preoccupations and expectations 221
and it is worth emphasizing, after this examination of such a plethora
of interpretations of that law, the centrality before 70 ce of worship in
the Temple in Jerusalem. Josephus described graphically the willingness
of massed crowds of Jews to sacrifice their lives to protect the Temple
from desecration by the Roman emperor Gaius when he attempted to
set up a statue of himself there in 40 ce:
When the Jews appealed to their law and the custom of their ancestors,
and pleaded that they were forbidden to place an image of God, much
more of a man, not only in their sanctuary but even in any unconsecrated
spot throughout the country the Roman governor asked, ‘Will you then go
to war with Caesar?’, to which the Jews replied that they offered sacrifice
twice daily for Caesar and the Roman people, but that if he wished to set
up these statues, he must first sacrifice the entire Jewish nation; and that
they presented themselves, their wives and their children, ready for the
slaughter.^30What was to be the religious reaction of Jews when, just thirty years
later, their sanctuary was reduced to rubble by a later Caesar, the future
emperor Titus?