§ Debates · Ch. 4 · Between Caesar and God
What caused the Bar Kochba Revolt?
2 positions · no single answer
Position A · held by Suggested by some later ancient sources
A ban on circumcision
An imperial decree against circumcision (or against castration, conflated with it) would have triggered the revolt. There is little evidence of such a ban, and it is unclear why Rome would target so many Jews and non-Jews who practiced circumcision.
Rests on: p. 100
Reads the same page as : the same source, different readings.
Statements tied to the debate
- It is not known for sure why the revolt broke out, and perhaps it never will be. The few sources (late mentions in Roman, Christian and rabbinic texts) suggest two causes. The first would be an imperial ban on circumcision, or on castration confused with it; but there is hardly any proof of such a law, and it is hard to see why Rome would strike at so many subjects, Jewish and not, who circumcised. Many scholars therefore prefer the second: a reaction to Hadrian's plan to remake Jerusalem as a pagan city, Aelia Capitolina.
- 'Aelia' referred to Hadrian's family; 'Capitolina', to Jupiter Capitolinus. A temple of Jupiter may even have been raised where the Temple had stood. Such a city would have wounded the Jews, who would lose the hope of rebuilding the sanctuary and see Jerusalem's Jewish identity erased. Yet this hypothesis has problems too: there are signs that the pagan refoundation came after the revolt, as a punishment, and not before it, as a cause. For the authors, we simply cannot say what sparked the uprising.