All roads lead to Rome

My wife and I have just come back from a short city break in Rome. Among all the sites to see, the Colosseum stands out as a stunning testament to ancient engineering and a grisly reminder of ancient cruelty. It is certainly breathtaking.

Taking eight years to build, it opened in 80AD. An estimated 100,000 slaves were recruited for its construction. Covering an area of six acres, the tiered seating could hold as many as 80,000 spectators. With an elaborate underground system of chambers, elevators and trapdoors, the arena could be supplied with gladiators, criminals and exotic animals ready for sport and violent death. So many exotic animals were killed for sport at the site, including giraffe, hyena and tiger, that it is thought the Colosseum contributed to the extinction of some species.

Costing the earth

The Colosseum remains the largest standing amphitheatre in the world and, after nearly 2,000 years of earthquakes and erosion, could put some modern engineering to shame. But it raises an interesting question: how on earth did the Romans manage to pay for all this?

The answer is found not far from the Colosseum at the Triumphal Arch of Titus. Built to commemorate the victory of the Romans over the Jews and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, it includes remarkable carvings of the looted Temple treasures being brought back to Rome. The most striking image is the great golden lampstand, the Menorah, being carried by soldiers. Rome destroyed the Temple in 70AD, removed its contents, enslaved many Jews and subjected those who remained to a heavy tax.

Erasing history

Continuing rebellions eventually led the Romans to expel the Jews entirely from the region, rename the historic land of Judea (Judah), Palestine (Philistine), and build a pagan temple in a new Roman town, Aelia Capitolina, built on the ruins of Jerusalem. It would not be the last attempt to erase the presence of the Jewish people.

What the Triumphal Arch of Titus reveals is the connection between the mighty Colosseum and the destruction of Jerusalem. The excess of Rome was built on the booty from its conquests. The Colosseum was specifically built using the wealth looted from the Temple, and the slave labour was provided by Jews taken as captives from Judea.

All these horrors, known from historical records such as those of Josephus, and archaeological remains such as those in Rome, are well confirmed and illustrate just how dramatic the period from 70AD would be for Jewish history. With the destruction of the Temple, the end of the priestly system, the expulsion of Jews from their historic homeland, the Holy Land would never be the same again.

What is obvious in the New Testament writings is that none of these events have yet taken place. The Gospels and letters are all written from the perspective of the world before 70AD. Jesus hints at a coming destruction in a prophetic word (Matt. 24:1-2) but the descriptions of life in Judea and Galilee all reflect life as it was before 70 AD. The descriptions of the politics, geography, place names and religious activity are authentic descriptions of the world as it was at the time of Jesus.

Authentic Gospels

Remarkably, a very radical liberal Bishop of Woolwich, John A. T. Robinson, came to exactly these conclusions in a scholarly work he published in 1976. Having argued for a radical reinterpretation of traditional Christianity, he then produced a work that helped demonstrate the reliability of the Bible. He concluded that most of the New Testament was written by 64 AD.

Despite his doubts over doctrine and miracles, Robinson was convinced that the cultural world of the Gospels demonstrate that they were written by the first generation of Christian disciples. Whatever the scepticism of the age he represented, he could not deny the historical facts. And 70AD changed the Jewish world. The destruction of the Temple and the construction of the Colosseum mark a historical boundary that helps confirm the antiquity of the New Testament. Cruel and excessive, the Roman Empire nonetheless left helpful evidences for our knowledge of the Bible.