, Shatz

Shatz, "The Roman way was not to destroy temples in conquered cities, so as not to get entangled with the gods of that temple—the Roman way was not to destroy temples in conquered cities, so as not to get entangled with the gods of that temple"—what is your source for that?

With God's help, 10 Tammuz 5780

To B.G.—many greetings,

The fact that the Romans did not generally destroy temples in conquered cities is brought in the Wikipedia entry "The Great Revolt" as support for Josephus’ version in The Jewish War that Titus opposed the destruction of the Temple.

In my humble opinion, that is actually disproof, since it is not reasonable that soldiers would dare, on their own initiative, to take such an unusual and almost unprecedented step without the commander’s approval—and in his presence no less. It is not plausible that the gatekeeper would act on his own authority in the presence of the "general."

Therefore, in my humble opinion, Josephus’ own testimony in Antiquities is preferable, that Titus conquered and burned the Temple, as Sulpicius Severus also wrote.

Regards, Shatz

Shatz, you’re dodging my question. Is my question unclear to you? I’m quoting your statement above: "The Roman way was not to destroy temples in conquered cities, so as not to get entangled with the gods of that temple"—what is your source for that? I’d be happy to get a proper reference.
P.S. Please don’t send me to Wikipedia for historical questions. Wikipedia is just popular history, and that’s not the level at which I work.

With God's help, 11 Tammuz 5780

It is not only "peer-reviewed academic publications"—which have a constant existential need to produce "revolutionary innovations"—that must be treated critically and suspiciously. Popular historical literature, which usually reflects a broad consensus in the research world, must also be treated critically.

For that reason I criticized the proof brought by the author of the entry on "The Great Revolt" for Josephus’ version in The Jewish War that Titus opposed the destruction of the Temple, namely the fact that the Romans did not generally destroy the temples of conquered peoples. I wrote that from there one actually gets the opposite proof.

For it is unreasonable that a sentry would dare do something of great significance without the approval of the commander-in-chief, all the more so an act with almost no precedent such as destroying a temple. The Roman Empire allowed its subjects their worship and respected polytheistic cults. Are you familiar in the scholarly literature you know so well with another description of the destruction of temples of conquered nations besides the destruction of Carthage?

Josephus, who took the name "Flavius" after his patrons, clearly had a need to clear his patron of blame for the destruction of the Temple, and therefore changed in The Jewish War the earlier version that appears in Antiquities, which attributes the burning of the Temple to Titus himself.

But by all means, go and look—maybe you’ll find some side piece of evidence to argue in Titus’s favor and purify his name 🙂

Regards, Shatzios Livius Nigerus

In the last line:
… by all means, go and look. Maybe you’ll find…

Shatz, I’d direct you to read the book by Elias Bickerman: Elias Bickerman, From Ezra to the Last of the Maccabees – NY 1962
The book will contribute a great deal to your ability to analyze the connections between "religious pluralism" and polytheism / monotheism.
Good luck

With God's help, eve of the holy Sabbath, "and all the sons of Seth croak," 5780

To Benjamin it was said—

Indeed, "easygoing idolatry." I worship Chemosh and you worship Flea-god, and "let each man live by his faith," and the world can delight in the cruelest possible "bread and circuses," because morality too is relative.

This idyll began to be threatened in the days of the Second Temple when Judaism began to influence the Hellenistic-Roman world culturally and introduced the idea that idol worship is forbidden, that sexual licentiousness is forbidden, and that murder is not entertainment. In short, all the foundations of Hellenistic-Roman culture were under threat.

And so enlightened Hellenists such as Antiochus, Titus, and Hadrian were compelled to perform "root canal treatment" on the "bug" threatening their "enlightened" culture.

But that didn’t help them all that much. The Jewish "bug" conquered their culture—so what do you do? You redefine the concepts. The Trinity is monotheism, and real Judaism is without the 613 commandments, and the gladiatorial spectacles get converted into auto-da-fé.

And the rest—go learn.

With Sabbath peace, Shatzer.

We’ll be happy to talk after reading the book. A peaceful and blessed Sabbath.

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For further study, see also the Wikipedia entry "Hatred of Israel in the Greco-Roman World" and the excellent book mentioned there. Bickerman rather sidestepped dealing with this (as noted in the review by Bezalel Bar-Kochva, linked in the Wikipedia entry on "Elias Bickerman").

Regards, Shatz

With God's help, 14 Tammuz 5780

Against Bickerman’s argument that hatred of Israel in the Greco-Roman world came because the Hasmoneans forced the Edomites and Itureans to convert, Zvi Yavetz objected on the basis that this forced conversion is not mentioned at all in Greek and Roman sources. The Hasmonean kingdom, even at its height, did not extend beyond the territory of the Land of Israel, and there was no fear that it was about to conquer the world.

What is documented, however, is the intensification of hatred in Rome in the first and second centuries CE because of the growing number of converts, which came not by force but through cultural influence. The existence of Jewish communities whose "entertainment" was not in the circus but around the synagogue, the reading of the Torah and its study, charmed many Romans from "high society," to the point that one Roman writer complained that "there is no house without a Jew in it."

The existence of a group presenting a spiritual and moral alternative was a real threat to Greco-Roman culture. If someone offers "entertainment" that is more serious and more moral than the horrific "entertainments" of the circus, or the banquets of debauchery and promiscuity—that is attractive, and dangerous, to the ruling "subculture."

So Tiberius tries to expel the Jews from Rome, Domitian persecutes converts as "atheists," and Hadrian decrees a general ban on circumcision and brings about the outbreak of the Bar Kokhba revolt. In the end, the situation stabilized with Antoninus’s decision to permit circumcision only for Jews and to forbid it very severely to others. In that way the danger of conversion that threatened Rome was prevented.

But the Christian "mosquito" kept "buzzing in Rome’s brain" in the form of Christianity, which offered "instant Judaism"—monotheism and moral values without circumcision and without the yoke of the commandments. Judaism in its diluted version took over the empire at the end of the fourth century, while absorbing pagan elements such as belief in the Trinity.

In short: influence through "ways of pleasantness" was far more dangerous to Greco-Roman culture than "forced conversion," and naturally, when the existence of a culture is endangered—hatred follows. As the Sages said, Mount Sinai is called that because from it came the hatred of the nations toward Israel.

Regards, Shatz

I learned a lot.
Excellent.

If I’m not mistaken, in tractate Avodah Zarah it discusses the relations between the Jewish people and Rome (or Greece), that indeed at first the Jewish people and Rome lived in peace for 26 years. But after that everything turned upside down.