Late Second Jewish Commonwealth Studies Series
Part Five:
The Signficance of the Universal Destruction
of Bar Kokhba’s Second Century Hebrew
Kingdom and the Triumph of Christianity
Bar Kokhba and the Dashing of
Jewish Millennial Hopes
(12 October A.D.132—20 February A.D.136)
Jacob Jaffe
Related
A.D.132—136 & Second Century Israel: Should
Christians Agree on Prophetic History?
What Do We Have Since the First
Bar Kokhba was the kind of Messiah late Second Temple Judeans expected and wanted, not a lowly servant Messiah or one who was Deity come in flesh, like Jesus of Nazareth. When Bar Kokhba appeared in the second century he fulfilled Jesus' prophecy of Matthew 12:43-45, John 5::43 as well as those of the ancient Hebrew prophets: Ezekiel chapter 38-39, Micah 3:1-12 and Isaiah 6:13; 66:1-5. At the very time when it seemed as if the Israelites had their greatest leader; their greatest army, and their greatest strength, that was the time they were chaff on the summer threshingfloor, ripe and ready to be swept away by a mighty wind and supplanted by a great mountain that would, over time, expand and fill the whole earth (Daniel 2:35 cf. Hebrews 12:28).