The Militant Davidic Messiah and Violence against Rome: The Influence of Pompey on the Development of Jewish and Christian Messianism

In 63 BCE the army of the Roman General Pompey the Great invaded ancient Palestine, destroyed part of the Jerusalem temple, and ended the nearly eighty-year-old Hasmonean state. The Romans thereafter ruled ancient Palestine either directly or through a series of client kings. The great Jewish War against the Romans of 66-70 BCE was largely an effort to restore independent Jewish rule. The nearly five-year conflict ended with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish temple. Atkinson explores this nearly two century period of messianic-inspired violence by focusing on its beginning, namely the 63 BCE Roman conquest of Jerusalem, to show how Jews, and then Christians, merged the Old Testament notion of a messiah with the Roman General Pompey to create a royal messianic figure that may be called the militant Davidic messiah.